Hopefully Not Stupid
Sunday, November 30, 2003
A visit to The World Of Sid and Marty Krofft
A visit to The World Of Sid and Marty Krofft
Dead amusement parks, to me, are just about the most melancholy thing imaginable. "Here! We've spent millions of dollars to entertain you with our wacky characters and souviner stands! Enter and enjoy! ...you're not entering. C'mon, please? I took out a second mortage for this place." Looking at some of the materials from this 1976, only-open-a-year indore park (they had a map for heaven's sake!) makes it evident that a serious amount of time and planning went into this particular rotting husk. What a waste.
Though, to be honest, I don't think my sanity could bear an entire day in the realm of Pufnstuf, I mean, systematic brainwashing would scarcely be worse. As if Disneyworld wasn't bad enough.
Special extra bonus link: Whatever happened to Heritage USA?
A visit to The World Of Sid and Marty Krofft
Dead amusement parks, to me, are just about the most melancholy thing imaginable. "Here! We've spent millions of dollars to entertain you with our wacky characters and souviner stands! Enter and enjoy! ...you're not entering. C'mon, please? I took out a second mortage for this place." Looking at some of the materials from this 1976, only-open-a-year indore park (they had a map for heaven's sake!) makes it evident that a serious amount of time and planning went into this particular rotting husk. What a waste.
Though, to be honest, I don't think my sanity could bear an entire day in the realm of Pufnstuf, I mean, systematic brainwashing would scarcely be worse. As if Disneyworld wasn't bad enough.
Special extra bonus link: Whatever happened to Heritage USA?
Carl Barks' Duck Family Tree
Carl Barks' Duck Family Tree. Yeah, I suppose he would have had to have made up one of these. It's funny, we've heard for years that Hewy, Dewey and Louie (or HD&L) were Donald's nephews, but rarely, if ever, hear of Donald's implied sister, or her fate. Another example of the common 50/60's screenwriting technique of staging the untimely death of a major parental figure just so a main character can have charming hijinks with live-in kids, not be married, and also not be seen as a pervert.
Carl Barks' Duck Family Tree. Yeah, I suppose he would have had to have made up one of these. It's funny, we've heard for years that Hewy, Dewey and Louie (or HD&L) were Donald's nephews, but rarely, if ever, hear of Donald's implied sister, or her fate. Another example of the common 50/60's screenwriting technique of staging the untimely death of a major parental figure just so a main character can have charming hijinks with live-in kids, not be married, and also not be seen as a pervert.
Microsoft distributing patches by e-mail, or scarily realistic worm distribution?
I've gotten several e-mails in the past three days that look like the image below (which is a screenshot taken from Mozilla Thunderbird):
Either Microsoft is now taking the extraordinarily stupid step of e-mailing patches to users now (which I doubt because I don't think they're that stupid), or there is an extremely realistic e-mail attachment worm going around right now. I wonder how many people this will fool? I wonder how long it will be before attachment abuse and spam make e-mail completely unsuitable for any useful purpose?
I've gotten several e-mails in the past three days that look like the image below (which is a screenshot taken from Mozilla Thunderbird):
Either Microsoft is now taking the extraordinarily stupid step of e-mailing patches to users now (which I doubt because I don't think they're that stupid), or there is an extremely realistic e-mail attachment worm going around right now. I wonder how many people this will fool? I wonder how long it will be before attachment abuse and spam make e-mail completely unsuitable for any useful purpose?
Saturday, November 29, 2003
The Iron Giant-athon
Right now I estimate that Cartoon Network will soon be done with its marathon of the recent animated film The Iron Giant, and I've kept the TV on almost the entire time. It certainly beats the marathon of exceedingly weird-ass holiday special Thanksgiving cartoons they showed before it, which at best are rather hokey and goofy, and at beast, hideously revisionist. These holiday cartoons date back to a time when the success of Christmas specials such as A Charlie Brown Christmas made the networks try to cash in on every other day of the year with boldface lettering underneath it (there is a Peanuts special for Arbor Day, for crying profusely into a white washing machine), which over the years have given us some of the weirdest cartoons still available for viewing, usually during one of these Cartoon Network holiday orgies.
But a few years ago, on co-owned cable network brother TNT, desperately seeking its own identity in a world filled with cable networks with themes almost as ostentatious as those of a second-string superhero, they decided to hell with ratings for that one day out of the year, there was nothing they really could do to attract viewers during that uncoveted Christmas morning timeslot, so they instead aired the then-lesser-known holiday film transcription of Jean Shepherds' slice-of-life recollections of growing up in middle-class America circa-fifties, A Christmas Story, twelve times in a 24 hour period.
I mean, they showed the same movie twelve times in a row for the sake of bouncing Christ! And they did the next year, and the year after, and so on, even unto... dramatic pause... the present day.
And it's great! You're now more certain of being able to catch A Christmas Story at least once this holiday season, regardless of whatever crackers schedule da Boss has you on, than you were of catching It's A Wonderful Life back when it was hot-public-domain-stuff, and in my opinion it's even a more deserving movie. It's not sappy, it's brutally hilarious, doesn't feature so much a happy or sad ending (the glasses and turkey episodes) as just sort of reaches the right-most edge of that small window into little Ralph's childhood, and best of all, it rings true. It was A Christmas Story that got me interested in Jean Shepherd, and if you love the movie as much as I do, you absolutely must seek out In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. You might also be interested in knowing that there are at least three sequels to A Christmas Story, apparently made for premium cable. I caught Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss on PBS one day, and a couple of the others at very odd times (one in Comedy Central's afternoon movie slot). They don't have the same actors but they're still at least seventy-percent wonderful, and the narrator's the same in any case.
But I digress. It seems like Cartoon Network may be aiming to try a similar rehabilitation of a woefully underrated film with this marathon of The Iron Giant. I say more power to them, provisionally. I love the idea because it's another of my favorite movies, that didn't stick in the cultural mindspace like a dozen less deserving (and, let's be honest, a good number of equally deserving) Disney animated movies did. If they make this a yearly thing they can count me as a committed viewer. The provision, however, is that you really have to be sure of the movie's worth to pull this thing off. I can picture other networks trying it, it becoming just another way for a media conglomerate to try to boost back-market DVD sales, and let's face it, these folks are not always the best judge of cinematic quality. If they were we wouldn't have gotten that damn Cat in the Hat dungbox.
Right now I estimate that Cartoon Network will soon be done with its marathon of the recent animated film The Iron Giant, and I've kept the TV on almost the entire time. It certainly beats the marathon of exceedingly weird-ass holiday special Thanksgiving cartoons they showed before it, which at best are rather hokey and goofy, and at beast, hideously revisionist. These holiday cartoons date back to a time when the success of Christmas specials such as A Charlie Brown Christmas made the networks try to cash in on every other day of the year with boldface lettering underneath it (there is a Peanuts special for Arbor Day, for crying profusely into a white washing machine), which over the years have given us some of the weirdest cartoons still available for viewing, usually during one of these Cartoon Network holiday orgies.
But a few years ago, on co-owned cable network brother TNT, desperately seeking its own identity in a world filled with cable networks with themes almost as ostentatious as those of a second-string superhero, they decided to hell with ratings for that one day out of the year, there was nothing they really could do to attract viewers during that uncoveted Christmas morning timeslot, so they instead aired the then-lesser-known holiday film transcription of Jean Shepherds' slice-of-life recollections of growing up in middle-class America circa-fifties, A Christmas Story, twelve times in a 24 hour period.
I mean, they showed the same movie twelve times in a row for the sake of bouncing Christ! And they did the next year, and the year after, and so on, even unto... dramatic pause... the present day.
And it's great! You're now more certain of being able to catch A Christmas Story at least once this holiday season, regardless of whatever crackers schedule da Boss has you on, than you were of catching It's A Wonderful Life back when it was hot-public-domain-stuff, and in my opinion it's even a more deserving movie. It's not sappy, it's brutally hilarious, doesn't feature so much a happy or sad ending (the glasses and turkey episodes) as just sort of reaches the right-most edge of that small window into little Ralph's childhood, and best of all, it rings true. It was A Christmas Story that got me interested in Jean Shepherd, and if you love the movie as much as I do, you absolutely must seek out In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. You might also be interested in knowing that there are at least three sequels to A Christmas Story, apparently made for premium cable. I caught Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss on PBS one day, and a couple of the others at very odd times (one in Comedy Central's afternoon movie slot). They don't have the same actors but they're still at least seventy-percent wonderful, and the narrator's the same in any case.
But I digress. It seems like Cartoon Network may be aiming to try a similar rehabilitation of a woefully underrated film with this marathon of The Iron Giant. I say more power to them, provisionally. I love the idea because it's another of my favorite movies, that didn't stick in the cultural mindspace like a dozen less deserving (and, let's be honest, a good number of equally deserving) Disney animated movies did. If they make this a yearly thing they can count me as a committed viewer. The provision, however, is that you really have to be sure of the movie's worth to pull this thing off. I can picture other networks trying it, it becoming just another way for a media conglomerate to try to boost back-market DVD sales, and let's face it, these folks are not always the best judge of cinematic quality. If they were we wouldn't have gotten that damn Cat in the Hat dungbox.
Thursday, November 27, 2003
John Kador - Freelance Author, Speech Writer, Business Communications
After careful deliberation, then, and because a number of firms have found me more unsuitable, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your rejection.
Attribution: Found on Metafilter (user H. Roark), written by John Kador (winning my personal prize for Funny Guy Whose Name Most Resembles Skeletor's).
After careful deliberation, then, and because a number of firms have found me more unsuitable, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your rejection.
Attribution: Found on Metafilter (user H. Roark), written by John Kador (winning my personal prize for Funny Guy Whose Name Most Resembles Skeletor's).
NaNoWriMo verdict: Done!
Early in the morning on the 27th day of November, I wrote the 50,000th word in my NaNoWriMo project.
It's a story that I'm hoping to beat savagely into shape and get published someday, so I don't want to say too much about it. But yeah, I'm kinda pleased with myself at the moment. Wheeee!
Early in the morning on the 27th day of November, I wrote the 50,000th word in my NaNoWriMo project.
It's a story that I'm hoping to beat savagely into shape and get published someday, so I don't want to say too much about it. But yeah, I'm kinda pleased with myself at the moment. Wheeee!
Sunday, November 23, 2003
The "War On Terror"
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone complain about this before, but maybe it's just because I haven't been looking. Every time I hear the words "war on terror," I get this little nudge from the back of my head that says, "beware." The proper, grammatical way to say it would be "the war on terrorism," no that's not it, "the war on terrorists." "War on terror" sounds almost Orwellian to my ear, subliminally implying a fight against anything that causes fear, never mind that practically everything can cause fear, including niggly little things like civil liberties.
But the thing that surprises me is, everyone says "war on terror" now, and has been since September 11, 2001! I turn on the nightly news and I read "war on terror," I read it on news sites, and I even hear it on NPR of all places, which really should know better. Hell, the BBC uses it!
Every time I hear that damn phrase, with its obvious equating of terrorist with terror itself, I get the feeling that someone, probably schooled in marketing techniques, fashioned that phrase and let it loose into the air. Maybe I'm too sensitive to this sort of thing, but I can't help but think that if enough marketing majors and corporations think enough of it to make use of this kind of word-twisting in countless commercials throughout practically every major communications medium we have, then likely someone did the same thing here. It sounds too much like a brand name to me, like how "9-11" has become itself code for fear and the taking of any and all means to destroy its cause.
But the thing that bothers me most about the phrase? It empowers terrorists. When the people you're fighting against personify you as terror itself, you know you're doing something right. People who believe themselves agents of a higher, above-human power or quality are capable of doing things a human all by himself would never do. Companies know it, armies know it, fetishists know it (nothing against them, mind you, that's perhaps the only positive use of the phenomenon), the CIA knows it, whoever invented capital punishment knew it, the people who ran the Crusades certainly knew it, and, I'm certain, terrorists know it too.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone complain about this before, but maybe it's just because I haven't been looking. Every time I hear the words "war on terror," I get this little nudge from the back of my head that says, "beware." The proper, grammatical way to say it would be "the war on terrorism," no that's not it, "the war on terrorists." "War on terror" sounds almost Orwellian to my ear, subliminally implying a fight against anything that causes fear, never mind that practically everything can cause fear, including niggly little things like civil liberties.
But the thing that surprises me is, everyone says "war on terror" now, and has been since September 11, 2001! I turn on the nightly news and I read "war on terror," I read it on news sites, and I even hear it on NPR of all places, which really should know better. Hell, the BBC uses it!
Every time I hear that damn phrase, with its obvious equating of terrorist with terror itself, I get the feeling that someone, probably schooled in marketing techniques, fashioned that phrase and let it loose into the air. Maybe I'm too sensitive to this sort of thing, but I can't help but think that if enough marketing majors and corporations think enough of it to make use of this kind of word-twisting in countless commercials throughout practically every major communications medium we have, then likely someone did the same thing here. It sounds too much like a brand name to me, like how "9-11" has become itself code for fear and the taking of any and all means to destroy its cause.
But the thing that bothers me most about the phrase? It empowers terrorists. When the people you're fighting against personify you as terror itself, you know you're doing something right. People who believe themselves agents of a higher, above-human power or quality are capable of doing things a human all by himself would never do. Companies know it, armies know it, fetishists know it (nothing against them, mind you, that's perhaps the only positive use of the phenomenon), the CIA knows it, whoever invented capital punishment knew it, the people who ran the Crusades certainly knew it, and, I'm certain, terrorists know it too.
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Suicide: POISON
Link
Something chilling about this particular little site. I needed to know this sort of thing for my NaNoWriMo project, but please, oh please, do not assume that I endorse this sort of thing. Even so... it's nothing if not informative.
Link
Something chilling about this particular little site. I needed to know this sort of thing for my NaNoWriMo project, but please, oh please, do not assume that I endorse this sort of thing. Even so... it's nothing if not informative.
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Jess Nevins Parodies Joyce and Wodehouse At The Same Time
Jess Nevins Parodies Joyce and Wodehouse At The Same Time
Found when going through an archive of MST3K USENET archives, this should bring a smile to the face of anyone who's read both A. any Jeeves and Wooster stories and B. Molly's soliloquy at the end of Ulysses (yes oh god yes that's it yes). Funny, funny stuff.
Jess Nevins Parodies Joyce and Wodehouse At The Same Time
Found when going through an archive of MST3K USENET archives, this should bring a smile to the face of anyone who's read both A. any Jeeves and Wooster stories and B. Molly's soliloquy at the end of Ulysses (yes oh god yes that's it yes). Funny, funny stuff.
Misread cool word for 11/16/2003
Just a quick thing I thought about while studiously avoiding work on my NaNoWriMo project....
Every so often I see a word, usually something silly yet punnish yet clever yet slick, that makes me think: now the guy who thought of that was a genius. Then I take a closer look at it and see that the word was, in fact, not what I thought it was at all, that I misread it, and it's actually some other, less cool, coinage, or even a perfectly ordinary word out on loan from Merriam-Webster. Meaning that the word came from my own head, so maybe I'm the genius, but wait no, I didn't think of it purposefully, it just sort of happened... I feel guilty about claiming the words, but I still feel a kind of parental attachment to them.
Anyway, the Misread Cool Word for today is:
Stoogehenge: an ancient druidic site that tells date through the working of sun and shadow filtered through the special placement of giant stone slabs, constructed entirely through the random action of comically violent workers.
Just a quick thing I thought about while studiously avoiding work on my NaNoWriMo project....
Every so often I see a word, usually something silly yet punnish yet clever yet slick, that makes me think: now the guy who thought of that was a genius. Then I take a closer look at it and see that the word was, in fact, not what I thought it was at all, that I misread it, and it's actually some other, less cool, coinage, or even a perfectly ordinary word out on loan from Merriam-Webster. Meaning that the word came from my own head, so maybe I'm the genius, but wait no, I didn't think of it purposefully, it just sort of happened... I feel guilty about claiming the words, but I still feel a kind of parental attachment to them.
Anyway, the Misread Cool Word for today is:
Stoogehenge: an ancient druidic site that tells date through the working of sun and shadow filtered through the special placement of giant stone slabs, constructed entirely through the random action of comically violent workers.
MST3K's Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy on how to be funny.
Steve's Favorite Words
The first link above was a small interview with two of the funniest guys who have ever been on the culture radar (the number of funny guys off the culture radar is near-infinite, but you wouldn't know who I was talking about), and about humor and their previous ten-year jobs making fun of bad movies through the use of puppets. Somewhere in there Kevin Murphy talks abous using silly-sounding old words, judiciously mind you, to lend X-tra humorous punch in many situations. (Another way to do this is to use blatant ad-speak, like "natural goodness" and "X-tra" at odd times) He is exactly right, and it got me to thinking about compiling a list of such words.
A quick Google search turned up no definitive lists, but it did turn up Steve's Favorite Words (second link above), which is a list of a moderate number of words, many with scatalogical import (those words are a third class of funny verbiage), but with a good number falling into the category to which I refer. Here are the ones I saw from his site (in reverse alphabetical order for no reason I care to discuss):
Tomfoolery, Smorgasboard, Skedaddle, Scumptious, Rigamorole, Ragamuffin, Lollygagging, Humdinger, Discombobulated, Collywobble, Boondoggle, Bamboozle
Notice that all these words are three syllables and up. (Well, "scrumptious" has two, but I'm only including it because it looked sad and dejected not to get to come along on the field trip.) Most humor depends on quick, sharp words in the punchline, but these terms have their place as well, and you should hug them. Just remember not to overuse them, as it doesn't take many Ragamuffins in casual conversation to earn you a punch in the gut. From experience.
(A fourth class of funny words: short (max two syllables), unlikely-sounding words. The canonical example is kumquat.)
Friday, November 14, 2003
14 to 42: New York City Signs
This is a cool site, an archive of signs from around New York City, many painted on the sides of buildings. Many of these businesses are dead, at least one isn't in New York anymore (but the company has kept the New York number on the sign), all of them are sort of depressing, in that shattered-American-dream kind of way. Painting your business in giant letters on the side of a building is a confident statement about the longevity of both your business and you, neither of which being things that should warrent much confidence. Especially these days, when providing a truly useful service with your small business can be akin to dodging a corporate steamroller.
My god, it's been a long time since I posted here.
I'm going to make a serious go at starting this up again, there will be more here soon.
