Month: March 2003

karl malden clones

If it’s Oscar season, it must be time for Fametracker to publish their annual transcript of the meetings in the Hollywood Star Chamber, where five clones of Karl Malden choose the year’s winners.
1: Next up: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
4: They made a movie about the Twin Towers already? It’s too soon!
3: Apparently, the Orcs were behind the whole thing.
4: Damn you, Orcs!
2: Let’s bomb Orcistan!
1: You idiots, this movie is about a totally different pair of towers.
4: They made a movie called The Two Towers that wasn’t about the World Trade Center? It’s too soon!
2: Let’s bomb Orcistan anyway! Who knows what weapons they may or may not be developing?!
4: Damn you, Orcs! And I also reserve animus for half-orcs.
A larger than normal number of sex jokes this year, but what would you expect from five Karl Maldens?

anti media bashing

When speaking of the media, it’s become fashionable to roll your eyes, allude bitterly to the cable chat-fests or some embarrassing reality-TV show, and shrug the subject away. Because, my dear, the media nowadays are so sensational, so polarizing, so stupid and unsophisticated, they’re not even worth discussing. But they’re destroying us.
It’s weird so many intelligent people can continue to believe this…

mc hammer

“Make no mistake, when the president says go — look out, it’s hammer time,” Vice Adm. Timothy J. Keating said aboard the USS Constellation. “It is hammer time. We are going to make the world safer for our children and our grandchildren.”
Finally, the truth comes out: MC Hammer is behind all this. I always suspected Hammer had weapons of mass destruction in those parachute pants. If only a voice of reason — Tone Loc, for instance — could pull him aside and speak wisdom: Please Hammer, don’t hurt ’em.

txcn

I’ll be on TXCN sometime in the 4:00 hour this afternoon, talking about a story I didn’t even write. The segment will repeat throughout the evening. Glad I didn’t pick today to wear my loud brown-green-yellow plaid shirt.
FYI, posting will probably be very sporadic around here for the next week or so.

iraq plans

It’s tough to make vacation plans when, in the back of your mind, you have to keep repeating: “Well, but I might be interviewing refugees in Kuwait then.” Not certain, not even likely, but possible.

deep springs college

When I was in high school looking at colleges — twelve years ago! — I was intrigued by Deep Springs College. “Founded in 1917, the college lies in an isolated high desert valley of eastern California, about thirty miles from the nearest town. Each of its twenty-six students receive a full scholarship valued at over $50,000 per year, covering tuition, room, and board. In addition to engaging in a rigorous academic program, the all-male student body participates in self-governance and assumes substantial responsibility for the management of the college, alfalfa farm, and cattle ranch.”
I suppose it appealed to the part of me wishing to break out of my pasty-white indoor life. But then I remembered that girls are pretty nice, too, and that I was going to college to avoid manual labor, not to embrace it. I mean, this is how the college sells itself on its web site:
Students often rise before the sun. At 6:00 the dairy boys are already milking cows half asleep when the feedman gets up to do his first feed run. A farm teamer may have been in the tractor baling hay since 4:30. All of these people are especially thankful for the breakfast cook, who