Month: October 2013

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"They're All Gonna Laugh at You!"

Ben and I saw the new Carrie yesterday. I went in with low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised. While my memories of the original film are kind of hazy at this point, I think this re-telling of the story seemed much more faithful to the original story—or at least it fleshed out a lot of what had been missing from the 1976 film.

While I thought Sissy Spacek provided a much more vulnerable and abused Carrie, Julianne Moore brought a whole new level of cray-cray to the role of Mrs. White. Dat bitch be insane!

When the film ended, I didn't feel like I'd been cheated out of seven dollars, but on the other hand, I had no immediate desire to see it again until it shows up on cable…

Final verdict? Recommended. It's a fun little escape.

The same cannot be said for the pay-per-view movie we saw last night: Pacific Rim. The only redeeming feature of that stinker seemed to be the eye candy provided in a nicely matured Charlie Hannam. Setting aside that the whole premise was ridiculous, it seemed to be yet another in a very long line of  films where the firm providing the CGI just perfected one of those Wow! special effects (in this case, creating millions of bits of shattered glass) and immediately thought it would be a good idea to use everywhere. Again and again.

This was one of those films that I had wanted to see when it originally came out but never got around to. I'm glad now I didn't waste money to see it in the theater…

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"He Would Have an Enormous Schwanzstücker!"

"For the experiment to be a success, all of the body parts must be enlarged."
"In other vords: his veins, his feet, his hands, his organs vould all have to be increased in size?"
"Exactly."
"He vould have an enormous Schwanzstücker."
"That goes without saying."
"Voof."
"He's going to be very popular."

If you don't know the where that reference came from, go away and never darken these hallowed halls again.

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Beauty in Darkness

Stars Bursting In The Night Sky

Australian photographer Lincoln Harris' collection Star Trails, surreal swirls in the sky created from a multitude of long-exposure shots and the effect of the Earth's rotation.

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My Guilty Culinary Pleasure

Yup. Cottage cheese and potato chips.

When I was a wee thing, my parents could not get me to eat cottage cheese. Yeah, it's healthy and all that, but it was just so…bland. Then they stumbled upon giving it to me on a potato chip. SOLD!

From that point on, it's been my guilty culinary pleasure. Ben thinks it's disgusting, but it's healthier than chips and that in-a-jar dip we had been getting. The cottage cheese is very low carb, and the combination of the creamy smoothness of the cottage cheese with the crisp saltiness of the chips is what makes it work so well.

I used to think that liking this was my own personal quirk, but a quick Google search has confirmed that I'm not alone.

As much as I love the chips, I need to keep an eye on my carbs, so next time I get the urge I'll try it with some whole grain crackers instead, to make it an really healthy snack…

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And the Cylons Have a Plan

Seditious, treasonous pigs, all of them.

From AMERICAblog:

A little known video, before this weekend, has started to go viral as it shows how the House Republicans altered the US House standing rules on October 1, 2013 in order to ensure that the federal government would be shut down, and stay shut down.

It's pretty arcane stuff, but awfully important.

Basically, the House Republicans changed the House rules on October 1 to ensure that House members could not call up the Senate bill that would have kept the government open. Had the rules not been changed, any member, Democrat or Republican, could have called the Senate bill up, and there very likely may have been enough Democrats and Republicans to pass it and keep the government open.

So US House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, changed the rules of the entire House of Representatives in order to ensure that the entire federal government be shut down in order to force the defunding of Obamacare.

Here's Democratic Cong. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, asking Republican Jason Chaffetz about the rule change:

Van Hollen: H. Res. 368 changed the standing rules of the House to take away from any member of the House the privilege of calling up the Senate bill to immediately reopen the government, is that right?

Chaffetz: It did change the operation of the standing rule.

It seems that Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, and their racist Tea Party brethren were protesting at the wrong building this weekend when they went to the White House to complain about the shutdown – a shutdown that Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz and the Tea Party supported and helped orchestrate.

And now we have the ultimate proof that the entire shutdown was the handiwork of the Tea Party controlled House Republicans. They wanted to ensure that even if the votes were there, no one would be able to reopen the government. Amazing.

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Seeing an Anus Form Words No Longer Surprises Me

From marmel.com:

Joe Wurzelbacher, more commonly known as Joe the Plumber, wants Americans to "admit" they "want a white Republican president again."

"Wanting a white Republican president doesn't make you racist, it just makes you American," Wurzelbacher wrote on his website Oct. 10.

First, let's get this out of the way: If you're criteria for the next president be that he be white, it makes you a bigot. That's the definition of bigot. There's no wiggle room there. Own that.

But on to the rest…what public figure—and I use this term loosely referring to this clown—would say this?

I get that the skinheaded bigoted "sorta-plumber" who got famous for being sassy to the black guy has dialed his "black-smack" to eleven. It's loud out in the media, with a lot of bigots saying a lot of horrible things about the President from subtle dog whistles about "takers" to George Will comparing Obamacare to "The Fugitive Slave Act."

It's a tough time to be a minor player hate-monger when the league is filled with established home run hitters. And for all of his "fame"—again, loosely put—Joe is really just a freak-show anomaly now. He's a car crash you can't take your eyes off of, like Michele Bachmann or Louie Gohmert. He's Snooki, really.

But here's the thing. We should be grateful for morons like Joe.

Unsubtle, blunt, dimwitted throwbacks that aren't savvy enough to mask their hate, he's like people at town halls that scream about Obama being a secret Muslim. Or part of Al Qaeda. Or that he's actually Osama Bin Laden (see "Truckers Ride For The Constitution").

You know bigotry still exists because he's not smart enough to hide it in code-words.

And in being that, he reveals that he is a big chunk of that unmoving GOP's 30%. You know that number that never changes? That always disapproves of everything the President and his wife does, even if it's as simple as "drink water?" or "eat healthy?"  Or cheered Zimmerman?

He's those guys in a ball cap. The only thing he's missing is the white robe.  And if he had that white robe, he'd be dumb enough to wear it to work.

The election in 2008 made it so the days of smiling racism over. The black President drove that 30% nuts.

After all… Fox News promised Obama would lose. Twice. The right wing media promised they could hurt him by repealing Obamacare with lie after lie after lie. They were told this man would be put in his place. And now, that 30% is so mad, it's like turrets syndrome or Mel Gibson getting pulled over drunk—the bigotry just explodes out in ways they can't control.

And it's part of what's destroying the GOP.  See, the shutdown sucks and is hurting a lot of people, and the polls are showing most people blame the Republicans in general and the Tea Party specifically.

The more people like "Joe the Plumber," or Mark Kessler, or Glenn Beck or the next loon pops up, the more people realize exactly what is fueling this five year "let's not work with Obama" that's been going on that has brought us to this shut down.

Not wanting to work with the black guy. Hanging an imaginary "Whites Only" sign on the office of the President or any seat of power in Washington, D.C.

So in a way, I'm grateful for this moron. He's defining the problem in a way that would make anybody with a brain, or a heart, or a single friend of diversity go "this is not what I want out of a mainstream political party."

It's hurtful, I'm sure, for many people of color to hear.

But It's also hurtful to people who wish they could pretend they weren't bigots, but by toleration of people like Joe show that they are.  With their facebook feeds, and N-word tweets, and racist memes.

And as ugly as it is to look at, it's good that we can see it.

Maybe some of those people can be shamed into the 21st century.  But at the very least, we know who they are and they can now be discounted as the cavemen (and women) they've always been.

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God Angrily Clarifies Do Not Kill Rule

NEW YORK—Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.

"Look, I don't know, maybe I haven't made myself completely clear, so for the record, here it is again," said the Lord, His divine face betraying visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin Towers. "Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor. Well, I don't. And to be honest, I'm really getting sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want anybody to kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple terms that anybody ought to be able to understand."

Worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, God said His name has been invoked countless times over the centuries as a reason to kill in what He called "an unending cycle of violence."

"I don't care how holy somebody claims to be," God said. "If a person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong. Got it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's, ever again."

The press conference came as a surprise to humankind, as God rarely intervenes in earthly affairs. As a matter of longstanding policy, He has traditionally left the task of interpreting His message and divine will to clerics, rabbis, priests, imams, and Biblical scholars. Theologians and laymen alike have been given the task of pondering His ineffable mysteries, deciding for themselves what to do as a matter of faith. His decision to manifest on the material plane was motivated by the deep sense of shock, outrage, and sorrow He felt over the Sept. 11 violence carried out in His name, and over its dire potential ramifications around the globe.

"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"
"But somehow, it all gets twisted around and, next thing you know, somebody's spouting off some nonsense about, 'God says I have to kill this guy, God wants me to kill that guy, it's God's will,'" God continued. "It's not God's will, all right? News flash: 'God's will' equals 'Don't murder people.'"

Worse yet, many of the worst violators claim that their actions are justified by passages in the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an.

"To be honest, there's some contradictory stuff in there, okay?" God said. "So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I admit it—My bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human agents have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of the material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bullshit. I turn My head for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into Leviticus, and everybody thinks it's God's will to kill gays. It absolutely drives Me up the wall." God praised the overwhelming majority of His Muslim followers as "wonderful, pious people," calling the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks rare exceptions.

"This whole medieval concept of the jihad, or holy war, had all but vanished from the Muslim world in, like, the 10th century, and with good reason," God said. "There's no such thing as a holy war, only unholy ones. The vast majority of Muslims in this world reject the murderous actions of these radical extremists, just like the vast majority of Christians in America are pissed off over those two bigots on The 700 Club."

Continued God, "Read the book: 'Allah is kind, Allah is beautiful, Allah is merciful.' It goes on and on that way, page after page. But, no, some assholes have to come along and revive this stupid holy-war crap just to further their own hateful agenda. So now, everybody thinks Muslims are all murderous barbarians. Thanks, Taliban: 1,000 years of pan-Islamic cultural progress down the drain."

God stressed that His remarks were not directed exclusively at Islamic extremists, but rather at anyone whose ideological zealotry overrides his or her ability to comprehend the core message of all world religions.

"I don't care what faith you are, everybody's been making this same mistake since the dawn of time," God said. "The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don't even get me started on the hard-line, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, 'Turn the other cheek,' but you've been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades."

Growing increasingly wrathful, God continued: "Can't you people see? What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious traditions out there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the basic message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism… every religious belief system under the sun, they all say you're supposed to love your neighbors, folks! It's not that hard a concept to grasp."

"Why would you think I'd want anything else? Humans don't need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other—you've been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!" God said. "The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get? I'm talking to all of you, here!" continued God, His voice rising to a shout. "Do you hear Me? I don't want you to kill anybody. I'm against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it? Don't kill each other anymore—ever! I'm fucking serious!"

Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God's shoulders began to shake, and He wept.

(Source)

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I'm Getting Tired of Following the Apple Anon Community on Twitter

At first it was interesting, like you were getting a peek behind the curtain into the super-secret inner sanctum of Apple retail. Being in a pseudo "customer service" role myself, I could easily relate to a lot of the frustrations that were being voiced. But more and more it's simply turned into a bitch fest of seemingly continually drunk or high self-important Gen-Yers who are just now very reluctantly discovering—and refusing to accept—that in fact the world does not revolve around them.

You're in retail, honey. You may work for one of the most profitable and forward-thinking companies in the world, but your job is still to deal with the public. If you don't like it, do something else.

Because of this never ending parade of anon customer-bashing—not to mention the fact that the chances of me ever being called in for an actual interview are next to nil—only out of sheer desperation last week I submitted my own application to Apple. There was a time not all that long ago that I would've jumped at the opportunity to work for the company, but no longer. And it's not because of the anons' tales of  customer stupidity and assumed privilege—hell, I've been dealing with the same sort of thing in the corporate world for the last fifteen years—but rather it's the toxic attitude of some of the assholes wearing those blue shirts that has turned me off.

That being said, I'll probably get a call from them on Monday to come in…

We all gripe about work. I get that. Lord knows I've done it myself often enough on this blog, but I worry that diving into Apple retail would be very much like an extremely short-lived contract job I took at a certain hospital downtown shortly after Ben and I moved to Denver. It took me less than an hour to realize the attitudes of the other technicians on the job were beyond toxic and made working there impossible. I left after lunch that first day and never returned.