The Cuddly Menace
You thought the lord jesus wasn’t an alien invader, bent on the evil subjugation of humankind? You thought wrong.
Save Eyes On The Prize
Downhill Battle is trying to save Eyes On The Prize, and they need your help. You remember Eyes On The Prize, don’t you? For many of us it was our first introduction to the Civil Rights Movement. Well, apparently the cost of renewing rights to all the clips used in the series is prohibitive and the makers have been unable to run it on TV or sell it for nearly 10 years.
Downhill Battle to the rescue! Download your bittorrent copy now and save one of the most important documentaries ever made.
Monday
It’s Monday again. This seems to happen, like, every damn week. It’s cold. Really cold. The 8 inches of snow that were promised – nay, threatened – never happened (more like 3 maybe), but it is definitely cold. I’m in my new (soon to be old ’cause we’re moving) office with two space heaters cranking, wearing my coat, and googling for the nearest place I can go buy another heater. My toes are really, really cold.
I’m still waiting to get busy at work. It’s slow starting, but I will be taking over Client Manager duties for two of Beaconfire’s clients: Parents’ Action for Children and The AIDS Foundation of Chicago’s new community site. The PAC site is not new to me. I spent the last few months working as a freelance Interface Engineer on that project. I built the XHTML templates and did a bunch of other shit too. I think if came out very nicely, and I look forward to working on it. The AFC community site is an extremely customized implimentation of PHPNuke, and I’m still getting up to speed on what it will require.
Love the job. Love the people. Can’t wait to move to the new office and be warmer.
Damien
I’m half watching The Omen as I get my Outlook Contacts all sync’d up with my new Tungsten E Palm Pilot, and I can’t help wondering: how the hell can you have a kid named Damien and not know he’s the spawn of the Devil? I mean really!
Why did I decide on the Tungsten E? It had the biggest color screen for under $200 that I could find and didn’t come with any of the extras that will never work as well as I want them to and then just end up unused anyway (camera, phone, shit like that).
Oh yeah, Outlook is for my new job. Did I not mention that? Yeah, I got the job I’ve been waiting months to get. I’m the newest Client Manager/Functional Consultant for Beaconfire Consulting. Check out the client list. This is my kind of company. I’m staying.
Poll Shows Half of Americans Deluded
A CNN/USA Today Gallup poll conducted over the weekend leading up to Bush’s inauguration says that 49% of Americans polled think Bush is a “uniter,” while 49% think he’s a “divider.” As usual, 2% are fucking dumbasses and have no opinion. Never have I seen a poll that so clearly demonstrates that one side of the equation is wrong. I mean really, if half of the people say the nation is divided, then it is. It’s not even debateable. Just, duh.
Bush Voters Ashamed of Themselves, Report Shows
Apparently Bush voters were less likely than Kerry voters to take part to exit polls, thus skewing the results and indicating, to some, the possibility of fraud. “There were certainly motivational factors that are impossible to quantify,” the report said. My guess at those motivational factors? Shame. Fuckers just didn’t want to admit that they’d voted for a lying piece of sack of shit.
Red Meat Hates Your Body
Former McDonald’s CEO Charlie Bell just died at age 44 of colorectal cancer. Do you think he had any thoughts about the crap he devoted the last few years to peddling and how many others he may have helped doom to the same fate? Odd that the CNN Money article didn’t mention a damn thing about the link between colorectal cancer and red meat. Or maybe it’s not so odd. CNN Money is more about promoting than reporting anyway.
Fired Bloggers
My dear friend Curt (Morpheme Tales) is gathering stats on fired bloggers for a magazine article he’s writing. Send info his way: Statistics on Fired Bloggers
Why? Because he was recently not hired by Minnesota Public Radio specifically due to the content on his blog.
Movies: “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”
Life of one sort imitates life of another. And while it’s busy being all imitate-y, art sneaks up behind it and makes fun of it. Good art does, anyway. Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) and his team of oceanic documentarians, resplendent in their matching red stocking caps and sea-blue jump-suits, reflect what they see as they observe the life swimming around them. They dance, easily as colorful as the fantastic, imaginary, sea creatures that dot this movie with a casual disregard for taxonomy, in rituals as confounding as they are informed by their own curious drives and desires. The humans in this movie have been cast adrift and cope by following patterns unique to their genus or phylum. When they bump into other groups, the result – as in the “wild kingdom” – is usually violence. Or sex. Really, they are doing the best that they can.
Bill Murray is perfect. It seems to be becoming a habit with him. The Wilson brother (I mix up the first names) is exactly right. Angelica Huston, Willem Dafoe (comic scene-stealer? What the fuck?!), Kate Blanchett, et al, revolve with balletic ease throughout Alpa-Steve’s pack of fish-people with exactly the sort of understated expertise that you would have bet your bottom dollar on. The casting odds (casting odds) were definitely in director Wes Anderson’s favor, and he didn’t fuck with a sure thing.
Most importantly, this movie completely J’s parents. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. I had to chuckle a few nights later when they rented “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” looking for something “funnier.”
A New God
2005 is here. The new god. Millions will make promises (offerings and promises) and then, just as with their other gods, foget their promises with little fanfare and only the slightest blush of shame. Pray to the new god. Just like the old god. Pray, and remain alone in the darkness.
As my three year old son said when he woke yesterday, sick: “My timbers are shivering.”