Today I am in mourning. Trenyce has been voted off of American Idol. I have no reason to go on.

You might recall I was mentioning the 80's nostalgia craze in comics a few entires ago. Well, next Wednesday, Voltron is making a return, but this time in comics.


why do robots need noses or mouths?

My head has been swimming since yesterday when Jim D. compared me to both Paul Lynde and John McCain in his pitch for my blog, which you're currently reading. This gave me a moment of pause as I don't follow politics all that closely, and my knowledge of Paul Lynde is mostly associated with a conversation i had in an elevator about how a Hanna Barbera character sounded just like him, but was it Snagglepuss or that fox guy? I always saw myself more as Yogi Bear, although I often fancied myself to be a bit like QuickDraw McGraw or Ted Kennedy.

Anyway, I was forced to ask myself, what do Paul Lynde and McCain have in common? And then it struck me... Both McCain and Lynde spent YEARS trapped in enclosed spaces (McCain in a tiger cage, Lynde in a Square). One had a horrifying experience which led him to decide to make a run at becoming the most powerful man on earth, and the other became a US Senator who did some finance reform thingie.

Like most folks, once I hear what people think of me personally, I obsess over the how's and why's of their opinion, read way too much into it, and then do nothing to actually change my more annoying habits. I now see my blog as the rantings of a near-broken Snagglepuss trapped in a tiger cage in Vietnam. Enjoy!

Jim D. Has been kind enough to advertise my blog. I think that was what he was doing, anyway. Either that or he's pointing me out to the NSA for immediate termination. It's hard to tell from the analogy.

In his honor, I point to this link.

Thank you, Jim.

Everyday between 7:55 and 8:10, my whole building rumbles once or twice with a low, rolling "boom." I work in a second floor office of what is essentially supposed to be retail space, just off Mill and University in Tempe. This rumbling has long been a mystery to me as it genuinely feels as if a bomb has gone off, but the sound never quite lives up to the catastrophic "boom" I thought an explosion should sound like. So I thought, well, maybe something explodes everyday across the street, and nobody has told me. Yet, I also assumed that if someone were detonating explosives beneath us everyday, sooner or later the property manager would let us know for our own safety.

Yesterday I found out it's just an enormous loading door on the side of the building slamming shut. What a let down.

Toys That Should Not Be

Here's the crackalackin' shiznizzle.

Wow, no sooner have we secured Iraq, than the toy guys are ON IT!!!

Went to a very strange place today for lunch. It's a new place in Tempe called eJoy. It's a freaking cybercafe. It felt so very 1996, and I felt old and unoptimistic. It was also dead empty and playing ambient techno. They're charging for computer usage by the minute. All in all, a weird scene, but my sandwhich was good, and I enjoyed my Berry Fruitea. I wish we were still in the bubble economy. That was a fun time, wasn't it?

Hurray for PBS. Last night was the premier of PBS's short-run reality series: Manor House. It's one in a series of PBS shows documenting modern folks trying to recreate a lifestyle of a bygone era. Manor House takes on the realities of the British Costume Drama and attempts to look at life in the world of Upstairs, Downstairs. A family has been selected to play the role of Lords of the Manor, and several others have been selected to act as chef, scullery maid, butler, footman, etc... in an authentic manor house somewhere in England. Resources are limited to items commonly found in 1906, or those less commonly found in 1906, such as phones, cars, etc...

It's not a show with winners and losers, but a social experiment to see how 21st century folks can deal with the very real details of existence of yesteryear. It makes for very interesting television.

They've done previous versions of the show, with Frontierhouse (the show which made me feel like I am but half-a-man), 1900 House, and they did one on being in London during the Blitz, but I can't find the name of the show nor the web-site. All were imminently fascinating.

When you're done watching American Idol tonight, flip over to Smallville (Hurray, Superman!), but when that's over, consider flipping over to PBS to watch some of Manor House. They're currently running it in 2 hour episodic chunks, which seems like a lot of TV, but it goes by very quickly.

Happy 3rd Wedding Anniversary to Jamie and me. It's been 3 magical, fun-filled years. No, that is not me. That is Melbotis. Note the attention payed to the tennis ball in the corner of the frame.

Ahhhh.... The Suburbs.

Jamie and I, in our eternal voyage to find something resembling entertainment in the Greater Chandler area, went to the Chandler Jazz Festival this weekend. The event kind of highlighted everything that's more or less wrong with Chandler.

The event was put on with the gusto of an elementary school carnival, complete with the little light up necklaces filled with carcinogens and radium. We arrived some time around 7:15, wandering down Arizona Avenue across from the City Municipal building. There were swarms of middle-aged white folk, and we heard not a note or lick of music, and for some reason, there was a hot-air balloon being set-up in the little park area. For a split second I feared we'd stumbled into some sort of AARP riot, but as we passed Razzleberry's, I finally heard some yokel singing.

We were assaulted by someone I assumed was a bum (although, honestly, i've yet to see any bums in Chandler) who then tried to get Jamie and I to buy a CD. For some reason he had decided i must be a musician (probably because I was under 45 and had no children with me.)

Chandler is to children as New York is to
a) Pidgeons
b) Roaches
c) Rats
d) Would-be-actors/ waiters
e) All of the Above

The answer is: A) Pidgeons. The only difference is kids can't fly out of the way when you really hit the gas. The answer is not E) because that would encompass answer d) and as we all know would-be-actors/ waiters have hope, and hope is not a commodity that springs forth freely in Chandler, AZ.

Anyway, I don't know much about Jazz, but I know it generally has little to do with hot-air balloons or children or the single worst faux-Mardi Gras parade knock-off ever. Baptist churches probably do a better job than this at emulating the genuine Mardi Gras experience. 10 Golf carts with fat suburbanites throwing beads at old women (whom I was PRAYING would not do the usual to collect their beads) somehow didn't make me wonder if I were lost on Bourbon street. Or maybe it did. It was like someone had once seen Mardi Gras on TV and had spent 10 years dreaming up how to make it worse.

At 8:00 we retired to the Kikko-something Winery/ Bistro where I tried to get drunk, but not so drunk I couldn't drive home. A trio was playing inside to little or no applause. Solos were met with round indifference, and eventually the drummer started purposely banging really hard just to annoy people. The desire to own my own drum swelled within my heart.

At 8:15 they knocked off, and, curiously, no one replaced the band. At 8:40 Jamie and I stepped out onto Arizona avenue and across the street once again to Razzleberry's where we had a rootbeer float to soak up the booze. We re-emerged onto the street, and at 9:00pm, I realized that not only had the Jazz festival already ended (with a whimper), but they were closing down all of downtown Chandler.

I don't know what I was expecting out of the Jazz festival, but like everything else in Arizona, there was a concept and absolutely no follow-through. And is it really that good of an idea to schedule against the New Orleans Jazz Festival? The concept of a desirable headline act clearly eluded the organizers as well as the concept of any actual venues or artists.

I'm not saying I didn't have fun, because I did. And I found out the San Marcos hotel is an historical landmark where luminaries such as Jimmy Stewart once golfed and vacationed. I just wish that just once, something in Arizona would appear to have been thought out with a little more strategy than a 3rd grade play.

Apparently we missed Queen Creek, Arizona's "Country Thunder", a two day musical event where lots and lots of white trash tends to get arrested. Next year I'm going to that.

News Item from Thursday:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Illegal immigrants could be held indefinitely without bond if their cases present national security concerns, under a decision by Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Well, as we all know, these sorts of rules are always applied fairly to everyone and are never abused by overzealous law-enforcement officials. God bless Ashcroft and his refusal to tell Congress or the press why the DOJ currently has still dozens, if not hundreds in the cooler who have not seen a judge since Fall of 2001. What, exactly, is the DOJ doing with them? And why has it taken two years? For a gov't that takes pot shots at other countriies for making off with people in the dead of night for them never to return, we're starting to do some odd things.

link here and here and here and for a timeline, click here

Just last week here at ASU. we had our own excitement.

From the Arizona Republic: Agents from a federal task force raided the homes of Muslim student leaders at Arizona State University early this week, searching for weapons and seizing computers and disks.

Oh.... shit.

Deputy Director General Li Gun, Pyongyang's representative to the talks, made a "blatant and bold" announcement that his country had nuclear weapons, and asked U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs James Kelly, "What are you going to do about it?" a source told CNN.

read the article here.

this is worth checking out.

He came to drop bombs.
Last night I came home to a powerful stink. Mel had dropped the P-Bomb in my office. The stench was unbearable, and I now I need to clean the carpets in a way they've never been cleaned before. Ahhhh... pet ownership. I will say, 3 years of partying down and this is the first serious accident.


The Mad Bomber himself.

Because of the location of the poo, I kind of believe that this was an act of revenge. I was gone all weekend, I left him with strange people, and then I didn't even have the courtesy to stay home with him for a day or two. We have many rooms in our home, and many less conspicuous places. I mean, how else is he going to voice his displeasure? I just hope this is an isolated incident.

Modern Angst:

The ATM machine ate my card. I have only $31.00 to last me from now until I can figure out how to deal with this debacle. I feel adrift.

How drunk was this guy?

and, oh yeah...

Go Spurs!

and sometimes you wish your birthday were just around the corner again...
There's an 80's nostalgia craze going on in the comic book world right now. Browsing Comics Infinity, I came across this little number. He-Man, Thundercats, GI Joe and Transformers have all seen life breathed back into long dormant franchises. But all of these things already had a certain appeal to comicfandom, lame as they all kind of are. Well, Transformers aren't lame. But He-Man, that idea only ever appealed to the skinny kids who thought D&D was too complicated.
And I remember playing with My Little Pony as a kid. Actually, I don't, because My Little Pony went beyond feminine and cutesy and all the things that make little boys wretch, and surely my brother would have kicked my ass if he's seen me even eyeing these little atrocities.
My Little Pony looked like food and wasn't, which was always the greatest crime of all (not that I ever choked on a My Little Pony trying to see if it had a creamy inside...). These things were maybe $0.15 worth of plasticized rubber and some leftover Barbie Hair, and had amazing adventures that included eating grass and pooping with impunity in a wild array of rainbow colors. I guess when you're all pastel and have names like Applesunshine and Flowernose, it's hard to reenact the classic struggle of good vs. evil (let this be a lesson to the UN Security Council). Maybe I lacked imagination, but between my eternal lust for the GI Joe Aircraft carrier and my unfulfilled desire to own my own Megatron, the appeal was lost on me.
Anyway, I guess I see what they're going for with the nostalgia thing, but. I mean, really... even assuming that comic fans have girlfriends who they might buy this for is a bit of a stretch...

Watched a good chunk of the Ten Commandments on ABC tonight. Think of what his politics what you will, I love me some Cheston.

Jesus H. Christ.

Not able to avoid certain disaster, I had tickets to fly on American Airlines to Lawton, Oklahoma over the weekend. As the big airlines suffer and continue to point to peoples fears over terrorism and war, etc... as anxieties leading to their financial ruin, I suggest this is only partially true. The truth is that the economy slowed for reasons having more to do with a sudden realization that the internet is just a computerized catalog. So people have lost their jobs, and those who did work really couldn't afford to go off and travel as much anymore. And jobless people tend not to WANT to travel as much. At least not by plane. Hence, a lighter lode on the air-o-planes.
But all that aside, I try not to fly because the airline industry is a monopolistic behemoth which charges you hundreds for worse service than one gets for a buck on public transportation.

On my way to Lawton, America on Thursday, upon my arrival in Dallas (my connecting city) that I was being bumped and could either take a voucher and travel on the morning or get bumped and take no voucher and travel in the morning if I did not volunteer to give up my seat. Keep in mind, I bought my tickets around December 12th for this weekend's voyage.
"Why am I bumped?" "The plane is too heavy." "Are you saying I can't fly because I'm fat?" "No sir. The plane is too heavy." "You mean you overbooked." "No, we don't do that. The plane is too heavy." "But isn't the plane engineered to hold as much weight as there are seats?" "I wouldn't know." "So it's overbooked." "No sir, we don't do that."

When I asked why I was bumped over others, I was told that I had bought "restricted tickets." "I don't remember buying restricted tickets," I replied. "What is a restricted ticket?" "It's restricted." "But what are the restrictions?" "It's a restricted ticket. It means you get bumped." "But how did these people choose NOT to travel with restricted tickets?" "They didn't buy restricted tickets." "Neither did I." "You did, sir." And so it went.

So I went to my wife and told her our situation, and immediately she lost her mind. "But," I said, "we can stay in a free hotel, and fly out first thing tomorrow." "No," I was told.

So I went back to the desk. "No," I said. I had already been marked as a volunteer for even CONSIDERING this course of action. We were bumped already.
Anyway, we told them "we're renting a car and driving." "We will not pay for a car." "How about a refund on the ticket we can't use?" "We can't do that. We can put you in a hotel." "That makes no sense." "You can talk to our agent at the ticket sales" (which, if you've gone through DFW, one would know, was literally miles away from the A Terminal Annex). "I want a refund." "You can't. You bought a restricted ticket." "I don't understand." "You're making money. This voucher is worth more than your ticket." "Yes," I did not say, "But i will never fly your fucking ludicrous airline again even if it's with the promise of a floorshow and free booze."

So we drove some insane miles to Lawton from Dallas. We had a nice weekend and returned to Phoenix. Of course I now have no idea where my checked bag is.

"Was it on the plane?" "I don't know." "Did it get on the plane in lawton." "I don't know that, sir." "Nobody scans the luggage before it gets on the plane or when it gets off?" "No sir." "So you have no idea where it is?" "No, sir."

I have heard economists on the radio talk about how American and the other failing airlines cannot compete with the likes of SOuthwest, but that there is an inherent goodness to American because of the class of service one provides. To this I say: horseshit. The airlines have always bilked those of us relegated to the cattle car cabins, and we've always taken it, so enamored with the rapidity of transport. Do these economists actually ever ride in coach? Do they not see the thin line between this and a cross-town bus?

And at all this, their management, whose idea of an improvement is forcing the captive audience to watch Everybody Loves Raymond, has now cut deals where flight attendants, baggage handlers, mechanics and pilots will all be losing huge portions of their pay. Well done, American Airlines. And I want my damn bag back, and it better have everything in it, or I'm claiming the world's craziest insurance bonanza you've ever seen.

I think GW should cut $550 billion from the budget, but there's no reason to actually change tax laws. He apparently felt he should refund certain taxpayers around $300 a while back. At least that's what I got. I immediately spent the money on strippers and gum. The plan worked for me, and I think it can work again.

If we have $550 billion we can trim (but we don't change tax laws), and say that there are 300 million Americans, each one of them could get back around $1833.333333 That's a pretty sweet deal. But something tells me that I will NOT be getting back $1833.33. Something tells me that I will have to wait for that money to trickle down to me after At&T and Enron take a big ol' tax break that will change my phone bill $1.00 a year and $5.00 on my electric bill. Whoo-hoo.

But just imagine if this WAS the plan. And not just $1833.33 per tax payer, but per person (at 300 million Americans). That's 349.2 hours of work at minimum wage of $5.25 an hour. Or 8.7 weeks of 40 hour work weeks. Imagine being in the family with three kids and being a working single mom and getting a check for $7333.33 from Uncle Sam. That's 1396.82 hours, or roughly 34.9 weeks at 40 hours. Just imagine the added opportunity and benefits, and no messy government bureaucracy that tax dollars are forced to support.

My point is, taxes are not what is killing companies, it's the fact people don't have jobs to spend money (which gets a sales tax), and then companies don't have money the government can tax in return. Now imagine a sudden influx of $550 billion in the hands of the public. After we got done spending money on strippers and gum, there might still be around $200 left for other things; Taxable things bought from taxable companies.

If my plan works (and it surely will) next year the economy should be humming along like an economic perpetual motion machine. Until inflation points out once again, that money is an imaginary concept made tangible by tiny slips of green paper, and in which case, never held any intrinsic value anyway. So if my plan does take hold, I suggest you stock up on ammunition and clean water, because by the time the plan runs through to it's logical conclusion, it's going to be Thunderdome in the major cities.

I'm taking a page from Jim's blog to post the strangest path anyone as of yet has used to stumble blindly upon this blog. Someone googled in with the following search: saddam art patrick nagel

I was duped. I admit it. On April 1st I reported, falsely, that the Superman statue in Metropolis Illinois had been stolen. Read the update here. While I had my suspicions it might be a prank, it seemed like a hell of a lot of work. Honestly, I guess I just didn't find it that far fetched that in a small town, some Cleetus might back his truck up to a Superman statue and take off with it as an April fools prank of his own. And keep in mind, the guy who wrote the article moved from California to Metropolis so he could open a Superman museum, so you can understand when I believed his distress.

Anyway, I hope anyone who read the initial story can breathe easier now. I go now to hang my head in shame.

best song ever

for more incredibly interesting audio bits with which to waste your day, go here.

Advertisers frequently make the misstep of assuming folks would like to see their food anthropomorphized. I've never really known what urge there is to make my food cute. A lot of my food once was cute. Cows certainly have a stupid, endearing quality that, if you really got to know your cow, you probably would choose to not want to eat it. That is, living in America where we always have the option of NOT eating our pets, you might not want to eat your cow, unlike, say, in Canada, where you might eat your own children.

The love hang-over has set in back in Iraq. Already the Iraqis are taking to the streets in anti-Bush demonstrations as US forces have failed to instate anything resembling order. Man, that freedom of speech thing is a bear, isn't it? It sounds like Tommy F. and the crew are now instilling a little Martial Law to keep the peace.

In their best efforts to prove the arm-chair conspiracy theorists right, the US is now looking at Syria all twitchy. Just this morning I heard the first rumblings about Syria having chemical weapons. Lest we forget that about a month ago, the Pentagon assured us that Iraq is stocked to the gills with WoMD, yet these weapons have made no appearances during the conflict, and every report that something had been found has turned out to be a false alarm. Sooner or later something WILL turn up, the foreign press is really leaning on this issue now, so something is going to have to be found. But as things progress, I bet we can all just forget about those ties the White House insisted existed between Hussein and Bin laden. With the palaces levelled and Saddam atomized, the evidence will be declared too confusing and lost to history. Already those things are swept beneath the rug. Now it's going to be all about getting US MIA's and POWs home, which is a good thing, but the fighting has not yet ceased.

It also appears Saddam should have been sending his interior decorator to the firing squad instead of wasting his time with all of those dissidents. From the sounds of it, Saddam was into a little kink and Boris Vallejo art, or else had his D&D playing nephew with the problem getting dates to do his living room. One wonders what further treasure troves of questionable taste our GI's will continue to uncover?

Rumsfeld must be rolling on the floor of the Pentagon proclaiming he saw Goody Syria with the devil. Now we're told Syria has weapons, and, no doubt, will be shown to be the magician with the pack of cards up it's sleeve. Waving absolutely zero evidence in front of the media, and tossing in those all-too-familiar terms of "terrorism" and "Weapons of mass destruction", the State Department and Pentagon are looking for the sort of bare-ass-in-the-air cooperation that they will later insist means nothing unless we use some Sherman tanks to check it out for ourselves. Powell is looking at sanctions against the Syrians (probably because sanctions elicited such a swift response from Saddam & crew), and has taken to playing the Reverend Hale to Syria's John Proctor. Syria will have to prove they have no ties to terrorism and no weapons, which is, of course, as realistic and sensible as tossing yourself off a cliff to prove you can't fly and are therefore not a witch. This very problem is why we generally operate under the rule that burden of proof is on the accuser. Apparently when it comes to international law or inconvenience, we toss that rule aside. All Syria has to do to save themselves is sign the confession. No problem.

Anyone want to place bets that Iran starts getting the stink eye next?