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Archives for May 2002
Leftists, Mennonites, and Television Personalities. Oh My!
The events of last night are hazy, but here is what I remember:
- We began our bacchanale at the Childe Harold bar, where a bitter amputee who looked as if she had been ridden hard and put away wet berated us with her drunken leftist worldview.
- I noticed the menu had a sandwich named after my iconoclastic college professor, Marcus Raskin, who was once arrested for advocating resistance to the draft. It was a pastrami on rye with cheese. How revolutionary!
- As we passed by Rumors, a singles bar the _Washington Post) calls a “happy hunting ground for professionals on the prowl,” I looked inside and saw a large group of Mennonites having dinner.
- While walking in the same area, we passed Jason Kravits, who played Assistant District Attorney Richard Bay on “The Practice” from 1999 to 2001.
Thankfully, this is just about all I remember.
“Pony Up” or “To Be One, Ask One…”
Livejournal, an online open-source-based journal community, has an interesting membership model. There are basically two possible ways to acquire an account:
- An existing member may invite you to join.
- You can buy a subscription (2 months for $5.00, 6 months for $15.00, or 12 months for $25.00).
Apart from being a good model for preventing abuse, this seems like a good way to ensure that the community is built on a foundation of value. Members either value the community enough to pay for the benefits they receive, or they are valued by at least one member of the community who is willing to extend them a free membership.
Am I the only one who thinks the folks over at Slashdot and Metafilter should consider implementing something like this?
Things I Don’t Understand About Yoda
- If Yoda is so wise why can’t he remember to put the noun before the verb?
- If Yoda can do ridiculous acrobatics off the walls while engaged in a light saber battle why does he suddenly need a cane to walk afterward?
- When a gigantic pillar is about to fall on Anakin and Obi Wan, why does Yoda lift the twenty-ton pillar out of the way when he could simply move Anakin and Obi Wan out of the pillars way?
Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting
My old boss called me up today and asked me to set up a web hosting account for her. It was a pretty routine request until she told me the domain name: http://www.holyghostclaw.com.
I looked up “holy ghost claw” on Google and it’s apparently a reference to a Kung Fu movie from 1980 called The Buddhist Fist.
Virginia is just too cool.
“A Little Something” for Monday Morning
This MP3 of a prank phone call to a prison is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time.
My Screenwriting Sense Is Tingling
I saw Spider-Man today and I learned a brilliant filmmaking technique in the process:
If you want to steer clear of an “R” rating and also avoid paying your female star a topless bonus, ice up her nipples and get her t-shirt covered breasts soaking wet. Then use the footage heavily in trailers and TV commercials.
It’s Not Ironic. It Just Sucks.
I was listening to Internet radio this morning and “Ironic” by Alanis Morisette was playing. I’ve always hated the song with a passion. “Rain on your wedding day” is not ironic. It just sucks. The same is true of “a free ride when you’ve already paid” and “good advice that you just didn’t take.”
Last night British economist Peter Bauer died at his home in London. He was to be honored next week at the Cato Institute’s 25th anniversary gala (which my wife and I will be attending) with the first Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. A colleague will be reading his acceptance speech in his place.
It’s hard to enjoy $500,000 when you win it posthumously. This, too, is not ironic. It just sucks.
Back In My Day…
Can someone please explain this Gap TV ad to me? Should watching Dennis Hopper and Christina Ricci play chess beside a swimming pool make me want to go out and buy trousers?
Hopper looks like a lecherous old man next to Ricci, who is one-third his age (I checked).
OK, maybe it’s not supposed to be sexual. Maybe Ricci just signed up for some volunteer program in Hollywood where she helps take care of feeble senior-citizen stars like Hopper. I can just imagine her visiting him twice a week, bringing him drinks by the pool because he’s too arthritic, playing chess with him, humoring his propensity to tell and retell worn-out stories about the filming of Easy Rider. Maybe it’s a really a public service ad aimed at convincing Americans to value and take care of senior citizens.
Or not. The commercial was made by the Coen brothers and my money says Hopper is a perv.
Live from New York, It’s People Who Aren’t Funny
I watched Gilda Live, a (craptastic) made-for-TV movie about Gilda Radner on Monday night. It was nothing more than a montage of old Saturday Night Live sketches performed by third-rate impersonator hacks.
I’d have to say it was a good experience nonetheless. I think I appreciate comic genius more when I observe a complete and utter lack of it every so often.
