Don't Get Stuck Where You Can't Get Cozy

I had a very nice day yesterday. I made spinach-artichoke dip and crabcakes with the invaluable assistance of selffriend Kurt and watched 6 episodes of Chef! at his - very wise - suggestion. I also earned $25 delivering papers in my neighborhood, which is actually a rather enjoyable job, seeing as it took maybe an hour, I don't get up early to do it and the weather is really rather nice. Too bad it's not a regular gig, eh? I need one of those. Getting back on topic, I'm now in College Park with the girlfriend. It was such a fine day. I'm looking forward to whatever today will bring.

Iron Man is coming out. May 3rd is Free Comic Book Day, and there is a computer show in CP. I do not know how this weekend is going to go down, exactly. What I really want is a full belly and a bunch of friends around me. That will be the goal.

I wish I had an idea or a story to tell here. Gosh, I haven't been having any weird ideas lately. I managed to make my computer dual-boot in XP and Ubuntu. That was pretty cool. I've started developing the habit of sorting beads in tiny bowls on my desk with tweezers, while I'm on the phone or listening to audio. Pretty humdrum, really.

"It's the First of May, the First of May,
Outdoor [CENSORED] starts today." - Coulton

I'm making a mix CD of songs that deal with nerdy subjects. Obviously I'm throwing Weird Al's "White And Nerdy" and "It's All About The Pentiums" on there. I want each song to either ooze with references or focus on one particular subject. "Ghardbad At The Roxbury" is a gem I picked up years ago that mixes the tune from Night At The Roxbury with voice clips from the original Diablo. I'll also have some TMBG and Moxy Fruvous, as well as MC Chris and Futuristic Sex Robotz.

I figured after I looked through my mp3s for the nerdiest stuff, I'd do some Googling on the subject. Feel free to feast your ears on a few of my findings.

The Four Eyes - not exactly my thing music-wise (and especially because I'm not into WoW)
Anchorhead - Is that a death metal version of the Imperial March? I think it is.

I read there's going to be a 4th season of Disney's Kim Possible. I have mixed feelings about that show. The action is packed, the dialogue is pretty tight, and the animation style is pleasantly quirky. However, it's so very excruciatingly feminist. All male characters are one of these options: A) Incompetent and/or small-minded sociopath, B) Highly intelligent, but lacking in either common sense or mobility, or C) Well-meaning human target and comic relief.

All that aside, the fact I'm finally getting to is that coming into the 4th season that they weren't initially planning on making, they have to deal with the fact that they "finished" the show with the main character falling in love with her option-C sidekick, Ron Stoppable. That sort of ruins the dynamic of the show. But they (the creators) claim they have a way around it.

The point of this post is that what I would personally do in that situation is shamelessly steal from the Love Hina OVA.

I used to download a lot of anime. Let's not talk about why.

See, Love Hina was a harem-type anime with a ridiculously spineless twerp of a main character named Keitaro. The whole point of the show was how he kept accidentally looking like a pervert and getting his ass kicked by the female characters. But after they ended the series, there was an extra bit of story they released - an epilogue, basically - where Keitaro had gone away and come back a total badass. It was hugely satisfying to see the guy catch a break after 26 episodes of humiliation.

And that's what Ron Stoppable needs. I can definitely see an entire season with the various reactions to "oh sh*t, Kim's not the only super-slick butt-kicker for goodness in town." Obviously new comic relief would have to be introduced. But it would be highly entertaining to me - and I'm betting a whole ton of tweenage boys - to see the always-inferior male character come into his own and skillfully contribute to the sound thrashing of the Forces of Evil.

This summer, Mike Doughty makes his Broadway debut with Ruby Vroom: The Musical, a stage adaptation of the first Soul Coughing album, with book by Tim Rice and choreography by Twyla Tharp.
Ruby Vroom: The Musical tells the story of Ruby (Scarlett Johansson), a transgendered youth growing up in 1970s Chicago. After a botched, self-administered sex change operation, Ruby enters a series of ill-fated love affairs, all set to the musical backdrop of her caustic avant-punk trio, The 5% Nation. Convinced that one of her lovers is Satan, she travels from Chicago to Kansas, Detroit and eventually Los Angeles, where she is sidetracked by drugs, mad kidnapping plots and the tawdry allure of the Hollywood lifestyle. And just when she is about to succumb to bitterness, an older woman, Janine (Patti LuPone), enters her life and changes everything.
Press previews for Ruby Vroom: The Musical will begin in late June at the St. James Theater on West 44th St., with a public opening in mid-July. Says Mike, currently on tour with his band, "I am immensely excited about the opportunity to work with the fabulous Ms. LuPone. She is the bucket of shoes in my foyer."
For ticket information, see http://www.rubyvroomtickets.com/

I wish I had seen this on the day instead of randomly hearing about it on 103.1 WRNR and then stealing it from some blog. But ah well. I was busy working another temp job and having a girlfriend the entire day.

Thought of the Day:
Some comedic writers and/or actors really need to be mixed into a talented cast and not focused on in order to shine. I just watched a clip from David Cross' new show, and it was simply too over the top to be funny. I don't want to watch a prolonged skit about a dude giving another dude phone sex. That joke is worth maybe 30 seconds of funny. Maybe. David Cross was amazing in Arrested Development because his odd and pathetic overtones really got a chance to shine among the Bluth family. But a show just about his character, Tobias Funke, would've been awful.

I think the same goes for Will Farrell. Any movie where Will Farrell is headlining has a 70% chance of suckitation. Stranger Than Fiction was a noticeable exception to this, but that was a darker, more intelligent comedy than Talladega Nights/Blades of Glory/Anchorman/etc. But think back to Old School. Old School was Animal House-level hilarious, in my opinion. Vince Vaughn was a fantastic jerk/enabler type and Luke Wilson plays an excellent "what the heck am I doing here?" type of guy. (Idiocracy was pretty crappy, but still.) The point is, Will Farrell was a perfect 3rd guy in that film - a wacky, screaming counter to Vaughn's patient snark and Wilson's frustration.

Tom Green is another one like that. His shows suck. But Stealing Harvard was a cute little movie because Tom Green was a crazy best friend instead of yet another "look at my extreme behavior and laugh, you American pig-dogs who think this is crap is funny" stunt.

Of course, I'm sure some people would say the same thing about my preferred type of comedy - bitter, angry, cynical and sarcastic. I can't get enough Denis Leary, Lewis Black, Dave Attell and (most) George Carlin. Carlin's whole list thing gets a to be a bit much, but his otherwise his rants are usually golden.

I hate Dane Cook. Dane Cook is is basically a eunuch version of Tom Green.

Thoughts, anyone?

I watched Washington Post's Sally Quinn compare Silda Spitzer to a Muslim woman in a burka.

I'm going to put aside the fact that many Muslim women wear burkas of their own free will and there is nothing wrong with that, so I can focus on the fact that Sally Quinn just doesn't understand the situation.

Quick review: Eliot Spitzer, then-governor of New York, had sex with a prostitute and got caught. His wife stands next to him at the resulting press conferences. Sally Quinn went on NBC's Morning Joe and basically said Mrs. Spitzer is a total wuss and she should not have stood with her husband. She asked why the wives of unfaithful male politicians always stand by their husbands when this comes out.

I'll tell you why, lady. I'll tell you why Hillary Clinton and Mrs. McGreevey did it too. Because intelligent women tend to make intelligent choices. Why is it intelligent to make a show of solidarity after being publicly humiliated by one's spouse? First off, when a guy cheats on his wife, that should be a private family issue, and I'm sure she's giving him hell for it - in private, which is the appropriate place to give the idiot hell. Second, and more importantly, the Spitzers have three kids. Did Eliot Spitzer harm the people of New York by extra-marital sex? Of course not. (See: Rudy Giuliani) The people he hurt are his wife and his kids. And the man's kids don't deserve further damage from a messy, very public separation.

(If Mrs. Spitzer chooses to divorce her husband at a later date when the media stops paying attention, I support her one hundred percent.)

Furthermore, Sally Quinn went on to say Mrs. McGreevey - who made a kind statement of sympathy towards Mrs. Spitzer - had a different situation because her husband turned out to be a homosexual.

Listen, Sally? Shut up. Cheating is cheating. Shame is shame. And you are almost as much of an idiot as Eliot Spitzer.

Just give me three free days
Set me straight, send me
away from the fray, hey
Let me escape out the door
before I bore a hole in the floor

Could you allow me to explain?
I'm not hard of heart, but falling apart
at the fault line

Been so damn tame and now, and now, and now I need some down time!

I got eight things going at full stop
It's so loud from all the pins dropped
This is not the top of my game
Just give me three free days
So I can plan my escape, yeah

Does anyone remember Chicken Limbo?

"Chicken Limbo's the one! Big fun! Chicken Limbo!"

That jingle rebuilt itself in my mind and keeps running like a GOTO statement.

I never had Chicken Limbo. I was a tall and fat kid - neither condition was optimal for bending over backwards and walking. In fact, I don't think I ever even saw Chicken Limbo in real life.

First hit when I Googled Chicken Limbo: Chicken Limbo Party Games Recalled

Damn, it really looks like that little girl is trying desperately to avoid giving oral sex to that smug, flightless bird. I hope she keeps her mouth-ginity intact until she grows up and meets a nice boy or a particularly thoughtful biker-dyke.

For all the damage this game has done to small children, what I'm really pissed about is the psychological damage it's done to me. They stopped selling the blasted thing in January 2006 and the jingle is permanently lodged in my brain, taking up valuable space I could have used! You know, for trig. Or more likely, super-hero trivia.

Damn you, Milton Bradley. Damn you straight to a bent-back, avian-fellacious Hell.

Nik Chaikin's best line ever:

Nik, to me: You say you don't kiss and tell, but you sure can fucking insinuate.

My jobless existence is still pretty busy. Here's the schedule breakdown:

Pre-7:00 a.m.: Wake up
7:00 a.m.: Drive the gorgeous-even-while-groggy girlfriend to the metro station
7:15ish: Drive home
7:45ish: Ask self whether or not it's worth it to maybe fall asleep and get two hours before waking up for my...
10:30: Appointment to see my best friend/dental assistant at his house so I can prove I have another cavity - which is so lame, because I just got two filled a few weeks ago - and schedule an appointment with his mother/my dentist. Then I have to rush back from Pikesville to Columbia so I can be ready for...
12:00 noon: Kurt is taking me a Sysco food services thing at the Baltimore Convention Center. I'm going to wear business casual and pretend I'm a student at HCC. This is not the first time I've told a little white lie to eat free food for three hours.
5:00: Pick up Dave at Savage
After that, who knows?

March 14th looks continually uglier and uglier. I kind of... triple-booked, at least. I'm going to have to actually make a choice there.

I was trying not to think about how depressing the ending of Paul Karasik's I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets: The Comics of Fletcher Hanks was when I found out about Gary Gygax passing away.

RIP Mr. Gygax. I owe my crits to you.