9 posts tagged “thoughts”

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 can't sleep. I'm going to try again soon.

I saw the name Salome on a picture of an old condom wrapper - another mightygodking link. I recalled a character from Makai Kingdom called Salome. Though it was quite fun, that game's story bits left me with a feeling that I missed a lot. Anyway, I finally got around to looking up Salome on wikipedia. Short story in a nutshell, girl convinces king to have John the Baptist killed. What do I take from this? The story of Salome tells me to be careful about the oaths I swear.

This got me thinking about the Pandora. I'm sure my interpretation is rather abstract but the tale of Pandora makes me think that if I can only hold on to one thing, it ought to be hope.

I recently switched out my WinXP box for a for a cobbled-together Vista machine. I am, surprisingly, not hating this very much. I've been with Windows machines for much of my life and Vista just isn't all that different. It's annoying not to be able to open .doc files without Office (which I just installed), and it doesn't have the level of driver support I've grown accustomed to, but other than that it's pretty gosh-darn user friendly.

Whenever I switch computers (or just hard drives) I don't send over my settings from the last machine. I take the opportunity to test new (free) products to meet my needs, or I see how Windows does it natively. I've learned that Windows Media Player isn't nearly so awful as it once was, though it doesn't play m4a files, which is lame. I've also been trying out three different browsers - Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera.

Back in the day, I just used IE. Firefox tended to be an annoying roadblock to fixing whatever computer I happened to be trying to fix on the job. IE was simply faster and it worked with more stuff. But at some point while I wasn't looking, that stopped being true. A friend convinced me to give Firefox another try, and I was mostly pleased with the results. Firefox takes a little longer to start up, but seems to load pages faster once it gets going. I don't like that the drop down menu to the URL bar stays fixed with what websites I typed in chronological order while IE shows me the sites I visit in order of when I last visited them. In other words, I use the IE URL bar drop down as a quick list of my favorite sites, while with Firefox I have to slog through my Bookmarks or just remember where I go. It's a very small thing.

Now that I'm on Vista, I figured I'd give Opera a shot. Opera is quick, but it makes a lot of sites look ugly, if it loads them at all. But its URL bar drop down acts like IE, which is great. Opera also has the best new tab feature - it brings up something called Speed Dial, which is 9 little windows with 9 pictures of websites, set by the user. It's literally just 9 giant buttons for the 9 sites I want quick access to. Opera also loads up with the last sites I had open, while Firefox annoys me with "Restore Session" or "Start New Session" every time I load it up, since I usually don't x out before I shut down.

All in all, I think I prefer Firefox, since it's got all those fun add-ons and skins. IE is definitely viable, but Opera needs some work.

What do you think?

Linktripping - verb - the act of clicking on a hyperlink, reading a page, clicking a link on that page, and repeating.

Seeqpod sifting - verb - the act of going to Seeqpod, adding a bunch of songs from the Podcrawler to your playlist, and listening through them to find good stuff.

Hornery - adjective - the manly state of equal readiness to achieve satisfaction either through copulation or violence.

Retroenvy - noun - the immersion into one or more aspects of a culture that came and went before the birth of the person experiencing it. Example: A 15 year old girl with a Beatles handbag.

Retroanger - noun - the active dislike of one or more aspects of a culture that came and went before the birth of the person experiencing it. Example: A 17 year old boy claiming the work of Jimi Hendrix is wankery.

These terms are my own original ideas and unique as far as I know. Feel free to use them in any way.

My friend Kurt is studying to be something the food/hospitality industry. In one of his classes, he had to make up a proposal for starting a restaurant. He used an idea I had that we'd discussed many moons ago about a salad bar. I'll tell you more about the idea later. The point of this paragraph is someone directly and substantially benefited from the free use of one of my ideas.

I absolutely love the the idea that people could take my original thoughts and musings and develop them into something of substance - even if it's just a solid lock on an A in a class. See, ideas tend to spring from my mind, not unlike Athena from the skull of Zeus. I'll be thinking about something, possibly only tangentially related, and suddenly I'm aware of a concept with what might be construed as potential. Unlike the ancient goddess of wisdom, my ideas never arrive fully formed. Which is cool, because I get pleasure out of tweaking my ideas, just as I assume gearheads like working on their cars. It's even more fun when someone with an interest in the topic is there to bounce stuff off of and add things in.

The idea was a simple one, really. I thought of using an automated slicer at a salad bar. It would have settings to control the size - so one person could make a caesar's salad with wider pieces of lettuce, and the next person could make cole slaw. The idea expanded further. We set out a full salad bar with a variety of different things, and we put salad recipes up around the restaurant in big, colorful, friendly signs. Then, a new bit of (what I considered) genius struck - how about we put the calorie count on those recipes?

I figure, the typical eatery doesn't want to tell you how many calories are in their dishes. So this salad bar will do the opposite - "this is exactly what we're putting in your body." I think that kind of honesty could only work with salads, and even then, suggested recipes would need to be carefully crafted. But hey, that's well within the realm of possibility. There could be an ever-changing employee's choice recipe, and a set of recipes corresponding to particular vegetables in season. They'd be big, friendly signs saying "and this one gives you this vitamin, and it's all x calories, etc" Nothing too complicated, just simple concepts and numbers.

While I was talking to Kurt about his project, I also thought up a juice bar, instead of a soda fountain. There would be this juice bartender who could mix you up a cottontail (a cottontail is a mixed drink without alcohol) with healthy juices, perrier, different teas, whatever. The point is, it would be way better for the customer's health than unlimited sugar water.

Obviously I'd need hard financial data before figuring out exactly what to serve and how to make the juice bar feasible. But I think this joint could really take off. The overarching goal is to provide lots of healthy choices to people in an honest manner, as opposed to the norm, where fast food salads are almost if not as bad as fast food burgers and chicken. I'm not trying to start an actual cult, but I can see people coming to the place quasi-religiously. And religion is widely known to be extremely lucrative.

In the end, Kurt didn't even mentioned the automated slicer. The idea officially evolved beyond its own beginning. So, while I'll probably never act on this concept I've come up with, I'm more than happy to share it with people, and I'm absolutely thrilled to think my little ideas can do some small good in the world.

Obviously, I wish everyone felt like me here. Ideas should be free. This copyright nonsense needs to be fixed. Certainly people should profit from their ideas if there's profit to be had. But to hoard your ideas, keep them away and sue anyone who thinks up something similar... that is a travesty. I'm looking at you, patent trolls. And you, people who don't think music remixes and mashups are a real art form. I've got news - for centuries if not millenniums, every idea we as a people have had has been a conceptual remix, a logical mashup, or some combination of the two of the ideas our predecessors had.

On another thought - comic geeks, do you think the Midnighter listens to Hank Ballard and the Midnighters?

I just want to give a shout out to all lesbians. Dudes into dudes, transexuals, hermaphrodites, and everybody else is cool, but there is a special place in my heart for lesbians.

I'm not that creepy guy who watches a bunch of lesbian porn all the time. I love lesbians because they're the only kind of women I understand.

I get it, ladies. Women drive you crazy but you love them anyway. I am completely, one hundred percent with you on that.

So what I'm thinking is, it's not fair that gay dudes get faghags and lesbians get nothing. I want to be the masculine answer to faghaggery. What would be a good name for that? Dykedick? Maybe I will start calling myself a dykedick.

There should be a list of rules that pertain to all people at all times. Rule #1: Never discount the possibility of an explosion.

A moment ago, I thought this to myself: "You risk too much for so little."

I have an idea in my head on how to transform Final Fantasy: Tactics into a pen and paper game. I call it "PP: Tactics." It would heavily involve cooperative strategy and creative use of numbers one through twelve.

I would still like to produce Serial Showcase - basically an American version of Shonen Jump, with a variety of sequential art stories told in serial format. That was, of course, a dream I'd never do that corralled a number of stories I'll never write. I realize now that since my father resigned from his position at the OBCC, I no longer have virtually unlimited access to high-volume printing equipment.

There is a sixteen year old girl living in my house. It is not known when she will leave. I believe at this point we can define her as estranged from her parents. She is a huge drain on my family's resources - time, money, and especially energy. My mother is taking the worst of it at the moment. The situation is causing an abundance of friction in my family life, but I am going to do my best to ease Mom's load when I come home on weekends.

Even though I have hours and hours of volunteer work I have to do. And a computer I need to sell.

Also, the absence of female is nearly as maddening as the presence.

I was thinking earlier today about women.

I'm the guy who says blatantly sexist things for the fun of it. Why? It's not because I think men are superior to women.

Virtually every guy I know personally went through a horrible break-up at some point and absolutely hated women for awhile. I'm no exception, though my very few relationships have been a special sort of fucked up reserved only for the kind of guy who did some really shitty things in past lives.

I know in my head that women aren't really evil incarnate. A couple of my best friends are ladies. My mother is the kindest, most generous human being on the planet.

But things get so twisted after you get dumped.

I can't say what it's like for a girl - I'm sure it's total shit, but in my experience, girls tend to keep their options open. There happens to be a "just a friend" that could end up in the boyfriend position a week later. This is, evolutionarily speaking, an excellent trait to have. However, it makes an ex-boyfriend feel like a stooge.

A guy who just got his heart broken thinks he's the worst piece of shit in the world. He can't keep a woman happy, so what good is he? He cared about one thing above all other things in his life, and what he thought were his best efforts ending up being all for naught. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

Incidentally, I believe this happens because of the Sex Bell Curve. The Sex Bell Curve is how a guy assigns the highest possible status to sex because it feels like the best thing ever, even if it isn't the best by much. So when a guy loses sex, it's as if he lost the best possible thing in the world.

Getting back to my point, the reason I say blatantly sexist things is to remind myself how it felt, even though the pain has (mostly) healed. It may not be a good reason. But I don't want to let myself become that guy who's always looking for a girlfriend, you know? I can feel my hormones building up again, even as we speak. I take lingering glances at particularly attractive females, even though that's a low third on my list of requirements. It's maddening that my own blood is working against me in this instance.

I know a guy who was somewhat seriously considering cutting off his balls so he couldn't be controlled by women anymore. I think I talked him out of it. But still, that's how much it sucks to lose one's sense of logic.

Full disclosure: I bring this up because my first ex-girlfriend just found me on facebook. All that badness I felt towards her long ago faded to nothingness - I learned later in life that getting dumped really feels bad after the girl starts telling you she's in love with you. But I know that my endocrine system is trying desperately to get me to ruin my life and I think this is a good time to remember why I don't want that to happen.

How the does the media get notified about the deaths of celebrities and other famous people?

Obviously, it's pretty easy to know when somebody dies in a big way, like Princess Di. All kinds of people get involved in a thing like that. But what about famous people who die of natural causes, long after they stop doing noteworthy things?

Is there someone out there who constantly examines an ever-scrolling list of recently deceased individuals, always watching for a familiar name?

A thought:
Only the most narrow-minded of individuals would be able to discern a difference between a man made of sixes and a man made of nines.

A theory:
Humanity, through choice or coercion, can accept any degree of the bizarre, as long it sustains consistency, or the illusion thereof.

An idea:
On this particular planet, the native people have always risen up and overcome all would-be conquerors. For in all the universe, these people have the absolute strongest faith - even unto the least wise, the most knowing, and fiercest rebel. This faith is placed in the Great Stone Symbol. The Great Stone Symbol exists - some say it lives - floating in the Sacred Canyon, where it can be seen from any angle by anyone. The Great Stone Symbol has never, in all the time comprehendable by the people, changed. It has rotated clockwise. It has rotated counter-clockwise. It has stayed still. But each spoke - or hand, or leg - has always faced the same way. Even if one looks at it from opposite angles, each of the four extensions remain in the same (perceived) direction.

This is, of course, impossible.

And because this single aberration of reality exists on only this planet, it is revered as the holiest of possible things, and it inspires faith like nothing else.

Reproduction of the Great Stone Symbol is the most terrible thing a person can do. Of course. Because any facsimile can, by way of flipping, face the wrong way.

And so, the greatest threat imaginable would be one who claims the ability to make the Great Stone Symbol conform to the laws of physics.