FUCK THIS AMERICAN IDOL SHIT

Fuck it in the empty crusted-over eyesocket. The only one with any sense at all on the show is Simon Cowell. The idiotic Paula Abdul has simply got to GO. Her ongoing inability to formulate a simple sentence in English has gone beyond annoying. And that Randy guy needs to banish the words "Yo" and "Check it out" from his vocabulary.

Fuck this show. I now hate it with a passion.

A MODEST PROPOSAL

All little old ladies shall be searched upon attempted entry to any type of entertainment venue. If they are found to be carrying anything even remotely resembling a plastic bag that might produce an audible rustling sound, they will be taken to a comfy jail cell where they shall be forced to watch their favorite television programs while WHO LET THE DOGS OUT is played full blast over loudspeakers, drowning out the sound, after which they will be asked if they've gotten the point. An affirmative response will result in release with a warning, a negative response will result in further sessions with increasingly abrasive music.

Repeat offenders will be dropped in the East River, their plastic bags tied over their heads.

NUKE AMERICAN IDOL

Need I say more? I used to watch it because my partner watched it, but it has just become too boody predictable. Guess what's happening this year. Some really grotesquely untalented moron manages to stay on the show while others with even a modicum of talent are voted off. Surprised? Puhleeze. It happens every goddamn year.

And to add to the shock and surprise: Paula Abdul mutters mutilated self-help New Age crap about these idiots having beautiful souls and maturing as artists, while Randy calls everyone "dog" and says "Yeeeeah" and Simon keeps making comments that might have some vague semblance of intelligence if he didn't waste time telling people how rude he isn't being.

JURY DUTY

As if AMERICAN IDOL wasn't a serious enough blow to my respect for Americans, I have to sit through jury duty this week and endure an endless parade of dim bulbs being asked questions that they have been told how to answer and who just keep on answering incorrectly anyway. I mean, come on folks, either you can remain goddamn impartial or you can't remain goddamn impartial!!! Figure it the fuck out!!!!

DEAL NO DEAL
No. No fucking deal. No goddamn deal.

300
I saw a clip from 300 this weekend. Basically, two guys in capes and speedos slicing effortlessly through an endless procession of heavily armed and armoured soldiers, trading quips as throats are nimbly cut and limbs are effortlessly severed. I thought Ancient Greece was the Age of Bronze, not the Age of the Ginzu knife. I was waiting for one of these guys to turn to the camera and slice open a Coke can.

I'm in a bitchy mood. I'm feeling like a cunt. Get over it.

Last Chance for Romance at the Fathter Daughter Dance.

Am I over-thinking this?

I recently took my daughter to her school's annual "Father Daughter Dance." A fun time was had by all. (It's fun to mock the few ugly dresses, as well as the high school girls wearing baby doll nighty-style dresses with four inch 'come fuck me pumps'--do their parents realize their daughters look like pregnant whores?)

Excuse me, I digress.

The point of this blog is the music. The band was really good. And the crowd was really getting into it.

But I just could not. You see, I have a brain. And, occasionally, I use it--along with my ears. And I was creeped out by some of the song lyrics. You see, I don't think a "Father Daughter Dance" should be anyone's "last chance for romance" and I certainly do not want to "do a little dance, make a little love" and "get down tonight" with my daughter. The first one, sure. The third one, maybe (depends on what you mean by 'get down'). The second one? No way.

My question to you, gentle reader (not that anyone reads this blog, as far as I know), is: Am I over-thinking this?

Why I love NYC.

This blog entry has stretched my credulity to its very limits.

I will be in NYC next month. I will go and see for myself. I will participate. And I will get a round of applause for my efforts.

I just paid $7.20 for a grilled chicken wrap with spinach and feta cheese, plus a small bottle of water. I didn’t realize the damn wrap cost $5.95, it wasn’t posted anywhere. If the wrap hadn’t been as tasty as it was I’d feel a lot more ripped off than I do. I even told the guy at the counter that I wouldn’t be doing that again, that $5.95 for that wrap was outrageous.

I finished up my last week at the temp job that has paid the bills for the last few months. I start a regular full-time job a week from tomorrow. I’ll miss some of the people I’ve been working with, but I doubt I’ll ever feel the need to contact any of them again. The job served its purpose, it kept me in rent and bill money. But I doubt I’d have been able to stay there indefinitely. The job was a crashing bore, all I basically did was keep an eye on one guy’s calendar and sort of keep an eye on another guy’s calendar. There was the occasional bit of typing, transcribing meeting notes, stuff like that.

Sounds like a sweet gig, actually, but there’s a catch. Working at this company is the meanest nastiest creature I’ve ever worked with. A poisonous ill-mannered bitch. Hostility oozes from every pore. Simple questions are answered with blatant annoyance and anger. Now I’ve worked with some mean nasty people in the past, but they could usually be depended on to at least be civil enough for work to get accomplished. Even the most monstrous boss I’ve ever encountered, a woman I’d gladly see torn apart by wolves, could assign tasks without making me want to see her dead. But not this bitch.

I spent the first six weeks I was there in a panic that I’d done something wrong, that I’d alienated her in some way, but a quick trip through the mental rolodex turned up nothing: I’d always been nice and polite and done good enough work. And it isn’t like she was a VP or anything, she’s an Executive Assistant just like I was. So I didn’t let it get to me too much, beyond the occasional ventfest with my partner Bob.

And then one day she just plain went several steps too far. I got a phone call from her that crossed the line in sheer blatant fucking rudeness. I had done nothing out of line. I had, at her boss’ request, left a voicemail for her on her cellphone. I thought nothing of it, until the bitch in question (BIQ hereafter) called me and let me know in the strongest language and rudest tone of voice that I shouldn’t ever do that again. It was the last straw. I did something I’m not particularly happy about, but it was the only way I could think of to handle the situation. I just cut her off completely. I didn’t acknowledge her existence, I didn’t speak to her unless spoken to, if she came to my desk I would face away from her and address all responses to the computer monitor. How fucking third grade can you get? But it seemed to work. And I made a gesture. When the bitch came back from vacation I went over to her desk and was all bright and chatty and asked about her trip, and that was good for a few days. And soon thereafter the BIQ went back to her usual rotten terrible self.

I had also done some investigating, just asking folks I trusted about the BIQ, and found that I was far from alone. A co-worker referred to the BIQ as being “just an evil person.” Another co-worker would not discuss the BIQ, only shake his head and make strangling motions with his hands. My boss, when I finally had to ask him what the story was, called the BIQ an “albatross.” Apparently the BIQ was notorious for being hellish, and was only there under the protection of her rather less monstrous but still pretty difficult boss.

I can only be relieved that the BIQ and I will not have anything further to do with each other. I’ll admit that I have occasionally considered some post-partum revenge, like sending her dog shit in the mail or adding her e-mail address to assorted S&M porn sites, but I doubt I will do it.

Am I asking too much? Am I asking the impossible?

Why the fuck won't my goddamm mutherfucking $500 PDA connect to my motherfuckin' $2000 PC and fucking sync up? This worthless piece of shit (never buy a Palm - they suck!) will sync up with my crappy work PC, but has not worked at home for the four years I've had it. And I tried it one three different computers. What a worthless piece of cocksucking goddamm babyraping shit cunt motherfuck bunghole turdmunching shit.

Is it asking too much out of corporate america that their fucking overpriced shit actually work as advertised? That stuff which is supposed to take "5 minutes" to accomplish can actually get done in less than five hours? Or can actually get done at all? Jesusfuckingchrist!!

I understand we live in the capitalist age. You can't get something for nothing. You get what you pay for. So when I pay a lot of money for something, I expect it to work. Support is worthless, if it's not completely nonexistant. I don't want to talk to fucking Apu in GangBangladore fuckin' India if it doesn't work. Give me someone with a brain who knows about the product.

Does corporate America really wonder why consumers have no brand loyalty? Why do consumers desert a product line as soon as something cheaper comes along? We have no brand loyalty because the butthead accounting who fuckin' cut corners to make an extry penny per unit have created a society where getting something cheaper is better than getting something done right. Thank you, Wal-Mart, for ruining the USA. If Al-Qaeda had targetted your fucking corporate headquarters, they'd be heroes instead of the terrorist scumbag goat-fucking pedophile bung-eaters they are.

Poor old Steve Irwin. I can't say I'm too upset, he never meant anything at all to me. Am I the only one who is kind of amused that he wasn't torn apart by crocodiles, but got it from a stingray through the heart?

On the other hand, I can think of other people I'd much rather see dead by stingray than Steve Irwin. Certain members of the Republican hierarchy, for example. Why don't they ever die spectacularly stupid deaths by stingray or painful deaths of cancer? Is it part of the Deal With Satan that you sign when you join that hellish cabal? A long-delayed natural death after a life of undeserved privilege while oppressing freedom and decency and destroying the Constitution and the American Way in return for eternal damnation? Who but Dick Cheney would sign on the dotted line for that?

From The Japan Times: In 1998, Steve Irwin said: "Our whole passion to be on this planet is to educate people about wildlife. I will die doing that." Wow, he was psychic, too.

Idea stolen from http://wooz71.livejournal.com/ - hit refresh until you get five quotations that describe you.

The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract. - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841 - 1935)

A technical objection is the first refuge of a scoundrel. - Heywood Broun (1888 - 1939), ''Jam-Tomorrow' Progressives,' New Republic, December 15, 1937

College isn't the place to go for ideas. - Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)

Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but, unlike charity, it should end there. - Clare Booth Luce (1903 - 1987)

Deep doubts, deep wisdom; small doubts, little wisdom. - Chinese Proverb

SNAKES ON A PLANE.

Yes, I saw it. It was a "before 6 p.m. 'bargain' matinee," but I paid for myself and my two children to see SNAKES ON A PLANE.

How was it?

Thirty seconds into the movie, I was ready to see the snakes on the titular plane. Plot? Characters? Motivations? Don't care. I already knew the movie would be "bad"--at least based on high-falutin' film academician standards. This movie is not for them. I wanted to see the snakes on the plane. Period.

As the credits started, I thought to myself, "Samuel L. Jackson. I bet that's the only name I recognize in this cast." I lost that bet. The second name in the credits is Julianna Margulies (wow, leaving ER makes her the Shelley Long of 2000) and I also recognized Kenan Thompson (Hey, hey hey!). The name Lin Shaye seemed familiar, and looking her up online I realzied I first saw her in a 1970s t.v. movie about the Triangle Shirt Mfg. Company factory fire.

The set-up is as brief as it can be. I think it took us about twenty minutes to get to the plane, and it's flight list of no-dimensional characters. That's right, they're so thin they're not even one-dimensional. There's the older flight attendant, the young flight attendant, the male flight attendant whom everybody thinks is gay, and the somewhere-in-the-middle on her last day before quitting (to go to law school, of course) flight attendant. That will be our female lead. There's the pilot, and the sexually-harassing co-pilot. And that's just the crew.

We have several passengers. One or two of them even have names. Not that we are given their names up front; usually, we get the name much later into the film. There's rapper "3 Cheez" (no wait, it's "3 Gs") and his two bodyguards (one of them gets a name at the end, because we need it for a plot point), hot Mercedes ("like the car--vroom! vroom!"), unnamed mom with unnamed baby, a pair of UMs (Unescorted Minors--kids travelling by themselves), overweight drunken might-be-Hispanic lady, OBM (obnoxious business man--at least he's not American). And Mercedes has a dog which she carries in her purse. The dog's name--I kid you not--is Mary Kate. There's also young couple on honeymoon and a separate horny couple (platinum members of the Mile High Club). And there's a kick boxer--a world-class champion kick boxer.

Can you guess who dies first? Who lives? Dare I spoil it for you?

Oh, let's cut the crap and get real. Anyone who wanted to see the movie has already seen it. We all know that. Heck, it's been out for almost two weeks now and New Line will be lucky if this movie breaks $40 million in box office (before DVD sales).

The horny couple (not so subtly) moves into the bathroom, disables the smoke detector, and gets high during their Mile High experience. I knew it was a federal offense to disable airline lavatory smoke detectors, but who knew that disabling said detectors would lead to snakes biting your breast? As their howls of agony are misinterpreted as howls of ecstacy, older flight attendanct notes, "He's good." When the howls stop abruptly (since they're dead), she intones something to the effect of, "Maybe not so good." Yuk it up folks, none of the breathing passengers have realized that we have SNAKES ON A PLANE!

The next attack is some anonymous passenger. I will always call him "Penis Guy" because that's where the snake bites him.

I don't remember attack #3, but attack #4 is "snake eating someone's eye" attack. I can't remember for sure, but I think this was overweight, drunk might-be-Hispanic woman. She's sleeping. And she gets sexually aroused by a large snake slithering up her dress. When she wakes up, the snake bites her eye. At least I think it was her.

The most creative death is not due to snakes. Some poor man gets trampled, and dies from a woman's high-heeled shoe impaling his ear.

Oh, and naturally we have "snakes-eye view" shots throughout the movie. I think these shots are just there to pad the anemic running time.

The movie promises nothing except SNAKES ON A PLANE. It delivers that. And just that. Nothing else. Well, I did see some spark of chemisty between Samuel L. Jackson's character and Julianna Margulies' character (they had names; I just can't remember them). If the film had delivered anything else, just a little something, it would have been worth the price of admission.

During the movie, I had to keep reminding myself not to expect realism. The 30' constricter on the plane? Just accept it and move on. (Although it does give one passenger a nice bit to perform.)

There might be worse ways to spend 90 minutes. My only regret is that I didn't see it in a packed house on opening night. That would have made it a fantastic film. Unfortunately, the moment where that can happen (i.e., opening night) is gone forever. And I'm almost left thinking, "I can't believe I paid money to see that--knowing in advance what it was." Almost. I wanted to see the snakes on the plane. And that's what I got. Unfortunately, that's all I got. Even the famous tag line, "I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!" is not enough. It comes too late in the movie and seems badly shoe-horned in, to boot. Which is a shame, because it could have come earlier and gotten the big reaction it deserved.

Not a bad way to spend your last free day before school starts. But it's no PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, either.

JFC!

No, that's not a new fast food chain. It's my shorthand for Jesus Fucking Christ!

Why the anger?

I have decided to start eating a more healthy diet. And as much as I hate doing it, I think keeping a "food journal" would help. So, I stumbled across (quite accidentally) a word processing document to keep such journal entries and thought I'd start using it today.

I type in my first few items. Then I think, lugging this document around with me everywhere will a pain. I should just keep this information on the web. I know, I'll blog it!

But, JFC!, something is wrong with blogger.com or my work internet connection, because things are taking forever to build a screen. I mean, 10 minutes after I hit the "create post" button, I still don't have a screen to start typing in.

Thus, my first "food blog" entry just migrated over here to another M.A.S.C. rant.

I'm about to say, forget this whole 'eating healthy' thing--God obviously doesn't want me to do anything to keep track of what I eat (and, therefore, how I can change what I eat).

JFC!

Award shows. Need I say more?

Golf. On television. Need I say more?

I think not.

Who has time to read?

Several years ago, Bill Maher's cable program Politically Incorrect (before it became a network crap-fest; about the time it was becoming a cable crap-fest) had a segment called Who Has Time to Read?

I laughed at the joke, as Bill mocked Americans by summarizing some recent bestseller, reading a few humorous excerpts. Sometimes the humor was even intended by the book's author. The beauty of the segment was that the viewing audience could banter about said book around the work water cooler without having to actually read it.

Well, the joke is on me. I haven't read a new book in years. I read parts of them (but never finish them). Or I buy them and never read them. Or I just think about buying them.

Life of Pi. Loved it. At least, the 60 pages I read.
Cryptonomicon. Loved it. At least, the 100+ pages I read.
Wolves of the Calla. Loved it. At least, the 40 pages I read.
The Tortilla Curtain. Loved it. At least, the 80 or so pages I read. (This one goes back to at least 1999, so maybe it started here).

Ooh, I just remembered a book I actually read. Kirsty MacColl: The One and Only by Karen O'Brien. It's not very good. You never feel like you get to know anything important--or even interesting--about Kirsty. You get a better sense of Kirsty by reading Billy Bragg's one page Foreward to the book than by reading the book itself. Or reading the liner notes for her compilation album, Galore.

So, that's it. One bad biography in the last five years. I did recently purchase the new biography of Dolley Madison, A Perfect Union (I hope it has her snack cake recipe in it). Maybe some day I'll finish it. But who has time to read?

I'm sure there are books out there I would enjoy. I tried reading a couple of best sellers, but they were dreck (The Celestine Prophecy, I'm looking at you).

I have managed to re-read some old favorites recently (Water Music by T. Coraghessan Boyle, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H. P. Lovecraft). Lynda Barry's Cruddy, which I first read in 1999, is tugging at my brain again. Maybe as you get old, you just want to re-read your favorites, instead of wasting all the time on something unproven.

Hey, that list reminds me! There is another book I actually read recently: Managing Ignatius: The Lunacy of Lucky Dogs and Life in New Orleans by Jerry Strahan. It is a factual account of managing a hot dog vendor company in the Big Easy. I kid you not. The Lucky Dog vendors are fictionalized as Paradise Hot Dog vendors ("12 inches of paradise") in A Confederacy of Dunces.

Oh, and I did make myself read each book from Lord of the Rings before the corresponding movie debuted. Parts of each book were fantastic. Parts of each book were horrible; it was mental torture to make myself finish each one before the next movie came out. And the movies came out a year apart.

OK, so I've read one bad biography, one decent autobiography, and three old fantasy novels. That's only five new (to me) books in five years.

I really must make more time for reading. But who has time to read?

So at long last someone has finally been taken into custody in the murder of America's favorite Dead Future Spokesmodel, JonBenet Ramsey.

I can't be the only person finding the timing to be, shall we say, suspect. Just as other issues in the world really seem to be spiralling out of control, we get an arrest for a mercifully nearly forgotten death of a spoiled rotten little girl who seemed destined to spend her life waving while standing next to Evil Rich Men. Would anyone really be surprised to find that Karl Rove was behind the resuscitation of this case?

Would you put it past Karl Rove to have maneuvered some poor kiddie porn fanatic into confessing after manipulating Colorado police into putting off a serious investigation until just exactly the moment he wanted?

And what am I to make of the confessed "killer"'s ex-wife going on the record saying that he was in Alabama with her when the world was freed from the burden of supporting yet another Infomercial Hostess? I saw this little bit of info online and it has been quickly buried in all kinds of other allegations about the accused loony.

Ick. Ick, I say.

I am Roscoe. I say Ick.

Why do I bother?

17 months ago, my wife ripped the wall paper off our bedroom walls. She wanted to "re-do" the room. Fine. But it's taken her 17 months to pick a fucking color, buy paint, and start painting the room.

Of course, every time we make plans to paint, she's never home on time. So we're always painting late at night.

Last night, we didn't do any more because we were out of paint. I slept a few hours (from 7 to 10) and then woke up and could not get back to sleep. So, I've been up for over 22 hours, including another day from hell at work. She calls me at work, about an hour before I leave. I have to go to the paint store and buy the paint. Of course, she works a couple miles from the paint store. I work right by our house, which is much further away. So, naturally, I have to get the paint. I go. I get the paint. I run two more errands, and she's still not home when I get there. Or an hour later. I decided to watch a movie, so I put in Polyester. It makes me laugh.

Finally, at 8 o'clock, she gets home. And, ignoring me (I was just falling asleep again), she starts painting. So, I get up and start painting, too. I leave the movie on. After about half an hour, she stops working, sits down, and just watches the movie for 20 minutes. I pause for two seconds to watch a scene, and she says to me, "Why do you watch this shit?" I was the one still working. She was the one sitting down and just watching the movie.

I set down my painting stuff, told her she didn't have to watch it, and left the room.

Why do I bother? I was dead tired; I'm sick of waiting for her to show up on a whim; and all I get is "Why do you watch this shit?"

Why do I bother?