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Sex Swings and Cell Phones
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3/27/2005
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I finally bought a TiVo last week. If you haven't already heard this, a TiVo is like a cell phone or a sex swing; you are fine without one until you have one, and then you are pretty much ruined. They could change the monthly subscription price to $400 and I'd pay it.
As with any new technological gadget, I was duty bound as a man to show it off to all of my friends- "Hey, check out my new grill. Let's cook some meat and drink beer. Oh, by the way, I can watch eleven straight hours of Sealab 2021. ANY. TIME. I. WANT. TO."
One of the features TiVo has is an ability to guess which programs you would enjoy and record them based on the programs you have recorded in the past. Great idea, but the factory preset is "embarrass." Here I am all proud of my new ability to pause live television and fast forward through commercials, telling my neighbor how completely awesome it is, and we go to the pre-recorded show list. See? There's Family Guy, Reno 911, every show with the word "monster" or "weapon" in the title, and...what the hell...?
"So...you recorded a show on Oxygen called 'Mr. Romance'?"
"Shut up. What?"
"Yeah, and apparently you're a fan of the Ashlee Simpson show. The words 'bag' and 'douche' come to mind, but not necessarily in that order."
Since I live alone, I had no one to blame but technology. I had it set to record American Chopper, which is one of two "reality" shows I can watch without wanting to go on a shooting rampage that ends with my suicide. The show description was something like "Paul Jr. builds the loudest motorcycle in the world entirely out of hand grenades and the skulls of terrorists while his dad beats him with a short length of garden hose. Reality (CC)" Just below it is the description of the unfathomably irrelevant Ashlee Simpson show- "Ashlee gets her hair cut before recording another monumentally uninspired song that no one cares about. Reality (CC)"
One of these things is not like the other. By the way, if you like the Ashlee Simpson show, please shit in a plastic bag and wear it over your head until you suffocate. I'm sure she's a nice girl, but if I don't have a television show, she shouldn't either.
All the TiVo knows is the word "reality" and assumes that I like anything that claims to be a reality show. Somewhere along the line I guess I recorded something that fell in the genre "someone crying every three minutes", because my dumb TiVo box keeps recording stuff from Oxygen about people dealing with their feelings and coming to terms with things. Yeah. If they aren't coming to terms with being on fire, I'd just as soon be uninvolved.
So until TiVo wises up and learns that I only like television that includes animated milkshakes, explosions, airplanes, welding, and very sick humor, I have disabled the auto record feature.
That is my only gripe about it, however. If you are still on the fence, consider this: For a mere $199 (and a $13 monthly subscription), you may never again have to watch that tragic KFC commercial where Hootie (of Blowfish fame) sings about chicken sandwiches in the dying spasms of his career.
Seriously, think about it.
 Dusty
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posted by Dusty at 10:32 PM |
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Dan Rather: An Interview With Insanity
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3/16/2005
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This picture and the "high note" text were posted on MSN.com last week, causing me great confusion:
Scientists have recently discovered that certain levels of psychosis-induced denial, particularly to the point at which the subject completely abandons reality, can cause some inner ear organs to resonate at up to 22 kHz.
This would be the only possible scenario in what is known as "the universe that actually exists" in which Dan Rather could be leaving on a high note. We'll miss you Dan, but not really.
I'd like to offer a couple of alternative photos to the folks at MSN-
Further evidence of his complete lack of connection with the world in which the rest of us live can be seen in this graph showing ratings stats gathered by The Project for Excellence in Journalism. While ratings have been falling as a whole due to the raging influx of bullshit in all electronic media (except bloggers, of course), you can clearly see that CBS has a proud position at the bottom of this particularly fetid gutpile.
I was granted an interview with Mr. Rather shortly after his retirement and took the opportunity to ask some pointed questions.
ST- Hello Dan, it's nice to see you.
DR- Please, call me Dan.
ST- I did.
DR- Yeah, but do it in Gnome language. Gnomes are cool like goblins, but they have tighter bathing suits.
ST- (Turning to Nathan, Editor in Chief of Atlanta Illustrated) Holy crap, Nate. Do I get hazard pay for this?
Nathan- You'll get whatever I give you and you'll smile about it.
ST- So Dan, This graph shows you going out on about the lowest note possible. How do you explain your "high note" statement to the press?
DR- (chuckles) Obviously you have not yet heard of the Bush conspiracy to print everything upside down. If you turn the graph over, I'm on top.
ST- Well, Yeah...but the numbers that correspond to your position are still lower than the other networks.
DR- Bush's subversive plan is a gradual process. Like tying a knot in a pancake. Dubya's gonna' GITCHA'!!
ST- Please stay seated and stop pinching me.
ST- Who do you most admire in Journalism? Do you have an idol, so to speak?
DR- yeah, I have an idol. I freeze dried a squirrel and now he tells me what to do. I worship at the altar of the hallowed acorn, bitch.
ST- (moving chair out of striking distance of Rather) I mean a professional role model.
DR- You remember Baghdad Bob? That one time when he stood there and told everyone in television land that there were no US troops in the city and you could see American tanks in the background? Then after that, the rest of Saddam's employees got put in jail or killed and Bob just skated free and clean as a wet pennywhistle? Now THAT's journalism. Bob's my homey.
ST- Yeah. It's a shame that shitty reporting isn't a crime.
DR- Huh?
ST- Nothing.
DR- Shh...not you...WAIT!
At this point, Mr. Rather dived out of the window and ran down the street screaming the lyrics to the Bruce Springsteen hit "Hungry Heart". We can only hope that the printing of this column finds him heavily medicated and restrained. In his haste to leave, he left a folder containing his official discharge papers from CBS. Apparently he continued to work there after this memo was issued because everyone was afraid of him. This is the official and original document from 1973 (we can tell because the Microsoft Word interface is in black and white) and it hasn't been tampered with in any way at all.
 Click for larger image
Dusty
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posted by Dusty at 8:39 AM |
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Let me axe you something.
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3/8/2005
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I got an e-mail from someone with the following scenario and question-
A woman goes to her mother's funeral and meets this dude who she really likes, she's pretty sure he's the one for her and all of that crap, blah blah blah. Unfortunately he leaves before she gets a chance to get his phone number. The following week, she kills her sister.
What was her motive?
While most people I asked said, "Her sister must have been involved with him and she was jealous", my first thought was, "The dude'll probably show up at that funeral too, so she can get his number." Then I laughed for a second at the absurdity/sickness of it.
It turns out that that very question was asked by a psychiatrist to dozens of people back in the day, and only one kind of person gave the answer I did, and with alarming regularity. Psychopaths and serial killers. No, it couldn't have been geniuses or art prodigies. It had to be all of the depraved godless souls in the violent offender wing of the Morningwood Home for the criminally insane who think like I do.
The other weird thing was that it surprised me, but when I tell other people they act like I just told them that water is wet or something. No reaction at all.
Should I be worried or amused by this? Right now I am straddling the line between the two at "amurried".
Speaking of insane, a guy from my office is selling something on e-bay that will blow your mind. He even made up a quote from me, thinking that would help sell it. I told him that an item like that will sell no matter how you advertise it. If there is a better stocking stuffer, I don't want to know about it.
See for yourself.
Last night, my upstairs neighbor (I call them the VonHumpingtons because they enjoy a healthy sex life on my ceiling) came over and asked me how my weekend went. He did so in a rather eyebrow-lifty suggestive way, and alluded to having heard some loud, possibly sex related noises coming from below his floor. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about, but did so in an equally suggestive way (even if you never get laid, it doesn't hurt to have people think you do).
He then asked me if I used any drugs, which I instantly interpreted as whatever he thinks he heard this weekend was so amazing to him and his wife that they guessed I was on performance enhancing sex god drugs. So I'm all, "Nope, no drugs...but I did install gas shocks on the four corners of my bed to protect the foundation...haha" *punch on arm/high five thing that guys do when discussing what superstuds we wish we were*
Actually, his reason for asking me if I used drugs was something entirely different, and it wasn't because he had/wanted some.
What was his motive? If you answer correctly, you are a highly intelligent person, and not at all a psychopath.
Dusty
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posted by Dusty at 3:23 PM |
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Large order of Wildebeest McTenders, please.
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3/1/2005
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This Sunday at 6 pm on Animal Planet they will be featuring a story about a lioness who seems to have adopted a baby antelope. Interesting. So I went to the discovery website and looked up the show to learn more. They spun it as a heartwarming story of a lonely lioness who took in a baby antelope to love and care for.
Awww...how sweet. They're lying together in the African plains like a family of African bunnies.
What? Not so fast, bitch. I own you.
See, while the hippies at Discovery want you to believe that this is a story of tender compassion and one lioness's crusade to bridge the interspecies gap between predator and prey, I am here to expose it for what it really is- a massive evolutionary step. Lions aren't going to become vegan and start protecting the rights of victimized animals; they are going to domesticate their food source.
Here is what my exhaustive research has revealed about these two animals-
Lion- Big, mean, lots of pointy parts used to kill/eat other animals. Closely related to sharks, battleships, and Green Berets. Widely known as nature's badass.
Oryx(this particular species of antelope) - Pretty large, good runners, both delicious and stupid, like cows. Cool horns.
This scenario is something that is not often seen in the animal kingdom, and here we are wasting our time examining how adorable it is. Ronald McDonald probably domesticated the first cow the same way. A fully grown wild cow could kick a human's ass in a fight, so he started with a baby one. An adult Oryx has big and very sharp horns that could kill a lion, so she got one with little nubs on its head. The lion knows that little Oryx grow to be big Oryx, and after having gotten used to the lion's presence, it'll never see death coming, right? Wrong.
If this evolutionary jump is as big as I think it is (and I've never been wrong before), the lion is only in the first stages of her plan. Watch as it unfolds over the coming months- she'll kidnap a few more Oryx to breed, and she'll hire some elephants and giraffes to build a large area in which to house her herd. She will pay the elephants and giraffes by not eating them, as that is the accepted currency among african wildlife. With time, steroids, and cruel slaughtering practices, she will soon corner the Serengeti fast food market.
Brilliant.
The long term effects of this are that lions will become lazy and fat, elephants and giraffes will probably unionize (leading to an immigration problem when camels cross the Egyptian border to do the work at half the price) and PETA won't know who to hate when it turns out that lions are raising vealelopes in cages and making souvenir helmets with their horns.
Hopefully our enterprising lioness has already thought this through. In any case, I have created the following conceptual drawing of the future of the African plains. Get used to it, hippies.
Dusty
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posted by Dusty at 9:49 AM |
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