Friday, February 27, 2009

News Editors need to think more

I was reading MSNBC today, as I do most days, and a couple of headlines struck me funny:



OK, great. You're fact-checking Obama's speech. Maybe if you'd done a little more of that during the Bush presidency, we wouldn't be in Iraq right now, and the Shrub wouldn't have gotten a second term.

Then there was this:



I'm just thinking, if it was anybody but the President, some Secret Service agents are getting fired. ;)

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Some things that amuse me

Life for me is still too depressing for me to want to blog about it (how emo is that?). So I'm just going to post here some things I've found amusing recently.

F*** My Life is a great site where people post short, 1-4 line stories about why their life sucks. A lot of it is teenagers posting typical teen drama, but there are some real jems in there to provide some schadenfreude. My favorite so far:

"Today, I went to my first strip club for my friends birthday. I also found out what my girlfriend does for a living. FML"

(The "F***", by the by, is how they actually title their site. I personally have no problem saying "fuck". Fuck. Motherfucker. Fuckwad. Fucktard. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I use "fuck" as my own personal celebration of the First fucking Amendment.)

Passive-Aggressive Notes is a blog showing all those stupid notes people "anonymously" put up around the office bitching about stuff. Some funny stuff there.

And then, there's a conversation I had with some friends:

(we were discussing state politics)

Jeff: Whatever. I just want it to be legal for me to shoot Tim Eyman.

Me: We should start an Initiative!

Jeff: That would be fair...

Me: If we throw a tax cut into it, Eyman will back it himself!

(Erik comes up, Jeff tells him what we were saying)

Erik: I don't want to kill him...just kick his ass.

Jeff: I didn't say kill him...we could just wing him. We could make it a lottery! We could even hold it four times!

(Ok, I thought it was funny at least)

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Meme time: The Interviews




Getting on the meme train courtesy Wiwille and Mizzle:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions).
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.


So, without further ado, Wiwille's interview of yours truly:

1. At approximatley what album should AC/DC have retired?

Ooooh, tough one to start with. I would say the decline started with Fly on the Wall, but there were still some good songs on various albums after. Razor's Edge was a good, solid album and return to form, but Brian Johnson's voice was pretty much shot already. What little I've heard from the recent Black Ice is ok but very commercial, so I am going to say they should have quit after touring for Razor's Edge, say around 1992.

2. If you were Emporer of world would you enact a law requiring people to pass a test in order to be able to procreate?

As appealing as that sounds, no, I wouldn't. I have a kid, and so I understand how people feel about their children, and could not violate parental rights in so arbitrary a manner.

3. Why do you enjoy reading Stephen King?

When he is at his best, he crafts some very tight stories, and they are easy to relate too. He captures human weakness very well, and plays on that. His descriptiveness and detail can contribute to very real settings and stories.

Unfortunately, at his worst, he just plains sucks. His biggest weakness is endings. The man cannot end a novel to save his life half the time.

4. If you were on death row what would you choose for your last meal? Please detail the main course, side dishes, and dessert.

I'm a simple man. For an appetizer, saganaki (Opa!). Ribeye steak, medium-medium rare, with grilled onions, sauted mushrooms, and some Lee & Perrins worcestershire on the side. Colcannon. Caesar salad. A decent glass of Shiraz.

And, because I have a weakness for sweets, a triple dessert: baklava, galaktoboureko, and Morton's legendary hot chocolate cake.

Yum.

5. Why don't you post on The Inexcusable anymore?

I've been too busy, and life has just been too depressing and stressful to write about or do videos about lately. I am trying to drag myself out of that, and have sworn to myself that I will do more posts here. Starting today, with this one.

And now for my interview by Mizzle:

1. What is your favorite beverage?

Water. Seriously. If you mean alcoholic beverage, it varies between a good Shiraz, a White Russian, a Jack & Coke, or a Maker's & Ginger.

2. Who is your favorite TV or Movie character?

Hmmmm. Not real good at picking a single favorite anything.

TV: tie between The Doctor, of Doctor Who, and President Josiah Bartlett, of The West Wing.
Movie: tie between Raoul Duke, of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Hannibal Lecter of ManHunter/Silence of the Lambs/Hannibal/Red Dragon/Hannibal Rising.

3. What is in your personal hell?

I would be forced to watch alternating Michael Bay and Uwe Boll movies for eternity, but all their soundtracks would be replaced by ABBA albums, and I would have to sit between Paris Hilton and Ashton Kutcher while Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and Dick Cheney had a messy three-way in the row in front of me.

4. Who needs to disappear quicker, Bill O'Reilly or Joan Rivers?

O'Reilly for sure. Rivers is just annoying. Bill O'Reilly is walking affront to humanity.

5. What is your least favorite movie?

There are so, so many to hate. I mean, I've watched Blair Witch Project 2, for god's sake. But the winner of this title is probably still a weird, little-known movie called Cold Heaven.

I mean, it starts out with a sex scene. OK, cool - for like 2 minutes. Then it gets preachy because she's cheating on her husband, played by Mark Harmon, whom I loathe, so booo - that lasts like 20 minutes. Then Mark Harmon gets hit in the head by a speed boat and dies. Yay dead Mark Harmon! - but that's only for like 2 minutes. Then she grieves, which is always boring on film, so boooo - that lasts another 30 minutes. Then Mark Harmon comes back from the dead! Yay Zombie Mark Harmon! - but that's like 5 minutes, and Zombie Mark Harmon disappears from the movie with no explanation. Then she sees a nun going into a church or something, only it's a nun who died like a century ago, and the church doesn't exist, and it all makes no sense, and at the end you're supposed to have learned some important spiritual lesson that even the christian who saw it with me didn't get - and that's like 50 minutes.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Unemployed Man, ep. 10: Post-Election Elation



I really wanted to use "Elected" by Alice Cooper, but I didn't have that one.

And here is Nader sticking by his use of "Uncle Tom". When a Fox News personality calls you out for using a tactless, racist phrase, you have seriously fucked up.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Unemployed Man, ep. 9 - Tales of the Crazy Neighbor

I think me slurping my coffee really makes this the best "Unemployed Man" ever.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Unemployed Man, ep. 8: Life's a Beach

Some problems with the audio - sorry about that.
And check out the shine on that dome!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Weekly Weight Update #5

More good news as this week's weigh-in was 257.2 and 35.7% body fat...meaning I gained muscle and lost fat. Yay!

Also, I will be incommunicado for a week due to Burning Man. Have a good week!

Monday, August 18, 2008

Weekly Weight Update #4

OK, I know I said I'd have a new video soon, but I've been really really busy. Soon, I promise.

As for this week's weigh in: 256.6, and 36.4% body fat. So once again, losing some muscle, but the fat's going in the right direction.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Weekly Weight Update #3

Finally, a smidgeon of progress. Weighed in today at 259 even, but 36.3% body fat...which means I actually lost some fat and gained some muscle. I attribute this mostly to the yardwork I did last week (lots of it!)

Video to come soon.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Weekly Weightloss Update #2

So this week I weighed in at 258.4, a loss of about 1 and a half pounds. Body fat remains the same. Clearly I need to get more exercise.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Weekly Weight Loss update #1

As promised, I'm giving an update with the embarrassing numbers of how fat I am, to help keep me motivated. Last week's weigh in was 262 lbs, 36.7% body fat.

This morning, I weighed in at 259.8lbs, still 36.7% body fat. So I did lose weight, but I lost muscle as well.

Still, I'm back to where I was when I started tracking my weight 5 weeks ago, so it's a good start.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Also...

One of my favorite movies is Fight Club, based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk. I just discovered there's a trailer out for a new movie based on another of his books, Choke.

I do still write occassionally

Amidst my recent videos (which shall continue) I wanted to stick in a quick written post.

There's a nearly 40 minute long video of Neal Stephenson giving a talk at Gresham College, mostly about genres of fiction, why those genres don't matter anymore, and about geek culture. Stephenson is an amazingly intelligent speaker, although his speech is horribly monotone. I've seen him speak in person, and found his intelligence can overcome the boring tone though, and the same holds true of this video.

I'm particularly proud that he says essentially that we're all geeks, something I have said before.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Unemployed Man on a Monday



What I meant to say, about Jason Webley, is that he is playing at Neumo's on Thursday. I left out where exactly he is playing when I said it on the video.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Adventures of Unemployed Man



Hmmm. Perhaps next time, I should raise the camera up so I don't show quite so much thigh...

Mint Juleps