Too much time on their hands department

GI Joe was created by an advertising studio in order to tap the then undermarketed children's demographic of boys' dolls, soon to be called "action figures".

This is the list of people who have had GI Joe figurines made in their likeness:
* Buzz Aldrin
* Roy Benavidez
* SFC Charlie Bury, 1999 "Real-Life Spirit of G.I. Joe" contest winner
* Robert Crippen
* Francis S. Currey
* Dwight D. Eisenhower
* Luke Ellison, 2005 FHM contest winner
* John R. Fox
* Bob Hope
* John F. Kennedy, as skipper of the PT-109
* Robert E. Lee
* Douglas MacArthur
* Audie Murphy
* Mitchell Paige
* George S. Patton
* William "Refrigerator" Perry (from the "Real American Hero" line)
* Francis J. Pierce
* "Rowdy Roddy Piper"
* Colin Powell
* Ernie Pyle
* Theodore Roosevelt
* "Sgt. Slaughter" (from the "Real American Hero" line, also appeared as character on the cartoon)
* George Washington
* Ted Williams


This is a list of the described errors in the GI Joe film (1987) IMDB entry.

* Continuity: When The Joes are hiding the B.E.T. in the civilian base, Lifeline is seen standing on the truck. Lifeline is still supposed to be in the Himalayas, looking for Roadblock's unit.

* Continuity: After Duke is injured by Serpentor's snake javelin, Scarlett is seen holding his upper body up while he is tended to by Doc, holding his head in her hands. Although she is wearing gloves, part of her glove is missing, revealing a bare hand, but her glove is intact in the next shot.

* Continuity: Duke's chest injury alternates briefly when Falcon comes to his side. Serpentor's snake javelin clearly hit him in the left half of his chest, approximately where his heart would be, and his blood can be seen soaking his bandages. In one shot, the blood stain is on the right half of his chest, but in the next shot is back on the left.

* Continuity: Steeler and Grunt both make appearances in the movie. However, as per "Worlds Without End", they were left behind in the alternate Cobra-controlled universe and thus should not be on the active duty roster.

Super Tuesday VII!

The endless litany of Super Tuesdays has begun to remind me of Wrestlemania. I could never watch Wrestlemania and I'm beginning to get the nagging feeling that this is all preordained anyhow.
I spent some time this morning listening the Bill Moyers Journal Podcast. A couple thoughts: first, he holds the unfortunate position of having the best interview of (angry) Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Last week, for an hour he got Jeremiah Wright to speak at length about his own biography, where he's coming from, and what he feels is his mission as a pastor. It was actually quite a thoughtful piece. Fast forward three days later when Jeremiah Wright takes the completely indefensible position that the US is responsible for the AIDS virus. Obama leaps for joy, dropkicks the pastor in public, Hillary Clinton declares it's time to move on from the topic while on Stephanopolous, and Bill Moyers is left with the best interivew of a man who has just stage dived into crazytown. Bill Moyers plays the race card towards the end of the piece (it's really the end of the segment, barely five minutes into the recording) but not in an effective way. "It's all really about race anyway..."
I'm a huge fan of Moyers and the Journal. And I've never heard him so at a loss.

Dear friend Brian Blake wanted me to blog for him about baseball. I made one attempt but it failed miserably so I put it here (see Opening Day). But as I was gulled into speech this morning by somebody badmouthing The Natural, I figure I'd put a baseball post here.

The Greatest Trade of All Time?

Back in 1972, Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, both pitchers for the New York Yankees, swapped families.

Peterson traded his wife, Marilyn, his two kids and a poodle for Susan Kekich, the two Kekich children and a Bedlington terrier.

"We didn't trade wives; we traded lives," Kekich said.

Said Yankees executive Dan Topping after the trade was announced during spring training of 1973, "We may have to call off Family Day this season."

Hillary Clinton: The Terry Schiavo of the Democratic Party

If you edited the video just right, listened to the family, AM radio, elected officials, you could nearly believe she was still alive!

Terry Schiavo was, of course, a person who had ceased to be. Her viability was a thing of the past. Experts after expert, upon examining her, declared that she was gone. Higher function had vacated her. In short, she had no chance.

In stepped a few high placed officials who declared she was alive. Compelling videos were put together. Pundits whipped up fiery speeches about judicial murder. Talk radio buzzed with the seething urge to keep her alive at all costs. Terry Schiavo was nearly legislated back to life…

Now, three years later, Hillary Clinton’s candidacy is dead. Through all forms of examination, expert after expert have concluded that her presidential hopes are not viable. And here are the Republicans, the pundits, Talk Radio, and the Radical Right ready to reanimate her. Operation Chaos has replaced Operation Rescue.

Death is an awful prospect- even if its only the death of a Presidential dream. There were bound to be death throes, bound to be the final gasps, fits, and starts that come from the end of a candidacy.


Don’t be fooled. And don’t lose heart as Republicans once again step in to what should be a family affair. The Clinton campaign will roll its eyes and loll its head- to family and friends it will still appear almost alive. But June will come soon enough and by God's grace or good sense, Senator Clinton's candidacy will be released from its tortured and manipulated existence.

UPDATE:
I got tooled in Daily Kos- see comment.
but have a look at Tim Russert here. He uses the same analogy just not proper name.

It's basketball playoff time

If you're not a sports fan, I understand. Hell, some part of me might even commend you for it as you're doubtlessly using the hundreds of hours a year of time away from sport to better yourself. Or you watch Lost. Which is probably okay too.
As for me, I watch/listen to a lot of sports. I listen to probably close to ninety cardinal games a year on the internet. The cost is 14 dollars a season. It works out to maybe 3 cents an hour. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
I don't have cable. But for some reason, nearly every NBA playoff game is on TNT which I do get just for plugging my too expensive TV into the wall. [Sidebar: I bought a guitar amp on Sunday. I mentioned to my little brother who was driving home from Coachella that I had all this new gear in my house. "Great," he says, "sounds like you're gearing up to be robbed." Big laugh. The irony: He'd just been robbed at Coachella but would not discover it for a couple hours. End of Sidebar]
Back to my thread:
I get to watch a great deal of free NBA playoff basketball.
Now there is this aphorism. This maxim. This retarded chestnut that gets spun around again and again, every April, among casual sports fans and it usually goes like this:
"You know, I can't get into the NBA. College basketball is just so much more intense/shows so much more heart/so much more exciting/etc. etc."
And typically, viva la difference, no big deal, I let this slide. Because as my friend Miles says, "If I loved you, I'd tell you..." and typically the people who engage in these kind of conversations I do not love and therefore needn't tell.
But I've heard it too much. And it's not true.
The National Basketball Association is endlessly better than College Basketball. It's a point that should be so obvious that it barely bears making but in case you think otherwise- and I'm looking at you Brian Blake, and several other white people who I'm not going to name here lest they discover I have a blog during one of their daily self-googlings- I'm going to make my point here.
MYTH: College Basketball games are just, you know, more exciting.
FACT: You only watch college basketball during the NCAA tournament. When they are exciting. because a bunch of eighteen to twenty year old boys have had an entire season to try and get good for this one three weekend event. Filled with arbitrary upsets typically (and those are exciting). But have you EVER tried to watch a December college basketball game? It's like watching sea lions try to play the bagpipes. They are useless. Worse than useless. You feel like you are donating your time. Like a proud parent cheering for an untalented child.
MYTH: College Basketball is about the name on the front of the jersey. [This is a reference to the player's loyalty to the school/the tradition/the coach/the system/etc.]
FACT: Bull of the Shit. College Basketball has long been an opportunity for school's to try and make opportunistic loot on kids who are trying to make a show of themselves to get drafted by the NBA. They don't call the NBA draft the Lottery for nothing. College is the Developmental League for the pros. And if you think otherwise, you should vote McCain because you are clearly tenderly led.
MYTH: NBA Players don't really play hard.
FACT: NBA Players are not children. College basketball is played by 20 year olds running up and down the floor as quickly as they can because they will more like than not be graduating in a few weeks 22 hours short of their Agriculture Communications major. The pros don't play like that. Nor should they. The pros shoot at a higher percentage, make fewer turnovers, AND play an 80 game season prior to the playoffs. 80 games. Plus playoffs you're really looking at playing 100 games a year. A game every three freaking days. Plus practice. The NBA guys are able to turn it on, they are much faster than college players, but they do so in a strategic way.
MYTH: The NBA is all about showboating.
FACT: You are an idiot. You have stretched past usual idiocy into some sort of super idiocy which should come with a cape and a bicycle helmet. The NBA players have preternatural skills. KOBE BRYANT SCORED 81 POINTS IN A GAME BY HIMSELF. That sentence should look to you, if you follow the basketball, like something a monkey with a typewriter wrote. It should make that little sense. But in fact it's a recorded event. It is basketball history. The NBA is a place where the greatest players on earth (and actually, from all over the earth at this point) have collected to see who is best. The only other sports that can really claim to have collected the greatest athletes from all over the globe at their respective disciplines are World Championship football (sigh, soccer if you must call it that), and golf. The NBA is the only real American sport where that is true. Most of the world doesn't play American rules football, or baseball. And Hockey sadly is no longer a sport. They voted at ESPN and too few people cared so now it's a pageant on ice. Like the icecapades with fights.
So this is the end of this post.
If you enjoy basketball, watch the NBA on TNT. It's free. The matchups are excellent. The league, in my lifetime, has never been this strong.
And if you like pretending to enjoy basketball every March and making your little bracket and doing your little pool, that's fine too. Just stop talking about the NBA.
Because you're pissing me off.
And making me blog obnoxiously.

Greek Orthodachshund

1. I don't like people. The friends I have serve as an exception to this rule. I don't know whether this is a situation where I like people because they like me or I like people on their individual merits. But my default attitude towards people is mistrustful, jealous, and spiteful.
   

• This is probably not good. However, dear reader, if you are one of my friends consider that our friendship is likely a true thing! And if the goal of this blog is ultimately to answer how is that i come to think I know what I know then: I know I like I you because I am well-acquainted with disliking people. I came to this conclusion in an instant:
  A man I work with walked past me in front of 200 Park Avenue. He is exceptionally tall. He is good looking in that he is average looking and exceptionally tall. If you are very tall and fail to have bad skin, or bad teeth, or no hair, then typically you are a pretty hot tamale. As he walked back I realized that in the eight months or so we've worked together we've spoken three times (this includes classic work conversations like: "You're having coffee!" "You betcha!")
  He walked by me- I am unmissable from two hundred feet. I have a massive shock of curly, red hair at the moment practically visible from space. Crowded amidst the blue and grey suits, smoking cigarettes in front of Met Life you have to make an effort not to see me, even if you are very tall. He made this effort and successfully walked past me without awkward eye contact. And it flashed. I hate this guy. I don't know why. I listen to him talking in the kitchen about sailing, about Thailand, about Duke University or whatever else and I find myself walking away from him muttering to myself like the madman in a Russian novel. This tall man is one of several of my co-workers who are approximately my age but well beyond my importance at my place of employ who frequently set me to muttering...

2. Buildings are like big animals. Like dinosaurs. Vertical structures filled with living organisms. Tissues. New Yorkers (and I might slip into a first person plural douchebag jaunt here- so know that I'm referring to newyorkcitytypes) should spend more time identifying with buildings. Getting to do know them as our friends. I will now make every effort to see myself as a Met Life Person. Until I am fired. Which could be, as far as I know, tomorrow.

There's more. Always much much more. I used to try to cull these posts into something reasonable. Some thing usable. I didn't wish to ramble or waste anyone's time. But now I know the truth. Anyone who has read this far is here only because they are wasting time already and seek ways to waste more. It's okay. There's nothing wrong with that.
If I read your blog- it's for some stray hint that your life is as pointless as mine. Some tiny chink in your armor where you have nagging doubts, unclean feelings, envy, guilt, repressed sexual urges (possibly for me-I'm not soliciting, just scanning the text, reading the tea leaves). So forget it, kids. There will be no topics, no bullet points.
I will not attempt to make this easy to navigate. Sometimes simple letters will be hypertexted to links of unimaginable coolness. But that wasn't one of them. That one kind of sucks.
The guy who works next to me, the guy who has the desk next to mine, has missed 33 days of work already this year. 33. He's a temp like I am. A permanent temp. Which means we're trained labor who, if we get cancer, don't have health insurance and have to blow our heads off to avoid bankrupting our families (first person plural here to indicate collective group of temps). He seldom comes to work, so the his work does not pile up and wait for him- it is distributed to me. And my fellow office workers. When he comes, he does not dig his paws in like a Labrador Retriever pulling at a chew toy and make sure he tries to make up for his weeks of incommoding. He picks up the phone. And he speaks in very hushed tones to his extremely insecure girlfriend. I started recording them with my MP3 player. If you are all very very good, I'll put one on line for you. Because it's illegal and in prison I get access to health care, hot meals, and expanded sexual boundaries.
He's been out for the last six days and today there was talk of firing him.
I said nothing.
When you might get what you want, you say nothing for fear that your eagerness to have your needs met will queer the deal. I said nothing.
I'll let you know.
Good night.

Oldboy/American Gangster

OLDBOY is a movie that managed to absolutely miss me when it came out. To be fair I was in Sarasota, Florida during its March 2005 release, so it's likely I never had a chance to see it.
The movie is extraordinary. Operatic in scale, lurid, ridiculous, heartfelt- this movie lagged for about ten minutes between acts two and three but otherwise just flashed past me like a horrifying dream. I know nothing of Korean cinema but between Oldboy and the excellent monster film "The Host" I am now curious to find out more about what's fueling all of these really excellent and non-formulaic big budget pictures.

As I searched for more information about this picture (which I really only thought about after watching after sort of compelling my girlfriend to watch Miike's Audition and that picture for some reason brought to mind super-friend Matt's recommendation of Oldboy some seasons earlier), I read this chestnut about Virginia Tech Mass Murderer, Cho Seung-Hui,

"Police believe Cho Seung-Hui repeatedly watched the movie Oldboy as part of what they now think was his meticulous preparation for the killing spree at Virginia Tech University."

Oddly, this was not placed on the box at Blockbuster. Odder still, I still go to Blockbuster.

AMERICAN GANGSTER is a movie that I probably would have seen sooner had anyone I known had more good things to say about it. It seemed that it was typically reviewed by people with such statements as, "Yes. It is a movie." Or "It was like watching television. Possibly a bit better." Or "The theater was cool and comfortable." Only when my discerning friend/boss Phil said that the movie was interesting was I finally amenable to seeing it- and when Netflix failed to provide me the Robert Mitchum film I had intended to watch while eating chili, it was agreed over a bottle of ginger beer to be the replacement.
So, it doesn't suck precisely though it suffers immensely from a crisis in our American cinema. It is much, much too long. Exposition is painful. Musical montage abounds. There is some fat in good movies, just like good steak needs marbling. But Chesus Christ- American Gangster had tons and tons of what could only be described as Gristle.
Immediately after this country passes legislation for national health care I think congress should regulate movies so that only 10 a year can be over two hours long. Like the MPAA but instead of protecting people from moral turpitude, they'll protect my ass from dangerous numbness.
The story of Frank Lucas is fascinating. And the movie feels almost no obligation to hold to it. Russell Crowe's character (who has a name...) has a son in this movie which he, tragically, loses custody of because he's an honest cop or something (there might have been a hobbit involved). That of course didn't happen in real life. They invented a child so we'd feel closer to the character. They didn't give him cancer. I don't think. I watched the extended director's cut (never again!) but there could have been additional deleted scenes in which he was provided cancer.
I will point out something that registered with me: there are wonderful scenes of Frank Lucas and his family living a beautiful pastoral life in New Jersey while profiting on huge misery in Harlem. They are having barbecues and playing baseball and living high on the hog. And I felt, as I believe I was supposed to, repulsed by people who can profit on the sufferings of others.
But then I remembered the Godfather movies where these things managed to be depicted and I only thought about how cool that Italian community was and how family-oriented etc. And I immediately recognized the bias- "How can a black man destroy his community and feel good about it?" versus "How cool is this Italian wedding at the beginning of the Godfather?" I wonder if the bias was intended or if I am simply aware of my own bad wiring.

At any rate, I've tacked on here a discussion between Frank Lucas, Nicolas Pileggi, and the guy Russell Crowe played with Charlie Rose. I thought it was about as interesting as the movie in one third the time.

Two-time Bush Voters

If you voted for Bush in 2000 or 2004, I'm not addressing you. You could have made a mistake. Perhaps you were having a bad day. Perhaps you were willing to take a risk on a new face. Perhaps you were genuinely fearful of changing leaders during a war. Or perhaps you virulently hated either Al Gore or John Kerry, personally or policy-wise. These things are understandable so I'm not talking to you.

I'm talking to those people who voted for George W. Bush twice.

You know who you are, and I'm not asking for names.

I'm going to make a suggestion.

Sit this election out.

Don't vote this time.

You need a cooling-off period. A little perspective. You successfully installed a man who bankrupted our country, passed law after law weakening civil liberties, eroded our country's global standing, installed horribly underqualified cronies in essential positions, got us into two wars, and in short has done damage that will take a generation to repair.

And you voted for him. Twice.

I'm not suggesting that your vote be taken away from you. I am suggesting that as a good faith gesture to a country that you let down with your vote, you simply head over to Applebees or Banana Republic or whatever's playing at the local movie house instead of voting this time.

It's not a bad solution. I'm not mad at you. I just think your good judgment is in need of rehabilitation. And the best way to do that is to simply back up and adopt a more reflective and contemplative attitude.

Spend the rest of this election cycle asking yourself, "How was I so wrong? Twice?"

It's probably the best thing you can do for this country in 2008.