Henceforth

So, henceforth and from this day on, no more MySpace. Don't request to be my friend, you already are. I hate MySpace. Can't think of a positive aspect of it. It's owned by Rupert Murduch (owner of Fox News). There's no way to opt out once you have an account. Rupert owns that shit you put up there. Owns it 4-eva. And because of that shit you post up there, it looks like the messiest piece of shit on the internet. An infinitely downward-scrolling piece of shit spiraling around the toilet bowl that is MySpace.
I hate the skanky ass shots. Also, rumors abound of sexual predators. Which I become should I ever surf onto a page of some 13-year-old posting skanky ass-shots.
And the peer pressure! Why the peer pressure? One cannot quit MySpace without receiving constant friends-requests, from good people who just want to play the MySpace game of getting the biggest list of 'friends'. But because I want out, I risk pissing them off. Yes, approve. Yes, approve. Yes Yes Yes. No. Sorry, but it's not you. I love my real three-dimensional friends, but MySpace can go fuck itself.
No more friends-requests will be answered and I won't be visiting the goddamn MySpace unless I absolutely fucking have to.
Sincerely,
An Old Grump

Conspiracy Theories

I was studying photos from the recent news story about Vice-President Dick Cheney accidentally shooting a fellow hunter and I think the mainstream media is not asking enough questions.

Look at this photo closely. Notice anything? That's right! Charles Whittington has the largest right hand you have ever seen. I understand that in Texas, they're famous for makin' em big, but why SO big? Why so much larger than his normal, 3-fingered left hand? Wouldn't this right hand seem ideal for blocking several hundred bird-shot pellets?

Several theories emerge:

Uncanny Tex-man: Due to relaxed* EPA regulations, public water supplies near to Mr. Whittington's home have become polluted, causing Whittington to slowly develop a genetic mutation. After spending an afternoon together, Mr. Cheney decided that Whittington's mutant powers were not psychic, psionic, telekinetic nor any type of biologically generated laser. However, the hand could potentially point attention (via 12-inch index finger) to the current EPA's innefective state. Some say that Cheney decided then and there, that this republican lawyer had to disappear. And quietly.

Heavy Palm and her Five Sisters: Was Whittington simply too weak to lift up and block his face with this enormous hand? Had Cheney used the hunting trip as a ruse to drug or hypnotize Whittington in the same fashion as he had with Justice Scalia years earlier? What reason would there be for slipping Whittington a 'roophie'? Is there evidence to indicate that Whittington had rebuffed Cheney's romantic advances?

Elephantitus! : Why has the hospital been so secretive about releasing photos or video of the accident victim? It is possible, some say, that as large as Whittington's right hand appears, his right foot and testicle are substantially larger, and therefore more difficult to move. As Cheney turned to take the shot, was Whittington simply too overwhelmed by his ballooning limbs and privates to safely clear the area of danger?

Birdman, Attorney At Law: Some believe Whittington's thin, nordic nose and enormous flapping hand caused Cheney to mistake him for a quail. This theory seems unlikely until one considers that most of the birds that the VP were hunting are often less lively than a frozen oven-stuffer rooster. In such a hunting situation, any "moving" object is considered a grave threat and is aggressively pursued.

*relaxed is a newsy word which means 'unconscious', 'neutered'; in the case of a business, agency or other organization it can also mean 'staffed entirely by employees who spend all day looking at ebay'.

brainfreeze

Steve Martin 2

I'm not exactly sure why this is bothering me so much, but on that new pile of dogshit Pink Panther movie with Steve Martin... I was wondering about it. Maybe, I thought, maybe Blake Edwards was directing or writing for it? By no means would I ever consider any of the original Sellers-Panther films a masterpiece. Worthy of a few chuckles, sure.

One of the funniest things in any film was in a Sellers-Panther film. Sellers is fighting his butler Kato, and he karate-jumps through the air in slow motion, realizing too late that he has over-jumped and is going through the wall. The sound for the scene is also slowed down.

So maybe Blake Edwards was involved in this new one? IMDB says sorta/no. According to Edwards' IMDB profile, Edwards had a writing credit for the 2006 film. Listed as 'The Pink Panther (2006) (characters)', I think referring to the origination of the characters and nothing else. The new film's IMDB page shows no mention of Edwards. So who wrote and directed it?

Director: Shaun Levy, most famously directed Cheaper by the Dozen (1 and 2), and Big Fat Liar, the film where Malcom in the Middle paints Paul 'Pig Vomit' Giamatti dark blue to look like a smurf. He also did a bunch of crap for tv.

Writer: Steve Martin, and Len Blum, most famously known for rewriting Private Parts into a screenplay, Stripes, and 2 of the Meatballs films (Me...Ted, Me...Ted, Meathead).

This is who we trust with Peter Sellers' most famous persona?

There's a good chance, due to age-difference that I will outlive Steve Martin. As soon as he dies, I am going to start raising funds to get Urkel into his own tv show. Urkel will wear a white suit with bunny ears and say over and over: "Excuuuuuse me! Did I do that?" Then Urkel will do a series of passable Cheaper by the Dozen remakes and sequels where he plays almost all of the characters. We will hammer the public with cereal, fruit rollup and cheez-it box cross-promotions, action figures, Urkel light-sabers, arrows-thru-the-head and video-games promoting Urkel by the Dozen. Shop Gurkel. Bowfingurkel. Urkel Scared Stupid. Planes, Trains & Automobiles, starring Steve Urkel and that kid who played fat albert. My Blue Urkel. Urky Rotten Scoundrels. The Jurkel, about a guy who invents glasses or something and he's a dad who has a dozen kids and falls off a dock. When he falls off the dock, he gets wet and that's very funny. Also, I think we can use a big bicycle horn to make it even funnier. Maybe Len Blum can write it.

Not my intention to create a political site, however some shit is just, um.

Recently, attention has come to the idea that our current president and his administration have authorized unwarranted mass-wiretapping to listen in on domestic activity. Whether this listening-in has to do with terrorism or simple disagreement or disgust with the current shitty poiliticial powers is of little difference. People who communicate with computers and telephones after the year 2001 have had the vague idea, feeling that their conversations are no longer private. Someone is keeping track. Someone wants to know what us motherfuckers're saying. And how to make us shut the fuck up and fulfill our corporate-consumer responsibilty. Do what Viacom and Philip Morris ExxonMart asks us to do. Independently of all that, we still wish to get drunk, laid and heard. Too bad. You wear your yellow fadey sunglasses and tight pants and post your party photos for all your popular crowd internet hangers-on to see. Never mind that MySpace is owned by Fox News. Ever try to close a MySpace account? You can't. Owned (pwned) forever by Rupert Murdoch. Paypal? Same crap. Circuit City. GoDaddy.com. Wendy's. Etc, etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Yeah.
You don't own shit.
Corporations own your info.
Government employees look at it.
Anything that passes over your IM, cell phone, or internet browser. So, you think, 'I haven't done anything wrong, why do I care? I'm not affiliated with Al-Kayder.' Guess what? Do you use internet banking? Pay your credit card online? Pay your car insurance? They sure as fuck tell you that you should, don't they? Well, guess what? Need me to say it? Need me to spell it out for you? Yeah. Your numbers. People seen them. Every time you cover your fingers when you punch em in at the market, protecting your numbers against Mrs. Catfood-buyer-could-give-a-shit standing behind you in line. Every time you make an Amazon purchase at work, and you quickly close that window lest Brian-in-the-next-cube sees your precious last 4 social security numbers.
Stop wasting your fucking time.
It's been this way since 01. Changing your habits doesn't make a goddamn difference. Your info is free for the taking. Your identity is free for the taking. Your banking. Your soche. Your debit cards. Your credit cards. 5 years worth. All of it, downloaded and copied. Backed up, transferred to a new disk or server downloaded and copied all over again. Each time at new risk of interception by our completely trustworthy civil servants. People just like us. Downloading piles and piles of info. More than (they admit!) they can even keep track of. Conversations, files, photos, emails, transactions, financials, credit card numbers...Thousands, millions of them. What's the big deal if one or two or ten get copied down? What's the big deal if someone you don't know has access to your online banking? You have 'nothing to hide,' right? Fraud? Identity theft? Myths! Never happen to me!

We all have something to hide. It's why we keep our cash in our wallets or the bank instead of scotchtaped to our fucking foreheads. Privacy is a basic human right in a capitalist society. Privacy is a basic human right, period. Shit, why else do they put doors on bathroom stalls?

We maybe suspected someone was watching us, archiving everything we do, judging everything we do. Thankfully, the New York Times discovered it, and called attention to it. It didn't just sit, as a dopey conspiracy theory on the pages of some paranoid blog. It's actually getting investigated by Congress. We have this one preliminary chance to enforce our privacy. After that, who knows?