Sword-Wielding Porn Actor Dies After Falling Off Cliff In Stand-Off
I could offer comment or a joke of my own, but really, I've got nothing to top this.
Showing posts with label Good Story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Good Story. Show all posts
June 7, 2010
November 26, 2009
September 25, 2009
September 21, 2009
August 4, 2009
Notes from the Road
I drove across 5 different states and every single one of them had better roads than California.
Sadly, I missed out on my chance at viral video immortality when a Yellowstone buffalo failed to charge a pair of bikers who walked right up and tried to pet it. I was ready with the camera, but the buffalo apparently was just feeling mild that day.
Eastern Utah – Salt. Lots of Salt. And nothing else. Also the area where I came closest to running out of gas. Yikes.
Old Faithful is not actually that faithful. Its eruption schedule is +/- 10 minutes. The rangers are sure to point out that they only predict, they don’t control the geysers.
Never heard the Glenn Beck radio show at any length till now. Man is off his nut.
All of Salt Lake City is laid out on the LDS Temple. The streets are numbered in relation to the temple. 800 South Street is eight blocks south of the temple, 2400 east is 24 blocks east of the temple and so on.
I can still put up a tent in the dark. The old boy scout skills are still with me.
You know when you have to decide something and a little angel and a little devil pop up to tell you to do the right or wrong thing? Well, if you walk into the right bar in Reno you can meet the little devil who leads you astray in person. She’s a brunette.
I-50 through Nevada is quite easily the most desolate piece of highway I have ever been across. About 200 miles in, and with only a crazy preacher-man on the radio, I’ll admit I started talking to myself a little bit.
However, the I-50 run did include a roadside dinner in Eureka, NV where I ate what was easily the greatest hamburger of my entire life. The service was surly, the order took forever to fill, but I’m considering starting my own religious movement centered on that hamburger.
My skill in comforting a crying baby needs work.
A bar in Utah can’t serve alcohol in a container larger that 4.5 ounces, but a “private club” can serve as much as it likes. Therefore, every bar in Salt Lake City is actually a “private club” They sign you up at the door, membership costs a dollar. I’m now the proud member of no less than four “private clubs.” They don’t seem to have very high standards for members.
At a certain spot in Idaho, you can hit scan on the AM dial and hit four stations in a row all of which are broadcasting Rush Limbaugh.
You can’t buy a beer at a county fair in Wyoming. And they call themselves Americans.
Discussion question. You are driving on the open road, which song do you want to hear?
Sadly, I missed out on my chance at viral video immortality when a Yellowstone buffalo failed to charge a pair of bikers who walked right up and tried to pet it. I was ready with the camera, but the buffalo apparently was just feeling mild that day.
Eastern Utah – Salt. Lots of Salt. And nothing else. Also the area where I came closest to running out of gas. Yikes.
Old Faithful is not actually that faithful. Its eruption schedule is +/- 10 minutes. The rangers are sure to point out that they only predict, they don’t control the geysers.
Never heard the Glenn Beck radio show at any length till now. Man is off his nut.
All of Salt Lake City is laid out on the LDS Temple. The streets are numbered in relation to the temple. 800 South Street is eight blocks south of the temple, 2400 east is 24 blocks east of the temple and so on.
I can still put up a tent in the dark. The old boy scout skills are still with me.
You know when you have to decide something and a little angel and a little devil pop up to tell you to do the right or wrong thing? Well, if you walk into the right bar in Reno you can meet the little devil who leads you astray in person. She’s a brunette.
I-50 through Nevada is quite easily the most desolate piece of highway I have ever been across. About 200 miles in, and with only a crazy preacher-man on the radio, I’ll admit I started talking to myself a little bit.
However, the I-50 run did include a roadside dinner in Eureka, NV where I ate what was easily the greatest hamburger of my entire life. The service was surly, the order took forever to fill, but I’m considering starting my own religious movement centered on that hamburger.
My skill in comforting a crying baby needs work.
A bar in Utah can’t serve alcohol in a container larger that 4.5 ounces, but a “private club” can serve as much as it likes. Therefore, every bar in Salt Lake City is actually a “private club” They sign you up at the door, membership costs a dollar. I’m now the proud member of no less than four “private clubs.” They don’t seem to have very high standards for members.
At a certain spot in Idaho, you can hit scan on the AM dial and hit four stations in a row all of which are broadcasting Rush Limbaugh.
You can’t buy a beer at a county fair in Wyoming. And they call themselves Americans.
Discussion question. You are driving on the open road, which song do you want to hear?
January 16, 2009
Strange Happy World
How odd is it that the most happy, uplifting, restore-your-faith in people headline of the week is a frackin Plane Crash?
January 14, 2009
Everyone, Tell Your Bush Story
So imagine your old college drinking buddy, the First Daughter, has invited you over to her place for dinner and a movie. With, you know, her folks. Imagine that as you roll into the Secrete Service checkpoint you realize that you still have half a joint in the ashtray and the duct tape holding your rear window on decides to let go ...
So begins a pretty damn good close encounter with the President story. If you have any such story, now is the time to tell it. They are going to be less valuable in less than a week (Yea!) and we need all the insight into who this man was and what went so terribly wrong.
So begins a pretty damn good close encounter with the President story. If you have any such story, now is the time to tell it. They are going to be less valuable in less than a week (Yea!) and we need all the insight into who this man was and what went so terribly wrong.
January 6, 2009
December 23, 2008
November 14, 2008
What Just Happened?
Via Ezra, a really interesting write-up on the financial meltdown. Even the people right there in it could not believe or even understand what was happening. I kid about the whole mattress thing, but this story makes me want to never allow anyone to "manage" my money ever again. I need to read me some Liar's Poker.
July 22, 2008
Wait, what? She dies?
Ok, I’m going to wax philosophical for a bit about pop culture. The following contains massive spoilers for both Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and The Dark Knight, so don’t read if you don’t want to know.
Both of this last weekend’s entertainments revolve around the death of the love interest. Rachel is killed in The Dark Knight and Penny is killed in Dr. Horrible. Some of the people I recommended Dr. Horrible to have been complaining about that whole kill Penny thing. Christopher Orr in fact, complains about Joss Whedon’s tendency to kill the cutie in all his work. I’ve bitched a bit myself about TV’s tendency to kill the well-liked for the sake of drama. Prison Break is dead to me after Sara Tancredi’s death, for example. But I’m going to defend both deaths this weekend as needed for the sake of arc, character, and story. Rachel’s death in The Dark Knight is a key step in the transformation of the noble Harvey Dent into the evil Two-Face. Dent is shown as a paragon of virtue, or as close as we get in the cynical world of Dark Knight (Batman is an Anti-Hero, and gets more Anti- each time) Such a man is not going to brought into darkness with small tragedies or little autocracies. Major tragedy is the only way to go, and the death of love is the tragedy we get. Notice how while Dent falls into darkness and madness, Batman, who also loves Rachel, does not. He even holds to his code and spares the Joker. That’s because Batman is already half in shadow and madness. It’s where he lives.
I think the bad reaction people are having to the end of Dr. Horrible is that they think they are being served up a romantic-comedy when in fact; Joss and company have cooked up a tragedy. I was thrown off too, what with the singing, “My hammer is my penis” and “Bad Horse.” The rom-com/ tragedy split goes as follows: Dr. Horrible can either end up with the girl, or in the Evil League of Evil, but not both. Penny is literally too good for him, with her homeless shelter and her frozen yogurt. In the rom-com ending, Penny steps out from under cover to stop Dr. Horrible from zapping Captain Hammer and Dr. Horrible stops, because he realizes that he loves Penny more than he loves his Super-Villainy. It ends with a big kiss with a line of dancing extras behind them. Of course, in the tragic ending we actually get, Dr. Horrible still realizes that he loves Penny more than Super-Villainy. Just too late.
That’s how tragedies go.
But in the tragic ending we get to see Bad Horse. And guess what, Bad Horse turned out to be a real horse! How great is that?
Oh and the title line come from the TV Without Pity recap and is about the most perfect reaction line I ever read over there.
Both of this last weekend’s entertainments revolve around the death of the love interest. Rachel is killed in The Dark Knight and Penny is killed in Dr. Horrible. Some of the people I recommended Dr. Horrible to have been complaining about that whole kill Penny thing. Christopher Orr in fact, complains about Joss Whedon’s tendency to kill the cutie in all his work. I’ve bitched a bit myself about TV’s tendency to kill the well-liked for the sake of drama. Prison Break is dead to me after Sara Tancredi’s death, for example. But I’m going to defend both deaths this weekend as needed for the sake of arc, character, and story. Rachel’s death in The Dark Knight is a key step in the transformation of the noble Harvey Dent into the evil Two-Face. Dent is shown as a paragon of virtue, or as close as we get in the cynical world of Dark Knight (Batman is an Anti-Hero, and gets more Anti- each time) Such a man is not going to brought into darkness with small tragedies or little autocracies. Major tragedy is the only way to go, and the death of love is the tragedy we get. Notice how while Dent falls into darkness and madness, Batman, who also loves Rachel, does not. He even holds to his code and spares the Joker. That’s because Batman is already half in shadow and madness. It’s where he lives.
I think the bad reaction people are having to the end of Dr. Horrible is that they think they are being served up a romantic-comedy when in fact; Joss and company have cooked up a tragedy. I was thrown off too, what with the singing, “My hammer is my penis” and “Bad Horse.” The rom-com/ tragedy split goes as follows: Dr. Horrible can either end up with the girl, or in the Evil League of Evil, but not both. Penny is literally too good for him, with her homeless shelter and her frozen yogurt. In the rom-com ending, Penny steps out from under cover to stop Dr. Horrible from zapping Captain Hammer and Dr. Horrible stops, because he realizes that he loves Penny more than he loves his Super-Villainy. It ends with a big kiss with a line of dancing extras behind them. Of course, in the tragic ending we actually get, Dr. Horrible still realizes that he loves Penny more than Super-Villainy. Just too late.
That’s how tragedies go.
But in the tragic ending we get to see Bad Horse. And guess what, Bad Horse turned out to be a real horse! How great is that?
Oh and the title line come from the TV Without Pity recap and is about the most perfect reaction line I ever read over there.
February 17, 2007
YouTube of the Day
Kevin Smith talks about his involvement in the Superman Movie project. Profanity ahead.
June 2, 2006
Road Trip
Planning on a road trip this summer? Do I have idea for you:
The Mongol Rally
Its a London to Ulaanbaatar road rally. No cars with an engine bigger than 1 liter (i.e. total crap only). Last year 43 cars left and 27 reached Mongolia. Two teams were robbed at knife point, one car broke in two, and three people were banned from the nation of Turkmenistan for a year. Nobody died. Good Times.
You can follow the exploits of a New York based team on their blog. They plan to play Rock the Casbah when they reach Mongolia. I love it. The rest of their respective 200-hour-long music playlists are being sumitted to an arbitration committee. They just posted a picture of the car. They are so doomed.
The Mongol Rally
Its a London to Ulaanbaatar road rally. No cars with an engine bigger than 1 liter (i.e. total crap only). Last year 43 cars left and 27 reached Mongolia. Two teams were robbed at knife point, one car broke in two, and three people were banned from the nation of Turkmenistan for a year. Nobody died. Good Times.
You can follow the exploits of a New York based team on their blog. They plan to play Rock the Casbah when they reach Mongolia. I love it. The rest of their respective 200-hour-long music playlists are being sumitted to an arbitration committee. They just posted a picture of the car. They are so doomed.
December 30, 2005
Smart/Dumb
At the heart of every good story there is an act of profound stupidity. You really have to earn a good story. Sometimes the dumb act is just leaving your house that day. Sometimes you have to try harder. This kid has a hell of a story, and he really earned it. Farris Hassan, 16, whose parents are from Iraq but who was born and raised Stateside, went all the way to Baghdad to write an essay on Iraq for a class. This kid will actually make a great reporter some day. Great reporters, who we rely on to know what goes on in places like Iraq, are a perfect combination of smart and dumb. Smart enough to write well, dumb enough to go to places like Iraq. So this kid was smart enough to get to Baghdad with some milk money and no Arabic, but dumb enough to try it. Perfect.
September 29, 2005
What's Cool
I know you all are wondering to know what's cool and what's not. Luckily I'm here to let you know.
Serenity: Very Cool. I am pretty big booster of this movie. As you may have noticed, I've had a "Can't Stop the Signal" banner ad for this movie up for a while now. It comes from a short lived but very good tv show called FireFly. The best description comes from the Weekly Standard of all places "Think of it as Star Wars, if Han Solo were the main character, and he still shot Greedo first."
Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone: Cool. Yahoo is offering this travel blog/multimedia site Featuring one of those roving reporter types going places you never want to go. Check it out.
Commader-in-Chief: Somewhat Cool. All political shows will get a fair hearing here at the Chant. The problem is that West Wing means that we expect shows about the President to be well good. The Slate review says almost everything about it I would have, if I had more time.
John Roberts: Not Cool. I mean he's really powerful and is going to run SCOTUS for the rest of his life, but at least he's not cool.
Serenity: Very Cool. I am pretty big booster of this movie. As you may have noticed, I've had a "Can't Stop the Signal" banner ad for this movie up for a while now. It comes from a short lived but very good tv show called FireFly. The best description comes from the Weekly Standard of all places "Think of it as Star Wars, if Han Solo were the main character, and he still shot Greedo first."
Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone: Cool. Yahoo is offering this travel blog/multimedia site Featuring one of those roving reporter types going places you never want to go. Check it out.
Commader-in-Chief: Somewhat Cool. All political shows will get a fair hearing here at the Chant. The problem is that West Wing means that we expect shows about the President to be well good. The Slate review says almost everything about it I would have, if I had more time.
John Roberts: Not Cool. I mean he's really powerful and is going to run SCOTUS for the rest of his life, but at least he's not cool.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)