I don’t want the job, just the job title presented in this headline:
I mean, really. “Reality Chief”. That speaks of such power. I AM IN CHARGE OF REALITY, AND WHAT I SAY, GOES!
If you find a job application for that slot, let me know. I would like to be so dubbed.
Now working on a meatloaf with:
I wanted to add barbecue sauce, but looking at the sheer amount of sodium in the above - certainly more than 200% of the recommended daily allowance - I had to shy away. Watching the blood pressure, doncha know. And it’s not that I’m going to eat the whole meatloaf all by myself in one sitting, but I do consume hearty amounts of these things pretty quickly.
It’s now sitting in the fridge, and I’ll put it in the oven about halfway through Xanadu (never saw it before, got a kid who likes musicals, and it was on sale with a free ticket for Mama Mia! for about 20 cents more than buying a ticket for Mama Mia!, which Mrs. Nat’s TV wanted to see. Plus, it came with a free soundtrack CD, so if the wee lass likes it, we got a bargain.)
Added later: At least a medium success here. The result is definitely food, and nicely edible food. It is not, however, quite meatloaf. It came out too moist and soft to really invoke “meatloaf” in the mind. And considering the small amount of salmon present, that really is the strong central taste factor, which works (and means the barbecue sauce would likely have been a mistake). Plus, we all get to play “guess which Peanuts character is in this bite!”
There are folks seriously propagating the theory that one of this year’s presidential candidates is the AntiChrist. Not just not good, unwise, even evil. The biblically-prophesied Beast of Revelations
Now, this has happened with presidential candidates before. If you see it as a mere smearing of the candidate, it’s understandable. But if you see it as a factual claim: what’s the goal? It seems like they want you to not vote for the AntiChrist.
But if you buy the biblical prophesy, then the rise of the Beast is inevitable. Not only that, it’s desirable. You want all the good things that come with the End Times - the Second Coming, the Rapture - they’re all part of the package. You may not want to eat your armageddon brussel sprouts, but you can’t have your Kingdom of Heaven chocolate cake with a scoop of ice cream until you do… so you might as well get it out of the way.
And with that in mind, I’ve prepped some campaign items - t-shirts, bumper stickers, yard signs, buttons - for those who follow this logic, and want to support the effort. Feel free to order some, and to spread the word!
I was at some point going to write a big, long, antiOlympic rant here, but I think I’ll skip taking the time. (I’m not against athletics or human achievement, but I miss what nations have to do with it. The Olympics pits nation against nation, and that’s how it’s tracked. It’s filled with ugly politics, as nations compete for propoganda victories on something besides how well they treat their residents and their neighbors.) I don’t watch the games, and wish they weren’t happening.
But that doesn’t mean that I can’t find amusement in some of the numbers that come out of it. I got a laugh when a radio story the other day pointed out that at the 2004 games, the gold medal-winning softball team outscored their opponents by a total of 51 to 1. That’s, well, rubbing it in to the whole world.
But for me, that got topped by realizing that this swimmer guy who has 7 gold medals at this point? That’s more than 180-some countries combined.
I think my good friend Evanier is missing the evolution of language when he complains about the depiction of the San Diego Comic-Con as an event loaded with geeks:
I’m not even sure what the word “geek” means in this day and age but it has something to do with being outta-sync with the tastes and interests of the majority.
No, not really. As best as I can judge as a participant in this culture, “geek” has less to do with ones tastes and interests, and more to do with the intensity of one’s involvement, the focus that one has, and the intelligence one brings to it. The term is now less “nerd” and more “wonk”. It may be easier to point to the geekdom in traditionally nerd categories - continuity-centric sci-fi and fantasy material like Battlestar and Buffy seem designed to capture those with geek tendencies. But there are geekdoms built around mainstream fair that is far from being for geeks alone; there are geekdoms for How I Met Your Mother, and CSI, and I’m willing to bet that there’s not only a House geekdom, but that it extends not only into the nerddom of fanfic but all the way into Mary Suism, with House and the other doctors all having fallen so hard for some enchanting young lass that they miss that the way her eyes change color is an important symptom.
And so the Comic-Con is legitimately a geek event, because while it does attract some local onlookers for the day, most of the attendants at any given moment are people who traveled significant distances to spend several days in a row immersing themselves in their pop culture. That is an intensity that takes us beyond the default experience. It makes us (generally proudly) geeks.
(As a not-Evanier-related footnote: folks used to argue that superhero comics should not be considered “mainstream”, because superheroes aren’t mainstream material in the real world. Some folks still try to make that claim. They’re clearly not paying attention to the real world. Of the top 10 grossing films of 2008 to date, numbers 1, 2, 4, and 10 are superhero movies. Superheroes make up about 1/3 of this year’s box office total.)
I’ll admit it, between having hopes on the first run and needing to fill up my monkey-work time with background TV in this writers’ strike-shortened season, I’ve actually seen most of the episodes of The Big Bang Theory. Watching that much, it’s been clear to me that the only time it comes alive is when Sara Gilbert guest-stars. Maybe it’s their long experience together, maybe it’s just some natural chemistry that the makers of Roseanne saw when they put them together… but whatever the reason, that pair works.
The bad news is that Sara won’t be making any more guest appearances. But that’s only faux, ha-ha bad news, because the reason is she’ll become a regular this season. So there’s hope for this show yet!
I had thought there was an earlier title for the Siskel & Ebert series, but couldn’t remember it when writing the previous piece. Luckily, Ebert has a goodbye-to-the-show column up that reminds us of it: Opening Soon at a Theater Near You. Yeah, there’s a title that trips off the tongue and falls on the sidewalk!
But I still don’t understand how this is a goodbye any more than the previous switches.
I also don’t understand how this is at all a smart move for Disney. Yes, simply adding some features to the existing show might conceivably have pumped business somewhat. But it was like they were almost trying to start their own competition that would sap more viewers than their new move would gain.
I guess that’s why I’m not a big-time TV executive.