luxopolis

"Assembling instruction -
Please put the tail of Ymir into the hole at the back of body of Ymir. In case of difficulty in putting together, it is easier to put together by using electric dryer to soften the hole at the back of body of Dragon with heat. Please carefully read electric dryer's safety instruction to avoid any incident." (instructions from my latest action figure)

After playing this.

Whns apan a time thar was a kritee dad named Will Lux. He tike kuritee and cauiag-foo. And one day he bekam a black belt. But one day hes chilldrin and wif wher stelin by a bad pepal castel -- he temed up wheth hes frends. and thea atkt the castal. He yoused hes cauiag-foo and kuritee skills to dafeet them. The end. (from the premier issue of "Kara-fou Dad" by Thomas Lux)

for every time I said "You know what'd really be cool? A game where a Yeti has batting practice with a penquin!". (no actual penguins were harmed during the making of this game)

Courtesy of The Onion

Episode III just got a lot more interesting. (for me at least)

The George W. Bush conspiracy theory generator.

“To be happy at home is the ultimate end of all ambition.” Samuel Johnson

"Space is to humans what Beethoven is to dogs. I don’t think we have the slightest idea what we don’t yet understand." James Lileks

Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?

Warning. Venting steam ahead. Scalding may occur. Seventy-frickin-five dollars and twenty-frackin-five cents for a rassam-frassam pair of #@/:<&! walking shoes!!! Yes, they're New Balance. Yes, I made sure they're the ones that are made in America. Yes, they're better than the $25 shoes I could get at Wal-Mart (although I don't think they're three times better). Yes, I know I don't know how good I got it. But great Ceasar's ghost, I can get a VCR for less money!

The athletic shoe racket is a scam and a scandle! Everyone knows it, but whaddaya gonna do? Go barefoot? One day soon a company will start to make quality footwear at a profit that is merely outrageous as opposed to astronomical. On that day the dam will break, the tide will turn, and the metaphor will mix! And yea, vengeance shall be swift and terrible! The wrath of the Consumers-with-long-memories is coming and Nike et. al should be very very afraid.

Pressure has returned to acceptable levels. It is now safe to continue browsing.

This question has been sticking in my craw for a while so I'm taking a poll. Here are the parameters:

• This should be a movie most people would've heard of. Lots of obscure straight-to-video movies are plenty bad but no one really expects them to be great and their awfulness can be part of their charm. (So no nominations for 'Revenge of the Ninjas IV - this time it's more personal than last time', please)

• The movie's financial success (or lack thereof) should be irrelevant. If you nominate Heavan's Gate it should be because you think it stinks on ice, not because it flopped more spectacularly than other movies. Inversely, if you think a mega-successful movie is overrated in relation to its box office take, that doesn't necessarily make it the worst movie ever. 'Independence Day' didn't deserve to make as much money as it did but if you really think it's the worse than 'Gigli' you'd better be prepared to explain yourself.

• No porn.

• No art house flicks. Everyone knows they all suck anyway.

• You can nominate up to three movies, the first being the suckiest. Put 'worst movies' in your subject header.

• Votes will be tabulated and a winner (loser) announced in a few weeks.

There may be prizes involved so get busy and good luck!

A while back I posted that I was having trouble with the zipper on my winter coat and hypothsteerized (sp?) that it might be part of a broader terrorist plot. I asked you to email me with your experiences and said I'd post the results. Well the response has been overwhelming and I'm happy to share those results now:

• 73 respondents urge me to refinance my mortgage online.

• 15,036 respondents wish to sell me Xanax and/or Viagra.

• gogrrrl38 wants to introduce me to my new Russian bride.

I think the figures speak for themselves and I won't insult your intelligence by connecting the dots for you, the only question (and I'm sure you're thinking the same thing) is: Now what?

This morning, after dropping the kids off at school, I went to Shop 'N Save for groceries. Selection was fine, prices were fine, service was fine. A trifecta of abnormality. As I was checking out, a checker from another lane asked my checker what she thought of the self-serve scanners they were installing down at the other end of the store. She said she didn't like them, then mumbled under her breath about them (the scanners) taking their (the checkers) jobs. Then I went over to the bagging area. I had just put all my groceries into the cart, then taken all my groceries out of the cart to put them on the belt so the checker could put them back in the cart. Now I was taking them all out of the cart so I could bag them myself to put them back in my cart for the trip to the van where I would take them back out of the cart to load them in the van for the trip home where I would take them out of the van and into the house so I could take them out of the bags and put them away. (I'm going to stop here, but I will say that the groceries eventually wind up in the toilet.)

Anyway, I had been thinking about the checkers and their jobs when I was at Target later in the day. I selected a few items and went to the checkout lanes. One lane was lit up with no customers and no checker so I went there. I laid my stuff down and looked around to see which of the sedentary employees was my lucky checker. There was one who looked up and saw me but turned back to finish her conversation with her friend so I figured she wasn't the one (hint: she was the one). So when she's good and done she turns and starts waaalkin' oooover like she's on the bottom of a pool. She checks me out and "rings me up" (which is retail lingo for "process your damn credit card your own damn self") and after I've signed my name on the touchscreen (which invariably makes my signature look like an Iranian seismic reading), then THEN she calls for a price check on one of the items that I thought she'd already checked. Thus begins the drama of the dreaded price check. Underwater lady tries to get the attention of the supervisor by calling for her (but not so loud that she could actually hear her 'cause that might attract the attention of one of the seven people in between her and the supervisor). Later that afternoon, the supervisor comes over, hears the story, and calls for the price check on her walkie-talkie (hint: there's really not any 'walkie' involved). Now the whole thing starts looking like the Mars mission with the NASA geeks huddled over their terminals desperately waiting for a signal, a sign, anything. Now the whole thing stops looking like the Mars mission when nothing else happens and it dawns on me: they're not really prepared to have the consumers actually buy the inventory in their store. After a suitable interval I left without my stuff (including a really cool 18" Spider-Man action figure with 67(!) points of articulation).

So what? Well one of the reasons for this post is to vent some steam. I'd rather be here than any other country and yes, I know how good I have it both globally and historically. It's just that being a consumer is extra-double-sucky when there's no good reason for all the stupidity and inconvenience blah blah blah yakkity yak. The other reason is that I really do wonder where we're headed as a society that is increasingly based on producing and acquiring goods and services as opposed to, say, farming or industry. In five years time will you push your cart of groceries through one big scanner with no human checker at all? Would they have been better off in the long run not to strike? Will everyone have to check their own groceries? Will underground tubes bring them to your house? Will it be better or worse? Will we be hunting rocks for dinner? Will they ever come back with that price check? Not only do I not have answers, I don't even have opinions at this point. Just anxiety.

for every time I said "You know, we're overdue for a martial arts movie from the Netherlands"

in Texas

Kucinich Shows Pie-Chart on Radio Debate

is not my cuppa tea (for the most part). But there are kernals of wisdom among the Libertarian bullets that fly in this particular rant.