01. Flobber Nuggets
02. Funeral Parlor
03. Rabid
04. Wiccan Hayride
05. Kleptomaniac
06. The Downward Spiral
07. Hobos, Coast-to-Coast
08. Shame
09. Short-Order Cook Explosion
10. Splotchy
Category Archives: products i’d like to see
Free Movie Titles! (Romance)
These titles are most suited for love stories.
01. You’ve Got Cancer
02. My Vagina On Ogden
03. I Married A Hooker
04. Our Dogs Like Each Other
05. Mom And Dad Will Be So Mad
06. Phineas H. Loofapuff’s Curious Love Contraption
07. The Ostensibly Erotic Affair
08. Tender Nipples
09. Givin’ It My Best Shot
10. If This Isn’t Love, Then I Don’t Know What Love Is
Free Movie Titles!
This installment focuses on Horror/Suspense
01. Dank
02. The Very Bloody Blood
03. Help! My Head Is About To Explode!
04. The Lady Wore Underpants
05. Death Soybean
06. I Tattoo You To Death
07. Ping Pong Pete
08. Scamper [note: mutant squirrels]
09. Senator Very Deadly
10. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Get Off Your Ass, Vol 1
Hi, here’s an initial list of items, that, while I’ll probably never have the resources, desire or inclination to follow through on, doesn’t mean *you* shouldn’t.
1. Candy Conspiracy Blog
Create a blog which engages in careful, ongoing analysis of the conspiracy of the candy companies to gradually shrink the size of candy bars.
I get angry whenever I pick up a Snickers or a bag of M&M’s, and it’s noticeably smaller than one I got several months prior.
In the back of my mind, I’m always thinking, I am going to save this goddamn wrapper, so I have concrete proof of this maneuvering by these candy-pushers. Of course, I never save the wrapper.
I know Andy Rooney has done this kind of thing with coffee, but screw him.
2. Celebrity Hand Signs – Start a blog devoted to pictures of celebrities giving hand signs — the peace sign, the devil sign, the Latin Kings sign, etc.
3. Far From The Madding Boobs
Film a teenaged sex comedy where two horny adolescents addicted to Internet porn accidentally get sent back in time into the Victorian era, and spend most of their time trying to get a look at Victorian boobies. I mean, who doesn’t love Victorian boobies?
4. Hail To The Beef
Broadcast a reality show where the members of rock ‘n roll group Radiohead work at a Detroit McDonald’s. Wouldn’t you like Thom Yorke being harrassed about the amount of ice he put in a customer’s Diet Coke?
5. pure joy
A Feelies reunion already. C’mon.
A Great Role For Peter Bogdanovich
I have this great role for Peter Bogdanovich in a low-budget slasher movie.
It goes like this…
He plays an insufferable film director who can’t stop name-dropping other famous directors he has met.
Just as he launches into a story about how he once refereed a ping pong game between Orson Welles and John Ford in a chateau off the French Riviera, the killer sneaks up from behind and strangles him with his own ascot.
The Matrix Reloaded Reloaded
The Matrix Reloaded sucked.
Let me back up.
My wife and I had our first kids, twins, in January of 2003. It was completely overwhelming, which probably does not come as a surprise.
I love going out to see movies, but the birth of our children put that pastime on hold.
The company I work for sent me to Sun Microsystems’ JavaOne Conference in May, 2003, in San Francisco. So, I reluctantly got on a plane and headed for California, temporarily leaving my family behind, as I grappled with semi-cutting-edge computer programming concepts, eating out, going to Amoeba Records on Haight Street, riding a rented bike across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito, etc. Y’know. Work stuff.
One of the things I made sure I did while I was out there was see a movie. The Matrix Reloaded seemed as good a choice as any. Whoa! The cinema near my hotel had an IMAX theater! I had never been to an IMAX movie! It’s like a movie but bigger!
Now, I’m not a scientist of any kind, but based on the limited empirical evidence I have collected, if you see a sucky movie in a theater, it will exponentially suck on an IMAX screen.
I was so pissed off after seeing The Matrix Reloaded that I seriously thought about writing an entire script to replace the godawful story I had just witnessed. Now, I like the first Matrix just fine — it was a pretty good film, not the best I have ever seen, but passable. I just want you to know this so this rewriting idea of mine isn’t construed as any kind of fan fiction. Corrective fiction is probably a more appropriate term.
The bile in my heart eventually subsided, as did my desire to write a whole goddamned script.
Instead of a full script, I’m just going to give you the bare minimum of the plot for my better idea.
Mistakes/Problems in the movie as it is
Problems In The Real World
I thought one of the bigger mistakes of The Matrix Reloaded is that you start out already in the last human city, Zion, something that was only mentioned in the first movie. The filmmakers wasted some suspense they could have generated in a journey to get to the city. And in the opening scenes of this piece o’ crap, you’re in stupid Zion having your time wasted getting introduced to all these lame-ass secondary characters that no one gives a damn about.
Problems In The Matrix
At the end of the first Matrix, Neo can fly. So, he’s pretty much Superman at the opening of Reloaded. Superman is the one of the more boring things in pop culture, being virtually indestructible and all.
My Better Idea
In my idea for The Matrix Reloaded, there will be two parallel story arcs, one in the real world and one in the Matrix.
Story Arc In The Real World
The story arc in the real world consists of Neo’s ship and crew attempting to reach Zion. Neo’s crew are the only humans you see during the majority of the film. NO JADA PINKETT-SMITH.
Now, in my idea, Zion isn’t so easy to reach. Maybe its location changes from time-to-time — maybe it’s a somewhat mobile city to fool the machines. How does Neo’s crew locate Zion? Through a series of clues placed within the Matrix. Which brings us to….
Story Arc In The Matrix
It’s a scavenger hunt in the Matrix for these clues. I’m not sure how I would work the scavenger hunt, but it couldn’t be much worse than what was happening in the Matrix in the sucky original version of Reloaded.
And here’s another thing. The opening scene of my version of the movie would have Neo flying. All of the sudden, some sort of visual distortion or blip would occur, and Neo plummets to the ground. The machines are adjusting the physical laws of the Matrix to combat Neo’s mastery over it.
During the course of the film, the physical laws in the Matrix get reloaded from time to time, and Neo and his crew have to adjust to the changes in order to survive. This reloading could escalate as the film progresses, and result in more and more drastic physical disruptions — changes in gravity, physics, etc. It would be kind of cool that all people oblivious to the fact they are in the Matrix would be affected by the changes in physical laws, but would be unaware something was amiss.
This reloading of physical laws also gets rid of the problem of Neo being Superman — he’s now more vulnerable.
This stuff happening in the Matrix allows me to even keep the original sequel’s title, as the Matrix *is* being reloaded in order to thwart Neo’s’ powers.
The Ending
I haven’t fully fleshed out the ending of my version, but I have a pretty good idea as to how it would play out. Just as Neo and his crew are trying to figure out where Zion is, the machines are also trying to ascertain its location in order to destroy it.
When Neo gets the final clue and reaches Zion, the machines are, through his efforts, also tipped off to the location of Zion. The last line of the movie — “They’re coming.”
Which brings us to the third movie, which I may or may not indulge/bore you with in a subsequent post.
PEACE OUT
The Velveteen Cockroach
Take an impending bug invasion, and reading bedtime stories to my kids, and what do you get?
Synergy, baby.
There was once a velveteen cockroach, and he was really splendid. He was brown and blotchy, with long feelers and skinny little legs. On Christmas morning, he sat wedged in the bottom of Boy’s stocking. He was a gag gift from Boy’s weird uncle.
There were other things in the stocking, nuts and oranges, a toy engine and a velveteen rabbit, but the cockroach was the best of all.
But Boy thought the cockroach was ugly, and dropped him in his toy box. Boy played with Rabbit for two hours. Then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, and the cockroach and the rabbit were forgotten.
For a long time, the cockroach lived in the toy box. He was naturally shy, and being a cockroach, all the other toys shunned him, especially Rabbit. Even the toy horse, who was usually nice to everyone, wouldn’t talk or look at him.
One day, the Rabbit asked the horse, “What is REAL?”
The horse said, “When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
One evening, when the Boy was going to bed, he couldn’t find the dog that always slept with him. Nana was in a hurry, and grabbed Rabbit for Boy from the toy box.
“Here,” she said. “Take this bunny. You can sleep with him.” And she put Rabbit in Boy’s arms.
Nana also saw Cockroach. “What a disgusting toy,” she thought to herself. She took him and threw him in the trash outside. Nana did not see that Cockroach bounced out of the trash onto the dirty ground.
Boy and Rabbit grew very close. They did everything together. Sometimes they would walk past Cockroach, who was getting dirtier and dirtier, and was very, very sad.
As time went on, and Rabbit was very happy, he didn’t notice his fur getting shabbier and shabbier. For the cockroach, who still lay on the dirty ground, sadness gave way to hate.
One day the boy grew very ill. Nana took the rabbit because the doctor said it was full of germs, and threw it in the garbage when Boy was sleeping.
Cockroach looked at Rabbit. In a dirty leg he picked up a tiny shard of glass. Cockroach crept toward Rabbit, who was starting to cry because he missed Boy.
With a quick slash, Cockroach sliced Rabbit from his neck to his tummy.
“Barrgggghhhhhhhh!” said Rabbit. He was dead.
Cockroach grabbed Rabbit’s carcass and pulled it over his insect body. As Rabbit’s pelt settled onto Cockroach’s head and back, a tear dripped from Rabbit’s fur on to the dirty ground.
From where the tear fell on the ground, a mysterious flower grew. A blossom opened and a lovely fairy stepped out.
“Do you know who I am, little bunny?” she asked.
Cockroach was quiet.
“I am the toy fairy,” she said. “I take care of toys that children have loved. When they are old and worn and the children don’t need them any more, I make them Real.”
“You were Real to the Boy,” the Fairy said, “because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to every one.”
She waved her wand, and in a flash, Cockroach was real!
“What the?” the toy fairy said. “Rabbit? Rabbit? Hmm. This usually works.” Fairy shrugged her shoulders and disappeared in a shower of sparkles.
Autumn passed and Winter, and in the Spring, when the days grew warm and sunny, boy was in his kitchen.
“Agh!” Nana cried. “A cockroach!”
Boy grabbed a dictionary and smashed the bug into goo.
But he never knew that it really was his own Cockroach, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real.
THE END
Sympathy Ear For The Radio Nurse
I have what I think is kind of a cool idea for a website, but I doubt how much use it would be for people. I know it would sometimes really come in handy for me, at least.
Here’s the void it would fill. Have you ever had a piece of a song, a melody in your head, but you didn’t know where it was from? It’s one thing if you have a scrap of lyrics that you can take to Google. But, what if you don’t know any of the lyrics? What if the song doesn’t have any lyrics?
There are already some services out there to help you. SongTapper purports to be able to identify a song simply by the rhythm you tap with your keyboard. 411-SONG and Tunatic have you feed them an actual sample of the song, where they will, through some matching algorithm and a giant database of music samples, determine the song you are trying to identify.
I tried SongTapper, but the songs I would have submitted weren’t recognized (it got the Itchy and Scratchy theme from the Simpsons right off the bat, though). And, though I realize the benefits of being able to immediately identify a song as you’re hearing it, I usually find myself in the situation where I am trying to identify a song I am remembering, rather than a song that I am hearing at the moment. In this kind of situation, I don’t have a sound sample of the song to submit to anyone, I just have my own memory and warbly voice.
What I’d like to design and implement is a bulletin-board type website, where people can post sound files of themselves humming, whisting, etc., out a piece of a song, for purposes of having other people on the web help them identify it.
Would this be a useful service? Have you ever had a melody or song in your head and wished there was some way to identify it? Or does this just happen to me?
I actually went so far as to buy a domain name for this idea of mine. I thought I’d call the site “Sympathy Ear For The Radio Nurse”, after seeing an Antiques Roadshow that showed the first baby monitor (the invention of which was prompted by the Lindbergh baby kidnapping). That was the name of the product. I am a sucker for the pithy phrase, I guess.
I think it would be quite a bit of work to develop this website, especially with all the ideas and snags that I am envisioning. I was thinking an alternative to this could be that this blog could serve this niche. I could post sound files from myself, and potentially others, for the purpose of soliciting identification.
I’ll give you a few sound samples. Pardon my crappy renditions, but these are the kind of sound files I would realistically expect that would be submitted for identification.
I know the answers to 1-3, but only after someone told me after I sang/hummed them the part. I still don’t know #4. PLEASE HELP ME IDENTIFY IT. I’ll follow up with samples of the real songs for Mystery Songs 1-3 for your listening pleasure.
Mystery Song 1 – This is probably very obvious now, especially after various commercials using this song, as well as it being present in Kill Bill Vol. 1. But, lemme tell you, I was in musical limbo a long time before I knew the name and artist of this song.
Mystery Song 2 – I probably have heard this song in other places, but I really noticed it when I was watching John Carpenter’s Christine. I never thought to look at the damned credits to figure out what song it was. I was in a bar when a DJ cured my ignorance regarding this tune. A happy day!
Mystery Song 3 – This song popped in my head just yesterday. Thankfully, a friend of mine was able to fill in the blanks for me.
Mystery Song 4 – I know there is that Rod Stewart song, “Some Guys Have All The Luck” where there’s a background vocal very similar (if not identical) to this. But I’m thinking there’s some 50’s song that has this. Am I crazy? If someone can answer this, all my blogging will have been worthwhile.
Mutually Assured Destruction
Revisiting all these old arcade games popped an idea in my head.
If a bar has an old school videogame, it will usually be Ms. Pacman or Galaga.
So, I made this picture for some unknown reason. I think it would be a nice t-shirt, assuming someone other than me improved upon the graphic design of it.
It’s a pretty piss-poor picture, but there’s a nice idea in there somewhere.
Any takers?
If You See This Bumper Sticker, Get Me One
