The hegemonic
ideology of the ruling class, Antonio Gramsci once observed, becomes
all too much like the "air we breathe." It comes to define the "common
sense"of ordinary daily consciouness and experience, with tragic
consequences all around.

Here is a small and childish example.

Flipping
through the television clicker one morning, I recently I happened upon
"Sesame Street" (SS), the venerable educational PBS series for pre- and
early grade-school children.

The
morning’s lesson was on the just and inviolable nature of socioeconomic
inequity and the sanctity of private property and possessive
individualism.

At
the point I clicked on the program, two very concerned and mature
adults — a black man and a black woman, both in their 40s it appeared
— were listening with raised eyebrows to a blue puppet animal
("Cookie Monster" perhaps) who had just designated himself
"Cookie-Hood." "Cookie-Hood" was a play on Robin Hood.

"Cookie
Hood" had just come to the alarming (for him) realization that "some
people have lots more cookies than they need" while "other people have
no cookies at all."

That’s
a prescient observation in the industrialized world’s most unequal and
wealth-top-heavy society, where the top 1 percent owns at least 40
percent of total wealth and more than 1 million black children are
growing up at less than half the federal government’s notoriously low
and inadequate poverty level.

The
solution, "Cookie-Hood" announced, is to take the surplus cookies away
from the wealthy few and give them away to the poor, cookie-less many.
Imagine!

"Hooray!" the other puppet animals shouted. 

The
two adults were not pleased.  "That," the father figure sternly
intoned, "is stealing." And "stealing is wrong," he elaborated,
"because it means taking something that doesn’t belong to you."

No
room, of course, in the SS script for why the cookie-less exist in the
first place: because of societal dispossession, repression, and, well,
theft.  No room for moral outrage at the fact that masses of
cookie-less are born into a world they never made where billions go
hungry and ill-housed while a wealthy minority lives surrounded by
extravegant opulence.  No sense of justice in the demand of equal
cookies for all.

"Cookie-Hood"
felt sad and ashamed.  He thought he’d been doing something good and
just, but really he’d been doing something wrong.

He’d been stealing cookies that didn’t belong to him!  Bad cookie puppet!!

The other puppet animals were confused.

What to do now?  And what about the cookie-less?

Not to worry!  Semase Street’s wise and benevolent adults had a solution.

The
solution is….currency.  Puppets and people don’t have to steal
cookies from the rich because, the father figure explained, "we can all
go to the store and buy cookies." Yes, all of can us get as many
cookies as we want with a magical medium
called…..drumroll…ta-da….MONEY.

Because everybody’s got money, right?

Money is equality.

Who needs Robin Hoods when we’ve all got that great universal leveller and destoyer of hiearchy and inequality called money.

Three cheers for money!  Hooray for the means of exchange!

"Cookie-Hood"
(Cookie-Monster?) was happy because he remembered that he just gotten
his allowance.  He held up a little bag of coins and shouted, "Hooray,
let’s go the store and buy cookies."

He
wasn’t worried anymore about whether other people have enough cookies.
Now he just cared about getting his own.  He knew that other people get
money (allowances) too.

Before going to the store, however, Cookie-Hood had to take back the surplus cookies he’d stolen from the privileged few.

I
was left to wonder how long it will take Cookie-Hood to figure out that
some few people’s allowances are 500 and more times bigger than other
peoples’ allowances.

Here’s
my idea for a future SS episode: "Cookie Hood changes his name to
‘Money Hood’ and Robs a Bank." The adults can send "Money Hood" back to
the bank with his ill-gotten green, explaining to him that people don’t
have to steal money….they just have to get jobs.

Everyone knows that jobs pay a lot of money to everyone who wants to work, right?

Hooray for jobs.  Get a job!

The
next show after that can deal with the blue puppet animal’s childish
struggle against the authoritarian structure of the capitalist labor
process.

Jurassic Park IV: The Gunnening

The following is neither fictional nor a joke: Jurassic Park IV is in the
works, and it is about a squad of dinosaurs who have been trained by the
government to kill people with firearms.

As in guns.

Maybe this is happening because no one would have taken Jurassic Park IV
seriously if it had a more realistic story about dinosaurs who have been cloned
for a fourth time when the first three attempts ended in complete disaster.
Maybe the filmmakers realized they’d get paid either way and said
"fuck it, let’s go for the Snakes On A Plane angle" although that
movie was also a complete disaster.

Either way, it’s happening and there’s nothing you can do about it
aside from signing an online petition to provide others with a few moments of
laughter. One question begs to be asked: If this is the plot that was decided
on, what horrible ideas didn’t get the green light?

Jurassic
Park IV: Bones Of Contention

A religious group that believes dinosaur fossils are a fabrication of modern
science clones their dead leader with a DNA sample that he left on an abortion
clinic’s front window mere days before his death. This man appears on
24-hour news networks in a series of heated debates with a velociraptor who
insists dinosaurs actually roamed the earth.

Against all odds, the two set aside their beliefs and become steadfast
friends after they unknowingly schedule book signings in the same store on the
same day. When the two go on a fateful hunting trip together and come across a
group of the religious leader’s old friends, he must choose which side to
hunt on and which side to kill.

Jurassic Park IV: Terrorspawn

When terrorists begin cloning Tyrannosaurus Rexes en masse and releasing
them near major U.S. landmarks, the government responds by resurrecting another
extinct species to battle them: silver trout.

Feel your patriotic heart beat stronger and faster than ever before as
millions of trout face off against thousands of T-Rexes in some of the most
stunning cgi sequences ever rendered. Featuring the same procedural animation
software that powered the Mordor and Helms Deep battles in the Lord Of The
Rings trilogy, as is evident in the climactic scene where a handful of trout
were mistakenly rendered as orcs.

Jurassic Park IV: Dinosaurs Dinosaurs Dinosaurs

A thought-provoking biopic that examines the life of Jacob Collamer, the
16th postmaster general of the U.S. Postal Service. Involves no dinosaurs
whatsoever.

Jurassic Park IV: Badminton To The Bone

In this wacky sports comedy, the world’s greatest badminton player, S.H.
Uttlecock, is at the top of his game. He rests easy at night in the Rolls Royce
that’s parked in one of his mansion’s many bedrooms, confident that no
one can match his skills. No one, that is, but a pterodactyl that has been
trained by the U.S. government to beat the British at their own game.

As their rivalry heats up, the laughs keep a comin’! Starring Will
Ferrell as the pterodactyl.

Jurassic Park IV: Hitmanosaur

A baby brontosaurus survives the original Jurassic Park incident, only to be
discovered by the Europe’s most sadistic crime boss. For the next fifteen
years he is trained to be a master of disguise, capable of pulling off
impossible assassinations while remaining practically invisible. Now only one
man (Jason Statham) can stop him.

Features an unforgettable scene in which the brontosaurus stomps on Louis
Farrakhan in the middle of the Million Man March, then ducks behind a phone
booth to replace his suit and bow tie with a National Park Service uniform
before receding into the crowd.

Jurassic
Park IV: Before Extinction

Trained by the government to adopt vaguely liberal ideologies and discuss
philosophical concepts at length, a male and female brachiosaurus meet by
chance on a European train and disembark together in Vienna.

Knowing they will likely never meet each other again, they open up and share
their innermost thoughts and secrets as they meander through the city for one
magical night. Featuring Mike Meyers as the voice of Mike Meyers’ Scottish
ghost.

Jurassic Park IV: Hollywood Attacks

When a film producer options the rights to John Hammonds’ failed theme
park, he hires a screenwriter to copy the plot of WE3, a comic about a
small group of animals who have been trained by the government to kill with
futuristic weaponry.

Ends in a confusing finale in which actual dinosaurs with guns attack fake
dinosaurs with actual guns who are filming the movie-within-a-movie while Jeff
Goldblum wrestles with his clone on a conveyer belt that slowly draws them both
closer to a gigantic blade which is used by editors to splice frames of
film.

In retrospect, maybe a movie about dinosaurs with guns isn’t so bad.
Just keep telling yourself that when you come across a movie poster that reads,
"Guns don’t kill people, dinosaurs kill people" next spring.

The internet world was rocked this weekend when a new program, Wikipedia
Scanner, confirmed that corporations habitually edit their own Wikipedia
entries to whitewash criticism and add their PR spin. Worse yet, governmental
organizations have been caught tampering with the entries for various political
figures and subjects. These revelations come as a great blow to Wikipedia, who
has seen its utopian purpose thwarted by the sleazy hands of capitalism and
propaganda.

Initial reports revealed that Microsoft had tampered with information
regarding the failure rate of the Xbox 360; WalMart had put a happy spin on
their low wages; the FBI had removed photos of Guantanamo Bay, and the Vatican
had removed controversial articles about Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.

These early reports only scratch the surface of this incredibly deep, broad,
tall, stout and husky issue. Through extensive use of Wikipedia Scanner,
Something Awful can exclusively reveal the following shocking bombshells:

The
McDonalds corporation repeatedly removed information detailing
Grimace’s heroin addiction and his possible connection to the murder of his
former girlfriend, Playboy model Shannon Tweed.

Singer Geddy
Lee painstakingly edited the entry for his band Rush, modifying over
seven hundred references to his unusually high voice. A typical edit changed
the text "Lee is known for his unusually high voice" to "Some
people say Geddy Lee has an unusually high voice, but scientifically, if you
look at it with waves and spectrums and stuff, his voice is really pretty
average and not especially high, it’s much more of an average male
masculine voice. Lots of people are jealous of his voice because it has good
tone, and those people try to deride Geddy Lee by saying his voice is really
high, but actually it’s a pretty normal voice, and he’s not sensitive
about his voice but he often has to correct people when they say it’s high,
because it’s not, and anybody who has heard his speaking voice will tell
you that it’s pretty normal, not too high, not too low."

Reports indicate that
Dracula regularly scoured his own Wikipedia page, removing any
information that might indicate he was fictional.

The Danish
Parliament, in an apparent practical joke, entirely swapped the full text
of the entries for Norway and Sweden. After two years, this change has yet to
be reverted.

The
Republican National Committee removed twelve paragraphs of well-cited
evidence that Mitt Romney is a cannibal, replacing it with the lyrics to
John Cougar Mellencamp’s 1986 hit Heartland Eagle.

American hate
group Society for Aryan Dominance peppered the biography of George
Washington Carver with subtle implications that he was a white man in
disguise.

Nintendo
removed links to articles detailing a July, 2007 incident in which an unsecured
Wii remote was thrown clean through a baby.

Sources within
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. modified the entry about deceased
wrestler Chris Benoit, claiming that his homicidal rampage was not a result of
steroid use but of addiction to the fictional street drug "Nuke,"
featured prominently in the plot of Robocop II.

The CIA
made numerous edits to the entry about Dracula, each time adding copious
evidence to indicate that he is a fictional character.

The campaign
office of presidential hopeful John McCain merged the candidate’s
article with the entries for Santa Claus, new socks, springtime, kittens and
Star Wars.

Bottled
water manufacturer Perrier added several paragraphs of incorrect
information to the entry on competitor San Pellegrino:

Pellegrino bottling process is known as the toenail shit water. Ten
million bottles of shit water produce every year from Pellegrino, and many get
sick and die. Most water come from the toilets of the retard.

Water is then mixed from the rusty hose, then the water is filtered
through the armpit of the prostitute and into the mouth of old man, and old man
he spit the water into face of granny, mix with the dribble of granny then spit
into jar of the rotten teeth, where it sit for several months to fester and
they add fresh worms every week.

They bring the water then to Satan, who does the reverse blessing on the
water, making it so anyone who drink of the water is condemned to the hell.
Green bottles for the water is then crafted from the bones of the Nazis who are
hang for war crimes. Pellegrino is voted #1 drink of the pedophile
shithead.

Captain America is dead. Gunned down on the steps of a courthouse as he was about to testify against the kingpin of The Gang That Guns People Down On Courthouse Steps in the latest issue of his comic, our most patriotic of superheroes has departed this world for the big America in the sky. Marvel hinted that a new person may step in to take his place in the future, but the original man behind the mask, Steve Rogers, is gone for good.

In memory of the Captain America we all grew up with, let us reflect upon some of his finest comic book appearances and hope that there are bad guys in heaven just waiting to be pummeled with a shield.

"Captain America Vs. The Nasis"

Captain America vol. 1 #23

Having punched every Nazi in Germany square in the face at least once, Captain America returns to the U.S. and looks up "Nazi" in his phone book. This leads to Cap mistakenly squaring off against an innocent middle class family with the unfortunate last name of "Nasi".

Key Moment

Mitch Nasi: You’re going to punch my dog too? It’s bad enough that you assaulted my wife and children!
Captain America: Sorry, Fritz! I guess now the only trick your mutt will know is (uppercuts) PLAY DEAD!
Mitch Nasi: That was my daughter again!

"Attack Of The Impossibly Large Spider-Man"

Captain America vol. 1 #137

When one of Spider-Man’s scientific experiments goes horribly wrong, he becomes 74 feet tall! And evil! Will the combined forces of Captain America and the Falcon be enough to stop the gigantic webbed wonder? How does the mysterious appearance of 74 foot tall photographer Peter Parker tie into everything?

Key Moment

Captain America: Sweet liberty, Spider-Man, you’re huge!
Spider-Man: Mmmph mrrlph! (eating The Falcon)
Captain America: I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying. Just wait until you’ve swallowed.
Spider-Man: Glrrg mmsh? (opens his mouth wide to display the half-chewed mush that was once The Falcon)
Captain America: Yuck! Why you… I just ate! I JUST ATE!

"Behind Bars"

Captain America vol. 1 #260

During a field trip to Alcatraz with the Avengers, Captain America steps inside an old prison cell to pose for a picture - and gets left behind for the weekend!

Key Moment

Captain America: Man, I hate prison. Boooring

"Captain America Defends His Horrible Choice Of Wallpaper"

Captain America vol. 1 #299

When Captain America decorates his room with yellow wallpaper spotted with crude caricatures of disembodied heads, the Avengers respond with revulsion. Who will win this battle of the wills?

Key Moment

Iron Man: I’m just saying, have some consideration for the people you live with.
Captain America: This is my room! You guys got on my case when I had the fire sprinkler installed and now you’re bugging me about this. Get off my case already!
Hawkeye: That was just a lawn sprinkler! And you left it on nonstop for a week!
Captain America: And as I recall, the house didn’t burn down that week. Not even once.

"The Underwhelming Halloween Costume"

Captain America vol. 1 #405

Captain America shows up to a Halloween party dressed in a werewolf mask, hoping to impress the object of his affections with his originality. Instead, he is met with a cold shoulder of doom. Can our hero survive the night of a thousand frights?

Key Moment

Captain America: Yes, I’m telling you that it is a great costume. Do you know what a werewolf is? Maybe you just aren’t familiar with the lore. A werewolf is-
Stacey: I know what a werewolf is. Do you know what an asshole is?
Captain America: I have never heard that word in my life.

"Captain America Vs. The Museum Of Natural History"

Captain America vol. 1 #416

Twenty four pages of pure action as Captain America gives the Museum Of Natural History the beating of a lifetime! You’ve never read an issue as pulse-pounding as this!

Key Moment

Captain America: I… (kicks a T-Rex display over) HATE… (throws his shield through the bones of a giant sloth) HISTORY! (brings both fists down on the head of a blue whale model)

"Shield Of Destiny"

Captain America vol. 3 #9

Captain America’s new talking shield is way better than his old non-talking one, but something doesn’t seem quite right. Can he really trust this shield with his life or is it already too late?

Key Moment

Shieldy: You should just wear sweatpants and a baggy Looney Tunes shirt like, all the time.
Captain America: I dunno, really? You think I should?
Shieldy: Yeah. Yeah, I do. Hey, have you ever thought about quitting this superhero thing and becoming a telemarketer? It’s waaay less risky.

"Changing Teams"

Marvel Versus DC #3

As the DC and Marvel universes square off in a desperate battle for survival, Captain America is traded to the Chicago Bulls for a third round draft pick. Feeling worthless and betrayed by the Marvel universe, will Cap give in to his despair and refuse to play or will he give the team his all?

Key Moment

Coach: Drive the lane! You can do it, Cap!
Captain America: I can do it, can’t I? I won’t let you down! (he stands still for three panels)
Coach: What are you waiting for?
Captain America: Which thing is the ball?

"Attacked By The Ant-Man"

Avengers vol. 1 #161

When Captain America leaves his dirty dishes laying around the Avengers complex, unexpected guests arrive: hundreds of thousands of ants! Will the rest of the team finally confront him about his slovenly ways? Do the Avengers have enough beds to accommodate their guests?

Key Moment

Captain America: What’s with the ants?
Hawkeye: What do you think happens when you leave food laying around?
Captain America: Wait, I think I know this one. Evaporation?

Batman is dead. After mistakenly grabbing a can of Spray-On Bomb Exploder from his utility belt while reaching for the Spray-On Bomb Diffuser, our most superpowerless hero has departed this world for the big batcave in the sky. DC has confirmed that no attempt will be made to resurrect the character. Batman is gone for good.

In memory of the Batman we all grew up with, let us reflect upon some of his comic book appearances and hope that there are bad guys in heaven just waiting to be broodingly gazed down upon from a dark rooftop.

"Sherlock’s Erotic Dance"
Batman #22

Hoping to become the world’s greatest detective, Batman seeks advice from none other than Sherlock Holmes himself. What he gets, however, is an unexpected lesson in the art of the booty dance.

Batman: I really don’t see what this has to do with fingerprinting!
Sherlock: My boy, if there is one thing I have learned in the course of my investigations, it is that one cannot keep their hands away from a booty that is being properly shaken. I don’t know how you Americans gather fingerprints, but that’s how us Brits do it.
Batman: Hmm. Yeah. Yeaaahhh.

"Dr. Batman"
Detective Comics #35

There’s a killer loose in Gotham City… tetanus! Armed with the newly-developed vaccine, Batman is out to eliminate this scourge from the city once and for all.

Batman: Inject this man with the tetanus vaccine… NOW!
Doctor: That’s what I was doing!
Patient: Will you two please stop? That needle keeps jamming into my shoulder!
Batman: Just… (struggling) inject him already!
Doctor: I’m trying to inject him! Why are you fighting me?
Batman: It’s the only way I know how to help people!

"The Wrong Turn"
Detective Comics #94

Batman’s navigational skills are put to the ultimate test in this thrilling aqueductic adventure!

Robin: We’re trying to get to the moon, right? I don’t think we should be seeing water.
Batman: You don’t understand space. It’s complicated.
Robin: I understand sewers. Which is what we’re in. We should have taken the Batrocket.
Batman: Nonsense, I think we’re almost there. It should be this next left.

"Swimming Too Soon After Lunch"
Batman #156

A pleasant lunch on the beach for Batman and Robin turns into a pleasant lunch… of danger!

Batman: Why didn’t he listen to my warnings? How could I fall asleep in the sand after we ate that macaroni salad? Why was he swimming in his costume? Whyyyy?
Crab: (crab sounds)

"The Worst Plan"
Detective Comics #134

When Batman’s eagerness to try out a newly-acquired pair of giant guns gets the best of him, good intentions turn sour!

Robin: Shooting ourselves into orbit with giant guns… wow!
Batman: Yeah, pretty great, right? We’ll be in France to stop the Joker’s evil plan in no time!
Robin: So is someone waiting for us down there with a net or a mattress, or did you bring some parachutes?
Batman: Robin, there’s something I must tell you.
Robin: Yes, Batman?
Batman: I’m invincible. It’s been an honor working with you.

"Day Of The Homo-Ray"
Detective Comics 184

What strange man would harness the power of the rainbow, and for what insidious purpose?

Manman: By simply undoing my belt I have exposed you to the Homo-Ray!
Robin: Argh! I’m suddenly… tolerant of homosexuality!
Batman: NO! Fight it! Fight it with all of your strength, boy!
Robin: I’m trying! But these feelings of… hatred and… fear… are vanishing!
Batman: The cyanide, Robin. Now is the time.

"Batman And Robin Go To A Phish Concert"
Batman #415

What strange band would harness the power of a 45-minute cover of The Facts Of Life theme song, and for what insidious purpose?

Robin: Argh! I’m suddenly… tolerant of hackeysack!
Batman: NO! Those cyanide pills that man gave us, Robin. I think they must have gone bad! I think… I think gravity is much too weak here! Someone hold me down!

"Bruce Wayne’s Father Fills In"
Detective Comics #620

When Bruce Wayne is called away on an urgent business trip to Egypt for two weeks, a replacement Batman must be found lest his secret identity be discovered.

Batman: Thanks for doing this, Dad. I was a little worried you wouldn’t fit into the costume, but if anything it’s a little big on you.
Thomas Wayne:
Batman: Again with the vase. I was five years old, God damn you!

"Caught Stealing"
Batman #121

Batman? Stealing? Say it ain’t so!

Batman: Oh, come on! It was just ice! You’ve got a whole continent of it!

"Caught Again"
Detective Comics #326

Batman? Stealing again? Surely there must be some mistake!

Batman: Oh, come on! It was just a child with a birdface! You’ve got a whole planet of them!

"Again? Seriously?"
Batman #128

What the hell man?

Batman: Oh, come on! It was just a planet!

"The Lineup"
Detective Comics #328

Will Batman and Robin survive the intense scrutiny of a police lineup? Is it really fair for someone to wear a mask in one of these things?

Witness: Let’s see… the guy that stole my watch was big, wearin’ some kinda dark outfit with a blueish cape and cowl.
Batman: Don’t you mean he was small, and wearing a brightly colored outfit?
Detective Wilson: Quiet, you. Just stand still. Sir, do you see your attacker in this lineup?
Witness: Yeah, I think I see him.
Batman: Me too. It’s this guy on my left. I’d recognize that devious grin and those beady little eyes anywhere.

"On Trial!"
Detective Comics #281

This trial of the century is so incredible, you’ll say "I OBJECT to getting so much entertainment for such a small amount of money"!

Lawyer: As you can see in this realtime X-Ray, your honor, my client clearly has ribs.
Judge: And your point?
Batman: I couldn’t have possibly stolen that Faberge egg, your honor. Not with all these ribs to take care of! It’s a full time job. There would be no time left to plan or execute an elaborate plot to make the Flash dizzy enough to pass out so I could steal the egg in his care.
Judge: Isn’t that the Faberge egg right there in your stomach?
Batman: (to Lawyer) The torso defense never works! I can’t believe I was dense enough to hire you simply because your name is Lawyer.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Ninja

Watch out for what may or may not be a ninja!

Most
samurai movies worth their salt employ a cinematic device that I like to call
"The Heisenberg Uncertainty Ninja". This technique is usually
employed during a night scene and only after it has been established that the
protagonist’s life is in jeopardy.

The samurai hero will be sitting with his legs folded
beneath him on a tatami mat, maybe with one of those sweet little Japanese tea
services set up on a baby table in front of him. The cicadas will be buzzing in
the country night of the Shogunate. The samurai will probably be meditating,
but it’s possible he could also be sleeping upright, like a horse that can
cut a man in half. Light from lanterns will flicker through the rice paper
walls of his samurai house.

When our samurai hero has reached his most extreme and
intense level of inner peace a shadow will flit across the rice paper wall.
Then a silhouette will slowly resolve itself against the shoji wall, probably
behind or to the side of the samurai. The silhouette will linger and in those
moments it becomes The Heisenberg Uncertainty Ninja. You can call it
"Schrödinger’s Katana", if you’d prefer.

The silhouette seems to suggest that a ninja has come to
murder the samurai hero, but it could be a trick of the light. That wakazashi
hilt at the silhouette’s waist might just be a serving tray held by a
geisha or a messenger tube carried by one of the samurai’s most trusted
associates.

It wasn’t a ninja!

Most of the time the tip of a sword will spear through the rice paper and
then it’s time for Toshiro Mifune or Sonny Chiba to start making people
spray blood out of their necks in that special way that only they can. However,
every once in a long while The Heisenberg Uncertainty Ninja will turn out to be
a little bit of trickery from the director. Just a phantom shadow or a harmless
servant. The director may even layer on some extra drama by having Sonny Chiba
accidentally cut his wife in half.

I eventually grew out of my love for samurai movies and
fell in love with nihilistic Italian suspense films about stabbing women in
their breasts, but that idea of the dual-state silhouette lingering at the door
has haunted me. As long as it remains on the other side of the shoji panel it
is just potential. It is the idea, the rumor, of a person or thing without the
tangible reality and all of its consequences.

This same sort of isolation from the tangible infests
virtually every waking moment of our lives. We watch TV news shows in which
anchors give us second, third and even fourth hand information. We read
newspapers, magazines and websites that offer descriptions of reality and
opinions about reality. In our desperation for a more clear connection to the
world we increasingly seek out demagogues and ideologues to place our reality
in stark relief. We don’t care if they are right or wrong, just that their
assertions are believable and widely held.

The Internet, one of the greatest technological
advancements in human history, serves as means to make this isolation
self-sustaining. We can communicate as silhouettes to silhouettes and the whole
of the world is pressed like a wildflower between the pages of rice paper. We
can order rare items and strange gadgets from anywhere in the world, without
putting on pants or leaving our bedroom.

Sexy Rexy felt like going deep!

Video
games, once the hobby of a few math geeks in some basement at MIT, have become
one of the most popular forms of entertainment, and they grow more popular with
each passing day. Why not? They may present a wholly artificial reality, often
governed by rules unrelated to those we face in the real world, but we can
control these worlds. They empower us to do more than passively view
the world.

This isolation from the world around us, narcissistic and
rooted in the luxury of the first world, is the reason we watch movies like
The Matrix and accept the premise as almost believable. It’s why
85 million Americans can tune into a televised singing contest or a football
game and not even give a second thought to gunships roving over a sea of sand
or bombs exploding in crowded markets. That is no condemnation; it is the world
in which we exist. Our government representatives appear on television and
advise us in solemn tones that terror has changed colors or that we need to
tape plastic sheeting over our windows.

Though our view of the world through the media has become
global, our view of the world around us has shrunk to scarcely a few feet
beyond our homes, offices and strip malls. We may occasionally vacation to a
foreign country and tell ourselves that we’re broadening our horizons, but
we’ll never stray far from the well-worn trail or the guy who will plop a
sombrero on your head and take your picture with a donkey. Our needs can all be
met through our media or at the local supermarket.

We dwell in a sort of solipsistic nightmare world where
the ninja is eternally poised just beyond the shoji walls, ready to strike us
down or just bring us a refill of tea. We practically beg for one or the other
to reveal themselves to us, but they will not or can not. Instead, we must
endure the anxiety of a lifetime spent in the presence of shadows viewed
through screens.

Can we change our ways? Should we? Is our culture the most
advanced or the most depraved? Has the world moved beyond the need for the
connections to family, friends and community that existed before we could text
them or play Halo with them on Xbox Live?

I’m sad to say I can’t presume to offer answers to
these questions as I am still wrestling with them myself. I do know that when a
brave man rode across New England on horseback yelling, "The British are
coming!" and the British actually showed up. You could reach right out and
touch them as long as you didn’t mind losing a few fingers to their
snapping jaws. That brave man will be remembered through the ages, in song and
in History Channel documentary, as Israel Bissell.

At least that’s what Wikipedia tells me.

Rocktree (Transformers figure)

The
classic Transformers were awesome but over time the franchise lost its
way, becoming needlessly complicated. For example there was the
ridiculous Beast Wars series, which had the robots we all know and love
transforming into monkeys and parrots and shit instead of jet fighters
or spiffy cars or boomboxes. It’s a little-known fact that in the
transition from the classic line of toys to Beast Wars, a number of
experimental figures were released to gauge the audience’s interest in
robots that could transform into entirely useless objects. So enters
Rocktree.

Rocktree is unique because he doesn’t have
a base robot form. We’re all familiar with Optimus Prime and Bumblebee
leaping into action with huge laserguns in their hands, kicking other
robots in the metallic junk and headbutting apartment buildings with
their robotic foreheads. Rocktree can’t do any of that. He starts out
as a rock, and he transforms into a tree. He doesn’t have a gun or even
a face. When you think about it though, I think that gives him an
advantage.

Rocktree failed horribly. There were
less than a thousand figures produced, and eight hundred of those were
angrily thrown against a wall one at a time by the toy company’s Chief
Financial Officer. For some reason though, I thought he was the coolest
of all the Transformers. I used to sit in my yard all day and imagine I
was Rocktree, staying perfectly still in tree form while the
Decepticons discussed the details of their latest evil scheme at the
company picnic under the shade of my robotic leaves.

Owner gives account of fatal dog attack - The owner of two dogs involved in the attack that killed a woman in the hallway outside of her apartment said the dogs never showed any indications that they were violent. Noel also explained a letter he wrote to prosecutors that suggested that the attack may have been triggered because Whipple could have been wearing a pheromone-based perfume or might have been a steroid user. "I was contacted by an investigator who works dog cases, and I was also contacted by a professional animal trainer, who made the suggestion that those two things should be looked at from a forensics standpoint to see if that was a possibility," Noel said.

1. Dog owner sues victim’s family for allowing victim to be eaten, causing dog indigestion and ultimately death.
2. Victim’s family sues perfume industry for failing to notify victim that upon wearing the perfume, she should never, ever, ever, ever leave her house or purchase a dog.
3. Perfume factory sues engineers for failing to include "secret bonus ingredient" which keeps dogs from eating people wearing their perfume.
4. Engineers sue colleges they attended, claiming professors failed to teach them the connection between "smelling like flowers" and "dogs tearing out your intestines."
5. College sues all teachers and instructors in school, including dog attack victim (who worked for Saint Mary’s College), for failing to emphasize the "Ways to Be Mauled By People’s Pets, 102a" class.

My True Calling…

Here
is what is up for auction to help you with names in each picture below:
AUTOBOTS 1984:OPTIMUS PRIME, TRAILBREAKER, SIDESWIPE, SUNSTREAKER,
WHEELJACK, JAZZ, RATCHET, IRONHIDE, BLUESTREAK, PROWL, HOUND, MIRAGE,
BUMBLEBEE, CLIFFJUMPER, BRAWN, WINDCHARGER, HUFFER, GEARS,
BUMBLEJUMPER, RED BUMBLEBEE, YELLOW CLIFFJUMPER. DECEPTICONS 1984:
MEGATRON, SOUNDWAVE, BUZZSAW, RAVAGE, RUMBLE, FRENZY, LAZERBEAK,
STARSCREAM, SKYWARP, THUNDERCRACKER. AUTOBOTS 1985: OMEGA SUPREME,
JETFIRE, BLASTER, PERCEPTOR, ROADBUSTER, WHIRL, TOPSPIN, TWINTWIST,
POWERGLIDE, COSMOS, SEASPRAY, BEACHCOMBER, WARPATH, CAMSHAFT… (other 99/100ths of the list not quoted)                           

TRANSFORMER  SELLER:
"HELLO I HAVE ZILLIONS OF TRANSFORMERS INCLUDING BEASTBOX, QUAKE,
SPINSTER, NEEDLENOSE, FLAMEFEATHER, AND SPARKSTALKER, THE ULTIMATE
COLLECTION INDEED."                               

TRANSFORMER  BUYER:
"OH WELL THAT’S A VERY NICE COLLECTION BUT DO YOU HAVE SPROCKET,
OVERRUN, ASTRO SQUAD, METRO SQUAD, AND CONSTRUCTION PATROL?"

TRANSFORMER SELLER:
"WHY YES I DO THAT’S A DUMB QUESTION BECAUSE I HAVE EVERY SINGLE DAMN
TRANSFORMER EVERY MADE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE."                              

TRANSFORMER BUYER:
"OH YES I BET YOU DO, HEY I THINK THIS ABOMINUS TRANSFORMER HAS BITE
MARKS ON ITS LEG FROM WHEN YOU WERE A KID."

TRANSFORMER SELLER:
"NO, I MADE THOSE BITE MARKS LAST WHILE NIGHT IN BED, TRYING TO SILENCE
THE VOICES IN MY HEAD THAT SPEAK TO ME AND TELL ME THAT COLONEL SANDERS
IS A STUNT BIKER WOOKIE BENT ON WORLD DOMINATION."                              

TRANSFORMER BUYER:
"WOW YOU HAVE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD TOO? DO YOURS TALK TO YOU IN ALL CAPS
LIKE MINE?"

TRANSFORMER SELLER: "WHY
YES THEY DO, NOW GIVE ME THE $10,000 OR I’M TAKING BACK THE COMPUTRON."                              

TRANSFORMER BUYER: "OKAY LET ME JUST PULL THE PLUG ON MY MOM AND COLLECT THE CHECK."

                            

HOLLYWOOD  IDEA, SCRIPT "NEW YEAR’S EVE" FILM - $100,000.00- GREAT
HOLLYWOOD IDEA! "NEW YEAR’S EVE" SCREENPLAY.. LOGLINE: "ON NEW YEAR’S
EVE, A COP DISCOVERS A TERRORIST PLOT TO BLOW UP TIMES SQUARE, NY."
THIS SPEC SCRIPT IS TITLED "NEW YEAR’S EVE".

   "GREAT HOLLYWOOD IDEA." -
All caps might denote an "exciting" script, but it also might suggest
author uses AOL, so you’ll probably have to download Instant Messenger
to chat with him.

  "’NEW YEARS EVE’ SCREENPLAY"
- Script probably takes place on or around New Year’s Eve, hinting at a
very tight shooting schedule and lots of inebriated family members.                              

"ON
NEW YEAR’S EVE, A COP DISCOVERS A TERRORIST PLOT TO BLOW UP TIMES
SQUARE, NY" - If you do not own Times Square or know a friend
who owns it, you will probably have difficulty filming there. I’d
imagine it costs at least $100,000 to buy Times Square, so the total
price of shooting the film has already doubled! This is what’s known in
the screenwriting industry as the old "bait and switch" or the "Rhode
Island Rimjob." You’ll also have to get a Police officer’s uniform,
which means you’ll have to kill a cop, and you can’t do that unless
you’re a popular rapper or drug czar (in which case you probably won’t
have to worry about money anyway).

THIS SPEC SCRIPT IS TITLED "NEW YEAR’S EVE"
- Added for emphasis I suppose, or in case you forgot what you read one
sentence earlier.                            

 

"ARBOR DAY"
by Mario Geronimo

                              

Starring BRUCE WILLIS as "ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER"
Costarring LIV TYLER as "SULTRY ANNE BOSOMS"

   

SCENE ONE: TOP SECRET CIA HEADQUARTERS
(Enter ARNOLD screenright or possibly screenleft, depending on how the
furniture is placed in the room)
CIA DIRECTOR MIKE FISCHER:
"Arnold! You’re late! You’ve done it again! You’re a loose cannon!
You’re fired!"
ARNOLD: "CIA-you in hell, bastard!"                                 
(throws CIA DIRECTOR MIKE FISCHER out the window, who explodes shortly
thereafter)
CIA GUY:
"Wow, you saved us! That wasn’t CIA DIRECTOR MIKE FISCHER, but was
instead a clone with scientifically manufactured DNA which explodes at
a predetermined time!"
ARNOLD: "I know."
THE REAL CIA DIRECTOR MIKE FISCHER: (Exiting his office)
"And here I was in my office the entire time! Good thing you’re here,
ARNOLD, I’ve been meaning to tell you that you’re late, you’ve done it
again, you’re a loose cannon, and you’re fired."
ARNOLD: "CIA-you later, creep!"
THE REAL CIA DIRECTOR MIKE FISCHER: "You’ve already used that catch phrase."

SCENE TWO: ARNOLD’S HOME
(Enter ARNOLD from the front door, which should be placed on or near
the front of the house)
ARNOLD:
"I cannot believe I’ve been framed for a crime I didn’t commit. I
wonder where my wife is." (Phone rings) "Hello?"
GUY ON PHONE:
"Your wife has been kidnapped by us terrorists who are planning on
cloning her DNA and turning her into millions of ticking time bombs of
destruction which will blow up the capital and various other famous
national landmarks which we will list once we get access to a Google map."
ARNOLD: (Thinking deeply) "You’ll pay for this!"
GUY ON PHONE: "Muuuhaha,
I doubt that! What can one man do? We’re a terrorist army of thousands!"
ARNOLD:
"I’ll defeat you and kill you all and get my wife back before you can
turn her into a ticking time bomb of destruction!"
GUY ON PHONE: (Talking to people in the background) "Oh shit, we never planned on that!"
(Hangs up)
ARNOLD: (In a very serious tone of voice) "Time to pay the piper! It’s Arbor Day."                                 
(Gets into some type of vehicle which has multiple mounted artillery
cannons and tinted windows)

SCENE THREE: THE HIGHWAY
(ARNOLD
destroys 14 terrorist jeeps, four terrorist trucks, three terrorist
helicopters, one municipal building, an ambulance which was carrying an
injured terrorist to the ER, and a schoolbus transporting a terrorist’s
niece)
ARNOLD:"Have a pleasant afternoon."

SCENE FOUR: THE TERRORIST’S HIDEOUT
(If you have a big budget, please make this something cool like an
underground magic labyrinth or floating base. If you don’t have any
cash left, use an abandoned poetry house)
HEAD TERRORIST: "With your DNA, I shall RULE THE WORLD!!!"
SECOND-IN-COMMAND
TERRORIST WHO HAS A DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT SKIN COLOR THAN THE MAIN
TERRORIST SO WE DON’T GET SUED FOR RACISM: "Look!"                                 
(Points to the human-sized air duct, which suddenly emits smoke)
THIRD-IN-COMMAND TERRORIST WHO IS YET ANOTHER NATIONALITY JUST TO MAKE SURE WE DON’T GET SUED:
"Everybody shoot the human-sized air duct! There must be an intruder in
there!"
(They all shoot at the air duct)
ARNOLD: (Bursting
through the floor panels which he got to by crawling through the
human-sized water sewage disposal system. Shoots and kills all the
terrorists in the room)                                 "Tree down, one to go."
SULTRY ANNE BOSOMS: "Uh,
no, you actually just killed them all. There aren’t any more
terrorists. There were only three left."
ARNOLD: "You don’t want to STICK with this BRANCH of terrorism, eh? HA HA."
SULTRY ANNE BOSOMS: "Oh, what an Arbor Day!"
(Comedic faint aimed at appealing to the under-12 year old-demographic)

SCENE FIVE: ARNOLD’S HOME
(He and his wife are resting comfortably on the couch. Dick Clark is on
television, broadcasting from the world famous National Arbor Day
celebration at the capitol)
DICK CLARK: "…and this truly was an Arbor Day to remember."
ARNOLD AND SULTRY ANNE BOSOMS IN UNISON: "You got that right! Ha ha ha ha!"
(Telephone rings)
THE REAL CIA DIRECTOR MIKE FISCHER: (On phone) "Hello
Arnold? We heard about that great job you did on the multiracial
terrorists who were planning on blowing up the world! We’d like to give
you your job back and supply you with enough promotions to essentially
bestow upon you the ranking of Jesus Christ in this organization."
ARNOLD: "You can take your job and SHOVEL it."
(Hangs up)
ARNOLD AND SULTRY ANNE BOSOMS IN UNISON: "Ha ha ha ha."
SULTRY ANNE BOSOMS: "I didn’t get that last joke."

THE
END; FADE TO BLACK OR POSSIBLY A LIGHTER COLOR IF BLACK CANNOT BE
AFFORDED

Well,
that’s it. I hope you enjoyed the exclusive script of "Arbor Day." If
you didn’t, I really don’t care because it’s not like I’m charging
$100,000 or anything. That’s just insane. However, if you’d like to pay
me $100,000 ,  I’d be more than willing to accept it.

I’ve been thinking about Aquaman
a lot lately. Now for the six or seven of you who haven’t immediately
gone to another blog after reading the previous sentence, let me
explain why.                                       

Aquaman’s
been getting a bad rep recently. Many people have taken to publicly
humiliating the guy by laughing and making jokes at his expense. No, I
cannot provide any concrete examples offhand, because due to computer
sabotage, all my internet links have mysteriously vanished (that’s my way of
saying, "I think I may have just dreamed that people were making
fun of Aquaman last night. Nothing I deem as true is ever based in
reality"). I believe this recent negativity is due to a general
societal ill sweeping through the country, something that has been creeping
up along the spine of collective Filipinos like a poisonous
tarantula. I’m not really sure why a tarantula would bother crawling up
somebody’s back, but for the sake of my analogy, let’s accept that one
would.

First
off, the country has been brainwashed into thinking Aquaman just can’t "cut
it" with all these new and exciting superheroes coming out every other
day. If you were to walk into a comic book shop and find the strength
to push the 400-pound man in a black Top 40 shirt out of the
way, you would see shelves and shelves lined with hundreds of brand new
glossy comic books. Superheroes these days are full of glitz, flash,
and a dark, brooding edge. They’re mysterious, complicated creatures
that lurk in the shadows and crawl through the night like a…
tarantula down your spine. This contrasts greatly with how superheroes
were back in the 40’s and 50’s. For example, back then it was perfectly
acceptable to wear skintight outfits which would fit in with a Gay
Pride parade or drug-induced rave. Costume designers at the time
thought each superhero’s outfit had to contain every primary color or
villains just wouldn’t take them seriously. These festive and pretty
colors were quite the rage back in the day, but now they just create
the impression that old school superheroes would be better suited in a
Mexican wrestling league than fighting crime. There’s not much one can
do about this outlook; I can’t even stay in fashion, much less dictate
it.

All
recent comics books revolve around guns and missiles and blowing up a
quarter of the world in every issue of every series. If there isn’t
wanton destruction and an orgy of violence every page, the comic book
probably won’t sell. However, back in the 40’s, villains didn’t want to
blow up the world or anything horrible like that. No, criminal
masterminds back then were happy with idiotic penny ante schemes like
turning all the street lights in their city red, which would cause the
city mayor to get stuck in traffic while the villain’s henchman breaks
into the guy’s office and steals the mayor’s really nice gold pen.
Villains didn’t care about blowing stuff up in the 40’s; if they could
get through an entire issue without locking themselves out of their
house they were happy. That’s why Aquaman fit in so well - he didn’t
carry guns or bombs or any cheap stuff like that. For God’s sake, the
guy had a harpoon instead of a hand. Have you ever tried to stab
somebody with a harpoon? It’s not easy, especially if you’ve been
drinking. This make’s Aquaman’s superhero-ness even more impressive,
since the fact that he has no left hand qualifies him as being a true
handicap.

Aquaman
also had the ability to communicate with almost any underwater
creature. While the comic regularly featured him "speaking" to giant
seahorses, dolphins, and whales, one can only assume that he was also
able to speak to less mobile creatures like sea cucumbers, starfish,
and that poisonous plankton that shoots spores everywhere. He probably
preferred not to talk to them because they never had anything to say. I
mean, if you were a big sea cucumber on the bottom of the ocean floor,
what would you say? "Hey Aquaman, it’s really fucking dark down here
and I haven’t moved since the late 1800’s so no, I’m not having a nice
day." If I lived in the sea my whole life and suddenly found some guy
with no hand swimming around in tights and asking me if I could help
him save the world from an evil genius who was using kelp to fuel his
army of Nazi robot zombies, I would ignore him. Hell, I’d probably try
to bite the guy. Since Aquaman was never killed by a pissed off
swordfish, this is a true testament to his psychic abilities.

The
most important limitation Aquaman had to work with (and, as a result, I
feel was his biggest claim to fame) was the fact that he had to do a
majority of his fighting underwater. Being an underwater superhero
isn’t very flexible, and I’m sure Aquaman really had to perfect his
persuasive speech techniques in order to lure bad guys near his
territory.

                                        

Bad guy #1:
"This coastal shipping yard looks like a great place to set up our
illegal black market wax mustache trade."
Bad guy #2: (laughs evilly. The second bad guy always laughs evilly)
Suddenly,
a loud horn sounds and Aquaman rises up from the depths of the ocean.
Aquaman:
"Hey guys, why don’t you come a little closer to the ocean?"
Bad guy #1: "Why would we do that?"
Aquaman:
"All the really cool bad guys do illegal stuff by the ocean."
Bad guy #1: "Really?"
Bad guy #2: (to Bad guy #1)
"Hey, I think this is the Aquaman guy we were warned about."
Aquaman:
"No I’m not, my name is Steve and I’m with the oceanfront tourism
board. Although I may be wearing the same top as Aquaman, I can assure
you that I’ve got on khaki pants, something Aquman never wears. That is
how you can tell us apart."
Bad guy #1: "I can’t see no khaki pants."
Aquaman: "Well come closer and I’ll show you."
Bad guy #1: "Okay."