Funnimetric

1. The Asymmetric clan was returning from our weekly outing at Best Buy when my son spotted a, mmm...I'm guessing 1990 Dodge Caravan with a ladder and a for-sale sign- $1500.00. I made a ladder joke. My son asked:

"Papi, can't they trade it in for $4500.00 in the clunker thing?

"You have to buy a new car to get the money. These guys probably can't afford it."

Pause...Think...OK. Then my wife asked:

"Y que hacen con los carros?" (what do they do with the cars?).

"They destroy them." For you visual learners:

[Am I being a regionalist when I say that Southerners seem to have much more fun with cars?]

My wife then wondered why we didn't give the cars to Mexico or Iraq. I said:

"Amor, Nelsito: You guys are just too naive to understand the steel-trap, progressive logic of Democrats. The benefits of their ideas may not be easily apparent to the proletariat, but rest assured, if they aren't in our best interests, they wouldn't do them."

2. Get a real lefty a little tipsy, and they'll admit that Che and Castro are their ideal leaders. In the case of the moronic Diane Watson, you don't even have to get her drunk:

It was just mentioned to me by our esteemed speaker, “Did anyone say anything about the Cuban health system?”
And lemme tell ya, before you say “Oh, it’s a commu–”, you need to go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place. And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met. [APPLAUSE]

And you know, the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy, Che Guevara did that, and then, after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found…well, just leave it there (laughs), an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro…

S/T: Mrs. Malkin

3. 40% of Japanese men sit down to pee. A little further South, in the land of their former enemy, Australia, more women are choosing to pee standing up.

For a certain kind of mind, the world would be a better place if the standing up, sitting down ratio amongst both men and women were 50%.

Maybe I'd better be quiet before congress comes up with a "Cash for Commodes" program to ensure urinal justice.

4. My friend alerted me to an exhibition of abandoned-store art:

I hear that were going through a golden age of abandoned-store art.

5. I receive the Dell catalog. This months' featured a new laptop called the "Adamo" pictured- sort of- in the ad below:

Yes, because when I want a new laptop, I always ask superficial, ennui-stricken pouty teens with eating disorders what they're using.

I assume that the "Intel" is inside the laptop.

Dear Sc-fi apologist,

On the Fox News website, Khan Noonien Singh is listed as one of the "top ten kick-ass aliens." Can that be correct?

Sincerely,

Out-foxed

Dear Out-foxed,

You did well by contacting me. Unfortunately, the national level of sci-fi knowledge continues to languish behind developed countries like Canada, where their experience with Stargate has really lifted the country's sci-fi literacy.

Let me get off my high tauntaun and give you the answer. As you know Singh, or simply "Khan" as he's known, is a genetically altered leader and conqueror during the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s (the 1990s date is an invention of the Star Trek chroniclers to avoid scaring a 1967 general population already fearful of the Soviet Union). If you remember your history, the Eugenics Wars were a completely interhuman affair; no aliens took part in any of the fighting. Khan isn't, therefore, an alien, if one defines alien as a being from a planet besides the one you're typing on (I assume).

In the Star Trek reenactments, Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban plays Khan (I must say that the resemblance is striking even if Montalban is a little too short).

Why the error? Either Fox news is making a racial joke at Mexicans' expense or the editor of Fox entertainment is an idiot. Giving Fox the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume the latter.

One more problem with the list, if you want to get technical: The District 9 aliens, commonly called "Prawns" (I'm still waiting on Microsoft for a font that will allow me to spell their name correctly; our alphabet isn't capable of a phonetic spelling) have been on earth for more than twenty years. It only takes seven years to establish South African residency.

-Sci-fi apologist

1. A lot of people are down on Obama right now, but that's only because they're focusing on his legislative performance instead of how much he's educated the populace.

Just last month, I went to see my doctor about some shoulder pain. He ordered a battery of tests. I can see now that the doctor was practicing "defensive medicine." No big deal. Bills are paid by a third party. The real shocker came when I went back to see the test results:

Me: OK, doc, what is it?

Dr: Well, based on the tests, we're going to have to amputate your foot.

Me: Huh? The pain's in my shoulder.

Dr: I'm sorry. You went to medical school, where?

Me: Doc, it's my shoulder!

Dr: Foot or tonsils, pick one.

Me: Neither.

Dr: Well, if you'd rather go to a death panel and see what they say...

I stopped him right there. He couldn't fool me. Death panels don't exist! I stormed out of the Dr.'s office. Thank you, Mr. Obama.

2. Ah, but Sarah Palin insists that DPs do exist and that they're going on right now. I got this picture from her Facetwit page:

Real life death panel. This man was deemed a "non-contributor" for his insistence on driving an 8-cylinder car.

"If we give him a hip replacement, he's just going to pollute."

3.

According to the report above, Democrats are better dancers than Republicans. As usual, methodology is key. The researchers chose venues where there would be both a high likelihood for dancing and the population would be over 90% affiliated with one particular party. For a predominantly Republican gathering, the researchers chose an NRA "formal ball and turkey shoot" and for the Democratic gathering, they attended a taping of Soul Train.

I just picked the first Soul Train video from youtube. I think that means its the most recent.

4. Pet lookism rears its...ummm... ugly head. My wife got another cat because she didn't think that Mr. Bigglesworth was cute enough. Now, she spends all of her quality pet time with the new cat, Smokey.*

Our new cat, Smokey.

Mr. Bigglesworth didn't hold my wife's capriciousness against Smokey.

*She insists that it's only because Smokey is nicer, but I don't think that's the whole truth.

My wife and I each have our competencies. Although I still have to find mine (I've narrowed it down to complaining about the state of television and Stargate trivia), everybody in Pico Rivera is aware of my wife's skill in navigating the local Walmart.

Things were shaken up this week, however, as my wife left to visit her sick mom. I had to feed myself. Well, I had to pay the guys at Taco Bell to feed me. I did have to feed the pets (woops! Quick, how many days can fish live without food?). I also had to clothe myself. When I ran out of underwear, I faced two choices: 1. Learn about bleach, loads, or whatever or 2. buy more underwear.

So, I'm there at Walmart, and go over to the underwear section. Sidestepping the argument of why men still buy boxers in the 21st century, I'd like to ask another question: Why does the same underwear model appear on the package for the small size brief and the XXXXXL (yes, 5X, below) size? Who's Mr. Klein kidding? Heck, who are the purchasers trying to fool?

In an effort to draw Latinos into dealerships, the congress today approved a variation of the "Cars for Clunkers" program called "Cars for Cacharros."

Cars for Cacharros includes additional tax cuts and credits for hydraulics, small steering wheels, dashboard carpets, bobbing dog head decorations and special paint jobs of religious icons and/or deceased relatives (death certificate required). Congress will waive fuel efficiency standards, the hallmark of the original Cash for Clunkers, to allow for the purchase of full-size vans. The recording industry added an amendment which directs the government buys a copy of the owner's favorite CD to hang from the rear-view mirror.

With the extra $4500.00, this owner was able to purchase environmentally-friendly lead-free batteries for his car's hydraulic system, 26 of them.

The Obama administration wants to beautify the nation's highways with brightly colored paint jobs. A government grant made this design possible.

To paraphrase Edwin Starr: Dachshund? What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

I was at my friends house playing the nearly incomprehensible Arkham Horror when an equally perplexing thought occurred to me: Why do dachshunds exist? It wasn't a completely random thought; two of these "dogs" wandering underneath (way underneath) the table prompted the question. I didn't mean it in the Cartesian, philosophical sense- I was staring right at them and didn't doubt their real presence. It wasn't a redirection of my frustration at Arkham Horror. I didn't hate the dogs themselves. In fact, I can honestly say that I pitied them. The owner of the dogs wasn't being a bad host- he's a nice guy with a fabulous collection of beers (Mexican beats Irish beer, I think). I just don't know for the life of me why these beasts walk, nearly crawl, on the face of this earth.

Think about it: Some German dude scoured the forests of Central Europe for the smallest-legged dogs he could find and did everything he could to shorten them further, "No, I can still see the legs. Get me a shorter dog!" He kept going until he came up with what is, essentially, a millipede with teeth and ears.

Honestly, how long would such a creature live out in the wild? 12 minutes? They're probably as frightened of a 12 Monkeys scenario as humans. The only thing it'd be able to catch is an older Dachshund. Noah would prioritize dachshunds between hamsters and ticks.

12 Monkeys (Special Edition)

What job would you assign a dachshund? Dobermans can guard a house. Retrievers get stuff for you. Pointers help you find things. Chihuahuas are good corporate spokescreatures. Dachshunds can only bring its owner the sympathy of people with real pets.

Stephen Hawking's smart. Do Dachshunds make up for their physical shortcoming with an advanced doggy intellect? Not that I noticed. Same sniff, eat, sleep routine as other dogs.

Thanks for the opportunity to vent. I'm studying the Arkham Horror rule book and sandwiching these brief diversions between my eight-hour study blocks helps me keep my sanity.

Arkham Horror

Arkham Horror: Kingsport Horror

Nazi zombies have been done to death. They're in Call of Duty 5: World at War and there's even a movie about them called Dead Snow:

(There's a COD-DS mashup below. Watch only if you like violent zombie stuff)

I have no problem with Nazi zombies. I mean, I have no problem with "killing" Nazi zombies. However, many of us on the right side of things like to see Communists lumped in with Nazis as facilitators if not outright perpetrators of evil. The game Stalin versus Martians fulfills that desire.

Or so I thought. It turns out that in the game the Soviet Union has to defeat the Martians so that it can concentrate its resources on, you guessed it, the Nazis. From the developers:

We can talk for hours about Stalin and all the controversies that surround him. We're Russians and we possibly know the subject better than you. But all this talk doesn't make any sense, you know, at all. Accept Stalin vs. Martians as a montypythonesque humor or get out.

Is it too much to ask to get some kind of media where Communists are straight-up the bad guys, you know, without all of the evenhanded historical context?

Call of Duty World at War Collector's Edition

A second observation. Remember when Americans thought that Russian women were all "robust" industrial workers, as in this Wendy's ad from the eighties:

Well, judging from my spam email, a soldier friend of mine stationed in Korea, and a teacher acquaintance of mine who married a mail-order Russian bride (yes, she came assembled), the video game and commercial below: Russian women are beautiful.

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