Quote Of The Day

"Stories soon emerged that the marriage was in trouble – at one stage I was played a tape of a message Paul had left for Heather on her mobile phone. It was heartbreaking. The couple had clearly had a tiff, Heather had fled to India, and Paul was pleading with her to come back. He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang ‘We Can Work It Out’…"

- Piers Morgan, writing for 'The Daily Mirror' in 2006, on a voicemail between Paul McCartney and, then wife, Heather Mills.  McCartney is currently in contact with London Police, saying that Morgan could have only heard the message due to their phones being hacked.  At the time, Morgan was an editor for the now defunct 'News of the World'.

If You See Only One Movie This Week....

...watch 'Dear Zachary:  A Letter to a Son About His Father'.

The film is a documentary from first time filmmaker Kurt Kuenne.  I won't tell you anything about the plot of the movie.  In fact, I think you're better off watching it without knowing about it's premise.  I will say that the film is about friendship, family and parenthood.

'Dear Zachary' is gut-wrenchingly raw and emotional.  I cried through most of it.  I must admit, I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to movies, but if the film doesn't effect you, you have no heart.  Grab a box of tissues.  On second thought, grab two.

Lately, I've been watching a number of documentaries from my Netflix queue.  I surprised to say that, after a couple of months, Netflix has a pretty good grasp on what I will like and what I won't.  Based upon my previous ratings, Netflix estimated that I would give 'Dear Zachary' a 5.0 rating.  I did.  The film, overall, has averaged a rating of 4.1 out of 361,000 results.  It is easily one of the most powerful and touching films I have seen in quite a long time.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, is also available on Amazon, both to purchase and to rent instantly.  It's currently streaming on Netflix.

The Top Selling Game On ITunes

This is REAL.  I am not kidding or trying to be funny.  As of 9:00PM, Saturday, August 13, 2011, the number one game for download from Apple's App Store is:

"Milk The Cow"

It's a cow milking simulator.  Are we really that bored?  With over 100,000 downloadable applications available for the IPhone and the IPad, is virtual cow milking the technological advancement that we have been missing all of our lives?

This only proves my theory that, as a species, humans are de-evolving.  I believe you can download additional yak milking levels in game.  Fun, fun, fun.

Most Unfortunate Candy Name Ever

The small print below the brand name says, "Pronounced Gets'".  Something tells me that the line was added after everyone started referring to it as "Goatse" candy.  Slightly disturbing.  Especially considering the way that the candy looks.

The Ignorance Of Michele Bachmann

In reference to George W. Bush, I used to hear people say, "It's sad when an African-American student with straight A's can't get a job at McDonald's, but a white student can become president with a C average".  The presidential candidates out of the Republican party just seem to get more and more embarrassing.



It looks like someone was home schooled.

Pregnancy Scare

Another nugget from 5 Second Films:

Tweet Of The Day

From Australia's Census office:

The Australian government:  Damn right, it's better than yours.

I'm Going To Hell For Laughing At This...

Patton Oswalt is in the latest installment of '5 Second Films'.  Be sure to check out their Vimeo page for more hilarious clips.  Hey, if one sucks, you've only wasted five seconds of your time.

Quote Of The Day

"Gay people don’t actually try to convert people. That’s Jehovah’s Witnesses you’re thinking of."

- Tina Fey in 'Bossypants', which I have had on my Kindle for two months now, but haven't read yet.  My wife tells me it's pretty good, though Fey is "clearly better suited as a comedienne than as an author".

"One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other"

Let me start off by saying that the following picture IS NOT ALTERED.  It was taken in Los Angeles yesterday as Shaquille O'Neal and his girlfriend, Nicole "Hoopz" Alexander were shopping.

Shaq clocks in at 7' 1", and weighs around 325 lbs.  His girlfriend:  5'2" and couldn't weigh more than 120.

Look at their hands.  The whole scene looks almost criminal.  It looks like someone of average size walking hand in hand with a seven year old.

It's nice to see that Shaq has found someone that he can see eye to eye navel with since his divorce.

Political Cartoon Of The Day

Via Jeff Danziger:

Seriously, though.  Have you seen the guy?

The Greatest Internet Troll Of All Time

According to Wikipedia, an internet troll is defined as the following:

"In internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion."

 I am pleased to introduce Muriel J. Compton.  Either "Muriel" is the greatest internet troll to have ever lived, or a woman in need of serious help.  If this is an act, she is on an Andy Kaufman level of comedic genius.

Muriel has been making the rounds at the Babycenter.com forums for years now.  It has just been in the last couple of weeks that she has become well known outside the Baby Center circle.  I happened across one of her posts that have recently gone viral.  Last year, in the Baby Center forums, she posed the following question:

"Dinosaurs are one of Satan's many ways of tricking man", much like gravity, magnets, and the fact that the Earth goes around the Sun.  At first glance, I thought, "This has to be a joke".  Then, I discovered more posts from Muriel covering the last two to three years.  Check out this one, posted in October of 2008:

"As a Christian, should I allow my children to dress for Halloween?  Every year when my children see the costumes at the stores for Halloween, they ask me why they are not allowed to dress in them. I always tell them because Halloween is the Devil's holiday, and just because they see people in the world doing things, doesn't mean they should do them. Halloween, to me, is a holiday that glorifies Satan. I see masks with the Devil's horns, ghosts (souls never become ghosts, they always go to Heaven or Hell), demons, witches, pagan fairies, and other scary creatures that are not pleasing to God. I get many negative comments from other parents saying I am mean and my kids must never have any fun, which is not true. They have many fun activities with the church that we do. But recently I was talking to my neighbor, who is also a Christian, although she does allow her children to wear costumes. She just won't let them be anything that is evil. They are allowed to dress as cats, dogs, and other creatures of God's. I see this as being OK, but there is always the issue of the meaning behind Halloween and the Satanic pagan rituals that are a part of it, and I certainly wouldn't want to confuse my children by telling them that one aspect of it is OK, but one aspect is not. Can you think of reasons which glorify God to wear a costume, so that we can honor the Lord if I do allow them to dress for this holiday? One idea I had is to dress them in clothing like children growing up when Jesus did would have worn. I have prayed for guidance but the Lord seems to be telling me to decide for myself what is right."

Mom, is that you?

After receiving numerous inflammatory comments on the above post, Muriel, in true troll fashion, started a completely new thread to say that she wasn't a troll...or a liar.  Why she couldn't simply post an additional comment on the existing thread is beyond me.

"I am not a troll or a liar.  A member questioned the fact that I am a new grandmother and homeschool my children. Both are true. I have five children that range in age from 4 to 24."  

If that isn't the definition of troll, I don't know what is.

I for one, don't know whether to be the president of Muriel's fan club, or call Child Protective Services on her.  I would like to think that Muriel is a thirty something guy in New York City that is taking his frustrations out on the Christian Right by inventing this character with such antiquated beliefs.  However, growing up as I did, raised by a mother very similar to Muriel, I have a sinking feeling that this is all too real.

I was never allowed dinosaur toys as a child.  My mom did believe that dinosaurs once existed, but were washed away by the flood of Noah.  I couldn't Trick or Treat, as Halloween was a "holiday for Satan".  I wasn't allowed to watch The Smurfs or He-Man.  I couldn't even watch Star Wars as a kid, since my mom believed that "the force" was a religion.

If these posts are legitimate, I truly feel sorry for those children.  The future can not look good for the Compton household.  It will likely involve a healthy dose of bitterness and jaded feelings toward the family matriarch.  I can say this from experience.

If you're looking for a good laugh, Muriel has recently restarted her account with babycenter.com, and has been vehemently defending herself, as of late.  Good stuff.  

Quote Of The Day

My daughter has seen the 'Tangled' DVD so many times, that everyone in the house knows the entire movie, word for word.  Yep.  The songs.  The dialogue.  Even the facial expressions of the characters.  Know them all by heart.

The first song in the movie is called 'When Will My Life Begin?".  In the first verse, Rapunzel sings:

"7 AM, the usual morning lineup
Start on the chores and sweep 'til the floor's all clean
Polish and wax, do laundry and mop and shine up
Sweep again and by then it's like 7:15"

 Really, Rapunzel?  All of that in 15 minutes?  If I were the one singing the song, it would be more like:

"Sweep again and by then it's like...March."

Damn, blondie.  Sit back and watch Oprah or something.  It's not like you're going anywhere.

"I'm Baaaaack"

...In a limited capacity.  I've had some good news and bad news over the last week.  The good news is that I have a new laptop.  It's a dream compared to my old Vaio.  More memory.  Double the hard drive (and one that works!).  Roughly three times the processing speed.  And it only cost me the equivalent of a month's rent and auto insurance!  JOY!!!!

As I said before, buying a new laptop was only going to be about $150 more than getting it repaired.  You see, that's where Geek Squad fucks you.  Pay over $500 to get a two year old computer operational again, or drop $700 thirty feet to the right and walk out with a new machine.  Out of spite, I purchased this one at Office Max.  Besides, they seemed to have the best deal around.

In other news, my back is seriously FUCKED.  I saw my surgeon last week, and it looks like I have another procedure coming up soon.  When I had my discectomy on June 20th, only the herniated portion of disc was removed.  As they chipped away at the offending portion of disc, new disc material was exposed.

At first, it has the consistency of the center of a Tootsie Roll lollipop.  As time goes by, it becomes more gelatinous.  In my situation, it appears that the new disc material has gone into the space left open by the removal of the old disc.  In other words, I have the same herniation...on the same disc.  It's still cutting off my spinal cord from time to time.

I am in excruciating pain.  I had another epidural on Thursday of last week, but haven't seen any relief as of yet.  In the meantime, I'm trying to get my new machine to resemble something that I'm accustomed to.  Surprisingly, there wasn't much in the way of bloatware (preloaded software) out of the box.  I only had a small handful of card game trials and a couple of internet tool bars to delete.  ITunes is another story, altogether.  It will probably take weeks to get my account to look as crystal clear as it was previously.  Roughly 39,000 songs to reorganize....manually.  Ugh.

In any event, it's going to take me a few days to get back into my groove online.  Please have patience with me.  :)

I'm Still Here...Just Technologically Stinted

Hey everybody.

Just a quick update for the three of you subscribers that are left....LOL.  I haven't been able to post anything since last Friday as my laptop has crapped out on me.  The Geek Squad seems to think that my hard drive is in the process of going kaput.  If that is the case, I'm looking at a minimum of about $450 (that I don't have) to get it fixed.  Considering that my battery life is currently at about 15 minutes per charge, and that my computer crashes the entire network for a half an hour every time I turn it on, I think it might be worth an extra $150, and just get a new laptop.

That being said, it's going to take me a couple of days to transfer everything over from my old hard drive and get back to where I was before this whole fiasco started.

I also have an appointment with my spine surgeon tomorrow afternoon, and an epidural scheduled for Thursday.  Needless to say, this isn't going to be a fun week.  I don't know whether I'm more nervous about the prospect of having another surgery, or the possibility of being told that I don't need one.  I am hurting so bad right now.  I can't even describe how I'm feeling.  I try my best to get by without pain killers, since they usually don't work anyway, but it's getting difficult.

So...long story short....I will be posting later on this week.  I have some very interesting stuff in the pipeline.  Just bear with me.

Thanks.