Monthly Archives: May 2009

Will Stupidity Never Cease?

The right-wing media has jumped all over this “story” about Joe Biden “revealing” the location of the “secret” vice presidential bunker that could be used in the case of total nuclear obliteration, terrorist attack, cicada infestation or people calling him mean names. The bunker was apparently constructed in 2002 by Dick Cheney.

The location of this “secret” bunker? Under the official vice presidential house at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

I’d like to disclose a secret of my own: I’ve been stockpiling some food, in case I get hungry. I have cleverly hidden it in my refrigerator.

This is why most people view neo-cons as total idiots. Look, in the event of imminent apocalypse, of course the vice president has a fortified underground bunker under his home. Would you prefer he get in a car and drive 30 miles to the “secret location”?.

The White House also has a secure facility (at least I’m assuming it does, because duh). Alert the media! The terrorists might know where the president is hiding!

I bet if we had more than two political parties in this country, and therefore more political views than “yes” and “no”, 95% of the faux moral outrage we have to be submitted to on a daily basis would disappear.

Chase These Men

Will Ferrell was on SNL this week, and thankfully a Jeopardy sketch was involved. To say that I laughed extensively would be an understatement.

Yes, F the Red Wings

Rob Ullman, graphic artist and illustrator, is also something of a hockey fan. For a couple years now (at least, to my knowledge anyway), he’s made series-by-series playoff predictions on his weblog, which also include accompanying illustrations for each series that I will only describe as… fantastic. He’s a big fan of the Penguins and, like any right-minded individual, hates the Red Wings.

Blackhawks girl beating the pulp out of a dumb Red Wings girl.

In his latest post for the Western Conference Finals, he picks the Blackhawks to win in seven, and also writes one of the finest insults I’ve heard in some time:

Also, the Red Wings, despite the addition of gutless cockwallet Marian Hossa, seem a little less dominant than they did last year, and all of their already old-ass lineup is even older. I think they’re ripe for the picking.

Kind of Bloop

Kind of Bloop

Currently in development: Kind of Bloop, an 8-bit tribute version of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.

To quote project mastermind Andy Baio, “What would the pioneers of jazz sound like on a Nintendo Entertainment System? Coltrane on a C-64? Mingus on Amiga? For years, I’ve wondered what ‘chiptune jazz’ would sound like, but there are only a tiny handful of jazz covers ever made. To satisfy my curiosity — and commemorate the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue — I’ve asked five brilliant chiptune musicians to collaborate and reinvent the entire album in the 8-bit sound.”

Can’t wait to hear what this ends up sounding like.

Thoughts on Star Trek

I saw the new Star Trek “reboot” this weekend. To say that I loved it would be a pretty extreme understatement.

Look, I gotta be honest here. I love Star Trek. My favorite is and always will be The Next Generation, but some of the first movies I can remember seeing are The Wrath of Khan and The Search For Spock and I certainly do love the “original” cast. So there’s that.

I went into it thinking that it was going to be pretty good and that I would like it. The trailers I had seen looked very promising. Little did I know that I would be totally blown away.

Is everything about this movie totally perfect? No. But what movie is completely perfect in every way? Not many. But Star Trek got all the things right that I feel that it needed to get right. The casting was incredible; each of the actors playing the core characters did a very nice job channeling the performances of the original actors (especially, in my mind, Karl Urban as McCoy – when he first appeared and delivered his first lines, that was the moment I was totally sold on this movie) but without being completely imitative. I feel there was a lot of effort put into getting nice references to the past in the film, like having the character of Captain Pike in the film, but I didn’t think they felt forced, rather the work of writers who were well versed in the Star Trek universe. And perhaps most importantly, the tone of the movie was just right: serious when it needed to be, but also with a healthy dose of humor and sexiness that always ran through Star Trek and I think made it what it is.

Talking with the guys I went to the movie with afterwards, and with my cousin later that evening, I realized that this movie was everything that the Star Wars prequels should have been but that George Lucas instead ruined. For every moment in the Star Wars movies when you cringed and wondered to the sci-fi gods why George Lucas hated you so much, there was an equal and opposite moment in Star Trek where I thought to myself “these guys could not have done that better”. It sort of validated to me the fact that I’ve always liked Star Trek more than Star Wars.

I really hope that there ends up being a series of movies with this new version of the Star Trek cast, because I really had a great time watching this movie, and I’m sure I’ll do the same in a day or two because I definitely plan on seeing this several times in the theaters.

Orleans Cardinals… er, Firebirds

Eldredge Park aerial view

I know I’m a little late to this party, but it kind of hits home for me. Two Cape Cod Baseball League teams changed their names this offseason because Major League Baseball, in their ever-increasing pigheadedness, decided that their trademarks were being infringed upon by Cape League teams sharing team names with MLB teams. Nevermind that the Orleans Cardinals were named after the former Orleans High School Cardinals (and while OHS may now be Nauset Regional Middle School, the baseball team still plays there) and shared no logos or trademarks with the St. Louis Cardinals, that the New York Mets used to supply the Hyannis Mets with their old uniforms to use, or that the Harwich Mariners existed decades before the first Seattle Mariners players were even born.

The main absurdity about MLB’s demands stemmed from the fact that MLB wanted the Cape League teams to purchase their merchandise only from MLB-licensed manufacturers (New Era, Majestic, Rawlings, etc… huge companies). This obviously bothered the Cape Leaguers since they all use local Massachusetts-based vendors for their uniforms and fan merch, and also because their costs on those items would undoubtedly go up. MLB eventually conceded that Cape League items could be purchased from local vendors on the condition that the merch have the town or the team name but not both. For example, Bourne could sell t-shirts or wear uniforms that say “Bourne” or “Braves” but not “Bourne Braves”. Which is fucking stupid. You might as well not have them at all.

Orleans Firebirds logo

So, goodbye to my beloved Orleans Cardinals. They will now be called the Orleans Firebirds. The Chatham A’s also decided to forgo MLB’s onerous merchandise approval process and will now be called the Chatham Anglers. Bourne, Hyannis, Harwich and Yarmouth-Dennis have decided to keep their “MLB” names for the time being, but will have to make arrangements with MLB on an annual basis to decide to keep using the names or choose something else.

I’m sure I’ll still see plenty of games in my life at Eldredge Park, but I’ll never again see the Orleans Cardinals play, and that’s a very sad commentary on the state of modern America.

In slightly happier news, the Cape League All-Star Game is coming back to Fenway Park after a couple of decades away. Whee!

The Fog of War

Uni Watch linked to this awesome, ethereal picture from an old football game between the Packers and Colts. I suppose some research could turn up the exact date, but it looks to me like it’s in Baltimore, and Paul Hornung (Packers #5) is running with the ball, so it’s got to be before 1967.

Regardless of all that, it’s a great photo.

Packers-Colts