Bond Ratings

I am a big fan of James Bond. When the movies are on TV, I have to stop whatever I’m doing and watch them. Even the George Lazenby one. And I finally got around to seeing Quantum of Solace last night.

As for a “review,” let me say that it was good but could have been better. The pacing of the movie felt way off. The climax didn’t feel like a climax at all. The catharsis that all Bond movies end with didn’t feel right, mostly because the villain was too weak of a character. The good Bond villains have lots of set-up and exposition. The final “lair” that Bond villains love felt like a half-hearted attempt at a Dr. Evil-style lair with one quick throw-away line explaining its presence.

My biggest complaint is that all the action scenes had too many quick cuts. It’s hard to tell what’s going on when the director is too focused on adrenaline-charged glimpses of different aspects of the action. Those need to be counterbalanced with longer shots that show more details of the car chase, or the foot chase, or the shootout in the church. Mix in healthy use of the queasy cam and the “action” scenes didn’t work for me.

But that’s all the bad. The good news is that there was no laughably bad villain, no terrible acting, no gratuitous product placement, and all of those elements that make Bond movies fun. And Daniel Craig makes a good Bond. But how good? Let’s compare.

Sean Connery

Pros: Still the best Bond. There’s a sign on his tuxedo that says, “You have to be this cool to seduce girls simply by stating your name.” Also, he smoked and drank, because this was acceptable behavior from a superagent in the 1960s. Now you can just drink.

Cons:Too bad he couldn’t get along with producers and we were subject to George Lazenby and Roger Moore. On the bright side, producers saved the money it took to buy his toupee.

George Lazenby

Pros: That it only lasted for one movie. Other than that, um, nice ascot?

Cons: Seriously, what Bond movie would have him pretend to be a gay man named “Hilly” to get into a ski resort? That doesn’t sound like James Bond. That sounds like a bad sitcom. (Don’t tell CBS executives. They’d add a hot girl and advertise it during football and it would open with a 10-share rating.)

 

Roger Moore

Pros: Occasionally funny. Apparently related to Ian Flemming, so you know how he got the role. Appeared in lots of Bond movies, so you have to applaud his longevity, even if it’s because he couldn’t get any other roles worth watching (he had also been the lead in The Saint, another spy show).

Cons: Am I supposed to believe that guy seduced women at will? Into his 50s? He should’ve flipped roles with Christopher Lee in The Man with the Golden Gun. Lee’s 1000 times cooler, and he’s the better actor.

Timothy Dalton

Pros: You can say what you will about Dalton’s two Bond Movies, but they are still watchable to this day. They just weren’t Bond movies, especially to a legion of fans not old enough to remember before Roger Moore. They were, however, good spy movies. After Moore’s movies got goofier and more comedic, Dalton made the character edgier. Maybe he took that too far. The most amusing part of that is that, in his post-Bond career, Dalton’s best known for spoofing spy movies.

Cons: Missed the tone of the Bond series. Had movies with weak scripts and weaker villains. The villain from The Living Daylights was so bad that they reused the same actor to play Bond’s American ally in Goldeneye, and no one noticed.

Pierce Brosnan

Pros: Cool, suave, and great at the Bond sarcastic comment. Better than any predecessor since Connery, and has his own hair.

Cons: Not convincingly athletic enough to be James Bond. Even when he was getting tortured you couldn’t feel sorry for his smug British ass. Am I supposed to believe this guy was a commander in the navy? He looks like he has a daily manicure.

Daniel Craig

Pros: Maybe the best actor to play Bond. He’s also apparently working with the same personal trainer as LL Cool J. The guy is ripped.

Cons: Might be falling into the Timothy Dalton trap of being far too serious, especially in Quantum of Solace. Bond’s got to be funny; he understands the absurdity around him even as he’s being forced to fight a giant squid or die. In Quantum, I felt like I was watching Jason Bourne with a British accent.

My ears are still ringing

I went to a Smashing Pumpkins concert last night. Or, rather, I should say that I went to see one of the original Smashing Pumpkins with a bunch of studio musicians surrounding him. It felt a bit like going to see Roger Waters play Pink Floyd songs – yeah, it’s the right guy singing (most of the time), but it’s not Pink Floyd.

Billy Corgan’s always been a bit of an enigma to me. On the one hand, he’s a great songwriter. On the other, he’s a mediocre technical musician. He can’t sing, but his voice sounds good. He’s clashed with record labels , but he’s a complete sell-out to the point of writing songs for Hole. He’s engaging towards the crowd and everyone likes to work with him (apparently), but he’s also an egomaniac with a God complex.

The guy is like a mad scientist’s combination of Kurt Cobain, Freddie Mercury and Elton John, with Lex Luthor’s ego and dome.

  

Not that Corgan can’t pull it off, but you have to be full of yourself to be able to say, “The people of Kansas City only get to hear half of the music we want to play tonight. If they want the rest, they can come back tomorrow.” They then proceeded to play without an opening act – I’m sure local bands starving for exposure love that. Just strange. The strangest show I’ve ever been to. And if I had tickets I’d go back tonight.

 

The Smashing Pumpkins |MTV Music

Something about musicians is that they can’t walk away, even when they think they can. Corgan disbanded the Pumpkins, then came back with a “new” band called Zwan that was just old Pumpkins playing new songs, then went on tour with his new Pumpkins. In twenty years, he’ll be reduced to this.

Read what I read

If you look to the right, you’ll see my blogroll under “Stuff I Read.” I thought I might expound on a few of those. If you have more suggestions for stuff I should be reading, let’s hear it in the comments.

Sports Blogs

I read a lot about sports, baseball in particular. This should come as no surprise to those of you who frequent this site. Joe Posnanski has some of the best stuff written on the web if you can handle his unhealthy Bruce Springstein obsession. Dave Zirin's Edge of Sports site is more crazy-leftist than anything I write, but that doesn’t make it wrong. There’s a whole lot of Kansas City sports stuff on there that may not be of interest to fans from other cites. And if you’re a fan from another city, fuck you. Your team blows.

Pseudo-intelligent crap

I have a couple of sites on there to make you think I’m smart/well read. Don’t worry. I’m neither. Do you think I actually understand what the guys at Five Thirty Eight are saying? The comments at the Freakanomics blog are always interesting in that they’re never nearly as smart as the posts and often degenerate into inane fixed-stance political “debates.”

Personal friends of the blogger

The Israel Situation is run by a longtime friend of mine. He’s really good at staying on-topic, something I’ll probably never learn. For a guy who leans really far left in American politics, he really moves to the right on Israeli politics. Sean over at 124 Monkeys runs a blog more like mine in that he rotates between several themes/topics. Interesting stuff, even if he does have a bit of an insane streak in him. I’d chalk it up to PTSD, but that might be offensive.

The rambling political post; or How your coke dealer helps pay for your corn syrup but hurts our manufacturing business

I’ve spent more time talking about politics on this blog than I thought I would when I started it in October*.  For my efforts, it’s been called a “crazy leftist blog,” among other things. So I feel I need to clarify my political beliefs.

*I don’t know what the fuck I was planning on writing about when I started the blog. Hell, I still don’t know what I plan on writing about. I kinda just like talking. With a blog, you don’t even need someone to listen to you.

As I’m sure my limited but intelligent readership* has figured out, I tend to lean pretty far to the left. But not always. However, I have come to hate the current incarnation of the Republican Party. This is mostly because it is no longer the party of limited government, strict interpretation of the Constitution, and fiscal conservatives. It is more and more the party of the Religious Right. I do not want any part of that.

*That’s limited in size, not limited in intelligence.

I do differ from the Democrat party-line on a few key issues. My biggest quibble is the way Democrats view free trade. Obama has announced that he wants to rework NAFTA. (At least he knows what NAFTA is.) America’s use of farming subsidies is baffling, to say the least.

I had a finance professor who liked to tell a joke about our farming subsidy policy. He’d say, “Did you hear NASA found a way to grow corn on the moon? It’s true. The only problem is now we have to pay someone not to grow it.” The point is that we artificially bump our crop prices up. This leads to the inevitable overgrowth of crops. The farmers don’t care because the government will pay them anyway. So we have all this leftover corn and soybean and milk and chicken and we can either throw it out or dump it on developing nations.

This is how you destroy a developing economy. The developing world relies more on agriculture than we do. We dumped so much powdered milk on Jamaica that it’s cheaper for people to buy our imported milk than their fresh milk. We dump our dark-meat chicken on whomever will take it (and that’s how McDonald’s and your local supermarket can offer “all white-meat chicken”). Our farmers will overwork their land and deplete its soil in a shortsighted attempt to make more money now. Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan government can’t buy its farmers the basic tools to start farming, because that would count as “subsidies” and they would lose their IMF money – IMF money-takers are expected to be entirely free-market. So the Nicaraguan farmer, unable to afford the tools to grow grains, resorts to growing cocaine. It’s an easy cash crop. Did I mention that the US is the leading funder of the IMF? How is this hypocrisy allowed?

There are other repercussions. Boeing, the American airplane company, is getting beaten by Airbus, its European counterpart. The EU helps it out by subsidizing airplanes, something that is technically illegal through our trade agreements. However, if America would ever want to fight for Boeing’s right to compete, the EU would counter that we cheat by subsidizing our farmers. This is how farm subsidies indirectly hurt our manufacturing industry.

I don’t know where I’m going with all of this. It started as an example of how I’m supposed to be independent-minded and not a party-line Democrat, but I went on a tangent and ended up on coked-up farmers stabbing GM with their pitchforks.

My starting centerfielder is a breakfast cereal!

The Royals just traded for Coco Crisp (pictured).

What are the implications?

1.) They think they can win next year. Why else trade a good 27-year-old relief pitcher under team control until the next presidential election (Ramon Ramirez) for an outfielder with one year and an option left on his contract?

2.) This is the first in a chain of events. More dominoes have to fall.

Now the Royals have too many outfielders. I expect Mark Teahen to go, but it could be Guillen or DeJesus instead.

3.) If Dejesus stays, he’ll move to left field full-time to make room for Crisp, improving the team defense at two positions.

What would I like to happen? Move Guillen at any cost to clear payroll and a roster spot for Milton Bradley. Not only does Bradley hit better than any current Royal, but wannabe comedic hacks like myself would love an outfield reunion* of Milton Bradley and Coco Crisp. A breakfast cereal and a board game magnate in one place? Awesome.

*They played together in Cleveland in 2002-2003. No one in Cleveland seemed to notice, mostly because they had once been subjected to the comedic stylings of Manny Ramirez and Albert Belle in the same outfield.

Putting Coco Crisp and Milton Bradley back together could be the funniest baseball name duo since Cincinnati had Gookie Dawkins and Pokey Reese as its double-play combination, and certainly funnier than last season’s winner of the Cubs’ Ryan Theriot and Mark Fontenot.

Which way is the wind blowing?

Economics is confusing. I get it. There is such a flood of arguments, evidence, counterevidence, theories, and talking heads that understand it poorly that it’s a wonder anyone can wrap his head around it. Given all the variables out there, it becomes kind of like predicting the weather.

I’m not going to explain any complicated economic theories here. Instead, I’m just going to explain what I find to be the biggest hypocrisy of the Bush Administration’s fiscal policy.

President Bush has professed to believe that the best way to get our economy going is to spend our way out of trouble. This was the stated reason for the rebate checks we got this year. It is a common belief that spending and circulating money stimulates the economy; that point is hard to argue. It is possible to argue the relative damage to our treasury by dolling out money, but I won’t take a stance against that here.

Bush is also a big proponent of so-called “trickle-down” economics. The basis for this idea is that if we give more money to the rich, they will have more money to hire and will thus increase wages to the lower class and/or create jobs.

The problem is that these two ideas, while argued fervently by Bush and his cabinet, are fundamentally incompatible. The reason is that the poor spend a higher percentage of their total income, either through necessity or lack of discipline. Thus, if you want to stimulate the economy through total spending, then it makes sense to give more money to the lower class. The rich are more likely to put their excess money into banks or, because they tend to be older, more conservative investments.

 

My full thoughts on trickle-down economics can be summed up by a month-old political commercial.

Inside Drew Brees’ Mind

Well, no one’s open. Let’s wait and see if something happens. Still no one open? Something’s wrong. Usually there’s some 300 pound guy on top of me by now. What’s going on? Am I wearing that red practice jersey by mistake? Hmm. Wait, someone might be open. Nevermind, that’s just the referee. Boy am I hungry. I could sure go for some of that famous KC barbecue after the game.

Get your head in the game, meat! You might get hit by a defensive end. He’s only a yard away from me now. Maybe if I drift right I can buy still more time.

No one’s open. This pocket sure is lonely. I miss my wife.

Oh, wait. Someone’s open. I’d better throw the ball. There, that was nice. First down. This football thing is easy.

 

…And that’s why the Chiefs are 1-8. Six sacks. As a team. All season. And none yesterday against the Saints and Drew Brees, who leads the league in passing yards.

The Chiefs lead the league in turnovers forced. Usually that makes for a good defense. The problem is, anyone can throw against that defense. They have the youngest defensive line in football – the starters are a rookie, two second-year players, and a third-year player who is hurt. Defensive linemen are notoriously slow to develop at the NFL level. This is the first level where their sheer size and athletic ability does not overwhelm and they have to learn how to use their skills as well. So not all hope is lost for the future, just for the present.

Really, this defense is an end, a middle linebacker, and a year or two away from being really good. The secondary is pretty much set with young athletic ball-hawks. Those guys don’t need all the developmental time that the linemen need. Give it time. This team sucks, but at least they’re not Detroit.

The hills of Los Angeles are burning

This just in. The State of California has officially changed its name to State of Emergency.*

*I like to make obscure pop culture references and then not explain them. Get over it.

Two days ago, Californians staged the world's largest earthquake drill. That’s a good idea, as our most populous state’s two most populous cities lie on our largest fault line. An earthquake leveled San Francisco in 1906. And now, returning for a 2008 encore, fire. Is this serious, or are they just filming Smoke Jumpers?

Hollywood, of course, manufactures more problems for California. Why worry about California’s real problems when you can worry about a volcano wiping out L.A. or robot governors or robot aliens or replacement aliens?

My thought: if fundamentalists can blame other calamities on people they don’t like, I will blame the current wildfires on California’s passage of Prop 8.* It doesn’t make any more sense, but it sure does feel right.

*Enough hyperlinks for you?

In all seriousness, here’s hoping that firefighters manage to get all the fires under control without any injuries. They should consider moving to Kansas, where all they’re expected to do is rescue the occasional cat or put out the occasional insurance fire.

“F” gets added to “MSNBC”

Did anybody catch Joe Scarborough dropping an F-bomb on live morning TV on his show on MSNBC earlier this week?

That’s a great statement above. Let’s deconstruct it for the average American (not my enlightened readers). The average American might ask, “Joe Scarborough has a show in the morning now?” but probably won’t. The average American might ask, “Who is this Joe Scarborough fella?” but probably won’t. What the average American will ask is, “What the fuck is MSNBC?”*

*Seriously, ask the guy sitting next to you in Starbucks what MSNBC stands for. What might he say? Certainly not “Microsoft Network National Broadcasting Corporation.” That’s the official definition, but it doesn’t even fit. He might guess close, like “Microsoft National Broadcasting Corporation.” Or he might guess at a charitable organization like “Multiple Sclerosis Needs Better Care.” Really, he could say anything. Try it and tell me what he says in the comments.

In light of this, Joe Scarborough’s fuck-up is probably the best career move he’s made since his intern died at his office and he quit politics.* Seriously, this might be the only way the guy gets face time on another network, the only way anyone links to anything MSNBC has on the air (besides hilariously self-righteous Keith Olbermann rants), and is certainly the only way I’m going to talk about Scarborough on my blog (for what that’s worth).

*My interpretation of Scarborough’s motivations and timeline may or may not be entirely accurate.

Scarborough used to be a Republican stooge on national TV, defending RNC talking points like a less irritable Bill O’Reilly. Then MSNBC decided to revamp its evening lineup to become the liberal to Fox News’ conservative and moved Scarborough to inane morning chatter. Scarborough, for his part, complied and became MSNBC’s stooge. The guy’s got the spine of an amoeba. But hey, he’s in the news now! He said “fuck” on cable TV! Now he’s getting referenced by Jon Stewart, Will Leitch, and me!

I’ve been watching MSNBC for years. (I might be the only one.) I used to like that it was less biased and that it used NBC’s great news team. Then they lost Brian Williams and slowly started creeping to its current incarnation, which is increasingly more like every other news station. Want to watch the news at 8pm? Tough shit, every network has its own smarmy commentator at that time. You can’t watch news, but you can get your opinion. Even Headline News doesn’t show headlines or news anymore. They get better ratings with some guy telling you how to interpret the news.

That bottomed out when MSNBC had its commentators in charge of discussing political primaries. They took their party-line stances and argued rather than reporting on the debates and whatnot. MSNBC lost most of what credibility it had left. It became no better than Fox News. (Ok, maybe a little better.)

I even like Olbermann, but I also like, you know, the news.  At least he doesn’t pretend that he’s an anchor not a commentator. I want to hear the story before Olbermann tells me his take on the story. That is, when it’s a story with substance and not another story about a pretty blond girl who went missing six months ago.

The Religious Right vs Sex Rights

The passage of Prop 8 in California is just another piece of a vicious circle, an impossible paradox, created by certain parts of the Religious Right.

The official ballot title language for Proposition 8 is "Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry." The entirety of the text to be added to the constitution is: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

– Wikipedia

I truly don’t understand the Right’s stance on marriage, sex, and families. Let me explain.

In this dogma, all use of birth control is shunned. President Bush has gone as far as to slow shipments of condoms and proper literature to AIDS-ravaged Africa, instead showering the continent with pamphlets about abstinence. This is despite evidence that sex happens, especially in different cultures that have different views. More to my point, many schools here in America preach abstinence instead of any real sex-ed.

Among other results, we have teenage and out-of-wedlock pregnancies that we probably could have prevented. This hits all demographics. Of course abortion is out of the question, because in this dogma life begins at conception.* So, one of three things happens: the parents are rushed into a marriage they might not have wanted and potentially have to raise the child in a loveless home; the father runs off and we have a single mother raising a child on her own; or the mother puts the child up for adoption. The first two scenarios are of course far from ideal, while adoption is difficult, emotional, and there are not always good parents willing to adopt.

*I’m not going to argue specifically against this point –that’s a fruitless argument that never convinces anyone on either side. Rather, I just want to point out how it contributes to my overall point.

That’s where the next link in this chain comes in: the couples that are most desperate to adopt are those that cannot conceive themselves. The biggest part of this demographic is gay couples. So, of course, they are not allowed to adopt in this dogma. The argument is that children raised in same-sex households grow up confused and do not lead as good lives as their peers. There is no good evidence backing up this point, however. At any rate, I would argue that such a child fares better than a child growing up in a household where the parents do not love each other and certainly does better than a child that bounces around the foster care program. This child also stands a better chance with parents that are prepared and ready for a baby.

In my opinion, the worst situation of all is when a child grows up in a loveless marriage. Many proponents of Prop 8 and similar measures have argued that marriage isn’t always about “love” and that it is open to gay people, as long as they marry people of the opposite sex. What a laughable stance. I can’t believe they say such gibberish with a straight face. There’s nothing like a sham marriage to teach our children about love. That’s how you get confused children.

Of course, no church has to recognize same-sex marriage. This is not about churches. The churches can keep their own definitions of marriage, they don’t ever have to change it. This is about the state. Married couples get benefits from the state, such as tax breaks. Not allowing same-sex couples to get these same benefits is a form of discrimination; it essentially is a form of taxing sexual orientation. Look at it this way: if the government were to give $100 to everyone who can prove heterosexuality, that’s essentially the same as taxing gays $100.

Which is worse, the Heartbreaker or the Blowout?

Losing sucks. Fans of Kansas City sports fans have all figured that out by now; I don’t have to list the statistics that prove it sucks to be a Chiefs and Royals fan. Yesterday's loss in San Diego reminds us what it’s like to lose a heartbreaker for the third week in a row. This is after the Chiefs were absolutely humiliated for much of the rest of the season. So, which sucks more?

To me, the answer is pretty simple: at least I can watch the close game. The loss against Carolina was much worse. There was no hope.* There was no escape. We were all doomed to watch the worst NFL team ever. Eh. Now they’re not even the worst team in Missouri, thank you very much St. Louis. They just got destroyed by the Jets, whom the Chiefs should have beaten in the first of the string of heartbreakers. And their city smells.

*Here’s where I put the obligatory reference to the last line of The Shawshank Redemption about the word “hope.” But I’ll spare you.

The thing is, there is hope. If you squint just right, the Chiefs look like a team that could win next year. Heck, they’re three plays away from being on a 3-game winning streak and being only one game behind a struggling Denver team for the division lead.

Maybe on a future day I’ll bore my puny readership with a more well-thought analysis of this team’s future. Or maybe I’ll stand on my head for a while and videotape it for your amusement. Either way you’ll probably skip it.

Things to do when you’re unemployed, part 5

Lie, and tell everyone that you are employed

I’m not sure this isn’t what your parents meant when they told you, “When you grow up, you can be whatever you want to be.”

It’s almost like a game. Go to a social gathering and tell everyone you do something different, and see if anyone calls you out on it. Or go to a bar and try to come up with the most outlandish, most impressive, or funniest profession to tell all the women.

“I’m an elevator repairman. It’s a surprisingly well-paid profession.”

“I’m the kick returner for the Kansas City Chiefs.”

“I play a millionaire at parties….at least I’d like to.”

Believe me, there’s nothing more satisfying than convincing a room filled with drunks that you were Nicholas Cage’s stuntman in Wicker Man. Meanwhile, the table on the other side of the room thinks you’re Lars Ulrich’s understudy on his current tour and that you look surprisingly different decked out in torn jeans and under stage lights.

This is a lot more fun than having an actual job to bore people with. Joe Sixpack can bore everyone with his stories about how he got the IT guy to reinstall the company’s merger software, but no one cares because they’re listening to you talk about the sting operation you planned on a drug baron.

Now if only you could get someone to pay you for your stories. Wait, scratch that idea. That would make you a con artist, and you don’t look good in a prison jumpsuit.

What if it’s true?

For the past several months, John McCain, Sarah Palin, the Republican Party, and Fox News have been trying to convince us that Barack Hussein Obama is a dangerous Muslim with terrorist ties.

Have we become so numb to mudslinging and negative advertising that, should the GOP be telling the truth, we’ve missed it entirely and elected a terrorist?

What damage could Obama do in his administration? Surely it would take a great amount of skill for a terrorist to let the United States get attacked without taking blame. It is feasible that such a terrorist would be able to see surprise attack on US soil within his first year in office. It would not cripple our country by any means, but it could help push an already struggling economy further into downturn/recession while costing thousands of lives. Also, it could serve to shift the mood of the country further to the right, allowing for the restriction of those personal freedoms that Americans hold so dearly.

This could lead to launching two wars that end up strengthening the terrorist cause while not actually apprehending the greatest threat to the United States, Osama bin Laden. That would be the master stroke of a terrorist, being able to attack this country’s enemies while actually strengthening their numbers by helping them to recruit against us, all the while keeping our military stretched out too much to take seriously the threat of a nuclear Iran.

That would be a heck of a job against America. Getting all that done in just his first four years would be a tall order, but it must be done because surely someone who does that couldn’t be reelected…

I’m not actually saying that George W. Bush is a terrorist. What I am saying is that it might be difficult for a terrorist to have as much success as Bush. Or maybe I’m just sick and tired of fear-mongering and I’m overreacting.

Things to do when you’re unemployed, part 4

Drink!

The age-old staple of the unemployed. It causes unemployment, helps fix the problem of having too much time on your hands by conveniently making you forget entire nights, and tastes delicious.

Whether you’re a classy drunk,

a girlie-drink drunk

or a frat boy,

there’s room for everyone. And when you drink, everyone’s your friend.*

*Disclaimer: not everyone is your friend. There are angry drunks who like to fight, rapists who try to slip pills into your drinks, and bartenders who try to make you pay them at the end of the night. Those bastards.

Of course, I could have just titled this post “Things to do” and left off the “when you’re unemployed” part. Drinking is fun for people of all ages.* Did you know you’re supposed to drink a glass and a half of red wine daily to improve your heart function? Well if that’s good, I wonder what an entire bottle of J&B does for my heart? I’m the healthiest guy around!

*Do not drink before you turn 21.

In business school, we discussed that social drinkers made more money than their tea toddling colleagues.* So, if I’m struggling for work, maybe this is a way to kick start my career and make up for lost time! After all, it worked for such great people as Ernest Hemingway and Winston Churchill.

*We never discussed how much of that excess money went to more alcohol.

Half-white man elected to office

When reached for comment, a white man said, “I knew we could do it. This proves that the first 43 of them weren’t just luck.”

All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody 'til they're all the same color.

--Bulworth

My Biology 101 textbook had a section about how we recognize beauty. It turns out, given the choice, we prefer a face with the most ordinary, bland, average features available to us. To prove it, the textbook had a picture of a face made from a computer program that took all the individual features of the face (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc.) and made them perfectly average, then put them on an average-shaped head with average hair. Aside from its startling resemblance to a brown-haired Keanu Reeves, it was generally agreed that this made for an attractive face.

The Supremacists have it all wrong. The perfect race isn’t white, or black, or Chinese, or Slavic. It’s all of the above, mixed to a jumble where we can’t tell Nordic from Nigerian.

The evidence is out there. The best golfer? Tiger Woods. The most beautiful woman in the world? Halle Berry. Most overrated shortstop? Derek Jeter.* Throw in athletes such as Jason Kidd, Rod Woodson, Mike Bibby, Dr. J’s illegitimate daughter, and you get what I mean.

*Yes, I know that was a cheap shot.

Barack Obama can lead us all into a new direction. In 200 years, we can all look like Lenny Kravitz.

In the meantime, I could sure go for some jungle love, Mercedes Hawkins style.

After all, it’s for the good of the country.

Ways to kill time when you’re unemployed, part 3

Read old novels that are no longer relevant until they get remade into new movies.

You know, they just don’t make villains like they used to. There just aren’t any Nazi war criminals running around or bald billionaires with underground lairs. I just can’t bring the hate for a faceless terrorist living in a cave in some –stan country I’ll never visit. I suppose it’s because I cannot get into his head the same way I can a man who lives on an island near Jamaica and makes his evil fortune mass producing guano.

Movies are like that too. The best Bond movie of my lifetime is probably GoldenEye, in which the action takes place in post-Soviet 1995 but the opening scene takes place nine years earlier. What would Ian Fleming write about if he were still alive?* Is an underground lair really that special in a world where everyone lives in underground lairs? Could he come up with a master criminal better than Osama bin Laden?**

*Other than a sequel to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang entitled Chitty Chitty Gang Bang.

**Seriously, bin Laden is like a Bond villain come to life. He’s physically interesting (distinct features, freakishly tall), has apparently limitless sources, he’s deranged, and yet somehow brilliant at what he does. The more Bond novels you read, the more he fits along with Blofeld, Scaramonga, and Dr. No.

Where was I? I was on a role there…oh, right. Hollywood, please stop ruining the stuff I read. You’ve already ruined or made valiant attempts to ruin The Manchurian Candidate (twice, thank you very much Frank Sinatra), The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Starship Troopers, and God knows how many others I won’t get to read before your shit comes out. Another Lolita remake? Great! Never mind that the plot doesn’t matter so much as the wordplay. It could get you a mint! What’s that? You found the original The Big Sleep adaptation too confusing? That’s ok, just cast Tom Cruise in Bogie’s part and start shooting.

In return, you can have all the James Bond novels, however often you can churn out remakes. That shit is too pulpy not to be made into movies. And I’ll go see every one of them.

A customer service nightmare

This is the second time I’ve written about bad customer service. If I do it again, we’ll have a trend.

Anyway, here is the e-mail I just sent to Costco.com.

I recently ordered a Garmin Nuvi 205W from Costco.com. Instead, I was sent a Nuvi 250 -- and it was pink. I do not want a pink GPS. So I called customer service and, while waiting on hold to speak to a representative, I sent an e-mail to this address. I gave up on waiting on hold after about half an hour.

The next day, I got an e-mail from Costco. It read,

"Thank you for your e-mail to Costco Wholesale.

"Your e-mail has been forwarded to our resolution team for research.  Please allow 1-2 business days to be contacted regarding your order inquiry.  We apologize for the delay and appreciate your patience while we work on your situation."

This was on the morning of October 30. By November 3, I had not received any more correspondence, so I went to a Costco warehouse to exchange my GPS for the model I ordered.

When I got the the warehouse, I walked over to the counter for returns and exchanges. The gentleman there sent me to another line, where the woman quickly sent me back to the first line. So I had to wait in line three times to discuss my problem. This Costco, in Overland Park, KS, did not have a replacement and instead offered to refund me. My card was run and I was given roughly $220 back, the cost of the GPS with tax and shipping.

After more urging on my part, the customer service agent began looking through Costco's system for a replacement, but could not find what I ordered. She then called Costco.com's customer service number and waited on hold while I waited at the counter. She eventually got through to a representative and handed the phone to me.

The customer service representative on the other end of the phone said there was nothing she could do anymore because I had already received my refund, even though all I ever wanted was simply to make an exchange and get the product I ordered. Apparently, someone had been working on my order, but failed to contact me to let me know of this progress. My only course of action is now to reorder the product from Costco.com. It was also apparent from her tone of voice and short answers that her first priority was to get me off the phone.

I wasted more than an hour today only to NOT get my GPS, not to mention more time ordering it in the first place. After all this I was told that I need to go through the process of ordering the GPS all over again. I'm going to order a new GPS, but does anyone expect me to use Costco.com to do it? How would I even be sure if I would get the product I ordered?

Also, while I was writing this message, the website timed out on me and, had I not saved the text on my own, I would have had to rewrite the entire thing. I am frustrated.

Sincerely,
Adam Ross, longtime Costco member

 

Update: I got an e-mail response.

Dear Adam,
Thank you for your e-mail to Costco Wholesale.
This sounds like it has been a very frustrating day!

I am really sorry that you have had so many problems with what should have been a simple issue.  If you decide to reorder, please email me personally at (omitted) and I will keep track of your order from start to finish.  I want to make sure that you are happy with your purchase.
Thank you,
Katie M
Costco Wholesale Corporation

Umm, yeah. I’m not going to use Costco for this purchase. Not after that last nightmare.

…and the Chiefs are still a comedy

At least today it was a slightly better comedy. I liken it to Wedding Crashers. It started out really good, but by the second half it was just the same stale formula I’d seen all year long.

I call that formula the Disguised Chick Flick. You know the movie, it’s advertised like a hilarious romp, but the entire second half of the movie is one drawn-out plot line about if the boy’s will get the girl back. Ben Stiller is particularly adept at making those movies.

The sad part is that the Chiefs are always the preppy asshole with a yellow sweater draped over his shoulders. The plot wants you to think they’ll get the girl, but you know in the end they’re likely to have a face full of manure.

And that is depressing. I need cheered up.

Ah, the girls of Wedding Crashers. That movie does have some redeeming value.

Ways to kill time when you’re unemployed, part 2

Watch old movies, in this case dystopian science fiction set in a “future” date that’s already happened. 1984 is the quintessential example of such a movie, but I’m partial to Brazil.

Really, the dystopian sci-fi is an over-done genre. There’s only so much more that can be said that wasn’t in Gattaca, Logan’s Run, Metropolis, and Spaceballs.* Wah wah wah, Big Brother is out to get me, too much government control, bureaucracies everywhere, blah blah.

*“Say goodbye to your two best friends, and I don't mean your pals in the Winnebago.”

I think this genre has it all wrong. Who cares if the government is all-knowing, all-repressive, and can’t get anything right? We’re one third of the way there as it is – more depending on your viewpoint. And at least in these movies, there’s a job for everyone in government. I’d be employed! (Never mind that it would be a do-nothing job with no hope of advancement. I have an MBA. I know the business world is like that in real life too.) And the future has pretty cool gadgets, like an alarm clock that makes my morning coffee and toast. Funny, I don’t have that, but I do have more processing power in my cell phone than Terry Gilliam’s “future” in Brazil has in the entire world.

I guess what I’m saying is, I could really go for some burnt, coffee-drenched toast when I wake up. And I don’t want to have to make it myself. Is that too much to ask for?