Florida Standard Time

A sheep grazing in the Turkish town of Gevas jumped from a cliff last Thursday, causing nearly 1,500 others to follow. The leap resulted in the deaths of 450 of the animals, in addition to prompting several million college radio DJ's worldwide to play the Monty Python "Flying Sheep" sketch over the course of the next week.
(AP Photo)

Actual conversation I had with the woman sitting next to me in the jury lounge today:

Crazy old woman: (Refering to a spot for Space Shuttle coverage on the TV:) What time is that supposed to happen?
Me: I think it's around 4:00 or so.
C.o.w.: Is that their time or our time?
Me: Well, it's in Florida, so it's the same time.
C.o.w.: How can that be? It's 18 hours away!
Me: Yeah, but it's in the same time zone.
C.o.w.: Even though it's 18 hours away?

So I pretty much spent the next five minutes trying to explain to her that time zones only change when you're traveling East-West. She eventually gave up trying to understand it and just went back to watching whatever crap it is that NBC kills the time between Today and the 12:00 news with. The defendant ended up pleading guilty, which was probably a good move, considering that his fate would have otherwise been decided by people like her.

This does, however, explain why a thief can successfully sue his victim for injuries sustained during a burglary. Let's hear it for the American legal system, everyone!

Heil!

Man, Bush is almost starting to make this too easy...
(AP Photo)

(AAAARRRRRRRGH!, part V)

So a few weeks ago, I mentioned the oddness of the current Pop Tarts stick figure campaign, stating that I really had no problem with it until I came across that dinosaur thing. I would now like correct that statement.



I couldn't put my finger on it earlier, but I knew that I've seen that style of stick figure somewhere before (yes, stick figures now have unique styles, apparently). It turns out that the Pop Tarts thing is just an extremely blatant ripoff of Don Hertzfeldt's film, "Rejected", which is apparently another one of those hipster standards that I've just never been subjected to for some reason, despite encountering an almost insane number of references to it (one WUSR DJ even used this frame from the movie as her profile image for a while). So there you go, it's just another case of "giant corporation stealing the work of independent artists to make a quick buck (and getting away with it, thanks to the fact that they can afford better lawyers than the little guy can)".

I suppose I'm going to have to switch to Fig Newtons now, assuming that they aren't ultimately made by the same company. It's so hard to keep track of these things anymore. Pretty soon, everything will be owned by one corporation, and our choices will be to either obey them or starve to death. We'll probably all die from the lack of healthcare anyway, but still.

Finally, a cause we can all agree with.
(AFP Photo)

Pay Me Baby, One More Time

(AAAARRRRRRRGH!, Part IV)

My latest pay stub contains an advertisement for Britney Spears' new perfume. That pretty much says it all, really.

In other news...

So the big movie release this week was The Pacifier with Vin Diesel. Now is it just me, or is this the exact same movie that every action star ends his career with? How do the executives keep managing to regurgitate this idea over and over again? "Hey, I've got an idea: why don't take someone who usually appears in explosion-laden summer blockbusters, and put him in a cheesy family comedy? I bet nobody's thought of that one before! Hyuck, hyuck!"

Hell, Schwarzenegger's been in, like, a metric pentabafrilllion of these movies, and now he's stuck having to be governor of California for attention.

Of course, the worst part of all will be when they start re-releasing this movie in a new special edition every three months. "Director's cut!", "Special extended edition!", "2-disc double bonus edition!", "Ultimate edition!", "No, wait, that last one was only the penultimate edition, this is really the ultimate edition!", "Best Boy's cut!", "Silent film version!", etc, etc, etc...

At least Japan is stuck in a rut that has robotic catgirls.

Cheerio!

I just realized that this was the only blog left on the Internet that hasn't made fun of Phil Spector's hair yet. I shall now remedy this situation.
(AP Photo)

So for the last few days, the Scranton area has been undergoing an inexplicable influx of British people. It started with a few on Wednesday night, then by Thursday every other customer at work was rattling on about tills and kippers and whatnot. It eventually got to the point where even the other customers (who are usually about as cognizant of their surroundings as Terri Schiavo) noticed it, and began speaking in bad fake British accents in their usual "dumb-customer-who-thinks-he's-a-witty-smartass" fashion.

I have absolutely no idea why this is happening. I mean, why the hell would you travel all the way to America, just to go to Scranton? Are we suddenly some kind of international tourist destination? Do people really want to see the Electric City sign that badly? Are they actually taking Old Forge's talk of being the "Pizza Capitol of the World" seriously? Are the Iron Furnaces a happening place now? What's the draw here?

"I gotta tell you, folks, I gotta tell you, when I woke up this morning, I was having a bad hair day. This was a bad hair day for Ed Robertson. But, all was not lost, for I simply turned on my TV and the answer was before me! The answer was before me! I mortgaged my house, sold my car, sold my parents and some of my siblings, and I bought a tiny spray. And I sprayed it on top of my head, until I got this Glorious Poof of Wonderment!"

Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies, at a concert in Massey Hall in Toronto, May 1993

"Creepy hovering Electric City sign" wallpaper: 1280x960 1024x768 800x600

Soramimi This!

For those of you who use Unix/Linux/BSD/OS X/Sushix/whatever and who are bummed about the FuzzyFlakes hack in xscreensaver dropping the Azumanga Daioh colors (I'm sure that's millions of you), here's a little patch I made to cheer you up.

Warm-ish Late Night Snack of Champions(TM)

With the scribbly minimalist comic trend sweeping the Internet by storm these days, the fine folks who make Pop Tarts have apparently decided to jump on the bandwagon. So now the foil wrappers are lovingly festooned with various hastily-drawn illustrations of anthropomorphic Pop Tarts being chased down by snack-craving doodles. I had no problem with that, until I saw this one:

"Girl Being Seranaded at Her Window by a Very Tiny, Sleepy Dinosaur in a Bow Tie"
Kellogg's, Inc.
Blue ink on cheap foil, 2005

'Da hell does that have to do with Pop Tarts?