Breaking the Silence

Alright, I guess this has gone on long enough. Time to fess up. I guess I'm just going to have to accept that after all this time, I was wrong. For years I've wondered what "take out TCP" means in the song Respect. I thought maybe TCP was some kind of drug. I sure as hell didn't know what "rese" was. But it turns out the correct lyric is "Take care, TCB." TCB stands for "take[ing] care of business" That somehow makes even less sense than taking out TCP. First, why say take care, followed by TCB, when the "TC" part means "take care"? That's redundant. And why throw in an acronym when you just finished spelling a word? It just seems like that...

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That Whole Kerfluffle

Okay, people. I wasn't here when Kanye acted like a giant douche and said Beyonce's video was one of the best of all time. OF ALL TIME!!! Then she actually won video of the year, which made him look like an even bigger, impatient douche. But I'm not here to talk about that giant impatient douche. In the interest of remaining somewhat relevant, I've seen the Single Ladies video and I don't get why a black and white video of three chicks dancing would even be in the running for video of the year, let alone "all time." Unless you're using it for, ahem, spank material, it's boring as hell. Where's the story? The character development? It looked like a cosmetics commercial. In fact, wasn't it? There were no Vincent Price raps, no claymation, no dancing skinned chickens...no Fonzie, not even a...

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What the Hell Happened: Joe's Revenge

Continued from yesterday So who, against all odds, managed to avoid the chopping block? Joe! Freaking Joe! Suddenly, I didn't feel all warm and fuzzy. Why did I get laid off and this guy's still there? When we switched from Quark to InDesign a few years back, I was admittedly the last one to embrace it. But once I learned it, I found I really liked it and just kept learning new tricks and shortcuts. Whenever we had a little downtime, I'd explore some of the features and find something new. And if there was something I couldn't figure out, I'd keep trying different things, or look up the problem online until I found a solution. That's what I do. It's like when I couldn't remember the name of that cartoon with the talking fireworks. I FOUND IT! It took forever, but by God, I found it. On...

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What the Hell Happened: Tell me about the rabbits, George

So...how was your summer? Mine was crap. I tried to write this several times over the past few months, before deciding that the best way to express my thoughts would be in my first ever video blog. But once I started recording, I drew a blank, so I had to write it all down anyway. And then there's the issue of where to look. I tried looking directly at the camera, but the constant stare came out looking insane and a little creepy. So I tried it again, looking slightly off camera, but without any eye contact, it looked like I was trying to hide something. So I ultimately decided to just go back to writing the whole damn massive thing out in sections like I was going to do in the first place, except now I have this needless explanatory paragraph to start out with. Anyway, it all started on...

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Quick Update

Hey, guess what? I don't have to listen to Joe anymore! Because I got laid off! More details when I get my new laptop I'm supposed to be getting with my retirement money, whenever it finally gets here. The money, not the computer. Well, both, I guess. But one thing at a time he...

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R.I.P.: Warren G. Skye

Most of you have never heard of Warren G. Skye. To be honest, I never really knew exactly who he was, either. I guess I thought he was one of those quasi-celebrities whose fifteen minutes of fame were up before I was even born, like etiquette guru Annie Cavanagh. He could have also been a politician, possibly British; I just didn't know. I feel bad now for not giving poor Warren much thought. Did he have a family? What's he been up to lately? It never crossed my mind. Really, the only time I ever thought about him at all was every once in a while when I heard his name on the radio. But no more. Today, in a Shamaylanian twist, I found out there is no Warren G. Skye. Or, if there was, the Cars never mentioned him in Bye Bye Love, off their eponymous 1978 debut album. I'm still a bit too shaken...

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Rise From Your Grave And Sell My Tie-ins!

I saw a McDonald's commercial over the weekend involving a Monsters Vs. Aliens tie-in featuring Grimace! He didn't have a speaking part, but by God, he's alive! In honor of this momentous occasion--and because I don't want to write about how we got to the IMAX at Jordan's Furniture at noon to get tickets for the 3 o'clock show, only to discover that every show was sold out until seven so spent all day in Framingham--here's another one of these things... ...

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FWS: Episode 4

With Steve's offer of a new co-host opening apparently still standing, struggling comedian Chip Newton sees his chance for a new career. But what will become of Fred...

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Where's the Rocket?

Over the years, the internet has helped me find the names of movies, magicians who cut off their legs with a chainsaw to the tune of The Peter Gunn Theme, even the identity of Donald Duck's mother. And yet, one challenge, finding a cartoon about anthropomorphic fireworks has remained unmet. That is, until now. Yes, I was looking back over the weekend and realized after over three years, I still had not found any evidence of this thing ever existing. So I tried again, I even made the rounds of movie forums hoping someone would have known what I was referring to. Only this time, I tried to remember a bit more. "Fireworks" and "firecrackers" weren't...

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The Internet...Is There Anything it Doesn't Know?

Thanks to the internet, I now know the name of a movie that used to be on HBO all the time about a kid with red toy telephone who uses is to talk to his dead father, but it isn't really his father, it's the spirit of an evil magician who has possessed a ventriloquist dummy the boy found in an old mine shaft or something and decided to bring home for some reason. It's called Making Contact, or Joey for the German version and, among other things, it was the first film directed by Roland "Leno-chinned Godzilla" Emmerich. Everything about this movie is crazy. Emmirich, living in West Germany in 1985, wanted to connect with American audiences, so...

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Apologies in Advance

A pirate is sitting at the bar, and the bartender says "How'd you get that eyepatch?" The pirate says, "Arrr, livin' on a ship can get a bit cramped, so some of the lads decided we should take a portion of the cargo hold where we store our plunder and convert it ta livin' quarters. Not everyone was open to the idea." "So they stabbed you in the eye?" "What? No! So we had a vote, fair and democratic like, to see whether or not we should give up some loot space fer some livin' space. The results were split down the middle, seven men for it, and seven opposed, with one undecided." "So the guys that were against it broke into your quarters while you slept and plucked out your eye to get you to change your vote!" "No! Stop doing that! So...I approached the undecided lad and asked if there...

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My Heart Will Go On

I got the results from those ultrasounds from the other day. The doctor said while she is confident that I do in fact have Marfan Syndrome, both scans showed my aorta to be perfectly healthy. I'm going to have to go back once a year so they can keep an eye on it, but she reassured me that if and when the aortic tissue expands too much, I'd just need to take pills to regulate it as opposed to surgery. I can deal with that. So as far as dropping dead goes, I think I'm in the clear. but I've still got joint and tissue deterioration to worry about. She suggested Tai Chi, which is supposed to help me avoid things like my thumb or even my whole wrist...

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JMDb Strikes Again

Since the day he got here, and probably even before that, Joe's been periodically shouting "Bailiff, whack his pee pee!" And as with everything else that spews from his mouth, no provocation is needed. We'll be sitting in complete silence, then "Bailiff, whack his pee pee!" comes booming out of his office. Perhaps even more baffling is the revelation yesterday that Mooney claims to have never heard Joe say this at any point over the last eight years. You've got to envy Mooney's acute ability to suppress and/or block out stuff like that. I guess it made him curious, because today Mooney said "Bailiff, whack his pee pee!" to see what Joe would do. "Who was it that said that?" Joe asked. "I forget his name. It was a black guy." "You mean that's actually from something?" asked Mooney. "Yup....

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JMDb

Sometimes, you just have to know when to pick your battles. That being said, from my office I just heard Joe say from down the hall: "You know what was a movie that was disappointing that got a lot of hype? End of Days. It was Arnold's last movie, besides his cameo in The Rundown." Against all odds, my brain did not implode after taking in that much false information. 2008 John would have gone down there and corrected him, but 2009 John is just going to sit in his office and pretend it never happened. However, just to purge it from my head, End of Days came out in 1999, just in time to cash in on the Y2K hysteria, but long before Arnold's stint in politics. In fact, over the next four years after End of Days release, he would go on to star in three more movies; The 6th Day, Collateral Damage...

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Bill Pullman.org. Yes. Dot ORG.

For some reason, I was just thinking of a bit from Family Guy about Neil Simon's The Even Couple, starring Jeff Daniels and Bill Pullman. This isn't spaghetti, it's linguine. You're right, it is! I always get those confused. Hey, all of us are human. I'm glad we're friends. Yeah, this is really working out. So I did a search and discovered it was mentioned in the 2006 news archives of billpullman.org. Bill Pullman is an organization now? Why isn't it .com, like Kamala the Ugandan Giant's website? What makes Bill Pullman so damn special? To be fair, the site does state that "Bill Pullman.org is not officially connected in any way to Bill Pullman." So it's not as though Bill Pullman has let all of his many accolades go to his head. And anyway, odds are he would have gone with billpullman.gov,...

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An Important Chinese New Year Message

Well, it's a new year, there's a new president, and I'm a new uncle. That's right, uncle, like all those Disney castratos. Michele's sister gave birth to a boy last week, making me an uncle, except we're not married so I don't know if that's an official title or like a gray area. Anyway, to go along with all this newness, I guess I owe a new post. Or at least a new-ish one. Tuesday I was at Harvard Vanguard Kenmore for most of the day. When I made the appointment in early December, they set up a blood test, and two ultrasounds; one for my heart and one for the abdomen. Hold on, quick question: What do you call a snowman body without a head? highlight for answer the abdominal snowman Sorry. I needed to fast for the abdominal one, so I made the appointment for 11:00 AM, then I could have...

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