706 thoughts on “Jack Mangans Deadpan #172: Another Brick”

  6. but first…

    Argentina legalized gay marriage today!!!!

    I am quite proud of Argentina. From being a laughing stock after the financial collapse several years ago to having a very progressive female president to legalizing gay marriage.

  7. scrolling thru last pan’s comments and this caught my eye:

    “J0e -WHAT??? I CANT HEAR YOU OVER THE SIZE OF THESE BREASTS”

    I would like to share in the joy of huge breats

    wait I don’t even know who said this…

    I should of known.. Lo Pan

  9. [catching up on old posts]

    EssBee- let me know whos mean to SlyB and I’ll take care of them for you

    Hi LeJon!!!

    Ed- hope Chicago is nice to your wife. Hear the weather there is a bit nasty right now

    We warmed Jacks cockles!!! *swooon*

    Bunny- happy bday to a fellow cancer. We rule.

    ditto- I loved the goooooal you both added to the song too 🙂

    ditto- ditto on hating the amt of conference calls you are on. I am on conference calls with my new job all the damn time.

    wow go latin america this week- ditto I think it was you posted that thing about Brazil blocking DRM. Yes it was ditto 🙂

    lol.. semen as dipping sauce. ewww

    something is just wrong and terribly funny about Johnny Null posting a recipe for a sandwich that needs to be dipped in a batter right in the middle of a whole bunch of semen commenting.

    j0e- glad you saved the baseball card collection.

    Re: Movie Soundtracks. I have hundreds. Well.. might have to rethink that if I figure out how many are Broadway not movie.. but still. I have lots.

    showtunes = wicked guilty pleasure of mine

    wait- saw Jacks post to Van about receiving treatment but can’t locate Vans post… hope the treatment goes well. I am senstitive to the word treatment. Hughs treatments are all I think abotu most of the time. But his are going well so I hope yours do too, Van.

    abotu!

    60 lines the 3rd- I will participate if you don’t mind my VM contribution. Everyone elses lines were all crisp and pretty and I sounded like poop. 🙂

    Jack- my birthday cake had the best kinda filling 🙂

    innuendo anyone?? wakka!! (as lo pan would say)

    thanks for the bday wishes here and on facebook everyone!!!!

    {/catching up on old posts]

  16. Good Morning Pan…

    I’m probably not going to be in much today. My mom is undergoing a hysterectomy this morning to remove developing cancer. I can’t say I’m thinking straight, well, I can’t say I’m thinking…. trying not to anyway… So, I may not be in the most humorous of moods.

  31. So… I’m leaving in less than a week for California.

    I have this great emotional rubber-bandy thing going on …

    I’m super duper excited about going to Comicon… but….

    5 days away from the hubby and kids… I’ve never been away so long.

  33. Love the curmudgeonish editorial in today’s local paper: LeBron True to His Generation

    It’s all about the “erosion of loyalty”.

    Yuck. Sorry grandpa, the kids don’t do it the way you think they should.

  35. Damn kids today with their tight pants and loud rock music and hip gyrations and bazillion dollar NBA contracts on my lawn.

    Yes, Lebron is a mercenary deuche, but the skeazy cutthroat owners deserve plenty of blame for creating this sellout no-loyalty environment.

  37. Jack: As much as I dislike the NBA and it’s over-glorification of ego maniacs, I’m not sure I’d label Lebron as a mercenary; well at least not for dollars. He was offered more money by Cleveland than Miami. The main reason he chose Miami was he wanted a championship and figured he was more likely to get one there.

  43. Ah! Then my opinion as stated earlier is incorrect. Replace the word “mercenary” with “self-centered” and/or “arrogant”.

    (Altho big sports franchise owners are mostly still greedy scum).

  51. But doesn’t a Westboro member commit the same sin by idolizing Phelps? I mean you wouldn’t be member if you didn’t idolize Phelps, which ironically also damns you to hell in the process. That’s some catch that catch-22.

  59. Do any of you guys make frozen smoothies and have a great blender to recommend? I just burned up our uncheap Kitchen Aid blender.

  68. OK. Update:

    Mom’s surgery went smoothly, and it appears that the cancer was contained (with the caveat that further tests on the lymph nodes need to be performed before she’s completely in the clear).

    Now, I can focus on work… well 15 minutes is better than nothing I guess…

  69. Good to hear there were no unexpected events during surgery. Hope she recovers soon. Much *hugs* to you, Lejon.
    Maybe we’ll see you at evfn for real huggings?

  71. After listening to the :pan: I had the strangest urge to listen to Pink Floyd, The Wall (don’t ask me why). Unfortunately I discovered that the track numbers somehow didn’t get transferred over to iTunes, so the songs were in alphabetical order. CAN’T listen to The Wall in alphabetical order. Fear not though, intrepid readers, I just finished correcting the problem. Now satisfying urge.

  72. Ooooh. Iron Maiden’s coming out with a new album and they have made a video loaded with Sci-Fi movie references for one of the songs. Best of all, this song sounds like it could have come off one of their albums back when I used to listen to them. Nice to know some musicians have stayed true to their roots.

    http://www.ironmaiden.com/

  74. My theory on what should happen with Pro -Sports.
    *steps up on soap box*

    There should be a per-team, player salary cap. I don’t know what it should be but it should be enough that every player can make a really good salary for playing a game and that there is some “perks” money for the crowd drawing players. Bonuses are awarded to teams who make play-offs and win championships but from now on … no bazillion dollar single player contracts. Don’t feel like you can PLAY A GAME for just a few million a year? Fine, go sell shoes at “The Footlocker”.

    Team Owners should also have a “profit” cap. Feel ripped off that you are only able to make X million a year profit as a team owner? Tough. Don’t like it? Great, the League will pull your franchise and give it to someone who is actually a fan of that sport. Heck, I don’t even like pro-basketball but if you told me I could own the team and only make $200 grand a year I’d say “Where do I sign up?”

    The extra income brought in by the “popular” teams should be used to help the “lessor” teams meet the league wide salary cap. The rest of the excess profits should be used to provide FREE game tickets to local kids.

    Nothing secures the future of a sport like turning a new generation of 10 year olds into rabid fans of the game. Plus, a lot of those kids are going to drag at least one parent to the games with them. There’s an extra ticket sale as well as some over-priced refreshments sold.

    None of this is my idea. Some sports writer penned this during a baseball strike some years back and it just seemed to make sense to me.

    *steps off soap box*

  75. Re: picketing the comic book convention

    There have been several instances in the last year or so, when this nutso group has been joined on the picket lines by people who brought signs that were so SO over the top … the Nutsborro folks quickly got lost in the noise. Passerby assumed the whole picket was just some sort of joke and it was all the spoofers who were getting the attention.

    Given how creative some of the “nerd” crowd can be, I hope they will do this trick. Or at least “flashmob” this picketers.
    I wonder how their protest would go if they were surrounded by 100 “suddenly frozen in place” people!

  77. Jj has precisely the right idea of how to deal with the Nutsborro folks. Those Berkley kids would probably lap that up.

    (One of my sibs used to do that sort of discordian nonsense, staging protests against the trees for one. It’d start out just him and a couple of friends with posters and after a couple hours it was a crowd of chaos.)

    On the other hand, the capping idea, as lovely as I would find it, would only result in a competing league cropping up without caps. They would steal away all the good players and the capped league would shrivel and die. The only way to fix this, as I see it, is for the government to step in. And that would be really ridiculous.

    So I expect it to be announced on Monday.

  78. The video mentioned by Usedhair: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oIGP0BUt8s

    Iron Maiden also has a free mp3 download of the song El Dorado at their website. Both new songs are OK. I’ve liked a bunch of stuff from their more recent releases, but haven’t really loved anything of theirs since the 7th Son of a 7th Son album (no podcast connection).

    (Sorry UH, you may not have been quite prepared for this level of Maiden geekery).

  79. Justa J0e’s wisdom (borrowed or original) is advanced beyond the human race’s capabilities. I do also look forward to the creative geeky Comicon counter protests.

    Nomad, did I see tweets about a road trip?

  80. Yup! Just a few hours and I’ll be done with this shift… then load up the car and head off for the south.

    It’s been a few years since I last took the family on a vacation, so we are all looking forward to it.

  84. Happy Friday, Pan.

    The wife and kids return home from their respective trips today. It’s been a quiet week around the from Texas house. It’s been a nice sabbatical of sorts that I’ve made, but I’m ready for everyone to come together again.

  86. Jack: I more or less expected quite a bit of Maiden Geekery (TM) from this crowd actually. I was really in to Maiden when I was a teenager and the first rock concert I went to was an Iron Maiden concert. Somewhere along the way, though, I completely and utterly lost interest. I haven’t listened to a single Iron Maiden song in many, many years. I probably should go back and see what it is that I was so damned interested in when I was younger.

  94. There were a couple I realized that I answered wrong as soon as I clicked. The questions were also all American history. I find that silly for a quiz that bills itself as the ultimate history quiz.

  97. ditto I did guess on one and the one I got wrong I thought I knew.
    If it is 10 questions and call itself ultimate I think they are doing it wrong.

  136. Well, the power went out on me in the middle of taking that test. I’ll try again later. I was on a pretty good roll. dam.

  172. Hay pan just heard my Bother-in-Law was in a motorcycle accident.
    someone hit him about 2 hours ago and we are still waiting to here what hospital they took him to and any info about how he is.

  173. I’m in CCH right now and our Chief Tech Officer just said:

    I had a knowledge transfer with ____ so now I know what’s happening.

  180. JOe, is that the George Clooney flick? If so, it wasn’t terrible. And I know lots of people who live like that. If not, never mind.

  181. just found out finely he is “ok” lots of road rash dislocated toe and shoulder pain but he should be fine.
    Thanks Lejon. I like the humor it is my best self-defense mech also

  184. Yes Essbee. It is that film.
    I’m not to proud to admit that I am trying to use Clooney as my “wing man” tonight.
    Women still find him attractive … don’t they?

  185. JOe, why are you asking me?! JK. Clooney is very handsome. Isn’t Rhettro our Clooney look-a-like? I hope it charms the pants right off her, sir.

    I just dropped by to share this news flash: It is fucking hot.

  186. I enjoyed ‘Up in the Air’, I went alone though so can’t comment on Clooney’s charms on the opposite sex.

    CD: Updating iPhones firmware and hoping there isnt a power cut.

  187. hay pan got a few more details about my Bro-in-Law:
    lots and lots of road rash and some foot, ankle, shoulder pain but nothing that to horrible they know about. hard to tell how deep the road rash is but he isn’t on any major pain killers so I would guess everything will end up well after the dislocated toe heals. that and the road rash has to hurt
    His girlfriend will need to get some pins in her arm tonight but we don’t have any more details about her yet other than her arm was twisted at and just above the wrist.

  191. On the history quiz, I got 1,353 points and 8 out of 10 correct.

    ditto: I quite agree. The idea that no history ever happened anywhere outside of the U.S. drives me crazy.

  192. I hope you got the Clooney Swooney effect, Justa.
    I saw “Up in the Air” last year at a drive-in theater(!). I thought it was excellent.

    reaper, as bad as that sounds, I’m glad it wasn’t worse for your bro-in-law and his gf.

  195. Clooney will never be your wingman … you will always be his.

    Re: “Up in the Air” – I get the feeling that I got the completely different message from the film then the one they were trying to send.
    I think they were selling the “No man is an island, everybody needs someone, you can’t live your whole life in carefree abandon” message.

    What I got out of it though, was if you reach a certain age in life and you have found a lifestyle that really and truly makes you happy … happy everyday … then for god’s sake, don’t let the rest of the messed up, unhappy world make you change your life just to try and conform to what they consider “normal”.

  202. Finally got round to watching Doctor Horrible’s singalong blog…all very nice but far too short.

    As to the iPhone flaw, myphone does suffer from it, I’ll get a freebie case (old one won’t fit), and I’ll still get another iPhone in the future..finances permitting.

  209. Hi, DP. I know not these bands.

    JOe, I agree with your take on the flick.

    We had a grand day today. Sly B’s brother and his wife came over, and finished painting our house. We did lots of yard and housework. Then the four of us went and had some solids at Oskar Blues. Fried pickles were ordered.

    We’ll be playing Harry Potter Lego tonight on the PS3 and trying to stay cool. It is FUCKING HOT. Too hot, methinks, for Rock Band tonight.

  210. ouch
    According to a report out from the Brookings Institute.

    “If future job growth could continue at a rate of roughly 208,000 jobs per month, (this is the average monthly job creation for the BEST year in the 2000s), it would take more than 11 years to get back to where we were BEFORE the great recession.
    In a more optimistic scenario, with 321,000 jobs created per month,(the average monthly job creation for the best year in the 1990s), it would still take almost 5 years. ”

    So, the prospect of things getting “back to normal” under Obama’s 1st term in office EVEN IF the Republicans weren’t doing everything they can to stop a recovery … well In the words of Miracle Max, “It’d take a miracle”.

    Do you suppose we have anybody in Washington with the guts to present these cold hard facts to the American public.

  211. Back home at last after a very full day. Spent it with my wife’s family as it was my nephew’s birthday. We all went down to the Schlitterbahn waterpark in Galveston.

    First time I had been to that one. Overall, I still prefer the original in New Braunfels (in fact, just the wife, kids, and I are heading there for a few days next week), but, it was still a lot of fun. The 120ft tall water slide is not to be missed.

  212. Back from Twins game (they won). Third shortest gamein the majors this year, around 2 hrs even. But then Fox & I were stuck on the train home from about 8:30 to 10:30 due to tornadic weather and debris.

    Fox and I sent in a VM, so listen for that on a future Deadpan.

  213. OK, so this is probably not the first time you’ll hear this, and will certainly not be the last:

    You really must get out and see Inception.

    Now to get caught up, if the eyelids hold out.

  215. Also not a fan of Crystal Castles – – the game or the band.

    J0e: dim-witted comment left on your site.

    Now to quick gnosh and sleep. Holy crap, am I tired.

    Goodnight :gnosh:

  219. Glad to hear from reliable sources that Inception looks like it is worth checking out.

    I just picked up what looks like a pretty good deal on a waterproof camera at Yugster today:

    http://www.yugster.com/

    Doing some research, it’s definitely not the greatest camera and I don’t expect it to replace my regular pocket camera for normal use. But, for something to take to the beach, pool, or waterpark without fear, it’s hard to go wrong with this for $80.

    Yugster and Woot are places that I check each day to see what they are offering. I rarely find things that come up that compel me, but this was one.

  221. Went to the Grease Sing-a-Long last night.

    I didn’t think it was possible to make the movie any cheesier, but they succeeded and it was made of awesome! My favorite thing was the way they added graphics to the lyrics as they played them on the screen such as:

    http://tinyurl.com/32fj96c

  226. ..errrr, I believe it was satire.
    He was pointing out that while we often fume and fuss about inconsistencies in the plots of our favorite SciFi shows … many of the actual “plot points” of the real WWII, didn’t make much sense.

  228. Like the “Battle of the Buldge” bit.
    Tough ass general refuses to surrender issuing the 1 word statement “Nuts!” to the enemy … then the horribly outnumbered “good guys” manage to hold off the baddies for weeks until re-enforcements arrive.

    Sounds like a stupidly cliche’ and unbelievable, Hollywood plot device … yet it is what actually happened.

  240. For those thinking there’s a theme, you are correct. Lots of Con photos. It just so happens that the majority of the photos are of James Marsters, John Schneider, Wil Wheaton, Jonathan Frakes, Levar Burton, and Scalzi, but I ran out of room.

  243. I’ve got the pickle recipe. Anyone that wants it, drop me a line. My first name, underscore, last at yahoo.

    I’ll scan it tonight and fire it off.

  249. Very strange week last week. Had a memorial on the 10th. Friend of mine gave birth to a little girl on the Tuesday. Followed by another memorial on the 17th. With doing touristy stuff in between (going to the zoo, Heritage Park, etc.)

  250. Hubby and I are still trying to get our heads around the new XBox. I got a year long gold membership and I don’t even know what it does. We’ve got a few gamer points and I don’t know what that means.

  251. Hubby tried one game of Halo 3 on line. Even though he apparently went on the newbie server he still got his butt kicked. I told him he should finish the campaign before he tried it again, just so he knows whats happening.

  260. Anyone else here watching Warehouse 13? Great show and the guest stars they get are wonderful. Last one I watched had Sean Maher and Jewel Staite of Firefly fame playing brother and sister. Also have had about half the cast of Eureka and Stargate Atlantis at one point or another. Great nods to us sci-fi geeks.

  261. I’m watching W13, Lo. I dig it. Sly B doesn’t like it, but I think the preview showing Maher and Staite will make her watch the latest. I don’t love the lead female, but I DO love CCH Pounder, and she is so creepy/mysterious on this show.

  263. See I think its the perfect blend of sci-fi and the funny. Those two have great chemistry…actually all 4 of the leads now have awesome chemistry and thats rare anymore imo. See I like the lead female. She grows on you and I dont just mean in the pants.

    Bunny the first season just got released, so you wont be that far behind.

  267. Well she does but at least theyre (probably) natural. They dont look injected.

    reaps they just aired episode 2 of season 2. Youre not far behind. This season damn well rules already tho.

  293. What is the relationship to you when the person is a son of a cousin?

    Anyway, found out hubby has a relationship who is a drummer in an Arizona based band http://suite-88.com/ (he’s the one on the far left in the pic). To me they’re just ok. But met him at one of the memorials and he seemed like a nice kid. Except I was rather upset to find out he was younger than my oldest daughter – God I feel old

    Drummers and Dips

  294. TEB: I wish I had 6 weeks of holidays too.

    Halo is fun, but I played only for the story. In multiplayer, there are far too many teens that have spent hundreds of hours honing their technique. Getting constantly pwned is no fun at all, and they love letting you know it.

    I’ll email you my gamer id, if you are interested.

    Some of the co-op games are pretty fun.

  295. Cousin once removed.
    IE. If it is a first cousin, and they have a child the child is once removed.
    If they are a second cousin, then the child is once removed…etc.

    Dollars & Doughnuts

  303. Yeah, I only play games for the story nowadays; primarily RPGs, but some FPS like Halo have a pretty good story.

    I’m not sure which you’ve played on PC, but I highly recommend BioShock, Fallout 3, and Batman: Arkham Asylum on the 360. The arcade game Shadow Complex was also quite good.

  307. I’ve been gravitating to my 360 over the PC mostly because I can relax on the couch and play as opposed to being hunched over the keyboard for hours at a time. But like ditto, I’m been playing mostly RPGS like Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Fallout 3 on the XBOX, and lots of Batman and Rock Band too. Hopefully my PC will be powerful enough to run Diablo 3 when it comes out.

  312. For those trying to “friend” me on XBox, I think I owe you an apology. Hubby’s playing Halo right now, didn’t know what was going on so those who sent requests got “ignored”.

    I’ll try sending out requests later. ditto, e-mail me your name just in case I can’t recover it from your request.

    Thx.

  313. I went to Hulu to subscribe to W13 and found 2 SG:U and 2 Eureka episodes.
    I have a feeling I will never get Babylon: 5 watched.

  331. “She wrote out a story about her life
    I think it included something about me
    I’m not sure of that but I’m sure of one thing
    Her spelling’s atrocious”

  332. Evil, Inc. facts:

    The A/C is broken. 83F and climbing in my office.

    It is raining on the S. side of the building, but not the N.

  335. Jack, I have a question for you. As a left handed guitarist, do you turn the guitar upside down and play the strings backwards; turn the guitar upside down and restring it or; simply purchase left handed guitars?

    It was a conversation that came up during the week and you’re the only other left handed guitarist I know besides my hubby and he plays right handed.

  336. So EssBee, with the warm temperatures (and no ac) adding to the hot air I get the impressing blows around there, what is the real temperature in Evil Inc? :biggrin:

  340. TEB: I heard a story once about Paul McCartney (left-handed guitarist) before the Beatles got big. He was at a party where someone (right-handed guitarist) was trying to play some guitar tune from the radio and doing badly. Paul took the guitar, turned it over because he’s left-handed, and played the tune perfectly, transposing the notes in his head without retuning the guitar.

  342. So McCartney is an option A lefty, Jack is an option C lefty.

    Just curious, no real thoughts behind the question. I think we were musing on how many lefties simply play right like hubby or make changes.

  344. TEB: I didn’t mean to suggest that McCartney doesn’t use Left-Handed guitars, I just meant to illustrate that he’s a freakin’ musical genius.

  353. I’ve had the experience of walking into Sam Ash with Jack and DreadPirate and having Pirate tell me that Jack had to contend himself with 10 percent of the models on display, those being LH ones. LOL

    Oh and I wanted to thank Jack for his great rendition of “Running Down a Dream” on the previous Deadpan. 🙂

  356. That’s one funny owl.

    In other news, I saw “Inception” this weekend, I wouldn’t call it “the movie of the decade” as some news sites have, but it definitely gets a thumbs up from me.

  358. He’s also my least favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Lejon.

    If this decade is starting with 2010, then I’d call Inception the best yet of the decade.

    That owl’s expression applies to most situations.

  359. next in chat queue or next is phone queue. which is worse, discuss…
    hands down phone queue is worse for me.
    At least I can read, listen to podcasts, post on Deadpan walk around a bit.
    phone queuing I have to listen to bad music

  363. Jack, You think if they where really sorry for the delay they might do something about it… I’m really glad dell chat doesn’t have hold music.

    I saw a commercial for the the new show Outsourced it looks pretty funny.
    I was going to link to it but it was been removed from youtube.
    That seams oxymoronic

  365. We appreciate your business, and thank you for your patience. Your business is important to us.

    Please hold, and the next representative will be with you shortly.

    [on-hold music]

  367. 11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 omfg do i!

  374. Lejon, Maybe some Teachers (even most maybe). I was that lucky one with the 53yo teacher who had 2 years to retirement and took the history teacher job to get a raise so his pension was bigger. At least that was high school. The rest of the time everything was straight out of the book.
    Wonder how much of stuff like this makes it to the history text books after it is declassified.

  378. “Ghost Rider sequel announced … movie immediately begins recording box office loss! Theater owners pro-actively pull it from screens before it’s actually made!”

  379. No really its cool… the same people that brought you Jonah Hex are doing this… really…its fine…no really… I mean come on…

  381. < Movie Announcer Voice >

    In a world where incredibly stupid studio execs think that mediocre movies can sell based on star power and bad scripts solely because they are comic book properties, Ghost Rider 2: The Spirit of Vengeance is exactly what you’d expect it to be. Nicolas Cage, with his head on fire.

    No, really… That’s it. Same as the first movie, but with a bigger budget.

    < /Movie Announcer Voice >

  383. Lo Panater, studios are infamous for tossing bigger budgets on anything that already made money once. Granted, they may think twice about it, but they’re creatures of habit, not creativity.

  390. Lo: I am, but mainly in the Joel years. I watched so much when it first came out that I can only take so much at a time now.

  391. ME TOO!!!!! Joel years are the best. I like Mike but Joel does me right. Ive been catching up via Netflix. Mitchel still my fav… also is the last Joel episode.

  393. Pod People is my favorite (like three different movies all wrapped into one), closely followed by Fugitive Alien (singing: “This is the song written for the chase scene, this is the chase Rocky and Ken, he tried to kill me with a forklift”) which is, sadly, not available on Netflix yet.

  396. This Island Earth was pretty good… Granted, the best line in it was

    “normal view… Normal View… NORMAL VIEW!”

    Perhaps I need to see some of these “joel” eps.

  399. Getting caught up . You guys were busy yesterday.

    Sean Maher and Jewel Staite as brother and sister? That’s just wrong, man!

  400. TRON app downloaded.

    That movie and really really better not suck! I saw the news bit a few weeks ago about them doing some rewrites/reshoots based on feedback from Pixar people. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing that Pixar has gotten involved, or a bad thing that they needed to.

  401. I liked the original Ghost Rider movie. Not high art by any means, but still fun.

    But, I tend to enjoy Nic Cage movies anyway.

  402. Oh, good – “California Gurls” was on Jack’s list. “Hot’n’Cold” is a fun poppy summer song. “California Gurls” just has an overall irritating sound too it.

  404. MST3K had a time during it’s Comedy Central Days where it would run all day on Thanksgiving as Comedy Central’s “Turkey Day”. There was one Thanksgiving where the actor who played TV’s Frank was portraying Marlin Perkins. It was so well done and funny that I’ve been wanting the MST 3K people to put it out on DVD. I really wish I could re-watch that.

  413. Dammit! A correction to an earlier post brought up buy Ed –

    “Sean Maher and Jewel Staite as brother and sister? That’s just wrong, man”

    My bad bad bad…they were just friends. Not bro and sis. Carry on good sirs and madams.

  427. So true, Bunny! She called me babe, girl, girlie, and said at the end “look here sister, we gotta stick together, us hot babes.”

  432. Reaper – That all gets back to what the ignored experts have been saying for over a decade. Our national power grid system is a big ‘ol outdated, kludged, cluster frak of a thing.
    If only there was the political will to update it. 🙁

  434. justa J0e, If I where putting in a windmill I think I would want to put in a system to get that power to the market or put in something to store it should there not be enough room on that system but I can only affect just so far down that line. I guess it is easier for the buyer to say “No Vacancy” at this point. It is to bad now we can just open this to more buyers who don’t have the “No Vacancy” sign out. Getting anyone to pay for infrastructure is always hard.
    Tax payers don’t want to pay because the tax will never go away even when the things are payed for
    Companies don’t want to pay because it is bad for the bottom line right now. wall street isn’t interested in 5 years from now just 3 months from now.
    Politician don’t want to bring it up because some one will get mad at them.
    I wonder how much power we could really save by having a smarter grid. The last estimate I heard was %10

  435. I really need to get caught up on all the old MST3K episodes. Put me in the Mike camp, I always found him funnier than Joel. I liked the scene from the MST3K movie were the guy was flying a fighter jet that gets hit by some alien ray, the camera pans to a shot of him wrestling furiously with the flight stick to regain control of the jet. The camera frame though is just his lap, the control stick between his legs and his frantic hand motion on the stick. Crow says “Should we be seeing this?” LOL

  436. Dr. Hu – Indeterminate Asian doctor specializing in acupuncture and mysticism, solving crimes in his off time with the help of his beautiful and generally female companions who travel around the world with him in his Toyota-Almost-Really-a-Datsun-In-Shanghai (TARDIS) 4-Runner.

  437. Joel trumps Mike for two reasons – his deadpan comes off better than Mikes and without Joel there would be no Mike.

    Its all personal preference tho. Both are wunderbar

  441. reaper – agreed about the politicians. If they can’t get their picture taken at a ribbon cutting ceremony during the very next election cycle then they don’t see the upside to funding big projects. Besides, infrastructure projects just don’t have good photo-opps … or if they do, you have to share it with the Senators from all the other states involved (ick!!).

    re: Taxes never go away
    *sigh* if only that were true in the case of the $400 billion dollar a year, unfunded Bush Tax cuts.

    re:10% – given the scale we’re talking and how tight the situation is … 10% would be a huge relief on the current (pun intended) situation.

    My beer brewing buddy worked for the TVA for some years back and has given me an earful on how screwed up our “National Grid” is. More things the average guy just really doesn’t want to know.

  458. “Because this project has been listed as in ‘development’…” it may get canceled before it gets the chance to suck every last cent out of the pockets of poor schmucks who bought into the first 3 movies.

  460. The first two were actually good films. “Ancient Chinese Secre.” er “Mummies” sucked.

    “plot summary” – lolololz!

  468. And who would have guessed that Rachel Weis would make such a good decision on not taking the paycheck on that one…

    MMmmmmMMmmm…. Rachel Weis….

  476. I’m not sassy. I can’t pull off sassy.

    snarky, geeky, sarcastic, satirical, mean, bureaucratic, ill-fitting, diabetic, and goofy maybe, but not sassy.

  483. It wasn’t too bad. I am obviously not in charge, and now everyone knows it, but I’m pretty sure we all knew it before the CCH.

  500. JOe, I’ve decided you have what it takes to lead out on the committee to determine our list of touchpoints that will help us determine whether or not we have the right duck. Unfortunately this promotion is in name only. I don’t have the ability to give you a bump in salary, but feel free to leave 2 minutes early for the rest of the week as a “thank you.”

    If all goes well, we should have this duck right where we want him by 2012.

  503. EssBee, I don’t find Beef tongue all that good. It is usually bland. I worked at a sausage factory for 4.5 years when I was in high school and college so I got to try lots of strange food.

  507. Fresh Beef Tongue = our band name.

    Yes to Rachel Weisz, although I’m gonna have to go ahead and hate big-time on the first two Mummy films. Brendan Fraser is movie kryptonite.

    FYI: EssBee, sorry to hear of your unfortunate setback. I’ll reach out to Lo Pan to get his blue sky status RE: the duck-fucking and massage some data. Maybe we can pow-wow to discuss options for leveraging our resources more efficiently.

  514. Joining us tonight, just back from their Helmet Party tour, SAUSAGE FACTORY!!!

    reaper, tell us how the road has been treating you.

  524. “if you end up lost in the woods… you may just find yourself”

    WTF?

    OK… where to I start

    1.) Does Hansel and Gretel need 1.5-2 hours of story time? NO
    2.) How many explosions can Michael Bay leave out of this film? NONE
    3.) Is there any way that 3-D can help this centuries old tale? NO
    4.) OMG, can you believe this is being done??? NO

  527. I can see the climax…

    Hansel and Gretel (played by Ewan McGregor and Scarlet Johansson) running slow mo as the wicked witch’s cottage (and by cottage I mean giant abandoned oil refinery) in the woods (and by woods I mean desert) explodes in HD to a Hans Zimmerman score.

  533. again with the ROTFL !!!

    Essbee – you are banned from posting the following phrase “I have had the tongue.” unless you first give adequate warning!
    What if I had just taken a huge sip of something? I could have choked to death or destroyed my computer or both!

    …. hehehehehe “I have had the tongue.”

    hehehhehehehehe

  537. Lejon said “And the house made of candy… Meth lab…”

    Okay, so scarily enough … there was recently a “Podcastle” episode that WAS a re-imagining of Hansel and Gretal that went this direction. The were waifs who escaped from a home for troubled kids.
    The witch had survived for some centuries, having previously lured young solders from the battle field. The magic that traped them was in her pipe and I think was supposed to be poppies.

    The story actually woked … but only for the 40 minutes or so that it ran. There was no way that another 50 minutes of explosions could have helped.

  552. Re: “My beer brewing buddy worked for the TVA for some years back and has given me an earful on how screwed up our “National Grid” is. More things the average guy just really doesn’t want to know.”

    I would have read the whole post, but I just really don’t want to know.

  554. This whole duck-fucking project was flawed from the beginning. The process was not properly scoped and the requirements were too vague. Try submitting an RFI and I’ll see if we can put something together for you by the end of next month. We can have a proposal in by December. If accepted, we can hash out an IMS and a SOW by early next year.

  557. For those in the States looking for something to do this Sunday, AMC is running a special (again). $1 for any size drink or popcorn – and if you get the large, refills are free as well.

    This deal came up a few weeks ago and we took advantage of it to suffer through “The Last Airbender”.

    AMC also runs heavily discounted tickets on showings before noon. They were $5 here in Houston.

    Here’s the coupon:

    http://a.slickdeals.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=391670&d=1279628259

  558. So is the duck-fucking being “back burnered” ?
    That paradigm would be a non-starter with me as I really felt like the duck was “low hanging fruit” and that we were very near term with increased capacity for duck-fucking across all platforms.

  561. Did I mention that I’m not taking my laptop with me? Soo… I will try to check in here on my phone, which btw, has an AWESOME scrolling thingiemebopper.. so yeah.

    OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG I’m fricken excited. I’m not gonna sleep tonight.

    I haven’t packed yet.

    Yikes?

  570. Quick check in: Hi!

    Vacationing at the parents house where three of my siblings (and their significant others) all live. It is awesome but somewhat overwhelming for my wife.

    Be deadpan.

  572. My hubby is currently hunting. I found a spider on my shirt, threw the shirt on the bed and left the room. Now hubby has to locate the spider somewhere on the unmade bed before I’ll go back into the bed room.

  576. Ok, It’s obviously too early in the morning.

    “CL: at the cinema waiting for Inception to start.”

    C = currently
    L = ?
    Lazing about? Littering the theatre floor? Letting things happen? Licking popcorn butter from your fingers?

  580. Me: “Hi VP, your request is impossible.”

    VP: “Hi, EssBee. We MUST make this happen.”

    Me: “It is LITERALLY impossible.”

    VP: “Please keep me informed on how you make it happen.”

  581. EssBee, Try the flux-capacitor or maybe a Smelloscope to help find the answer. And don’t forget to fill out the TPS report when you are done