Earlier tonight, I was flipping channels on TV as I was eating sardines and saltines. I had stopped surfing to watch two guys on the Howard Stern Show engage in a trivia contest with a porn star. (Some television is just great. Really, really fantastic.) I was playing along at home. The only question that I missed was Jimmy Carter's middle name. (I'm from Georgia, and I didn't know Jimmy Carter's middle name. I should be both tarred and feathered, I suppose.) During a commercial break, Pat Boone came on my TV and tried to sell me gold. To quote Pat from the Swiss America Trading Corporation website promoted by the tv spot:

Stocks, bonds, real estate, cash, or gold? Which do you think offers the most potential to investors in the next few years? Well, according to Swiss America, the answer is... ALL OF THE ABOVE!..IF you have a truly diversified portfolio that includes U.S. gold coins.

Re-read that to make sure that you got it. That's Pat Boone's advice: stocks, bonds, and property are worth just as much as gold, but only if you own gold. (That's not even English, Pat.) If you can figure out how to follow that golden nugget of wisdom, I'm sure that you'll be just as successful as Pat Boone.

Now, I wasn't around in the 1950's, to be sure, but I think the fact that Pat Boone is never mentioned anymore by anyone in any context should give you some kind of hint about his importance to American music and popular culture. His white bucks and dulcet tones may have managed to repackage black r&b music for white America, but I have sever doubts about his ability to pitch anyone on gold futures 20 years after he stopped being a household name. Please note that the commercial does not run during Hee Haw or some other old folk's fare where Pat's name may spark a faded memory, but in the middle of a Howard Stern episode where the younger blue-collars lurk. Strikes me that it is a TV commercial for fool's gold, and you know what they say about fools and gold.

By the way, the porn star lost the trivia contest. And Jimmy Carter's middle name is Earl.

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By the skin of their canine teeth, the UGA Dawgs continued their winning streak after a 23-20 nail-biting win vs. Arkansas. I've been here for wins vs. Tennessee and Auburn, and the last 6 minutes of this game were about as desperately exciting as it gets in SEC football. The home crowd was on its feet and screaming until the last 44 seconds. Who says that homecoming games are supposed to be easy? I think the scoreboard says it all today:

Even though we may have lost Shockley just before the Cocktail Party in Jacksonville, I promise to savor the win for a whole weekend to before I start fretting about FLA.

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I just posted a new Flash toy over on the media page. It's a "generic television script generator." I got the idea while channel surfing the other day when I realized that I could go through the better part of 100 channels without stopping and still have a damn good idea what was happening on most of the shows.

There is another Flash toy in the works, it just needs a little fine tuning. Really, I made it years ago but never got the polish on it to post online. I'm determined to get it up now. I don't know why I'm making them right now, I just sort of feel possessed to do it. (Probably because my mother is coming to town this weekend and Flash scripting is preferable to house cleaning.)

On a related note, I saw Desperate Housewives for the first time this past week, and I was appalled. This is what America has been going nuts over? It's just a tawdry Sex and the City clone with bad manners. Whatever happened to the good old shows? I know, I know, there were no good old shows. I mean when Ben Jones is trying to pass off the original Dukes of Hazzard as wholesome family entertainment after the phrase "Daisy Dukes" has entrenched itself in the American lexicon, it really opens your eyes to the fact that the more things change, the more they stay the same. However, there was a time when Barbara Eden couldn't show her belly button on Jeannie so they had to actually have the characters (*gasp*) do things to get an audience. Now Debra Messing's bra-less erect nipples are the punchline of half of the gags on Will & Grace (in the syndicated early-evening, after-school hours, no less). Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of erect nipples, but when cheap schoolboy thrills are what pass for Emmy award winning writing, you can't expect me to cheer about it. I certainly understand why they call it the idiot box these days.

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I hatched about a half dozen new ideas for the site yesterday, and I've already begun working on 3 of them. (Though that doesn't count for much, as I have about a half dozen old half-completed modifications sitting uselessly in folders on my desktop. I'm an idea man. A very lazy idea man.) The main page intro movie is still in the works, as are several interactive Flash pages. There's just not enough time for me to work on them all and still play Katamari Damacy! (If you think updates are slow now, just you wait until City of Villains is released. BWAH-HA-HA!)

Anyway, I'm also working on squeezing the old campaigns onto the new site since several of you keep bothering me about them. Keep hassling me and I'll get them added. The link to them will appear on the main page only when Wriphe is out. (I guess you might call it a hidden link, but it's not really. You'll know when it's active.)

Speaking of distractions: is there anyone else in America who is NOT watching Lost? It's like the Melrose Place phenomena of the 2000's. Take a look at this insanity. (Now you know why I live alone.) If you have to watch TV, I recommend that you stick to My Name Is Earl. It's as good as it gets: funny and poignant. by that I mean that it tugs at my heartstrings and I laugh.

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Yesterday I fell off a ladder onto a chainsaw.

It'd be damn funny if that happened to someone else. Like floods and earthquakes.

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I was just searching Amazon.com for the movie Side Out (with C. Thomas Howell), and my search returned a listing for crotchless panties. (God bless the internet.) Which, naturally, got me thinking about crotchless panties. What exactly is the point of these things? It has all of the bulk of underwear and none of the function. (But what a breeze!) I like easy access, but why wear panties at all if they are simply going to have a big hole in them? When my underwear develops holes, I throw it away. I've always said that I think people look more appealing with some clothing on, but this is not at all what I had in mind.

Amusingly, under "Features," Amazon lists the following for the "String of Bubbles" crotchless panty:

• Surprise someone special
• Allows you to wear jewelry in places you never though about
• It feels amazing
• Fun to wear
• Adds spice to your life

Certainly, none of these "Features" answers any of my questions. But ladies, so long as you can have an excuse to wear more jewelry ("Ooh! Shiny!"), why not crotchless panties?

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Selling my old 3-3/4" G.I.Joe figures on eBay has got me thinking: What the hell was Cobra Commander doing?

The stated goals of Cobra were to destroy the American Way of Life on their way to total world domination. I'm not exactly sure how those two goals go together. To rule the world you have to overthrow Coca-Cola and Apple Pie? Rednecks and hillbillies are crucial obstacles to global monarchy? Microsoft seems to be doing fine, and Bill Gates doesn't wear a stupid blue handkerchief on his head.

On TV Cobra Commander was a coward with a speech impediment, which sort of explained why he would want to take over the world. But why did this loser have any followers? You can understand how Dr. Mindbender could combine a bunch of corpses to create a more charismatic leader. And worse yet, in the comics Cobra Commander had a son ("Billy"). Who would sleep with a freak like Cobra Commander? I'm sure Billy had some great genes; 1/2 from a sociopath megalomaniac, 1/2 from a blind, alcoholic hooker. We'll definitely be seeing Billy on Dr. Phil one of these days.

Could Cobra really have been so powerful that the entire U.S. military couldn't stop them? The solution: create a very, very small band of quasi-elite soldiers in useless specialized fields (Muskrat on Swamp Patrol?) to combat the titanic global juggernaut that was Cobra. Regular U.S. hardware and hundreds of thousands of well trained soldiers weren't good enough so the brass hired Canadians to help out in the fight. They never turned to any other country for help. (I always thought that Dial Tone looked a little French with his little mustache, but that's beside the point.) Other countries had to fend for themselves against a cohesive global menace. Russia had it's own anti-Cobra force, the October Guard, who employed even fewer members than the Joes did. Great military powers no doubt think alike. World War 3 breaks out, and the countries of the world decide that 100 soldiers with specializations in "Deceptive Warfare" and "Pirate" are going to hold the line. I feel safer already.

On a side note, the well-groomed chrome-domed Destro was supposedly a master weaponsmith and exclusive weapon supplier for Cobra. You would have thought that he could have made a laser rifle that could hit something. And yet the genius that Cobra Commander was, he kept buying from him.

I played with these toys for years and never once realized how ridiculously stupid it all was. To think that I simply accepted all of this at face value during my formative development. At least no one ever tried to pitch me on the concept of an omnipotent but impersonal universal architect when I was a child. *shudder*. Knowing is half the battle.

Yo Joe!

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I've been watching a lot of Star Trek, and I've decided 2 things:

1. Leonard Nimoy is spectacular.

We all know him as Mr. Spock, a distinguished role among many on TV and movies. He is also an accomplished director of both media. Even more astonishing, he is a singer with nearly a dozen albums to his credit. ("The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" gets all of the glory, but if you've never heard Nimoy sing "If I Had a Hammer," you haven't lived. It brings me to tears every time I hear it.) And I've just recently discovered that he is a photographer specializing in nude female photographs. Damn, Leonard, do you have to make all of the rest of us look like such spectacularly lazy bastards?

2. Captain Picard is a shitty captain.

Sure, he strikes a distinctive pose, all regal and bald, but he has no idea what his ship or his crew are ever capable of. When confronted with any new situation, he is as confused as an old man presented with a new children's cereal box. Worse still, after he acquires even a little information about his new situation, he jumps to some immediate, outlandish solution that could only possibly be correct on a syndicated science fiction television show. (Better to be lucky than good, eh, Jean-Luc?)

To disguise his foolhardy blustering, many Picard defenders point out that Picard is simply a more calm and rational man than his forebearer (the great and mighty Captain Kirk). This could hardly be further from the truth. To jump to a faulty conclusion at the drop of his last hair is neither rational nor commendable. Picard's outrageous temper tantrums, seen frequently in outbursts against his crew (especially including that impetuous young Ensign Crusher) but rarely discussed, are further evidence of his instability and inability to lead. The fact that the crew follows the old man (who leads from the rear *tsk, tsk, tsk*) demonstrates only that they are just as sick of him and desperate for escape from his tyranny as I am.

At least he's still better than Captain Janeway.

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Remember the television Incredible Hulk series? I watched an episode tonight where David Banner finagled himself a job as an orderly at an insane asylum. Now, you would think that would require background checks before a drifter who mumbles his last name (which always starts with a "B," that way David, a genius with degrees in physics and medical science, won't forget what his last name is supposed to be each week while still remaining "incognito") could get a job with no references or qualifications. Maybe you can work as a mechanic, short order cook, handyman, electrician, grocer, laboratory technician, gardener for an elementary school, boxing trainer, bartender, unlicensed driver, truck loader, nanny, store clerk, sports reporter, oil rigger, janitor, or choker setter without proving your qualifications, but I think it takes a little more to work for a hospital. At least I would hope that it would.

David, David, David. *sigh*

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After however many weeks it was finally pointed out to me that the bio pages STILL didn't work. (I thought they were fixed way back in August, but no, I am an idiot.) But, they're fixed now. I'm sure of it. I've shown them!

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