1969: Charles DeGaulle resigns

Posted on April 28, 2019 by Steve

After his referendums were defeated in a public vote, the WWII hero left office unlike many French predecessors (Napoleon, Louis Napoleon III). However, I don’t think DeGaulle walking away was (or is) a surprise in the late 20th Century. Despite the riots, despite the recent formation of the Fifth Republic and despite the Soviet Union hoping they could disrupt the Western Alliance, it was still France and Western Europe. Much of the older regimes had matured in a hurry after a conflict that killed three percent of the planet. DeGaulle or the army taking over was highly unlikely.

One ex-friend used to admire this guy because he didn’t line is pockets as numerous other French leaders. I would add, not to your knowledge DeGaulle didn’t. To me, the ex-general is someone who represents the old-world view, the one in which France is still at the center of the world alongside the UK. He also couldn’t handle the social changes the country was undergoing, thus the riots in Paris. The unrest didn’t spill over from America or the UK, it was the standard shift between generations, the standard fight for/against modernization and change. He also overstayed his welcome as his contemporaries (Eisenhower, MacArthur) were deceased.

Too bad these lessons have been ignored by the Boomers who can’t take the hint to step aside. It demonstrates how hypocritical they are now that they’re the entrenched power stopping progress.

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Slut in a Good Way: Worth Seeing

Posted on April 27, 2019 by Steve

The message of this Quebecois comedy is the double standard between the sexes. Namely how women get labelled sluts and men are congratulated for the exact same behavior.

Let me rewind to the movie.

Charlotte is a teenage girl enamored with her boyfriend in that manner young people often are. One night after they copulate, the boyfriend immediately says that dreaded sentence, “We need to talk.” At least the twist was him telling Charlotte he’s gay instead of being in love with another girl/woman. Devastated, she is consoled and gets hammered with her two best friends Mégane and Aube. These two are Charlotte’s ying and yang in the story. Mégane is the outspoken cynic and self-proclaimed anarchist. To her love is bullshit, boys are dumb and viva revolution. Aube is soft-spoken and a little shy. She isn’t really sure about love or boys other than she liked to meet someone.

Due to their underage drinking in a public park (Quebec is a more sensible 18), they get chased by the cops and manage to dodge the heat in a nearby Toys R Us-like store. There, the trio spot all the handsome boys and young men working in the place. As an act of solidarity they apply for part-time jobs there. Within a week, they are hired as seasonal help (Christmas is several months away) and go through training with the male co-workers. Charlotte enjoys the flirting and starts her recovery over her former beau which then leads to her just enjoying sex with some of the boys—talk about an HR nightmare. By Halloween, she is humiliated at an after-work party; all the boys  are high-fiving over what they’ve done and all the girls are giving her the silent treatment as they call her salope (“slut”), including Aube.

Mégane comes to the rescue. She may not entirely agree with Charlotte’s past actions but she is the one to point out the hypocrisy. Staying true to her trouble-making ways, Mégane organizes a celibacy strike during November to counter the facial-hair charity drive the boys participate in. Reluctantly, the other female co-workers join in to get their revenge on the gossipy boys. From there, you have to see the outcome.

Being a guy, I was a little unnerved by the title until I saw the original French one, Charlotte a du Fun, which is worse; it sounds like a Seventies softcore porno flick a la Debbie Does Dallas. Plus “slut” is a charged, hurtful and often, unfair word hurled at mostly women. I do see the movie’s argument. However, I’ve never been fan of boys/men who have sex with scores of females at any point of my life neither. Not out of jealousy. I believe that people need to be careful for multiple reasons.

  • Accidents make people.
  • People do, and will, get their feelings hurt. Polyamory people are full of shit too.
  • It will always be a vector for disease to spread.

This doesn’t mean, don’t do this at all. Just be smart about it. With men, maybe I thought Hugh Hefner was cool…for about 10 minutes when I was 14. Beyond the authors and journalists he supported, Hefner was a disgusting creep for the last four decades of his life. Ditto for Wilt Chamberlin and other guys bragging about the notches on their six (really one) shooters. So these boys “sowing their wild oats” in Slut are insensitive pigs being taught a lesson I agree with. Enough of that discussion, other than, when female prostitutes are sentenced, their male clients should receive the same punishment, double if they’re public office holders or cops.

I also want to bring up the technical elements of the movie. It initially appears to be a Black & White flick but it really isn’t. As one Web site I visited (for research purposes) pointed out, it’s more of a Grayscale flick. Many visuals are fuzzy, not sharp as like a modern B&W made after the Sixties (Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Last Picture Show). Why? I think the director/writer left this up to the audience to decide. I never noticed. The thing which did get my attention immediately was the lack of adults present. Other than customers at the toy store’s registers, you never see any managers, parents or authority figures. This I’m confident to say was a conscious choice. It keeps the focus on the teens/young adults and avoids the clichés involving older people; they’re mean, they’re understanding, they’re clueless, etc.

My recommendation in the headline stands. Slut isn’t for anyone under 16 due to the subject matters but I think it’s a pretty original story and different in its execution compared to most drivel from Hollywood. An updated tale in the John Hughes vein.

Alamo Extras: French-speaking music videos from Martin Circus and Françoise Hardy; trailers for sex-romp movies H.O.T.S. and Foxes; some ballet-like dancing with umbrellas and a barbershop-like quartet in French (shows how boring French TV is); Story Corps telling the story of a Dominican woman meeting an Afghan man in Quebec; newsreel stuff during WWII highlighting how Quebec handled the conflict; Speedy Ortiz video; and videos of the actresses Marguerite Bouchard (Charlotte) and Rose Adam (Aube) trying Alamo’s fried pickles (they liked them) and playing Bang/Marry/Kill when they came to Austin to promote this movie.

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One hundred days at the gym!

Posted on April 26, 2019 by Steve

This year is really shaping up, too bad my body won’t follow the lead, I’m continuing to struggle with getting my weight down in to the low 250s. Regardless, I’m back in the zone a la several years ago when I was running three miles a day. Until my weight is down to a safe number to spare my aging knees, the exer-cycle will have to do.

Where am I now? Eight percent of the way to Honolulu. Not bad, I’m over 100 mile in or away from Caracas.

Next up, beating the 52-day streak record. Honolulu this year. Hitting over 1500 miles. Finally, 150 days at the gym!

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Joe “Foot-in-Mouth” Biden joins the mess

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Steve

The picture I swiped from Splinter sums up my opinion of the former vice president and his quixotic plans to “rescue” America from the Shitgibbon. I’m confident the failing and rapidly aging leadership of the Democrats has a boner with Bilary version 3.5 running against the “professional left.”

Let’s review Biden’s shitty record of 40-plus years he won’t escape…

  • Voted “yes” to put probable rapist and serial creep Clarence “Uncle Tom” Thomas on the Supreme Court while crapping all over Anita Hill.
  • Backed capital punishment and wrote the disastrous crime bills of the Clinton era that has led to the rise in private prisons.
  • He’s been in the pocket of corporate copyright holders such as the RIAA, and doesn’t express a problem with Disney owning everything in perpetuity.
  • He favors domestic spying since his 1995 bill regarding the OKC bombing was the blueprint of the Patriot Act six years later.
  • His main career has been the senator of a legal fiction known as Delaware. A state with fewer people than Austin and its main industry is operating PO Boxes so corporations to hide their money from taxing authorities.
  • Besides money laundering, Delaware, along with South Dakota, is where credit card/banks go to dodge usury laws. It’s why many of us would ask C-Span to correct his affiliation from Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) to (D-MBNA).

Given just those snippets of his “Centrist” record, he’s also older than the Shitgibbon. Does America need another asshole who should be retired‽ Lets also not forget his history of public gaffes; I remember well his 2008 flub of calling Obama “clean.” All his creepy touching is coming to light too, yet Al Franken was driven out of his well-earned seat with torches and pitchforks thanks to another Wall Street whore named Gillibrand (my wrath for that asshole is for another day).

I for one am tired of Boomers and their old fart-knocker candidates. Their time is over. Their politics are bullshit, namely due to their overall selfishness. Many will be dead when the Earth is an insufferable place to live on yet they will continue to drive their gas guzzlers and bore us with the Beatles. It is up to an alliance between Generation X (what I belong to) and the Millennials to drive them out. They gave us St. Reagan, two horrible WASPs named Bush, Slick Willie and now the worst president since Harding, Buchanan, Nixon and Dubious all rolled into one. They were key players in wrecking the global economy in 2007-08. They have been key players in America’s general ignorance and fake religiousness; surveys show Gen X and Mils are less keen on imaginary friends. My list could go on but in short, Joe Biden is the culmination of what I hate about Boomers and the corrupt NeoLiberal leadership of the Democratic Party which decided that winning was more important than principles. Seems that the GOP’s batshit-crazy positions haven’t hurt them for 30 years.

The ridiculous number of Democratic candidates running for the nomination also shows how the party bosses have lost their grip on inter-party discipline. It’s well deserved. After backing the incredibly shitty Bilary 2.0, who I didn’t vote for, I live in Texas, it doesn’t matter here so all you Bilary apologists can kiss my ass, namely a certain one hiding in Switzerland. Anyway, the bosses aided Bilary 2.0 into eliminating any competitors in 2016 because Obama upset her huge ego in 2008 and look what happened. She ran a terrible campaign by taking WI, MI and PA for granted (HA!) and figured her coronation was inevitable. As H.L. Mencken once said:

“No one in this world, so far as I know – and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me – has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.”

Translation, the Democratic Leadership continued their track record of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by forgetting America is still dominated by old, racist, homophobic, sexist, superstitious and ignorant WASPs. Throw in the archaic electoral college created by the overrated Alexander Hamilton and they think the solution to winning 2020 is this corporate stooge because he has a D by his name instead of an R?

To those who shout at us with, “The first thing we need to do is defeat Trump. So we all need to get behind whoever wins the nomination and stop the infighting when the day comes.” You can all eat shit! Right now, the world is speeding toward a point of no return at 100 kph and you think electing Biden the ass clown or some other Centrist coward is better? No, it just means we’ll get another Obama who will just let off the gas and we’ll continue heading toward our doom at 70 kph.

Super Tuesday is many months away so I haven’t picked my candidate yet. I can only tell you who I wouldn’t vote for even if you put a gun to my head. Biden is definitely on the short list with Gillibrand, the ill-tempered MN doofus and O’Rourke the Poseur.

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Kitten rescued at work!

Posted on April 24, 2019 by Steve

With all the negative news given that we live in the Stupid Ages, it’s great to know about an ugly situation ending happily as it did for this kitten. I have nicknamed the uncommon female orange tabby Mela! It’s Italian for Apple which is where I work and I was learning Italian words during the trial period of a free app on my iPad, apple came up. Talk about coincidence!

The lady at the center of the photo discovered the kitten trapped in the engine area of her car. Mela was very lucky since many animals aren’t so lucky. The nice lady received assistance from members of Security, Facilities and Groundskeeping to rescue the scared girl. Mela probably wandered off from the nearby feral colony which would explain why she wasn’t initially cooperative.

Eventually they flushed Mela out with cunning, grit and I suspect some tools.

The happiest part is the event’s finale. Mela went home with the lady because the lady’s daughter was asking for a cat and it’s wonderful when circumstances align!

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1989: First Grammy® for Hard Rock/Heavy Metal goes to…

Posted on April 23, 2019 by Steve

…Jethro Tull!

I can’t remember exactly when the ceremony was 30 years ago but it’s a solid memory of the year the Eighties closed out. I do clearly remember that the inaugural award went to an act which was neither Hard nor Metal. Hell, few thought the band still existed.

Meanwhile, Metallica’s popularity had been on the rise. They were no longer a sub-genre act living in the shadow of what was more accepted as Metal; Motley Crue, Poison, Ratt, Quiet Riot, etc. They were more widely known and accepted by larger audiences alongside Rap. Everyone figured they were a shoe in for the trophy, plus Metallica performed their hit “One” at the ceremonies.

Nope. The people who choose the winners demonstrated their overall cluelessness much like FM radio and Rolling Stone. Hell, if the latter decided the winner, they would’ve picked Bob Dylan going electric.

They sort of redeemed themselves when Metallica won three years later for the album which started the band’s decline into becoming Alice in Chains.

As for those who think the Grammys lost their credibility with this don’t know much about popular music history. It happened decades earlier when the winner for the first Rock n’ Roll award went to Henry Mancini.

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The Big Mouth Club

Posted on April 22, 2019 by Steve

I think the artist who did this shirt is one of those people that focuses on a couple themes and then does them to death. However, this mashup of the Big Mouth crowd with The Breakfast Club is rather fitting. Although Nick, Andrew, Jessi, Missy and Jay are several years young than Brian, John, Claire, Allison and Andrew, they have equally tough struggles, it’s just the Big Mouth gang have elements in common and are mostly from the same socio-economic class.

If you have Netflix, when the kids are away or in bed, watch Big Mouth, you’ll laugh pretty hard which was something I didn’t think was possible when Nick Kroll stars.

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Showing off my inner Millennial

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Steve

An awesome nod to two of the biggest cartoons of the Nineties. Rugrats from 1991 and for a while, the longest running cartoon on Nickelodeon and The Powerpuff Girls which debuted around 1998 to the Cartoon Network their first, original hit show; until Adventure Time. I love the nods to Tommy’s favorite show/character as the prize inside and to the secret ingredient which gives Blossom, Buttercup and Bubbles their powers.

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Princess Cutie & the Round Rockers’ debut…for Penny!

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Steve

This is a long overdue project I have wanted to do when Ben was a baby and learning to speak. His own personalized Sesame Street! Thanks to my procrastination, Ben is in kindergarten but thankfully he has a baby sister, Penny! Although we missed her birthday by a lot, I finally got a crew together my very creative friend Kathy, the very skilled friend Aaron K and his daughters Evie and Gomer to make this proof of concept. Parts of its charm are the glitches you’ll see and our ad libbing. We also laid down the raw footage for another birthday wish, a lesson on why you shouldn’t hit friends/people when you’re mad and why sharing is OK. The other three are being edited together and refined.

If you have a small child that would like to have a birthday wish from Princess Cutie and her friends, the Round Rockers, you know how to reach me.

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1999: Columbine…and how the US remains paralyzed

Posted on April 20, 2019 by Steve

The world knows this story all too well. Somebody or somebodies go into a school, shoot up the place and kill a bunch of people. Often the shooter(s) commit suicide or the cops kill them. Sadly, this event happens continuously in the US and remains a rare event in the rest of the Western World. Thanks to the domestic terrorists’ political representatives, the GOP and NRA, no progress on gun control is made. Ammosexuals such as my cousin who gotta’ have me my guns because of their irrational bullshit about the government’s jackboot; Something something about Stalin/Hitler being stopped if the people/Jews had guns and other evidence my cousin’s D- in high school History and Civics.

When Columbine happened, numerous rumors abounded and many untruths remain. Klebold and Harris getting even with the school’s bullies was unfounded which was my hypothesis. Nope, their victims were chosen at random and there was no evidence they were necessarily picked on. The Volvo-Driving Soccer Moms went to their usual scapegoats in 1999: The Matrix, Marilyn Manson and violent video games. Wrong on all counts as always. The last one is a weak point because other Western nations have the same stuff and you don’t see Japanese or Dutch kids shoot up schools. KKKristians continue to spread their lie involving victim Cassie Bernall to heighten their exaggerated status as a persecuted group. The lie goes as so; One of the shooters came across Bernall, asked her if she believed in god, she said “yes” and then she was killed. Witnesses disproved it ever happened. It was really another student the shooters wounded and when the victim answered “yes,” the shooter spared them. Being KKKristians out to make a buck and promote their bullshit, Bernall’s parents didn’t let the truth stand in their way of “writing” (a ghost writer was used) a book titled She Said Yes.

Twenty years later, mass shootings in the US happen as often as a utility bill, monthly. The GOP and “conservative” Democrats (shitbags such as Dan Lipinski) throw up their hands, say “there’s nothing we can do, it’s the price we pay for (mis)interpreting the Second Amendment and liberty.” Instead, my homeland implements asinine “solutions,” all in order to avoid to the armed elephant in the room preventing a key remedy, restrictions.

  • Metal detectors at schools and public events. Yeah, there’s our freedom in action! Too bad these things rely on human error and are defeated by ceramics or plastic.
  • Clear backpacks, handbags and purses. Seems guns trump privacy.
  • Cops or security guards at soft targets. St. Reagan had the elite Secret Service protecting him yet an untrained Hinckley winged him and maimed Brady.
  • Arming teachers and students will stop the violence. Do the Republicans think arming educators is wise with Charter Jesus DeVos as Secretary of Education?
  • Spending more on addressing mental-health treatment. Oddly, the GOP/NRA don’t think racism is an illness, see Rep. Steve “Whitebread Power” King, Alex “Rolex” Jones or Jerry “Poolboy” Falwell Jr. George Zimmerman isn’t in jail.

As for my cousin. I find it puzzling how he has a hard-on a-gain’ the gubmint, after all, he was employed by the “enemy” for 12 years as a Navy mechanic. He’s no Rambo or Dirty Harry, just in his imagination. He doesn’t have a problem with all the paved roads, clean water, untainted food and low bribery rate this tyrannical gubmint provides. He forgets how WE THE PEOPLE are mostly the government, not the preferred OTHER his camp likes to promote, especially when elected officials are non-White. Lastly, for an ex-military schlub, he’s rather absent-minded about how useless his armory will be when the alleged Black Helicopter people won’t bother with Team Seal Six, they can take him out with a drone more efficiently.

Columbine, Sandy Hook, etc. are horrible, horrible tragedies. Nothing is going to change as long as America is paralyzed by the Electoral College, Gerrymandering, a shitty two-party monopoly, ridiculously easy access to guns (an Ammosexual boutique opened in the same strip mall as my comic book store!), the GOP/NRA crippling of the ATF and CDC and a proud culture of ignorance (see my cousin and President Shitgibbon).

I want to conclude with paraphrasing Dennis Miller before he became Faux News’ bitch; Gun owners say you can take away my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands…alright little dick.

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Caracas Achieved!

Posted on April 19, 2019 by Steve

Today was the third milestone via in-door bike! Being more aggressive in 2019 was how I managed to cover the 893 difference. I would this year is certainly shaping up to be the one I really get back into the groove I missed having a few years back. I can’t wait to return to running because the cycling will exceed the cumulative distance of the former.

Real quick aside. I didn’t pick Caracas to declare which side I’m on in the disastrous situation happening with our southern neighbor. If there were a “side” to take, it’s the average citizen. You won’t get any serious defense of Maduro from me but the opposition leader Guaido is no friend of the people nor democracy, he really represents the traditional, light-skinned, racist political class. Should Guaido attain power, you can count on him ordering the military and police to start murdering Venezuela’s minorities to take their resources. The US should take a role in mediating the situation because it’s too late to have the UN or another respected NGO to monitor the recent election.

Anyway, Caracas was selected at random when I asked for major cities and their distances from my house (or Austin).

The destination was achieved earlier through my renewed efforts to complete at least 33 minutes of biking per day for April, as I’m upping the minimum one minute per month. Thankfully I have been more consistent in arriving at the gym early enough to do 50 minutes a day and this gives me an average of 13.5 miles/day. The Wellness Center said I needed more than cardio so when biking is over, I either row a kilometer (pull strength) or bench press (push strength).

Next destination, within a reasonable amount of time/distance, Honolulu!

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Record Store Day 2019!

Posted on April 18, 2019 by Steve

It’s time for the annual Nerd Holiday season which is always kicked off with Record Store Day! Despite this year’s ambassador(s) being Pearl Jam, or as I call them Led Zeppelin for dumb Gen Xers, I found some great treasures alongside the two key albums I wanted from the get go.

Someone noted how the line gets longer every year. I’m not really sure about the validity of such a statement. I showed up really late because we had a long evening seeing the other Captain Marvel movie (DC/Shazam!). I wasn’t terribly worried. If Waterloo Records sold the stuff I wanted before I got in, I had only myself to blame and I was certain I would find impulse buys to make the effort worthwhile. I lucked out, namely for not being a Ministry fan. They had some set up which was a big deal, concert tickets in certain cities and I think a documentary about Wax Trax Records.

Below are the vinyl pieces I scored and hope to play on our new turntable with USB, sometime before the next presidential election cycle.

Peter Gabriel hasn’t done an original album in over 17 years. Maybe a single or two but PG contains his super-difficult-to-find soundtrack work, not of all it, just the key songs I’ve been wanting to get legal copies of. Namely “Walk Through The Fire” from the movie Against All Odds which is more famous for Phil Collins’ melodramatic hit by the same name. I was a bit annoyed that “In Your Eyes” is present for two reasons: it’s played to death and although the song was used in the film Say Anything (I hope to see it one day), you can easily find this on So or a greatest hits compilation. The vinyl comes with a download code.

This was my other intentional buy. After 1000 episodes with the majority in the garage of his LA home, something his second ex-wife didn’t take away, I’m guessing Marc got all the legal rights worked out to make a pressing of the various performers who’ve interviewed with him. Usually, when a musician is a guest on WTF, they often do at least one song to close the show. The only exception I can think of was Dave Grohl. Still, the artists present were worth it for me: Nick Lowe, Aimee Mann, J. Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.), Eels, Dave Alvin and Jason Isbell. Fingers crossed for a volume two.

Impulse Buy #1; When it comes to Dutch Rock/Pop bands, it’s a really short list (maybe someone can enlighten to more), let’s see, there’s Golden Earring…Klangstoff…Front 242…no wait, they’re Belgian. So I picked this up despite it lacking their only international hit, “Venus” to get more familiar with their larger body of work and to find the song Ladytron covered at a concert.

Impulse Buy #2; On the 25th anniversary of Bill’s passing, finally some new preserved material not on his four CDs I own and Austin Public Access. He may have been a “rage” comic from the late Eighties but much like Denis Leary (many said, Denis ripped Bill off), the jokes may be dated yet the points remain relevant. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing he passed away during the Clinton years, his head would’ve exploded during Dubious and spontaneous combustion for the Shitgibbon. Many say those Republican crooks made easy comedy. Bill was more talented and his zingers for this assholes would be more insightful, and funnier.

Impulse Buy #3; Holy Crap! A live Matthew Sweet recording that isn’t a bootleg! Plus it’s from my favorite album of 1997, not my favorite Matthew Sweet record though (In Reverse tied with Girlfriend) but I saw him twice on this tour, an unknown Fastball opened both shows. As an added bonus, the vinyl is pressed in my favorite color and the performance is at Pleasure Island in Orlando back when José lived there. I will have to ask him if he went to the concert. If there’s no digital download (haven’t opened this), it’s the first thing I will digitize.

Impulse Buy #4; Twenty nineteen’s emphasis appeared to be out-of-print soundtracks, I already owned the good ones (bought them near their release dates). I was surprised to see The Crow sold out when Dumb and Dumber was better. The BBC put together a handful of Doctor Who soundtracks. I couldn’t resist Destiny of the Daleks, it may not be as vital to the story as Genesis of the Daleks yet we do have Davros (their creator), an opponent the Daleks are in a stalemate with (a rarity) and the debut of Lalla Ward (sexy grrrrr) playing Romana, plus she would be Tom Baker’s wife for a couple years.

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Two jokes below, one in the sign and one I thought of

Posted on April 17, 2019 by Steve

Conan’s Pizza rocks, along with a couple other locals, but this place has a sense of humor as you may see in the sign.

Give up on the first one? The italicized text works if you sing along to the tune of “The Right Stuff” by New Kids on the Block or what I prefer, Weird Al’s “The White Stuff.”

The one thought of I shared with the employee who was amused. Only those who attended grade/high school in the Eighties through Nineties (not sure if it is around anymore) may remember the educational game, Oregon Trail. You see, you might want to avoid this flavor because it could give you dysentery! Get it ‽ My joke, not a painful case of the Hershey Squirts.

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Splat Attack!

Posted on April 16, 2019 by Steve

Initially, I would be wary of a game based solely upon licensed characters because most aren’t very good. Others are just another game with the IP glued on top (Clue, Monopoly, Risk). I do have to give credit to Love Letter and Flux, the rules differ by license. I’m also guessing Splat Attack! is aimed an Millennials too since these are the cartoons many grew up with in the Nineties and early Aughts. There’s a silver lining to this game though. Even if it sucks, it comes with 16 really well-made plastic miniature figures of the shows used in it: Spongebob Squarepants (Spongebob, Patrick, Squidward and Sandy), Hey Arnold! (Arnold, Harold, Helga and Phoebe), Rugrats (Tommy, Chuckie, Angelica and Susie) and the piece de resistance…Invader Zim (Zim, GIR, Dib and Gaz). The premise to the game is rather appropriate, a food fight between the four teams and the winner is determined by who is the coolest. Can’t wait to play.

I’m hoping Splat Attack! is a success and publisher IDW adds expansion packs: Rocket Power, Rocko’s Modern Life, Ahh! Real Monsters, Jimmy Neutron, Danny Phantom, As Told by Ginger, CatDog and Fairly Odd Parents are the next logical choice. I would love My Life as a Teenage Robot too but it wasn’t a super successful show.

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Notre Dame (cathedral) burns

Posted on April 15, 2019 by Steve

The only person who was happy to see this happen would be the embattled, inept and “farts higher than his own ass,” French president Emmanuel Macron. It distracts the French public, including the large number of Atheists, from his failed leadership as the Yellow Vest movement won’t go away and he only represents rich people.

The cathedral’s luck was due to run out. It survived two world wars and the revolution relatively intact. Something was bound to ignite that centuries-old roof made of 13,000 trees gathered from all the land the Church owned.

The current news claims the fire was an accident caused by the people renovating the place. I think it was a curse left by the original inhabitants (a Celtic tribe named the Parisis) on the island Notre Dame was built upon, more specifically, their pagan temple. People forget how Christianity razed hundreds, thousands the holy sites of other cultures and replaced them with churches or cathedrals. It isn’t a practice solely done by Muslims (see Hagia Sophia and Dome of the Rock).

Obviously the French will rebuild it. The joint is a major tourism stop and its state property; all Church land was confiscated in the Revolution and never returned.

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