Ye like me kerrrr-chief?

[Click to mucho grande!]


I forgot the REAL strip at home, says I. Me bag do me as empty as your head.

-Erik

Read on, faithful few!

"One Night on Endor"

[Click to enlarge.]



-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

"He has a ______ personality."

[Click to enlarge.]





-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

He's very convincing, for a gecko.

Written a while ago, here is a comic strip "from the vault."

...not that anything has gone anywhere but the vault. I digress.

***

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

Lions attacks buffalo. Crocodile attacks buffalo. Buffalo's friends arrive.

EDIT: Link Fixed!


They call it the Battle at Kruger.

A landmark wildlife preserve in South Africa, Kruger Park offers a variety of safari options. Few realize "open warfare" was one of them. This video was shot by some tourists and their guide. To entice you to click through, I will say it features a pride of lions attacking a water buffalo...before a crocodile decides it wants some of the action.

And then the buffalo's friends arrive.

It's not David Lean-quality directing, but it's a unique glimpse at nature-in-action that even the best Nova special often misses (or has to over-edit to present). The tourist commentary ("Oh, you're too late!") is entertaining.

War at the Watering Hole!

Enjoy.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

Plot Summaries, Take 2

After enjoying the plot summaries I linked to earlier in the week (check it out if you haven't, and be sure to read the comments section, as many other readers chimed in with their own), Hooper and I were bitten by the creativity bug. So without further ado, here are our own plot summaries for various movies and TV shows. We hope you have as much fun reading them as we had writing them.

Hooper's are in RED, mine are in BLUE.

• 8MM: Private detective discovers a burgeoning niche market in home video distribution.
• Armageddon: Widower fails to protect daughter’s virginity, dies.
• Back to the Future: Deranged scientist steals nuclear material, pushes teenage boy to incest.
• Bad Boys: "Thug" culture corrupts urban police station.
• Bambi: Hunter misses second shot. (Alternate: Hunter fails to fill his quota for the season.)
• Big: Pre-teen with hormone imbalance seduced by corporate climber.
• Blade: Narcissist seeks to destroy all those like him.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Teenage girl desecrates corpses, dates older men.
• Chicago: Murderers are set free, pursue employment in the entertainment industry.
• Deliverance: Weekend plans go awry.
• Dog Day Afternoon: Gay man acts up for media attention.
• Dracula: Recluse discovers new tastes abroad.
• Face/Off: Cosmetic surgery breakthrough discovered.
• Family Guy: Two local pedophiles go undetected in family-friendly neighborhood.
• Finding Nemo: Inattentive father loses physically handicapped son, mocks mentally-disabled woman.
• Forrest Gump: Retarded man has bad timing, inexplicably breeds.
• Frasier: Retired police officer suffers indignities of two closeted sons, ill-bred caregiver.
• Free Willy: Eco-terrorist ruins seaside attraction.
• Friday the 13th: Mother celebrates her late son's life.
• Friends: Woman abandons man at altar, shacks up with best friend's brother, has love child.
• Glory: Experimental military unit fails to achieve objective.
• Hot Fuzz: A fascist and his mentally-challenged friend work out their issues by assaulting senior citizens.
• House MD: High-end teaching hospital employs drug addict and self-absorbed residents who only treat one patient per week. (Alternate: Self-loathing drug addict saves lives.)
• How I Met Your Mother: Father shocks children with tales of promiscuity, brings into doubt his fidelity to their mother; "Aunt" Robin viewed in new light.
• Karate Kid: Put-out teenage boy enters physically abusive relationship with WWII vet.
• Kiss the Girls: Man expands unique collection, finds pen-pal.
• Lawrence of Arabia: Effeminate white man conquers Middle East.
• Mary Poppins: Nanny introduces psychedelics to upper-crust British children, violates child labor laws.
• Masters of the Universe: Foreign LARPers force couple to participate in their RPG; deformed midget discovers music.
• Men in Black: Government kills illegal alien, covers it up. (Alternate: Government agency's hiring program scrapes bottom of barrel.)
• Poltergeist: Parents abuse drugs while daughter is abducted.
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: Returning vet has hard time fitting in, goes on crime spree with black man.
• Roseanne: Morbidly obese couple deal with economic hardship, disappointing children.
• Shaun of the Dead: British retail drone deals with spoiled meat.
• Signs: Faithless preacher ignores daughter during crisis.
• Sleepers: Murderers go free after sham trial.
• Smallville: Immigrant suspected in property destruction, mysterious deaths.
• South Park: Transgender teaches youth while town wallows in political corruption, spontaneous violence.
• Speed: Cripple endangers commuters.
• Spider-Man: Introverted teen gets radiation poisoning, begins professional wrestling career, kills wealthy industrialist.
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Retiree runs afoul of secret government think-tank.
• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace: Paramilitary religious cult takes boy from single mother, skilled mechanic's job.
• Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: Bi-polar teen endangers commuters, seduces older woman, attacks geriatric, propagates civil war.
• Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith: Assassination plot prevented; government enacts new reforms. Wife-beater promoted. (Alternate: An unplanned pregnancy leads to complications.)
• Steel Magnolias: Diabetic ignores doctor's advice, neglects newborn.
• The Big Lebowski: Differing philosophical viewpoints prove a distraction on League Night.
• The Blues Brothers: Fugitive brothers form band; antagonize police, socialists.
• The Bourne Identity: American tourist kills many, finds love during European janut.
• The Godfather: Domestic problems spill into the workplace.
• The Green Mile: Incarnation of Jesus Christ killed yet again after wrongful imprisonment. (Alternate: Dangerously large black man incites violence between prison official, inmate.)
• The Longest Day: Tourists take advantage of scenic beaches.
• The Negotiator: Many die in hostage situation.
• The Rock: Geriatric felon slaughters soldiers of fortune.
• The Shawshank Redemption: Convicted double-murderer escapes.
• The Simpsons: Mentally handicapped man starts family, gets union job.
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Tourists fail to anticipate special needs of local handicap.
• Tombstone: Lawman and his terminally-ill friend go on killing spree.
• Unbreakable: Paraplegic commits acts of terrorism, stalks family man with genetic disorder.

-Buck

Read on, faithful few!

GHOSTBUSTERS: Unemployed college professors destroy hotel with nuclear weapons.

Dorian of postmodernbarney (with some assistance from some of my favorite comics bloggers) brings the masses "Uncomfortable Plot Summaries."

Some of my favorites:

ALIENS: An unplanned pregnancy leads to complications.
BATMAN: Wealthy man assaults the mentally ill.
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA: Redneck trucker kills Chinese immigrants.
DIE HARD: Dysfunctional cop saves marriage by murdering foreign national.
JURASSIC PARK: Theme park’s grand opening pushed back.
LORD OF THE RINGS: Midget destroys stolen property.
SCARFACE: Immigrant finds running his own business stressful, dangerous.
SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT: Redneck bootlegger makes mockery of law, sanctity of marriage.
STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE - Religious extremist terrorists destroy government installation, killing thousands.

Plenty more at the link.

-Buck

Read on, faithful few!

The Hooplah: "I am the late afternoon, Claire-bear."

What do you get when you cross Horn-Rimmed Glasses Man (Noah Bennett of Heroes) with billionaire vigilante Bruce Wayne (Batman)?

Domestic Batman!

I...have too much time to doodle.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

The Audacity of Joke

The following is available from Red Bubble on a t-shirt:



Politigeeks, try to tell me you don't need to change your pants after seeing that.

This is, of course, a parody of:



-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

Night of the Smelly Basset

Yeah, Mandy and I might have gone a touch overboard with the full-body skunk costume for brave, twice-sprayed Neville. It's like waterboarding...for a dog.





-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

The Hooplah: Breakfast Thoughts 3 - Return of the Bagel

It was with much dismay that I found out I had diabetes, but that subtle bitterness was tempered by the knowledge that I did not have muscular dystrophy (thank you, Wikipedia, for scaring the crap out me with that diagnosis...).

Before March 07 (from maybe August 06), I had been enjoying the caloric intake of a team of marathon runners. My co-workers added up calories an average day, when I had a sandwich for lunch and not something deep-fried or drizzled in cheese or both; the number was well past 5,000. Yet I was losing weight.

Oh, diabetes, you tricksy devil.
But the point is, I was able to have huge breakfasts back then - several breakfast sandwiches, big omelettes and toast and bacon, and the old reliable couple of bagels liberally spread with regular cream cheese. Man! And what luck that I had a cafeteria with enormous, fluffy-on-the-inside/just-firm-enough-on-the-outside bagels. Manna from heaven, or somesuch.

Alas for a good thing...it'll come to an end, too. After the...Diagnosis, I switched to foods less loaded with carbs, but kept bagels in the "special occasion" rotation, for the day I absolutely had to have something other than wheat toast and turkey sausage .

Lo, calamity struck once again!

Though I may live to a century or more, I will never understand the cafeteria on the 30th floor of my building. In their infinite wisdom, they choose the weirdest foods for the specialty table (yeah, I really want my international dining experience to be...Israel?), and often items of so-so quality. It was the latter that ruined my dining experience one morning. They put a lot of thought into their menu selections, which puzzles me even more. I know they don't just ask the help what they'd like to eat (though we do have "south of the border"-infused selections far more often than you'd think; and yes, I mean Mexican. Did you know they work in buildings now?), nor do they poll the mentally-challenged. No one likes breakfasts where the menu has to describe in excruciating detail that the meat-like substance in the egg hash isn't meat, but isn't tofu or soy-product, rather made of some other commodity that they swear is edible! And it's got a Spanish-sounding name!

I digress.

The new bagels they put out were made of plastic. Hard and shiny industrial Chinese-grade plastic. It's because of my love for foods I shouldn't have that I put a card in the suggestion box. How often do you see these things taken seriously? Not very, I thought. For a while I didn't even know where the box and cards were, though I did see posted suggestions from colleagues on a big board by the registers. Usually, there are two or three items per card, and one bubbly answer about how the second one (more napkins) is possibly by the others (hygenic workers and a friendly staff) aren't within their power.

But a few weeks ago, I saw the note I'd written posted on the "suggestions accomplished" board and noticed the next morning that they'd returned to the old bagel vendor. Big, soft real bagels again...and they added asiago cheese as a variety, so I got that going for me. I've been bold since then, requesting - almost demanding, in my horrible chicken-scratch penmanship - more diet fountain drinks for diabetics...because we're people, too.

And we carry needles.

***

Not really that exciting, was it? I sort of rambled on about bagels and diabetes for a few hundred words before an expected ending. Who didn't see that coming, the predicted victory over the modern day lunchroom bully, the corporate foodstuff requisitioner? You in the back? Well, you suck.

***

Joke of the Day

Q: What is the hardest part about roller-blading with your shirt off?

A: (highlight to read) Telling your parents you're gay.

(Special thanks to Kevin J. Smith for that one, from his personal stock.)

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

The Awkward Knight

What you won't see in the new Batman movie...




Oh, there are a few more deleted scenes after the jump.

Read on, faithful few!

Mildly Popular Blog to Eliminate Political Coverage

Just kidding. But Hooper is on vacation for the next 10 days or so. I'll try to get some good stuff posted for you in the meantime. Who knows? Maybe I'll get a Buckshot together by the end of the day. To tide you over, enjoy a few photos from Mrs. Buck's and my trip to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo last month. Note the three-headed Hydra Giraffe. We were lucky to capture such a rare beast on film.

-Buck

Read on, faithful few!

The Hooplah: Breakfast Thoughts II - The Brunchening

Bad coffee in a good mug tastes bad. However, the same dark brew ensconced in Styrofoam is passable to decent. Is it the gradual melting of the Styrofoam under the intense heat, a melting that takes so long it really doesn't happen, that improves the palatability? The mug I am using today is quite nice, with a slight tapering in the middle and a sturdy heft. I don't think it's breaking apart inside and tainting the coffee. But an identical cup, poured at the same time into Styrofoam, tastes better. It's almost like diet vs. regular Coca-Cola. What an oddity. Yet I refuse to switch back to Styrofoam. God, aren't I eco-friendly! Maybe it's the heat-conductive properties of the two materials, ceramic vs. Styrofoam, that impact the flavor. This calls for an experiment. As the great man once said, "Stand back! I'm going to try science!"

* * *

I posted not long ago that some women smell. Well some men smell too. Like women. It is very disconcerting to note in a hallway or elevator a strong floral aroma, like a funeral parlor or retirement home, only to realize the space is shared by another man. What is he thinking? Do the women in the world desire men to who smell like their great-aunts? This barbarity must be stopped. Conversely, a rotund basement-dweller filled my train car with the chewy aroma of B.O. this morning. Does no one remember the shower and simple three-swipe deodorizing that follows?! Are we all French that we forget good hygiene*?

* * *

How is David Archuletta not being torn apart by the judges on American Idol? (Yes, I watch it. Wanna make something of it?!) The boy signs like he's in a high school summer camp variety show and yes, there is talent there. But to win American Idol and against the folks he's up against? He cannot hold a candle to some who have gone before him (Michael Johns, Carly Smithson) or those still there (David Cook, Syesha Mercado [supermarket?]). His butchering of two Neil Diamond songs did nothing to break the thralldom in which the judges find themselves whenever he opens his mouth. Do you want as your next pop sensation a boy who looks like he's halfway between crying and peeing his pants whenever given words of encouragement? Vote Cook or die trying.

* * *

In honor of Buck's bacon-infused post, I too must make a confession. Yesterday, I had a chicken salad sandwich. I know I need to stay healthy (the di-uh-beetus and all...), and my initial thought was to have it on multi-grain bread with lettuce and tomato. The latter two remained, but the bread was swapped out for a croissant. Not content to stop there, I added a thicker-than-normal slice of pepperjack cheese and then the pies-de-resistance! Bacon. That sandwich sung. Add some Diet Pepsi (look, Mom - no sugar!) and nacho cheese Doritos (...sigh. There's nothing healthy there. Powdered cheese? It probably causes AIDS) and you've got yourself a meal.


-Hooper


*Just kidding. The French are a clean and industrious people with a rich cultural heritage.

Read on, faithful few!

The Hooplah: Hey dashtard,-- take care...

Ah yes, a post without politics, in which we look at signs around the country, argue about the devilish salutation "Take care," and mourn the dashtard...we hardly knew ye.



First, here are some interesting signs, gathered from the four corners of my brain.

















* * *

Now that that foolishness is over, the heart of the matter.

* * *

"Thanks for calling, y'all. Take care."

Who among us hasn't had a phone conversation end that way, with a complete stranger wishing you well with just those two words? More and more these days I find myself told to "take care" by people I don't know. Ordinary people - normies, I call them - would see that as a sign that we're all coming together as one people, wishing bounteous health and prosperity on our fellow man.

But doesn't it feel to you, instead of just idle words, "take care" is like a hug from someone you just met or the villainous "kiss hello" of Seinfeld fame?

I shake hands when I meet people. I tell them to have a good day, to enjoy themselves. I'll even go so far as to say "you, too" if they end the conversation in a congenial enough manner that doesn't impose on the relationship. But ever so rarely would I tell someone to "take care." It can be a sinister phrase, followed by an ellipse in my head ("Take care..."), with the image of a mustachioed man in shadows whispering into a dirty phone booth receiver before lightly replacing it in the cradle, the click of termination indicative of more than just the end of our call.

This is a paranoid perspective, I am told.

That perfect strangers wish me harm instead of good after a few minute phone call is a thin theory, to say the least. More likely than not, the wholesaler or tech-help guy or dentist's secretary doesn't care one whit about me or mine and has a rote "goodbye" that isn't so abrupt and impersonal, but in the act of standardizing such a phrase, that's also an unexpected outcome. So aside from making me squirm, thinking that some person is sending gooey vibes across the country, they're also taking a perfectly innocent phrase and robbing it of its sentimentality.

I do use the phrase on exceedingly rare occasion, and respond well if I know the person. I don't hug you just because I've met you, or we shared a few dozen words over long-distance phone lines. If I don't feel it, why say it? If I they don't mean it, why belabor the point and introduce an awkwardness to our connection?

Doctors and health care professionals can use the phrase with impunity because it is their business to take care of us, so by extension, they'd remind us at the last point of interaction. "Take care [while you're away from me]," they imply.

(Now lawyers.... "Take care [to engage in hazardous activity that results in a beautiful paycheck for at least one of us].")

Am I crazy? Does this make me crazy? I'm an optimistic guy, anyone will tell you (despite the red, white and blue elephant on my key chain). Actively, I wish no harm on the bulk of the general population and good favor on a select bunch. To be so indiscriminate when using that phrase - it rings cold to me.

* * *

Perhaps I had a thought,-- but oh, another! Notice the curious but grammatically well-lineaged punctuation in the midst of that sentence.

",--" It is the noble dashtard, and it has fallen into disuse and death.

Interspersed across centuries of European writing, the dashtard, a mixing in various fashions of a comma or semi-colon followed by several dashes, suggests a break more pronounced than any of its component parts. There's substance in them thar pause between thoughts.

Today, pretentious writers use the dashtard to stand out, to appear truly in-the-know to have used such an odd and unknown piece of linguistic history.

Nicholson Baker, the essayist and novelist, dedicated hundreds of words to the praise of the dashtard, its uses and its eventual doom beneath standardized formatting. There is no room in the MLS handbook for punctuation that depends on the writer for 1) form and 2) meaning.

Do lists follow a ";--" or a whole new sentence? Why use ",--" when I could use ";" or "-" by their lonesome? There is little logic to the choice, just eccentricity on the author's part. Guidebooks cannot do their job without concrete examples that can be backed up if need be. There are a lot of sentences out there that use periods, so it's hardly an issue to find them. But how many use dashtards? And in the same manner?

But you now know of the dashtard, and can begin using it in your writing. Maybe it never appears in print;-- the idea, my friends, does live on.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

The Hooplah: Some women smell & other thoughts

I have been subjected to several very aromatic women in the last few days in the elevator, waiting for food, walking down a hallway at work. I am sure these women bathe, or at least stand in the tub and look expectantly at the shower head hoping clean will wash over them. But they stink.

It's not even body odor around them, though it certainly hints at the edges.Can I say they are unique smells? Let's take an example.

A woman, let's call her Julia since I know no Julias, stands next to me waiting for the elevator to whisk her downstairs. We've all just come from the lunchetorium with our salads and carvery sandwiches and inexpertly made stir-fry. We carry this food in our hands, full of thoughts of eating, drinking and the sustenance and enjoyment such acts bring. What do we all hate to intrude on our dining experience? Bad odor. Julia smells, a mixture of decaying leaves and a Chinese fish monger.

And she's laughing!

Her friends must be drunk or stoned, because they too are full of merriment. Maybe it's because of the cloud of funk their friend is in. "My God, do you smell that woman?!" one whispers to the other by the fruit counter. "I know," replies the woman with water wing fat waddles hanging off her arms. "Someone should tell her..." Do they? They laugh!

It's like a story I heard somewhere,-- maybe at work or church or in the local bars I don't frequent because I'm not really that "hip" with it. A man wearing khakis and a button down, long-sleeve white shirt goes to the bathroom. He is in there for a suitable amount of time for No. 2, and exits after hand-washing and so forth. He returns to his cube space, perhaps nodding hey to the girls around him. Part of his shirt is hanging out the back, improperly tucked. And what do these same girls see, smeared like so much fresh mud across the bottom of his crisp, blanco shirt? That's right. How he did it remains a mystery to this day, but he somehow managed to twist the front of his shirt into the path of the toilet paper. Or else there was a Vesuvian burst that no one could control, much less contain, and the shirt was the least of his concerns.

But the point is thus: no one told him. He worked the rest of the day - hours, people - with poo on his untucked shirt. And so "Julia" smelled, and probably smells, because no one told her it was bad form to roll in a compost heap behind General Chang's fish bazaar. Are we sparing people the shame and embarrassment, or just getting some cruel laughter in at their pitiful expense? Hm....

"Guadalupe", another woman with a memorable bouquet about her, did not bring to mind Gorton's discards. Hers was an odd smell, sort of dry. I want to say like death, but death can be wet. But that's the best I've got. It was a faded smell, like old books you pull down from your Great Uncle Johann Frucht's shelves. When you open them, these whithered words try to escape the page at the same moment time is attempting to break down the book into dust. It slaps your septum before settling behind your eyes, that old book smell. Guadalupe had something like that, only for people,-- and she was young! Too young to smell like Uncle Johann with one foot in the grave and other in a Kleenex box because he forgot where he put his slippers.

Stink and smell hold a special place in my heart. How could they not, when I have as a pet the basset hound Neville, who sometimes releases time-delay bombs of such exquisite pungency that I question whether or not his bowels produced them or he purchased them off an ex-pat Iraqi scientist. I was talking to a co-worker about scent memory, which is very strong for me, an important part of the day-to-day. I constantly find smells triggering some random memory from years ago, and usually I'm left frustrated that I can't exactly rebuild the entire scene where that certain recollection came from. But such strong funk recall is why days after the fact, I can still recall the aromas of these women who really need some better lotions or fragrance-masking soap. Dial, for example.

I could on for hours about Dial soap and what its particular redolence means to me, but I've taken up enough of your time already.

Until we meet again, and I share my peculiar relationship with sports and how they loathe me.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

Because I always deliver on hyperbole

There shall be no other breakfast meat before thee, hog's side!

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

The Hooplah: Breakfast Thoughts

What about a Cthluhu/Indiana Jones crossover? Slashfic? My eggs are cold. On the plus side, the muffin top is crunchy. I really need to hook up my printer, or get a new one, at home. I can't believe the train has been late every day this week. Would I be able to pull off a turtleneck without a ski slope behind me? My eggs are still cold. The quantity of paper used in one business office is astounding. Snapple Facts are the only unknown bits of information in the suburban world. Rules are meant to be broken and laws bent, edicts will be suffered and decrees we lament. I cut my finger while making a sandwich and, afraid there might be blood in the sandwich, pretended it was the BBQ sauce I'd put on and watched American Idol on a full stomach. Cold eggs do not warm through the power of thought. Webster's Dictionary may some day have "Misc" as a word, since few can actually spell miscellany or miscellaneous, or know they exist. People who think noises don't exist when people aren't around to hear them, such as falling trees in forests, should remain mute if there's no one in the room to hear them. I finished my eggs anyway.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

What do Jesus, Captain Marvel and He-Man have in common?

Why, the source of their powers! Can't say I've ever seen such a weird lightning strike picture.

Full Image after the jump.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!