"Is my fly open?"

Chuck Barris: "No it isn't."
Unknown Comic: "Well it should be, I'm peein'!"

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The Unknown Comic!
March 11th and 12th FREE SHOWS!

"Relive a television highlight of the 70s and spend a memorable evening with The Unknown Comic at Sno Lounge Mar 11 & 12. Showtimes: 7pm & 9:30 both nights. The Unknown Comic, whose real name is Murray Langston, appeared over 100 times with Sonny and Cher, and made over 150 appearances on The Gong Show."



This was me at a "Vicar & Tarts" party a few years ago. I went as "the Unknown Cleric".

word.

"Times Are Hard — Eat Your Yard!"

I saw this advert. in a recent copy of The Stranger. Liked it, thought I'd blog about it.

I'm a sucker for rhyming in advertising, I should been born 80 years ago so I could come up with the Burma-Shave campaign: http://www.burma-shave.org/jingles/.

Besides that I like this ad because of the graphic design; very reminiscent of the fin-de-siecle styles. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ldandersen/1800544122/

And I immediately had two trains of thought leave my station when I saw it; the first concerning Victory Gardens, the second concerning my childhood on a small farm.

During World War II there were 'Home Front' campaigns to help with the war effort, one of which was the Victory Garden, or the idea of getting Americans to grow some of their own food. Even people living in cities were encouraged to grow tomatoes, herbs, radishes, etc. Whatever they could grow in their front yards, window-boxes, plantpots on the fire-escape, small rooftop garden boxes.

I find it amusing to think the current economic crisis may lead to the resurgence of home gardening for food; amusing because of the ignorance most Americans seem to have about where their food actually comes from.

Which leads to my second train; I've had a couple of conversations with friends recently about the distance we have from our food supplies.

I grew up on a small (very small) farm. We had sheep, ducks, pigs, rabbits, chickens, goats, the occasional donkey, the occasional turkey. Plus we had a decent vegetable garden, and a small fruit orchard.

We weren't completely self-sufficient, but I'd say half of our meat & half of our vegetables, all of our eggs, and some of our fruit were all our own making. I know I could kill, clean, prepare, and cook any number of small creatures. And I'm fairly certain I could grow a decent potato, carrot, tomato, and even rhubarb if needed.

So American disassociation with its food sources is a bit of a pet peeve. For example, it's always bugged me to hear of somebody sending a salad back (with complaints, and the assumption of deserving an apology) because of a bit of dirt, or a small dead fly on a leaf. Food, all of our food, comes from the ground, and the ground has dirt, bugs, and shit in it. If more people actually produced their own food, even small amounts, there'd be a lot more awareness of this.

So yeah, I like this ad. It makes me think of many things.

I can appreciate a good con....

Looks pretty official, doesn't it?

Came in the mail to the video store I manage. From the "Washington Labor Law Poster Service", in Olympia, WA. Presorted & postage paid, so no stamp or cancellation, and printed in close to the same green ink as used by the Washington State government. Even their logo is similar to the Washington State Seal. All looks very governmental.

The smaller print on the envelope reads "DATED DELIVERY — DO NOT DESTROY" and "Updated Information Enclosed — 2009". I could tell it was junk, but I was curious enough to open & read it.

Turns out it's a variation on an old trick, the False Agent con (think of somebody pretending to be a Health Inspector in order to get a free meal at a restaurant, or a Game Warden who's willing to let you keep all the fish you've caught today provided you pay for your 'Limit Extension Permit' right now, that sort of thing.)


You can click on the picture to read a full size version of the letter if you want:



Some highlights:

"State and Federal Law requires Washington employers to post the following notices at most work sites."
—True.

"An employer found to be in violation of State or Federal Laws by willfully failing to post up-to-date OSHA posters may be subject to monetary penalties of up to $7000, as well as exposure to civil liability actions."
—Also true, though I've found no documentation that supports the phrase "exposure to civil liability actions". The $7000 fine, yes, but the only other penalties are for deliberate actions or failures-to-act that lead to injury, loss, death, etc.


The letter goes on to list six different posters the State of Washington requires (Rights as a Non-Agricultural Worker, Unemployment Compensation, etc.), as well as six Federally required ones (Family and Medical Leave Act, UPDATED Federal Minimum Wage Act, etc.).

Never fear, however, as compliance with these requirements "may be achieved by responding to the order form below. PLEASE RESPOND TODAY TO THE ENCLOSED."
Thanks Wash. Labor Law Poster Service!

The Complete set of Federal and State goes for $59.50, or you can get the State set alone for $49.50 or the Federal set for only $24.50.


Or, as anybody who's ever worked can tell you, just get these posters for free from the respective government agencies.

Presumably enough people send them money they can stay in business & keep mailing these 'notices' out, but what about the people who figure out they've been swindled? What keeps this scam from being illegal?

Two little sentences in the middle of the letter that you could (understandably) miss, or at least misinterpret:
"The Washington Labor Law Poster Service is a non-government organization providing mandatory workplace posters and does not have a contract with any government agency. Certain posters may also be available free from the issuing governmental agencies."

Well played, WLLPS.

The worst kind of FAIL; the FilmGeek FAIL.

Missed out on the Preview Screening, gotta buy a ticket & wait 'til Friday with the rest of the proles....

My new favorite bookmark....

A 'thank you' postcard from BITCH magazine, but I love the way it looks/reads if you don't know the context.

"Your people have the BEST music!"

My friend Rhett posted this on MySpace on Valentine's Day. He's gay; I'm not (though I'll admit to being open minded about the whole subject (hey love is love, no matter how you insert the batteries)). I reposted it on MySpace (with a disclaimer) because I think it captures wonderfully a truly beautiful sentiment, no matter which team you pitch for.

I'm reposting it here because I think it's a great argument for why anybody should be allowed to get married. Watch this and you'll see real love portrayed. Sure, it's acting, and sure it's overtly sentimental, but that's why it's such a reasonable argument. Real people have these real feelings, and are being denied the socially standard way of expressing those feelings, that love.




Oh, and the title for this blog is a line I use to dig at my friend Ken, who's also gay. Just in case you were wondering.

"This pipe can blow your head clean off, are you feeling lucky punk?"

I don't smoke a lot of weed, at least not a lot compared to most of the pot smokers I know. I'm much more of a drunk when it comes to 'frowned upon' vices.

I do smoke weed, and enjoy it, but on average probably not much more than once or twice a month. And that tends to be socially smoked as well, when hanging out with friends who offer it to me, for example. I can't remember the last time I actually bought weed of my own, since one or two hits usually floors me well enough & for long enough (plus I tend to be drinking when/if I do get around to smoking it, those one or two hits add a nice edge to the drinking).

Recently, however, I purchased a used XBOX from an old friend and by some strange coincidence my weed consumption has gone up.

Which led me to notice the paraphernalia I have laying about; for somebody who doesn't smoke that often I have a surprising number of ways to smoke. Besides a small-size hookah that breaks down into it's own carry case I have a decent acrylic bong, an inflatable backpacking bong, a pocket water pipe/bubbler that looks like a small travel mug, and a couple of 'one-hitters' that are made to look like average cigarettes. I also have a small bubbler made from a Jack Daniels bottle that I've never used, but had to buy since 'Off The Wall' was going out of business and I wanted a souvenir. And a small collection of clips (hemostats, oversize tweezers, etc.) for smoking joints, though I can't recall the last time I even saw somebody with a joint.

But normally I tend to use a pipe, and have two that I use the most.

This first little combo (the wood pipe & embroidered hippy-bag) my sister Nadja gave me as a B'day present over a decade ago. The wood pipe has brass fittings, and though you can't tell from the picture, the windscreen is actually a button from a French Foreign Legionnaire's uniform. The wood makes for a nice smooth hit, and it resins up nicely, allowing for some powerful scrapes when you run out of pot. The little bag is just big enough for the pipe and a Bic (and rolling papers and some screens, if you're of a mind).

And secondly, I have the 'bender pipe'; so called because after going on a particularly blinding pub-crawl (by myself) I awoke to find I'd stumbled into (among many other places) 'Still Smoking' on the Ave. at some point and bought myself a pipe.

I couldn't really be too mad at myself for buying it, it is a nice pipe. It's Pyrex, or some other sort of tempered lab-glass, so it's fairly sturdy. It's got a nice clean carb on the side, a solid flat base, and it hits very smoothly. And the glass will change color nicely over time.


But the pipe I'm enjoying the most right now I just bought from a dealer in England:

It's called 'The Revolver Pipe' for obvious reasons, besides which that's the name carved into the side of the bowl, along with 'Made in France'. It's a tobacco pipe, but with a bit of H2O2 cleaning and a small brass screen in the bowl it's been repurposed nicely for smoking the illegal marijuana.

When I first saw this pipe I thought "What a stupid design." There's very little that cops spot more quickly than paraphernalia; one of which is A HANDGUN. Why in the world would I want to get a pipe for smoking weed that looks like a handgun? This could only end in me getting shot by some cop & winning this year's Darwin Award.

But almost in an instant my perception of this pipe swung around 180° and I knew I had to have it. Why? Because it occured to me what it would look like to use this thing.

Think about it; every time you take a hit you look like you're about to blow your own brains out. Besides being a fairly hardcore image, it's also a great metaphor for what smoking is actually doing to you every time you pick up the pipe.

Poetry.

Technology vs. Entertainment Pt. 2

When I was a kid we often went to McDonalds for a quick family meal. We occasionally hit Burger King or KFC or such, but McDonalds was always the family favorite.

All grown up now I try to eat much healthier than fast food normally allows, but I do occasionally stop in for some 'comfort food' when I'm feeling under the weather (sick with a cold, or more likely, hungover (as we all know; there's nothing in the world better on a hangover than some meaty, greasy, cheezy gut-bomb)).

Recently I decided to grab a bite at McD's. Being a 39 year old man-child I usually get their Happy Meal; besides the portions being more reasonably sized (even for adults) you get a free toy (!) with each one.

This time it was a small stuffed dog called Cooper, with a tag that says 'Hotel for Dogs' ©2009 Dreamworks.

I was impressed with the quality of the toy. Well designed; the small pieces of the pattern were shaped uniquely enough to provide some character to the 3" little guy. And the face was all embroidered, instead of the cheaper felt patches or stamped ink often used.

What really caught my attention though was the 'Fetch Your Own Virtual Pet at happymeal.com' on the tag. happymeal.com? Really?

So apparently McD's has set up an online virtual world for kids. You can create an avatar, wander the world doing little quests to earn money, buy virtual crap to outfit your treehouse, etc. Or just wander around talking to other creepy cartoonish avatars.

My guy 'ginsoak' is a yeti in a top hat. Why not?

I didn't spend much time in 'McWorld', just enough to get a feel for it. And to find out that the code on Cooper's tag for a 'free' virtual pet kicked back as invalid.

I find a couple of things curious about all this, and besides the obvious 'back in my day we didn't need 'virtual pets', we used our imaginations' line of thinking.

First, only about half of US homes have the broadband connection needed for kids to visit McWorld, or 57% according to 'websiteoptimization.com'. The sociologist in me notes that the majority of homes without broadband are in the lower income brackets, a bit ironic as they are the families more likely to visit fast food chains more frequently. That's a lot of overweight kids without a chance for a virtual pet....

Second, the alarm flags that go up when an international corporation like McDonalds creates a website specifically targeting kids are dropped to half-mast when I noticed their 'disclaimer' on the main page, "Hey kids, this is advertising". Brilliant, the sort of in-your-face truth I would feel like putting on the website:

And finally, though I am indeed 39 years old and without kids of my own, I was still disappointed when my code came back as invalid. No 'free' virtual pet. The cyberspace equivalent of accidentally letting go of your balloon, watching it float off to a little dot in the sky. You haven't really missed out, at least not on something of any real value, but there's that odd, sad sense of loss....

Technology vs. Entertainment Pt.1

A few years ago some A.I. scientists developed a program called '20Q' that was a self-learning program based on the classic game of 20 Questions. You picked a Person, Place, or Thing and then answered 20 questions with either Yes, No, Unknown or Sometimes. If the program didn't guess correctly it would ask an additional 5 questions hoping to narrow it's answer.

20Q wasn't programmed with any inherent information, instead learning from every game played. And it was programmed with the ability to draw it's own conclusions even if some answers given were contradictory to what it already knew. In essence it can make 'educated guesses' and think laterally as the questions/answers required.

It ultimately developed enough knowledge to maintain about 80% accuracy at 20 questions, and an amazing 98% at 25 questions.

You can plan an online version of 20Q at their website: http://www.20q.net/ . Be warned though, it's pretty addictive (for awhile at least) trying to stump the bastard.

In 2004 a non-learning plastic handheld version with a condensed data-set was released, and went on to win a bunch of "Best Toy of the Year" awards for it's innovation.

I first saw it at a Toys-r-Us for around 20 bucks. I remember being surprised at how many times it was right, and how obscure some of it's successes were. I didn't buy one, though, as it was a bit spendy, despite the novelty of the technology.

However, when I saw the Special Edition 'The Simpsons Show' frosted doughnut with sprinkles & a bite taken out 20Q I bought it immediately (and one for Jason & Rebecca's Simpson collection).

It works exactly the same as the original 20Q toy, provided the Person, Place or Thing you're thinking of is somehow related to the Simpsons.

Now, if you know me at all you know I have given over a pathetically large amount of my memory to the Simpsons show. Simpsons quotes, Simpsons trivia, entire Simpsons episodes are lodged in my grey matter (much like the Powder Blue Crayon that Homer had Moe ("That's right, I'm a surgeon!") Szyslak re-insert into his brain in Episode BABF22, "HOMR").

The only person I know who has wasted as much brainspace on the Simpsons is my friend Chris Parker, who coincidentally runs one of the other Island Video stores. The two of us can have entire conversations without actually saying anything original, simply lobbing direct quotes from the show.

With that in mind I can swear to you this thing is disturbingly good.... Seriously, I couldn't believe the depth of info this thing can reach. There were only a few instances where I was able to stump the beast.

Besides the more obvious characters, items and locations the Simpsons 20Q knows almost every character that's ever been on the show, including dozens that only made one appearance. The same goes for odd businesses, unique one-episode items, almost everything imaginable. Here's a short list of some of the answers it got right:

• Blinkey, the 3-Eyed Fish
• Donny, from Donny's Discount Gas (who's prices always end in 7/8ths of a penny)
• Gil (Gil Gunderson, the ever-failing salesman based on Jack Lemmon's character from "Glengarry Glen Ross"
• Armin Tanzarian (the man who took over Seymour Skinner's identity after returning from Vietnam)
• Cecil Terwilliger, Sideshow Bob's brother (voiced by David Hyde Pierce who played Kelsey Grammer's brother Niles on "Frasier")
• Handsome Pete (the crazy little dancing sailor with a concertina)
• Hank Scorpio, the head of Globex Corporation bent on world-domination.
• the Springfield Monorail
• The Dome (the Dome! from the Simpsons Movie)
• Spider-Pig, natch
• Willie's tractor
• the Maison Derriere (the burlesque house)
• the Olmec Head, X'tapalatekettle (given to the Simpsons by Mr. Burns for the gift of Bart's blood)
• Cypress Creek, the planned community for the Globex Corporation's workers
• the Merciless Pepper of Quetzlzacatenango from Chief Wiggum's Chili
• the Leftorium
• Jay Sherman, from the show "The Critic"

There were a few little odd omissions, the 20Q couldn't come up with these:

• Globex Corporation, though it got Hank Scorpio and Cypress Creek
• Moe's Love Tester machine, though it did get the Lovematic Grandpa from the 'Simpsons Spin-Off Show' episode
• the Town Sundial (that featured so importantly in the 2-part Who Shot Mr. Burn's episodes), though it did get the Town Hall
• the Springfield Lighthouse


I find this little plastic doughnut delightful, and not just for the simple entertainment it briefly provides, but for the confluence of interests it represents.

Think about it: Computer scientists working on A.I. models of learning. Toy makers who recognize the entertainment (and profit) potential. The Simpsons, and everything related to the Simpsons. The artistic inspiration of a version shaped like a doughnut (the buttons are different colour sprinkles!), complete with a premolded bite taken out of it.

And I find it intriguing that the technology involved in making something like this would be put to use to, well, make something like this. It seems such an odd choice to spend the time & resources it must have taken to design this thing. Are there really enough people out there willing to spend $14.95 for a plastic doughnut that's smarter than them, at least in terms of Simpsons-trivia ability?

It's as if the cosmos decided to make a little gift just for Paul. Magic.