stuff we just don't need anymore

I'm really tired of people saying "Look at me! I'm going to have my cake and eat it too!" right before they actually take a bite of cake. Last I checked there was literally one guy who has not heard or made this joke. His name is Zagreb Dimiskrikov, he lives on the northern tip of lake Baikal, and there are days I wish I could be that guy.

I'm also tired of people who are constantly bagging on organized religion. Enough already. I personally like that there are organized religions as it makes it so much easier for me to identify blowhards from a distance.

Blogs that suck need to be deleted. How do you know if you're blog sucks? If you've blogged about the greatest ordeal you've faced in life and it involves putting soft paws on your cat, your vintage corvette, or that article in People magazine that really set you off... well, you need to fuck off already.

And there is no place for people who tell a generalized group of other people to "fuck off already." It is unaccaeptable.

Speaking of cats, I miss my cat. We put soft paws on her once...

Utah politics must go. It may have to do with the fact that the town I live in considers the "left" to be only mildly psychotically arch-conservative. Actual liberals like me are considered minions satan. I try to tell people that is only my weekend gig, but I don't think they get the joke.

People who don't get jokes, especially bad jokes by a part-time wise-arse like me.

people who over-use hyphens.

People who use enough ellipsis to make Larry King want to use a comma... or something like that.

You know there is something wrong in the world when you "google" Trans Siberian Railroad and you end up with nearly as many results for the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Excuse me while I vomit. If I'm every interested in listening to filth of that ilk, I'll purchase any one of the billions and billions of Kurt Bestor or Sam Cardon albums that sit collecting dust on the shelves of the Utah used CD stores. I'd much rather support local "grabage."

People who write the word "thanks" with an X have no place in this world. And people who spell "excuse" without the first e.

One more thing that absolutely has to go are people who make lists of all the crap they are tired of instead of putting thought into an actual blog entry.

rip dave cockrum

CNN.com reports that comic book illustrator Dave Cockrum passed away at the age of 63 while wearing his Superman pajamas and covered with his Batman blanket. Friends say he will be cremated while wearing a Green Lantern shirt. No joke here, just a moment of silence for a legend.

shameless self promotion

I'm horrible at promoting myself but if you're out there and haven't heard it yet, feel free to check out my take on some music from The Fountain. Clint Mansell wrote an amazing score for the film and it was most excellent to get a chance to work with his source material. It looks as though my own effort will probably get slammed for being too reverential to the source material but I am more than happy with the result I got, linking one Mansell theme to another (from another film no less) in my own subtle way. I approached the endeavor with a "less is more" attitude, take it or leave it. Remixing really isn't my thing though, I prefer to work with my own ideas, no matter how bad they might be.

wish I had a time machine

I would go back in time and stop me from buying and later ingesting the burrito I purchased at 7-11 which calls itself "the bomb."

where is the pulse again?

The good news is that S-Mart--the soulless retailer that employs my sorry ass--is hiring. Why is this good news? Because someone at 20th Century Fox is going to need a job. Maybe a lot of people.

In one of the most spectacular miscalculations in recent history Fox reduced the amount of screens that Borat would open up on. They cut it down to a mere 800 screens... you could almost call that a limited release these days. The reason they cut the number of screens to feature the critically acclaimed comedy was they felt people would rather see something else, or perhaps anything else.

OOPS.

Borat pulled in 9 million duckie (half of its production budget right there) in one day on those 800 screens. That's pretty good for a film that no one wants to see, unlike the Santa Clause 3 which made just 5 million on four times as many screens.

Like I said: Oops

-after the original post-

Early estimates for the weekend have Borat #1 at the US boxoffice outpacing the family friendly double punch consisting of Tim Allen in a fat suit and the CG offering from Ardaman with 26 Million, and a worldwide take of 44 million dollars in 3 days. Having just seen the film, I can only say that it was even better than I was expecting and I expected it to be really good.

will someone please make some news?

CNN.com reports that "Joey Buttafuoco is getting a little break."

I must admit I have dreams of hearing the words "Joey Buttafuoco" and "break" in the same sentence, but that's not exactly what I had in mind.

"did john henry die for nothing?"

Last night some friends were over for nickel and dime poker. One of them told us how he refused to use the self-checkout at soulless retailers. In order to repel some of the derision and giggles he invoked the name of John Henry, great American folk hero.

Though I didn’t give him much support last night, the more I think about it, the more I have to agree. Self-checkout is an atrocity. It is a perfect metaphor for the soulless, faceless corporation that is gutting the “mom and pop” small town retailers.

It is also quite literally soulless and faceless, and when the machine revolution comes I can promise you the automated or “self” checkout units are going to be right there on the front lines... although I'm not quite sure what they will do exactly. Do they have arms? Anything they can stab with?

I think it could also be humiliating to some (not all, mind you) cashiers. Don’t you hate when someone walks into your place of employment—some Joe Schmoe off the street—and conveys that he can do your job as well as you can. When you shop at a store and use the self-checkout, you might as well shout to every cashier you see “I can do your job, asshole!”

Worst of all, the self-checkout is eliminating one more human aspect to our existence. Interaction is a vital part of being a human and the more we eliminate that from our lives the less human we become.

I for one am not going to use them ever again. Maybe I’ll have to wait a little longer. Maybe I’ll have to tolerate a real dumbass cashier every now and then. But at least I will retain my humanity.

If you use self-checkout, you are basically pissing on John Henry’s grave. You are also proclaiming your contempt toward the plight of the American worker. And since John Henry was black, it probably means you hate black people too.

have you met my good friend?

I have always had a very strange regard for MySpace. I will not deny that I do have an account of my own, I will probably not deny that I did it only because a friend of mine did one first, and I will never deny that it serves an important role in my life since it is the primary means by which I am able to stay in touch with certain people who mean a great deal to me.

Besides real friends, I have made “friends” with a handful of celebrities. Some of my celebrity friends—take Kevin Smith for example—are people who actually spend a lot of time on the internet and put a lot of effort into their pages. Others, like the Spinal Tap page, are not as fun as they should be because there is no real interaction going on.

I know that these celebrities aren’t really my friends, but it’s nice to pretend that they are every once in a while... I mean, that is what the internet is all about, right? Pretending?

Every once in a while one of my not-really-my-friends will post something that makes me think that we would be best buds if only given the chance. My latest not-really-my-friend is Darren Aronofsky, and he posted something in his MySpace blog about how procrastination is a part of writing.

I totally agree with that. I have always felt that procrastination and interruption are an integral part of the writing process but it’s not something they tend to teach in college or high school writing classes where all of your assignments have a due date.

It feels good to make a connection like that with someone who I look up to. Not only that, but considering his “educated” attitude towards writing, I can’t help but think Mr. Aronofsky is a guy who would not only purchase but truly appreciate my autobiography: Who is this Noodles person?

If you don’t believe me, check out a sampling from the first chapter…

“…I was born on the heels of the Watergate scandal in the heart of one of the most—Oh look, something shiny!”

So far that’s all I have. I hope you were able to get as much out of it as I put into it. It was a labor of love… Love for shiny, shiny things...

music at work

Each night while we're unloading the truck at S-Mart we listen to one of those radio stations that plays random music as a gimmick, even though they play pretty much the same random music every couple of nights.

One of the songs I hear every time I work is "Super Freak" by Rick James, which is a song I really dig.

Except for the line where he sings "She's a very freaky girl. The kind you don't take home to mother." That line doesn't sit well with me.

Rick James obviously never met my mother.

TV is confusing

Is it me, or is it strange that the new NBC show Friday Night Lights is going to be on Tuesday nights?