Yeah, you can trust me!

My goatee and mustache say that I'm pretty trustworthy, at least if Some Guy On The Internet is to be believed.



And really, would Some Guy lie to you?

However, I'm not quite as trustworthy as my dad, and not nearly as trustworthy as PZ Myers. But then again, who is?

Presidential video... cute but not that funny

So this video has been making the rounds on the internet. Am I the only one who doesn't find it particularly funny?

Ron Howard managed to pull together all the living past presidential impersonators from Saturday Night Live into one all-star sketch. That's an accomplishment in itself. And they apparently shot it in fifteen hours. Also impressive, or so I'm told.

I am a fan of old SNL and like every one of the performers -- yes, including Jim Carrey (the only non-SNL guy on set) as Reagan. Each guy goes through the motions of all the quirks they used to give these characters. Dana Carvey says silly disjointed things, Will Ferrell acts clueless, Chevy Chase falls down, etc. But it just seemed like they forgot to add any jokes. Also, the inspirational message didn't inspire me all that much.

As a nostalgia trip, thumbs up. As a comedy routine, not so much. Also, it goes without saying that I miss the late Phil Hartman an awful lot. His portrayals of both Reagan and Clinton could run circles around most of those guys.

I attempt to invent a joke

Don't hate me, I'm just trying it out...


Frodo Baggins is chatting with Treebeard. He says, "You know, I've always wondered. You ents are basically walking trees, right? I'm just curious, do you, ah... bear fruit?"

Treebeard responds, "Yes, actually, we do sprout fruit seasonally. In fact, I've got a sample right here."

Frodo takes the fruit, which looks very much like an apple, and says "Wow. Is it edible?" Treebeard assures him that it is, so Frodo talks a big bite. "Wow!" he cries. "This is the best thing I've ever eaten! Why, if I could take some of this back to the Shire, I could make a fortune!"

Treebeard says, "Well, we ents have no use for the fruit, so we just toss the stuff on a communal pile after it's ripe. You're welcome to take as much as you like."

Excited, Frodo grabs up an armload and hauls it back to his hovel. For days he tests out various concoctions to maximize the flavor, until he finally settles on a blend of juice mixed with special hobbit spices that tastes fantastic.

He rushes out to find somebody to test it on, and runs into Aragorn. "Hey!" he cries. "You have to try this stuff!" Aragorn takes a tentative sip. "That's not bad," he says thoughtfully. "What is it?"

Frodo says enthusiastically "It comes from the fruit of ents! I haven't settled on a price yet, but if you offer me something of value, I could give you a whole jug right now!"

Hearing that, Aragorn whips out his sword and points it directly at Frodo's throat. "Sorry Frodo, but I'm going to have to place you under arrest."

"What? Arrest?" says Frodo, surprised and frightened. "Whatever for???"

Aragorn replies... "For ent cider trading."





End note: In the interest of full disclosure, you can blame Kingdom of Loathing for the punchline. I just thought it needed a longer setup.

Republicans pray for rain... and get it

Mmmm... I love the smell of irony in the morning.



Two weeks ago, some smug, smirking representative of Focus on the Family smarmily asked in a YouTube video, "Would it be wrong to ask people to pray for rain? Not just rain, abundant rain, torrential rain" -- in order to ruin Barack Obama's speech at Mile High Stadium last Friday. Just to give the world a demonstration about how mad God is about gay marriage, you see.

Careful what you wish for.

It ALMOST makes me wish I believed in their God. :P

Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog afterthoughts (spoilers!)

So yeah... typical Joss Whedon conclusion. I can't really decide whether Joss is a bigger bastard than George R. R. Martin in the area of gratuitously killing off his main characters, but I was definitely annoyed by the ending on first viewing. I had high hopes for the character of Penny. I was BSing with coworkers on Friday about our expectations for Act 3, and we came up with some of the following ideas:

• Penny is instrumental in defeating Captain Hammer.
• Penny turns into a supervillainess in the end. Complete with white leather.
• It turns out Penny was really "Bad Horse" all along.
• Dr. Horrible inadvertently rescues Captain Hammer from something.
• Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer fall in love and wind up together. (Okay, this is over the top. But Neil Patrick Harris IS gay.)

As it is, I mostly agree with this post, which states that Joss failed to live up to his usual standards of offering strong feminist role models. Penny was in the end a pretty low-dimension character, existing only to serve as a foil for Captain Hammer and Dr. Horrible to fight over in the typical triangle arrangement. It's extremely disappointing to me that, after strongly telegraphing her disillusionment with Captain Hammer throughout act 3, Penny's last words were "Captain Hammer will save us."

My comment on the actual ending: the death of Penny was the catalyst that Billy needed to stop being a villain wannabe and become an actual villain. Meanwhile, the "real" Billy -- my friend Shelley refers to him as the superego component -- gets pushed down and lost forever. Is it poignant and heart-wrenching? Sure. But I don't think I was in the mood for poignant. I was watching a comedy. I wanted a comedy ending.

Having said that... the music and comedy components were both excellent, right up through the end. Joss continued his fine tradition from the Buffy Musical, of delivering up hilarious and catchy tunes over and over again. I'm still planning to buy the DVD, and possibly the soundtrack too. If for no other reason, I think the project was a good idea, and I'd like to encourage the strategy that Joss is trying.

Quick recap of my favorite moments:

• The cowboy chorus. I can't repeat enough how awesome the cowboy chorus was.
• Nathan Fillion's first entrance. Hell, every scene with Nathan mugging, smirking, and chewing up the scenery. Again, Nathan is the real villain and a damn good one.
• "And sometimes there's a third, even deeper level, which is exactly the same as the top level."
• "Wow, what a crazy random happenstance!"
• "...The hammer is my penis."
  
• The last song of Act 2, starting with Neil's demented smile. Also: "I'll hand her the keys to a shiny new Australia." Also also: Giant Neil.
• Groupies! "This is his hair!"
• "I hate the homeless. ...ness problem that plagues our city."
  
• "Everyone's a hero in their own way. You, and you, and... mostly me! and you."
• I must report that Ben just loved seeing Captain Hammer crying and sniveling.

Finally, a few words about the many geeks who populate this project. Felicia Day, who played Penny, graduated with honors from UT (Hook 'em!) with a degree in mathematics, loves World of Warcraft, and stars in a videocast about video games. What's not to like? The actress sounds a hundred times more interesting than the character.

Maurissa Tancharoen plays one of the groupies, is married to Joss Whedon's half brother, and the two of them were apparently deeply involved with the writing and production.

Thoughts on the business model: This is going to be a raging success, probably, but I'm not sure it will prove that the business model is as game-changing as everyone hopes it would be. I mean, yeah, you can make money from releasing a movie and merchandise on the internet... IF your name is Joss Whedon, you have your own money and a huge cult following, and well-known actors who love you enough to temporarily work for free. For everyone else, maybe not so much.

Supervillain musical by Joss Whedon

Please watch this QUICKLY, before it is removed and lost forever:


It's a brief, one-time, episodic show starring a few actors that you'll probably recognize. And I laughed my ASS off.

The bad news is that it will be taken down on July 20, after which time you will have to pay for it. I have faith in my fellow netizens that someone will reverse engineer the video delivery and stick it up on YouTube, but just in case, you might want to check it out right away. It's going to be pretty cheap, only $4 or so for the entire set.

(I decided NOT to encourage piracy after all... since this is partly an experiment to see whether such an endeavor can make real money.)

I have seen the light

I've had a sudden change of heart. Oddly enough, this seems to happen every year around this time.

Sadly, the Atheist Experience will be ending after next week.

Update: That was, of course, an April Fool's joke. Sorry for a taking a week to explain.

Inspiring candidates

Slow updating this blog, but I thought this video was funny.



10,000 more years in Iraq! Yaaaaaay!

Gaming goodness

I had class this weekend, which means that only one weekend and two classes are left in total. My adviser finally got back to me to let me know that my thesis is interesting and well done, and only a few minor changes are necessary before submission. So on the whole it looks like somewhat smooth sailing from here on out, and therefore I treated myself on Friday evening to The Half-Life Orange Box.

I have not bought a game in several months, and part of the reason behind this purchase is that I had heard so many outstanding reviews that I couldn't stand to do without it any longer. This package contains Half-Life 2 (which I've played) and two mini-expansions (which I haven't) as well as some multi-player stuff that I don't much care about. And finally, there's Portal:



Many reviews have been written about Portal, but it's not the professional reviews that did it for me; it was Lore Sjoberg, a very funny guy who writes "The thing about Portal is this: it’s very funny. ...As a puzzle game, Portal runs way too short. As a comedy, it’s perfect." And it was "Yahtzee" Croshaw, whose great review of the Orange Box deserves to be watched and heard in full.



Yahtzee's a hilarious reviewer, and anyone who likes games will have a great time watching all of his regular weekly videos. He's also a very sardonic and pitiless reviewer, which is why it was especially meaningful when he said: "Lastly, there's Portal, and if you're a regular reviewer you'll understand how insane these words feel coming out of my mouth, but I can't think of any criticism for it. I'm serious. This is the most fun you'll have with your PC until they invent a force-feedback codpiece. ...Absolutely sublime from start to finish, and I will jam forks into my eyes if I ever use those words to describe anything else ever again."

Well, "sublime" is a very good description of the game. It is not only fun gaming, it also has brilliant writing, and it is alternately extremely funny and very, very, creepy and unnerving. Fun, amusing, and scary. Those are pretty much my three gold standard criteria for good games, and this hit them all exactly right.

Ben loved it too (and the scary parts were partly derived from uncertainty and the ability to read, so they weren't too scary for him). When you play the game, some puzzles require you to jump from a great height into a portal on the floor, so that you'll build up a lot of momentum before you shoot out of a wall going in a different direction. As we played together, we both started saying "Wheeeeee!" every time we jumped. Well, a minute later, the computerized trainer voice also said "Wheeeeee!" along with us.

Ben cracked up and kept laughing for several minutes. The afterwards, he wanted to know how the computer knew what we were saying. I had a hard time convincing him that it was a coincidence.

Education = terrorism

The conservative group "Family Security Matters" has let us know just how afraid they are of educated people. And also bloggers. On their list of "The Ten Most Dangerous Organizations in America," "Universities and Colleges" came it at number two. Not any particular university or college, mind you. All of them.

Speaking as an educated person AND a blogger, I would like to know when I will have the opportunity to make my acceptance speech.

Evan Almighty: Blessed are the fictional

I watched Evan Almighty on video last night, even though I didn't particularly love Bruce Almighty. It was what I expected, a cute but corny lightweight comedy with a little touch of preachiness and some enjoyable special effects. The Bible story of Noah is watered down a lot, so six billion people don't actually die in a global flood. Steve Carell is acceptably funny, but it's not like his hilarious performance in 40 Year Old Virgin.

Anyway, the movie does deliver kind of a bland religious message, which got me thinking a bit last night. I think I'd be right to say that in just about every movie where God appears in person (as it were) in modern times, there is this obligatory scene where the main character has to be skeptical for a few minutes. You know the scene I mean:
God: "Hi, I'm God."
Mortal: "No you're not! You're a crazy old man who bears a striking resemblance to Morgan Freeman/George Burns/Alanis Morissette/etc."
God: "No seriously, I'm God."
Mortal: "I'm not talking to you anymore."
God: "Here, watch this trick."
(God does various impressive feats in which demonstrates uncanny knowledge and/or screws with the laws of physics.)
Mortal: "Stop! Uncle! I guess you are God."

Of course other characters remain skeptical, because God decides to be a complete dick by not revealing himself to anyone except for the guy he's inciting to crazy behavior. By the end of the movie, though, something remarkably improbable has occurred that makes it clear to everyone that the guy who talks to God was right.

This formula is loosely based on the Bible story of Doubting Thomas. Similar form:
Jesus: "Hey Thomas, it's me, Jesus."
Thomas: "Nuh uh! You're dead!"
Jesus: "No, seriously, it's me. Touch me. Poke your fingers through the stake holes in my hand."
Thomas: "Whoa."

And then there's the punchline.
Jesus: "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

In the story of Doubting Thomas, and Evan Almighty, it turns out to be a good idea to believe in God. But only because they inhabit a fictional world in which God is real and reveals himself through evidence.

And there's the problem. At least part of the point of these stories is to serve as an inspirational example for those of us who live here in the non-fictional world. But in the real world, God never does these tricks for real people. So instead, we're encouraged to base our faith on "evidence" which occurs in fiction.

I'm reminded of an M.C. Escher print of a dragon who is "trying" to get out of his two dimensional world, but fails.


Of this picture, Escher wrote:

"However much this dragon tries to be spatial, he remains completely flat. Two incisions are made in the paper on which he is printed. then it is folded in such a way as to leave two square openings. But this dragon is an obstinate beast, and in spite of his two dimensions he persists in assuming that he has three; so he sticks his head through one of the holes and his tail through the other."

Like the dragon, people seem to try really hard to make God real by having him demonstrate his powers over and over again. Yet however much this god tries to be real, he remains a character in a story.

I'll give Evan Almighty two and a half stars out of five. It was cute, it wasn't a complete waste of time to watch, but it wasn't a must-see comedy.

Presidential candidate or Buffy villain?

Yeah, we already know I'm a sucker for those side-by-side similarity pictures. The similarity in these pictures at AmericaBlog really is impressive.

If you're not a Buffy fan, you can look here to see who the creepy guys are.

A parable

Hapless Citizen: "DARN IT! Oooo, curse my AWFUL luck. This rotten dagnabbertiblabbit car of mine will not start. Again! I'm going to be late for work."
Masked Superhero: "Fear not, Citizen!"
Hapless: "Who are you?"
Hero: "I'm the Ayn Rand Crusader!"
Hapless: "Are you here to solve my problems?"
Ayn Rand Crusader: "No, even better! I'm here to motivate you to solve them yourself!"
Hapless: "Well that does sound useful, I guess."
ARC: "Now, what seems to be the trouble?"
Hapless: "Well, it's this stupid car of mine. It's got some years on it, it doesn't run very well, and I've had to spend a fair bit of money on a regular basis to keep it in running condition."
ARC: "Aha! This looks like a job for... the Ayn Rand Crusader! Citizen, your problems are as good as ended. Observe!"
[ARC whips out a comically large sledgehammer from the pockets of his colorful tights.]
Hapless: "You're going to solve my problems with a hammer? What are..."
[ARC brings down a mighty blow on the car, proceeding to pulverize it into a metal pancake.]
Hapless: "OH MY GOD, what the fuck??? You just totally smashed my car!"
ARC: "Yes, and now all your problems will be solved!"
Hapless: "...Oh. Really? Does that mean you're going to get me a new car?"
ARC: "Of course not! I don't do handouts! But fear not, you will have a new car soon enough."
Hapless: "I don't follow you."
ARC: "Well, now that your old car has been destroyed, I have created a market demand for a new car. Before you know it, the Amazing Free Market will surely be knocking on your door, begging to replace it with a much better car."
Hapless: "But... there aren't any decent car dealerships around here for miles. And it's going to cost me a lot more to get a new car than it did even to keep my old car in working order."
ARC: "Never fear! Thanks to the Incredible Free Market, new car dealerships will soon open up within walking distance! And not only that, they are sure to make you a car that is both excellent and affordable! And besides, even if that doesn't happen, you can easily make a new car for yourself that is just as good."
Hapless: "But I'm a software engineer. I don't know how to make a car."
ARC: "What are you, lazy? You said your old car was bad. Anyone can build a car that's better than a bad one! Get off your butt and learn how to do it properly."
Hapless: "Let me get this straight. You 'helped' me by destroying my old car, and now you're just going to leave me with nothing."
ARC: "LIAR!!! Have you not heard a word I've just said? Why do you misrepresent my position so egregiously? As I have been trying to explain to you, the Magnificent Free Market will replace your car for you."
Hapless: "But right now I don't even have the car I did before. How am I supposed to get to work?"
ARC: "Perhaps some enterprising private charity will come along and give you a lift."
Hapless: "Thanks for nothing."
ARC: "No need to thank me, citizen, I'm just doing my job. Thank the Incomparable Free Market for the generous bounties that will soon be yours. Ayn Rand Crusader, AWAY!!!!!"


...and as for the rest of Johngalt666's "points", I'll have to get back to those a bit later.

Cargo cult comedy canned

The cargo cult comedy show, "The 1/2 Hour News Hour," has been canceled.

All together now: "Awwwwwwww."
Of course, I wouldn't even know this if it hadn't been for liberal radio, since lately it hadn't even occurred to me to wonder whether it still existed.

Two movies

I just wanted to share a couple of funny movies I ran into. Not all audiences will get them, but I think they're both brilliant.

Minesweeper: The Movie




Mementos
If you've seen the movie AND the commercials, you should get it; if you haven't then you'll probably be confused.

I loves me some Chris Dodd

Hmmm, never cared about him that much before, but I gotta give Chris Dodd props for his utter smoothness in facing down Bill "O'Really?"

If you haven't been following this wacky controversy, Bill's been looking for ways to smear the political blog Daily Kos, and hit on the brilliant strategy of highlighting a bad photoshop image posted in the one of the thousands of comments they get every day. Now he's trying to intimidate presidential candidates into staying away from the Yearly Kos convention. Dodd wasn't having any of it.

To me, the funniest part of the video is when Dodd calls O'Reilly to task for saying hateful things on his own show, like talking about al Qaeda bombing San Francisco. Bill loudly denies that he EVER SAID ANY SUCH THING: "You don't know what the hell I said! You got it from Media Matters!!!"

Well, of course, that story is on Media Matters, among other places. There's also an audio clip of him saying it. So in addition to all the other "smearing" that Media Matters does, they apparently have an incredibly convincing Bill O'Reilly impersonator on the staff!

The Daily Show blows a comic opportunity

I was waiting in eager anticipation for last night's "Daily Show," since they didn't discuss the YouTube Democratic debate on the night of the debate itself.

In one sense I wasn't disappointed, because they focused the first 2/3 of the show on the debate and it was funny. But they focused mostly on the form of the debate, and very little on the candidates' responses. For my money, easily the most mockable moment in the entire debate was when someone asked the question "How many of you arrived on a private jet?"

Several candidates (mainly Clinton, Obama) confidently put their hands up, at least being honest about the question. Bill Richardson put his hand halfway up, glanced nervously around at the others to see who else was copping to it, and then sheepishly raised his hand the rest of the way. That had my home audience busting up. Unfortunately, Team Stewart must not have seen the comedy potential in that incident.

Here's yer sign!

This morning I got an email from a new reader commenting on my blog profile:

Like you, I am a self-professed overeducated liberal atheist. Imagine my surprise (and disappointment), therefore, to find you touting your astrological sign as a prime aspect of introduction on your web page. Do you think astrology makes more sense than God cults? (I don't.)

Naturally, I had to reply:

Let me set your mind at ease: I didn't tout my astrological sign at all. Blogger.com asks you to enter your birthday when you first sign up, and it automatically computes your sign and proudly displays it for you. I have no more truck with that nonsense than you do. In fact, I'm looking at the blogger options right now to see if I can find a way to turn it off, and I can't.

Let me take an opportunity to tell a funny story about astrology. It's a story I tell often when the subject comes up, but somehow it has escaped getting the blog treatment until now.

When I was but a wee nerd in college, I used to love a local San Diego morning radio show called "Dave, Shelly and Chainsaw." In fact, I loved it so much that I volunteered to do some of their web content for them, and if you poke around the site you'll still find some things I wrote (though uncredited). That experience helped me get a background in HTML, which led to harder drugs like Javascript and CGI programming, etc.

Anyway (tangent!) in addition to the three hosts, there is a guy named Chris Boyer. As far as I could tell, his main jobs were to play drum fills after jokes, make annoying comments, and get ridiculed by the primary folks.

So one day, the DSC show was graced with the presence of A Famous Astrologer. Dave, Shelly, and Chainsaw all seem to have bought into astrology hook line and sinker. Boyer was the one who was skeptical of astrology, and the others gave him no end of grief about it. They kept insisting that this lady was so good that he'd become a believer. In fact, they decided amongst themselves that the first thing they would do was make her do a reading on Boyer.

So the astrologer arrived, they explained the situation to her, and she laughed and said she would do it. She began by asking Boyer for his birthday. Then she proceeded to tell Boyer all sorts of details about his personality.

The other three were just eating it up. They were chortling and punctuating every sentence with "That's Boyer EXACTLY!" "You're getting this absolutely right!" and so on. Chris just sat there and took it like a trooper, politely accepting everything she told him.

Finally, after a few minutes, he asked, "Are you finished?" She said "That's all." Boyer calmly concluded: "That wasn't really my birthday."

Wooooo, check me out, I'm famous!

First PZ Myers starts regularly linking my posts on the The Atheist Experience, now Dilbert creator Scott Adams links an old post of mine.

FYI, that's original work -- after noticing a certain creepy aspect about Pope Benedict, I spent quite a bit of time googling up pictures that were posed just right to highlight the similarity between Benedict and Palpatine.

Pwned