Exactly WHY is it considered bad to speak ill of the dead?

I mean, I get why it's considered bad to WISH someone dead, or to be actively GLAD they're dead, but if a cockneck dies, they were still a cockneck; the only change is they're now a dead cockneck, and shall engage in no new cockneckery. That seems like it could be considered a good thing.

Directly wishing ill on someone is a karmic boomerang - my sister-in-law somehow exchanged her soul for a small rubber ball some years ago, 'cause truly anything you wish on her bounces right back. And for all their holier-than-thou protestations, there were a lot of Christians nodding their heads knowingly over Christopher Hitchens.

When Nixon died, everybody went from calling him a thief, a liar and a shorts-wearing metal-detector holder and started remembering all the GOOD things he did. If these same things had been brought up a week before, the people who did would have been called "apologists" and voted off the island. Instead, the one guy who did a negative cartoon (a gravestone reading "Here lies Richard Nixon") was treated like he'd taken a dump in the flowers.

Yeah, you don't walk up to the wife or husband and say "He was an invenerate bastard, caused abject grief for millions, and I will be dancing on his grave as soon as the grass grows in".  I get that.  You either go with the means-absolutely-nothing "I'm sorry for your loss", or you just shake their hand and nod mutely.  I'd like to stress the part about mutely.  As the saying goes, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything, or hire someone to write something nice for you to say.

I'm hearing a lot of "I didn't like what he wrote, but it's a shame he's dead" today. In some cases, I'd not be surprised if the not-spoken-aloud next sentence was "because I had so much fun writing things that ripped him apart."

But if you thought someone was a pillock on Monday, and they die on Tuesday, they don't suddenly become a saint on Wednesday. Maybe a day or two truce, OK, but don't try to spin your hatred. Getting on camera and saying "Well, he was certainly dedicated to his cause"... come on.

Time was you'd go to the funeral and bring a mirror, just to check. Is that so bad?

But I tell you, right now... Anthony Weiner is allowing himself a moment, just a moment, mind you, of smirking. Perhaps a quiet chuckle.

We can't ALL be the center of universe

The rules of the Internet are fairly simple:

1. My opinions are right, and the things I like are the best.
2. There will be no argument in this matter.
3. If there is argument, you are wrong, stupid, fat, and if at all possible, a racist.

To clarify, the "I" is each person on the internet, as they speak the rules.

Likely you can see the problem here.

Earlier this week, it was brought to my attention by John Moe, public radio mogul and man responsible for more awesome twitter hashtag games than Baskin-Robbins is for flavors of ice cream, that Rosie O'Donnell had admitted on her new chat show that she was afraid of little people. John's daughter is a little person, so his reaction was somewhat similar to The Wife's reaction when someone asks if The Kid is "retarded":

He passed a number of comments about Rosie's reaction, wishing he could come up with a real zinger, but deciding it wasn't worth it.

I don't have any little people relatives, but I'm not gonna turn down a chance to skewer Rosie...

Now that's a DAMN good line.  Plays on the fact that she's got way too big an ego and views everyone as beneath her, as well as the obvious fat joke.

Rosie must have thought so, cause she retweeted it.

And so started the responses.  My personal favorite:



I didn't figure out until just now that she meant "Paisan".

Now, I know, jumping right to pointing out spelling and grammar mistakes is just reaching for the low-hanging fruit, and you will likely notice reading this, I am in NO position to comment.  But I am truly amazed at what passes for acceptable discourse today.

I got a couple of those "I don't care what the conversation is about, I want to talk about what *I* want to talk about" ones as well:







That's right up there with "Magnets: how the *&(% do they work?!?" right there.

One person replied with a simple "Rosie is a GIANT" to which I calmly responded, "That was...kinda my point".  And once she realized we were in agreement (rolleyes) apologized to me.

So that was fun, and I actually got a couple new followers out of it.

Cut to today.  Comics fan, professional journalist, MDA spokesman and damn fine cosplayer Jill Pantozzi ran her review of Kevin Smith's new reality show Comic Book Men earlier in the week.  In it, she followed up on her previous article's points that the show had no female viewpoint, and as such served to reinforce the stereotype that there are no women in comics fandom.

(I hasten to add that when she wrote that in the aforementioned first article, the number of response that ran to "Of COURSE there's no women in it; it's called Comic Book MEN...duh!" was truly disheartening.)

She did not care for the show.  She found it something that would not attract new people to comics.  I mean, Ice Truckers and Pawn Stars aren't exactly making people line up to get into those industries, but at least they're made to seem interesting. But her review was reasoned, not vindictive or scathing about the show or anyone on it, and could be boiled down to the classic line

“People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.”
Which was said, according to the internet, by either Abraham Lincoln, Dorothy Parker, or Tharko, king of Neptune

 The cast of the show, who do a podcast together, found out about the review today, through a third party.  I have no evidence they READ the review,  but I think we can all agree that the fourth rule of the Internet is "I don't need to have read or seen what you're talking about to have an opinion on it"

 

So in short, a little saltier than the Rosie fans.

When Jill reposted that missive, I was pretty sure that Bryan and Walt were gonna get SouthWested for sure.  And said so.

Which only meant that I started getting hit with as many verbal brickbats as Jill.

Now the part that's interesting, is we can now compare the tweets that came in defense of Kevin Smith and his friends and creations (which are possibly one and the same) to the ones from Rosie's supporters.

Rosie's fans were split between messages that supported Rosie and telling her to ignore the haters, and inoffensive statements to me that I was rude, wrong, or just plain mean.  The tweets from Kevin's folks all but ignored the comments, and went straight for personal attacks.

Rosie's commenters attempted to explain, justify or spin Rosie's comments, some calling her brave for sharing such a revelation.  They hadn't all SEEN the clip, but at least they took what they knew about it and tried to figure what an inherently nice person COULD have meant when they said they saw little people as if they were children.  Kevin's folks made no attempt to defend the show, nor to read the review.  Indeed, many began writing the review in their heads, versions that had personal attacks on Walt and Bryan, and began discussing THAT review.

The show, IMHO, suffered from mission creep.  It was originally supposed to be a reality show about a comic store, with a varied cast of people working there (and in disclosure, Jill actually auditioned to be on the show)  There WAS a woman in the pilot, but she was edited out entirely.  The show has basically a video version of the Tell Em Steve-Dave podcast.  Same cast, same topics, and all told, not too much about the running of a comic store.  Which is fine; if it does well, that's a good thing.  Kevin has a lot of fans, myself included, and it's something at least a little different on TV.  But if you meet someone who doesn't like it, especially someone who can explain why with words, your response should not be #KissMyAssYouBitterWannabeJournalist.

I honestly think Bryan was just trying to stay "in character" as a guy's guy kind of comic fan; after all, he does play Steve-Dave in the Askewniverse movies.

Only one problem.

Steve-Dave's an asshole.

Whoa, Black Betty, Amaranth, Whoa, Black Betty, Amaranth...

The wife has to avoid gluten in her diet, as it plays no small amount of havoc with her digestion, and shortly afterwards, the atmosphere in her immediate area.  She's done very well with it, mostly as a result of making most of her own bread with the breadmaker I picked up at an outrageous discount for her. Also helpful is the fact that the health food industry has latched onto "Gluten-free" as the new buzzword.  So lots of people are buying gluten-free products now, under the mistaken impression that they are somehow healthier.  In fact, it has no measureable benefits, save for anyone who has to actively avoid the compound for medical and olfactory reasons. The trend has a hidden benefit for those who do, however; the increase in demand has made the number of products skyrocket, and driven down the price.  Any opportunity to benefit from the gullibility of the public is a plus.

One of the surprises we found in our quest for alternatives is the grain quinoa (Keen-wa).  It comes from South America, and has massive amounts of protein, something grains don't usually have, not to mention enough fiber to clean out a politician.  It cooks exactly like rice, has a great nutty flavor, and can be used in any way you use rice - soup, chili, salads, you name it.  It's good enough that picky me has made it part of my diet.

So a while back, The Wife hears about another grain, amaranth, and bought a bag. According to the package, it cooks like rice as well - add water, simmer and wait. I found it in the pantry and since I was cooking anyway, I figured I'd toss on another pot and cook it up to see what we got.

There are no words for the horror we received.

First off, quinoa absorbs the water ably and swells up three or four times its size, much like the Grinch's heart.  The amaranth did not expand at all, even after letting it cook longer than suggested.  Instead, it exuded what can only be described as mucous, similar to the defensive slime discharge of the hagfish. Quinoa remains light and fluffy after boiling, the amaranth formed a viscous slab at the bottom of the pan, and no amount of stirring would break it up into anything smaller than silly putty-like clumps about the size of a baby's fist.  Dropped into the storage container with an audible thud, they flowed back together into one mass, like the lead character in the videogame Loco Roco, but less quickly, and not nearly as cutely.  The resulting congealed mass looked exactly like the jelly-like seed and water material used to spread on chia-sculptures. 

The smell was unobtrusive, pretty much smelling like...boiled wheat.  As opposed to, say, cous-cous, which is slightly processed  I, already being a very squeamish eater and having a serious issue with textures, could not bear to look at it for extended periods, let alone put it in my mouth.  The Wife, braver than I, tasted it and declared it palatable.  So it was saved, and is now taking up residence in the refrigerator. 

Now, there's every possiblity that I Did It Wrong.  I researched it, and it's not supposed to be rinsed, as quinoa is, so I didn't.  The bag described the cooking process as I related it - boil in water and simmer, so THAT ain't it.  It's possible the bag we had was old, and a bit stale, and perhaps a fresh batch would not react as same.  But unless someone can present serious evidence of why I should give this stuff a second try, it's going in the "no" column, along with using rice flour to bread fried chicken and using agave nectar for anything other than making tequila.

The title for Best Headline has changed hands.

"Headless Body In Topless Bar", your days at the top of the heap are over.

A friend on the Facebook just shared a story that made my head feel like it had been filled with champagne.  A headline that grabs you by the lapels and promises you a better time than a fifty-dollar whore who has two tongues and is having a one-cent sale.

Gordon Ramsay's Dwarf Porn Double Found Dead in a Badger Den in Wales

I'm almost afraid to add the link, for fear you'll run off to read it and never come back.

I can imagine the headline editor going over that phrase for HOURS trying to pare it down, but not finding a word he could bear to part with. Because every word is just choked with win.

Much in the same way Lord of the Flies is a little textbook on how to write a novel, this headline delivers EVERY SINGLE THING that you can use in a headline to draw eyeballs to the story.

1) A CELEBRITY - Celebrities are better than us.  We are fascinated by everything they do, so depending on the amount of proper news happened in a day, EVERYTHING they do is newsworthy.  So this headline could have reported Mr. Ramsay selecting a large bag of M&Ms at the Wawa instead of the single-serving size, and it would have been valid page filler.  But no, they go on.

2) SEX - If you can get the subject of the story doing something sexy, or can at least connect them obliquely to something sexy, it's gonna only help.  Porn is even more of a draw.  So this story not only has porn, but dwarf porn, one of the most fascinating and odd forms of porn that the general public is aware of.  It's peanuts to the afficionado, but the true porn maven likely isn't reading this paper, or at least not past page three.

So we've got "Gordan Ramsay's Dwarf Porn Double" - at this point, what said fellow is doing is almost moot - the headline could end in "eats soup" and you'd still want to read.  (I mean, what size spoon would he use?)  But no, there is no soup in his future...

3) VIOLENCE - The little fucker's DEAD! This headline is like a Ron Popiel pitch, just promising you more and more, asking 'NOW how much would you pay?" the fact that he's passed on is interesting enough, this story can't get any more alluring...can it?

4) UNIQUE SCENARIO - "Dog bites man" is not news, as it happens all the time.  "Man Bites Dog is, as it is uncommon.  So I think we can all agree that while a dead person is common, a dead dwarf somewhat less so, but a dead dwarf FOUND IN A BADGER DEN is as common as a sweet-smelling Taco Bell restroom.

5) LOCAL COLOR - If you can mention a specific area in a story, people in that area will look at the story, excited that something vaguely of interest happened in close proximity to them.  The Wife made the local paper for the act of winning tickets to the King Kong premiere. What's more, she was recognized by strangers from the story as much as a year later.

So by adding "In Wales" to the end of the masthead, it ensures that any Welsh not previously interested in a story about a diminutive erotic doppleganger who turned up eyes up in a burrow will now pick the paper up and give it look

This headline's surely writing checks the story can't cash.. And indeed it's a very short piece (Oh, damn, I can't believe I just typed that) that doesn't deliver much of the promise the headline had.

But the paper knows a winner when they see one.  So a week later, when the titular grumpy gourmet was pulled over in LA for accidentally driving on the wrong side of the street, do they go with, "TV's Ramsay caught in traffic snarl"?  No.

'Crazy' US cop pulls gun on Gordon Ramsay days after his dwarf porn double dies 

I. Love. Journalism.

Comedy is funny unless it's happening to you. Or, apparently, when you simply declare it isn't.

OK, so a guy I know on Facebook posted a simple truism.

"Drunks are funny."

This is fairly unarguable.  Endless classic moments of comedy are rooted in inebriation, either via the scene, the actors, or on occasion the state of the writer when he thought it up. Foster Brooks and WC Fields made millions on the concept.
The conversation continued on for a while until one fellow piped up with...

"Drunks are not funny when they get behind the wheel of a car and kill an innocent person."

Well thank you, Wendy Wetblanket.

This was supposed to be everyone's cue to, you should pardon the expression, sober up, admit that alcoholism was A Terrible Problem, and walk away dour and shamefaced, guilty that they could ever find something so serious could ever be humorous.  I could actually envision the guy's arms crossed, a holier than thou look on his face.

But of course, I was there.  I don't chagrin easily.

After I attempted to call him on his attempt to dictate comedy to the world, he replied with...

"I hope one of your friends or relatives is never killed by a drunk driver like I have had."

But you know what?  I bet he does.  In his secret heart of hearts, the part of his soul he dares never show to anybody, he feels the desire to have others go through what he went through, because That Would Show Them.  It's universal.  It used to be handled by becoming supervillains, not it's done by walking into a crowded room full of happy people and announcing "I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed"

If he didn't feel that way, he wouldn't be diving into conversations unbidden and sharing his tragedies with total strangers because they were guilty of the sin of being happy, or finding humor in a situation that he does not, and being so callous to find it funny in his presence.

Years ago, when that kind of thing happened, people did something weird - they'd excuse themselves and leave the room.  And maybe the someone would ask why, and someone else would explain "Oh, Bill's brother was crushed by a piano, so he can't bear to hear anyone play one" and they'd feel bad, and go apologize.  And usually use the phrase "I had no idea" because clearly, they didn't.  But note the way it was handled.  The person who was upset, offended, or simply didn't find it funny would remove themselves from the situation politely, because why should everyone else have a lousy time on account of them? 

Cut to today. Years of empowerment and mollycoddling have left us with a world of people who are convinced that they are the center of the universe, and it must bend to their will.  The laws of physics notwithstanding, this is not possible unless everyone agrees.  The phrase "like herding cats" comes to mind.

So now, if someone finds issue with someones attempt at humor or entertainment s a result of some personal tragedy, peccadillo or simply mood at the time, it's become perfectly acceptable to stand up and announce that this act makes them sad in some way, and therefore it should cease.  Becasue as we know, the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many, especially if the one has a chip on their shoulder.

Q - How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A - THAT'S NOT FUNNY.

Sometimes if they don't have their own personal tragedies to cash in, they'll just point to some nebulous sadness ("I don't know how you can find this pie fight funny when there are children in Africa who are starving and would be HAPPY to eat that pie"), cluck their tongues like so many hens and watch disapprovingly for people to realise what callous boors they've been.

Comedy is a tool used to entertain but also to help deal with tragedy.  Cries of "too soon" aside, it's the ability to find humor in even the worst of situation that allow us to keep from putting shotguns in our mouths.

My daughter is autistic, but Gilda Radner's "basket case" character is still screamingly funny  I have lost both my parents, but I have yet to ask Disney to change their films because seeing characters with one or no parents and STILL find a way to be happy just tears me apart inside.  I am an Overweight American, and can still not laugh when I watch one of those guys have to be taken from their home with a forklift.

Becasue I am able to grasp that these people are not aiming this comedy at me individually, and I am able to separate my personal tastes and opinions from the rest of the world.  And on the rare occasions I find something offsides, I sit quietly, or change the channel for a while, and wait for things to be funny again.  Because I realize that I am not so much more important than other people that things that only entertain me shall exist.  In short, I'm not five.

I fear for the day when a stand-up comic will be required to have all attendees fill out a form listing their personal tragedies, religion, favorite foods and allergies so they don't actually start a bit about vacationing in Cabo, only to have a person from the fourth row stand up in tears, complaining that Uncle Olaf died of skin cancer and how DARE you bring those memories up when all I was trying to do was have a little FUN.

Comedy was a lot funnier when we just didn't care about other people's feelings. 

And when other people all weren't the subject of that Carly Simon song.

No not "Anticipation", you knothead...

A Thanksgiving tradition comes to a sad end

Remember trading stamps?  No, of course you don't, they happened before you were born, so they mean as little to you as manual lawnmowers, the Pyramids or the crank that you used to have to start a car with.

The way it worked was, you'd buy stuff, usually groceries, and you got x-number of stamps for every dollar you spent.  And you'd save the stamps in these books and when you got enough you could trade them in for damn near everything you could think of; appliances, jewelry, I heard one guy got a car.  You could get, say, a blender with 15 books of stamps.

The trick was, of course, if you counted up all the money you SPENT to get that blender, it was like 400 frillion dollars, and the blender was for sale at the store next door for like 15 bucks. 



But the Trading Stamp industry latched onto a truism of human thought - we will go to great lengths to get something for free.  Even if it's only for "free", and the time and resources spent obtaining it far outbalanced just spending the money.

In our modern world, trading stamps have been supplanted mainly by airline miles, credit card reward points and those saving club cards you get at the grocery store.  They all follow the same model - offer "rewards" for spending money, at a return rate of a fraction of a percent, knowing full well that only a percentage of your customers will even bother to redeem them, but the offer will still be alluring enough that it will cause a good number of people to do business with you anyway.

For example, for every 250 "points" (usually at a dollar spent per point) you earned at the store, you'd get a 5% coupon off your next order.  Your NEXT visit, mind you.  So they've ALREADY got you coming back.  And in your head you're scheming "I'll show them, I'll buy a whole LOT next time, and really make that discount coupon PAY!"  Oh, yeah, brilliant.  Spend twice as you would usually, making the store an extra 95% in sales, and feel like YOU came out on top when you show your receipt that says you saved five extra bucks.  You're a genius, you.

Back in the day, the biggest extra benefit the redemption center got from you was your name and address, which they'd sell to mailing list companies.  Today with the amazing power of computers, your store membership cards allow them to track what you buy, when, how often, what brands you prefer, which size, and so much more data they haven't quite figure out how to analyze it yet.  But hey, ten cents off on gas every other month when you've earned enough points!

Now here's the thing - I don't begrudge the stores the right to grab that data.  I get a few coupons out of it, and I'm just not as paranoid as some people; just cynical.  You'd be amazed how much data TiVo gets from you as well, and I don't see too many people trying to get people to turn their DVRs off.

But there was one time in the year that the whole process didn't just seem worth it, it felt truly rewarding.  Starting at the beginning of November, all your reward points went towards earning a free turkey. No discount towards a turkey, a free goddam turkey. OK, yeah, the store brand, and only a frozen one; if you wanted a name brand or a fresh one, it was only a discount. But I've gotten REAL good at making a frozen turkey taste delicious - props to Alton Brown's brine recipe. And as anyone will tell you, free food always tastes better.

Now again, same rules apply - I spent 300 bucks to pay for that "free" turkey. Plus, once you got that turkey, you spent that much and more for the trimmings, side dishes, throw-away roasting pan, and all the other stuff you need to make that "free" turkey taste all the better.  And come on, you're not just gonna walk in, pick up the bird and go buy everything somewhere else.  And like I said before, there's an indefinable rush as that monstrous bird shows up on your receipt as "$0.00".  Especially if, as I always did, you dug DEEP in the freezer to find the biggest goddam behemoth that the promotion would permit.  Screw those people happy with a 14-pound turkey, this slip of paper says "up to twenty pounds" - I am not leaving with anything under ninteen-five.

So everybody wins, right? 

Apparently not.

I only just found out our local Giant chain was not doing the free turkey promotion this year.  I'm crestfallen.  I just assumed it was happening, so when I asked how close I was to my certificate, and they said they weren't doing it, I literally didn't know how to process the news.

I haven't paid for a turkey since I moved to PA. The free turkey has become as big a Thanksgiving tradition as...well as the turkey.  Yes, I can afford the turkey, but as anyone will tell you, free food TASTES better, even if it's free food you had to spend 300 dollars to earn.

I know in past years the response has been big enough that they've run out of turkeys in many locations.  Doesn't seem to be a problem this year - they were stacked up like cordwood in Whitehall. Likely because people found out they were gonna have to pay for the damn things.

I'm sure this change somehow saves the chain money; the amount of money people needed to spend to shore up enough points probably didn't pay for the turkey this year.  But this strikes me as another one of those short-term smart, long-term foolish moves that a lot of companies have made this year.  It's another one of those "last straw" things that have been making people grow very upset with companies they formerly had very high opinions of.  And if it's companies they already didn't have high opinions of, it was close to an act of war.

Look at the two most obvious examples this year.  Bank of America announced it was adding a five dollar fee to its debit cards, and people reacted as if Hitler had announced that since the thing with the Jews was going so well, he was going to start killing redheads as well.  The country already hated the banks, but didn't know enough about how banking worked to understand why, or exactly what about banking they hated.  This fee gave them a focus, like a magnifying glass on an ant.  The other banks backed away from BoA like it had just punched a cripple, and people started closing their accounts in protest.  A lot more just thought about it, and you know how much big business hates thinking.  So last week or so BoA announced they had changed their minds, and were not going to start charging the fee.  And they had the grapefruits to spin it like they were good guys for doing it - "We heard you".  Yeah, you screamed when we tried to squeeze your testicles all the tighter, and it surprised us, so we stopped, aren't we nice?

Netflix didn't change their mind about their price increase; they just apologized for it.  And so they lost about a million customers (and that, for once, isn't comedic hyperbole) and no end of good will, both of which they had in massive amounts six months before.  Netflix made the mistake of reminding people of one of those charges that sits on their credit cards every month, unnoticed.  Suddenly, people who had no problem getting hit for ten bucks a month heard they were gonna get hit for sixteen, and thought, "Heck, I'm not even using it NOW, why throw more money away?"

It's the perfect consumer transaction - paying for a service that will never be used - and Netflix lost MILLIONS because of it.  It's how Blizzard makes the lion's share of their money - World of Warcraft accounts that people don't use, but keep alive because they mean to as soon as they get the time again.  Would you buy a gift certificate and never use it cause it's pretty? Why do you think the post office is so courting stamp collectors?  Because when they come out with Star Wars or comic book stamps, people buy sheets of them and put them away, never to use them.  More correctly, they're courting NEW stamp collectors, because true philatelists know that a stamp becomes MORE valuable if it's been used.  Often cancellation marks make a stamp even more rare.  But now collectors have the mindset that if they buy a lot of the new thing, in thirty years they'll ALL be worth a lot.  Apparently, the whole "supply and demand" thing got left in the classroom, forgotten as fast as the words to the school song.

So because the chain has decided it's not profitable enough, I'm gonna have to buy my turkey this year.  And I wish I had the fortitude to skip the turkey altogether this year, to prove a point.  But I'm weak.  And I know I'm going to buy the turkey, and the stuffing, and all the brine ingredients and the pies and all, just like last year.

Except this year I'm gonna buy it at Wegmans.