When sex and chocolate are a bit too much.

Thanks to The Nephew, we learn about this new service via the digital wonderland. Now you can tell someone you passed along a crotch cricket or worse and, the best part is, it's anonymous.

Really puts the casual in casual encounter, doesn't it? And this is just the thing that sets a social conservative's hair on fire; the casual anonymity, the shirking of responsibility when relative strangers (as opposed to strange relatives) have a slippery good time and then just walk away, without the vomiting and tears that plague Bible-bumping Republicans.

But there's a cavalier attitude to this card that even I see as a bit blase, considering the subject matter.

Now that's stepping up like a man.

"I spewed my microbe-laden bodily fuids into your vulnerable intimate areas. Oops. Gotta run!"

Christ, that's not even an apology. At least the faceless dude in the first panel has the decency to be mildly embarrassed.

Unless that's a rash.

But, seeing an opening (if you will), I'm quick to jump into what could be a real money-maker.

So, if you've given someone a pantload of woe recently and feel an itch to confess, you might want to consider one of these Dark Planet Cards:

Or this?



And one more:


An Updated Extra: This for our men and women serving in uniform. Salud!

I could do these all day, but I have to go back to work. Feel free to write your own in the comments section if you're so inclined.

And Hallmark? Call me.

When sex and chocolate aren't enough.

We've all heard that these things can make your brain healthier and smarter, and really, what's smarter than adding more sex and chocolate to your life?

But for some strivers, they want more.

Just as ball players bulk up on steroids, some students and business people are taking drugs made to treat neurological problems, all in an effort to be smarter, work harder, and work longer than before.

And that's smart?

OK, I'll admit, many in my generation turned to drugs in order to pry open our brain pans and toss out all the detritus of 50's America. But as with all things, if you started out stupid, you pretty much stayed stupid.

And if you want enlightenment, go live in a cave in Nepal, Mr. Hippie. This is America, where the only drugs we use are drugs that can help us work more rigorously toward a socially acceptable goal. Drugs like caffeine and Viagra.

I admit, as I get older and slower, surrounded by very smart people 20 years my junior, I've thought about taking Adderall or Provigil in order to stay competitive. But, as my doctor reads this blog, that admission pretty much puts the kibosh on my plans of faking ADHD.

But if I knew there existed a drug that could not only help me finish this novel but also make it a best seller, I'd take it.

Maybe then I'd have the time to live in that cave and figure out this whole third eye thing. Do you need special glasses for that?

What are you looking at?

I'm old. Not old old, but older than most people I know. I'm older than everyone I work with and, in my circle of friends, I think I'm the oldest. Which, up until yesterday, didn't bother me.

But yesterday this vertigo gave me a flicker of what it will be like to be old.

My mind is distracted by my lack of balance. I have to be careful how I walk, mindful of my frailty. I'm focused inward, on my condition, and medicine has become a constant source of conversation.

That last is the real mind fuck. I've spent enough time around oldsters to know that their medical condition is one third of the old-timers' holy trinity. There's golf, who's died, and what's wrong with my bowels.

I don't like this. In bed last night I wondered if this was the beginning of the end. If those moments of frailty would just expand until they consumed my entire day. If, as my inner self looks on in horror, I'll shortly begin babbling about my blood pressure instead of books, phlegm instead of film and be blissfully unaware when all those around me edge towards the exits.

I'm hoping this all goes away after they juggle my noggin in May. Right now I want to rest.

But even more than that, I want you kids off my lawn.

I still fall down a lot...

...but now I know why.

Regular readers will recall that I had a bit of vertigo a few months ago. Well, it's never really gone away and lately it's gotten a lot worse.

The last time I went to the doctor he said it was either a virus or a tumor. That's like a whole Grand Canyon's worth of difference in those two words. But he said the chances of it being a tumor were very small, but told me if it didn't get better to come back.

It didn't get better. This morning I went back. The diagnosis?

Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, or BPPV.

Benign. Isn't that a lovely word?

Begins with a B, one of my favorite letters. Even sounds nice, a Dickensian word if there ever was one.

Not to worry. It's benign.

What BPPV means is that something in my head got unstuck and now they have to twist my coconut around like a Wii stick and that won't happen until May.

So until then, I'll be a little loopier than usual, even sober.

But it's benign. I like that word.

A teabag extra.

Gin and Tacos is a terrific blog, new on my radar. They did a great job of reporting from the tea bag front as they waded into the seething, angry mass of poor spelling, garbled syntax and unsubtle racism.

Check it out.

Tweet.

Here's a story about how Twitter has either contributed to, or rode on the coattails of Mad Men's success.

Take a look. It's an interesting use of what, up to now, I had considered just another product of our self-centered society.

(He says from the comfort of his totally self-centered blog.)

But after hearing how this woman tweeted her way into a pretty good gig, it struck me that Twitter could be a great book promotion tool and yes, I totally understand that this is old news.

But this is a little different. This is tweeting in character, and engaging in a conversation with readers as, in my case, John Harper, which would be easy as Harper's voice is close to my own. I even considered tweeting in my WIP's protagonist's voice, which adds the further wrinkle of time. He would have to tweet from 1941.

Interesting.

This presupposes that anyone actually gives a fuck about what these characters think. But it's got to be as interesting as hearing about someone eating Froot Loops for lunch. It would be easier with a character from a best-selling series, if I had a best-selling series, or even a slow-selling series.

I had considered Twitter as something I could ignore. But if I ever get this new book out, the old man may just have to learn something new.

Have you tweeted? Was it everything you dreamed it would be? Is this tweeting in character something you'd try, or have seen others try?

Talk to me.

David Schuster having way too much fun with teabagging.

I saw this over at Dusty Rhoades' place and decided to take up my own challenge of counting the double entendres in this report.

I counted 18, including tongue-lashing, tight-lipped and a taste for teabagging.

I may have missed one or two.

Heh. The GOP hasn't been the source of this much juvenile humor in days.

Despair.

Has anyone smacked these girls' parents around a bit? Because if not, I'd like to volunteer.

Teabagging the true believers.

As Jenny works on our taxes, certain that we'll have to pay again this year, right wangers across the nation plan on staging tea parties, hoping that the economically-numb populace will think of the Boston Tea Party and not that other kind of teabagging, which we won't go into here.

We do have standards.

What are the wangers protesting? Taxes. They don't like 'em. Which makes them exactly like every other sentient being on earth.

What separates them from intelligent life is why they're protesting. Obama plans to let the Bush tax cuts expire. This means that if you make over $250K, your tax rate will go from 36% to 39%.

I'm not anywhere close to that bracket, so I'm not breaking a sweat, but it sure would be nice to be faced with such weighty problems.

And I'm guessing those guys in the picture aren't anywhere close to making $250 a year, either, but I could be wrong. Blowing sailors in the bus depot could pay more than I suspect.

What I do know is this: the higher tax bracket is 10% less than it was under Saint Ron and 51% less than it was under Ike. Jesus, no wonder Kennedy wanted to cut taxes. That Ike. What a fucking Socialist.

And I don't remember these guys squawking when Reagan and Bush ran up record deficits, either. But that was before. They're newly converted deficit hawks now, or at least unitl the next time Grover Norquist, Dick "Dick" Cheney or some other lying bastard tells them that deficits don't matter.

But the one thing the wangers really don't understand is history. The Boston Tea Party wasn't about the tax as much as it was about not having a voice in Parliament. Taxation Without Representation. Remember that? But these guys have a voice in Congress, it's just not as loud as it used to be.

You lost, I know. It sucks. I know that, too. But breaking open bags of Earl Goddamn Grey doesn't make you the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers. It just makes you a bunch of ignorant, easily manipulated dicks. You're getting tea-bagged all right, but by your party's cynical leaders.

All I can say is, open wide suckers.

A short story.

I work in an office park far from any place that kids would frequent. Hell, it's not a place grown-ups would frequent if they had a choice.

But one morning I got out of my car and came upon these little sandals sitting in the morning light. It looks like a little girl had stepped right out of them.

Whose are they? Does she miss them? How did she lose them? Were her parents mad?

These little sandals inspired all sorts of conjecture and isn't that the beginning of any story?

I was reminded of Hemingway, when challenged to write a complete story in six words he came up with this:

"For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."

It's a high standard he's set.

I'm offended.

Oh, no, the artist was so bold, turning Mary into a Hooters waitress delivering the wings to a bunch of happy and hungry wise dudes.

Sweet Jesus (no relation), but I found this while looking for offensive art. Come on people. This isn't anywhere close to being offensive. Stupid, yes. A waste of the artist's talent, no doubt. But offensive, hell, this person is about as offensive as a baby's fart.

I went looking for offensive art because of the story of Red Grooms' sculpture. That's the sculpture I posted a few days ago. When I looked up why it was no longer at the Cincinnati Art Museum I found out that it was originally commissioned by the Northern Kentucky University to honor a Kentuckian of merit. Grooms chose DW Griffith, a man who revolutionized motion pictures.


Trouble with DW, he was a racist, no question. His Birth of a Nation glorifies the Klan and portrays black men as barely human, lusting after our pure white women.

But the dude revolutionized motion pictures. He was The Father of the Feature.

Not good enough for the students at NKU, apparently. According to NKU's web site, Grooms' sculpture was dismantled in 2004 and is now in storage. Not because Red Grooms is a racist. No. But because his subject, a guy who started making movies sometime around 1915, was a racist.

Goddamn. That's like burning Picasso's paintings because he was an asshole with women. And let's not even talk about Chaplin and his penchant for young girls.

Some who read this blog might be surprised to find I'm not a big fan of political correctness. I believe in manners, yes. I don't go out of my way to offend people. I mean, what's the point?

But Red Grooms is offensive art? To paraphrase Tom Waits, buddy, you don't know the meaning of offensive. Here's some fucking offensive art.

My father's brother was killed on Iwo Jima and in my family, Joe Rosenthal's picture is about as close to a holy relic as we get. To use it to make a point about America's invasion of Iraq offends me. It's right on, but it still offends me.

Anne Frank wearing a Palestinian scarf is pretty nasty, too. I'm offended.

But for real visceral offense, you have to go right to the gut. Check this out.

This artist wanted to protest the killing of a burglar by a couple of guard dogs so he found this dog on the street, chained him up in a gallery to make it all arty and shit, and then starved the dog to death.

Right here is my line. If you've ever wondered after reading this blog for three years, "Gee, I wonder what I would have to do to get under Dave's skin?" this is it.

I wonder if I shot this asshole in the leg with my .45 and called it art he'd understand.

OK, one more example of offensive art and then it's time for me to rest.

Thomas Kinkade is not an artist, he's a marketer. And this stuff stinks almost as bad as the dead dog. It doesn't offend me on the same level as the dead dog, but it offends me, just the same.

We all have a line somewhere. Mine, I admit, is more distant than most. So tell me, what really offends you? I mean, what gets so deeply into your gut as wrong that it spurs you to want it banned, burned, expunged from the earth?

Talk to me.

Update: According to our good friend Dusty Rhoades, the dead dog art was a hoax. If it was, it was a good one. It got me.

I checked with Snopes and as of last year, they couldn't decide if it was a hoax or not. FactCheck has no articles I could find. But I'm inclined to believe it was a hoax. No one could be this insensitive, could they?

Well, yeah, of course they could.

Stupid goes fast. Stupid goes real fast.

I know I promised to talk about the changes in technology today, but I heard this and couldn't resist. It has every element I love to make fun of - people who blindly hate Obama, NASCAR, blog comments and morans.

On April 1st, Car and Driver wrote a story they clearly labeled as an April Fool's joke. The story? Obama Orders Chevrolet and Dodge Out Of NASCAR. This by Jared Gall of C&D:

In a move sure to spark outrage, the White House announced today that GM and Chrysler must cease participation in NASCAR at the end of the 2009 season if they hope to receive any additional financial aid from the government ... A complete withdrawal from America’s premier racing series is expected to save more than $250 million between GM and Chrysler, a substantial amount considering the drastic measures being implemented elsewhere.

This story included this after the title: “HAPPY APRIL FOOLS’ DAY! THIS IS A JOKE. LIGHTEN UP, PEOPLE.”

But, did that stop bloggers, and even some news sites from picking it up as gospel? Hey, you don't have to be literate to blog, as this site proves almost daily. Here, after a perfunctory search are some choice comments:

i can actually say that you dont understand the move. forcing them to pull out would leave a ton of R&D on the table, tons of advertising and a major divot in americana.

Unfortunately it's no joke dude!

Bam Bam will piss of an entire segment of the population.

So much for the pursuit of happiness! NASCAR Fans are not his voter base and Team Obama will be changing more than tires. So wave bye -bye to capitalism and freedom. Because at the rate that Congress is spending trillions of dollars, soon we will all be homeless and sleeping out of our cars.

...not a popular one. This one move may have lost the Democrats the 2012 election if the economy doesn't recover. Imagine the rage of the nascar dads...

This is getting way out of hand.

Wow! Wonder when the Communistic rule will begin. First, the gun BS, Then telling a CEO of a corporation to step down, now to telling two companies to pull out of a sport. What's next, tell the blue collared American worker that his job is not his anymore and to report for his new job tomorrow. Somethings not right. Makes you think a little.

But only a little. Apparently, this last guy hasn't heard that the blue-collared worker has already been escorted off the premises by the corporate CEOs he wants to protect. Too bad there is no new job to report to, sparky.

You know, there was a time you had to listen to talk radio to hear comments this stupid, but thanks to the Internet, you can get stupid all day long. And you don't even have to watch Glen Beck. Double bonus!

So, I guess this post is about technology after all. Tomorrow, I promise I'll post about docs and the breakthrough that has put filmmaking in the hands of just about everyone.

That is, unless I get distracted by some other shiny object.

Films to look for.

Just a quick update on the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. This was the 12th year of Full Frame and the movies we saw (with two exceptions) ranged from good to great. That hasn't always been the case, but this year we lucked out, and that's what festivals usually turn out to be - pure luck.

OK, here are some films to look for:

Saint Misbehavin' - The Wavy Gravy Movie - If all you know about Wavy Gravy is from Woodstock, see this movie. Born Hugh Romney, WG has led a remarkable life of service and philanthropy. A real love letter to a terrific human being.

The Yes Men Fix the World - Pranksters of another sort pose as corporate spokespeople and show the world what could be done if Corporations lived up to their responsibilities. Funny and with balls the size of grapefruits, these guys might not fix the world completely, but they give it a good shot.


Oblivion - That's the director, Heddy Honigmann. She made this movie about the forgotten city of Lima-Peru and all of the people who work in the shadow of the presidential palace, a place where dictators and their corrupt cronies come and go, leaving the people struggling to get by alone. I've seen one other film by Honigmann called Forever. It will be availbale on Netflix this month and I urge you to rent it. It's a beautiful film about art, dedication, and dead people.

Fallen Champ - Barbara Kopple made this movie 16 years ago and showed up to answer questions as part of the 2009 festival's sports theme. The film is a nuanced look at a complex guy, shot when Tyson was in jail for rape.

The director of Fallen Champ is Barbara Kopple, one of my favorite doc directors. She's helmed more than 20 pictures, including Oscar winner "Harlen County USA" about coal miners and the Dixie Chicks' joyful answer to their critics, "Shut Up and Sing."

And to anyone who can watch any of these movies and still cling to the bullshit claim that documentaries should be objective, I wish you luck with that.

Tomorrow, a look at how technology has changed in the 12 years since the first Full Frame festival.

*The sculpture up top is Red Grooms' Way Down East. That's DW Griffith directing the ice floe scene he lifted from Uncle Tom's Cabin. I first saw this sculpture in front of the Cincinnati Museum of Art. It now resides on the campus of Northern Kentucky University. It's Cincinnati's loss, if you ask me.

Apparently, there was a game last night.

I guess I should say something about UNC's win last night. My lovely wife is a Carolina alum and diehard Heels fan.

Hey, nobody's perfect.

We were talking about the win, the 30,000 fans storming Franklin Street, the special N&O souvenir section and front page you can buy as a poster, suitable for framing and, you know, I just don't get it.

Really. Somehow I missed the sports gene. Don't get me wrong, I loved playing. I was never much of an athlete, but I could catch a football, was a mediocre wrestler, and even had an Army boxing career that lasted one whole round.

But watching someone else play a game is like watching someone else have sex.

Oh, right. Let's try that again.

Watching someone else play a game is like watching someone else enjoy a terrific meal. As beautiful as the food might be, I'd rather be the guy with the fork.

I don't hold it against anyone who is a sports fan. Some of my best friends can tell you all about East Camelfart University's JV squad and, what's simply mystifying to me, care deeply about an injured 6'9" sophomore who would just as soon run over your dog as say hi to you.

I don't get it. But it makes me people happy.

It's a lot like religion, I guess. It gives people comfort, offers them a shared history, and provides an explanation for events that are totally outside of their control.

So, while it means bupkis to me, last night was a big deal for a lot of people. Just for them, I'm going to shake my pompoms.

Now, can we get back to really important things? Like the future of low-budget horror flicks?

Now there's something I can get behind.

Award Fail

Too much info and too little time, so I'll give you this to hold you over until a real post can be whipped up.

The Nephew and I saw this yesterday.

News from the Bull City.

Let's check out the goods at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Not a lot of time before the next film so let's get to it.

Two films with bulls prominently featured: Maletilla, a love letter to the young men who grow up wanting to become toreros. I've only seen one bull fight live and that was plenty, but this film gave me a look at the grace of this blood sport.



Rank, a story about bull riding and the championships in Las Vegas. Great story, great people, and great film. I wish I had more time, but let's move on.



Sons of Cuba, the opening night film. The director, who was here, said they had just finished the film 3 days ago. Great access to the boxing club of Havana, and the little boys who aspire to fight for the honor of their family, their club, their city and Fidel.

So far, this year has been a success. Today we're seeing a full day of films so there will be more later.

Later.

Welcome to Raleigh.

File this under Things You Won't See in Raleigh's Convention and Visitors Website.

Photo by Eric Connor.

What's happened to American horror?

I love movies, and there's nothing better on a late night, after everyone's gone to bed, than to turn off the lights and put in a movie that's going to scare the bejeepers out of me. Give me Dawn of the Dead or 28 Days Later, popcorn and a cold libation and I'm in undead, chase-your-girlfriend, eat-your-brains-out heaven.

But what the hell has happened to American horror? Have we forgotten how to make a good pee-in-your-pants scary movie? (For my conservative readers, now would be an excellent time to make a Michael Moore joke).

Has Hollywood horror gone the way of US Steel and American Motors? Because the best fright flicks I've seen lately have all been made somewhere else, and that's really frightening.

One of the best movies I've seen lately is Let The Right One In, a Swedish movie, for God's sake. The young actress who plays the love interest for a lonely 12-year-old boy is Lina Andersson and she turns in a performance that makes you believe her when she says she's 12, but she's been 12 for a very long time.

Yesterday at work, we started naming good scary movies we'd seen and every one I mentioned was from somewhere other than here. In no particular order, I've seen:

The Orphanage - A Spanish haunted house story with a good twist.

Shutter - An eepy-creepy from Thailand about a girl bent on revenge, even after she's dead. Do not be fooled into thinking the American remake of the same name is the same movie. It is not.

The Host - This is a monster movie/family drama from Korea. Great performance from the girl.

Funny Games - OK, I can't say I enjoyed this torture porn with the pretense of social commentary, but it was interesting, and German. I have not seen the American version and I won't because really, once is plenty.

Audition - Dear God, this Japanese movie started out like a Meg Ryan/Billy Crystal romantic comedy and turned into the most horrifying torture scene I've ever witnessed. I never want to see anything like this again, but goddam, they did it right.

The Ring - The Japanese version was better, as was The Grudge. Other American remakes you should pass up: The Strangers and Quarantine, known as REC in the original Spanish version.

Of all the horror flicks I've seen in the past couple of years, only one American film stands out and that's a comedy. If you haven't seen it, rent Slither.

Possibles I haven't seen, but will soon: The Midnight Meat Train, The Signal and Splinter. If these are any good, maybe there's hope for American horror yet. They've got to be better than House of Wax, where the scariest thing on screen was Paris Hilton's acting.

Anything I should see that I've missed? Go ahead. Scare me. I dare you.

Documentary week begins.

It's time for Full Frame again, three plus days of film and other indulgences. And what better way to kick off the week than by directing you to the Times and a week long mystery, told in installments by Errol Morris.

The series begins in Gettyburg, where a Union soldier dies alone, gripping this picture of three young children. The picture is found and a search is made for the identity of the dead father.

After newspaper articles appear throughout the northeast, a young mother claims the soldier as her own husband, missing since the battle. End of Part 1.

This is surely not the somber end of the tale. I suspect skullduggery swims beneath the surface because it's only Monday, and Errol Morris is not one to be drawn to simple stories.

Mr. Morris is the Oscar-winning filmmaker who gave us "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara" as well as "Gates of Heaven," "The Thin Blue Line," "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control," "A Brief History of Time" and "Standard Operating Procedure."

(This story also serves as a reminder to label your pictures while you can. Too often we look through a family album only to ask, "Who the hell is that guy?" And sadly, everyone who could have told us is gone.)

Hey, stop being subjective!

I was listening to a film criticism podcast yesterday of two guys reviewing Bill Maker's Religulous, a documentary I liked, mostly because I'm with Bill on the notion of an all-powerful Cloud God listening in on my secret wishes before I lay me down to sleep.

But I'm keeping my options open. Because God loves me, and if I don't believe that, he'll cast me into an eternal lake of fire, the ultimate in scorned lover crazy ways.

But I don't want to talk about religion. If it makes you happy, it makes me happy. Just let me sleep in on Sunday.

No, I want to talk about documentaries. It's that time of year again when Durham hosts the Full Frame doc fest. That's when The Nephew comes to town and the two of us overindulge in film, food and vodka for three days.

When one of the reviewers talked about Religulous, you could tell he was upset by the movie, even angry. And at one point he said that the film wouldn't qualify as a documentary because Maher made no effort at objectivity. You can see that argument repeated here.

Here's the lede from Brett McCracken, the movie critic for Christianity Today:

Let's face it: most documentaries these days don't bother to document anything in an objective, journalistic sense. We can thank Michael Moore for re-conceiving the documentary film as something akin to a sensationalistic, cinematic op-ed piece. If you have something you hate, or something you want to humiliate in as public a way as possible, make a documentary!

OK, aside from the gratuitous swipe at Michael Moore, what struck me was the absolute nonsense that docs, in their pure form, are objective. What a load of crap. Nothing is objective. Documentaries have always had a point of view, even when they just pointed the cameras and let the film run as Pennebaker and the Maysles brothers did.

When you consider a documentary giant like Barbara Koppel, a woman with a powerful point of view, then you realize that this objective standard for "real" documentaries is real bullshit.

Another thing got under my skin. From both of these critics I heard that Maher only talked to "...the kitschiest, most grimace-inducing practitioners ... Sure, we have to own up to these unfortunate (but fortunately fringe) elements within our ranks, but Maher shores up little credibility for his cause by refusing to talk with any opponent with an ounce of nuance of theological rigor."

Maher goes to the Vatican and talks to priests. He talks to a US Senator. These are hardly "fringe" people. And in a recent NBC poll, 44% of Americans believe the earth was created in 6 days. This "fringe" includes 16% of our science teachers, teaching your kids, that man walked with dinosaurs.

OK, that's all the rant I have time for today. But go out and see a documentary, but be prepared, because someone, somewhere may have the audacity to have a point of view.

What's your name, who's your daddy?

This is, of course, Norma Jean. She changed her name to Marilyn and it was good. But lately, all sorts of people have been changing their names without anything close to the lovely benefits of Ms. Monroe's metamorphosis.

Take Diebold, the definition of political hackdom, solidly in the tank for the GOP and George Bush. Their voting machines are considered by almost anyone who does not own stock in the company as fucked. Easy to hack, prone to error, and like most things Republican, impervious to accountability.

Diebold has so tarnished its reputation that it has changed its name to Premier. Premier, as in first. Premier, as in tops. Premier, as in the failed smokeless cigarette RJR's focus group research said tasted like smoking a turd.

Premier!

But back to Diebold/Premier.

According to an investigation in California's Humboldt County, their machines lost 200 ballots. No one knows why or where the votes went. They just vanished like a fart in a hurricane.

But not to worry. All voting machines have an audit log, one that lets you go back and see just what, if any, changes were made to the machine's innards just in case something funky happened like you lost 200 votes.

And if you were building this machine, you would make it almost impossible to accidentally erase that audit log. Why, only a complete idiot would put a button, whose sole function was to erase the log, anywhere near other buttons someone could mash inadvertently.

And even if you did put that button near, say, the save or print button, then surely you would program a message asking if you really wanted to erase this file. A warning. You know, like you have on your computer. Only an idiot would build a machine with that button and no warning, right?

This is an excellent example of something I call debranding. You know that branding is building an emotional connection with your customer, so every time you say Volvo, the car buyer thinks, safe.

Debranding is just the same, only in reverse. It's what you do when you screw up so disastrously that you want to shed all association with the company you used to be (or as is true in most cases, the company you still are). Think of it as a corporate witness protection program.

For instance, as of this past weekend, there are no more AIG executives to despise. Now they're AIU executives, and still as ethically slimed as before, but now with a shiny new logo. "Credit swaps? What credit swaps? We have a U in our name."

Yes, as in a big FU.

And take one of North Carolina's growth industries, shooting into crowds of innocent bystanding brown people. Yes, debranding has hit Blackwater, the private security firm that quietly changed its name to Xe.

Blackwater, named for the water around NC's Great Dismal Swamp, a place that never felt the need to debrand, is now called Xe, which is pronounced "dick."

I, personally, have failed in so much of life that I need to start with a clean slate. So I'm offically debranding David Terrenoire for something that doesn't carry so much dark baggage. My new name?

Dick Cheney.

What?

The jury has made its decision.

It likes the Google.

The Times opines about the case that was declared a mistrial and all of the jurors were dismissed because every one of them had Googled facts about the case they were on.

Wow, what a surprise.

I few years ago I served on a jury. It was a murder trial chock full of details that make headlines: A gay man was lured to his killer with promises of sex and drugs. There was a possibility of the murderer being in a gang. Of the three who killed the gullible young man, one was only 16 at the time. This was our defendant, a kid who looked almost angelic in court, but had knowlingly taken part in a brutal assault on a poor bastard who was just looking to get a smoke and a cuddle. What he got instead was a beating, a shot to the head, one in the ear, and a toss into the river where he drowned.

During voir dire the prosecutor noted my occupation and asked what I wrote. I told her, "Books."

"The kind of books where people get killed?"

"Yes, Ma'am, those are exactly the kind of books I write."

I had said on the form that my family had been the victim of a crime. She asked who was the victim. I said, "My wife's sister. She was murdered."

"And what did you think of that?"

"I didn't make me think highly of my brother-in-law."

Surprisingly, they kept me on.

As a writer who loves research, I wanted to read the newspaper reports about the crime on line, and was even mildly curious as to what reporters were saying about the trial itself. My computer beckoned, offering up all ity had for one quick Google. What could it hurt?

But I didn't. I waited until after the trial. But I was tempted.

Have you ever served on a jury? And would you ever, on the sly, sneak a peek at news stories even if you were told not to? You can tell us. It'll be our little secret.

Fail.

Scout Fail: This used to be my favorite hat.



Home Improvement Fail: After 6 weeks, 4 trips to Lowe's and a few hundred dollars, I still cannot get lights over our sink. Oh, I have them up all right, and they look pretty good. But they don't light, which is pretty much the basic function of a light, right?



Basketball Fail: Against my better judgement, I entered the office pool last week. I filled out the brackets, having no idea what I was doing, and after a brief taste of victory, West Virginia fucked me just like it did during my undergrad years.



My mistake was trusting a school that has a statue outside of the student union that looks suspiciously like Jerry West in buckskin.

Thanks to the Mountaineers Fail, I am now ranked 50th in our pool. I could make a cruel remark about that matching WV's literacy ranking, but I won't.

That would be a Discretion Fail.

What a dick.

No, I'm not going to post about the NCAA basketball tournament, even though it's considered a holy time of bracket-filled workday-shirking excitement here in North Carolina.

No, I want to talk about nick names. Especially nick names worn proudly by middle-aged asshats who think it makes them cool.

It doesn't.

The bobblehead is of Dick Vitale, a man I know only by his grating TV voice and lame catch phrase, "Awesome, Baby." I didn't know this until a few days ago when my wife, a woman who gags at just the mention of this douchbag, read something aloud about "Dickie V."

"Who?"

"Dickie V. That's what people call Dick Vitale."

Dickie Fucking V. Really? People call him that to his face and he hasn't bought a gun? Really? Which leads me to conclude that Dickie gave himself that nick name, maybe copping the swing of it from dead coach Jim Valvano, known as Jimmy V to his fans.

I can hear Dickie now saying, "Hey, Jim's dead, and nobody else is picking up on that sweet E-V rhyme, so I'll just start calling myself Dickie V.

Dickie Fucking V.

A good nick name is like herpes. You can't give it to yourself.

You earn a nickname like Jewels or Pounder. Sometimes the name will reflect your character or looks or origins, and sometimes it doesn't reflect anything except the giver's timing.

But giving yourself a nick name, especially past the age of 20, is sadly pathetic.

It's one of the many things I think reveal Rush Limbaugh to be a weak little man trapped inside a blimp-sized body. The guy's a known jock-sniffer and, never having done anything in the field of Testosterone-Based Events (TBEs) himself, he stuffs a bit of drugstore machismo down his pants and calls himself El Rushbo, or Maharushi, names that would get him pummeled in any self-respecting middle school.

Which, I'm willing to bet, happened a lot to the fat Cape Girardeau kid trying to be cool.

No, you earn a nickname by playing sports or serving in the military. Man stuff. Not watching other men play a game or fight your battles.

Unless you're shooting for a name like Sally.

Let's check in with Miss Scout.

Scout, our most recent addition to the Terrenoire household is thriving. Spring-loaded, she leaps about the house, barely touching the floor, snatching at loose clothing, fingers, ceiling fans, clouds, passing planes and satellites.

On Sunday we couldn't locate the remote. We found it. That's it up there.

At least she didn't gnaw on the business end.

Scout seems damn happy to be living with us, and why wouldn't she? Better than dodging traffic, an orphan on the Interstate.

And these little mishaps aside, we're pretty happy to have her with us. We're not rested, but happy.

ADOBE UPDATE: The power has arrived.

Hey buddy, want to buy a credit default swap?

You might have read about AIG, the insurance giant who bet big on credit default swaps and lost. It seems like the guys who bet your rent money on a losing nag now want you to cover their bar tab, too, and these guys insist on nothing but top shelf.

Now, you may be asking
1. "What the fuck is a credit default swap and what does it have to do with me?"
2. "When do we get set up Dr. Guillotine's famous blade in Time Square?"

Let's take question number 1. Credit Default Swaps are these miraculous things invented by financial whiz kids that always make money. Except when they don't.

Think of it this way. I'm A Big Motherfucking Corporation (ABMC, Inc.) and I issue bonds to raise money. My bonds have always paid off because I'm ABMC, Inc. and I've never defaulted on a bond in my corporate life.

So you are A Big Motherfucking Bank (ABMB, Member FDIC) and you buy my bonds, expecting a solid 5% return, no risk. But just in case, you want some insurance because hey, you never know.

AIG says, we'll insure that bond. It's a hell of a lot better way to make money than insuring lives or homes or cars because we pay zero money out and get premiums all day long. Besides, the chances of ABMC going toes up are next to zero.

Other people see AIG raking in all this easy money and decide they too want in on the action too. It's a hell of a lot easier than actually working, or making shit. You just buy and sell CDSs and roll around like Scrooge McDuck in all that lovely dough.

By the end of 2007, Credit Default Swaps are doing roughly $60 trillion in business around the world. Unfortunately, a lot of those bonds being insured were big old balls of sliced and diced subprime mortgages. Shiny on the outside, rated triple-A by the ratings brains, but on the inside they were, of course, big slimy wads of crap.

Things start to go south. Mortgages are revealed to be built on very shaky foundations and, because I have invested in other people's bonds, suddenly, I don't feel too good. For the first time, my corporate corpus is looking more like a corporate corpse and I can't pay on my bonds, the ones that you, Mr. ABMB, bought from me.

But no worries, you just ask AIG to pony up on their insurance policy. In fact, all your banker friends are asking AIG to fork it over and the whiz kids at AIG respond from their summer homes in the Hamptons with "Pay? What is the meaning of this word pay?"

AIG looks into its capital coffers and finds it has no way to pay. The dominos start to tumble and AIG, who holds so many of these CDSs from all over the world starts to bring everything crashing down, inlcuding the bank where you have your savings, the stocks where you have your investments, and your company where you have your job.

The government steps in and pays the giant AIG a lot of money so it doesn't collapse and crush all the little people scrambling to get out of the way. AIG says thanks and gives a chunk of that money - your money - to pay bonuses to the same fucks who dreamed up complex financial shell games like CDSs and subprime lending in their MBA-induced, easy-money fevers.

This is like your brother Lenny losing his mortgage money at the track, you give him your mortgage money to help him out, he loses that money too, you lose your house and the next time you see Lenny he's driving around in a brand new Porsche. Fucker.

Which leads me to question 2. Sorry, I don't have an answer for that.

Flash update, part 2

This is fun.

Jenny looked at this and suggested I do one naked. Whether she was talking about me or the cartoon, I'm not sure.

But I'm willing to try either.

Flash update

As regular readers know, thanks to the generosity of my neice, I will soon have more software power at my command (control on the PC) than any untutored mortal should possess. As I await the package from the fine folks at Adobe, I have downloaded a trial version of Flash and taken a few lesson from lynda.com.

This, my friends, is my second-ever Flash animation.

Crude, you say? Hell, you ain't seen nothing yet.

We'll be back after a few words from our sponsors.

I've been working hard, too hard to take the time to post anything worthwhile, so instead of putting up something even lamer than usual, I'm taking a few days off.

Check back on Monday. We'll talk.

Is that a Bible in your pocket?

This morning, Jenny was watching CNN while I shuffled around, preparing for work. I've been borderline sick for over a week and this morning was particularly rough, so I was only half listening.

When they covered the story of yesterday's church shooting, I looked up long enough to see this headline:

Bible Stops Bullet.

Huh. OK, one of the crazy man's shots did hit the pastor's Bible, but as the Good Book didn't, you know, actually save the man, isn't this a little weird to run as a headline? I mean, if the Bible had come through and saved the guy, great, but it didn't.

What was the editor thinking when he wrote this?

Here you have a minister murdered in front of his congregation by a man reportedly made crazy by Lyme's Disease, who then stabbed himself in the neck as he was wrestled to the ground by several brave congregants.

So, what's the lede? What is the most important part of this story? It's been a long time since I flirted with a journalism career, but I know it's not Bible Stops Bullet.


Weird. America loves its Bible-stopping-bullet stories. There were over 2 million Google responses to my search.

One guy even tested whether a Bible carried in a breast pocket could really stop a slug. He shoots a lot of bullets at a lot of books. I wish I'd thought of that.

Which leads me to a story Woody Allen told back when he was funny:

Years ago, my mother gave me a bullet...a bullet, and I put it in my breast pocket. Two years after that, I was walking down the street, when a berserk evangelist heaved a Gideon bible out a hotel room window, hitting me in the chest. Bible would have gone through my heart if it wasn't for the bullet.

So far, my Monday sucks pretty hard. Maybe the time change screwed up my internal clock. I don't know. But I hope your day is better.

It's been one of those weeks.

But it's Friday, and even though we lose an hour this weekend, I'm looking forward to 70 degrees and sunshine.

Oh yeah.

Have a good weekend, my friends, and we'll see you Monday.

News of the Weak.

I haven't said anything about two more Republicans groveling in public apology before a drug-addicted, draft-dodging, sexual predator because I weighed in on that earlier.

A few more Republican leaders revealing themselves to be craven cowards is hardly news, is it.

But still, I'm happy that the great Tom Toles is around to pick up the slack.

Talk about bad advice.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

This is great. I particularly like the hard-hitting CNBC business questions. Is it fun to be a billionaire?

And for anyone who wants to get their head around this financial crisis, here are two great places to start:

This American Life's episode The Giant Pool of Money and Factcheck.org. Factcheck's story is a little dated, saying that Bank of America is doing OK, which it isn't, but on the whole, pretty fair and even-handed assessment of how we screwed the pooch.

Update: Here's another thoughtful piece on the financial meltdown. And one more.

In general, I would encourage anyone who wants to know more to read more. There's plenty out there. But if what you're reading blames one party, one policy, or one group of people for this mess, that's most likely bullshit written by someone with a political axe to grind. Don't believe them.

If this man gives you advice, do the opposite.

This is a rare picture of David Brooks without his head in his ass. He's been called, here and elsewhere, the wrongest man in America, and given how many people have been wrong over the past 8 years, that's a heaping hunk of raw wrongitude. David Brooks is the King of Wrongistan. If you look up wrong in the dictionary, it will refer you to Brooks, David.

David Brooks writes for the New York Times. Yesterday, he wrote a column that reminded me of those Waffen SS officers who, once they lost the war, quickly shed their uniforms and tried to pass themselves off as helpless, war-weary German civilians.

"Hitler? Never heard of the guy."

In his column, with the oxymoronic title A Moderate Manifesto, Brooks tries to rebrand himself as a moderate and reveals just how far this pampered rich asshole is removed from the troubles that a generation of his brand of conservatism has inflicted on his fellow citizens.

Just listen to this:

But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor — caught up in the self-flattering belief that history has called upon it to solve all problems at once.

No, it's just that you and the other Bush apologists gutted the treasury and left vitally important work to thieves like Halliburton. Now, the country has a whole bagful of problems that can no longer be put off.

So programs are piled on top of each other and we wind up with a gargantuan $3.6 trillion budget. We end up with deficits that, when considered realistically, are $1 trillion a year and stretch as far as the eye can see.

Yes, thanks for driving us into this ditch, you and the other Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman worshippers who foisted on us a monetarist policy based on servicing the debt. Now quit bitching, get the fuck out and help us push.

The U.S. has never been a society riven by class resentment. Yet the Obama budget is predicated on a class divide. The president issued a read-my-lips pledge that no new burdens will fall on 95 percent of the American people. All the costs will be borne by the rich and all benefits redistributed downward.

Apparently, Mr. Brooks thinks the only suffering during this crisis will be borne by people making over $250K whose tax rate will go up 4%! OMG, David, the misery you and your fellow patricians must endure, it's appalling.

Never mind the unemployed. Never mind those who will lose their homes. Never mind those who will lose their health insurance and get sick. Those people don't suffer. Hell, they don't know the meaning of the word suffering. David Brooks knows suffering.

I have a simple rule. Whenever I hear someone whine about being treated unfairly, I ask myself if I would switch places with them. If the answer is yes, I tell them to STFU and I reserve my sympathy for more deserving people.

The U.S. has always had vibrant neighborhood associations. But in its very first budget, the Obama administration raises the cost of charitable giving. It punishes civic activism and expands state intervention.

Yes, and according to poeple who actually think about this stuff rather than just spew bullshit, the taxes will cost charities 4 billion dollars out of the 300 billion given annually. Will it hurt? Yes. Does it"punish civic activism?" Fuck no.

The U.S. has traditionally had a relatively limited central government. But federal spending as a share of G.D.P. is zooming from its modern norm of 20 percent to an unacknowledged level somewhere far beyond.

Again, according to people who actually think about this shit, the level is estimated at around 60%, still lower than many wealthy European countries. And on a related note, every time I hear one of these conservatives bleat about spending too much I want to throw up. It was you neocon cocksuckers who got us into a 3 trillion dollar war, telling us that it wouldn't cost us a dime. Fuck you. Fuck you all.

As Clive Crook, an Obama admirer, wrote in The Financial Times, the Obama budget “contains no trace of compromise. It makes no gesture, however small, however costless to its larger agenda, of a bipartisan approach to the great questions it addresses. It is a liberal’s dream of a new New Deal.”

Here's another thing. Conservatives like Brooks, and don't let him fool you with that moderate uniform he's suddenly sporting, were the ones who chuckled when their tax guru Grover Norquist said "Bipartisanship is date rape." Now that their economic policies have mortgaged our asses to China, they're surprised no one wants to consult them on finances any more. Let me tell you, Mr. Brooks, taking economic advice from guys like you is like taking weight loss advice from Rush Limbaugh. Fuck you. And fuck Rush, too.


Those of us in the moderate tradition — the Hamiltonian tradition that believes in limited but energetic government — thus find ourselves facing a void. We moderates are going to have to assert ourselves. We’re going to have to take a centrist tendency that has been politically feckless and intellectually vapid and turn it into an influential force.

And David Brooks knows intellectually vapid.

But beyond that, moderates will have to sketch out an alternative vision. This is a vision of a nation in which we’re all in it together — in which burdens are shared broadly, rather than simply inflicted upon a small minority. This is a vision of a nation that does not try to build prosperity on a foundation of debt. This is a vision that puts competitiveness and growth first, not redistribution first.

Again, burdens inflicted upon a small minority. Take your patrician head out of your patrician ass, David, get out of the fucking limo and take a look around. The burdens are not being shared broadly and they haven't for quite some time. They're being shared by military families, the unemployed, the poor and all the workers who fear the next round of layoffs. Spare me the hand-wringing victimhood because your taxes will go up.

Moderates are going to have to try to tamp down the polarizing warfare that is sure to flow from Obama’s über-partisan budget.

Polarizing warfare? Fuck you. I remember during Reagan's term when the head of the RNC said I wasn't a "real American" because I wasn't a conservative. I remember when New Gingrich, your speaker, said that Susan Smith's murder of her two sons was a direct outgrowth of liberalism - until he found out she'd been molested by her right-wing Christian father. I remember the $77 million conservatives wasted trying to bring down Clinton. Fuck you and your polarizing warfare.

David Brooks, the Wrongest Man in America now appears to be one of the most dishonest.

Fuck him. And fuck the New York Times for giving him credibility.

Product of the day.

This morning, as we talked about our weekend, I mentioned the 80 pounds of dog hair I had to pull out of our vacuum's innards yesterday.

Eric, a helpful co-worker, recommended The Furminator. I thought he was joking, but Bonnie quickly seconded the suggestion and she doesn't even own a dog. She said something about her husband, Vito, and his back hair, but we quickly moved on.

The Furminator. That's what I need.

If I had a loom I could knit every one of my readers a sweater and mittens. Wouldn't that be nice?