I'm sick of all this iCrap. It's bad enough I have to hear about it from that smug little bastard on the Mac ads, all that iBullshit, iEverything with freaking i in front of it, now I have to see it on my Google homepage too? What does iMean iAnyway? iAssholes!

Dead Like Me is returning in movie format. Which is great news! At least once a week I sigh ponderously and moan about how I miss Dead Like Me. No longer!

Meanwhile, I've decided I'm done with minutes, those pennies of time, I'm throwing them all into a giant water cooler jug and ignoring them. I've gone around and covered the right-most digit on all my digital clocks with black electrical tape. Now the smallest unit of time for me is 10. Right now it is 85 (8:50). At 103 I shall keep an appointment. Also, I've chucked all my non-digital clocks since they're really confusing now. Ah the streamlined lifestyle, that's the one for me!

Last night I'm watching this television program called Criminal Minds, terrible name, average show, it's got Mandy Patinkin in it, the boss reaper from Dead Like Me, so there's that. Shaky shot of a guy running through thick wilderness, all dressed like an accountant and scared of something. Cut to a moose quietly grazing on some grass, so peaceful the moose, how nice! Cut to two bubbas in hunting outfits, big-ass compound bows, the older one saying, "Careful now, Elmer, aim for the chest, don't hit them shoulder blades." Younger draws an arrow, squinting. Lets it fly! Cut to the moose! Cut to a tree, the bubba's arrow quivering in it. "That's alright, Elmer," says the older bubba. "It's hard the first time." Cut to the moose, still grazing, still peaceful, how nice! The older bubba draws an arrow, lets it fly! Draws another arrow, lets it fly! Looks of excitement on the faces of the bubbas! Cut to the accountant, dead on the grass, two arrows protruding from his bloody blue-shirted chest! No sign of any moose!

I call it the Different Door gag. It's a misdirection trick employed by television and movie hacks to create tension or facilitate surprise where otherwise there is none. In the standard version, two Point-Of-View characters or groups, usually in mutual conflict (a fugitive and an FBI agent, a child and a kidnapper) separately approach what appears to be the same door, one from the outside, one from the inside, tension rises, closer, closer, cut to commercial, closer, tension rises, door finally opens, surprise! They were actually *different* doors. Blech! There are many variations, some more annoying, some less, but the basic idea remains: the audience is fooled into expecting a certain outcome and given an entirely different one; and this is accomplished not by plot or character reversal, not through good writing or expert direction, but by means of not revealing what is actually happening, or of not showing the audience what the characters can plainly see.

Whenever I encounter the Different Door gag I turn the channel. It's like an alarm going off that the program is in the control of a hack asshole with no respect for the audience.

The first is a long but engrossing article called Blood, Bullets, Bombs, and Bandwidth about some entrepreneurs bringing broadband to Iraq, the new wild west.

The second is a worrying NYTimes editorial about a provision added to a recent defense spending bill that allows the president to "use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any 'other condition,'" effectively overriding posse comitatus. It's called Making Martial Law Easier.

Go forth and consume!

Blah!

I tried posting this before but the result was screwy; so I devoted another hour or two, and maybe now it will glow like the burnished roofs of Canada. Oh Canada! So it's a list of all the titles of all the posts to this weblog. And I at least, among the many-many, find it interesting.

Funny trailer, sort of an entire movie inspired by the rabbit bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Yes, it is official, we are a nation of pansies. I blame the hippies.