So here's a conversation I had today over the work messaging system...
Me
Would you go eat at a restaurant called Two Bunny Brunch?
Assume that the waitresses are drag queens
Not Me
10:54 AM
I would eat there everyday
Is this an option?
Me
10:55 AM
A Facebook friend mentioned this morning in a comment that he'd interrupted a hawk's two bunny brunch while out running, and now I'm compelled to open a restaurant to use the name
There will be burlesque shows during your meal
Not Me
10:57 AM
as long as no bunnies are hurt, I'm totally in.
Pasties with my pastries!*
Me
10:57 AM
Oh... we will be starting each meal with a ritual bunny sacrifice at your table.
A bunny, killed by a drag queen while you watch
it's a lot of our overhead expense to be honest
plus PETA is SUPER pissed
Not Me
11:00 AM
well, im honestly kinda into a drag queen crushing a bunny's neck
Me
11:00 AM
the really weird thing about it is that it's a totally vegan restaurant
Not Me
11:01 AM
Dude, for real, lets go into the restaurant business together
Me
11:05 AM
"And now, while I get your drinks order, Mis Toulittah Pepsee will strangle a rabbit"
Yes. This is exactly what they installed the messaging system for.
*Pasties and Pastries is still available as a name for that stripper operated bakery you've always dreamed of opening. You're welcome.
The 42nd Vizsla - Because there were already 41 Vizslas registered here.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Friday, February 19, 2016
Once Again, the Forensic Sciences Ruin Musical Theater
For reasons that aren't completely explained, I completely missed the show Bob's Burgers for the first five years of its run.*
It's still running now, for the record**
**Unless you're reading this in the far future and this is all just an historic record of some kind***
***Btw - just out of curiosity - Jetpacks? Did that ever happen?
If you, like me, were living in a yurt and are unfamiliar with Bob and his burgers, here's the basic upshot- Bob's Burgers is a cartoon aimed for adults* that airs on the Fox network. It follows Bob Belcher and his family, who own and operate a hamburger restaurant and get into what can loosely be described as 'wacky hi-jinx'.
*In the sense that it features simultaneously more intelligent and occasionally cruder humor, not in the sense that there are boobs everywhere. Although it does score major points by showing Bob's older daughter, Tina - a girl just beginning puberty - taking her fear of zombies and overcoming it by making a conscious decision to objectify them sexually, which is - if nothing else - not the sort of thing you're going to see on just any show. So... you know... Suck it, Walking Dead.**
**Not literally.
One particular wacky hi-jinc (Is that the singular for hi-jinx, or is hi-jinx both singular and plural? You know... like Sheep or Moose.) involved a school project about Thomas Edison and an elephant named Topsy
Now, it should be acknowledged that this episode, upon further research, contained more than a bit of slander (or possibly libel. The courts are split in an interesting way as to whether broadcast television counts as written word or spoken.) Specifically, a big chunk of the plot is based on an apparently long standing belief that Thomas Edison was involved in the electrocution of an elephant named Topsy as part of his campaign to prove that the new Alternating Current was more dangerous than his own Direct Current*
*It turns out that this isn't actually true. Yes, there was an elephant named Topsy that was electrocuted for being 'Bad', whatever that means to an elephant at the turn of the twentieth century, but Edison himself had nothing to do with it. The confusion probably stems from the fact that the electrocution was recorded on a camera that Edison had patented. Seriously, the footage is still out there and VERY findable on the web, but you're probably happier not having seen it.
So in the plot of the show, Louise, the younger daughter and amusingly borderline psychotic*, is assigned to do a project about Thomas Edison. Because the teach in question super LOVES Thomas Edison, she of course frames the whole thing as both a hit piece and (less expectedly) a musical.
*From the wrong side of the border...
Except of course that things get a bit carried away and instead of a musical about Edison electrocuting an elephant we end up with a musical about Edison and an elephant falling in love with one another. To quote the show itself on this subject - 'If it's not man on elephant love, it ain't worth singing about.'
And so, in a very catchy and singable riff, we begin with a thoughtful Topsy the elephant musing about her own mortality with the line, 'They'll say Awww, Topsy... at my Autopsy...'
Which is very touching and whistful... until you remember that it's only called an autopsy when performed on human beings. On an animal it's called a Necropsy.
It still rhymes, but it's not as fun and clever. Sure, there's some wiggle room to argue that the capacity for self awareness and love (not to mention being able to sing a soulful musical number) might justify bumping Topsy up to a human-like standard in order to justify using the term autopsy, but still...
Stupid science.
Here's the closing number. Yes, that is Kevin Kline as the voice of Thomas Edison.
It's still running now, for the record**
**Unless you're reading this in the far future and this is all just an historic record of some kind***
***Btw - just out of curiosity - Jetpacks? Did that ever happen?
If you, like me, were living in a yurt and are unfamiliar with Bob and his burgers, here's the basic upshot- Bob's Burgers is a cartoon aimed for adults* that airs on the Fox network. It follows Bob Belcher and his family, who own and operate a hamburger restaurant and get into what can loosely be described as 'wacky hi-jinx'.
*In the sense that it features simultaneously more intelligent and occasionally cruder humor, not in the sense that there are boobs everywhere. Although it does score major points by showing Bob's older daughter, Tina - a girl just beginning puberty - taking her fear of zombies and overcoming it by making a conscious decision to objectify them sexually, which is - if nothing else - not the sort of thing you're going to see on just any show. So... you know... Suck it, Walking Dead.**
**Not literally.
One particular wacky hi-jinc (Is that the singular for hi-jinx, or is hi-jinx both singular and plural? You know... like Sheep or Moose.) involved a school project about Thomas Edison and an elephant named Topsy
Now, it should be acknowledged that this episode, upon further research, contained more than a bit of slander (or possibly libel. The courts are split in an interesting way as to whether broadcast television counts as written word or spoken.) Specifically, a big chunk of the plot is based on an apparently long standing belief that Thomas Edison was involved in the electrocution of an elephant named Topsy as part of his campaign to prove that the new Alternating Current was more dangerous than his own Direct Current*
*It turns out that this isn't actually true. Yes, there was an elephant named Topsy that was electrocuted for being 'Bad', whatever that means to an elephant at the turn of the twentieth century, but Edison himself had nothing to do with it. The confusion probably stems from the fact that the electrocution was recorded on a camera that Edison had patented. Seriously, the footage is still out there and VERY findable on the web, but you're probably happier not having seen it.
So in the plot of the show, Louise, the younger daughter and amusingly borderline psychotic*, is assigned to do a project about Thomas Edison. Because the teach in question super LOVES Thomas Edison, she of course frames the whole thing as both a hit piece and (less expectedly) a musical.
*From the wrong side of the border...
Except of course that things get a bit carried away and instead of a musical about Edison electrocuting an elephant we end up with a musical about Edison and an elephant falling in love with one another. To quote the show itself on this subject - 'If it's not man on elephant love, it ain't worth singing about.'
And so, in a very catchy and singable riff, we begin with a thoughtful Topsy the elephant musing about her own mortality with the line, 'They'll say Awww, Topsy... at my Autopsy...'
Which is very touching and whistful... until you remember that it's only called an autopsy when performed on human beings. On an animal it's called a Necropsy.
It still rhymes, but it's not as fun and clever. Sure, there's some wiggle room to argue that the capacity for self awareness and love (not to mention being able to sing a soulful musical number) might justify bumping Topsy up to a human-like standard in order to justify using the term autopsy, but still...
Stupid science.
Here's the closing number. Yes, that is Kevin Kline as the voice of Thomas Edison.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Hakuna Matata, Asshole
I doubt that I'm alone in indulging in the occasional bit of freeway Schadenfreude*.
*On the off chance - it means 'The delight you take in witnessing something bad happen to someone else. The fact that the German people felt the need to coin a term for this specific emotion probably says a lot about them, culturally.**
** I kid, Germany. You know I love you
Case in point, the other day I was merging onto one freeway from a different freeway when I witnessed a driver ahead of me stage an act of open defiance against the Zipper Merge*
*A curiously heated point of contention in American Freeway etiquette. The basic premise is that when merging onto a freeway there is usually a special lane of traffic on the side from which you're entering** which goes for half a mile or so before it tapers off and ceases existing, at which point you're expected to have become part of existing traffic. The question that really gets people worked up is - at what point during that half mile should you get your act together and actually merge into the existing traffic lane. One school of thought is that you should immediately merge into the permanent lane as soon as physically possible, as waiting until the last minute means that you're rude and inconsiderate.
That school of thought is, of course, completely 100% wrong.
The correct school of thought is that you're intended to go all the way up the half mile of side road and then take turns with the existing traffic, alternating from either lane - exactly the way a zipper closes. You can tell that this is the correct school of thought, because THE FREEWAY DEPARTMENT FREAKING FLAT OUT SAID SO. REPEATEDLY. The point being that they made the entire half mile stretch of road because they actually wanted you to use the entire half mile stretch. If they wanted you to only use 50 feet they would only have made that much.
Regardless of that clear and obvious truth however, almost without fail you'll encounter some asshat who feels like it's his personal mission in life to deliberately block other cars from merging into traffic, zipper-style, and the principle that they know best.
**It's called an acceleration lane. This might be considered a clue as to why stopping in the middle of it is just bone-headedly wrong.
So the other day I witnessed a pickup truck go out of his way to run someone off the road rather than let them merge into existing traffic, only to have the exact same thing happen to him when he had to merge into the next lane of traffic a mile or so later.
I immediately thought to myself, 'Hakuna Matata, Asshole', because at some point the details of the Lion King became vague enough in my head that Hakuna Matata sort of means 'Circle of Life' to me, regardless of the fact that it's a totally unrelated song and means nothing of the sort*
*You totally just hummed, 'It means No Worries', didn't you.
Fast forward to the following day, when I observed in the parking ramp a smaller car parked completely centered between two parking spots.*
*More on this vehicle another time, because the story doesn't end there
Upon my return to the parking ramp, I was somewhat pleased to see that the ramp management had left a stern note on their windshield castigating them for parking over the lines and threatening to have them towed if it happened again. No sooner had I begun to bask in my righteous pleasure at seeing them justly struck down than I got to Lucille (My truck) and discovered that I had received the exact same note. On inspection it turned out that I was, indeed, about half a foot over the line on the passenger side (Lucille's a big girl).
Stupid Circle of Life.
*On the off chance - it means 'The delight you take in witnessing something bad happen to someone else. The fact that the German people felt the need to coin a term for this specific emotion probably says a lot about them, culturally.**
** I kid, Germany. You know I love you
Case in point, the other day I was merging onto one freeway from a different freeway when I witnessed a driver ahead of me stage an act of open defiance against the Zipper Merge*
*A curiously heated point of contention in American Freeway etiquette. The basic premise is that when merging onto a freeway there is usually a special lane of traffic on the side from which you're entering** which goes for half a mile or so before it tapers off and ceases existing, at which point you're expected to have become part of existing traffic. The question that really gets people worked up is - at what point during that half mile should you get your act together and actually merge into the existing traffic lane. One school of thought is that you should immediately merge into the permanent lane as soon as physically possible, as waiting until the last minute means that you're rude and inconsiderate.
That school of thought is, of course, completely 100% wrong.
The correct school of thought is that you're intended to go all the way up the half mile of side road and then take turns with the existing traffic, alternating from either lane - exactly the way a zipper closes. You can tell that this is the correct school of thought, because THE FREEWAY DEPARTMENT FREAKING FLAT OUT SAID SO. REPEATEDLY. The point being that they made the entire half mile stretch of road because they actually wanted you to use the entire half mile stretch. If they wanted you to only use 50 feet they would only have made that much.
Regardless of that clear and obvious truth however, almost without fail you'll encounter some asshat who feels like it's his personal mission in life to deliberately block other cars from merging into traffic, zipper-style, and the principle that they know best.
**It's called an acceleration lane. This might be considered a clue as to why stopping in the middle of it is just bone-headedly wrong.
So the other day I witnessed a pickup truck go out of his way to run someone off the road rather than let them merge into existing traffic, only to have the exact same thing happen to him when he had to merge into the next lane of traffic a mile or so later.
I immediately thought to myself, 'Hakuna Matata, Asshole', because at some point the details of the Lion King became vague enough in my head that Hakuna Matata sort of means 'Circle of Life' to me, regardless of the fact that it's a totally unrelated song and means nothing of the sort*
*You totally just hummed, 'It means No Worries', didn't you.
Fast forward to the following day, when I observed in the parking ramp a smaller car parked completely centered between two parking spots.*
*More on this vehicle another time, because the story doesn't end there
Upon my return to the parking ramp, I was somewhat pleased to see that the ramp management had left a stern note on their windshield castigating them for parking over the lines and threatening to have them towed if it happened again. No sooner had I begun to bask in my righteous pleasure at seeing them justly struck down than I got to Lucille (My truck) and discovered that I had received the exact same note. On inspection it turned out that I was, indeed, about half a foot over the line on the passenger side (Lucille's a big girl).
Stupid Circle of Life.
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