I'd hate to be either Carl Reiner or Mel Brooks when the other one dies.

Look how they love each other.



PS: H/t Mark Evanier.

Best. Sports bra. Ever.

To vampires, Jennifer Connelly is what's known as a "fang tease."

To the small % of you that will get the significance of this...

Tara Reid was seen leaving a bar recently.

Yeah, I know.  So what else is new?

This is:

The bar she was leaving? Named Annabel's.

The reason she was there?

Attending a birthday party for somebody named Ben.

She's calling me, I tell you.

That's right, envy me. I totally had this.

Ah. for the days when it was exciting for one "action figure" to hand another a brown manila folder!

A time I never lived in...

...these are the kinds of images (and sounds--it's Miles Davis playing "It Never Entered My Mind") which make me feel nostalgic for such a time. One of my answers to the question:  When and where would you go if you had an actual TARDIS?  has long been:  The late '40s, Los Angeles...



(I always feel the need to qualify that, however, by saying I recognize I'm saying it as a white, heterosexual male.  If I weren't all three of those things it's quite probable I would feel differently)

Oh, and h/t M. Evanier.

Quick, some people ask me questions

Paul Ryan posts online Q&A, gets 200 views and one question. Campaign declares it a great success.

FYI, this blog's average daily view count is just over 200. So if just two of you ask Q's, I can honestly say the blog is more popular than Paul Ryan.

Young voters to Scarlett Johansson: Show us your tits

Scarlett Johansson to young voters: Get involved

"Alone." A Poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Illustrated via image searches.

From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

Mojave Express - Fallout NV by ~SerenitysRiver on deviantART As others saw; I could not bring My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved, I loved alone.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - Book 3 in The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S.Lewis - cover by Roger Hane, a photo by Cadwalader Ringgold on Flickr.

Then- in my childhood, in the dawn Of a most stormy life

- was drawn

From every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still: From the torrent, or the fountain, From the red cliff of the mountain,

From the sun that round me rolled

In its autumn tint of gold,  From the lightning in the sky As it passed me flying by,

From the thunder and the storm,

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view.

Distorting the Truth About Distorting the Truth

Wait a minute...

...fuck you, you can't say

Both Republicans and Democrats Are Distorting the Truth About Medicare

then give examples which explain how only the Republicans are doing it.

Not and expect to have any credibility you can't, "Factcheck.org/Yahoo Finance."

In the words of blogger and pundit Ezra Klein:

I would like to give both sides relatively equal praise and blame. .... But so far in this campaign, you can look fair or you can be fair, but you can't be both.

I got another gift from a semi-anonymous admirer.

I say "semi-anonymous," because there's a name on the envelope...it's just not a name I recognize.

"Mack White" apparently thinks well enough of me to spend a few bucks ordering and sending me something off my wish list, and I don't even know I know him.

Must be one of those computer nicknames I know him under. Even more strangely, perhaps, he seems to be one of these guys.

Having friends who know photoshop is kinda disconcerting

Where the Canadlian Things Are

This is neat.  It's from a collection of original art pieces based upon Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.

Some kind person who, apparently...

...wishes to remain anonymous, has gifted me with the MP3

Disco by Pet Shop Boys.

Addressing me as

Ben, he's my frien'

they identify themselves only as

Impending Birthdaytown

and add the note:

Disco ain't dead

Until and unless I hear otherwise, I have decided to believe that it's really from Heather Graham.

She adores  me, you know.

McKayla Maroney is feeling very Olympic in my favorite color

Kyla Ross, Alexandra Raisman, McKayla Maroney, Jordyn Wieber, and Gabrielle Douglas

The calming shores of Sklarbro Country

The special focus of the Sklarbro Country podcast is on sports with occasional "pull-backs" to cover the larger pop culture.  That this focus doesn't bother me--not known for my "sportiness"--ought to be enough for you to give them at least one listen right there.

One of the slogans of the show is "The calming shores of Sklarbro Country," and that's apt.  There are some podcasts which I very much enjoy but which I don't necessarily find calming (Pop My Culture, for instance)..

The show is hosted by identical twins Jason and Randy Sklar, who are also a comedy team.  Of the handfuls of comedy podcasts to which I listen, one of the two acts who probably make me laugh the most with their stand-up is the Sklar Brothers.

Jokes.com
The Sklar Brothers - Fascinating Twins in the News
comedians.comedycentral.com

Jokes

Joke of the Day

Funny Jokes

Their relationship makes for what appears to be an unpracticed rhythm between the two of them, which is great fun to watch and to listen to.  (Especially with their voices so alike--close your eyes and it could almost be two sides of the same brain).

This ease also translates when listening to their podcast (which of course, is basically the same as closing your eyes).  More of the show is written than it sounds; one of the reasons I know that is because about two and a half months ago they started putting out a smaller-sized "bonus" episode each week, to tide fans over between full-fledged installments.

Called Sklarbro County to differentiate from the "brother" show (tee-hee), this usually takes the stripped-down form of the Sklars and their writing collaborator Dan Van Kirk going over recent incidents from the news and seeing what they can make of them.

(Sometimes there are guests on this version of the podcast too--I think it has to do with which of their funny friends happen to be around.)

This necessarily leads to more improvised riffs, but the "deeper cut," longer-playing episodes sound almost as if they too are invented from whole cloth, which is indeed a compliment.

Recommended episodes: Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, Jason Mantzoukas, Marc Maron

PS:  No, I don't know what the "Henderson" thing means either.

PPS:  The other comedian whose stand-up act I've been enjoying as much as his podcast is Pete Holmes, whose You Made It Weird I wrote about in the last one of these.

Jokes.com
Pete Holmes - Privacy Is Uncool
comedians.comedycentral.com

Jokes

Joke of the Day

Funny Jokes

I'm bored. Source this quote.

"No, nothing I ever do is good enough. Not beautiful enough, it's not funny enough, it's not deep enough, it's not anything enough. Now, when I see a rose, that's perfect. I mean, that's perfect. I want to look up to God and say, "How the hell did you do that? And why the hell can't I do that?"

"Now that's probably one of your better con lines."

"Yeah, it is. But that doesn't mean I don't mean it."

It's me again, folks

Hello...it's August First.  You long-timers know what that means.  

It means it's exactly one month till my birthday, and that means it's time for me to point..."subtly" at the Amazon wish list to the right of your screen.  

Notes:  The X-Men book seems to exist in many different formats (by which I also mean prices), any of which would be "acceptable."  I just picked that one to represent since it's like the one I remember from my boyhood.

I'd hope this goes without saying, but most if not all of the MP3's on the list aren't available solely at Amazon.  You could, if you were that sort of person, find them on iTunes and probably other places as well.  But Hard Day's Night, I guess for reasons having to do with some sort of exclusive deal between Apple records and Apple computers, can only be found, as an MP3, on iTunes.

Thank you as always first of all for your consideration, also for your generosity in the past; you should have no fear at all that you must keep up that habit to stay in my good graces.

(Except, of course, for...you.  You know who you are.)

DVDs and desktops

Hello, vast reading audience.  I'm in the market for a couple of things in the next few months, so I thought I'd open up the "floor" to comments.

The first is a Blu-ray/DVD player.  My old DVD player has recently gone about as dumb as a cheerleader stereotype.  The very nice man at the shop tells me it makes much more sense to replace it and upgrade to Blu-ray than to spend the money on repair.

My desired features are fairly minimal, I don't have HD TV, so I just want a good picture quality, easy-to-use, fast loading player.  I'd also like to aim at keeping it under $150.  

The second thing I'm looking for is a new computer.  This device on which I'm typing has been very good to me; I wrote the best things I've written yet on it, but it's also really old and runs like a dog being kicked uphill.

Here again, my needs are fairly simple.  I don't game; I don't mess much with photos (hop) or digital photography.  I just need something on which I can browse these here interwebs, write, and download, store, and copy music files. 

Desktop or laptop doesn't really matter.  I've only ever had a desktop PC, and I don't think I've ever missed having something more portable.  But if I found one that met the above needs but was more reasonably priced than a desktop, well then I'd be a fool not to consider it, now wouldn't I? 

PS:  Oh, and here, I'd like to keep the price around $650.

Any thoughts, or am I in dreamland?

No problem, Courtney. I always think about your vagina.

Lana Del Rey made the decision to cover the song ‘Heart Shaped Box‘ by Nirvana for her first Sydney, Australia performance.

As expected, the late Kurt Cobain‘s wife, Courtney Love, has reacted.

Writing on Twitter, in posts which have now been deleted, the Hole frontwoman said:

“You do know the song is about my Vagina right? ‘Throw down your umbilical noose so i can climb right back,’ umm… On top of which some of the lyrics about my vagina I contributed. So umm next time you sing it, think about my vagina will you?”