I had so much fun at the laundromat that I had to post a craigslist rant about it. Since those things only last 10 days, I've copied it here for posterity: To the Salad Dressing Bandit of Irving & 20th (sunset / parkside) I'm just wondering what kind of an asshole sees an orange safety cone on the floor of the laundromat on Irving & 20th and thinks to themselves that the open hole on the top would be the perfect place to stick an open and upturned bottle of thousand island dressing. Thank you so very much for adding the wonderful aroma of aging mayonaise, ketchup and pickles to my laundry experience.

If fan fiction is really dorky, what is fan fiction about video games? And specifically, what about when it's about a video game like Dance Dance Revolution?

Another pro-Kerry website that nails the sentiment of many people who are voting for him en masse as the lesser of two evils candidate: "Are you going to vote for John Kerry even though you find him unpleasant, annoying, arrogant, waffling, misguided or just generally unappealing in some profound way? Then you've come to the right place! We're Kerry Haters for Kerry -- perhaps his largest constituency! No need to hide in the Kerry-hating closet anymore while you pretend to everyone that he'll be a great president. Here you are among friends. You can speak freely and honestly. You can admit: 'He's awful! And I'm for him!'" See also JohnKerryIsADouchebagButImVotingForHimAnyway.com

Amid the semi-organized bunch of links in the left hand column of this blog, I have a couple of blog text ad exchanges. And every now and then I get a smile on my face when I look in my referers when I see that somebody clicked over to this blog from a blog for Bush.

Giant Robot Destroys Republican Party!!! Oh, if only it were true, but a cool site nonetheless.

This sounds really entertaining, though I'm not sure if a porn film featuring caricatures of Donald Rumsfeld and Lyndie England engaging in some prison s&m would be a good thing to watch after eating. Though I do think that there are probably people out there who would buy it just for the scene with a Jenna Bush look alike. The best part is, all proceeds go to the Kerry campaign effort in the battleground states. Needless to say, the link is NSFW. But here's an article about it that is SFW.

"Something really fun and illegal happened today at school." (via Wonkette)

And today's link o' Shatner-rifficness comes from our friends at Fark.

The governator just signed a bill banning smoking in California prisons. That does not make me feel any better about working less than a mile from San Quentin.

Halfassed car repair 101: if your coolant reservoir gets thrashed beyond use by rubbing against your fan belt, here's a temporary replacement. Notice the high tech fastening technique.

MPAA: Marionette sex is too hot for an R rating... and other interesting things about Trey Parker and Matt Stone's latest film, Team America: World Police.

Jimmy Carter on voting in Florida: the fix is in. You'd think a religious guy like Jeb Bush would have gotten the hint lately.

Who would win in a fight between a lion and a bear? How about five quails vs. a wolf? Or a US soldier and a tiger? Find out at the Baghdad Zoo!

While Florida is getting cosmic payback for the 2000 electoral shenanigans pounded by hurricane after hurricane, my dad has been travelling around to avoid the nasty weather while putting the finishing touches on his first album of original music. He's just posted a couple of song clips here.

And once again, Aaron McGruder has done another Boondocks strip that is too hot for major newspapers. Here's the strip.

MMmmmmmmmm sandwich!

Black Box Voting shows that the Diebold touchscreen voting machines are so easy to hack that even George W. Bush could do it himself (with video).

Yay! I'm the number one yahoo search result for asshole dick cheney!

They say that breaking up is hard to do. This guy did it in Power Point. (via metafilter)

Culture jamming reaches the masses with The Yes Men documentary. I've been following the exploits of the Yes Men for quite some time, at least since they made headlines by posing as speakers from the World Trade Organization and giving seminars to thrilled members of the global corporate elite extolling the virtues of slavery. They've also helped develop a web application that allows you to grab the content from an existing website and change words or images. Want to be a be a culture jammer yourself? CHeck out ®TMark to get started.

America's college students weigh in on the presidential candidates in a most definitely Not Safe For Work way (via fark)

The latest terrorist threat to the US: Cat Stevens???

RIP Russ Meyer, one of my favorite trashy directors. I had heard that he was planning on remaking Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! I guess that's not going to be happening.

More on Scott Robinson, the young republican woman kicker... Now that his identity has been made public all over the blogosphere, the woman he kicked is gearing up for legal action! It's not as good as him getting arrested for assault, but it's a step in the right direction. And back over on the Koch Fellows blog where Scotty was posting right up until the point where his identity went public and he virtually disappeared, one of his fellow bloggers is (poorly) attempting to run damage control. Not surprisingly, her nuggets of wisdom like "If he is indeed responsible, I would advise him to lie low and pray this passes him soon," didn't exactly win over the hearts and minds of those people flooding the comments in anger. I can't believe that I didn't think of this when it first happened, but it is yet another life imitating art moment between actual events and my film, Washington Interns Gone Bad. During the fight scene, there's a part where a republican staffer is kicking a woman who is on the ground. When I have a free minute, I'll have to post another comparisson page like the one with Paul Kelly Tripplehorn, this time with moving images. Besides being just another Washington intern gone bad, Scotty is also a Protest Warrior, a group of young right wing asshats who I have blogged about before.

Notice anything new? Look to the right. Now that google owns blogger, they're encouraging people with blogger blogs to run google ads on their blogs. Please click on these ads, whether you're interested in what it is they have to offer or not. I sure wouldn't mind making a few bucks off this blog. Don't make me go all PBS telethon on y'all. Thanks.

Ever wonder how Ali G is able to get famous people to talk to him? Here's a bit of explanation.

Who is Al Qaeda's best recruiter? Is it bin Laden? Saddam? Or somebody else?

Remember the old G.I. Joe cartoon? Remember how they had little Public Service Announcements at the end? You know, "because knowing is half the battle." Well somebody has re-edited and redubbed them. But get them quickly. Hasbro, the original copyright holder, has never heard of Fair Use and has sent a cease and desist letter.

Today should be fun. I'm currently waiting for a call back from a radiator place with a price to replace the radiator in our car. I really need to get this taken care of so I can get into work because I have some cut vinyl graphics that I need to make and have shipped out this afternoon, so it's a little bit nerve wracking. At least I already have them laid out and ready, just waiting on the material to arrive from UPS. I haven't even called my boss yet to tell him because I'm waiting to hear back so I could let him know when I'll be in. I overheated on the drive home from work on Friday and now the radiator is cracked. If you ever break down and need help in the Bay Area, do it on the 101 in Marin County on your way to the Golden Gate Bridge. A bridge authority cop was there within seconds and had a utility truck with water there minutes later.

This RULES!

Last night: Best show I've seen in a long time! I'd seen the Beasties once before at Lollapalooza '94. We were standing very far back and it had rained all day, and they didn't play a full set. This time I was on the floor, had a great view, and they played for almost 2 hours. The show started with Mix Master Mike popping up on the video screen. He was standing outside of the venue and the camera followed him on his way in, through the hallways and on stage. The boys came out and ran through a bunch of songs from all of their albums. High Plains Drifter into Skills to Pay the Bills into Shake Your Rump was definitely the highlight of that part of the show. Then the boys left the stage while Mixmaster did some amazing turntablism. Then from behind the curtain they wheeled out a small stage decorated like an outdoor Mexican restaurant with dangly lights and a pinata and the boys all dressed in powder blue ruffled 70's tuxedos with their instruments. The did a set of their slower groovier funk jams from Check Your Head and Ill Communication. Then they busted out more rhymes, closing things out with Ch Ch Check it out. They left the stage but only moments later Intergalactic started up, but the boys were nowhere to be seen on the stage. Everybody started looking up and to the right where they were rapping from the balcony section and people up there were going nuts. The houselights came up right after this and we thought it was definitely all over, but then they came back out with instruments and finished things off with Gratitude and Sabotage (which they dedicated to George W. Bush). I'm really glad that I got to go to this. With all the things in life that I've been stressed to the breaking point over (the latest is a cracked radiator in our car which happened on my way home from work yesterday), it was really nice to forget about all of that and just rock the hell out for a few hours. Major thanks to my friend Guy who hooked me up with a ticket. Edited to add: Guy and I were both a little bit bummed when we saw that it was a Clear Channel show, but it was too good to miss just to boycott a very evil company that really needs to be boycotted.

Baaaaad Kerry supporters tear up area man's Bush Cheney sign and make his 3 year old daughter cry. I was all set to be angry about Kerry supporters lowering themselves and acting like a bunch of republican thugs until I found out that the area man is something of a professional victim. Apparently, this sort of thing has been happening to him since 1996. Coincidence? I think not. Nice use of your 3 year old daughter and her tears as a prop in a partisan headline grabbing photo op stunt, asshat. (via metafilter)

And as the election draws nearer, the conservatives keep getting more compassionate. This time... "The mother of a soldier killed in Iraq was arrested Thursday after interrupting a campaign speech by first lady Laura Bush. As police hauled her away, she shouted, 'Police brutality.'"

The identity of the RNC kicker has finally been revealed. We already knew it wasn't Taylor Bickford, the poor guy misidentified by ABC News and the reciever of hundreds of angry phone calls. Nobody seriously thought that it was Napoleon Dynamite (he's a freakin' character in a film, for cryin' out loud!) Jesus' General had a pretty good theory going about him being Dr. Laura's son. But he was not any of the above. Julian Sanchez of Reason Magazine (a libertarian mag which I usually avoid except for the Peter Bagge comics) did a little investigating and put the name to the face. Scott Robinson is his name, and kicking women while they're on the ground is his game. That and soccer. Oh yeah, and blogging, too. Check out the comments on his latest post.

The following is a WIGB Blog Safety Tip. There is absolutely nothing funny about falling through a skylight and cracking your head open in the process. But this (staged) picture of exactly that is hilarious, particularly the third shot down. This came to us at work today. Apparently, there are new OSHA regulations stating that certain skylights need to be protected with metal safety screens. If you care to read further on that without anything remotely as funny as the picture above, click here.

George Bush, a dominatrix, a plumbers wrench, a Joy Division song, a rack of dildos, guitar playing secret service agents and a Tony Blair cameo are all in this great video which is most definitely Not Safe For Work. (via F9/11 blog)

Just when I thought Dick Cheney couldn't possibly say anything worse, he goes and opens his mouth again. (via exit stage left)

RIP and Gabba Gabba Hey. Tonight we lose another Ramone. First Joey, then Dee Dee, and tonight, Johnny. He died in his sleep of prostate cancer. Tommy Ramone is the last surviving original member.

UPDATE (thanks to Freakgirl): Remember the woman who was fired from her job by a right wing asshat boss because she had a Kerry sticker on her car? She was told that she could either work for him or work for Kerry, and Kerry stepped up to the plate, called her up, and offered her a job. How cool is that? It looks like after a day of the news of her firing going around the blogosphere, her old boss was feeling the heat. I got a bunch of hits from people searching for his name and his email address. Hey Phil, if you're reading this now, which I'm guessing you probably are, go Cheney yourself, you fascist piece of filth. I look forward to seeing your profits tank over this.

As I've mentioned before, I applaud right wingers who instead of whining about how liberal the entertainment industry is, actually pick up some cameras and make their own movies. They even have their own film festival (in Texas, of course). But can they do it right? "Most of the entries were far more crudely made than the documentaries they aim to challenge. Several entries, including Meyer's apocalyptic home video, amounted to little more than a single guy spinning theories before the camera. It was a festival about reaction, not creation, devoted largely to conspiracy theories and attacks on liberal culture." Obviously not. Their problem is that if they had any real creativity or talent, they wouldn't be right wingers in the first place. Of course there is the occasional exception to this rule, but generally speaking, people who embrace an ideology of Orwellian authoritarianism, intolerance and Mussolini-style corporatism are not going to have the what it takes to entertain people other than those who are just like them. While despite their complaints and victim-posturing, mainstream and independent films do manage to entertain a wide range of people.

Not to be outdone by Hummer, Navistar has created something even bigger with worse milage. I'm not a huge fan of vandalism, but I sure wouldn't cry if I heard about people keying (or worse) these things on sight or if ELF pays a visit to one of their dealerships.

More compassionate conservatism: An Alabama woman was fired from her job for refusing to remove a Kerry sticker from her car. After the lawsuit, she'll own that company. But in the meatime, why not tell Phil Geddes (her former boss) how you feel about this by phone at (256)350-0442 (w), (256)350-0442 (his office as Chapter 13 Standing Trustee for the Northern District of Alabama - whatever that is), by fax at (256)350-1812, or by email at phil@pgeddes.com?