a letter to the President.

today's Happy Is: listening to the Giles Sings clip from "Restless." been a while since i've listened to it. made me happy to find it again.

i probably let myself get much more pissed about people taking-the-last-cup-of-coffee-and-not-brewing-a-new-pot than is healthful. friggin' bastards.

some gossip reported on Dark Horizons today: "David Boreaenz, who plays Angel, on the WB series, could be stepping into the shoes of a legendary superhero - if my sources are correct. My source claims that the TV star was approached about starring in the forthcoming BATMAN movie (Im assuming he was refering to Year One) as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Boreaenz is still considering - but after much thinking, I think the Warner casting office may get something right for once."

Sci Fi Wire advertises for TVGuide: the August 25th issue of TVGuide will have new photos of the ship from Enterprise (which is called, uh, the Enterprise), and "will also feature three different covers, with stars Jolene Blalock (T'Pol) and Scott Bakula (Capt. Archer)." two addition covers with various cast members will be available online, probably for $20 (please oh please buy a few of those expensive online-exclusive covers. help generate some revenue for TVGuide so it can keep all of its employees, and i won't be laid off).

Sci Fi Wire news that probably isn't good: "Blair Witch Project co-director Ed Sanchez told E! Online that he's eager to get started on a third installment in the film franchise".

coincidentally, last night i watched BW2 for the first time, which is why i say a third one probably isn't good news. not scary. at all. and the stupid little "go back and watch for hidden images that may be messages from the Blair Witch!" crap was stoopid. seriously, if your subliminal "this is scary! and great! and ooky!" messages didn't work the first time i watched, they probably won't work the second time either. i got bored, so i read something much scarier: the script for the Buffy episode "Halloween".

Sudden water flow rushes down Mount Rainier. i never get to see anything cool like that.

not that i'm a big fan or defender of the tobacco industry, but when did extortion become a legitimate governmental practice?

TVGuide (print) says "Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in America is in development as an HBO miniseries."

and over at TVGuide Online, Seth Green talks about Rat Race.

the Berkeley Breathed Q&A.
[waterfowl made flightless by Bradlands]

could this possibly be used to refute the cosmological principle? i've never particularly cared for that assumption.
[unravelling of cosmic tenets brought to you by Dean, who doesn't sleep with a teddy bear]

oh no. i just got the email. the company's bought ice cream for us again. someone's getting sacked.

Fox Sux. that was the place i went after watching an episode of Buffy that made reference to something that happened before i started watching. it wouldn't be so bad if they'd get scriptbooks for each season published, but right now, they're only up to Season 2. damn Fox.

ADHD TV, two guys who wanna be on tv. not as jackassian as Jackass (which is a good thing). watch clips from the show. Caveman vs. Monkey cracked me up.

QUESTION: In your opinion, is George W. Bush a new kind of
Republican, or is he basically the same as Republicans of the past?

Yes 34%
No 61%

what? given the choice between "This" and "That", one third answered "Yes"? does this mean that people are stupid or that CNN/USA Today/Gallup polls are stupid? ok, there are more questions than that one, but a couple of them are stupid like that.

happy is:

• waking up and not finding Orange Cat sitting next to my head grooming himself and annoying me with his *smack smack* sounds. yay!
• finding a one hundred dollar bill stashed in a planter while brushing your teeth, one for which you can't account, even after itemizing your income and expenses for the last 60 days. yay!
• hearing "Love Is A Battlefield" during the drive to work. yay!

If Jesus were invited to a lunch with Bush.

speaking of Jesus... (and, btw, "Bloody Revenge of the Invincible Jesus Ninjas" is a great title and premise for a game). Christ's miracles are rated.

oh. David Hasselhoff is the Anti-Christ.

now that Jimmy Bond is nowhere in sight, Seann W. Scott has become my new Hollywood crush (actually, it's more like Chester Greenburg and Billy Hitchcock. what can i say? i like 'em big and dumb).

how about some Spike links? Spike-Stock 2001 and Heat. Desire.

here's one on the missing Riley.

chat with Oz (Seth Green) tonight at 7pm CDT. you and a few hundred thousand other people.

Joss: "One of the most dramatic moments from last month's three-week long Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif., was, ironically enough, also one of the quietest. During a poolside shindig thrown by the WB, network bigwig Jamie Kellner slithered over to Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon and — egad! — shook his hand." more here at TVGuide Online.

Angel (link may be a little spoilery. read at your own risk): "Since its 1999 premiere, Angel has solidified into an hour of quality television that rivals — and this past season arguably even outshone — its sire. In fact, if the final WB episode of Buffy (before its fall transfer to UPN) is an "instant classic" — and, frankly, it is — then the four-episode fairy tale with which Angel rounded out the year is at least a mini-masterpiece." more here, again at TVGuide Online (and once again, may be spoilery).

ACT scores remain flat. i heard them talking on the radio about this during my drive to work, and they added that, in Oklahoma, the average actually fell a few tenths of a point, but that, of the ACT taking students from schools with the touted enhanced curriculum, which requires more core classes to graduate, half did better than the national average. they didn't bother to mention that it also means that half did worse. i'll bet they're worried that last part will refute their claims that the most recent education plan will really improve state test scores.

personally, i think they should focus on some of the more immediate problems, like how school started today, but last week, Tulsa public schools was still searching for 50 more teachers. and how long term veteran teachers are retiring early. and how, when i stopped by my old high school to look in on four of my favorite teachers, and that i mentioned off-handedly that i may still want to teach, and three of those four said 'Don't do it. It's not worth it anymore."

Large shark school dissipates off Florida coast.

don't bet on it. they've finished their strategy meeting, and now they're moving on to carry out those plans. makes me very happy that i'm in landlocked Oklahoma, where it's unlikely that a wereshark will be moving among us.

Hundreds of sharks spotted off Florida. it appears that the Rokea are amassing. they're tired of us dumping our trash into their home. they're about to invade us.

the worst thing about all this shark business is that it'll replay visions of Jaws in everyone's minds, they'll get all sared, and then do stupid things to hunt/trap/repel/destroy sharks, first in coastal touristy waters, then later in the open ocean. sharks are modern society's equivalent to medieval society's wolf (well, sharks share that modern distinction with the wolf, because there are people who still blame the wolf for all their woes. apparently, those little wolves are crafty).

in conclusion, the extinction of any shark species should be blamed on Steven Spielberg. and wolves too.

and when the devil did Hell-Mart start selling roleplaying books?

i have a solution for the cloning hullabaloo. let us turn our back for a while, allowing a small group of someones to try it, work out the mistakes, and try again. then, no matter the outcome, we'll denounce them as Evil Mad Scientists and say they're going to Hell for their Evil Ways. then, we can sleep better knowing that the monsters have been exposed and properly condemned, their Evil Deeds known, and that we can take their Evil Research and use it for Good Purposes, thereby perverting the Evil into Good.

because those who would say those scientists are going to hell have already decided that i'm going to hell, i volunteer to be one of those researchers (two birds with one stone, and all that). to be effective, i should probably get a degree in genetics or biochemistry or something life-sciencey related, so i'll need people to fund and sponsor me at university. heck, to be sure you'll be condemning only the best, go ahead and put me through med school. remember, your support of my education will help you sleep better, you'll reap the benefits of any discoveries made along the way, and you'll have me as a convenient scapegoat.

Dot Com: The Musical

much weirdness in the world
[electoral laughs sponsored by I Shoot With My Mind]

balanced by some goodness.
[via Redcricket]

i caught an episode of ST:TNG on Sunday. it was a first season ep, "Hide and Q," and in it, Worf gets to fight some nasty looking aliens in Napoleonic France-era uniforms. for a guy who's supposed to be a warrior, and from a warrior culture, he sure fights like a weiner. he'd, like, throw a punch, then stand there like he didn't know what to do next. he was skewered pretty quickly, and would have been dead if not for Riker's Q-given powers. it was really sad (on a happy note, Wesley was skewered too. sadly he was healed also).

after that, the WB reaired the Buffy ep "The Gift." Buffy did a much better job of kicking ass. she fights a lot better, and though she died too, at least she won the fight first, and against a Hellgod, no less.

so (you see where this is going, right?), the Warrior from the Warrior planet and the Warrior species who regard glorious, honorable battle above all else would sooo get his ass kicked by the 20 year old California girl.

sometimes, while i'm listening to a cd here at work, i go to type an email as a good song comes on, and i end up clacking the keys in rhythm to the song, like i'm a pianist, complete with crescendo and decrescendo, as appropriate. my co-workers find this annoying, and it's probably not good for the keyboard either.

a trailer for 13 Ghosts is up. the movie may be good, it may suck, but there are or will be way too many ghosties on the large and small screen. ghosts are the "In" thing this year

anyone else like to play with Currency Converters? i can take my paycheck tomorrow and head off to Djibouti with eighty thousand Djibouti Francs, or go to Ulan Bator and have more than a six hundred thousand Mongolian Tugriks, or to Freetown, Sierra Leone and have nearly a million Leones. yay! do they get Buffy in Sierra Leone? eh, doesn't matter, since it'd probably be dubbed, and i can't speak Sierra Leonese.

who's Zia McCabe?

sounds like a scene from Pee-wee's Playhouse, except no Laurence Fishburne.

from the archives of TomPaine.com, a little reading to keep me occupied while i have no work:
 ¬The Beijing Olympics and the (Mis)Uses of History. Will the 2008 Games Democratize China?
 ¬The New and Improved President. Forget Policy -- Bush Wants Fuzzy, Feel-Good Phrases.
 ¬A New Look At Pearl Harbor
 ¬The Sound and the Furious. A Writer Tries to Escape Our Culture of Noise.
 ¬Why Can't Americans Swim in Effluent?. Iceland's 21st Century Energy Policy.
 ¬The Neglected Facts for last week.

don't you hate when you're reading an article, and it seems to be a good article, and it feels like it's building up to something big and thought provoking, something that's gonna make you furrow your brow and shake your head and say "wow!", then suddenly it ends, and ends poorly without that moment of wowness?

ok, so this editorial isn't quite so thought provoking or wowing, but i was really disappointed by the last paragraph anyway. if you're gonna make a point about something, don't resort to stale soundbites, please. it doesn't have any punch, it's lazy thinking, and it irks me.

Ain't It Cool News "reported the rumor that the project [Batman: Year One] has been squashed because Warner Brothers instead wants to build a franchise out of a proposed film teaming up Superman and the caped crusader that would eventually lead to a series of Justice League of America movies" they also say that "John Travolta might be in line to put on Superman's cape opposite George Clooney's Batman." [i quoted SciFi Wire on this]

i'm not even going to entertain the possibility that this is true. nope. can't, because the whole idea sucks that much, and though Warner Bros has disappointed me so much lately, i still have to believe that they-who-own-the-rights-to-Animaniacs will redeem themselves.

whadya say? AOL owns them now?

good god, it's gonna suck.

another Buffy entry:

Buffy Star Snipes At Emmys . Whedon says "It's Ripper, not Watcher." concerning questions of continuity between animated and live action Buffy, he also says Dawn will be part of the animated Buffy "because the Monks changed history." and Marti Noxon Talks Buffy Rumors.

Dog lovers threaten World Cup boycott over the consumption and trade of dog meat.

methinks they should mind their own business first.

Shpadoinkle! Tales of the Slayer, to be released November 28, will include stories written by Joss (the Primitive), David Fury (Old West Slayer), Doug Petrie (Nikki the '70s Slayer), Amber Benson (French Revolution Slayer) and, lastly, Joss again (Fray). yay!

Big Buffy entry:

picked up a Buffy Shooter Saturday, along with the newest issue of Fray. in Fray #3, "Melaka learns some of the history of the Slayers and comes to understand a little about what it means to her, " including why there hasn't been a Slayer or vampires since the 21st century.

i also thumbed through the current issue of the BTVS comic. it was interesting seeing how Dawn had helped to save Buffy's life after the Master left Buffy for dead. i've been curious about how events were different (in everyone's minds at least) with the addition of Dawn, but i still didn't buy the comic. i hate joining storylines mid-story, but i'll probably go back for this one, now that i know it was the first of a four issue arc dealing (a little, at least) with the false memories built to include Dawn in a world in which Dawn didn't exist at the time (i, btw, have my own view on the whole "Dawn's only been here for six months" thing).

also, ran across the summer issue of Buffy the magazine. interviews with Emma Caulfield and Clare Kramer, and a brief Q&A with David Boreanaz that makes me want to avoid anything about him unless it's about him in character as Angel. putz. oooh! there's also a Wesley poster in the middle! hooray!

there's something both a little wrong and extremely amusing about running across a television program called "Wildlife Views: Condors/Dutch Oven Cooking."