Rodney Dangerfield has passed away

Just now hitting the wires...


I don't care about the Vice-Presidential Debate anymore. I'm going to go to my bed and cry.

Godspeed, Rodney. You may have never known it, but you always had our respect.

EDIT 10/5/2004 09:12 PM EST: No comment necessary. From Rodney Dangerfield's official website. No notice of his passing yet but there is today's "Joke of the Day":

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Promise to vote and Michael Moore might give you clean underwear

Parse this as you will...

State GOP says Michael Moore illegally offered underwear in exchange for voting

October 5, 2004, 6:19 PM

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- The Michigan Republican Party is asking four county prosecutors to file charges against filmmaker Michael Moore, charging that he illegally offered underwear, noodles and snacks to college students in exchange for their promise to vote.

"We want everyone to participate in this year's election, but not because they were bribed or coerced by the likes of Michael Moore," said Greg McNeilly, executive director of the state Republican Party.

The GOP said it asked prosecutors in Wayne, Ingham, Antrim and Isabella counties to charge Moore with violating Michigan's election law. The law prohibits a person from contracting with another for something of value in exchange for agreeing to vote.

Moore, a native of Flint, is touring the country and imploring "slackers" who usually don't vote to head to the polls this year, saying they could make the difference in the presidential race.

Hit here for the rest.

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"Team America: World Police"... rudest movie ever? Kewl!!

Seems like only yesterday that "The Spirit of Christmas" was still just an underground video we were downloading in those pre-Kazaa college days. Before "South Park" was even a glint in the eyes of Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The boys have come a long way since then and with "Team America: World Police" it's sounding like they're gonna cement themselves as THE premiere satirists of these United States.

In all honesty, I never "got" the whole "South Park" craze. It was vulgar, but it could also be very funny and pointed at things that needed some jabbing anyway. But when your religion professor walks into the classroom one day and screams "BEEFCAKE!!" well... it all seemed a little nutty. To this day a Cartman t-shirt has never seen the inside of my closet. But I do still have my Bart Simpson shirt circa 1990: now THERE was a rebel that a guy could emulate!

Anyhoo, Stone and Parker are still working on it before the October 15th release date but I've heard enough good things about "Team America: World Police" already that I'm planning to catch it opening day next weekend. Take a gander at the trailer here but what REALLY sold me is the review on Ain't It Cool News by Moriarty, one of the movie authorities that I most respect. He's echoing what everyone else is saying: that "Team America" might be the crudest, rudest, most disgusting and offensive movie in the history of anything! F'rinstance, how does this sound as the refrain of a song:

"The gays and the straights/The whites and the spades/Everyone... has AIDS!"

Make of that what you will (and remember this movie is from the same two guys who used the word "sh-t" one hundred and sixty-two times during one 22-minute long episode of "South Park"). But if they're offensive, Stone and Parker are at least equal-opportunity offenders and will put the screws to anyone - be they Democrat, Republican or dumb animal - for sake of the high-brow/low-bar laugh.

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Remember John Wayne Bobbit? Well...

...I never thought that a real-life story involving the penis could be any weirder. Leave it to our friends in Eastern Europe to prove us wrong. From IOL:

Dog has feast with owner's penis

October 04 2004 at 04:41PM

Bucharest - A elderly Romanian man mistook his penis for a chicken's neck, cut it off and his dog rushed up and ate it, the state Rompres news agency said on Monday.

It said 67 year-old Constantin Mocanu, from a village near the southeastern town of Galati, rushed out into his yard in his underwear to kill a noisy chicken keeping him awake at night.

"I confused it with the chicken's neck," Mocanu, who was admitted to the emergency hospital in Galati, was quoted as saying.

"I cut it... and the dog rushed and ate it."

Doctors said the man, who was brought in by an ambulance bleeding heavily, was now out of danger.

Look at the bright side: at least the chicken was spared.

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"Don't Vote"? Might as well...

An associate sends along this from Daily Kos:

Mysterious ad campaign: "DON'T VOTE"
by kos
Mon Oct 4th, 2004 at 06:15:45 GMT

This is weird.

A series of billboards around the Twin Cities that brazenly declare "DON'T VOTE" have angered civil rights activists.

Fifteen of the billboards have sprung up in Minneapolis, St. Paul and its suburbs in the last few days. Several are in areas with large minority populations, including the Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis, leading the NAACP and other groups to criticize even the suggestion that citizens shouldn't exercise the right to vote [...]

The billboards are owned by Clear Channel Communications Inc. Lee Ann Muller, the company's general manager for outdoor advertising in Minnesota, wouldn't say who is paying for the billboards, but said it's a "teaser" campaign and its full meaning would become clear soon.

"I made the judgment call that the end of the campaign has value and a positive message, positive benefits for the community," Muller said.

Kos is tending to think it's either a liberal or a conservative plot. I'm wondering if it's either: it sounds more like a stunt to pitch something (although Clear Channel has said that it's not for a product). Maybe it's for a new t.v. show: THAT has certainly been done before. When the original miniseries V ran back in 1983 NBC hired guys to put up "Visitors are your friends" posters then a few days before broadcast spray-paint the blood-red "V" all over 'em. More recently the marketing guys for the X-Men movie got a mob waving anti-mutant signs outside the Today Show window. What I'm trying to say is, I seriously doubt this is a legitimate thing to discourage some people from voting. It's more likely than not a clever marketing scheme, nothing more.

Although if there has been any election where "Don't Vote" is not only a viable choice but an attractive one, this year's is it.

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WOO-HOO!!! NASA's monopoly broken! Private spaceflight begins TODAY!

368,000 feet straight to the bank. To the tune of $10 million.

A little while ago SpaceShipOne landed in Mojave, California. Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites has now won the Ansari X Prize, barely two months before the deadline. After more than forty years, manned spaceflight is no longer the sole province of major governments: anyone with a lil' creativity and the backing of a few investors can now soar past the atmosphere.

Congrats to Rutan and his entire team! They not only achieved all the goals of the Ansari X Prize, they also shattered the high-altitude record for an airplane. Now to break the next flight barrier: when individuals can hack out their own spaceships in their garages. Maybe this guy'll be the next pioneer.

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It's not called the ASS-imilator for nothing

Spent the past few days since Saturday morning out of town, which included spending part of the day yesterday at Paramount Carowinds on the NC/SC border near Charlotte. We rode just about all the big rides 'cept the Vortex (the very first looping coaster that I ever rode) because it started raining. There's one I WON'T be riding again anytime soon: the new Borg Assimilator. Sorta like the Superman coaster at Six Flags in Atlanta, but you tilt backward instead of forward. This thing is scary as hell. I think it almost gave Lisa's Dad a cardiac infarction. Probably the first time in over ten years that something of Star Trek seriously frightened me.

And at the encouraging good word of a friend that I highly trust, I have started reading a new book: Black by Ted Dekker. I started reading the first 2 chapters Saturday night and had to give up 'cuz of drowsiness... which didn't help that in those first two chapters I wound up with no idea what this is supposed to be about. Still, it's part 1 of a trilogy that someone said was much like The Matrix saga, so my curiosity is piqued. I'll post a review later.

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