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Aug182008

The Food Tasting Meme

One of the few things The Girlfriend and I ever seriously disagree about is what constitutes an edible meal (and, by extension, what we should have for dinner). She’s — how shall I say this? — very selective with what she will and will not eat, whereas I pride myself on being willing to give just about anything a go. But am I just fooling myself? Am I truly all that adventurous? Let’s find out!

Here’s a meme courtesy of Javi that does a pretty good job of evaluating the adventurousness of one’s previous eating experiences and — more importantly — the items that force you to draw the line:

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Aug122008

The Latest News of the Weird

Catching up on a couple of stories we’ve been following here at Simple Tricks, I see that dog cloner Bernann McKinney admitted on Saturday that she is also Joyce McKinney, the notorious missionary molester. She reportedly hoped the press would focus on the puppy angle instead of dredging up the “garbage” from her past. She should’ve known better, given the tabloid-mentality climate in which we live today. I actually feel somewhat sorry for her — how awful would it be to have some stupid act you committed three decades ago still hanging over your head now? — but my sympathy only extends so far, because if she really wanted the news coverage to ignore her past, she should’ve taken steps to remain anonymous. How hard would it have been to require the cloning lab to keep her name and most especially her photo out of the press release? Because people don’t forget stories that involve a combination of sex, religion, and generally weird behavior, and, in her case, the face was pretty memorable as well. I’d say she’s lucky that Great Britain doesn’t seem to be interested in extraditing her (she jumped bail 31 years ago in the wake of the missionary thing).

Of course, there is the possibility that her discomfort at being recognized is a sham. The article I linked to above notes a history of oddball behavior and run-ins with the law. Maybe some little part of her — or maybe even a big part — craves attention, even if it is from the tabloid press. Maybe she was hoping for exactly what just happened. Hard to say, of course… but in any event, I imagine the former missionary she used to be obsessed with has had a rough week.

Moving on, there’s just one final loose end in the story of the man who was making ricin in my hometown: Thomas Tholen, owner of the Riverton, Utah, home where the toxin was produced, has pleaded guilty to knowing that his cousin, Roger Von Bergendorff, was illegally producing the stuff, and also to lying to investigators about it. He claims to have been scared, and frankly I don’t blame him. Still, he made the wrong choice; I can see him not acting while the looney was living in his basement, but why didn’t he report Von Bergendorff once the guy moved out?

Tholen faces three years in prison and a $250,000 fine; he’ll be sentenced on October 22. Von Bergendorff will be sentenced two weeks later, on November 3.

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Aug112008

Movies from Books Meme

I’ve missed out on a lot of intriguing memes lately because I haven’t had the time to comment on lengthy lists of stuff, so when I spotted a fairly short one over at SF Signal, I figured I’d better grab it. It’s about sci-fi movies based on books…

[Update: Looks like I was having a moment of extreme dumbness when when I posted this last night — instead of doing as the third rule asks and italicizing only the movie titles for which which I started the book but didn’t finish it, I italicized all of the titles. Because they’re titles and you’re supposed to italicize those. Doh! Anyway, they’re fixed now, if it matters to anyone…]

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Aug112008

My Favorite Photo of the Day

Everybody in the blogosphere is buzzing today about that mildly risque photo of President Bush trying to decide whether to accept Olympic volleyball player Misty May-Treanor’s invitation to smack her on the tushy for good luck, but personally I was far more amused by this pic:

Bush looks on

You know, I think this is the first time I’ve ever felt any sense of empathy whatsoever for this man… yep, George, I know how it is. We’re both guys, after all…

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Aug112008

Maybe There’s Still Hope for the Dang Kids…

You know, every time I’m close to despair over the fact that all the pop culture I loved in my youth is now being remade, re-imagined, mashed-up, or just plain forgotten, and that nothing really ever seems to stand the test of time, least of all the crap I like, I’ll hear an anecdote that restores my faith, however briefly, that all is not lost…

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Aug112008

The Rules are Simple…

Just for fun, here’s the prologue from Escape from New York, which explains the premise behind the film:

As I said in the previous entry, this was pretty mind-bending stuff when I was a wee lad. It still raises the hair on my arms, to be honest. It’s perfectly executed, with its combination of groovy early-80s synth music, imitation computer graphics (hand-drawn animation, I believe), and the perfect female voiceover artist… not to mention the tongue-in-cheek irony of “Liberty Island Security Control.” It’s a bloody shame Hollywood has forgotten how to make solidly entertaining B-grade fare like this, which was well aware of its basic silliness but still managed to somehow be thought-provoking and cool, unlike most of the A-level spectaculars we get nowadays.

But then I’m well on my way to grumpy-old-manhood, and I suppose this is just another case of getting uptight at the damn kids playing on my lawn…

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Aug112008

In Memoriam: Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes

There were a couple of unexpected celebrity deaths over the weekend, if you haven’t heard.

The first was Bernie Mac, the comedian and actor whose humor often stemmed from the combination of his intimidating stature with a lovable heart within. I don’t have too much to say about him, except that I enjoyed his performances in Ocean’s 11 and Bad Santa, as well as his eponymous television sitcom. That show was only occasional, not regular, viewing at my house, but I admired it for transcending race (unlike many other sitcoms that were on at the same time and featured African-American casts) and being refreshingly un-P.C. Not to mention pretty damn funny at times. Bernie was one of those guys that simply made me smile when he turned up in something I was watching. He died Saturday at the far-too-young age of 50.

While Bernie’s death saddened me, I was genuinely stunned to hear that singer, actor, and all-round-force-of-cool Isaac Hayes had died Sunday, after being found unconscious alongside a treadmill at his home. (Heart attack while working out, perhaps?) The various tributes to him all mention his work as a songwriter and pioneer of the funk sound of the early ’70s, and of course his most famous song, the wacka-liciously awesome “Theme from Shaft“; his more recent work as the voice of South Park‘s Chef gets name-checked as well. But when I think of Hayes, I tend to think first of his role as The Duke of New York (he’s A-Number One!) in one of the greatest B-grade sci-fi action flicks of all time, John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. Here he is in all his glory with Harry Dean Stanton and Adrienne Barbeau (who’s also displaying all her glory, if you take my meaning):

The Duke of New York, Brain, and Maggie in Escape from New York

I first saw Escape from New York on one of those RCA videodiscs, those things that were like movies on vinyl records, while sitting in the television section of the local appliance store where my mom worked part-time when I was a kid. The movie’s premise was pretty mind-blowing to a small-town Utah kid in the early ’80s — if you haven’t seen it, it’s set in a dystopian near-future where the crime rate has gotten so bad, the authorities wall off Manhattan Island and turn it into a prison where the prisoners can do anything they want, so long as they don’t try to leave. Hayes’ Duke was essentially a third-world warlord, the strongest of the riffraff, and he cracked me up with his quasi-military outfit and his Cadillac with chandeliers mounted on the front fenders. To this day, that remains my mental archetype of low-rent decadence.

According to Hayes’ LA Times obit, he’d just finished a movie called Soul Men with that other terminally cool, shaved-headed African-American Samuel L. Jackson, and, oddly enough, the late Bernie Mac. He was only days shy of his 66th birthday…

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Aug102008

Dr. McCoy Was Right!

Yeah, I know, it’s another lolcat, but this one seems so appropriate coming on the heels of the redshirt-death video…

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more cat pictures

Real entry coming soon, I promise!

(For my non-Trekkie, non-nerd readers, the title refers to Dr. McCoy’s oft-expressed discomfort with the process of beaming. He’s always nervous about having his molecules scattered or reappearing inside a solid object. Which would, of course, be bad… I wonder if the JJ Abrams reboot movie will continue this gag, or if Bones will be “reimagined” into a manly man who’s not afraid of such mundane little things. Sigh.)

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Aug082008

I’m Alive (Not for Long, Though)

Any student of classic Star Trek knows that one’s sartorial choices have a direct impact on your potential longevity. So much so, in fact, that the term “redshirt” has come into general usage in sci-fi fandom to denote “the minor character who won’t make it to the end of the episode.” As evidence that color choices matter, allow me to present this amusing video montage:

The music is “I’m Alive” by ELO (that’s the Electric Light Orchestra, for you young’uns in the audience). Extra credit to the first commenter who can name the one episode that racks up the highest redshirt body count (a clip from said episode begins this video, if that helps at all).

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