CHRISTMAS PUZZLEMENT

I question the wisdom of Santa Claus giving naughty children an object that's meant to be set on fire.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

SIGH...

Haloscan comments - long one of my favorite blogging features - has been bought out and discontinued. To retain any comments at all, I had to "upgrade" to the "new" Echo "service". Whatever the hell that is.

Anyway, if my comments all go *phoot!*, or this whole thing becomes an unwieldy mess, I'm probably going to jump ship to either Blogger or Wordpress.

We'll see how it goes over the next couple days as this thing takes hold.

APPARENTLY I HAVEN'T MOVED ON

Shamus of Twenty Sided posted this video called "Panic Attack!" to illustrate how far computerized special effects have come and how cheap the software has gotten:

And it's fairly impressive, technically speaking, since it was made for $500.

Artistically, however, it turns my stomach.

Sorry, I still remember watching real architecturally iconic buildings being blown up by real "panics" in 2001.

The creator of this thing can go artistically fuck himself.

[YouTube direct link]

STRAY THOUGHT

Just wanted to give a little shout out to Richard Nixon.

If it hadn't been for him, we wouldn't have the lexical shortcut of appending "gate" to scandalous events to indicate that they are... scandalous events.

For example, ClimateGate would have to be referred to with the annoyingly copious verbiage of "the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK Global Warming Email Scandal".

BLECH!

Imagine how much ink could've been saved in 1922 if the Harding administration wrestled with DomeGate.

Lexical economy, how I love thee.

MOTIVATIONAL!

This one's for Mr. T.

Not the black one with the mohawk, I mean the son of blogdaughter Boudicca of Boudicca's Voice, who beat two other kids in a soda drinking contest and made a statement that belongs on the cover of every coach's playbook regarding the importance of "leaving it all on the field":

This is how Superbowls are won, people.

[Hat tip: Despair.com DIY]

JUST A LITTLE OFF

This is not a caption, just my opinion.

No offense to your Savage yet Noble ancestral ways, Chief, but your traditional Native American feather headdress would look a lot more impressive if it weren't accompanied by the traditional Native American bifocals and traditional Native American Made in China cotton-poly blend chambray shirt.

GRAFFITI CURRENCY

Teenage Mutant Ninja Lincoln

[Via Holy Taco, hat tip: Graumagus of Frizzen Sparks]

YOUR VOTE: WHO HAS THE UGLIEST?

[hat tip: American Digest]

Guy on the left... the plaid jacket looking like a bad used car salesman... the lavender shirt... the too-long pants...

Guy on the right... ok chef's whites down to the shins, but orange socks and orange Crocs? WTF?

Klingon in the middle... cardigan with rolled up sleeves? Why not just wear a short-sleeved sweater? Then again, why the fuck wear a sweater if you're obviously not cold? And why button just the top button? Looks retarded without keeping you warm. And a dress that's 2/3 skirt where the waist rides a foot above where any normal human waist can possibly be anatomically correct?

And I haven't consulted my color wheel lately, but blaze orange and whatever known-only-unto-interior-decorators shade of blue that is cannot POSSIBLY be a tasteful combination.

Barack seriously needs to teach Bo to bark whenever the First Monchichi tries to set foot outside the Presidential Residential wearing shit like this.

Christ, I'd rather see Barack bowing than this eye-gouging abomination.

WONDER

There are so many songs out there, that, when I listen to them, I think "how the fuck could you do this on purpose? How could you sit there, creating, thinking to yourself, 'ah! this is what I want it to sound like.'"

The "ooga-chaka" in "Hooked on a Feeling" come to mind.

Seriously, how could you write a song and think to yourself, "it's good, but it really needs more ooga-chaka".

Then I listen to something like Beethoven's 9th symphony, and I find myself wondering the exact opposite. It's so beautiful, yet it makes so much sense, I wonder, "how could a human mind create such wonders?"

Gerard of American Digest expresses the wonder in poetry, and in double-meta-fashion, I ask myself, "how could a human mind create such wonders?"

HALF THE STORY

Went to Vegas over Thanksgiving. Saw the UFL Championship game (4 rows up on the 45 yard line). Not as good as the XFL, but it was still pretty exciting.

Anyway, here are the happiest slot-machine-related events that happened in 6 days of gambling:

$45.50 on $.25
$37.00 on $.30
$15.00 on $.09
$50.00 on $.10
$54.70 on $.40
$10.05 on $.10
$19.62 on $.18
$15.00 on $.10
$13.93 on $.09
$10.00 on $.09
$5.00 on $.05
$14.50 on $.10
$10.04 on $.09

and my personal favorite, while killing time at the Vegas airport waiting for our flight to leave:

$3.97 on $.01

I'm not going to tell you how much we lost while getting all those jackpots, because that would take all the fun out of the story.

In non-gambling news, see Sandy Hackett's Rat Pack at the Sahara, V at the Flamingo, and Nathan Burton at Planet Hollywood.

Also, Aunt Annie's pretzels in the Miracle Mile Shops in Planet Hollywood are to die for.

Also, also, keep an eye out for Albert the banjo Player who hangs out between The Mirage and Caeser's Palace on the west side of Las Vegas Boulevard.