The Diary of A Simple Man

Iron Man vs. Doctor Doom: Doomquest by David Michelinie

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Unbelievably putrid. Over and over I sat in stunned amazement, asking myself "Did they really publish stuff this bad back in 1981?"

There are two kinds of stories in comics. One tries to say something meaningful, or at least to present some sort of concept that the reader can be entertained by. The other is the visual equivalent of two three-year-olds trying to one-up each other. "My hero is a million times stronger than yours!" "Oh yeah? Well MY hero is a JILLION times stronger!" Over and over and over. There's no sense to it, and no point.

Which pretty much describes this "book".

Oh, and the authors completely abuse the Arthurian legend. In an incredibly lame "future Arthur" sequence, Merlin is "cool", saying things like - and I am NOT making this up - "Okee doke: One 'Return to Sender' spell, comin' right up!"

Merlin as Jar-Jar Binks. It made me want to beat the author with a club.

So to sum up, the only reason to read this thing is if you want to take a look back to see just how incredibly awful some comic books were, even as recently as 1981 (the art is pretty bad, too). And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to do something - anything - to drive the memory of that unbelievably idiotic writing out of my brain.


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The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One of Heinlein's last books, and not one of his best. It represents yet another installment in the "World As Myth" theme that he used so often later in life, and therefore includes many characters from his older, better works - including, inevitably, Lazarus Long, who continues his long (pun intended) degeneration from the original interesting protagonist of "Methuselah's Children" into an annoying incest-freak, Heinlein surrogate, self-parody (I suspect), and all-around jerk-who-must-be-worshiped-due-to-his-natural-moral-superiority.
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Heinlein only wrote one more book after this; I've read it, but don't remember much of it (which is not very high praise, I must say). Unfortunately, that means that I don't remember if there was any mention of the outcome in that book. I suppose I'll have to re-read it to find out.

If it weren't for Heinlein's great skill as a storyteller, I'd have given this two stars at best. It's certainly among his weakest novels.

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I'm still pissed off. I made the mistake of getting a coffee Coolatta and bagel at the only Dunkin Donuts near my work.

As always, they simply tossed the bagel in the bag with some butter. If I wanted to butter a cold bagel myself, I would have bought one much cheaper at the Shaws next door. Is it that fucking hard to butter a goddamned bagel?!?

And the Coolatta was utterly undrinkable. It was mostly liquid, not frozen, and it must have been 98% cream. It was as white as snow! I looked at the guy and said "That's a Coolatta? It's SO WHITE!".

He ignored me. Like an idiot I took the bagel and Coolatta (I'd already paid for them) and left the store. When I got back to my desk, I tried buttering the bagel; it was cold. I tried the Coolatta and nearly puked; it really was pure cream. I tried microwaving the bagel a little to melt the butter, and ended up with melted butter everywhere. So I threw the whole fucking mess in the trash. Then I wrote to Dunkin Donuts and complained, and then I went to Yelp.com and posted a bad review. But because that DD is in an Exxon Tiger Mart, I had to review that instead.

I am really, really pissed off this morning.

Dear Microsoft,

Just a note to say "hi!" and thanks. I was working on my website, trying to get things done before finally getting some much-needed sleep. But you knew that my work wasn't really important. And that's why you decided to install some important updates and force my computer to restart.

Oh, you gave me a few minutes warning. You even provided a little window with a countdown, saying "X minutes before restart". There was a box that said "Restart Now", and another box that said "Restart Later" - but wacky jokesters that you are, you greyed that "Later" box out! You know I didn't really want the option to wait a few extra minutes and finish my work. No, it's so much more satisfying to have the computer shut down on me against my will, at the command of...well...you, Microsoft.

I can't help but imagine what the world would be life if you guys ran everything. Say I'm in the middle of a phone conversation with my doctor. I had some tests recently (no, not really, but bear with me - this is dramatic license) and she's going to tell me how I'm doing. Is it cancer, doc?

"BEEP! This is Microsoft. We've installed some important security updates on your phone. Press umlaut to delay hangup. Ha ha! Umlaut isn't an option! Say goodbye! Click...beeeeeeeeeeeeep..."

And just to cap things off, after the computer restarted you thoughtfully didn't bother to restore my programs. FireFox can do it, and it's open source. But you, Microsoft, you're much too busy to bother wasting time considering the convenience of your users. Why, if you did that once, they might expect consideration ALL the time!

So thanks, Microsoft. And fuck you, fuck you very much.

Sincerely,
Peter

The following comment just burst out of me while I was reading a question over on Askville about airport security at Heathrow (in the UK, as I assume everybody knows).

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I went through Heathrow about fifteen years ago, so I don't have an up-to-date story to relate. But they did pull me out of line and search me extensively.

Years later, I had an employee who had also had bad experiences at Heathrow. He was a short little red-headed guy from Ireland (I'm a red-head too, but not at all Irish - although everyone who sees me assumes that I'm either Irish or Scottish).

Anyway, he told me that one time he was pulled out of line, taken to a separate room, and strip-searched. They took his clothes and left him alone in the room. After about forty-five minutes, he got tired of waiting and went strolling around the corridors naked, looking for his clothes.

I'm still not sure if I believe him. :D

I did go through Customs as well as airport security in the US last week. I have to say, it's like living under some third-world junta. Some of the Homeland Security people are decent enough, but a surprising number of them are rude, arrogant, and apparently drunk with power.

The rules themselves are ridiculous. My wife had a small tube of hand lotion; it was confiscated, very rudely, because it was an ounce or two over their limit. My son, that so-suspicious seven-year-old terrorist in training, had a sealed bottle of water in his backpack (we'd forgotten about it); confiscated. Yet I was able to bring a large tube of ointment through in my medical bag, despite the fact that it was obviously half-used and did not have my prescription information on it.

Most of these idiotic new precautions do NOTHING to hinder terrorists; all they do is inconvenience innocent travelers, and give a large number of jerks a license to dress up in a Nazi-like black uniform, carry a gun, and threaten people. As I said at the time, it's good to know that we're protected from the terrible hand-lotion menace. It's too bad that the government didn't use one-thousandth as much vigilance in monitoring Wall Street!

Sorry, I seem to have gotten off the point.

A comment on a thread over on Askville about how to treat Republicans after the election, if Obama wins.

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It would be hard not to rub their noses in it, I must admit.

I can't help but recall all the nasty comments that Republicans made in such abundence, both times when Bush got the Presidency, and all the names I've been called for the past several decades. They've called us communists, idiots, moral degenerates...if there's a name that they haven't happily flung at liberals and Democrats, it can only be because it hasn't been invented yet.

"Liberalism is a mental illness." I've seen that on more than one bumper sticker, and more times online than I can count.

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The Republicans over on Asvkille are going fucking psychotic. Even I am amazed at the crazy shit they're making up in their Obama "questions".

This was my response to a question by one of them that claimed that all Democrats say that only racists won't vote for Obama:

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I keep visualizing the Askville Republican Strike Team.

They're all worked up behind their keyboards in their parents' basements, slobber literally raining down from their open mouths as they make up ever more bizarre questions to imply that Obama is an uppity black power terrorist child molester drug fiend pimp Communist with lesbian tendencies, and that all Democrats are morons and moral degenerates. All while they piously proclaim that they are true independents in the spirit of the Founding Fathers, and decrying the vicious partisanship that the Democrats are constantly inflicting on the sweet, innocent, responsible, wise, and patriotic Republican Party.

I also imagine that their blood pressure shoots up at least twenty points for every point that McCain drops behind in the polls. I have to admit that this amuses me, even though I'm not voting for Obama.

If (okay, probably when) McCain loses, I have to wonder what's going to happen to these disturbed souls. Will they simply drop dead, their hearts exploding out of their chests in one last gory technicolor display? Will they take the last step into complete paranoia, and end up naked wearing a tinfoil hat on a rooftop someplace, taking potshots at every black man they see until the police come to put them away? Will they turn on each other like rabid dogs locked in a very small room? Or will they just take the last step and disassociate from reality completely, entering a state of full catatonia?

One thing I doubt very much is that any of them will become sane. Most likely, they'll just keep on doing the same crazy stuff they've been doing all along. But as the country deals with the utter ruination that their policies have brought to us all, they won't get anywhere near as much attention as they're used to. They'll go from being a tumor on the body politic, to a pimple - the difference being, of course, that now thanks to them the nation is a lot closer to destruction!

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I take a peek over at Free Republic every so often, just for laughs. Today I saw a thread which was so mind-bogglingly out of touch that it amazed me. A poster claimed that the Democrats were praying night and day because they knew they were doomed to lose the election. How long had they been doomed? Ever since Sarah Palin was nominated.

"Who do they pray to?" another poster asked. "We know that it's not Jesus."

"Allah," came the inevitable reply.

I hate having to defend Democrats, these days. They don't fucking deserve it. They've betrayed every single one of their supposed principles, and didn't even gain a mess of pottage in exchange.

But some idiot over on Askville just posted a "question" blaming Obama and the Democrats for the failure of the bailout bill. I had to say something.

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60% of House Democrats voted for the bill.

The Republican leadership in the house also agreed to support the bill before it came to a vote. John McCain heroically suspended his campaign and didn't go to the Presidential debate in order to "save" it (well, he didn't do either of those things, but at least he made the effort to lie about it to the American people). Senator McCain announced his glorious victory in saving America yesterday morning, you may recall.

And then the House Republicans spoiled all the fun by voting against the bill, 133 to 65. House GOP leadership claimed that a "partisan" speech by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hurt the feelings of their rank-and-file, causing them to change their votes to "No". We don't know if any of them cried and stamped their feet in rage.

Seriously, the Democrats fulfilled their obligation to support the bill, and that includes Obama. The Republicans did not, despite Senator McCain's specific efforts and claims to the contrary. So trying to turn this around and blame it on Obama and the Democrats is...just the kind of sleazy lying that the nation has come to expect from the Republicans, I'm sorry to say.

And it's pretty clear that the nation is starting to tune it out.

Personally, I'm pretty dubious about this bailout bill. I'm not at all sure it's a good thing for the middle class; the Bush administration and Republicans got us into this mess with their sociopathic regulation-cutting over the past 28 years, and now the American people have to bail out their Wall Street billionaire buddies? That's just wrong. That money should come out of Halliburton, the Bush/Cheney family fortunes, and the pockets of all their campaign contributors; every single one of them should be on WELFARE before the rest of the American people have to shell out one dime.

But in any case, for Republicans to blame DEMOCRATS for the failure of the bill to pass is such blatant black-is-white, up-is-down, in-your-face lying that I simply couldn't let it pass without saying something. It takes real contempt for the intelligence of your readers to post that sort of bare-faced lie!

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I have to wonder if the post will be deleted as being too insulting...which is why I posted a copy here.

Someone irritated me greatly over on Askville by asking why it is that "conclusions" of economics are not generally accepted - such as, specifically, the "evils of a minimum wage".

Sometimes I wonder if anyone over on Askville ever asks an honest question. It seems that nine out of ten of them are asked to evangelize a religion, propagandize a political position or candidate, or sell something. The spammers may be the most honest of the lot!

Anyway, here's what I wrote in response:

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"Evils" of a minimum wage?

I think that particular "conclusion" isn't accepted because A) it's not a generally agreed-upon conclusion of economics (except among right-wing "free market" radicals and libertarians), and B) the ruthless and destructive behavior of many of America's most prominent corporations has made it eminently clear to anyone with a functioning brain that without a minimum wage, corporations would happily pay workers a penny a day - as they practically do in many parts of the world - and simply replace their workers as they drop off the economic map into utter poverty.

The problem with free-market fanatics is that they fail to recognize that human beings have worth that cannot be calculated in dollars and cents. And that there's a world of things out there that are, likewise, beyond price. How much would you pay for your next breath of air?

I wrote this in a response to a question on Fluther about what to do for someone whose birthday is on 9/11: "What is the appropriate way to handle a birthday on September 11?"

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The person should sit in shame in a darkened room, apologizing to everyone for being born on this holy day. Then the guests should pelt him or her with stones, chanting "9/11!" "9/11!" "9/11!" until their voices give out.

Then everyone can sit down and have a good cry.

Damn. When did Americans become such wimps? How did one day manage to turn America from the beacon of freedom for the world into a torturing, privacy-violating, Constitution-shredding bunch of idiots who will apparently do anything as long as the magic words "9/11" are invoked?

9/11 was bad, yes. But it wasn't as if New York City was nuked, or something. Thousands died, not tens or hundreds of thousands. Does that mean it wasn't bad? Hell no! But other nations have suffered far worse calamities without making such a damned fetish out of it.

It's a birthday party. Have a piece of cake, sing, give some presents. Lighten up!

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Too harsh?

Not being able to leave well enough alone, I then added the following:

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I know! Why not turn it into a theme for the party? You could even make it a party game! Have the birthday cake baked in the shape of the World Trade Center. Then have one of the guests crash a toy airplane into the cake, ruining it. The rest of the guests then pick out some other guest (but never the one who was actually responsible for the crash), and blame him or her for the whole thing.

That person puts on an Arab-style sheet, and then everyone at the party beats the living crap out of him or her...and his or her entire family, as well. Take all their money while you're at it. It's perfectly okay to beat up casual bystanders in the general melee, as long as you never hurt the person who actually destroyed the cake. Anyone who fails to show enough enthusiasm for beating up the designated villian should also be beaten.

Then everyone left standing can call themselves "heroes" and feel really good about themselves. Hurray!

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I seem to have a wicked sense of humor today.

Update: The Fluther moderators deleted my second post. So I deleted Fluther from my links. I don't think I'll be returning there.

Update 2: Why do some sites make it so hard to delete your account? Fluther doesn't have the option, so I had to write to the site owners to request that my account be cancelled. Pity, but I really have no patience left for people without a sense of humor.