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Respoiled

In my continuing efforts to recycle material you’ve already seen either on my Twitter feed or on my Facebook wall, here are my entries in the #spoilersdamnit thread started by Bill Corbett:

At Grandpa Joe’s insistence, Charlie enters detox for his fizzy lifting drinking problem.

Rose Budd (nee Walinski) is finally arrested for the vicious murder of Charles Foster Kane.

Dumbledore is an anagram for “Lord Emu Bed.” Think about it.

Soylent Green is fattening.

In the end, Clarence gets his wings — and swoops down to pick off the helpless citizens of Bedford Falls one by one.

The Blue Fairy finally turns Torgo into a real boy.

Something Lost in translation

In my continuing efforts to recycle material you’ve already read (or elected not to read by not following me on Twitter), here are some of the Lost spinoff ideas I posted yesterday. I didn’t originate the thread — and heaven knows I didn’t go as crazy with this as I did with those fake Beatles facts a few months ago — but I enjoyed coming up with these. I am, as always, a sucker for a good (i.e. bad) pun.

All of these require some basic knowledge of the show — and a few, in fact, offer some pretty big spoilers for past seasons. So, even though these have already been posted on Twitter (and re-posted to my Facebook page), enjoy!

Dr. Marvin Candle and his fellow island scientists are thrown back in time to coach the 1920s Brooklyn Dodgers in DHARMA BUMS.

Find mysterious plots, nefarious misdirection, and maybe even love — all aboard NOT PENNY’S LOVEBOAT!

Nigerian guerrilla leader, drug smuggler, priest, and now — family court judge! It’s THE MR. EKO CHAMBER!

By day, he’s a helicopter pilot for hire living the easy life in the Florida Keys. But by night he’s — FRANK LAPIDUS, P.I.

Learn eyeliner tricks and other handy island jungle camouflage on RICHARD ALPERT’S BEAUTY SALON.

Where will lottery winnings take globe-treking millionaire “Hurley” Reyes next? Wherever it is, rest assured, HUGO’S THERE!

Can quantum physics lead a football team to glory? Will this TX town accept its new teacher? Find out on FARADAY NIGHT LIGHTS!

Can a weird string of numbers delivered to his doorstep each morning help Hugo set things right? Find out on HURLEY EDITION.

Explore the many festive uses of dynamite in your home studio with ARZT & CRAFTS.

A kiss is still a kiss

And now, another in what I’m sure will be a long string of misguided efforts to get more of you to follow me on Twitter, or at least to recycle some of the content I’ve posted there.

Yesterday I read this article (via Warren Ellis) about how kissing was perhaps an evolutionary development for the spread of germs. Which seems questionable to me, even if some germs beneficial to pregnant women are sometimes passed in this manner. I do recall Terry Jones suggesting that kissing was “invented” by the ancient Romans. But I’m not sure it was an understanding of infectious diseases so much as a desire to be smooched that led to that development.

(Although if there are any ladies looking to build up their Cytomegalovirus levels…)

Anyway, in response to something else @TwitterRock had posted — okay, a lyric from that Katy Perry song — I forwarded the link about the kiss-based research. And this, below, is what ensued:

Friday various

  • Tonight, I’ll be attending a live taping of The Sound of Young America. It’s streaming live at 8 PM Eastern, if you’d like to watch too. I expect part, or all, of the show will eventually find its way into the radio show and/or podcast.
  • So how is the World, Dubai’s string of man-made paradise islands for the über-wealthy and famous, doing? Not too surprisingly, not too well. [via]
  • Are Twitter users “well on their way to becoming violent, idiotic vagabonds hell-bent on destroying the world”? We can only hope! Every time I read a story like this, or one bemoaning the rise of social networking sites in general, I really don’t know how to respond, since their fears almost never match up with how I (or, I think, most people) use these things. [via] As Noel Murray writes:

    This is a common critique of Twitter: “I don’t need to know what a bunch of strangers had for lunch.” And yet that’s so far removed from the way I use the service that I’m unsure where to begin refuting it. Personally, I only follow a small group of people on Twitter, and I have a limited circle of friends of Facebook. Most of these are people I know—or at least know of. We’re talking to each other about things we’re presumably all interested in; we’re sharing quick thoughts on movies, TV, kids, and the petty annoyances and subtle joys of a passing day. The other day one of my Twitter-followers—someone I don’t follow, I hasten to note—complained that he didn’t like me having a six-or-seven-Tweet exchange with a friend and thereby “cluttering up his feed.” And all I could think was, “Dude, following me is not compulsory.” I think that’s what critics of Twitter often fail to understand. Though some may use Twitter and Facebook as one big “look at me,” the majority are just trying to stay connected with friends, old and new.

  • A live-action Scooby-Doo prequel? And here I was, thinking nothing could make me nostalgic for the Matthew Lillard/Freddie Prinze, Jr. versions… I don’t have a problem with the movie in theory — it would be ridiculous to think Scooby-Doo has any kind of canon that needs protecting, and I remember genuinely liking A Pup Named Scooby-Doo — but in practice, this looks pretty dire.
  • And finally, there’s got to be an easier way to avoid ads in Gmail… [via]

Saturday various

  • Proof again that parasites are the scariest damn things out there. [via]
  • Speaking, sort of, of parasitic mouth-breathers, you have read the single worst sports column ever written, right? The fact that Mark Whicker doesn’t seem to understand how his column trivialized Jaycee Dugard’s horrific 18-year ordeal — and is lousy journalism to boot — is just disgusting. Joe Wilson gave a more sincere apology.
  • Speaking of Wilson, via Twitter Kurt Andersen writes:

    Nobody who applauded the dude in Baghdad who threw his shoe at Bush really has any standing to accuse Joe Wilson of incivility. Right?

    It’s an interesting point, but I do think it’s wrong and maybe over-simplifies. For starters, this is at least partly about context. Shoe-thrower Muntazer al-Zaidi was a journalist attending a press conference, whereas Joe Wilson was a Congressman attending the President’s address to that legislative body. There are different levels of decorum expected, if only by tradition, in those two very different settings. Also Bush is obviously not Iraqi, whereas both Wilson and Obama are Americans, and Iraq was/is a more hostile battleground than health care. (Although you maybe wouldn’t know it, from some of the “debate” and hysteria surrounding the latter.) Both the thrown shoe and presidential heckling were uncivil acts, neither the best solution at the time, but the shoe is more defensible, if only because it was born out of a shared desperation instead of politics. That Wilson was demonstrably wrong about Obama’s so-called lie, and yet has continued to spread his own lies about the proposed governmental health care… Well, it’s tough to continue drawing parallels between the two outbursts.

  • James Patterson signs a 17-book deal “that will keep him with publisher Hachette through 2012.” Do the math: even if the deal goes into effect immediately, that’s 17 books in just over two years, about eight books a year. I guess it’s a good thing James Patterson doesn’t actually have to write well, huh? [via]
  • And finally, this proposed Plan 9 from Outer Space remake…is a joke, right?

    Plan 9 Teaser Trailer from Darkstone Entertainment on Vimeo.