perfidy

A good buddy of mine (who, it should be noted, would be amused and bemused if I were to say to him, "10-4, good buddy," for he is not the sort of person to whom such an address is naturally directed, but still believes himself so in his more delusional moments) has hatched a biennial tradition that I'm proud to be part of.

Two years ago, for reasons unknown, the phrase "chicken cheesecake" became current among my good buddy's crowd, mainly to refer to someone whose skirt (metaphorically speaking) was too long for them to successfully complete a manly task. A puss. A pansy. A milquetoast.

The phrase stuck around in my good buddy's head long enough for him to decide it'd be a great idea to actually make chicken cheesecake and have a bake-off.

Blech.

I came in last in that competition, because I chose poorly. I made a nice three-layered Italian-style ricotta cheesecake, the bottom layer flavored with sundried tomatoes and herbs (basil, thyme, oregano), the middle layer being diced sauteed chicken, and the top layer flavored with a basil and spinach pesto. It was a nice red-and-green cross section that actually looked appetizing on the plate. Tasted pretty good too. Unfortunately, Italian-style ricotta cheesecake has a grainy texture very different from the smooth cream cheese New York model, and that texture in a savory application with big flavors absolutely killed me.

The winner was some poor schlub who'd made a poundcake with cream cheese and a couple pureed chicken breasts whizzed into the eggs and milk; you couldn't taste no chicken in that! The runner up, my good buddy, made a yellow cake and festooned the top with shake and bake chicken strips. A cheesecake? Only in the broadest possible sense.

Clearly, I wuz robbed.

This year, the big event is a chili cookoff in which 40% of the score is original and creative use of ingredients. I feel pretty good about my chances; I've got one hell of a secret ingredient; corn smut.

Better known to the Azetcs and their Mexican descendents as "huitlacoche," corn smut is a grey-black fungus that infects ears of corn (maize), growing in and around kernels into distended blobby mutant shapes that look like a particularly malevolent cancer. I hear it tastes great; smoky, woody, sweet and corny.

And wouldn't you know, you can get it through Amazon.

My plan for Corn Smut Chili

1 lb stew beef
1 lb pork butt
1 lg onion, roasted
2 bell peppers, ditto
2 poblano peppers, ditto
much garlic
vegetable stock
beef stock
beer
1 28-oz can tomatoes
1-2 Tbsp chili powder
2 Tbsp cumin
1 Tbsp dry mexican oregano
2 tsp dry thyme
1 tsp dry epazote
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cocoa
1/2 tsp allspice
1 tsp coriander
3 Tbsp chipotle peppers in adobo
3 cups roasted frozen corn
1 lb dry black beans, cooked
1 12 oz can pozole (lime-cured whole corn kernels)
2 7.6 oz cans huitlacoche
2 dashes liquid smoke

I may also try to find room for two cups of blueberries in there, because why the hell not? That all sort of depends how the master recipe comes out.

I plan to bribe the judge by serving the chili with a garnish of fresh pico de gallo with plenty of cilantro, a side of corn chips, and a tequila shooter in a hollowed-out lime that's been rimmed with salt.

[wik] I won! Oh yes, I won. And this may have been the best pot of chili I have ever made. With or without the corn smut (which did add some very welcome flavor nuances just as I'd hoped) this is a dynamite recipe.

While enjoying a midnight snifter of umbilical blood and Asbach- a drink called the “Baby Hitler”, customary among Perfidians- I settled into my favorite wing-backed chair and, once satisfied my back was against the wall and there were still two exits from the room, I allowed myself to relax.

My mind was pleased with the state of things: perpetual war; incurable pestilence; rampant poverty; and irredeemable sloth and corruption are all fundamental aspects of modern Man. Across the Multiverse, even, Light has been retreating before Dark for millennia. Good is out across the infinite Cosmos; Evil is cool, and Chaos is the new/old/new black. It is in those circumstances that the Ministry thrives. And so I was, by conscious reckoning anyway, content.

But as the coal-fired hemoglobin started to pull me under, my unconscious offered a disturbing realization: soon, very soon, there will be no new frontiers to conquer, no more people or species to corrupt. Possibly even before the Third Millennium of the Son, all will be dark. Evil will reign, but over what?

Startled, I jerked from my semi-dream so suddenly that the vivid images and impending dread drained from my mind like water. It was only with a bit of reflection, and a couple more drinks, that I was able even to recall even as much as I have. One detail, though, was burned into my conscious and needed no further prompting to retain. A vision as clear as the sun I so loathe.

It was a marquee.

And the marquee proclaimed: “The Ministry of Minor Perfidy: The Movie”.

And it was clear then that film was the last frontier for evil to continue to spawn. Even after the final curtain for homo sapiens- as our civilization evaporates into supernova, or dread demon Thaoekilikhan devours us all feet first- there will be entertainment lawyers, studio executives, and armies of hacks still surviving, somewhere, like roaches. And like roaches, they will do what comes naturally to them: making entertainment so bad it perpetuates the cause of pure evil everywhere.

The Ministry needs to make a movie. The first biopic about a blog. There is no script yet, but that’s rarely stopped filmmakers before. I do have some ideas about casting though:

JohnO: Toss-up between Steve Buscemi or Charlie Sheen.

Buckethead: I’m leaning toward Lawrence Fishburne.

Patton: Maybe Billy Crudup; maybe Billy Bob Thornton. Definitely someone named “Billy”.

Ross: Jet Li.

Me: Could go Carlos Mencia; if unavailable, get Lee Van Cleef back from the dead.

Speaking only for myself, this comes as a total shock. So much so that I'm not sure I know who I am any more.

(Article text included here simply to avoid risk of link rot)

Paris Hilton: I'm not that smart

By BECI WOOD
September 22, 2006

IN probably the least shocking celebrity statement of the decade, Paris Hilton has admitted that she’s "not like that smart". The confession was made when the star helped police officers with an investigation into a burglary at the house of Hollywood porn baron Joe Francis.

When cops asked her what she knew, the socialite said: "I'm not that smart... I don’t remember... I forget stuff all the time." The man in question, Darnell Riley, admitted the offence earlier this year and was sentenced to nearly 11 years in prison. On the tape Paris also told cops that an anonymous man had called her to try and extort money for the return of 'private tapes' stolen from her house.

"They were trying to sell it to a newspaper or something," she explained. "So if you pay somebody, then you're gonna be paying for the rest of your life."

"My dad always taught me. They'll keep the tape anyway."

There is a new drink product out, and it has a provocative name. So provocative, that the usual suspects have their panties in a twist. The drink is an energy drink with the compelling name of "Cocaine." For your reference, I include a pic of the drink can in question:

It contains no actual cocaine, so we aren't seeing the rebirth of the original, original Coke. Instead, it contains merely a shitload of caffiene. The only drink that is, pound per pound, more caffiene laden is espresso. And espresso doesn't normally come in large cans. 280mg of caffiene is quite a jolt, and the maker claims that you can get this magical jolt of energy without the twitchiness and sugar crash that normally accompanies energy drinks. So far, so good. But wait:

But David Raynes, of the UK National Drug Prevention Alliance, said: "It is people exploiting drugs. It is a pretty cynical tactic exploiting illegal drugs for their own benefit." Mr Raynes added: "The fact is that subliminally, it is making the image of drug use cool and that's what kids what to be, cool...

"Kids will be drinking Cocaine and will inevitably link the two. The drink is relatively innocuous, but they will be linking it with cocaine use and the market, which is far from innocuous."

To the extent that drug use isn't already considered "cool" among the youth of this nation, I'm sure that this drink will push them all over the brink. Elementary school kids will be shooting up on the swings and slides of our playgrounds. Youngsters will be smoking crack at Chuck E. Cheese's. Armageddon will be nigh, thanks to the mildly ironic name of this perfidious energy drink.

Once again, some people need to take a stress tab, so that we can talk about this reasonably. I find it increasingly hard (aside from the explosions, of course) to distinguish any difference in tone between these health nazi pc types and the Islamic fundamentalists who get their panties in a twist when the Pope mentions that, maybe, sometimes, Islam and violence have lived on the same street.

What is it with these people. Words are magical. We can, through their magic, assign meanings to things, and then arrange those things in pleasing, orderly or useful arrangements. But they are not magical in the well, magical sense. They do not bind or control us. If I, or some punk kid, or even my three year old son see the word "Cocaine" on a can of soda, he, me or they are not magically compelled, geased, to go buy some Bolivian Party Powder. Nor are Muslims magically compelled by the law of similarity to riot in the street because some Pope somewhere says the words "Islam" and "Violence" in the same sentence. (Not that you'd be odd for suspecting that, really.)

It's probably just me, but when I see a story headline like "CBC head quits after defecation, bestiality remarks", it's like I'm at a train wreck, or, for that matter, stuck in Houston traffic near an accident - I have to at least have a look. (Except for that last bit - I'm actually one of an apparently small number of Houston drivers who can ignore any accident that's not blocking the freeway, the better to avoid, well, blocking the freeway.)

At least that story's subject can easily be inferred from the title - the head cheese at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. had a failure of editorial control, logorrhea, if you like, about a couple subjects, and got turfed for the indiscretion. Whatever works for the Canadian government, who had "lost confidence" in him.

The really difficult ones, I think are like this: "Dry as a dead dingo's donger", from the September 2, 2006 issue of The Economist.

Sadly, that one's behind the subscriber's-only part of the site, so it's not directly available to non-subscribers. (See note at end of entry, below)

My precognitive abilities fail on such a headline, starting with the fact that there are two words in the title itself that I had to look up. First, I didn't really know what a "dingo" is. I presumed it's the Australian version of a prairie rat. Until I saw that headline, I honestly didn't care. But by now, Wikipedia to the rescue, and I've looked it up. Pfft! Turns out it's just a wild dog. Next time I hear someone holler "Dingo took my baby!", I'll be somewhat more skeptical. Although, come to think of it, for a dingo to take someone's baby, it would seem necessary that a dingo be bigger than the prairie rat of my fevered imagination. So please forget that I mentioned the rat.

Second, what the hell is a "donger", I said to myself? I guessed it could have been some abstract, made-up name to play the foil in an odd humor piece, from the movie Sixteen Candles. Nahh, too simple. Other sites who've used that phrase long before September 2006 provided no further information on the matter, and, like the Economist, appear to have used it for its headline value, without informing me what, praytell, a donger actually was. Same deal with another site, talking about the return of American Idol, back in 2005. But the only reason for the use of the phrase in that context, according to the site's author, was, and I quote:

*did a search for "dry as a" and this was the funniest

Perhaps that's what drove the Economist's headline writer.

But I still hungered to know how I was supposed to process the word "donger", and so far, almost all I'd seen other than the aforementioned sites was a host of others referring to people (unfortunately, I presumed) named Donger. Or the Doneger Group, an outfit who really might reconsider their choice of search engine optimization service providers, unless I could come to the conclusion that there's nothing even remotely off-putting about this "donger" which can apparently be found attached to dead "dingoes". How many things could possibly fit such a set of criteria?

And things weren't looking good - I found a site defining "Dinker Donger", and it fit my preconception of the intended meaning. But remember - I had a preconception of what a dingo was, too, so I was willing to ignore that one, since it was a compound phrase, and might be inapplicable as a result. And I continued my search.

Since I was already at the Urban Dictionary site, a site that's clearly almost as authoritative as Wikipedia itself (and that's saying something!), I just used their search function to see if the word could be found, in isolation.

Turns out, it could. And it further turns out that while I suck at identifying common names for Cannis lupus dingo, my initial Spidey-sense that the Economist was having a funny on its readers was correct.

Oh, and according to that eminent authority, the Urban Dictionary, there are several other possible interpretations of the phrase "a dead dingo's donger", given that "dingo" (6th and 7th definitions) isn't always a "mythical (?) dog-like creature of Australia" (1st definition).

Who knew?

The Economist article, by the way, while listed at their site as unavailable to non-subscribers, has already been poached by a free site (though for all I know, they got reprint permission), and synopsified by another. So you can view the cut of its intended jib at either of those two places, if you don't subscribe to the Economist.

I'd have been more forthcoming about the article itself if its contents had had even the slightest thing to do with this post, but they don't, so I wasn't. However, it's an interesting article about an impending environmental crisis in Australia.

Not to repeat myself, but who knew?

[wik] After a casual re-read of this post, to check for typos, it occurred to me I'd missed one other possible interpretation for the CBC head's "retirement". It's the sort of thing James Taranto would have a field day with, if he wrote about articles on defecation and bestiality.

One could, if one didn't read the article, get the impression he was kicked to the curb (or do they spell it "kerb" in the Great White North, like the Brits do?) for having taken a shit (or do they refer to it as "leaving a shit" in the Great White North, like George Carlin used to?) right before launching into an extended dissertation about bestiality. Which might have been even funnier, come to think of it.

It was only a rumor. A legend.

Spanish cured ham so silky, so toothsome as to practically defy description. And one terrible side effect of our nation's rules and import barriers was that the Food and Drug Administration prohibited its import. Like many raw-milk French cheeses, the unfettered and wild processes of bacteria, enzymes, and sheer time presented a horrible spectre of infestation to the crabbed pencil pushers who thronged its halls.

Like, come on! The whole point of curing meat or milk is to render it impervious to rot or infestation. Why the hell can't it come into the country? It's only been three thousand years since mankind perfected the process!! Am I to believe that a raw-milk Camembert is, on the face of it, more harmful to the good of America than Mohammed Fucking Atta? Who they let in the country?? JESUS CHRIST!!!!

Shit.

Where was I?

Right. So there's this ham they make in Spain, from pigs from Castille that are fattened on acorns and whose loin is rubbed with a combination of herbs and spiced before being painstakingly cured with great love and care in the gentle Spanish breezes. Salt and bacteria do their thing. The enzymes in the cells of the loin of pork do their thing. The spectacular alchemy of man and nature coalesce in a transcendent display of pinnacle of the art of charcuterie. And you couldn't usedta get it here.

But not no more. It's here. Yesterday when I bought some it was $99.95 a pound. Today it's $199.95. A pound.

Some dudes eat a pounda steak as an appetizer.

So I bought some. I'm a big fan of European cured meats. There's this French stuff they make out of pork that sort of smells like a urinal but tastes like God himself came down and put the taste of manna on your tongue. The Poles make dry kielbasas that don't so much fill the stomach as feed the soul (many props to Mrs. GeekLethal!). And I'm the kind of asshole who, when staring face to face with a piece of a dead animal that has been through a process and a series of trade barriers that renders it as costly and valuable as good-ass weed, I have to try some.

I say again: I like meat that smells like bum piss. That's some amazing stuff. Silky, smooth, sweet, salty, subtle, astonishingly good. That stuff is about $15 a pound. Is meat that today goes for ten times that price ten times as good? Can anything that eventually becomes shit possibly be worth that much money?

I'll tell you.

I bought twelve paper-thin and translucent slices of fine Spanish ham. Just north of one ounce for $7. Took it home. Laid it out on a plate. Absorbed its aroma. Savored its flavor. I ate twelve paper-thin slices of fine Spanish ham all on their lonesome, and I'll tell you.

Ehh, it's pretty good.

Episode One, In which our hero taunts and humiliates the villain, and discovers that not all Nigerian widows are lying.

I meant to post this a while back, but John over at Texas Best Grok linked to a fascinating page of Bill Waterson rarities. I've always been a big fan of Calvin and Hobbes, and this is just cool.

If I've got this right, six monkeys, tossed in the air, would land on their heads as often as their tails... The internet, natural habitat of all things pointless and nevertheless fascinating, is of course home to the Monkey Shakespeare Simulator. Here, billions upon quadrillions of electronic monkeys munch bananas and type, hoping to produce - despite a complete lack of knowledge of literature or even language - the complete works of the Bard. The current record, according to the page, is 24 letters from Henry IV, Part 2.

Amazingly, my monkeys - enlisted in my service when I loaded the page - managed to duplicate the first 40 characters of Romeo and Juliet:

After 6.18685e+77 pages in this session, a monkey typed:

Sampson. Gregory: A my word wee'l not caoyF
v9MYN;.(pGVEd0O?9LiCF.
:O(Y...

the first 40 letters of which match "Romeo and Juliet"
This occured after 3.92099e+73 monkey-years in this session,
when there were 8.00248e+73 monkeys.

Excitement! I set a record! Instantly, I submitted my results to the webmaster. My excitement abated dramatically when I realized that I was getting 38 and 39 letters of various plays with amazing regularity. Checking back now, I see that I have racked up 40 letters from Henry VI, Part 2 and the Tempest over the last ten minutes or so. My apparent record is, seemingly, more an artifact of inattention on the part of the people who run the website than due to any puissance inherent in my electric monkeys. This is confirmed by a closer reading of the large type near the top of the page, which informs me that new entries are not being accepted thanks to a lack of resources. Cheap bastards.

Still, until proven otherwise, I have the record! Mine, mine, mine, mine.

When my parents drive out to visit goodwyfe Johno and myself, they usually bring a giant haul of goodies; vegetables from their garden, blueberries or apples from their bushes and trees, and jams, jellies, and pickles. Usually, they bring more than we can possibly use.

Two weeks ago my parents came to town, and when they left, our refrigerator and pantry were bursting: leeks the size of baseball bats, summer squash of every size and description, tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans, dozens of yellow onions tasting of the Ohio earth they grew in, enough shallots and garlic to see us through to spring 2008 (at least), and a good eight pounds of blueberries.

Now, my parents' blueberries are spectacular. Some of them are gigantic and mellow specimens, but others are much smaller and a little tart, but absolutely full of flavor.

And me being me, the first thing I thought this year when faced with eight pounds of berries, was "hey - I can make beer out of that!" (Of course, that's what I think every time I see a potato, pepper, bag of kaffir lime leaves, cherry, apple, or old shoe, so it's not like I'm exactly making a leap here.) Many, if not most, blueberry beers are made with blueberry essence or extract, which imparts the flavor of blueberries without turning the beer purple. Unfortunately, blueberry extracts tend to behave a lot like imitation vanilla - if buried way down in the mix as part of a recipe, they work great and do the job of providing acceptable flavor for a minimum cost. However, once they take center stage, their shortcomings (mainly the one-dimensionality of their flavor) become apparent. And although I could certainly come by canned blueberry pulp or several kinds of extract from a beer supplier, here I am with fresh berries and an overzealous desire to do everything the hard way.

So I say, "nuts to all that!" If my beer must be purple, so be it! I have fresh berries to use, and as God is my witness, they shall be beer!

Brew #11: Buckeye Blueberry Ale

1 Munton & Fison Export Pilsener kit, hopped liquid malt extract.
1 lb honey (in this case, wildflower honey from local bees, because I'm like that.)
2 lb frozen Ohio blueberries
EasYeast European Ale Yeast, liquid

For this recipe, which was going to be a blueberry wheat until my supplier didn't have any wheat malt, I used for the first time a can of hopped malt extract that does not require boiling before fermentation. To make an all-malt beer, you need two such cans, but since I'm after not only a light-colored but a light-bodied beer, I went with one can of malt extract, one pound of honey both for alcohol and for a dry finish, and whatever sugar turns out to be in the berries.

Since this recipe didn't require boiling, this was an ass-easy brew.

Brought two gallons spring water to a boil and added the berries in a gauze bag. Held for 15 minutes at 160-180 degrees to pasteurize. Added the malt extract and honey and held at 160-180 for ten more minutes to pasteurize the honey, which was probably not necessary but the safe thing to do.

Removed brew pot to an ice bath and reduced to 75 degrees. Added three gallons of room-temperature distilled water to fermentor and added contents of brew pot, including the bag of berries. Poured the wort back and forth to aerate. Pitched yeast at 72 degrees and fitted airlock.

At pitching, this is a pale beer with a dramatic orangy-pinky-purply tinge from all the anthocyanin pigments released from the frozen berries. You ever peed the morning after eating a lot of beets? My beer is that color. Cool.

I don't really expect that very much berry flavor is going to survive the primary fermentation - it's probably mostly going to fly out the airlock with the gases. As such, I'm considering adding another pound or so of berries at the end of primary that will macerate in the young beer and replace the lost berry flavor. This will also kickstart another small fermentation as the yeast eat the fresh berry sugars. If I can figure out a way to pasteurize the berries (maybe by heating them to 20 minutes and cooling them in a sanitary environment?) I'll try this. Or, I might just let it go and see what I get for the minimum of effort.

It's a bit of a mystery as to whether this beer will turn out well. But, if I did everything right the first time, I'd never learn anything.

[wik] Very light body with a orangy-purple color and a light pink head. Flavor is very light, almost watery, buy crisp and tart from the faint berry flavor. Not a home run, but nicely engaging as a glass to drink. I'll need to double the fruit and add in some light crystal malt next time in order to make it really good. On the other hand, the yeast is really nice and I want to see it in something darker for sure.

One of my favorite flicks, Full Metal Jacket, was on last night.

For me, the whole movie is the first half or so. Everything after the suicide scene gets weirder and weirder, it starts to drag, and byt he end I really don't care what happens to these characters, who I nominally cared about to begin with anyway. But every scene that includes Gunnery Sergeant Hartman cracks me up. And the harder he pushes his recruits, the harder I laugh. Lady Lethal, who I have asked to endure the movie in the past, doesn't really get it. Even after I pause the scene, and repeat the rapid-fire obscenities just to make sure she got them, she agrees they're terrible but can't quite get from there to humor. So, alas, I laugh alone.

And for no better reason than because I fucking feel like it, here are two quotes from FMJ that crack me up to tears. These have been washed and then, heh, back-washed through Altavista's web translator:

Who said that? To whom did the Bumsen say that? Who has slimy little communist shit, Twinkle toed more cocksucker down here, who signed straight its own Exekutionsbefehl? Nobody, huh? Fairy fucking the patin said it. From bumsenden standing. I will pint it all cube bumsender to it. I will pint you to their ass hole suck butter milk.

And my personal fave:

Private Pyle you had the best place your ass far and beginning shitting I them cufflinks or me of Tiffany get stuffed will certainly upwards.

Curiously, with the movie fresh in my mind, astonishingly perceptive-and loyal- reader Othershoe provided me this link to discussion of what Joker calls "the Jungian thing". I went two ways with this exchange. First, I was excited at reading reasonably detailed explanations or interpretations of Kubrick's intentions and results with Jungian philosophy in the film. Then, about halfway through, I thanked the Dark Ones that my college days are safely behind me and I didn't have to listen to a roomful of students discuss the hidden, and probably made-up, meanings in movies.

Mad props to Othershoe for providing a trifecta of entertainment, nostalgia, and the creeping feeling you're going to blow the final, all in one swell foop.

God bless the lowly search function. I knew that, at some time in the past, Minister Johno had admitted his admiration for the Mexican soap opera.

Due to my advancing years, it helps, of course, that said admission happened within the last three months, but never mind that. I remembered.

And while it wasn't the key point of his missive, or even anything other than a footnote, the second of many such footnotes, it caused me to stop and pay attention to a story in today's Wall Street Journal, entitled "With Sexy Story Lines, Low Budgets, News Corp. Will Launch MyNetworkTV" (sadly, unless I get lucky by linking to the "print" page, subscription required).

Now, my entire exposure to the Mexican soap opera can be found in old episodes of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", when Ryan Stiles was called upon to do improvisations on such things, and always made his point by using his hands to simulate having big, bouncy, heaving sweater puppets. So I, perhaps more than the average normal reader, was taken by the phrasing used by Brooks Barnes in describing the upcoming offering from News Corp. To wit:

Every time News Corp. launches a new television business, it turns to programming that entrenched players decry as schlocky and culturally debasing. Then, in many cases, the company starts printing money.

What? This sounds like fun, even for a guy who's got perhaps two TV shows he watches with any regularity. The article continues:

On Tuesday, Roger Ailes, chairman of News Corp.'s Fox Television Stations, will flip the switch on MyNetworkTV, a new broadcast network that will feature a novel format for mainstream U.S. television: Super-sexy -- and super-cheap -- prime-time soap operas that air six nights a week for limited runs.

It's an over-the-top format borrowed from Spanish-language broadcasters. While story lines on American soaps can drag on for years, Spanish soaps, or telenovelas, deliver immediate gratification. They wrap everything up after 13 weeks, offer a cliffhanger in each episode and culminate with shocking finales that can rack up Super Bowl-size ratings -- just the formula that MyNetwork hopes to duplicate.

U.S. viewers may be jolted by the style and content of the two shows MyNetwork is rolling out next week -- "Desire" and "Fashion House." But "Fox has a way of turning unsophisticated, simplistic programming into a success," says Laura Caraccioli-Davis, an executive vice president at ad-buying firm Starcom Entertainment. She adds: "And this is definitely unsophisticated."

(emphasis, of course, mine)

I'm not sure if they're trying to up the sophistication, or to provide full employment for second-tier talent in Hollywood (neither of which would offend me, nor would they improve my quality of life), but their approach might provide something to help waste more of Johno's increasingly limited free time:

MyNetwork has largely hired actors with limited experience. And in another bid to save money, it is buying telenovela scripts from Mexico, Cuba and other Spanish-speaking countries and translating them into English. It employs a staff of writers to smooth out the story lines and winnow the shows down to 65 episodes from 120, and taping is done on union soundstages well outside the Hollywood infrastructure in San Diego.

Schlock TV, but now in English, with "smoother" story lines, and shorter runs. What more could we ask for in mindless entertainment?

And it's not that I have a problem with mindless TV. Perhaps I'm the only guy who remembers a feature that used to be on (the Comedy Channel? - heck, it might still be on for all I know), called Short Attention Span Theater. Reading the plot development for one episode, SAST was the first thing that came to mind, minus the alleged comedy:

The plot points are rapid-fire. "Desire" is the tale of two brothers who are on the run from the Mafia and happen to be in love with the same woman; one brother sleeps with two different women, dodges a spray of bullets and escapes from an exploding building -- and that's just in the opening 10 minutes of the first episode.

For those rare cases when I'm in the mood to watch crap (and of course, sometimes I am), I prefer that it be really efficiently delivered crap, so that I can either watch twice as much in the allotted time, or spend half as much time watching it.

News Corp to the rescue, it would seem. And I'm rather looking forward to seeing just how bad this stuff can possibly be.

[wik] This all reminds me - I really miss MST3K. Is it still shown anywhere on cable?

[alsø wik] I was surprised to preview this story and see the phrase "...fuck, it might still be on for all I know", and came back here to the entry to find out if I had suffered Tourette's Syndrome. Nope - I typed "h e c k". Honest. Blogging software is amazing, no?

This edition of Forgotten Punchline Thursday has been made possible by a grant from the Society for Creative Negation. By pushing the boundaries of how humans conceive of, express, and contend with the word “no”, the Society furthers humankind’s understanding of crushing disappointment.

The Ministry also thanks Cthulhu’s Own-brand Mandible Wax and Cavity Sheen for their generosity. To lend an unearthly glow to your Earth-bound minions, trust Cthulhu’s Own.

Forthwith, today’s Forgotten Punchline:

“Ugnnh! Ughnnh! Ugnhh!”

Ran across this today:

"My friends,

"I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey.

"If when you say whiskey you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.

"But;

"If when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.

"This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise."

The Clarion Ledger, Saturday, February 24, 1996, Jackson, MS, p. 3B.

God Bless Mississippi State Representative Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat, Jr. for making this speech for, and against, the legalization or prohibition of alcohol in that state.

"... and so the Munchkin said, 'follow the yellow dick toad!'"

This week's Forgotten Punchline was made possible by a grant from Cthulhu's Own Tentacle Salve and Beak Balm. For the unholy irritation caused by dry, cracked appendages, summon the Unholiest: Cthulhu's Own.

Further support was provided by Krill. Krill: Wild Rice of the Briny Deep. With Legs.

Forthwith, today's forgotten punchline:

"So the cowboy drops his pants and says, 'Lady, this just ain't your day'".

Everyone loves demotivators. They are the quintessential ironic artifact of my generation. It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before love of demotivators and obsession with Star Trek met and merged in the mind of one sick individual with no life.

That time is now:

It's nice to see someone else thinks that.

More excellent Star Trek Demotivators below the fold. And, don't forget to make your own!

While we're on the topic of webcomics, we would be remiss in not bringing to your attention Dr. Fun. Here's a sample:

I know that the squirrels in my back yard think the same of my dog Bodhi. But sacrificing Bodhi probably won't get them in good with the nut gods. Most likely, it'll give the nut deity indigestion. I think this guy made a very successful sacrifice to the nut gods.

Another new (to me) webcomic. It's called "Muhammad's Believe It or Else". Why read something that mocks one of the great religions of the world? If you need a reason, and we here at the ministry most certainly do not, there's this from the introduction:

Why Mock Islam?

Because it is therapeutic! Mocking is a very powerful way to convince those who are unwilling to think to do it. Shame is a great motivator.

I don't know if this will have any effect on Islam, aside from pissing it off. But, since we've already done that just by not being Muslim, what have we got to lose?

This edition of Forgotten Punchline Thursday is brought to you in part by Krill. Krill: Food for Everything Else.

Further support furnished by a grant from the Newport Trust for Social Preservation, maintaining class divisions and historic mansions you can never possibly own -ever- and thereby making you feel like a failure, since 1933.

Today's Forgotten Punchline:

"Because of Goehring, I'm going back to my old profession."