The Bubbha’s Frontporch

I guess I’ve been out of the loop on South Parks lately, but I thought at least one of my nerd friends would have informed me about this South Park episode. For anyone, like me, who has seen the cartoon “Heavy Metal” a thousand times, then you MUST see this. Major Boobage. Just as a side note, I wonder if this writer’s strike has encourage shows to put complete episodes online. Either way for someone without cable I definitely reap the rewards. No more bittorrent downloading of Battlestar.

Watched this two part Frontline expose’ or news documentary on the lead up to the war (part one) and the administration of post-war Iraq (part two). I highly recommend it. The upper echelon power struggle and closed door dealings in the White House was very eye opening. This exhaustive news story was conducted primarily by interviewing as many people involved who would go on camera as possible. I honestly came away from this with a more positive view of Bush. Going from a 0 out of 10 to a 1. Chaney, Rumsfield, and Wolfowitz seem like warmongers bent on a total American domination over all the peoples of the Earth. No surprise there. I don’t really believe in any sort of 9/11 conspiracy, BUT if there is one it is one of complacency. Perhaps, someone was aware of some sort of plan that was about to go down and just stood idly by. A terrorist attack would set into motion a Neocon plan that was public at least for a year before 9/11.

Further, the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a
new Pearl Harbor.

If you don’t want to read it, I’ll summarize. Let’s invade Iraq, get at that oil. Stability and democracy will flourish in the Mid
East once all the other countries see how awesome Iraq has become. If they don’t see, then we will make them, launching our attacks from our bases in Iraq. Peace will come from War. War = Peace. How Orwellian.

Blah, blah, blog. You should watch this Frontline piece.

Well, it’s the fourth day of the NCAA tournament and I’m done. It’s almost as if I was trying to lose. Yesterday I lost a final four pick in Duke and today lost my tournament champion pick in G-Town. Seems like an above average year for upsets or maybe its just me…I’m upset. So now in typical sore loser fashion I officially put a hex on all the top seeded teams. Good news though, my hexes usually work in reverse.
A POX ON YOU AND YOUR HOUSE UCLA!
MAY YOUR SEED FALL ON BARREN SOIL NORTH CAROLINA!
MAY YOUR KITCHEN SINK GET CLOGGED MEMPHIS!
MAY GAS PRICES DOUBLE THE DAY OF YOUR FAMILY VACATION KANSAS!

Ahhhh. Cathartic.

And so comes the time of year where I pretend to myself that I care or know much about college basketball. While, yes, it is true I went to a prominent basketball school during my college years, I have since moved on to more pressing matters. For instance, drinking beer. One would think that the two pursuits would go hand in hand…. to be honest with you they do. However, it’s the degree that I take beer drinking that prevents me from integrating something that requires an attention span. When I attempt to combine the two activities I start off OK, but as soon as the first commercial is on I have to make a comment and yell at the TV. One may hear during the Michigan St./Kentucky game, “What the hell is up with these Head-on commercials? People complained about the first ones, only to be replaced with annoying amateur actors that have no business having a camera pointed at them. It reminds me of when they made the Mask only to be followed with the Son of the Mask. Who names sequels “The Son of” anymore? Didn’t that go out of style in the 30’s?” And so on. Next thing you know the game is over.

Nevertheless I will be filling out my brackets along with the millions of other schlubs out there. It’s one of the few traditionally American things in which I participate. Gambling. Well, if Bingo could be considered gambling. Gambling-lite. (I don’t like typing this, it seems trite. It’s like using the “on steroids” phrase.) Gambling-on-a-hunger-strike-in-China-due-to-a-repressive-government. (Better!) But I would do this even if the money wasn’t involved. I think the reason why people join in so excitedly at filling out the brackets in the newspaper is the off chance that they know something unknowable. It’s a test of intuition. A chance to say, “I knew they were going to win,” even though you had no fucking idea. Or in the case of myself, another opportunity to crumble up my paper printout, curse the stars, and realize that beer is my only friend.

THIS WAS ONE OF THE MOST PAINFUL MOMENTS OF MY LIFE

If you’re like me then you don’t sweat the details. Just get a vague understanding of certain key things and most people will fill in the blank spaces with intelligence. The blank spaces are the vacuous parts of your brain. You just have to know slightly more than the people with whom you are talking. However, if a physicist enters the room, shut the hell up. Here are a few things that if you can remember it will garner you a reputation of knowing a lot about quantum physics. Disclaimer: If you are a guy, this will in no way equate to you getting laid.

Photons: Light is a wave and a particle.

Heisenburg’s Uncertainty Principle: Pick your poison: Space or Time. You can’t have both.

Schrodinger’s Cat: Matter doesn’t matter until it matters to you.

Just say this at some point in your physic’s diatribe: “God indeed plays dice, in fact he has a full blown gambling addiction.”

Relativity (general, special, & familial)

If you want to sound current mention string theory.

Planck’s Constant: A quantum ruler.

Grand Unified Field Theory: 42

Double slit apparatus: Not as fun as it sounds.

Everett many-worlds interpretation: There’s a helluva universe next door.

March 13th is the Church of Scientology founder’s birthday. A date which falls closely to the auspicious Ides of March. Apparently this coincidence was not overlooked by the group calling it self Anonymous. A group that you might remember spearheaded the worldwide protests last month against the religious organization, which they refer to in text as “Co$” for obvious reasons. The protests that are referred to as “raids” are planned to occur worldwide on the 15th of March. Should be interesting to see if this gets any media attention. The last protest did a bit. Honestly, I thought these guys would get bored and move on to something else, but they’re showing some real persistence.
BRING CAKE!

I saw that the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gygax, died today from undisclosed causes. I heard a thousand nerd voices crying out at once and were suddenly silent. One more inappropriate joke, but this one is not original. I saw this on many blogs today: “Creator of D&D dies today, fails saving throw vs. death.” Well, I have to admit that I’ve enjoyed many hours of entertainment from this game he designed.
In fact, some of those hours occurring in the past 6 weeks. Currently the party is in a huge battle with orcs, bugbears, and gnolls. It “raged” on for hours last week with many crappy 20 sided rolls until we had to call it a night. It’s a weak replacement for the fast paced game of World of Warcraft, but not as life consuming. Its the basketball to D&D’s futball/soccer. Or maybe ping-pong to baseball. Oh well, I’m not good at these analogies, you get the point. If you’ve ever wondered how dorky it can get I recommend this good-for-amateurs movie that I found. Here’s the trailer. (Careful with the volume)
It’s EXACTLY like this! But I mean I live in the middle of Illinois, what else am I going to do? Really it’s more of an excuse to get drunk….it’s not like I’m really into it or anything. Umm, I’m cool. Nevertheless, here’s to Mr. Gygax (uber cool name btw). Schmendric the Wizard and the Elves of the Emerald Shroud mourn his passing!

Not saying anything original here, but on the eve of the most important two primaries left for the democrats it is imperative that Obama win Texas or Ohio. Going by the polls it looks like its going to be Texas (hopefully) and not Ohio. I feel this way not because I’m a big Obama supporter or a Democratic party supporter, but it’s because I despise dirty no good politicians. For some reason, here lately, the Republicans have been full of these fucks. They’ve been infected by the likes of the NeoCons (Project for a New American Century) and men compensating for their neurotic behaviours. You look at these men and you find the dirty filth of 40 years of human subjugation, malicious international manipulation, and bloody pockets full of cocaine encrusted dollar bills. Let’s try to think of a few that come to mind in the last few years (just off the top of head). Rumsfield, Chaney, Bush, Alberto Gonzales, Tom DeLay, Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, John Negroponte, Mark Foley, and Larry Craig. Sure, you say, this is biased, what about the democrats? Oh yeah, that’s right…some guy hid bribe money in his freezer. And, hmmm, I’m sure there’s other things. Drawing a blank here. So that’s why Obama needs to win. Because if this primary election goes on much longer those two will drag each other down too low to beat McCain. McCain is fine…for a Republican, but this isn’t the time for these guys to win again. They really need to be taught a lesson and put into their place. Unchecked power for 8 years will create a party full of depraved maniacs drunk on the juices of government toxic waste and dripping sweat of legislative orgies in the congressional rotunda. So please, lets end this tomorrow. Nothing against Hillary, but if we lose this one we might not ever have a chance to put these guys in their places for years to come. Endless war isn’t the vision I have for this country.

So Obama pronounces the state of Massachusetts as “Massatusetts.” I missed the debate the other day, but apparently he said it twice. So a slip of the tongue wasn’t the reason. The reason it struck me was this popular mispronunciation has been a running joke between my wife and myself since Christmas. A family member is totally incapable of pronouncing it any other way. At a certain point in a person’s life the cement dries and it takes explosives to chip away at it. So I just gave up trying to correct him. I saw a clip of Jessica Simpson attempting it, but it came out as “Massa-two-shits.” Its strange how dumb people can create things on accident like that. I’m guilty of these serendipities too, but I’m smart enough to at least pretend like it was on purpose. But it was disturbing to hear Obama say it that way.

Of course, McCain pronounces the present day capital as “Warshington.” Which is strange, because that’s kind of a Southern thing. I’m pretty sure McCain’s not a Southerner. I’m from the south and like I told a friend today, “I can recognize one of my own.” I was listening to Todd Snyder at the time, but the same goes for McCain. Last presidential campaign John Kerry, like any New Englander, would say “idear.” “I have an idear.” “What’s the big idear.” “I have something in my eye, dear.” Where the hell are all these extra R’s coming from? I distinctly remember saying that America would never elect someone that pronounced idea that way. Too bad I was proven right. Not because I’m a Kerry fan, but the alternative was…I mean.

And speaking of that guy, I’m not about to attempt to go into ALL of the crazy misunderpronunciations that have come out of that man’s mouth. I’m going to defend him on the whole Missouree vs. Missourah issue, though. This might come as a surprise to some of you, Missourah is a legitimate way of pronouncing the Show Me State. So the point is I suppose I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it. I mean the governor of California can’t even correctly pronounce the state he governs.

Just in case you somehow missed this, I thought I’d at least throw it up here. Didn’t really feel like posting anything tonight, so this is just a quick little something. I usually watch a little Nightline and then Kimmel before I drift off into dreamland. My real intentions here are to see if I can post a video or not. I haven’t tried it yet, but don’t think I’ll have a problem. This epic video premiered last night after the Oscars. I laughed my ass off. This video is in response to Sarah Silverman’s video, “I’m fucking Matt Damon.” I’m laughing at myself here, pretending to be relevant and cutting-edge. OK, let’s see if this works.

Well, I can get the video up, but it reformats my entire page. So I guess I need to spend more time on this.

Hell yeah!!!!