Well, it happened: the Conversation Starter I posed this morning is actually a repeat. I had no recollection of the earlier post — it’s May 6, 2009, for those who are curious — and I genuinely thought I was posing a new question. So, here’s the new question: was this an easily-explained goof on my part since I can’t possibly remember every post I’ve ever created here, or is this the first sign in what will be my long slow decline into inevitable dementia as I end up forgetting my own name? Discuss!
Serious Congressman is Serious
Kevin Drum on the incredible courage of the Paul Ryan budget “plan”:
Ryan ignores Social Security because he knows privatization won’t fly and he doesn’t have the courage to propose a mainstream reform of the system that would be unpopular with conservative mandarins. He exempts seniors and baby boomers from his Medicare plan because he doesn’t have the courage to take on a powerful Republican voting bloc. He eschews details, basing the bulk of his plan on little more than theoretical spending caps, because he doesn’t have the courage to explain what his spending reductions would actually mean. He focuses most of his cuts on programs for the poor because he doesn’t have the courage to tackle weak claims rather than weak claimants. He gives the Pentagon a pass because he doesn’t have the courage to stand up to hawks in his own party. And above all else, he refuses to consider tax increases of any kind because he doesn’t have the courage to take on Grover Norquist and tell his own caucus what every genuinely serious analyst already knows: the only way to tackle the long-term deficit is with both tax hikes and spending cuts.
So explain to me: what’s courageous about a Republican congressman proposing spending cuts for the poor, entitlement cuts only in the far future, tax cuts for the rich today, and hands off the Pentagon forever? Nothing I can think of.
I also love the way this is all being framed as “necessary” to save us from the horrible budget crisis we’re facing. The Right has had a major hard-on for doing something like this for as long as the Right has existed in its current form in this country. Hiding their real motives behind budgetary excuses? Yeah, that’s pretty “courageous”, too. And “serious”.
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A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter
I asked this question on Facebook and got a total of two replies (probably because FB’s new “Ask a Question” feature is, really, kind of annoying), so here it is. It’s the middle of the night. For some reason you’re staggering through your living room with the lights out…and you step on something. What would you rather step on? A Lego brick that your kid left out, with all of its very sharp corners to dig into the soft flesh of the underside of your foot? Or the wonderful, cold squishiness of three-hour-old cat vomit?
(I literally can’t decide which of these I’d rather have happen less!)
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Another teevee quiz!
Another quiz from SamuraiFrog! Another quiz about teevee! Hooray!
1. What’s your favorite sitcom?
Right now, The Big Bang Theory, which is minute-for-minute more humorous than anything on teevee right now. I also like How I Met Your Mother, although it suffers a bit because I think that its “lead” character, Ted, is insanely uninteresting. I enjoy Mike&Molly, although there’s not a thing original or especially insightful about it. It’s just a nicely-produced sitcom with a pleasantly engaging group of characters.
2. Is there a sitcom you really don’t like?
Two and a Half Men is awful. All-time? I hated ALF, Full House, Growing Pains, and every single damned Very Special Episode of Blossom.
3. Which sitcom did you used to like, but now it just seems too hokey?
The Office was great once, but it’s gone too far into unbelievable parody, frequently at the expense of its once-interesting characters.
4. If your life was a sitcom, what would the title be?
Geek in Overalls. Each episode would feature dream sequences on space ships, distant planets, and end with a massive pie fight. The show would be canceled after three episodes.
5. Did you watch any of the marathons running this year? In part? In whole?
We don’t have cable, so no “official” marathons. We do like to do our own marathons on deeveedee, however.
6. Is there a show you’d like to see run an all day marathon? On the flipside is there a show you’d avoid in marathon?
Again, no cable, so this is unapplicable.
7. What show featuring those who protect your country (fiction or non-fiction) is your favorite?
Victory at Sea is pretty impressive. I also had a love-hate thing with 24. I occasionally catch an episode of NCIS, which is enjoyable enough to not change the channel.
8. Out of curiosity, what’s the longest you’ve ever watched TV in one stretch?!
Probably a time I vegged out in front of MTV for hours as a kid.
9. Do you watch daytime talk TV? If so, which shows do you watch? Do you prefer the calm shows like Oprah or the wilder side like Jerry Springer?
I don’t watch these at all.
10. Which daytime talk TV show would you like to be on? What would the topic be?
The old Mike Douglas show. There was some whacky stuff on that show.
11. Is there a daytime talk TV show you miss that’s no longer on the air? Is there someone you’d like to see get a daytime talk TV show?
The old Mike Douglas show, duh!
12. Before talk TV took over game shows ruled the airways during the day, which do you prefer? Or are you a soap opera fan?
I liked The Price is Right back in the day. Ditto Jeopardy!. When I was a kid I liked a lot of game shows, but now, I realize that a lot of them were crap.
13. Which TV Dad would you have most liked to have for your own dad? On the flipside, who was the TV Dad you’d have least liked to have had?
Red Foreman was awesome on That 70s Show — he seemed to want to run a really tight ship, but it was pretty clear that he wasn’t as persuasive with all of his “foot in the ass” stuff as he wanted to be. I think he just decided to overlook a lot of the BS.
14. Who do you consider the most realistic TV Dad? Who did you consider simply too good to be true?
Rick Sammler on Once and Again — he had a really good handle on some things, and was utterly clueless on others. I also like how the show established alcoholism in his family history and showed him drinking frequently, but never making a plot point of it.
15. Do you watch infomercials? Be honest now!
No. I loathe them.
16. What’s your favorite infomercial or infomercial product?
I refer my right honorable friends to the reply I gave some moments ago.
17. Have you ever bought anything from an infomercial? If so, what was it?
I refer my right honorable friends to the reply I gave some moments ago.
18. What’s the stupidest (most annoying, most worthless) infomercial you’ve ever seen?
I refer my right honorable friends to the reply I gave some moments ago.
19. One of the latest trends in Daytime TV is re-runs of 80’s & 90’s hit shows, what is your favorite that’s re-running now? If you don’t have one which show would you like to see re-running?
I always enjoy watching Simpsons reruns. Ditto Seinfeld, which aside from a rare descent into topicality strikes me as fresh as ever. I’ve also started appreciating Family Guy more, although I’m not ever going to be a fan of Seth McFarlane.
20. On the whole do you feel most Special Reports are really that special? Or are they simply annoying?
It depends on the event. Now that there’s Internet, I just divert my attention if the event bugs me.
21. What special report has effected you most? (IE: (9/11, Reagan being shot…etc)
The Challenger explosion, probably. Although I didn’t watch until I got home from school that day. A more obvious answer would be 9-11-01, but I was on my way to work and there was no teevee there, so we listened on the radio. Still, that was a deeply terrifying day.
22. What’s your fondest memory of something on TV?
Lots. Saturday morning cartoons, culminating in Looney Tunes. Watching Kung Fu and Star Trek back to back after school. Late-night reruns of Star Trek TNG in college, with new episodes on Sunday nights. Watching ER with The Wife, before it sucked. Discovering The Big Bang Theory.
23. What’s the first show you remember watching regularly?
The Six Million Dollar Man. We can rebuild him! We have the technology! (And why was it that when he used his bionic powers to run faster, they depicted this by showing him running in slow motion?)
24. What is the (pick one: stupidest, saddest, silliest, most disgusting..) thing you’ve ever seen on TV?
Stupidest: Cop Rock. What the hell was that?
Saddest: A second season episode of ER in which two ambulance drivers were caught in a burning building, one of whom spent the episode slowly, ever so slowly and painfully, not making it.
Silliest: Any Looney Tunes short.
Most disgusting: There’s a Meat Loaf music video that includes concert footage of Mr. Loaf making out with someone onstage. That was kind of gross.
25. What’s the best series finale you remember?
Ahhhh, series finales! Which ones did I like? Well, M*A*S*H‘s was pretty good, if a bit overlong. The West Wing went out with quite a bit of class. Frasier ended very well; I love the subtle little twist at the very end of the episode. Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine both ended with nice bangs. I remember enjoying the final X-Files episode, even if it came two years too late (and the show really should have found its ending with the resolution of Mulder’s quest for his sister). And, of course, Firefly‘s last episode…which was really the movie Serenity.
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A note to political pundits
Bloggus Interruptus
No evil shall escape my sight!
With the exception of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2, there’s no movie I’m looking forward to this summer more than Green Lantern. I know that after the original trailer was released popular opinion that the movie is going to suck started to calcify, but I actually liked that first trailer…and this footage, abridged from footage that was displayed at WonderCon this weekend, only excites me even more:
Forget Thor and Captain America — it’s Green Lantern for me!
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Sunday Burst of Weird and AWESOME!
Oddities and Awesome abound!
:: I don’t normally use content from Cracked.com in this series, not because I don’t love Cracked.com, because boy howdy I do, but because it’s too easy. I could rely on Cracked.com exclusively and never want for content for the Sunday Burst, and that would just be too darn easy. But once in a while I’ve just got to link something from there. Such as this list of hilarious bootleg toys. My favorite, by far, is this bootleg Buzz and Woody from Toy Story. What’s so funny about this? Watch the video.
I’m pretty sure that what the Woody doll says was never, ever, ever uttered in the Toy Story universe, much less any of the three movies featured there!
:: I’m not sure that I’ll ever get to Prague, so this will help matters a bit.
:: I’m also unlikely to ever get to Buenos Aires — my inability to speak Argentinian is a problem — which makes me sad, after I saw this bookstore. (via)
More next week!
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Saturday Centus
Before I get to this week’s prompt, an apology to other participants: I’ve been lax the last two weeks on reading your own efforts. Really lax. I’ll try to do better, I promise!
And now, without ado of any kind:
“This was your spot?” Molly asked. The sign above her read “Exit 181, 1/2 mile ahead.”
Her father nodded. The country highway crested here on a hill that overlooked a distant lake and the town on the other side.
“We’d come up here on July 4th and watch that town’s fireworks reflect off the lake. On our third 4th together, I proposed. You came along a year later, so we missed that one…and then we moved.” He smiled and shook his head. “Never been here since.”
They talked a while, scattered Mom’s ashes, and talked a while more…mainly of three nights on a hill.