Embrace the Geekiness:

:: Observing my daughters third viewing of The Wizard of Oz this week, I was struck by one of the Wicked Witch’s lines as she’s in the process of expiring. Yeah, she whines “I’m melting!” over and over, but then she says something like, “Oh, who would have thought that a miserable girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness!” And, being the Star Wars geek that I am, I immediately wondered: if we were to replace the Emperor’s shriek as he plummets down the reactor shaft at the end of Return of the Jedi with a similar line, what would it be?

“You were a runny-nosed teenager before I took you in!”

“I got you a girlfriend and gave you my biggest Star Destroyer!”

“They promised me that turning to the Dark Side was permanent!”

“Who could have thought the pod-racing runt that Qui Gon found would be the one to destroy my plans!”

Any other suggestions, folks?

:: Over on Tosy and Cosh (wasn’t that a movie starring Fred Dryer and a German shepherd?) John wonders what the final image of Episode III will be, given that the final images of TPM and AOTC mirrored to a small degree the final images of ANH and TESB.

I don’t know how Lucas could mirror that final gathering of the heroes smiling in ROTJ. The most often-suggested final image for Episode III I’ve seen, in various forums, is for Obi Wan to turn over baby Luke to Owen Lars and then wander off into the Tatooine wastes. Personally, assuming that Padme dies in the film, I think it would be interesting to see the newly-minted Darth Vader visiting her grave. That would plant a few of the seeds for Anakin’s eventual return to the Good Side.

:: A few days ago, my wife and I watched Mission: Impossible!, which is a favorite movie of ours. (Yeah, we still like Tom Cruise. Sue us.) Anyway, I just want to note what is one of my favorite villain’s lines ever in a movie. At the end, when Ethan Hunt explains to Mr. Phelps how the Bible that Phelps had boosted from a hotel was the clue Hunt needed to figure out that Phelps was behind everything, Mr. Phelps says: “They stamped it, didn’t they? Those damn Gideons.” For some reason, that line always cracks me up.

Share This Post

Watching the fourth quarter of a preseason tilt between the Steelers and the Greatest Force for Evil In The Western World (the Cowboys), I’m suddenly wondering: how do the commentators on the network football broadcasts manage to maintain any interest in doing play-by-play and color commentary on the exploits of guys whose NFL careers are, in all likelihood, within fourteen days of ending? I watch these sixth and seventh-round picks going all-out, desperately trying to make the team, and all I can think of is that episode of The Simpsons where Homer takes over the Pee-Wee football team.

“And now for the easiest job a coach has…the cuts!”

Share This Post

In the “She Went Doing What She Loved” Department, a 101-year-old legendary cowgirl has died after being thrown by her favorite horse. (Via Joseph Duemer.)

Share This Post

Scott of The Gamer’s Nook has just learned that the current economic miracle-in-progress is about to put him on the unemployment line. Since he’s been off the actual job market for more than thirteen years, he’s looking for advice on how he should craft his resume for the IT industry. Anyone with any thoughts (like you, Sideshow Bob) should go give him a kibitz or two. I’m afraid that the only advice I’d be able to give him involves adding the phrases “all-beef patties” and “Super-size” to his lexicon.

Share This Post

It seems that the Ecosystem is having some difficulties, and NZBear will shortly be looking into alternatives and doing some digging to see if it’s a problem on his end.

Anyway, I just wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank NZBear for the work he’s done on the Ecosystem. I’ve found it a really fun way to track the growth of Byzantium’s Shores aside from simply watching my hits go up.

Share This Post

I got caught up on my taped episodes of The Restaurant last night; all that remains is this coming Sunday’s finale, in which I expect Rocco (the chef and restaurant owner) to rip the mask off his head and reveal himself to be Old Man Carruthers. “I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for you meddlin’ kids!”

In the fifth episode, anyway, there are three line cooks who get together and decide to screw Rocco by claiming to have been involved in a bar fight after work, with one of them going to the hospital. Thus, of course, they don’t show up for work. Believe me, even in a large kitchen like this place, having three cooks not show up for work is a major headache. But later, Rocco learns of their deception when he actually tries to call the hospital to check on his employee and learns they’ve never heard of him. Surprise!

This little incident brought back all the unpleasantness I ever experienced in the restaurant business. There are always employees who are lousy, and who pull stunts like this; they always think they are stickin’ it to the man. What they never realized is that the restaurant’s doors were going to open the next day at 11:00 or whatever, whether they were there or not, and that the only people they were screwing were the coworkers who were about to show up for their shifts and then find out that they now have to work two or three times as hard.

A constant fact of restaurant management was that good people tended to move on, by virtue of the fact that they are good people; and the restaurant business tends to attract the bottom-feeders of the job market. You try to minimize this, as a manager, by staying attuned to your people and keeping the good ones happy. On this score, Rocco seems to be pretty piss-poor as a manager. Now, obviously this show probably isn’t giving the total picture since they are distilling multiple days of business into 42 minutes or whatever of a prime-time show, but on the basis of what I am seeing, about the only way Rocco could be more divorced from what his people are experiencing is if he actually wasn’t in the restaurant at all during the business hours.

Share This Post

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Muhammad Ali (standing) after knocking out Cleveland Williams (prone), 1966. (Discussion by the photographer here.)

From this SportsFilter thread, I find The Observer‘s ten best sports photographs. The list, as one might expect from a British paper, is heavy on boxing, soccer and rugby; nothing from basketball, football (American style), baseball, or anything else. But the pictures are pretty cool.

I don’t like boxing much at all; my feelings are encapsulated by something I once heard from a comedian whose name I’ve long since forgotten: “You have to wonder about a society that considers masturbation ‘self-abuse’ and boxing, a sport.” I just don’t like watching two people beat the crap out of each other for sporting purposes. But I’ve always had a fondness for Muhammad Ali, and I have to admit I choked up a little when I recognized him as he went to light the Olympic Flame at the 1996 Summer Games. Plus, as boxing images go, this picture is just cool. As the photographer notes, back then there was no advertising emblazoned on the floor of the ring; just stark white that contrasts well with the bodies of the men actually fighting in the ring.

Share This Post

Via Teresa Nielsen Hayden, check out this compare-and-contrast of the area affect by last week’s blackout, versus what that same area usually looks like. NYT registration required.

(Why is it that every time I read a story about the possible causes of the blackout, I picture that guy in Airplane! who unplugs the landing lights as the plane makes its final approach and then says, “Just kidding!” as he plugs them back in? Anyway, that single blip of bright light in the Buffalo area is not me standing outside shining a deer-spotlight into space whilst doing the Nelson Muntz “Ha, ha!” So don’t ask.)

Share This Post

You know, the more I learn about Iceland, the more intriguing that place seems. I think that after I finish reading The Iliad and The Odyssey, I’ll finally get round to reading the Icelandic sagas that have been sitting on my bookshelf for a long while.

I mean, how can anyone not be intrigued by a country that has a museum dedicated to…well, this?

(via Bara)

Share This Post

Jason Streed, he of the long-time resistance to blogging, has a great satirical piece about the plight of the underappreciated blogger. Check it out.

(BTW, for some reason Jason’s blog seems to have display problems, at least in IE. Hitting F11 twice fixes it.)

Share This Post