Here are some pics of my old, decrepit cat, Shamu (named by me at age 7 for the killer whale). She's 21 this year, and sleeps 20-odd hours a day. She occasionally rousts herself to eat. This past weekend, we had Christmas with my mom, uncle, step dad and assorted step-siblings. She promptly found a nice gift box and went to sleep in it ('cause everybody loves pictures of old, cranky cats):

USA! USA! USA!

UPDATE: Here's the other roommate.

 

So while at the parents' house this weekend, we actually watched SNL for the first time in years. The following musical number, from Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake, marks the first time I've laughed out loud at the show in half a decade. I don't know what it is. The pitch-perfect Color Me Badd vibe to the whole thing? The earnestness of the girls playing their dates? The deadpan delivery of the step-by-step instructions? maybe it's just the infectiously catchy tune. I dare you to watch it a couple of times and not be humming it to yourself in the aisle at Target.
If NBC released an unedited version on iTunes for $.99 a pop, they'd make millions.

Toys that maim. When I was a kid, I would have wanted them all. Hell, some of them still look cool. I really want a "Johnny Reb" cannon.

Via notthatguy, comes Benny Hinn in "Let teh Bodies Hit the Floor!" This is high comedy.

The highlight comes about 1/3 of the way through, when it looks like he pimp slaps some old lady right to the floor.

Iran just finished hosting a bizarro-world academic "history" conference. Subject: the Holocaust. Or, to be more precise, the lack of one. I knew about this some time ago, but I didn't know the US "delegation" was being led by the old Imperial Wizard himself. Can we get the Iranians to keep him? I'm sure they'd have lots to talk about.

That's a lot of different kinds of crazy packed into one room.

When guns knives are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns knives.

Our relatives across the pond, in their hell-for-leather charge back into serfdom, have surrendered their guns  to the lords of the manor long ago. Now the peasants can't even have their crude farm implements.

Next up...

I've always wondered how often reporters, writers and others in media bother to check facts given to them by often hardly-disinterested parties. Yet more evidence that the answer is "hardly ever."

To be fair, I can see how the initial error here could have been an honest mistake. The problem seems to be that once it was made, a long line of people never bothered to "show their work" because the data just sounded so good (or too bad, depending on how you look at it).

Man. I think this is the new Star Wars Christmas Special. A live-action Superfriends show. And it's a comedy.

And yes, Solomon Grundy is there.

Be sure to read all the way to the end. The second (and last) episode was in the format of a fucking roast. Keep an eye out for "Ghetto Man - the first black super hero" and Mordru the Sorcerer on a jet-ski.

I have GOT to see this.

Milton Friedman, dead at 94. You've probably never heard of him, but he coined the term "There's no such thing as a free lunch." Nobel laureate and one of the most influential libertarian/free market economists of our time. If I ever get questions about my weird economic/political beliefs, I  think from now on, I'll just point people to this old, brilliant PBS interview. Friedman elucidates it better than I ever could. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

My favorite part comes when, after Friedman says that men are greedy and selfish, the interviewer asks him if that isn't a good justification for  a large, activist government stepping in to "help" and "protect" people. Friedman's response:

"How? By putting vast amounts of money and power in the hands of other selfish, greedy men?"

The interviewer has no answer. They never do.

I went to see Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles this weekend at the Tivoli. I give the film a B+. Some problems, but frankly,  much better than I expected it would be. After the show and Q/A , the writer/director Tommy Yune (who's a ridiculously nice guy, BTW) made some of us pose for a picture. Me, Byn and Nick can be seen in the second row looking like 'tards.

One of these things is not like the others.

You'd think of the 40-odd nerds people in the theater (the screening was terribly marketed, it taking a serious amount of legwork by Nick to find tickets and showtime) I would have remembered her. Nope. Maybe she had some kind of nerd cloaking device, and only became visible for a split second when the flash went off.

Just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. And a little sad, too.

Regrading the movie recommendation for House 873 last night, this is a great movie about hobos: Emperor of the North

"Ernest Borgnine plays the infamous Shack, a sadistic railroad conductor who takes it upon himself to forcibly remove all hobos from his train, local No. 19. As the movie opens, he has just thrown a hobo off his train to his death."

Trust me, it's awesome.

Remember the great plan by public health Nazis in Seattle to ban booze for poor people? You may want to sit down and brace yourself. Apparently it's not working. Po' folks are just switching to booze not on the list (including hard liquor) or riding the city bus to places not affected by the ban. I love the implicit assumption in the article's title, by the way. "Only alcoholics buy this shit, anyway."

From Lileks' Halloween "Haunted Diner" podcast:

"The woods are haunted, too. I think they used to be 'enchanted', but there was a change in the zoning."

Nifty. Sweet, from "Once More with Feeling," who goes by the human name "Hinton Battle" is directing and choreographing the musical adaptation of Evil Dead.

You probably shouldn't watch this unless you've seen all of "Lost" up until now. It's a compilation of some video clips NBC has used in it's viral marketing for the show, and it finally lets us know what the story on those damnable numbers is. Sort of. You'll see.

Weekend pics