What was I gonna say...

Warning: Nothing on this page should be assumed to be purposeful, insightful, or even coherent. Think of it as a place where I can talk to myself, and you can listen in, if you want.

1/21/99
Sorry, there'll be no daily musing today, because we have a guest commentator. If you've been on a newsgroup lately, you've already been exposed to his formidable brilliance, but for those of you who have some semblance of a life, I've decided to bring it to you here.

Now as you know, I'm a very religious man. I think it's an important part of everyone's life to make up some stupid bullcrap to explain the universe and justify our own disgusting behavior, which is why this post filled me with great joy and peace, as now we can all just sit back and screw each other over and know that baby, it'll all be okay in the end. And then when you wake up, there'll be a dime under your pillow.

So today, I give you...

Proof Positive!

Notice how the precession epoch datum is set for each date specified.

By the way, did anyone else enjoy the way that the Minnesota Vikings spent most of the last game genuflecting and pointing up to the sky and making "prayer" motions with their hands, and then they lose at the end? Really? Me too.

1/19/99
Note: If you are very easily offended, then I strongly recommend that you immediately read this five times in a row, get very angry, and send me lots of hate mail.

Welcome to today's feature, "The Three Funniest Commercials On TV." I got this idea while sitting in my car today outside the laundromat, waiting for the dry cycle to finish up. There I was, listening to Tony Kornheiser's syndicated sports talk show on ESPN Radio (no charge, guys), when they broke for commercial. This particular stop set consisted solely of three public service announcements. The first and the third were, "Why haven't you talked to your three year old about the dangers of smoking joints, you heartless bastard!" The second one was a tape of some kid playing in the yard, and then an ominous voiceover intones, "Six minutes after this was recorded, the kid was SPLATTERED all over the street by a drunk driver, you heartless bastard!" This commercial break struck me as extremely funny. But TV is where the real gems are, so without further ado, I give to you, "The Three Funniest Commercials On TV."

Second Runner Up -- All you see is a baby monitor, and then you hear the baby start to howl, like, "WAAAAAAHH!!" Then all of a sudden, the kid launches into a horrendous hacking cough, the likes of which Jack Klugman and Suzanne Pleshette together wouldn't be able to muster up. Then back to the crying for a while, then more of the coughing, and that's all it is, until the voiceover comes on with, "Second hand smoke kills lots of babies, you disgusting pile of moose puke!" Then there's some fine print on the screen, but I can never tell what it says because I'm wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes.
First Runner Up -- Alex Trebek (a real braniac in his own right, ahem) comes on with some "phonics reading game" for retar- I mean, for specially-abled children. "Yes, this game teaches your dumb kid how to read. Just look at this kid..." And the kid comes on, already sporting a frowny-face, and she launches into this story about, "When I went to school, all the kids called me stupid...called me bad names...it was bad!" breaking into tears near the end. Then here comes Alex back to say, "See that? Buy this game, you hideous monster." They show this one at least five to six times every 30 minutes, and it never gets old. Never.
The Winner! -- Not only is this the funniest commercial on TV right now, but it's the funniest TV commercial of all time, by far. I can't remember the name of the organization that it advertises, but it's for old alcoholics. Not just any alcoholics. Only old ones. And here's this guy, not too old, looks to be mid/late-50's or so, drink in hand, and he's railing on his guests, who happen to be his son and his daughter-in-law. So he starts off, "Why dontcha ever come around any more!?! I miss your (real sarcastic here) LOVING ADVICE!!" all the while, drink in hand, swaying to and fro. Now the daughter-in-law is getting bitchy at the son, "I don't want the kids around when he's like this!! I'm leaving!!" And the old man's going on, "You're always so SERIOUS all the time!!" And he swings his drink around one last time and knocks a bottle of vodka on the floor, and it breaks (which, to me, is the most traumatic part of the ad.) At this point, the woman gathers up her kids and her whipped husband, and they get in the car and leave. As the car rolls away, the man stumbles up to the window, looks down at his drink, mournfully, then looks out the window, waves at the car and mumbles, "Byebyeee...grandpa loves you." Then the phone number comes up. But once again, I can't tell what the number is, because by this point, I'm face down on the floor, pounding the carpet and howling in laughter. "Bye bye, grandpa loves you" is my new catch-phrase. Hopefully this will catch on, and people everywhere will bid adieu to each other by saying, "Bye bye, grandpa loves you."

What's that silence I hear? Oh, it's you, faithful reader, mouth agape, staring in shock and revulsion at the nauseating sewage that your innocent browser hath just shown you. Well, let me soothe your troubled spirit. For the record (and this is a sign of the new, mature me, that I'm taking the time to even explain this) I do not think that babies dying from smoke, kids with learning difficulties, and family-destroying alcoholism are funny. That's what makes these commercials so friggin' riotous.

If you see a man fall off a cliff to his death, you stare in horror. If you see Wil E. Coyote fall off a cliff to his death, you laugh.

These commercials are not having the desired effect.

1/18/99

"Sir what?! Were you about to call me an asshole?!" -- Full Metal Jacket

So when I said "Daily Musings", you probably thought I meant, like, every day. Well, at the risk of offending anyone, boy are you stupid. I could barely keep up a weekly column way back when, and now you want me to update the place every day? That's a tall order, asking me to come up with one paragraph worth of dribble every single 24 hours. Like I've got time for that! You should see the to-do list that I have to trudge through every day. I mean, just today, I had to 1) buy some soap, not to mention 2) give the cats their hairball medicine. If you think you could handle that, and updating a webpage in the same day, well, be my guest.

In other news, this newly updated webpage has gotten a pretty positive response so far. Both of my previous readers said that they were delighted that it was back up and running. Well, actually only one of them did, but I assume the other meant to.

The question of the day comes from Park City, Utah:

"Say, isn't the eulogy just a regular old "links" page cleverly designed so that people won't think it's a "links" page until they get there?"

Yes.

The followup question of the day also comes from Park City, Utah:

"Well, then how come there's hardly no links over there?"

Because like most things I do, the concept is usually better than the implementation. I want everyone to regard this webpage as a bottle of cheap wine. Sure, it's pretty bad now, but if you just store it away, give it time to age and refine itself, eventually it'll turn into a very old, cherished bottle of cheap wine. See what I mean?

The response of the day comes from Park City, Utah:

"No."

1/16/99
Well, I spent most of today getting this webpage into shape. Kinda glad I did, too. It's nice to be back. This is also the first day in about the last two months and a half that I haven't worked, at least in a professional capacity. Kinda glad I did that, too. See, I just got out here to Oregon in late November, and I've been bustin' a serious ass for the folks who hired me out here. I guess that's my excuse for why it took so long to get this site up -- all my other sites were catalyzed by a drenching downpour of ennui at whatever job I was at. No time for that here.

This is also the first time in many months that I've drank Coke. It goes good with geekin' out and building webpages. Dunno why. Probably for the same reason popcorn goes good with movies. Dunno why that is either, but you get my point.

So I guess my message is, every once in a while, ya just gotta geek out.

All contents of this page except for the parts that aren't, are copyright (c) 1999 by Ben Parrish. And don't you forget it.
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