Kablammo!

Thank you, Dennis. Fight the good fight.

I noticed yesterday that the victor of the most recent video format war might be considered extremely unfortunately named.

See, I saw an ad yesterday promoting the home video release of a movie. The voiceover for the ad said the movie was “now available on DVD and blurry high-def.” I thought I must have misheard it, so I was (for once) relieved when the ad was repeated 30 seconds later and I got a chance to listen to it again. But it still sounded like “blurry high-def” to me.

I think that’s how I’ll refer to it in all contexts from now on: “Oh, I see you have one of them blurry video players!” “Do you have a lot of blurry movies?” “I don’t think that blurry stuff is worth the cost of upgrading.”

All things considered, my life is going extremely well. And I’m lucky enough that I don’t even know how lucky I am. I will try to allow myself to enjoy it.

…

And I’ll try to focus on how good I have it, even though I’ve screwed myself over again at work. So it goes.

According to the Associated Press, the world has gone topsy-turvy:

High gas prices drive farmer to switch to mules

MCMINNVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. T.R. Raymond bought Dolly and Molly at the Dixon mule sale last year. Son Danny Raymond trained them and also modified the tractor rake so the mules could pull it.

T.R. Raymond says the mules are slower than a petroleum-powered tractor, but there are benefits.

“This fuel’s so high, you can’t afford it,” he said. “We can feed these mules cheaper than we can buy fuel. That’s the truth.”

And Danny Raymond says he just likes using the mules around the farm.

“We’ve been using them quite a bit,” he said.

Brother Robert Raymond added, “It’s the way of the future.”

As Thomas Edison once said, “We will make mules so inexpensive that only the rich will use tractors.” Or something to that effect, at least. I wonder what else the future has in store.

Again, none of these seemed to justify an individual post:

• As much as I’m opposed to the “Economic Stimulus Payments” as a policy decision—which is severely—I will confess that I’m giddy with the anticipation of getting my $600 check. I know full well that it’s not free money, and in fact I think Americans are actually undertaxed. But I already have my heart set on buying something to stimulate the economy. (I’ll be the German economy I’m stimulating, but at least that’s better than stimulating the Chinese economy, right?) And so it is that I’m somewhat miffed to learn that it will be weeks before I see a dime.
• At 3:30 A.M. today, I was awoken by the pungent smell of cabbage. I gleefully went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water, then tasted the concoction I’d left cooking in the Crock-Potâ„¢ brand slow cooker. It was absolutely delicious. Being an idiot, I then went back to bed, leaving the Crock-Potâ„¢ plugged in and turned on. By morning the concoction had become a disgusting, inedible mess. I’ll chalk this one up as a learning experience, and I’ll try to remember to pick up another jar of sauerkraut on my way home so I can try again.
• So it turns out that my favorite cafeteria cashier lady is Ethiopian. I’m going to look up how to say “Thank you” in Amharic.

There must be a bird’s nest on the window-ledge of my apartment. It’s the only explanation I can come up with for the remarkably loud pre-dawn cheeping this morning. Unfortunately, the most likely place for a nest would be a corner of the building that would be pretty hard for me to get a look at from inside. I’ll have to try taking the screen out of one of my windows or something, because it would be pretty rad to get a nice photograph of some baby birds. Especially if they’re going to keep waking me up at 6 in the morning.

In other news, I remain unaddicted to WoW. Take that.

• I have acquired a newfound appreciation for, and understanding of, that one scene from that one Naked Gun movie and that one scene from that one Seinfeld episode.
• What’s been stuck in my head recently is a mash-up or juxtaposition of “I Do” by the Marvelows with “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. The combination as I’m imagining it doesn’t quite sound fantastic, but it does at least sound coherent, and the parts of the two songs do seem to complement each other pretty well. This is more than can be said for my ill-fated mash-up of Coldplay’s “The Scientist” and Radiohead’s “High & Dry” a few years back, which nearly got me stabbed by a group of my friends.
• I’ll be attending a hearing in Federal court on Friday. Later, I should be getting my cookie supply replenished. I am looking forward to both.
• My mp3 player (well, one of them at least) smells like spices.

• One could probably instigate a riot, or at least a good deal of vitriolic complaint, by playing Bob & Earl’s “Harlem Shuffle” at a party or dance. (You’d know why if you heard it, or even looked it up on Wikipedia.) I’m sorely tempted to do so. (It’s a good thing nobody reads this blog.)
• There sure were a lot of songs whose names fit the pattern of “$verb1, $verb2 and $verb3” back in the early days of rock and roll. F’rexample:
  • Shake, Rattle & Roll
  • Jump, Jive an’ Wail
  • Flip Flop and Fly
  • Jumps, Giggles and Shouts
• Though I am not a cynic by nature [this will be the substance of a future post], I had an extremely cynical and eminently plausible realization today. For the past several months, I have been busy putting off applying to law school. Deadlines are beginning to breathe down my neck. It’s sheer idiocy to have waited so long, especially considering it’s rolling admissions everywhere, so my chances of getting in are decreasing steadily and monotonically, and have been for quite some time. I keep getting letters and emails from various law schools, offering to waive my application fee, ostensibly because I did OK on the LSAT and as an undergrad, but more importantly because I ticked a box saying “Go ahead, send me crap.” So today it occurred to me that the real reason for waiving people’s admission fees is much more straightforward, and quite cynical: US News rankings. Convincing more people to apply to your school, particularly near the end of the application window, when their chances are lower anyway, means you get to reject more applicants and thereby look more selective and give your US News stats a subtle boost.
• Speaking of which, it’s going to be a Laugh Riot when I procrastinate this so effectively that I don’t even get my act together in time to take advantage of all those offers.

Maid Marion: Or forgetful…

It’s been quite a pleasant interlude, but I feel my old self coming on again, for better and for worse. We’ll see how this week-end goes, but in any event there will be no regrets.

In other news, last week’s CO-UT-AZ-UT-AZ-NV-AZ-NV-AZ-NV-AZ-NV-CA roadtrip was ridiculously awesome, and extremely photogenic. Some of my 800+ digifotos will be shown once I get around to it.

It’s kind of funny that, despite my computer dying on Monday and my iRiver H140 (my constant companion for over 3 years) showing signs that it will do the same, and despite the pervasive rain this week, I’m in the best mood I’ve been in for ages.