No Offline Homestar Runner Cartoon

Aw, man -- according to Wired, the creators of Homestar Runner have rejected advances from both Cartoon Network and Comedy Central to develop their web-based cartoon for TV.

While it would have been cool to see Strong Bad and Trogdor burninating the airwaves, you've got to respect the reasons why the creators have decided to stay online.

[Read!] Wired.

Is There a More Worthless Sports Journalist Than Stephen Jones?

I've got to hand it to Stephen Jones writing in The Times. Whenever he writes about the All Blacks he just can't help himself, looking for new ways to deliver left-handed compliments and barbs in equal measure. He has a chip on his shoulder of such magnitude I'm beginning to think his great-grandmother was scared by a Maori while on a jolly jaunt through the Antipodes in the 19th century.

Quite frankly his journalism is atrocious; really, there's no other word for it. His writing has descended to such farce that it ceases to be a sports story and resembles more a bitter letter to the editor, or at the very least he's trying to bait Kiwi.

Indeed, a few years ago he might have succeeded in raising the ire of most All Blacks fans, however all he attracts today is derision and, in some cases, pity. If the All Blacks manage to win the World Cup this year I think it will send him over the edge, I really do. Poor chap.

But it is funny, watching someone with an obvious case of twisted knickers unravel like that in print.

So, Is the Thumb Really a Finger?

This is one of those epic, Eternal Debates that bubbles away in the background of our lives. Oh, sure -- every so often a doctor or two pops his or her head out from behind a medical journal to throw their tuppence worth in, but who really believes doctors anyway?

No, like Marmite vs Vegemite [Marmite!]; Coke vs Pepsi [Coke!]; Batman vs Superman [Batman!]; and Peter Gabriel Genesis vs post-Peter Gabriel Genesis [post-Peter Gabriel Genesis!] the debate rages on through the ages, drawing the combatants toward a Miltonian God vs Lucifer [er...] showdown that will finally settle the issue once and for all. Someday.

For my money the thumb is a sort of finger and it isn't. It's like a Super Finger, able to perform feats that ordinary fingers are incapable of. For example, opposability. Can fingers oppose stuff like thumbs can? No, of course they can't. That would be silly [not to mention weird on an Island of Doctor Moreau scale].

Want more? Alrighty, how about hitching a ride. No finger can ever hope to flag down a passing motorist quite like a thumb can. Needless to say, you won't hear Green Day singing about "Fingering a ride".

Note the use of the thumb in this picture of tourists hitchhiking I found on the internet and used without permission. No finger[s] in sight [and they get extra points for making Nelson their destination].

And, finally, without the humble thumb humanity would never have evolved into the noble creatures we are today. Their ability to help us make tools like guns, knives, atom bombs, lasers, flame throwers, the analog sticks on a PlayStation controller, and margaritas is a testament to the thumb's boundless bounty it has bestowed upon us. Indeed, that little piggy is superior to all the other little piggies because it's more than just a piggy: it's a thumb [not a finger].

What Floor Are You On

Differences between New Zealand English and American English, Episode IV: A New Floor.

All floors are not numbered equally. So then, which floor is the first floor? Is it the floor you walk into from the street, or the floor immediately above?

In NZE the first floor is above the ground floor; in AE the first floor is what NZE speakers call the ground floor. Confusing for but a moment, one soon gets the hang of it.

The Audacity of Customers

You know, I should stop being surprised by what some of our customers do. The South Florida customer has the peculiar ability to be an absolute mofo; I've never encountered a beast quite like it. Of course, that's not to tarnish all South Floridians with the same brush as that would be ignorant, but there is a very vocal minority of wankers who shop here and they come into our store with an alarming regularity.

Case in point the prize cocknocker I busted this morning in the children's zone recharging his cell phone at one of our power outlets. This arsehole was even sitting on the phone and partially covering the cord so as to obscure its charging. The simple fact that he troubled himself to be sneaky shows that he knew his activity was not kosher.

So, in my nicest most assertive voice I told him to unplug the device and informed him that the outlets were not for his use. End of story ... or is it?

No, it's not. Five minutes later he asked the head cashier for the corporate number in New York. Thirty minutes after that he calls us and wants the manager on duty who just happened to be, well, me. This is where the fun begins because the customer didn't realise that the employee he was speaking to was the employee who told him to unplug his cell. Cue the baldfaced lies that spewed from his mouth as he claimed, among other things, that the "employee was very rude" and "embarrassed me as I was on an important call as he pulled the power cord from the outlet", not to mention a few " he was generally abusive" comments for good measure, etc etc.

I listened to his spiel and rolled my eyes at the inevitable "I'm your number one customer" line, and then mentioned that he's more than welcome to call the store manager. I didn't feel like revealing my secret identity over the phone as it was too much fun feeding him the rope with which he hanged himself. He ended the call by demanding that the employee owes him an apology, which is awesome.

So yes, a minor incident that illustrates the impudence of some of our customers; I mean, what gives a customer the right to plug their laptop or cellphone into our outlets without even having the decency to ask whether it was cool or not. Did they see the sign outside that said "Free Power Supply?" Of course they didn't; you know why? Because supplying free power isn't our fucking business.

Flight of the Conchords

We managed to catch the hilarious first episode of Flight of the Conchords the other day. For the next week HBO have the first episode online for free viewing, so if you're HBOless and curious you should pop on over and catch it before it's taken down.

Most of the feedback from critics has been positive, although the dude writing in Variety wasn't too thrilled with the bits between the songs. However, just between you and me, I think he secretly likes it and is just saying some of that stuff to give the impression that he's above the silliness....¹

And it is silly, though. Joyfully so, but also subtle and endearing. I missed a couple of things the first time around, like the poster on the wall of the New Zealand consulate in New York: "New Zealand, Don't Expect Too Much -- You'll Love It!" Classic.

It's probably not going to be everyones cup of tea, but then again not everything can be universally popular like the Donny & Marie Show. I'm sure HBO would kill for those kinds of numbers.

Here's a video of the Flight of the Conchords performing, Albi [the Racist Dragon].



Slate's review of the show.

¹Although, in the article he did imply that he didn't like Dane Cook; and in the same sentence there was an statement about HBO chasing a "younger quadrant of potential subscribers" which leads this writer to believe that that writer is at least 100 years old and grumpy. Humbug!

Shoelaces

I was not aware of the many different ways to tie one's shoelaces. Like most people, I want my shoelaces tied quick and with as little fuss as possible. But if I had taken the time to look, I would have discovered several different ways to keep my laces laced.

How I ended up at this site I will never know [fate, perhaps?] but this dude has everything you need to know and some stuff you probably didn't want to know but don't mind knowing now that you know. It's pretty cool, so check out:

Ian's Shoelace Site.

Port

I've always enjoyed port, although I know next to nothing about it except that it tastes fantastic. Today while we were in the Whole Foods Market I browsed the alcoholic beverages section and happened upon the coolest sounding port, like, ever.

Well, unless you're a fan of The Sandman you're not likely to give a shit. However, seeing as I'm a big fan of The Sandman [and therefore more likely to give a shit than non-Sandman people] and seeing as I wanted to start drinking port again, this seemed to be something of a portent [heh heh].



Okay, so there's a dodgy 'e' there and the dude on the bottle is not much like Dream, but I thought it was cool and I suppose that's all that really matters. Hm, I wonder if it's too early in the day to have a glass. Better wait until after 6pm....

Father's Day

Yesterday was Father's Day here in the US and there were plenty of people out shopping for those last minute gift cards that say, "I love you but you're a difficult bastard to buy for so here's a card for you to go out and buy your own frickin' gift."

I'm not sure why FD falls in June here but in New Zealand we observe it on the first Sunday of September. The discrepancy between the two dates could be because we observe Queen's Birthday in June and perhaps the calendar setters didn't want us to have two holidays competing in the same month, but I could be talking out of my arse.

Oh, there were some fantastic savings on power tools over the past couple of weeks; so much so I almost bought myself a leaf blower. But I didn't as I bought an edge trimmer for the lawns instead; it gave me blisters.

Yeah, the grass in Florida isn't really grass at all. Nope, it's this thing called St. Augustine grass and it's more like a creeping vine that is very resilient and tough and if you've been a lazy git and not trimmed your roadside edges for ... a while, then you're going to spend some sweat hacking that shit back.

Anyway, happy belated Father's Day to those of you with kids.

Customers I Have Known [The Moronic Edition]

So I was walking back onto the floor from the office the other night at work when what did I see. A customer lying full length on his back with his head propped up by the bottom book shelf in Home Improvement. Yes, his head was basically inside the book fixture while he enjoyed the latest copy of High Times.

Needless to say I'm not a manager who wants customers lying on our floor [believe me, this is a common practice for some customers as is their infuriating habit of plonking their arse on a pile of over-sized books. I know, I'm not sure where these people get off, either] so I approached the gentleman. "Excuse me, sir," I said in my nicest tone, "You're probably not aware that these fixtures can be flimsy at times, and I would hate to have several hundred pounds of books fall on your melon."

I thought this was a reasonable request wrapped up in a PSA but the dude gave me this less than flattering look and laughed in a humourless fashion. However, he did remove his head from the depths of the fixture and sat himself up, so I'm sure my strange dialect reached him on some level.

Alas, I must confess that I did have a black thought from the experience. The next time I see something like that I'm going to keep my trap shut and let natural selection take its course....

Employee Appreciation Sale

Twice a year Barnes & Noble awards its employees an extra 10% on staff purchases on top of the usual 30% discount. Yes, very cool.

Thus enticed by the carrot of a 40% discount I began saving and compiling a list of books that myself and Diane wanted. Making sure to pay any bills that needed paying before the sale gave me the peace of mind that I could go over my budget if I became intoxicated with the savings. And I did. Get drunk, I mean. Here's what we grabbed:

The Green Mile
The Dark Half
The Eyes of the Dragon
Bag of Bones
Roadwork
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, all by Stephen King.
Eternals, by Neil Gaiman and John Romita, jr.
Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck.
The Damnation Game, by Clive Barker.
Ghost Story, by Peter Straub.
Necromancer, by William Gibson.
Shadowmarch, by Tad Williams.
Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury.
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.
Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey.
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding.
Rosemary's Baby, by Ira Levin.
The Call of Cthulhu, by H.P. Lovecraft.
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman.
The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss.


One of the great things about being a book lover in the US is the relatively cheap prices for books. Sometimes customers grumble about book prices here but I have to say Americans have nothing to grumble about when it comes to purchasing them. Try popping down to your local Whitcoull's in New Zealand to buy a mass market paperback and see how much change you'll get from a $20 note. How about sweet fuck all.

Anyway, as you can see I had a little bit of a binge but I'm pretty sure we've got enough reading material to last us for a while. Well, at least until the next employee appreciation sale later in the year.

The Kooks

iTunes are currently selling The Kooks's debut album Inside In/Inside Out for $5.99. As this was a deal too good to turn down, I quickly pocketed the album during one of my iTunes trawls.

I'm pleased that I took a punt as the album is absolutely fantastic; as assured a debut as any release of recent times despite what Jenny Eliscu said in Rolling Stone [the only thing she's mildly on the money about was the reference to The Verve although The Kooks, if I have to make a comparison, are similar in sound to The La's].

The nice thing about the album is it's re-listenability. OK, I probably made up that word, but you know what I mean -- the album rewards repeat listening. Whether it's from catching a cute lyric you didn't hear right the first time round, or being infected by a great guitar riff that makes you want dust off the air guitar [in private, mind] this album will be around for a long time yet and you'll want to play it loud.

Of course, your neighbour might be admonishing you to "turn that shit down" but fuck your neighbour, this is about you. If this album makes you want to crank the volume all the way to 11 then be my guest. You'll love it.

Here's the video to the single, She Moves in Her Own Way.

A Paris Post [Sorry]

I had originally decided that I wasn't going to write anything about Paris Hilton in regards to her recent re-incarceration as goodness knows you can load your plate to your heart's content at the Paris Buffet on sites like X17, TMZ, and Perez Hilton.

However, I was watching Nancy Grace last night [a programme I usually avoid like the plague [she scares me]] and I became intrigued by the details emerging from the whole circus. Like, for example, the case of Ms. Paris being held in the medical ward of the big house where she apparently enjoys "preferential" treatment owing to her recent ADHD affliction and mild depression. According to one of Grace's over-excited cohorts [think lots of omgs and !1!1s], the LA taxpayers are forking out $1,100 a day for this opposed to the $99 a day price tag for a normal cell outside of the medical ward. Hm, I'm sure the taxpayers aren't too fussed about that, as David Spade recently commented.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about Scorsese's Goodfellas, particularly the part where Ray Liotta's character is sent to prison and it's not really so much a prison as a weekend resort. I'm not saying she's preparing rich Italian meals while her family smuggles in lobster and alcohol, but it is kinda funny. Y'know, a good story, it's funny ... funny the way you tell the story and everything.

What a Week

Wow, I sure am glad I have today off let me tell you. The past week at the store has been hectic to say the least.

Right now it's the summer holidays so we feel like we're a bunch of under-paid babysitters keeping an eye on the hordes of tweens & teens that have taken over the place like hippies at an open air festival.

Most of the people that come to the store are there because they enjoy Barnes & Noble, but we do get a minority that basically wants to loiter and create mischief. These individuals are easy to spot owing to the negative energy they excrete; I've dubbed this energy the "cocknocker aura". These individuals are unceremoniously kicked out of the store and told to go down the road to Borders [hey, it's not as if they have any money anyway so we're not losing sales or anything].

Ah, summer. I'm looking forward to autumn already.

Welcome to the All-New/Oldish/Kinda Newish Pluperfection

Today I decided to send the blog into uncharted territory by registering Pluperfection with a domain registrar [godaddy.com]. Yes, I know it's exciting and it seems to have worked out well.

It was a relatively fuss-free operation to have my content point itself that way, and my domain point itself this way, and then have everything come together. The process took less time than Blogger predicted [Blogger said to typically wait 24-48 hours before changes to DNS records take effect], which is cool.

Whether I keep the current template design that I'm using is up in the air. For one thing, I do like the simplicity of this template and as a result I've done away with many of the links I had in the sidebar owing to the clutter they created. Some, though, have returned via the drop-down menu and I'm leaning toward reinstating most links as ddms as they are rather tidy, what.

Hope ya like!

Snakes On a ... er, Garden

We have a couple of resident snakes in the garden out back, but they're elusive buggers and whenever I'm stalking for them Steve Irwin style they never show up. However, when I'm out there sans camera one of them will slide past me as if it knows I can't take its picture. Bastard.

One thing I've noticed is that snakes move fast. Like real fuckin' fast, as in if it chased you it would probably catch you.

So yeah, up to now we've never been able to take a picture of these dudes until my wife was outside the other day and happened to see one move from the grass up onto the raised garden to catch some sun. And, amazingly, it decided to stay there while she took some pics and we both stared at it while it watched us wearily.




As I come from a country that doesn't have snakes I find this very cool; and so long as they don't come in the house or swim up the toilet, it'll remain cool.

Our Book Collection Runneth Us Over

Our book collection is making a considerable dent in our available storage space here at the homestead, and this without my collection that still resides in boxes at my parent's place in New Zealand.

Unfortunately, there is not much room left for us to invest in some nice bookcases to showcase these books in the coolest way possible, so I've resorted to stacking some of the paperbacks on top of each other as you can see in the picture below [yes, that is a Buzzy Bee that my sister gave to me before I left NZ back in 2005; and yes, that is Superman].



If we one day move to a larger house I'd like to have a library[or 'ies] in the pad, a groovy room with wall-to-wall book cases complemented with comfy chairs for your arse and maybe even a fireplace for what the French call ambiance. Well, in Florida we don't have much need for fireplaces so that would be overkill, but you get the idea.

Lily Allen's Smile

Lily Allen is a refreshing presence on the music scene. Her sound is unique among her peers, and in interviews she's not backward in coming forward when offering her opinion, which is brilliant.

She's infinitely more interesting than someone like Avril Lavinge, who appears as nothing more than a dastardly poseur, and she's unlikely to flash her snatch to the world like a Britney Spears¹ or a Lindsay Lohan. Please, famous ladies -- wear some undies!

Anyway, there's been some fantastic music over the past 12 months, and not just from Lily Allen. However, seeing as this is a post about her I thought I'd embed the video to Smile.



¹I'm not one who normally comments on another person's genitalia, but did anyone else think that it resembled one of those burned out retreads that one sees on the side of the motorway?

Bit of a Blur, Alex James's Blur Retrospective

The Independent has an article written by Alex James, the bass player from Blur, that coincides with the UK release of James's book Bit of a Blur.

The article is very interesting if you're a Blur fan [which I am]; and I dare say it's interesting to those of you who aren't fans of Blur but wouldn't mind a bit of a nosy into the life of arguably one of the best bands of the last 25 years.¹

Here's the video of Beetlebum to get us in the mood.




¹In this author's humble opinion, of course. ;-)

Family Guy's Neverending Story

I think Family Guy was funnier before it was canceled. When it returned to TV on the back of strong DVD sales and high ratings on Adult Swim it didn't quite have the "snap" to it that it processed pre-cancellation.

However, I think that's partially my fault for perhaps placing unrealistic expectations on how good it was going to be. I'm odd that way.

Anyway, this little non sequitur from the fourth season of Family Guy was arguably one of the funniest 30-second pop culture parodies they've ever done, although poor Falkor doesn't seem too happy carrying Peter Griffin....