Robert Moore, You're One Crafty Son Of A Bitch

Guess what? Another kid managed to climb inside a one-armed bandit. I say "another" 'cause, seriously, a report like this seems to surface once a year. Which also makes me wonder if this has been happening as long as one-armed bandits have been around and we're just hearing about it more because of around the clock media coverage that constantly needs more fodder.

Either way, too bad Dubya-B didn't have this experience as a kid. Might have taught him an important lesson about having an exit strategy before you go into something. Zing!

Hopefully The Stupidest Goddamn Marketing Statement You'll Read All Day

From this Toronto Star article, about Taco Bell promising a free taco to every man, woman and child in America (and potentially Canada?) if a home run got hit "into the left-field or centre-field [remember, it's a Canadian article] stands during tonight's World Series Game Three."

Here's a Taco Bell spokesperson re: the promotion:

"We can't think of a more fitting way to celebrate America's favourite pastime than by giving fans a chance of winning America's favourite taco," said Bill Pearce, chief marketing officer for Taco Bell Corp.

Really? You can't think of any better way to celebrate baseball? Di-a-bolical.

Northerners Are Weird, Hive-Like

Huh. I was tipped off to this by Jane via Gawker: NetFlix has a feature called "Local Favorites," which lets you see the most popular rentals in your area... or any area in the U.S.! Well, any "area" that's a major city.

The thing that struck me about Manhattan's Top 10 is that so many of the movies are New York-centric. I know it's the "greatest city on earth" and all, but one would think one wouldn't mind being transported to other places via cinema every now and again. The same was true to an extent for the other NY boroughs, but Manhattanites really take it to an extreme.

So I say to myself, "Self, ain't no way Baltimorons can be this proud of their environs -- that place is the city equivalent of a zombie!" But lo and behold... the Baltimore NetFlix Top 10!:

1. Liberty Heights
2. The Corner (2-Disc Series)
3. Avalon
4. The Wire: Season 2 (5-Disc Series)
5. L'Auberge Espagnole
6. A Dirty Shame
7. Hairspray
8. G
9. Homicide: Life on the Street: Seasons 1 & 2 (4-Disc Series)
10. Steve Harvey: Don't Trip, He Ain't Through with Me Yet

Gah! 10 movies (or TV shows), and at least seven are directly related to Charm City! By now, I'm panicking -- could it be that anyone who lives in a city is so in love with said city that all they want to watch are movies about the city?!? Feeling woozy, I tested my home state's two biggest cities:

Miami, FL
1. The Waiting List (Lista de Espera)
2. Bitter Sugar (Azúcar amarga)
3. Marc Anthony: Concert from Madison Square Garden
4. Guantanamera
5. For Love or Country
6. Strawberry & Chocolate (Fresa y Chocolate)
7. Secuestro Express (Kidnap Express)
8. The Dark Side of the Heart
9. Conversaciones con Mama
10. Balseros

Orlando, FL
1. Forest of the Dead
2. Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi: Original Theatrical Version
3. Meet the Browns
4. Why Did I Get Married?
5. Somewhere in Time
6. Eurotrip
7. Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back: Original Theatrical Version
8. Pink Floyd: Pulse (2-Disc Series)
9. Three Kings
10. HellBent

Whoa! Look at all the goddamn variety down there! And not a single flick about the cities they live in! Now those are some reasonable, sane people!

God bless Florida. I surely do miss it at times.

Yes, Whither The Hobo Code?

Looks like hobo towns are back in a big way in Ohio. In fact, a new one on the Ohio River's north shore is threatening a tri-state event called "Tall Stacks" (if you know what Tall Stacks is, please don't tell me; I prefer to think it's a pancake-eating contest).

An estimated 20 homeless people have set up camp in makeshift shelters made of plastic sheets, string, old cable spools and carpet remnants along the Ohio River's northern shore just west of the Roebling Suspension Bridge.

These aren't Andy Griffith Show-style hobos, either. No. These swine shit in their own nest and fight each other like wolves!

Several piles of feces, some with toilet paper stuck to them, were evident along the downriver walkway of the bridge at the Cincinnati end of the span Friday. There was also a strong urine smell there.

[...]

Sgt. Steve Saunders, a Cincinnati police District One community outreach officer, said the group living there has developed a reputation for being violent with one another, especially after drinking too much.

Wow -- Americans living like animals down by the river, without even the luxury of a van! Some might see that as a real indictment of our country's direction. Not Cincinnati Vice Mayor Jim Tarbell, though.

Traditionally, [the homeless] have migrated to "quaint" riverside settings, but have abided by an unwritten code of conduct, [Tarbell] said.

Nowadays, that code seems to have disappeared, he lamented.

"It doesn't mean that you accept or any way support bad behavior," he said. "It's one thing to have a camp on the river, it's another thing to (pee) on someone's shoe."

That's right, you goddamn bums! If you don't stop pissing on people's shoes and return to the Hobo Code in a goddamn hurry, there'll be no more quaint riverside Hobo Town for you, got it? No more trash can fires, no more bean cans, no more Thunderbird -- nothing. Don't make Vice Mayor Tarbell tell you again!

Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair

The U.S. government -- my government, baby -- is putting a new spin on that old Shelley saw, according to a report in Wired:

A half-mile below the surface of the New Mexico desert, the federal government is interring thousands of tons of monstrously dangerous leftovers from its nuclear weapons program -- plutonium-infested clothing, tools and chemical sludge that will remain potentially lethal for thousands of years to come.

It may be safely secured now, but how to keep our descendants centuries in the future from accidentally unearthing it?

That's the question posed by the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation’s only underground repository for military-generated radioactive waste.

To address it, the Department of Energy convened a conclave of scientists, linguists, anthropologists and sci-fi thinkers to develop an elaborate system intended to shout "Danger!" to any human being for the next 10,000 years -- regardless of what language they speak or technology they use.

Storing nuclear leftovers underground? That's awesome that New Mexico doesn't have any groundwater or anything. Otherwise, di-a-bolical. As for the plan itself, I recommend putting The Robot from Lost in Space on the job. No one expresses "Danger!" better than that dude. Not once his arms start flapping.

Like You Couldn't See That One Coming

Crikey! Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin got killed by one of the many deadly animals with which he was always fucking!

CAIRNS, Australia - Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the “Crocodile Hunter,” was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44.

[...]

“He came on top of the stingray and the stingray’s barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart,” said Stainton, who was on board Irwin’s boat at the time.

Yow, a stingray's barb right through the ol' ticker! Hell of a way to go, considering that most people die in bed or at the hands of another human. And at least he was spared the ultimate irony. If you need me to explain what the ultimate irony would be in this situation, then maybe you'd be better off reading a different blog; we move pretty fast around here.

As for the stingray, I can only imagine that crocodiles are already crafting songs and other works of art in its honor. Like, if there's a croc version of Jim Croce, then Jim Crocodoce is right now at this minute writing "Bad, Bad Leroy Stingray." Dude will probably even get knighted by the grand Crocodile King himself.

Steve Irwin, R.I.P.
"Don't Fear The Reaper"

Those Who Can, Write; Those Who Can't, Write

Fellow On Time!-er The Far North End has tipped me off to horrible new technology that might make it possible for people to type by thinking. I call bullshit on that, as there are already far too many people writing who have no business doing so. Anyone who's ever taken a creative writing course in college can tell you that.

Unless you were one of the people in the class who couldn't write. In which case you were probably amazed by the high levels of writing talent found at your college. Idiot.

Fact is, just as with illustration, music and other art forms, some people have the talent to write, and some don't. No amount of classroom hours or practice will make a difference if you're in the latter camp. Yet writing seems to attract a higher number of "can't but think they can" types than any of its peers. Must be the easy-to-use interface and lack of required special equipment, especially with the rise of free online publishing. "Can'ts" don't chase dreams of being violinists for long, that's for sure.

If there was just some way to prove my point. Like, a website used by millions of people who think they can write when it's painfully obvious they cannot. You know, some place on the Web where people could leave "logs" about their daily lives for others to read. I bet that would attract bad writers in droves.

Ah well, guess you folks will just have to take my word for it. Shelton out.