05.19.08
Posted in Jiffywoob's Palace at 1:33 pm by Nick
KABOOM!!!
Alright, so some levity is in order after my carrot rant from yesterday.
A topic that amuses me: why do serious movies have spaceships armed with self-destruct buttons? It worked well in Spaceballs, but when you’re trying to create an action/drama, it just makes no sense that the fabricators of the ships would actually 1) build such a device, and 2) make it easily accessible to anyone who happens to walk by.
Case in point: I was watching “The Fifth Element” this morning, and according to this story, a space cruise ship had one of these devices. In the hallway. There were two things that made me laugh at this plot point.
First, there was a keycode to activate the self-destruction device. Somehow, the bad guy, played by Gary Oldman, knew the code from heart, and was able to set the countdown.
Second, the device gave twenty - TWENTY - minutes to allow the ship to self-destruct. If you really want to blow up your own ship, why not make it more along the lines of 10 seconds, so the bad guys can’t get away?
I guess I should be more in charge of my suspension of disbelief here, but it’s still odd.
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05.18.08
Posted in Jiffywoob's Palace at 1:21 pm by Nick
..spoils the carrot.
This is becoming a pattern. It’s sad, but true. The Man, or in this case, the Bitch, continues to thwart my efforts at fun and joy.
Yesterday, myself, and a few other people proffered fresh carrots to passersby. We attempted to exchange them for goods. We even directed traffic with them. People laughed, many accepted a carrot with a “thank you,” and many were confused, yet amused.
Then, I meet up with our main photographer, who tells me that he met some vendor of one of those carts that sells worthless trinkets to gullible tourists who will buy a rock if it has “Boston” written on it.
She told him that if she ever sees me again, she’s going to tell me to go to hell. Ironic, of course, because I previously had offered a carrot to one of those Jesus guys. I told him I’d trade a pamphlet for a carrot, but no dice. He was very kind, though, and I chatted with him for a bit, and took a pamphlet anyway because he was so nice.
But then, as we left the scene, the aforementioned vendor found me and accosted me, yelling at me that I was freaking out her customers (note: when I had been at her crap-cart earlier, several people laughed when I offered carrots, one customer even took one). She said that I and my other “whackjobs” (quote) better stop offering carrots. If I hadn’t been so startled by the tone of her voice, and had a bigger set of balls, I would have marched right back to her little crap cart and put carrots on all her worthless trinkets. And I would have shoved a couple extra carrots where the sun don’t shine.
But I was indeed startled, and do indeed own a very small pair of balls.
So this brings my accosted events to 6: 3 for chalking, 1 for carrots, and 2 for our subway beach party. Yes, we’re weird. But we’re harmless. So many people are amused by our antics, and we meet a lot of neat people. But there always seems to be that one person who can’t take a joke, and who ruin a day of fun. It’s strange how one person’s negative actions can trump the positive actions of hundreds.
Also, I was a bit disappointed that she never did actually keep her part of the bargain by instructing me to “go to hell.”
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04.25.08
Posted in Jiffywoob's Palace at 5:11 pm by Nick
Wow. It takes a lot to get me to make a dumb joke like that. But my latest T rant is on two fronts:
1) Several times in the past year, the Green Line trains show up at the wrong place on the platform. When I am waiting for a C train, and it shows up on the other side, where the E trains are supposed to be, I miss it. If a D train shows up where the E train is supposed to show up, I miss it. If I had to count on my fingers the number of times this has happened, well, I’d have enough arms to be an octopus, and then some.
I’m not dumb enough to not be able to read the (often malfunctioning) signs which indicate the location, but I should be able to know that the train that is coming will arrive in its correct spot.
I’ve contacted the MBTA several times about this, and I’m sure you know what those beareucratic morons repsonded with: yup, nada.
2) Why do Green Line trains “stand by” at Park, when there’s clearly no reason to? There have been several times when the conductor closes the door, instructing us to stand by, then I stand there, waiting, while another train comes to another platform, and moves ahead of us.
Again, I’ve contacted the MBTA several times about this, and again, I’m sure you know what those beareucratic morons repsonded with: yup, nada.
Is this a reflection on the “stellar” organization of the MBTA? Methinks yes.
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04.06.08
Posted in Jiffywoob's Palace at 2:57 am by Nick
So, I was heading home from dinner with some friends tonight, and, as per usual, had some sidewalk chalk with me. Thus, on my way home, I decided to decorate the corner of Prospect Street and Mass Ave. Several people waiting for the bus saw me and eagerly joined in the fun. An MBTA officer even stopped to watch for a bit…I invited him to draw, but he chuckled and told me he’s not an artist, but instructed me to “have fun,” and walked off pleasantly.
Afterwards, I moved on to the alley near Central Kitchen, where I and several friends have often decorated before, and began drawing. Soon, other passersby noticed, and happily grabbed some chalk to play with and help. I met a grad student from UMass, a family of four (whose kids got super excited at the chance to draw), and a group of about 10 people who happened to be walking by, architecture students from Tuscaloosa, visiting Boston, and who talked endlessly about how lucky they were to pass us by as we were drawing, and joined in on the happiness, helping to decorate the sidewalk with tremendous zeal. This gave my heartstrings a huge, positive tug.
Then, the MAN showed up. Two A-hole Cambridge cops showed up, took my driver’s license, and held me in their custody as they checked my criminal background (do I really look like someone with an outstanding warrant?! Apparently, to them, I did).
I politely asked them if chalk drawing was illegal, since it’s erasable (I even offered to go home and bring a bucket of water back to clean it up), and they said no. But their angry demeanor indicated that I needed to stop.
Talk about buzz-kill amidst bringing happiness to so many people.
But I really was scared…the cops treated this as if I had committed the most heinous crime in the world, and getting a background check is freaky, even when you know you’re of pure heart, and have no criminal record.
I’m one of the most laid-back person you’ll ever meet, but hate begets hate, and I’m just so mad at people who can’t respect those who want to have fun in a harmless manner. Props to the Cambridge Police department for bringing out the worst in me! You are such a precious and diligent organization.
Oh, and that kid I saw getting beat up on Broadway last month? No reason to go after his attacker. There are DANGEROUS people armed with chalk nearby who deserve more attention.
I guess the Chalk Monsters will no longer be able to offer fun and joy to the residents of Cambridge, allowing us all to return back to our lives of boredom and isolation. Yay to progress! Time for us all to plug in our headphones, look down the ground, and constantly be rude to each other once again! Hurrah!
Nothing makes me feel more comfortable than knowing that my tax dollars are supporting moron A-holes who ignore violence and crime, and instead descend angrily upon a group of people enjoying themselves by drawing chalk on the sidewalk.
In fact, I’m going to include an extra thousand dollars in my tax return, just in hopes that it will go to idiotic Cambridge cops who will work “hard” to make sure these horrific scofflaws like myself aren’t able to bring pleasure to people. I’m guessing most of my thousand bucks will go towards donuts, but, hey, someone’s got to feed the dark side.
I mean, I suppose not funding high cholesterol to the most abhorrent scum of the Earth is a crime.
Sheesh.
Wake me up when people start to become reasonable.
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02.13.08
Posted in Jiffywoob's Palace at 10:03 pm by Nick
I’m as against steroids as the next guy, but in my true libertarian philosophy, I guess if you want to get big muscles whilst shrinking your testicles, go nuts. Pun intended.
But I guess what really has gotten me at this whole baseball steroid scandal hubbub is the whole baseball steroid scandal hubbub. Can we just get over it already?
And even worse, we now have congress holding elaborate hearings about it. How many of you think this was really what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created the legislative branch?
Here’s my solution: create a fourth branch of Government: the Looney Branch. Their sole purpose will be to make a big deal out of the most asanine bullsh*t, so that the legislative branch can actually make a (likely vain) attempt at doing something good for our country.
Aww, forget it. I’m late for my meeting with BALCO.
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02.11.08
Posted in Jiffywoob's Palace at 11:25 am by Nick
…in laughter at how ridiculous Valentine’s Day has become. And the president of Hallmark is rolling in dollar bills, similarly laughing at how gullible the general public is.
What gets really annoying is how everything thematic on TV suddenly becomes solely about love and lust and sex. I was watching a show this morning, where the guest was apparently a self-proclaimed “love expert,” (I didn’t know you could major in that in college…why did I choose Geological Sciences?) and she was giving all sorts of annoying advice about how to impress your lover on, as she labelled it, “the most important lover’s day of all.”
But the really dazzling tidbit she gave spoke tremendously to her expertise. And I speak this quote verbatim: “If you really want to get his ding-dong up, dress up in something nice.”
Um, first: anyone who uses the word ”ding-dong” on national TV immediately can be dismissed as an ‘expert.’
Second: THAT’s your mind-blowing advice? Dress in something nice? Seriously, because until I heard your expert words, I was going to dress in year-old smelly rags.
Sheesh, if I could known that you could get paid to replace the word “penis” with ”ding-dong” on the air while making asanine comments invoking the obvious, I totally would re-do my career track.
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02.08.08
Posted in Jiffywoob's Palace at 4:48 pm by Nick
I wish I could find the article that supports this, but I just couldn’t resist writing on this topic:
I read yesterday a short bit in the BostonNow newspaper that Maryland actually passed legislation to officially make February “Anti-Stalking Month.” I’m not sh*tting you. Let’s examine this legislation from a pragmatic point of view:
1) Maryland, do you really need to designate a month to remind people to not stalk each other? Are you saying that stalking people between March and January is okay?
2) Maryland, are your congresspeople so bored that you have to struggle spending so much time creating such ridiculous legislation?
3) Maryland, what the f*ck is wrong with you?!!!
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Posted in Jiffywoob's Palace at 4:41 pm by Nick
There is much to complain about Boston’s mayor, Tom “Mumbles” Menino. But he is the first metropolitan mayor I’ve seen make any active effort to increase bicycle accessibility around the city. Hell, even he rides one, and it really doesn’t bother me that a) he looks like a moron when he does (they don’t pan down to his training wheels), and b) he only does it to make it seem like he cares. But his bike advocacy is very encouraging in a society where drivers seem to make it their goal to run over any cyclist they see. I’ve been biking around the city for over five years, and I’m honestly surprised I’m still alive.
I’ve only had two accidents, and I wish they were more fun to describe (actually, the first one is).
1) I’m riding through the intersection of Columbia and Broadway in Cambridge. I’m going moderately fast, as I had the green light, and there was little traffic. Suddenly, as I approach the intersection, a street cleaner going perpindicular to me ignores HIS red light, and passes straight through. So I crash right into him. But the vehicle was moving at, like, 3 miles per hour, so if someone were filming me, it would be very evocative of the scene at the end of ”Austin Powers” when the security dude gets run over at pretty much the same speed.
2) A f*cking pothole. That’s all. Just a f*cking pothole. I hit it, then I dumped.
Lesson: wear your bike helmets, kids. Yeah, you may look like a square, but it’s better than looking like a mangled pool of blood.
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02.06.08
Posted in Jiffywoob's Palace at 2:31 pm by Nick
I don’t know what makes me projectile vomit more profusely: watching presidential candidates spew out their hollow rhetoric, or the fact that so many citizens actually buy into said rhetoric.
Obama: stop f*cking using the tired word “change.” That means f*cking nothing. Why don’t you tell us HOW you’re going to change America?!
Hillary: stop being alive. I’ve got nothing against you personally, and I most certainly have nothing against a female president, but when you use gender as your primary stepping stone, it just screams of desperation.
Mitt: I’ve actually got two things for you: 1) Not that it really matters at the end of the day, but you pretty much abandoned our state during the first year of your governership. See that middle finger in front of your face? Yeah, that’s a strong representation of my pissed-offness. 2) How can I vote for a potential president who names one of his kids ‘Tagg?’ I’m trying to figure out what that might be short for…Taggswell? Taggberg? Taggbert? In any case, it’s just plain silly.
So, let me summarize:
- I am not going to vote for any of you.
- If I hear one of you use the word “change” or “hope,” I’m going to projectile vomit.
- If you ever talk about the need to “build a better America,” conveniently avoiding a description of how you actually plan to do so, I’m going to personally urinate on my ballot, after having checked your name off, then written underneath your name: “NOT!” Take that, muthaf*ckas.
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02.04.08
Posted in Jiffywoob's Palace at 11:24 am by Nick
I do admit that, in the context of sports, perfection is largely predicated on a complete season, including the post-season, of wins. No losses. And while I congratulate the Giants for their upset of the Patriots, I am still a little bit bummed that my Pats didn’t go 19-0; would’ve made for some great history.
But the Patriots were far from “imperfect,” as every single media outlet will have you believe. Jackie McMullan of the Boston globe wrote in her article that the season was “all for naught.” Naught, Jackie? How about a perfect regular season? How about the numerous records set? How about the excitement brought to the six states of New England these past few months? How about some of the most heavily watched regular-season games on television? That’s not naught.
And finally, although I share any NE fans’ disappointment, lets remember that this is just a game. In a month or so, MLB spring training will start, and you’ll forget this Super Bowl loss and focus on this year’s World Series. Oh, and those Celtics.
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