Tuesday, March 24
My wife is out of town for a week. I pity the henpecked sorts who must seethe with envy – aw, gee, he’ll get to leave his socks on the floor for days on end, and he can play games and visit that new free Playboy site without hooking a rear-view mirror to his monitor and a proximity alarm – but no, that’s not me. There’s not a Married Me and a Free Me. I will, however, probably throw out a few things that should be recycled, just because it feels so naughty. It’s all the modern man has left, when it comes to rebellion. Even our pieties are petty.
I saw this the other day:
Well, no, it’s not. If if is, then when am I giving it to my dog? Why is the toilet bowl full of it? You can say every drop is important, and overstate the case but make your point, but if all water is holy, then the North Dakota flood is the greatest act of grace we’ve seen since the last time people lost their homes to a tide of unstoppable inundation of holiness.
It’s not the first time Fargo has had a flood.
That’s Dad’s station in the ‘65 flood.
This may be my new oath for the rest of the week:
Not just niblicks, but suffering niblicks. I think I speak for many when I say our niblicks have indeed suffered over the last year, and I look forward to the days when we can once again shout Holy Happy Niblicks, and everyone will know what we mean.
It’s from “Spring Fever,” one of the many old Warner Brothers movies I will not be paying $15.00 to own. I’d like to see it, but that seems a bit steep. The new Warner Brothers store is a cool idea, and I know I’ll pop for a few of these – but the price is set higher than I’d like. And I’m not one of those “should be free” or “99 cents is too much” types. I’d pay ten dollars to see an old obscure movie that’s been out of circulation for a long time.
It makes me grind my teeth, though, when I read about something like this – an extraordinary chance to see old movies locked away for decades – and the comments consist of “meh. torrents ftw.” I can understand using torrents to find strange obscure things you simply cannot get elsewhere. But these antisocial kiddies expect to be compensated for their own work someday, yet think nothing of sucking up yesterday’s movie or expensive software. Always love the rationales: A) it’s not stealing because you’re taking a copy, and B) they couldn’t afford the software anyway so they’re not losing a customer.
Anyway. Wife’s gone; took her to the airport after I did the NewsBreak Extra. Probably shouldn’t have said “now with Retsyn!” when introducing the segment, but what the hell. Made two mistakes, which gripes to no end. Should NOT make mistakes. Note to self: no more mistaeks. Went home, wrote the next day’s buzz – it’s the weekly Small Town Website, chosen at random. Most are horrible. I find it interesting that people want a new WPA for writers, like the old one, when the government sent Frank Bolsh to Sepia Flats, Oklahoma to record the life stories of itinerant twig-sexers.
“Well, my pappy was a twig sexer, and his pappy was one in th’ Ozarks until the plague came along and carried off Maw – by plague I mean them big black birds with the great big claws, we called ‘em “Plague Birds” after Plague County, where’n most of ‘em done roost – and then we moved west on account of the twig-smut pretty much rooned our livelihood in Missoura. (spits) So we set up here and I got a job in town tellin’ the orchard-man whether his twigs was male or female, until they got to bringin’ science down on our heads and tellin’ us waren’t no such thing as a twig havin’ a sex, and even if they did it waren’t no difference no how, so we been here in this shack waitin’ for a photographer to come along and take a pitcher of us lookin’ all grim and thin but, you know, bearin’ up. You brought a photographer, din’t you? Don’t tell me you’re jist writin’ this down and that’s it.”
If we had a WPA program, and I don’t think we should, I’d use it to hire web designers, and let them fix every small town website that still thinks it’s 1999. I swear, some of these sites are so old you expect to see links to AOL homepages.
Do they still have those? Oh, right: they shut down Hometown. But they have Bebo! Yes, Bebo! It appears to be some sort of MySpace/Facebook thing with extra-concatenated Social Networking. Because we don’t have enough of that. If there’s one thing I ache for the web to outgrow, it’s the infantile nature of these names. Meebo! Bebo! It’s like a two-year-old child’s word for flatulence. MySpace! Facebook! The latter is something you’d show to an infant to make them smile with hard-wired recognition.
So. Later today we’ll have the website; around noon, the Comic Cover; around 1:30, a Black and White World with a satisfying payoff for movies-on-cable fans. Trust me. See you soon.
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But these antisocial kiddies expect to be compensated for their own work someday, yet think nothing of sucking up yesterday’s movie or expensive software.
You can have it now, but you’ve got to pay for it later…. or not.
Bebo? In the old Archie McFee catalogues(back when it was black & white, full of weird, funny & cheap stuff, not made for them faux-retro schlock and the product descriptions were the best part), there was a running joke from issue to issue about this bizarre Asian-made half-simian-half-alien-infant alarm clock. People were always writing in to suggest a better name(since the packaging didn’t really say what it was called), but the catalogue writers tended to call it “Bebo”, after the annoying alarm sound. “Plate o’ shrimp”, indeed…
Did the station have your dad’s name over the door? I remember the Texaco in the town where I was raised said over the doors Herb Wilson … Marfak Lubrication … Car Wash. I thought Marfak was another guy who worked there. But that was about the time I thought a republic was the thing that you stuck the little flag in on the blackboard. “And to the republic for which it stands…”
I don’t remember “Bebo”, but I remember “Obie”, the little eye-popping martian doll.
But these antisocial kiddies expect to be compensated for their own work someday
How quaint. C’mon Lileks, get with the 21st century. Why should they have to “work” to be compensated? They have a “right” to entertainment, just like the right to “health care” and “housing”. It doesn’t entail any effort or expenditure on their part.
You DO know a “niblick” is a 9-iron and not gibberish, right? So the “sufferin’ niblicks” line fits in the context of the “hole in one” part.
Loved newsbreak. Quite funny.
I think you procede from false assumptions..
“But these antisocial kiddies expect to be compensated for their own work someday,”
I’m not sure that they do. I think many of them actually expect to live in a socilaist utopia, where all things are readily available to all persons.
And robots do all the work, of course….
“If there’s one thing I ache for the web to outgrow, it’s the infantile nature of
these names. Meebo! Bebo! ”
Twitter?
If every drop is holy why do you need to sanctify it before baptisms? Hah! Got you.
Agreed the social networking names are silly… Facebook, MySpace, Twitter…
On the other hand they are short, easy to remember and roll off the tongue… I really can’t think of other better names for these things.
You would think a guy caught up in nostalgia so much wouldn’t consider not recycling an act of rebellion, but rather anti-conservative, if you know what conserve means. Would you have thrown away your tin cans and rubber bands during WWII just to spite those self-righteous do gooders always on their sanctimoneous “drives”?
@a reader: WWII junk drives were mostly hollow propaganda, something to make folks on the “home front” feel more directly involved in the killing.
“a reader” – I bet I know what the “a” stands for. Chill. It’s a joke, pendajo.
Besides:
“Recycling is the philosophy that says everything is worth saving except your time”
For the love of all that is holy James, What about Marge? What about truth? Please, please post the solution to LL!
Every drop is sacred.
Every drop is great.
If a drop is wasted,
Gore gets quite irate.
Let the deniers spill theirs
On the dusty ground.
Gore shall make them pay for
Each drop that can’t be found.
But these antisocial kiddies expect to be compensated for their own work someday, yet think nothing of sucking up yesterday’s movie or expensive software.
It’s one of those concepts that some folk have trouble with. Say your mechanic fixes car. You pay him, and go about your business. No need to pay him again everytime you use the car. But with software/movies, well do the work once then get paid forever.
I know, I know, more complicated than that, but superficially, it’s what makes them feel like it’s alright to ignore copyright ownership.
Ahhh, St Joan of Arc. Where the Catholic church merges with Neo-Pagen nature worshipping.
“Sufferin’ niblicks”? Nah, I’ll take “Heavens to Murgatroid!” anyday.
When he was overwrought, my Dad used to say:
“Great Gobs of African Bear Hair!”
I still use it. It rolls off the tongue nicely.
“I bet I know what the “a” stands for. … pendajo.”
I would have thought that if Lileks were to have a moderator for his Bleats, he would want one that isn’t a name caller. Oh well.
Hard to argue with the torrent punks when Warners charges $15 for a film in which everyone involved the production is dead. And most or all of them worked for hire. Talk about chasing in on corpses. $5 seems reasonable.
I don’t know about you people, but when I click on that WB link, they want to charge me twenty smackers, not fifteen!
James probably has a side deal going with WB for a perpetual five buck discount.
“If there’s one thing I ache for the web to outgrow, it’s the infantile nature of these names.”
If you look at a website as a product, goofy, infantile product names have been around for ages, no? It doesn’t help that there’s a notion floating around out there that domains of 5 letters or less are somehow more “valuable.”
Just hazarding a guess that these DVDs from the WB grooveyard of forgotten films might be POD–duped to order rather than pulled from stock–hence the inflated price.
That’s right – these are “printed” on demand. I may or may not buy any, but I’m not insulted or indignant about the price. Them that wants them enough will buy them. There are plenty of cheap used DVDs out there that you can buy legally. And more PD stuff is showing up online all the time. archive.org has over 1700 “feature films” for free download. Most are forgettable, but there are some really good ones, as well.
@RLR – James’ side deal with Disney likely precludes any such arrangement with Warner bros.
Yep, $15 for downloads, $20 for “print on demand” physical copies.
I understand they need to recoup their expenses for digitizing and making the material available, and I understand that they’re a company in the business to make money, but yeah, $15 for a download seems a little high. But I guess it’s down to “either we charge this much for it so you have the ability to see it if you want to, or it’ll just languish in our vaults forever until all the masters rot away.”
Now, if you want some on-demand entertainment, with the money going right to the artists ($10/download or $15/DVD) throw some business to these fine folks:
https://cinematictitanic.twinvision.com/products/
Couldn’t agree more. And Rifftrax.com, too.
There are definately some silly names out there, but I’m not sure Facebook is one. I’m not a Facebook geek. I have a page, but I mostly use it because it’s the easiest way to communicate with friends. I don’t even have a profile, and if you throw me a sheep or try to turn me into a vampire or zombie, I will completely ignore it. [/disclaimer]
All that being said, way back before these networking sites existed, I worked at a major university that published a yearly book featuring pictures of students, faculty and staff. This served to put faces to names, and made a big place seem a little smaller. We called it the “facebook”.
Facebook started as exactly the same thing – it featured college students, faculty and staff. Now that it has “sold out” to the general public, maybe it is a silly name, but at least there’s a logical reason for the name.
I agree with the earlier comment – Twitter is a silly name. But fun, am I right?