Comic for Thursday, March 23rd, 2006

Posted: 7:30 am, Thursday, March 23rd

2.0 found out she'd be getting a good chunk of change back from taxes this year, and took me out for dinner with some of it this evening. I'm writing this with a very good burger setting up residence in my tummy. Good times. Hope you'll excuse me if this contentedness distracts a bit from the site today - it's been a mess at work and I haven't had much time to look around at stuff.

I saw this on the news yesterday morning and was very upset that I missed seeing it live. Evidently some crazy lady stole some dude's big rig and drove it all over lower Manhattan, crashing into this, that and the other thing at four in the morning the other day. The news showed her being taken away from the cops and she started screaming something like, "This is what they do! They get homeless undercover perverts to pose as narcs! This is what they do!" Um, yes. Of course it is.

2.0 just downloaded "We Didn't Start the Fire." Send help!

Billy Bragg drops by the AV Club this week. I saw him a few years back with Reggie Ho. Excellent show. I like the part where he says that "Tennessee isn't my best state." That's hilarious. The second half of the second page is the best part of the interview, if you're pressed for time - he talks about post-9/11 America, and is actually more optimistic than I am.

Pajiba has a surprisingly in-depth Hollywood tidbit column.

And that's more or less all I have. The March Madness starts again today, which is always exciting. I present you with the following:

What's that you say? That's a horrible pun, and terribly close to that Cingular ad? Well, 2.0 actually said this after looking at my bracket, so I'm using that as my defense. To *her* defense, she didn't watch much of the tournament last weekend, and hadn't seen the ad eight billion times. Also, this is my bracket:

That's right - I have three teams that can give me points at this point. How freaking embarrassing is that? And look - at the last minute, I scratched 'Cuse out of the title game and wrote Duke in instead. I almost lost two Final Four teams in the first round. Oi. Alright, well, play safe out there and I hope your bracket is better than mine.

bullfrog

Now, in my own defense "We Didn't Start the Fire" was downloaded in an MP3 Aquisition tangent I was on last evening. The burger joint's jukebox was playing "Games without Frontiers" which reminded me of that song by the Police "Russians" as well as the Genesis song "Land of Confusion." So you can see, I *needed* "We Didn't Start the Fire" in order to round out this series of Cold War classics.

This also caused me to download "Shock the Monkey." Oh Yeah.

...and my joke was funny, fuck you. (sorry mom)

Can I say something about Lost or have people not watched last night's episode yet? I'll just say that the presence of one particular item on the island made me lose a bit of respect for the writers. Grafe has completely given up, but I still have faith the show will regain some of its original greatness. We're just being tested....

Why? because it's so unlikely?

I never thought "Lost" would have jumped the shark this quickly, but it's becoming work to get through an episode.

Does anyone remember the awesomeness of the "Land of Confusion" video? My wife and I just happened to be flipping channels awhile back, and caught it on VH1 Classics. We had a blast trying to figure out who all the puppets were.

In the interest of making my apartment pleasant to come home to tonight, I'd like to say that the March Badness thing was actually really funny when 2.0 said it, but when I drew the Five and Dime yesterday, it didn't make as good of a punchline in a comic as it did in real life.

And 2.0 also got Born to Run and some stuff from the Almost Famous soundtrack, so it's all good.

That said, why is it that every upcoming episode of Lost always looks so much better than the episode they just made me sit through? And Sec, are we talking about the item that Sun needed? I chalk it up to the wish-fulfillment aspect of the island. Although I do fear that Lost may go the way of Lois & Clark - say what you will about my referencing Lois & Clark, but that show had a very good first year and a half and then crashed and burned spectacularly. I still immensely enjoy Lost, but I'm constantly afraid they're going to totally muck it up.

Ondy, I don't know if she'll see that comment, but you just made 2.0's day.

I always mention this video to Jeremiah, but he's never seen it...nor is he even familiar with the song (played if for him last night). Ugggh, kids today! That video is pretty awesome, but speaking of politically motivated music...remember Scorpion's "Winds of Change?" Ouch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=hxx7uXesq7Q

I was, indeed, referencing the item needed by Sun. I said the exact same thing one of the characters said before she said it, "Who the Hell would take a --- with them on a plane?!" I'm glad the character said it.....I would have liked someone to answer it, though! I'm also disappointed in whoever does the subtitles for Jin and Sun's backstories because of the mistaken "you're" instead of "your" last night.

Better yet, an annotated "We Didn't Start the Fire" compliments of Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn%27t_Start _the_Fire

actually, 'russians' is just sting and not the police. although i personally don't like 'we didn't start the fire,' billy joel in general is good listening. that tune is kind of corny. a recommendation for good burgers in the future in the 'hood can be found at 12th street bar and grill (12th street @ 8th ave, brooklyn).

That typo almost killed me, Sec.

Further ingratiating myself to 2.0, I have two We Didn't Start the Fire stories. (Didn't put them in the main post because I wanted to do the dishes before Lost came on.)

1. In sixth grade, when the song came out, my teacher had us do history reports on various stanzas. Mine was on U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy. Which is odd, because I always thought I had to do it on Doris Day, too. Huh. Anyway.

2. In eighth grade, and this one is mortifying, our local Fox affiliate had an ad campaign for Star Trek: The Next Generation with "We Didn't Start the Series." If you wrote down all the lyrics, you could win a shirt. Yep, definitely got that shirt. Lemme see if that song has somehow made the interweb. And it did - I guess it wasn't just WXXA, which makes sense, they were pretty low budget still at the time.

http://www.worldkids.net/jaguar/humor/start_se ries.html

Along the lines of what you are saying, Secretary, the prisoner was questioning how old the hatch cereal (Dharma Flakes?) is, and said something along the lines of "You people don't even seem to care what all this stuff is here for." Basically raising the question I've had since this season began... nobody seems to be trying to figure out what's actually going on with the island, they just kind of stumble around doing nothing to get to the bottom of things.

i was a 'fan' of ranger danger on wxxa, even though it was technically a 'community service' deal for uncle vito:

http://www.pyx106.com/pages/unclevito.html>

it was stupid, but funny as well, like most passable comedy. not good, but acceptable.

man, i can't html to save my life! http://www.pyx106.com/pages/unclevito.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WXXA

Oi, Ranger Danger. A-yah.

Good article on student-athletes and the Tourney. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/a rticle/2006/03/22/AR2006032202143.html

who'd you have in 6th grade? Miss Bader made us write up on the whole damn song. still can't stand it.

McLaughlin. You weren't in that class? All I really remember was being in the basement - a theme I decided to revisit later in life when looking for housing.