Comic for Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

Posted: 7:15 am, Wednesday, January 23rd

So I'm getting a one-day commution of sentence today, as apparently nobody could come in to testify in the Trial of the Century today. Which means I have to go back to work. For a day. Super. In a way, I'm actually looking forward to hitting the office, because walking around Brooklyn during the day on my lunch breaks and when we get out a little early has made me feel like I'm playing hooky the whole time, and that there's going to be hell to catch when the trial's over.

And, by the way, where were you people on this? Man, I'm stuck in a court room doing my civic duty, and evidently a whole *week ago*, a ten-minute video of Tom Cruise rambling incoherently about Scientology gets leaked? Ye gods. I'd love to know exactly what good fight it is he's fighting. And what he can do for me at a car crash.

I'm reading Seeing right now, Jose Saramago's sequel to Blindness, which is a fantastic book and highly recommended to everyone, although you should start with the Cave or the Double or something because they're easier to get into, and his style is crazy dense. Seeing is also quite good - I'm actually enjoying it much more than I thought I would. Also, Blindness is evidently going to come to a theater near you. Dude who made City of God is working on it, although I was more optimistic up to five seconds ago when I saw the cast/rumored cast/I'm guessing cast. Oh well. Read up on Saramago here, in a profile that ran last August in the Times.

I've spoken of my jones for Saramago in the past, and I know I've gone on many, many times about Freaks and Geeks, but, here's an AV Club interview with Linda Cardellini, who was more or less the main character on the show. And speaking of too-brief shows, forgive me father, somehow I forgot the name of David Cross's character on Arrested Development the other day.

Man, I Kissed a Girl was such a goofy song, I can't believe it had the DJs on DRE and EQX talking about it like it was a serious statement back in '95.

2.0 and I watched Sabrina with Bogie and Audrey Hepburn last night. Delightful movie - goofy in parts, but it's a romcom from '54 for God's sake, so how could it not be?

bullfrog

Zero -- Wednesday, January 23 2008, 08:19 am

So Box Office Poison was really good, but am I the only one that felt like it ended really abruptly? Like he just decided, nah, I've done enough of this, let me wrap everything up.

If I'd ever dated someone like Dorothy I'd probably be in jail for throwing her off a roof or something.

Zero

Everything did wrap up pretty quickly at the end, but I dunno... The Flavor bit pretty much only made sense to wrap up at the Con, and that's when Ed had to more or less start seeing Hildy (Hildy, right?), and it made sense for him and Sherman to have it out over Dorothy right there. And since they were both entering new/different phases, Jane and Stephen's leaving occurred at the same time. I wouldn't've had any problem with the book continuing another 400 pages, and maybe Jane and Stephen's leaving was very abrupt, but everything else was OK with me.

I haven't decided whether to request to pour a 40 for Heath Ledger or not. Seems really freaky how he died.

TOBIAS FUNKE!

he's an analrapist, remember?

I totally remembered the analrapist, just couldn't get any closer than Titus. 2.0 came up with Tobias after a few minutes.

Yeah, the Heath Ledger thing is wild, man. Dude was younger than me? Fuck!

another awesome romcom - Philadelphia Story. So, so great.

Just wanted to let you know that they discovered what the appendix does. I'm surprised they haven't made a bigger deal out of it. You have good bacteria in your gut that helps digest food and forms vitamins. Well when you eat something that kills all your gut bugs (like milk of magnesium) then you have trouble digesting certain foods. The appendix is a little hideaway for the bacteria so that people who do have an appendix have the bugs repopulate their gut a lot faster than those who had it taken out. Makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Just goes to show you that what we think and accept as common knowledge can still be proven wrong.

Btw, love your web-comic, been a fan for a couple years now. I need the NYC witty humor since I moved out to Minneapolis. Keep up the good work.

Thanks, Matt. Actually, I found that when I was googling the appendix to make sure that this strip made some semblance of sense, but it seemed like it was not common enough knowledge yet that Jen throwing a fit in the bar wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. I'm surprised they haven't made a deal out of this, too. Have they figured out what makes it burst from time to time?

I'll be making my Minny debut later this year, I just found out. A friend is having a wedding celebration there. Have to check to see if the Twins are in town when I visit.

Dammit, they're out of town that weekend on a stupid three-game road trip.

skt, just added it to the queue.

Everyone always makes fun of me for saying this, but I prefer High Society to The Philadelphia Story. Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby make me so happy. And the Cole Porter songs!

I think my favorite romcom has to be The Goodbye Girl, though. I love the kid especially.

Bullfrog, did you by any chance text my sister about this "David Cross on Arrested Development" question? She was wondering who'd sent her this query - now that you've brought it up I guess it must have been you...

Oh, yeah, I forgot to ever answer her and identify myself. Also, I thought it would be funny for her to just receive phantom messages about Arrested. We were trying to figure this out in a bar.

Heehee. Next time this happens send her one from 2.0's phone so she will still be mystified!

Sorry to have our one-issue discussion stretch across three days. I don't think Bush will declare martial law, but I remember some comedian joking that it feels like the country's holding its collective breath that this douche doesn't do something rash in the next year, and that he actually hands over power in a peaceful fashion. I sure don't remember worrying about this with Bush I or Clinton, but I imagine our parents worried about it with Nixon.

Yeah, come to think of it, if Nixon can willingly leave after being nearly clinical, then we're probably OK.

No worries, man. I just wasn't sure what to make of it right off the bat - I remember you mentioning this on your site one time.

I think Condi's got Shitwit's ear way more than Cheney these days, and she probably thinks she still has a political career after 1.20.09. If he were still in Cheney's pocket, we'd all be fu-hucked.

More than we are, anyway.

Here's a little reverse sunshine for us. Americans recycle 52% of aluminum cans, while Brazil and Japan are in the 90's and the global average is 60%.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-22433872.htm

And we only recycle I think it's one-quarter of bottled water bottles.

Most of our "recycled" bottled water bottles apparently get shipped to China and put in landfills. so don't feel too bad about that one.

The 10 cent deposit on cans in Michigan makes the rate of return much higher, I'd guess. Works really well and there aren't cans littering the sides of the roads. Now if only there were a deposit on plastic bags.

Crikey, really, MNP? Damn.

The upstate minimart chain Stewart's used to have twenty-five cent deposits on their one-liter bottles (maybe they still do, but I can't say). Lemme tell you, finding one of those on the side of the road when you're eight was freaking awesome.

"Plastic bottles are cleaned and chopped into chips, heated and turned into tiny white pellets. Sold alongside Virgin PET, recycled PET is a super hot item, with 40% of sales going to the Chinese."

Quick googling does make a link to China, but presumably to be used in manufacturing things... things which I suppose either get sold back to us, or may-haps things that end up in the Chinese landfills.

The quote is sourced. The rest is my speculation. Link: http://earth911.org/recycling/plastic-bottle-recycling/plastic-bottle-recycling-facts/

I'm a little late coming into this convo, but The Philadelphia Story is my all-time favorite movie. You can't get much better than Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart all in the same story. Close second is Roman Holiday, but only if I stop watching before the last 2 minutes.

In case Grafe hasn't mentioned it, we'll be going to a Roller Derby this weekend. I look forward to him updating you on the thrills next week.

The Charlotte Roller Girls v. the Columbia Quad Squad? Sweet.

I have to give it to Quad Squad for a better meet-the-players page, but "Amy Fister" for the Charlotte side has the most horrifying name, barely beating Freda Fetus.

http://www.charlotterollergirls.com/teams.html

http://www.columbiaquadsquad.com/Meet.html

Scariest thing about plastic is that it doesn't actually break down in the sense of its molecules breaking apart into other useful molecules (like a tree turning into dirt that grows new trees). Instead, the bottle just breaks down into smaller and smaller plastic pieces. That means that every bit of plastic that has ever been made and will be made (until an enzyme evolves to eat plastic) will always exist.

Learned this from The World Without Us. http://www.worldwithoutus.com/index2.html