I Have No Starship and I Must Scream

Roger Ebert, with whom I agree most of the time, has given the new Star Trek movie 2.5 stars. I had my doubts too, but I suppose two things concern me more than his review.

First, he clearly splits an infinitive. This is as unacceptable as he feels the new Star Trek film is unimaginative.

Second, based on the title of his article, "The Franchise on the Edge of Forever," Harlan Ellison's lawyers will be calling the Chicago Sun-Times legal staff soon.

Now that I've mentioned this, Harlan Ellison will probably be suing me too.

The Strange Case of Trader Joe

People who shop at Trader Joe's are hip. They're smart too, aren't they? According to the marketing demographics, they are:

Scarborough Data, a market research firm, profiles the typical Trader
Joe's shopper as a college-educated, white homeowner with a median age
of 44 and a median household income of $64,000. Almost evenly divided
among married people and singles, females and males, two-thirds have
no kids at home.

I shop there too. Sometimes I feel like I'm part of the TJ's elite. But then I pull into the Trader Joe's parking lot and realize two very important life lessons:

1) Getting behind the wheel of an automobile will turn the most docile and well-meaning person into a douche bag in mere seconds. If Stevenson wrote the Jekyll and Hyde story today, it wouldn't be a chemical formula that turned the good doctor into a brutish sociopath - it would be a Toyota.

2) Said douche bag, having arrived at the TJ's parking lot, also drops down into double-digit IQ scores.

Still, I'd rather put with the douche bags at TJ's than the ghetto fabulous a-holes at Ralphs.

Hamid Karzai Legalizes Rape

Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, Bush family friend and former UNOCAL consultant, has just inked a law that allows for marital rape. It's not an April Fools joke, nor is it a surprise to many that a Bush friend would support human rights violations. Read more on Salon.

Urban Art Movement

I've decided to start a new Urban Art movement. My first piece is "Spinny Night." National Endowment for the Arts, send me my grant money now!

New Zapruder Film Analysis - Evidence of the Comedian

Check out the recently discovered plume of cigar smoke coming from Edward Blake's presumed location on the grassy knoll.

Hindouche Bag

I just finished enduring the painful Republican response to Obama's speech from Paiyush "Bobby" Jindal.  Comparing his political success strategy to Katrina may have been more apt than he thought at the time. Rumor has it he's the golden boy for 2012.  Looks like the GOP finally outsourced their party to India too.  

Just Leave Him There, Luke.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney (god, it feels good to say that) arrived at Obama's inaugural ceremonies today via wheelchair. So he's now, quite literally, hell on wheels. The Bush administration's dark lord of the Sith, known as "Angler" to his friends, a man so unhealthy that he has heart attacks in his knees, has met his match - a Ryder K150 moving box. Yes, the thing that's "more machine than man," as wise Jedi would tell you, pulled one of his remaining organic muscles attempting to move a box. But in fairness, all those phone records and torture memos and ignored warnings of bin Laden's terrorist attacks and fabricated WMD intelligence just have to weigh tons. I don't think I could've picked them up either.

So, like his mentor Darth Vader, Mr. Cheney has been felled by something far less powerful than any of his former allies. My friend made an astute observation this morning: "Leave the wheelchair, Luke, the Death Star's about to go!"

Mr. Cheney's body will not be cremated in the forests of Endor, as speculated. Instead, he has announced his desire to spend his retirement planning for the inevitable and much feared mineshaft gap.