still not a christmas song!
articles in this category 'ephemera'
This just came to my attention:
In the Charlie Brown Christmas special, Charlie Brown gets his little tree because he is depressed, since he feels the holiday is becoming overly commercialized and plastic…
…and now they’re marketing a plastic version of it.
How’s that feel? Living in that world?
Get the turkey out of the oven to make room […]
From a product page on Amazon.com:
Did Paul Shaffer do the music for Pirates?
Does Chevy Chase play the undead monkey?
I’ll be workin’ on this one like a Rubik’s Cube for the rest of the week.
“181 things you need to know now”
NOT PICTURED ON THE COVER: a thing that happened in the news this week
Problem: things keep happening, and you don’t have time to keep up with them all. More to the point, things that seem like a big deal on Tuesday turn out not to be worth a good […]
Between Paris Hilton, Larry King, and the Apple iPhone (”$600 really will fill that hole inside you this time”) this has been– how shall I put this?– not the most patriotic week of my life. If you were stuck in the elevator inside my head, the muzak would not be Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the […]
-You cannot make it through ten minutes of commercial television, radio, or (especially) movie trailers without hearing the record scratch. I just heard my third one today. The pleasant background music is playing, and then someone says or does something shocking and– “wha?! she’s a dude?!”– the music is jarringly interrupted by the scratch of the needle being […]
This afternoon, I was scheduled to be on a conference call. The fellow who set it up called me hours before it was set to begin and said, “The guy who always has your back on conference calls and I aren’t gonna make it; could you run that call?” This was no surprise after being […]
About a month ago, my bosses approached me about taking a new job. They had a task that needed doing– a kind of project coordination, air traffic controller thing– and they thought I would be just the perfect fellow to watch the 500 green blips on the screen and make sure they didn’t hit each […]
Plazes.com in a sentence:
“I wish it was easier for strangers to find and kill me.”
What are you laughing at, twitter.com?
Many, many years ago, when the internet was as a newborn babe and Saturday Night Live was starting to look like it was in real jeopardy of being canceled due to a couple years of sheer awfulness, I read on a Janeane Garofalo proto-fansite a reference to a vicious behind-the-scenes takedown of the show that […]
I propose that the next version of Netflix require the user to write a summary of what s/he was doing/thinking the night s/he added each disc to his/her list. Just anything. “Drinking, suddenly remembered watching the Three Stooges on Saturday nights.” “Saw Snakes on a Plane; reminded me of Delta Force; seemed like campy fun […]
frustration
aggravation
rage
violence
flight
This morning, I walked into my office the same way I always do, the same way I walked out last night, only to find that the door I walk through every day on the second floor has been walled off.
Just walled off. Last night it was a door. Today it’s a wall. Why? No reason. […]
This morning, I typed “Woohoo!” in an e-mail and Outlook’s spellcheck corrected it to “boohoo.”
Have the contents of any Taco Bell hot sauce packet ever found their way onto food? The drive-thru transaction invariably grinds to a halt over the issue of sauces– “What kind of sauce do you want? Do you want hot sauce? Do you want mild sauce? You don’t want any sauce? Are you sure?”– and […]
Sometimes, when you are having a very bad weekend or are in grim spirits, it can do you immeasurable good to know that the things you find odd or crazymaking are experienced by other people. For a moment or two, you have the solace of knowing that We Are All In This Together.
With that in […]
Somebody besides me noticed!
I love it when these things happen and the people responsible say, “Well, we do a super hero TV show, but I have never opened a super hero comic book. I have no prior experience in the genre in which I work.” Well, then, it’s a good thing you don’t work alone.
Did Saint Louis University sell its soul, and if so, how many times?
Sighted by Bill Michalski on his travels, this poster raises vastly more questions (and gorges) than it answers. Somewhere, someone was eating a taco and thought, “this is good, but I wish it was also a chili dog.” That this is sold in the same venue as cheap alcohol is no accident. What must it […]
Act I of this episode of This American Life, in which John “PC” Hodgman talks about what it’s like to be his weird kind of famous, is delightful. Now you know; get it while it’s still available.
When you try to order pizza from Pizza Hut now, no matter which Pizza Hut you call, you are routed through a call center.
Seriously. Pizza tech support. It’s like the bank; you never talk to the people who will actually make or deliver your pizza.
“Thank you for calling Pizza Hut, your call may be monitored […]
We recently bought a digital camcorder, and while it’s ostensibly for home movies there is absolutely no excuse for me not to be doing something like this every day.
You might be the most qualified candidate in the history of the presidency, but if your speeches continually refer to your “adoptive mom,” you are not to be trusted. Like Vilsack, I was adopted as an infant. I too have an adoptive mom, whom I typically refer to as “my mom.” Still trying to figure […]
I watched some of the Super Bowl tonight– for work; no, seriously– and I saw that the big postgame TV slot went to CBS’ “Criminal Minds.” Apparently, Dawson from Dawson’s Creek played a serial killer, which is the only thing I’ve heard about this season better than Chevy Chase being cast as a Hollywood a-hole […]
-Guy in prison submits DNA sample to clear his name in murder cases
-Murder convictions are overturned when DNA proves guy’s innocence
-Guy goes home
-Guy is immediately arrested when DNA sample proves guy strangled completely different girl, even though guy was never even a suspect in her death
I picture the Law & Order detectives showing up to […]
I have been procrastinating the purchase of a new computer for six months now. In another of the gender role reversals my marriage is known for, my wife has literally been offering me free money since last year to accomplish this task.
“Take the retirement money,” she implores me. “Right here out of the I.R.A. 64, […]
I had a dream the other night. I was working in a small start-up company along with a grade school friend and, for some reason, Josh Flanagan from iFanboy.com. Our boss told us that each of us was eligible for a new position as a writer; the job of writer paid $500,000 a year. He […]
Woo hoo! Crowded House is getting back together!
That’s exciting to me. I am as big a fan as you can possibly be while also not technically realizing that the band has been broken up for 11 years. I mean, I guess I knew the drummer quit, and that the drummer was 1/3rd of the band, […]