Wow, that was one hell of an October, folks.  But never mind that right now.

At present, I am lying in bed dealing with some sort of nasty bug that makes it impossible for me to talk properly without coughing a lot.   The girlfriend is on a mission to find a thermometer, so I can take my temperature and find out whether or not I need to go to the Hospital or something.   My head is also very woozy right now, but that might have something to do with the large amount of Nyquil I imbibed last night.  Or maybe it’s the bug.  Either way, last night  I may very well have seen God.   He looked like Carl Sagan.  Suffice to say, I am not feeling well at all.

So I figured it was as good a time as any to share with you the works of Mike Polk.  He’s an Ohio-based comedian who’s come up with some brilliant stuff, including this video.  It’s a tourism video for his home town of Cleveland, and watching this makes me want to go to there.

Now, apparently, the Cleveland tourism council wasn’t having it, so a second video was commissioned…

Fun times in Cleveland, indeed.

There’s also this equally sad and funny video, entitled “I Guess You’ll Do”, described as a comical, cynical cartoon about marriage.

Sounds ominous.

And even that “darn thing” was, basically, a YouTube clip of John Barrowman smiling to the theme from Friends.  I am a bad, bad, pretend blogger.

My friend Jeremy (aka “Butthorn”), however, is a good pretend blogger.  I’ve linked to his stuff in the past, but this particular post is particularly hilarious.  Seems that Mr. and Mrs. Butthorn are having a baby.  Anyone who primarily remembers Jeremy as half of the comic duo behind the hit WMEB (University of Maine radio) program The Poop and Pee Show will be naturally shocked at this, at least before they realize that such a program was probably excellent preparation for what Jeremy and Annie will be dealing with for the next three years.

However, Jeremy is on the case.  He’s come up with a list of 30 things never to do with a new baby, and honestly, I think we could all take this sort of thinking to heart.

However!  Prepare for an awesome post about what I’m up to these days over at the Somerville Theatre in bucolic Somerville, MA.  It’s awesome.   Freaking, flipping, farking awesome.  Totes.

Yep.

Lauryn, I believe the words you are looking for are: “This is so very wrong, and yet, so very right.”

Paramore, covering Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” unplugged at the BBC Radio Live Lounge.

Yes, that song is probably too recent to cover.

Yes, Paramore misspells their band name on purpose, and that’s never a good sign.

I don’t care.  It’s a lovely version.  Enjoy it.

FDA Bans Clove Cigarettes STARTING IMMEDIATELY!!

(from ABC’s reality-ish show Wife Swap.)

BACON IS GOOD FOR ME!!

SHE’S ACT LIKE SHE’S THE QUEEN AN’ WE’RE THE SORRY PEOPLE!

So, about two weeks ago, I wrote a virtriolic, nasty, sarcastic piece called “I Am Not An American”, where I basically (sarcastically) declared that I must not be an American because I believe in things like health care and equality, and not in things like, say, Glenn Beck or death panels.   Or bacon.   Though I do like bacon.

It wasn’t too badly written, but it lasted all of about five minutes on this site.   I deleted it almost instantly.  I freaked out.  It was too nasty, too partisan, too…. well, let’s put it this way:  Michael Moore could’ve written it, though he probably wouldn’t be allowed to make any more movies after he did.

I excused it at the time because I really, really want universal health care.  Really bad.  It’s understandable, I think, considering things that have happened to me via private insurers (which, on the scale of things, aren’t all that bad compared to some things you read.)  I’ve written about all this before.  So: when I see my fellow citizens holding offensive signs and crying “socialism!” and basically being assholes in the name of freedom, I get a little pissed off.  Because, essentially, they’re standing up for the “freedom” to deny someone like me a chance at a healthy, normal life.  They’re ignorant bullies and I hate them.

And that’s what this post – that I so swiftly deleted – was about: how, apparently an “American” wasn’t someone who lived in and loved this country and was guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it meant a fat, white, selfish idiot yelling  “I GOT MINE, SCREW YOU, HIPPY!” while cashing his unemployment check.  And how’d he get unemployed in the first place?  Well, the CEO of his company decided it was cheaper to make stuff in India, so he laid off thousands of his loyal American workers and gave himself a pay raise.   But if you asked Bubba over here, he’d still blame the Mexicans.   So, understandably, as somebody who prides themselves in thinking logically, I started to feel a little alienated.   And that’s where this all came from.

Except… it’s all stereotypes, isn’t it?  Sure, there are some people like that in this world, just like there are some lazy Mexicans or some black criminals or some Irish drunks.  Stereotypes serve a certain purpose, and they can even be helpful in helping us process information, just so long as we also learn to move past the stereotype and get to know  people.  Are these “tea-partiers” upset at the wrong people?  Definitely.  Is it because they get a steady stream of misinformation from Fox News, et al?  Totally.  And yet…

My iPod fried itself two days ago.  I don’t blame Rush Limbaugh for this, I blame iTunes 9.  No one seems to have anything nice to say about iTunes 9.  It took one look at my iPod Classic, went “HUMPER-DUMPER-DOO!” and corrupted my library file.   This means I’ve had to listen to – gasp – the radio on the way to work, and not, say, last nights episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

I’ve noticed something about myself in the past two days.  One: I have a nasty headcold, but that’s understandable because it’s September.  (Every March and September, I get sick.  I don’t know why this is.)  Two:  I find it a lot easier to deal with people.

Seriously.  For a while there, every time I met someone new, I tried to figure out what their political persuasion was.  I judged them almost demographically based on age and place of origin, and then tried to listen for key words.  Was this person a tea-bagger?  Are they coming to deny me health care?  Are they bringing a gun into the federal office I currently work in so they can “WATER THE TREE OF LIBERTY WITH THE BLOOD OF TYRANTS”, or in this case, Park Rangers?  Suffice to say, I freaked out a little bit.  A woman actually did come into the place I work, going on and on about how they’re “taking away our freedom.”  I played it very, very, very calm.  Inside, I wanted to scream at her.

The point being that, even though I agree with Keith most of the time, the steady stream of partisan fear I was downloading into my skull every morning on the way to work was driving me a bit nanners.  And if I’m going to hate someone who believes everything that the egomaniacal charlatan Glenn Beck tells them, I’d better watch out before I become someone who believes everything he hears on MSNBC without checking the facts.

So: is there a lot of vitriol out there directed towards the President?  Yes.  Is any of it based in fact?  Not much.  Is this a wide-spread movement of millions of people holding muskets thinking they’re going to start the next American Revolution?  Well, it’s not that wide spread.  There are some loon-bats out there, to be sure.  But they’re not everywhere.

The point is: my obsession with politics has gotten in the way of me enjoying my life.  I really need to stop for a while.  Or forever.

This is the official video for “Nikita Says Love”, by my band The Pluto Tapes.   I made this.  Enjoy!

This episode’s book was something called The Bionic Bunny Show, though the YouTuber here cut that part out in order to focus on the real meat of the day: ruining Andy’s childhood fantasies.

Ha ha, no, I’m just kidding, of course, I never thought Star Trek: The Next Generation was real, per say.  Really, I didn’t.   When I learned that the transporter was actually a camera trick mixed with a shot of glitter in a glass of water, I was fine.  I was.  Fine.

But, seriously, though: this was a pretty awesome thing to see as a kid.  It was the making of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  It was how they put together a TV show, with full behind the scenes access provided by our friend Levar Burton, who just happened to be on both shows.   Even non-Trekkies remember this one (at least the transporter glitter thing).  For slightly nerdier children, it was nerdvana.

Here’s part two, where we learn that the crappy containment device from that crappy episode “Home Soil” was actually about two feet tall and made of stuff Rob Legato had left over after building his model planes.  Also, the real Enterprise is like six feet long.  Sorry about that.

Stay tuned for exclusive bloopers near the end.  There is a TNG blooper reel, from the beginning of Season One, where you can actually hear Levar Burton saying the “S” word! You might like that as well, but you don’t have to take my word for it!

(da-dum-DUM!)

Feels like every time I post here, it’s all about health care or politics or Big Papi David Ortiz with his Big Papi Syringe full of El PED’s, and dagnabbit, it’s summer, a time when we should be outside, catching marshmallows and roasting fireflies, and spending our fleeting, ephemeral childhood nights getting spooked, chased, and otherwise dismembered by horrid creatures from the nightmares of Poe. 

Thus, The Onion offers the following: 74% of Children Tenting Out In Yard Don’t Make It Through The Night.