Monthly Archives: May 2007

today in Histrionic Overreaction News…

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The Church Lady... IMPERSONATOR! 

Paging all colonic therapists, we have an emergency.

Woman expresses indignation at quote on Starbucks cup

…Printed on the cup was: “Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure.”

It is attributed to Bill Schell, a Starbucks customer from London, Ontario, and was included on the cup as part of an effort by the company to collect different viewpoints and spur discussion…

Starbucks spokeswoman Sanja Gould said the collection of thoughts and opinions is a “way to promote open, respectful conversation among a wide variety of individuals. ”

But Incanno said her Starbucks days are over.

“I wouldn’t feel right going back,” she said.

Door, ass, you know how it goes. This is the kind of thing that makes me glad I don’t work at Starbucks anymore. Not that I don’t enjoy interacting with the stupid and hysterical; in fact, I adore it. It’s just that … hmmm, how shall I put this???

Once, during my days as an assistant manager, I happened to have a performance review, and the manager of the time happened to be supportive of me and not particularly supportive of the way the company had decided to look for ways to divest itself of employee #202615, and he knew as well as I did that if I didn’t score “Outstanding” on the interpersonal part of the review, regional office would turf me. So he looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t think we need to discuss this part of the review. Given the difference between what you could say and what you do say, I’m giving you ‘Outstanding,’ on interpersonal skills,” and that, as they say, was that.

See, I actually slightly know the woman who had to play “evenhanded company spokesperson” here, and she’s always been very gracious no matter what the circumstances. That crazed, outraged, apparently-constipated-on-at-least-the-spiritual-level customer had better pray to her God that she encounter only such kind and mannerly spokespeople in the future, because if she ever crosses my path I’ll be bringing out the nukes.

Then again, there’s a reason companies don’t make me their spokesperson, the fucktards.

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HR Pufnstuf: the untold story

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HR Pufnstuf

When we’re young, so many mysterious, adult things enter our lives and we, oblivious in our innocence, never recognize them for what they truly are.

Thank God.

Then, one day Jackie Paper decides he has better things to do and turns his back on the world of childhood, perhaps forever. He turns the key in the lock and opens the door to adulthood.

Welcome to the machine, kid.

From the (disad-)vantage point of the grown up world, things look a little different. As there’s a subtle yet crucial difference in perspective from a grassy knoll to, say, a Book Depository window, so too adulthood’s viewpoint casts a different light and different shadows on old, familiar scenes.

Like the psychadelic magic mushroom land of HR Pufnstuf.

Pufnstuf was based upon the acid-induced dreams of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who claimed to have had the drug injected into him by his arch-nemesis, Antonio Salieri. During his hallucinogen-induced trip, Mozart completed all of his most widely-acclaimed works, including The Magic Flute, an opera about a magic flute.

Cooke took the concept of the magic flute and placed it loosely into the hands of a swinging, happy-go-lucky teenager named “Jack…”

The BBC recently announced plans to produce a new “reality” television series based on H.R. Pufnstuf, entitled H.R. Pufnstuff Idol. In the new show, contestants will be set afloat on a foam-rubber island ruled by the foam-rubber dragon. One team will try and protect a magic flute, while the other team tries to steal it. The team that fails to execute “Jimmy” will lose the immunity challenge, and it must select the weakest link who gets “Witchy Poo’d” upon.

The winner of each episode will win a position on the Dancing on Ice judging panel, a new washer and dryer, and all the Marmite they can eat. The second place winner wins a date with classic British beauty gone horribly bad, Jayne Torvill.

It will be a ratings monster.

No, I’m not sorry I said it.

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don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t unpack

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SailorsIt seems the US military is running short of personnel…something to do with the fact that they’re running out of people who are okay with the idea of being shot at for no particularly good reason or something. But, frankly, we never thought they’d get this desperate.

Sure, they’re sending soldiers with psychoses and traumatic stress disorder back into the front lines (hey, what’s the worst that could happen?). Sure, they’ve revoked the right of discharged or retired personnel to actually refuse to be re-deployed any time up until and/or including death. They’ve sorta kinda quietly starting redeploying people, even Reservists, up to four or five times. Sure, they’ve been caught on tape lying to would-be recruits about their chances of being sent to Iraq. They’ve been caught on camera coaching recruits how to fill in the answers in selection tests. And yeah, they’re even recruiting in malls full of white people now.

But no-one thought it would come to this.

They’re calling in teh gays.

From the Stars and Stripes:

Under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, he was quickly discharged from the service.

But now — whether through a clerical oversight or what some claim is an unwritten change in policy to keep more gay servicemembers in the ranks at a time of war — Jason Knight is back on active duty.

Since promoted to petty officer second class, Knight is finishing a scheduled one-year tour in Kuwait with Naval Customs Battalion Bravo. And, already kicked out of the Navy once, he sees no need to hide his sexual orientation.

“I thought it was a joke at first,” he said, remembering the day he received his recall orders. “It was the ultimate kick in the ass. But then I thought, there isn’t much they can do to me they haven’t done the first time.”

It was comments by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that spurred Knight to come out publicly a second time. In defending the military’s policy, Pace called homosexual acts immoral and contrary to military values.

“Though I respect [Pace] as a leader, it made me so mad,” Knight said.

“I spent four years in the Navy, buried fallen servicemembers as part of the Ceremonial Guard, served as a Hebrew Linguist in Navy Intelligence, and received awards for exemplary service,” he wrote in a letter to Stripes. “However, because I was gay, the Navy discharged me and recouped my 13k sign-on bonus. Nine months later, the Navy recalled me to active duty. Did I accept despite everything that happened? Of course I did, and I would do it again. Because I love the Navy and I love my country. And despite Pace’s opinion, my shipmates support me.”

Dear god, what a sailor! If they’d hire a few more of those and let them finish their terms without discharging them, they’da won this bloody thing by now.

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I’m a lousy lover

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or at least Vancouver poet/accordionist/comedian Rowan Lipkovits is. Here he is at the Roxy, a barn-like nightclub for people under 25 looking to get A) shitfaced and B) laid. Watch and enjoy as he testifies to the fact that he is not exactly in their target demographic. The songs are Al Mader‘s I’m a Lousy Lover and Lipkovits‘ own elderly-tomcat theme, Cougar Man. UPDATE: Rowan reports that Cougar Man is a product of the genius of Peter Guindon, aka Bob Uker (as in ukulele-player), aka The Minoans.

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life lessons from the undead

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brainsssss...brainsssss....Stephen Hawking.... 

Because hey, Britney Spears is alive and you think she can give you better advice than a gore-clotted zombie revenant, crazed with bloodlust and hungry for brains?

At least zombies like brains.

The ever-servicey Guardian has a lovely article on life lessons we can learn from zombies. (I must include a small ed. note here, to the effect that we at the ol’ raincoaster blog have, it must be admitted, even when we don’t want to, that we deleted the Zombie Blog off the blogroll, although it should be noted that this was after a long time, and with great reluctance, and we only did it because that blog was not so much undead as actually, factually, and for all intents and purposes really…well, is it indelicate to put it this way? Dead)

Man-made viruses are bad things … 

We, as humans, are fragile things

… When the character of Rhodes is spectacularly dissected by zombie hordes in Day Of The Dead, and screams “CHOKE ON ‘EM!” as they tuck into his guts, he is, in a very real sense, acknowledging his own dehumanised position in consumer culture. Yes he is.

The US military ruin it for everyone

…In Day Of The Dead, they are all racist, sexist and insane, with disastrous results. Quite where the inspiration comes from for this bumbling, disaster-prone, incompetent redneck vision of America‘s military might, is a matter for considerable debate.

Your family messes you up

No genre has reflected the increasingly obsolescence of the nuclear family unit more gleefully than the zombie movie, which posits that family life will not just mess you up, it will also attempt to eat your spleen too…

Always stay close to a helicopter pilot

No matter what goes down in any given zombie movie, you can be sure of one thing – if you haven’t got a helicopter pilot with you, then you are fubar…in the Zack Snyder remake of Dawn Of The Dead, there is no helicopter pilot anywhere to be found, and where do they all end up? Dead, that’s where. So if you are ever introduced to a helicopter pilot, be nice to them

Women are better in a crisis than men are

This may not be news to our female readers (on your side, sisters!) but zombie flicks are either keenly aware of women’s inherent stoicism, or the blokes who make zombie flicks are just trying to suck up…

Animals can be zombies too

Hmmm. Not quite sure how this one can be applied in modern society, but there are zombie monkeys in the 28 series, zombie alligators in Day Of The Dead, zombie dogs in Resident Evil, zombie spiders in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, and in Zombie Creeping Flesh there is actually a zombie kitten. Yes, you read that correctly. So I guess what this teaches us is maybe that keeping pets is cruel. Or something.

In summary, then: stay away from pets and family members, retain a keen awareness of your own mortality and the power of science, and hang out with female non-US military-affiliated helicopter pilots. Valuable lessons, there, for all of us.

Couldn’t have put it better myself. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to drop a friendly note to my old buddy Flygrrl…

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