Sometimes, companies feel like just throttling people.

I haven’t jumped on the NetFlix bandwagon, although I have been sorely tempted. I did find this article interesting though and if you’re a Net Flix user you’ll want to check it out.

Netflix typically sends about 13 movies per month to Villanueva’s home in Warren, Mich. — down from the 18 to 22 DVDs he once received before the company’s automated system identified him as a heavy renter and began delaying his shipments to protect its profits.

The same Netflix formula also shoves Villanueva to the back of the line for the most-wanted DVDs, so the service can send those popular flicks to new subscribers and infrequent renters.

The little-known practice, called “throttling” by critics, means Netflix customers who pay the same price for the same service are often treated differently, depending on their rental patterns.

Bleeeechhh!

Sorry, I really do hate snow - photos to come.

Friday funnies.

I’ve been really enjoying some of the stuff that’s up on Google video lately. Yes, the world is going to hell in a pushcart, people are rioting over cartoons, there are terrorists everywhere, civil liberties are disappearing faster than Britney’s career but, there should always be time for laughter. So, in that spirit I bring to you the following:

A dramatic new take on the Back to the Future trilogy, titled Brokeback to the Future!

An cover version of a Kanye West hit the gives new meaning to the freshman fifteen.

A Mastercard commercial that really is priceless!

The car ad that should be running before screenings of Munich.

Another argument for birth control.

And finally, proof that you shouldn’t f*ck with old people.

The tit grab redux.

A few weeks back I posted quite a bit about the TGHRTW. I am somewhat impatient sometimes with some of the arguments offered up although I again reiterate my distaste for bad behavior. I came across this spec commercial though on the Google video site and I was curious. There’s an obvious appeal to men but, I was curious if in fact any women found it cute or entertaining... or just downright sexist. Comments are invited.

Look at the video here.

The MOL is high!

The Muslim Offense Level and you, click on the image below to find out more (scroll down too while you’re at it).

HIGH
Meaning - We are extremely offended by a particular individual or country
Non-Muslim response - That individual or country must apologize
Consequence of non-compliance - Individual; Fatwa, assassination, or both. Country; Boycott (unless you export things the Saudi Royal Family are consumers of), and Saudi newspapers write a long string of boring and repetitive articles that you will never read but will drive Saudi readers to distraction.

Kitty fun.

Came across these two videos on Google and thought I would share them with all the cat lovers out there:

This one is an actual commercial (and a pretty funny one at that).

This looks like it came off of AFV.

State of the Union?

I had several half composed entries from just after the State of the Union speech. As a work of fiction it’s a beautiful thing but, do we expect the State of the Union to be a work of fiction?

There was some talk about halving the budget deficit by ’09, by which time Junior will be just out of office and therefore hardly accountable for his promise so, I view the statement as somewhat empty. Besides, what would the alternative be, more time in office? The horror!

My one thought listening to the State of the Union was there should be some kind of broad urging up front for all the members of Congress to hold their applause to after the speech. If they did that, they could spare us all the onus of having to spend an hour on listening to a speech that would run about 20 minutes without the interruptions. 20 minutes was about all the speech was worth anyway, nothing new as much as more of the same. It was a speech of flavor but little substance leaving the listener hungry and unsatiated afterward.

I think the best measure of a man is his words and under the circumstances it is best to measure our current Chief Executive. If you would argue for or against his time in office, I would suggest taking the time out to read his previous State of the Union speeches and then using them as a measure for what he has in fact accomplished during his time in office. It makes for fascinating reading if you have the time and will give one a wealth of ammunition in any political discussion.

State of the Union 2001 here.

State of the Union 2002 here.

State of the Union 2003 here.

State of the Union 2004 here.

State of the Union 2005 here.

Picture this.



Just another shot from the World of PJ Flickr site. Some new stuff going up this week as I finally get around to getting the laptop back up and running. Plus many more new, earlier photos taken with the big camera.

Cartoon controversy.

Upon further thought, it occurred to me if such a big stink hadn’t been made about the Danish cartoons, I probably wouldn’t have ever known or seen them. The main thing the protests are accomplishing is managing to foster interest in the things. I was also kind of wondering if in fact the people who had participated in the buring of the Danish embassy had even seen the cartoons or if they were just going on the word of someone who had (or maybe someone who had spoken to someone who had - a kind of bizarre game of telephone).

Two out of three, ain’t bad.

From Erik Larsen’s column:

There was a time in comics when people used to say that in order to “make it in comics” you needed to possess two of the following qualities:

You had to be really good.

You had to be really fast.

You had to be really nice.

What is that scent you’re wearing?

Woman: Do you like the perfume I'm wearing?
Man: It smells like a sanitary napkin...Before it’s used, of course.

—Grand Central
Overheard by: Christina Rusnak

“Did he fire six shots or only five?”

Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Just a quick mention if you live in the New York area – Film Forum is doing a retrospective of the films of Don Siegel. Besides Dirty Harry, Seigel was also director of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original with Kevin McCarthy) and also can claim to have directed Ronald Reagan in his last role on the big screen. Click on Detective Callahan below for more info.

That big sucking sound.

Last night on the way home from a lovely dinner with family I was trying to find something to listen to on the radio. After a few minutes it became very apparent, radio really sucks sometimes!

K-Rock had the Booker show on which is just horrible and in terms of music on other stations there wasn’t much to choose from. Lots of people on the radio nowadays are trying to be Stern (or to a lesser extent Imus). It’s soooo forced and soooo bad. Nevermind that they screw around with the board so much to make everyone’s voice sound so damn perfect. So perfect in fact, it sounds anything but. Booker’s show had the main guy (Booker, I imagine), some other guy and some women all working really, really hard to be funny. Lots of laughing at just bad, bad jokes. Ever listen to someone tell you a bad joke and laugh too long or too loud after it even though it wasn’t funny? That’s what it was like.

WCBS is gone now too so that big echoey FM sound with all those fifties/sixties/seventies pop is gone. I wasn’t in classical more either and listening to some rap just doesn’t seem like an after dinner kind of thing to do - I just can’t think that rap helps with the digestive process.

So, it’s pretty slim pickings.

AM had nothing but a couple of basketball or hockey games, the newsradio channels and I think there was some kind of health show on one of the stations.

I wasn’t in the God Power Hour mood either (not that I ever was a big fan of the whole Jeez-us radio).

Scary thing is, I’m in a large metro area - what is it like if you’re out in the sticks?!?

Further reading.

If you haven’t heard about the cartoon controversy and would like to read more look at the following places (you can even see the offending images):

The cartoon series appearing on this page that sparked a global controversy was commissioned and published by a Danish newspaper as a deliberate challenge to Muslim insistence that their religious feelings must be given special consideration.

“It’s important for our readers to see what the fuss is about and to make up their own minds. Ours is a secular society based on Western ideals of tolerance and open debate, even if that may occasionally offend.”

“We do not wish to be deliberately provocative but neither should we allow ourselves to be intimidated.”

“If we allow Christianity and more particularly the Catholic Church and the Pope to be satirised, and we do, should Islam be treated differently?”

“In its pure form Islam is a religion based on peace and tolerance. This is a test of that tolerance.”

Newspapers in France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Hungary have reprinted caricatures originally published in Denmark, arguing that press freedom is more important than the protests and boycotts they have provoked.

Up to 300 militant Indonesian Muslims went on a rampage inside the lobby of a Jakarta building housing the Danish embassy yesterday in protest over cartoons that Muslims say insult Islam and the Prophet Mohammad.

Iraq’s top Shia Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani condemned the publication, but said militant Islamists were partly to blame for distorting the image of Islam

Newspapers across the globe debate the controversy over cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad, with Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten, which originally commissioned the drawings, blaming some Muslim religious leaders for spreading “lies and misinformation.”

Cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published in several European newspapers have caused outrage among some Muslims. The BBC News website looks at the key questions behind the row.

There is no specific, or explicit ban on images of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad - be they carved, painted or drawn.

However, chapter 42, verse 11 of the Koran does say: “[Allah is] the originator of the heavens and the earth... [there is] nothing like a likeness of Him.”

This is taken by Muslims to mean that Allah cannot be captured in an image by human hand, such is his beauty and grandeur. To attempt such a thing is seen as an insult to Allah.

The cartoons heard ’round the world.

Okay, I admit it. It’s nice to see them burning someone else’s flag for a change.



Is anyone really shocked by displays like this? I mean, really? How many times have you been watching the news only to see a bunch of people from the Middle East burning a flag. Wasn’t it the Palestinians who were out there shooting off guns, celebrating and burning American flags on September 11th?



I even came across a site which seems to be entirely devoted to all the flag burnings of the American flag (and there are many). So, the Muslim world is mad at the West - what else is new?

Like, the very people who are the most upset by this, your zealous Islamic fundamentalists, what, they were particularly enchanted with us to begin with? I mean, what are they going to do? Fly jet planes into buildings? Blow themselves up? Kill innocents? Destroy other religions’ sacred sites?

Oh, wait.

That’s right... they’ve done all those things.

So, excuse me if I am not impressed by their righteous outrage.

I probably would be more concerned if there was a long history of friendship and tolerance between our societies. Yet, it doesn’t seem as if that’s the case. If people are offended, that’s bad and unfortunate. In this instance they deserve at minimum an apology but, when you start threatening people with violence and death, well... to put it mildly, fuck you.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck you.

Now, I’?m not talking about people who are adherents of Islam, people who find comfort and solace in their faith. I do however have an enormous problem with anyone who uses their religion to hold themselves out as better than the rest of us. Be they Muslim, Christian or Jewish (or whatever religion you want to choose). The thing I fail to understand, the thing that escapes me whenever I read or hear of something like this boils down to one simple fact: If these people are so holy, so devote, so pious, so humbled and in awe of their chosen deity, how could they possibly take it upon themselves to speak for such a divine entity?

You remember the old Ken-L-Ration commercials? My dog is better than your dog and all that went the tune. Just swipe out the word dog for the word God (cap "G", G) and it gives you a sense of where this whole argument stems from...

My God is better than your God,
My God’s better than yours...
My God’s better ’cause it’s my religion yeah,
My God’s better than yours!

It’s great when religion makes a person feel better about themselves, about their place in the world but, is it so necessary to feel better about yourself by feeling superior to everyone else who doesn’t share your beliefs? I guess, if I am going to speak about respecting others’ views, I should take into account how it really is sacriligeous to create images of the Prophet Mohammed. Under that measure I can understand why people are upset and acknowledge their right to be upset. Yet, there are a myriad number of ways for them to voice their displeasure.

Further, in some instances, what are probably considered the most profane of the cartoons have views which are only confirmed by the tenor of the demonstrations and the character of the rhetoric raised in opposition.

Like the old saw goes, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Maybe, I’m a bit obtuse about the whole thing. I just find it somehow interesting that the three western monotheastic religions all share common origins but, still use their differences as the excuse to belittle one and other instead of focusing on those things which join them to each other.

It’s just very, very sad. If anything it reinforces how far we have yet to go before obtaining any kind of divine wisdom and paradise for us all.

Don Rumsfeld, a regular guy?



I keep seeing these pictures of Donald Rumsfeld
our current Secretary of Defense...



...and every time I see the man’s picture...



...the thought that always occurs to me...



...is how different things might be...



...if poor ole Don could just take a decent dump.



Somebody, please get this man some fiber!

Nothing is more contemptuous.

Than people who post streaming audio files on their pages - whether it be MySpace or something else. I sit here quietly surfing away land on a page and all of a sudden find myself accosted by music with the volume on 11. Of course, this causes a start and very shortly after realizing what happened a closure of the offending page without taking the time out to read any of the content.

Singing the praises of the Scooter.

“Uh-oh, deep to left-center, nobody’s gonna get that one! Holy cow, somebody got it!”

“All right! Stay fair! No, it won’t stay fair. Good thing it didn’t stay fair, or I think he would’ve caught it!”

“Bouncer to third, they’ll never get him! No, why don’t I just shut up!”

“Oh, these Yankees can get the clutch hits, Murcer. I might have to go home early, I just got a cramp in my leg.”

“I’m very nervous here with this,” he said at the microphone.

He said he was “doing real good,” and one of his daughters said he still played golf, although no longer a full 18-hole round.

Few people hold as special a place in my heart as “The Scooter” does, before switching allegiances to the Mets, I was very much a Yankee fan and relished listening to Phil Rizzuto broadcast Yankee games.

I grew up in what I considered a golden age of broadcasting listening to Bill White, Frank Messer and Phil Rizzuto do the Yankee games. All this and Bob Murphy too (doing Mets games)! What incredible voices all these men had, a glorious age of summer afternoons, spent lounging away in the sun with a baseball game providing the perfect backdrop to the days activities.

The Scooter’s dulcet tones were comforting and heartwarming. His voice familiar and his humor took on an even greater aspect through the years - culiminating in the wondeful wordplay between him and Tom Seaver, his last partner in the booth.

There are so many funny moments in Phil Rizzuto’s life, moments of entirely accidental comedy which seemed to trail him. Scooter, who was honored with his own day at Yankee stadium, even did battle with a cow bought to the event because of his traedmark line. It was a pure Rizzuto moment as the sedate beast moved it’s lumbering girth closer to Rizzuto and the two got tangled up, causing momentary alarm over Scooter’s resultant pratfall. It was just another part of Rizzuto’s legacy.

Funny thing is, as the years mount up since he has done any broadcasting, his stature has only grown in my estimation. It’s always good to see mention of The Scooter, he’s a real Yankee treasure and the oldest living hall of famer out there.

Getting older.

Getting older means purchasing take out the night before, waking up the next morning only to find the bag the side came in lying on the kitchen counter and trying to remember if you refilled a prescription the day before. Until you go and feel the bag, realizing there are pieces of cornbread in it and not a prescription bottle.

Heartfelt condolences.



Seth Fisher
1972 - 2006

Comic Books
DC Comics: Green Lantern: Willworld, Flash: Time Flies, Doom Patrol (#13-14), Batman LotDK: Snow (#1-5) (not yet released)
DC Vertigo: Vertigo Pop Tokyo (#1-4)
Happydale: Devils in the Desert
Paradox Press: Big Book of Vice, Big book of Grimm ...more
Heavy Metal: Lift, Sacrific, Lifeblood ...more

CD Covers: SQUAREMEAT (Finland), Bank$ (Japan)

Video Game Design Presto Studios: Concept Design for Myst III

Illustration: Cricket Magazine, Cicada Magazine, Dentsu (Japanese Ad Agency), Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market, Penny Farthing Press (Comic Cover Illustration), Frank Frazetta Fantasy Illustrated (comic magazine), QuickJapan (magazine)

A wonderful talent taken far too soon, prayers go out to his loved ones.