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Archive for April, 2008

Things I Used To Be Able To Do When I Was Younger

Monday, April 14th, 2008

1. Make mud pies
2. Accelerate a massy object to greater-than-light speeds
3. Love

Adapting Lear

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

Notes from brainstorming session for movie adaptation of King Lear:

1. Queen Cheer: Lyra, head of the cheerleaders, is graduating soon and must pass on her crown. Her three best friends, Delia, Reagan, and Madison [note: Goneril? Doesn’t work…] all want the job, but Reagan and Madison flatter Lyra, and she agrees to make them co-head cheerleaders [lesbian scene? check with MPAA].

2. King Gear: Pixar/Disney co-production? A kingdom of talking cars, lead by King Gear, a white-bearded Oldsmobile [get it?]. He must divide his asphalt and black-top domain between his three daughters: the sporty but honest Corvette, the fuel-inefficient Regency, and the bulky Grand Voyager [check with Chrysler and GM re: product tie-ins.] But he “runs out of gas” when Corvette refuses to polish his headlamps [ask Tom in standards and practices: how far can we go here?] and winds up giving the parking lot to Regency and Grand Voyager, whose gas-guzzling ways lead to global warming [Al Gore endorsement?.]

3. You’ve Got Lear!: Colin Firth and Drew Barrymore play mismatched couple Lear and Carrie. He’s old enough to be her father…and what she doesn’t know is that he IS her father! Her two best friends, Samantha and Charlotte [talked to Darren Star…he said it’s cool], meanwhile, are scheming to steal her older boyfriend away from her! Will she find her birth certificate and learn the truth? Will Samantha and Charlotte get their (three-) way? [Jerry: this might work better if we ditched the ‘King Lear’ content; just saying!] And what about Lear’s crazy friend Phil? [Adam Sandler not available; Kevin Federline?]

Academic Bullies

Friday, April 4th, 2008

Solipsist bashing has become all the rage with professional philosophers. They find someone who espouses solipsism, then beat him or her senseless, taunting the poor solipsist by shouting, “stop hitting yourself! stop hitting yourself!”

Things Today’s Teens Do

Friday, April 4th, 2008

Femtocuddling: cuddling for the briefest possible amount of time. Originally done by young males as the minimal post-coital cuddle, now has become an event in itself, with teens attempting, sometimes through technological means, to cuddle so briefly that they achieve Planck-state affection.

Roof Tarring: in parts of the Pacific Northwest, teens discovered that the fumes from roofing tar produced a mildly intoxicated state. They then began “free-tarring,” i.e. illegally trespassing on the property of homeowners with poorly weather-proofed roofs, and illicitly tarring these roofs so as to catch the fumes (sometimes called “doing a roofie.”)

Politicizing Infants
: big amongst teen-aged supporters of tariffs on manufactured goods, this involves attempting to sway the opinions of infants by offering them greater job security and mother’s milk. You’ll occasionally see infants wearing “Made In The USA” onesies, and these are usually victims of the politically mis-guided teenagers.

Phone-poling: the act of climbing up a telephone pole while dressed as an official telephone company technician. The teens then wave joyously to passersby and shout Anglicisms like “hullo, guv’nor!” or “pip! pip! cheerio!” The purpose of this activity is still unknown.