Validate away.

Click here.

Notes From My Department Meeting, 7.26.05

One of the managers is a gangly, goofy guy who can never match his socks to his pants. He just sits there like an 8-year-old.

CFD has painted her nails red, presumably to make a good impression at Show and Tell when she demonstrates how to play M.A.S.H.

The new girl looks like Blossom. Weird.

I keep realizing that I haven't been listening. Every 5 minutes I'll return to consciousness, only to be bored all over again.

Some British lady that's high up in the company talks for half an hour about something that doesn't apply to me. I spend the time drawing. (I can't draw well.)

If the British lady says "consortia" one more time, I'm going to have an aneurysm.

At one point a deep lethargy spreads through my body, not unlike a hibernating bear might feel. I yawn, and the department head looks at me and says, "Am I keeping you up?"

Puncturing The Slump Theory And Examining The Death-Spiral

"Instead of a box-office decline, the studios actually took in more from the U.S. box office in the first quarter of 2005 ($870.2 million) than they did in the similar period of 2004 ($797.1 million). So even though the total audience at movie theaters declined during this period, this came mainly at the expense of independent, foreign, and documentary movies. For the Hollywood studios (and their subsidaries), in fact, there was no slump at all." . . .

Click here for the rest.

Holy frightening office mayhem.

Read all about it.

This guy sounds like he's full of it, but at least he can spell.

Read more here.

The Fifth And Final Step

[See the first four steps.]

5. Always have a random fact from the 1980s at your disposal.
Example:
"Oh yeah? Well, who had the highest batting average in baseball in 1985? Wade Boggs, buddy."
[It was .368, by the way. It helps to go here.]

In another stunning display of ineptitude, and of the media creating a story where none exists, an FBI official spoke out today against the movie Wedding Crashers because the film's official site includes a "crasher kit" that features a Purple Heart medal to print out and wear on your jacket. The medal "guarantees you attention, admiration and plenty of free booze," the site jokes.

But the FBI's Thomas Cottone doesn't find this funny. "I challenge the producer of that movie to go to Walter Reed Hospital and walk through the ward and see if he still wants to print out a fake Purple Heart," Cottone said in this morning's Chicago Tribune.

Two quick points, and the lesson is yours:

1. It's a joke, Tommy. The movie is a comedy, and the site is tongue-in-cheek. Do you think the producers actually expect anyone to cut out the paper medal and wear it to a wedding? Get real. The site even says that the medal is awarded to those who "prove their physical, mental and spiritual strength with great feats of bravery on the battlefield."

2. I will admit, though, that despite your misguided protests, you do have a point, Tom. Only total jackasses would wear fake Purple Hearts.

Because you should always listen to Mr. T.

Click right here.

How To Convince Your Male Friends That You're One Of Them In Four Easy Steps

When conversing as a group, men will inevitably discuss sports, a subject that can be problematic for those that, say, can't remember all the obscure facts necessary in order to participate in a debate about pitching. If you find yourself in such a situation, here's a guide that might help.

1. When someone states an opinion, repeat it back to them as a doubtful question.
Example:
"Clemens is looking strong this year."
"You think he's looking strong?"

2. When someone states an opinion, voice your strong agreement.
Example:
"Clemens is looking strong this year."
"I'll say he is." [You might be tempted to say something as forceful as "Damn straight," but beginners should tread lightly.]

3. Always bring it back to the fantasy team.
Example:
"Clemens is looking strong this year."
"I know. I'm glad I've got him on my team."

4. Only show emotion when acceptable.
Approved movies for shedding a few silent tears: Rudy, Hoosiers, Rocky I-III.
Not approved: Youngblood.

That's it. The steps are deceptively simple: a minute to learn, a lifetime to master. Practice often, and one day you, too, might appear normal. Good luck.

Rejected Alternate Titles For Bravo's New Reality Show, Being Bobby Brown

Beating Whitney Houston

This guy sounds like a pretentious jerk, but at least he makes some good points.

Read more here.

We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident

Anyone who says they like The Godfather: Part III is either (a) lying or (b) clinically retarded.

The length of the meeting is inversely proportional to its relevance to your life. So the briefing where you'll learn what you need to know to complete a special assignment and not get fired might last 5 minutes, but you'll spend an hour and a half at the company meeting, listening to birth and anniversary announcements for people you've never met.

The book is better than the movie.

At home, in their personal bathrooms, away from the world, most men never wash their hands.

With the exceptions of Good Will Hunting and Awakenings, everything else Robin Williams has done is vastly overrated. This includes Dead Poets Society.

Men feel about women who read chick lit the way women feel about men who watch porn: Avoid at all costs.

Conan O'Brien has the best musical guests of any late-night talk show. If Jay Leno's got Britney Spears, Conan's got Old Crow Medicine Show. No competition.

Also, not just chick lit: Men avoid women with cats. Dangerous people, those.

No CD sounds as good as one you bought when you were 21.

Because you can never waste enough time at the office.

Your Name Is Cooter, You Moron

August brings with it the theatrical release of The Dukes of Hazzard, based on the 1970s TV show about two good ol' boys who drive around all day with nothing to do, presumably because all the good, beatable women are taken. In probably the lamest grab for attention since, well, the original show, former TV star and two-term Congressman Ben Jones, known as the Dukes character "Cooter" to all you lonely people out there, has spoken out in the press and on his very own Web site about how true fans shouldn't see the new movie. The reason? It's too crass.

Now, I'll grant that the two leads for the film aren't top-drawer: honestly, the studio really couldn't do better than Stifler and the Jackass? This movie's going to be bad no matter what, Coot, not because it's too sexually blunt. After all, what was the original show if nothing but a chance for young boys to ogle Daisy Duke for an hour? Her outfits left so little to the imagination that her cutoffs, formerly called "whore's shorts" or "working girl's britches," were rechristened as "Daisy Dukes" in the pop-culture lexicon. Her legs launched boys across Arkansas into bow-legged, Skoal-chewing puberty during Reagan's first term. Casting Jessica Simpson in the role was truly inspired: she's the vapid blonde of choice for my generation.

Cooter, you're off-base when you blame "Hollywood" (and I'm using quotes around it just like you did, moron) for degrading what, in your Coors Light—addled mind, was a wholesome and nonsexual show. It's not like keeping single entendre out of the movie would have made it better; after all, we are talking about The Dukes of Hazzard. Movies based on old TV shows are tricky things to make anyway; only The Fugitive comes to mind as an example of a competent and enjoyable update. But, Coot ol' buddy, didn't you see the remakes of Bewitched or Starsky and Hutch? Bad originals make for bad movies. It's that simple.

The Cootman tips his hand on his Web site: "After all, our huge success for so many years is the reason they are making the film, and the film, after all, is about us." Wrong. The movie isn't about you, because you're an actor. It isn't even about the original show. It's about turning a buck with a recognizable brand name. After all, you don't see Antonio Fargas getting upset, do you? Face it, Cooter, this is the way the world works.

P.S. Coot: No one will take you seriously as long as your claim to "fame" is that you played a guy named Cooter. Honestly, please move on. Thanks.

"Do we need the first feature film to tackle 9/11 to do so through US flag-waving masquerading as a globally relevant human drama?"

Here's the rest.

no whammy
no whammy
no whammy

stop

Review: War of the Worlds

War of the Worlds
Starring Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, and some robots
Directed by Steven Spielberg

2.5 stars (out of 4)

Any chance I might have had to approach War of the Worlds with objectivity has been destroyed by Tom Cruise's public descent into hysteria. It's hard enough for actors to get respect for voicing legitimate religious or political opinions, but when you start advocating Scientology as a serious practice (I know it looks like it has the word "science" right in there, but don't get suckered, people) and having your publicist set you up with a woman half your age just so you can prove your heterosexuality, you're pretty much asking to not be taken seriously. It's no wonder that studio heads almost pulled the plug on Mission: Impossible III for fear Tom's madness would overshadow it; it almost certainly will.

Here, Cruise stars as Ray, another in the long line of the jerks Cruise has played (Frank T.J. Mackey, anyone?), a dock worker in Bayonne, N.J. His ex-wife and her new husband drop off the kids at Ray's rundown house at the beginning of the film, and for a while Spielberg gives us what he excels at: families pulling each themselves apart. I was reminded of Roy Neary's self-destructive nuclear unit in Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and not for the last time: Spielberg assembles pieces of his past masterpieces throughout War of the Worlds. But that's later.

Ray greets his kids, Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and Rachel (Dakota Fanning), and goes to sleep to recover from his midnight shift. Robbie looks like he really wants to be bass roadie for Jimmy Eat World, and Rachel is inexplicably dressed like Punky Brewster, with multi-colored gloves and a bizarre vest. Fanning is undeniably weird, but weird in a good way. I've never cared for her much, and she's as annoying as I'd feared for the first two acts. But as Rachel progresses through the story and calms down, Fanning begins to display the faintest glimmer of what could, with time, develop into genuine talent. But back to the story: Ray wakes up to find Robbie gone, which is bad news because some freak lightning storms are happening in the neighborhood. Ray sets out to investigate the storms, which is about when all hell breaks loose. A giant alien craft emerges from under the street where the lightning struck, sprouts legs and starts vaporizing people. The walker lets out a large foghorn blast, the antithesis to the pleasant five-tone calling card of Close Encounters. And in a freakish homage to Schindler's List (1993), Ray winds up covered with ash from the raining cloud of recently evaporated citizens. Robbie returns, and Ray grabs his kids and hits the road, hoping to make it to Boston and his ex-wife and her family.

Focusing on Ray and the kids' lonely journey sets War of the Worlds apart from other alien-invasion fare, most notably Independence Day (1996), Roland Emmerich's ode to righteous American wrath in the face of adversity. Spielberg takes a different path, following one man's desperate search for survival. Ray doesn't even know there are multiple crafts until a reporter in a wrecked news van shows him footage of the machines destroying the city.

We follow Ray on his journey across the countryside, through crowds of people clamoring for help. Army convoys pass on Humvees, headed to fight the alien machines, and Robbie keeps trying to ditch his dad and go with them. Ray forbids it, telling them that they have to get to safety. "We have to get back at them," Robbie shouts, but Ray keeps him away from the fighting. It's in exchanges like this one that Spielberg lays out a not-too-subtle critique of the desire for retribution in the wake of 9/11. Both of Ray's children ask, when they're first attacked, "Is it the terrorists?" Emmerich's film was a fantasy about being invaded, but Spielberg's post-millennial tale is about being invaded again. In our world, these things just happen now, and the wreckage of planes brought down by the aliens is more jarring than it would have been 6 years ago. But anger and retribution aren't the key, Spielberg tells us.

At one point, Ray and family are taken in by a man named Ogilvy (Tim Robbins), who's hiding in his basement to avoid the aliens. Ogilvy holds out hope that the aliens will inevitably lose out. "If history's taught us anything, it's that occupations always fail," Ogilvy says, and here Spielberg shows us the other side of the American coin: not just the invaded, but the invaders. Too soon after 9/11, and this story might not have been told. America was too blood-thirsty then, and pop culture seemed to reward people who wanted to take an eye for an eye (I'm looking at you, Toby Keith). But the advantage of time and the inept, blundering invasion of Iraq have let Spielberg voice what would have once been an unpopular opinion: maybe survival is more important than vengeance.

This may be Spielberg's biggest disaster flick yet, but it's by far his least effective, which is a shame, because the notion of hostile alien forces seems much more plausible than the idea of peaceful ones. The dominant cultures in our history have always enslaved the weaker ones, so it only makes sense that, if we're the discoverees and not the discoverers, things probably won't work out too well. The strength to follow such a line of thinking could have elevated War of the Worlds to the level of such classics as the original 1953 film or 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still. But Spielberg backs off. The movie meanders on for a while, and rather than evolve into a natural conclusion, things are suddenly solved with a twist so random that even Shyamalan would be embarrassed. The movie ends as it began, with voiceover narration by Morgan Freeman. The words are meant to inspire awe, I guess, or at least some sense that the story is worth telling. It almost was.

Rejected Scents For All-Natural Glade Plug-In Air Fresheners

smoked cheddar

shaving cream

sweaty child

guacamole

shaving cream w/ menthol

Xerox toner

tobacco

loneliness

Fan-freakin-tastic. Go here now. Spend money. Be happy.

You know the drill.

A List Of Life Changes, Or Resolutions, To Be Carried Out This Summer In Order To Ensure Happiness, Or At Least A Lack Of Boredom, In My 24th Year

1. Grow muttonchops. Like, serious, hardcore, Allman Brothers ones.

2. Start slipping out of department meetings. When asked about my leaving, say it's because I have "to take a deuce."

3. Learn a few magic tricks.

4. Forget about #3 when I realize it makes me look kind of gay.

5. Apologize to any gay magicians I offended in #4.

6. In response to cleavage at the office, begin showing up to work with fly unzipped. Act coy and suprised when (inevitably) questioned.

7. Try to get Mormon boss to convert me.

8. Learn terms like "full-court press." Enjoy newfound acceptance among males in my social circle.

9. Kiss acceptance from #8 goodbye when I tell them I own The English Patient.

10. Come up with new ways to be sent to HR for refresher course in sexual harassment training. Molest fax machine?

11. Start speling things funeticly like evreewun els on the internet.