Hello there. The web is protesting SOPA and PIPA today so I'm not doing an extended post here, just putting up a classic movie poster. The storyline of this movie is not altogether irrelevant to the topic at hand, so go see it if you get a chance. Or read Poe's short story. Isn't media cross pollination awesome?

Double Dipping

A housemate charged with making dinner started assembling an unlikely assortment of ingredients out of the pantry - it really was past time to hit the grocery store - but, undaunted, he combined them and came up with something that looked surprisingly appetizing. Then he proceeded to eat it right out of the casserole dish that everyone was going to be served from. I don't mean he was testing it to see if it needed anything. I mean he grabbed a fork and dug in. It made me realize I have some conflicting beliefs about double dipping. I've lived with some pretty outstanding cooks, and I've seen them taste the sauce and put the spoon back in plenty of times and thought nothing of it. It's like taste testing canceled out the germs, which is ridiculous. If the cook puts the spoon back into the pot uncleaned, of course any germs on that spoon are not canceled out. Yet, the housemate's actions made me immediately start looking for my keys to go for takeout. Germs acknowledged! Then it occurred to me that the difference in perception of the double dipping behavior might not have anything to do with germs, but more to do with the type of cook implied by that behavior. A taste tester cares deeply about the end result, and seeing that behavior is a good sign that the dish will taste good (germs bedamned). Whereas, my housemate is the sort of fellow who will eat anything that doesn't run away fast enough. Who knows what that thing tasted like, regardless of how good it looked?

Attack of the Robot Lawyers

I've been noticing a creepy trend in ambulance chaser ads. Okay, a creepier trend. The attorney is always carefully posed, mannequin-like, and throughout the impassioned speech about how, for a fee, he is totes on your side, his (or sometimes her) head moves back and forth like a metronome, but his body does not so much as twitch. They move just like animatrons from Disney World.

It's Skynet, I'm tellin' ya.

Infernal Machines

The future is upon us. Only, the machines aren't going to kill us by direct means, oh no. What will happen is that ordinary consumers' heads will explode when they realize how much money they have spent on machines that they have no clue how to operate. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAAA! *COUGH*

I might be preaching to choir here, but....

Whatever you do, don't commit crimes during the season of peace. Not only are you probably creating extra bad karma for yourself, but if you get caught, you will reap the whirlwind of a criminal justice system that is in slow motion due to all the people using their vacay time at the same time, just in time for you to have to wait in the pokey until after New Year's before your case really gets under way. So whatever you were thinking of doing, reconsider. For so many reasons, it's just not worth it.

Weird Questions that Won't Leave You Alone

If Buffy Summers were to flick somebody upside the head, would her fingers be strong enough to knock that person out?

Some email spam is weirdly compelling.

Got an email spam today. Not really all that different from any other day, except this one, from someone named Maria but who is probably actually named Yuri or Vladimir, invited me to "get a control of your prick." Maria Yuri Vladimir, you don't know how much I wanted to get a control of that prick, specifically to control him right back out the front door, but I really don't think your pharmacist with the wacky spelling can help me with that. It is kind of funny how the sheer silliness of the subject line made me click on an email I might have otherwise consigned to the spam folder without looking at it. It would seem my taste for goofiness is breaking free from the limits of trashy movie watching to influence everything I read or see.