Drinking game for the Republican National Convention for those who prefer to remain completely sober

Whenever you're able to spot an African American in crowd shots, take a shot.

Worse than Manos, the Hands of Fate?

Entry in an occasional series in which we try to soften the sting of vituperative movie reviews by the addition of the phrase "Garnish with Fluffernutter." Why? Because.

Today's entry is the dire Disaster Movie, which has a 0% approval rating, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

Let's string together a few of the reviews and see what happens.

This carpet-fouling mongrel of a movie no more deserves release than do anthrax spores. ... Embarrassment. It's a feeling you should get used to, [writers] Freidberg and Seltzer. May you never befoul another cinema with your grotesque comic abortions. ... It's quite frankly stultifying that Friedberg are Seltzer are ever let anywhere near a studio boardroom after having defecated out their previous movies, much less this one. ... None of it is amusing, so there's probably enough suicide-inducing material here to make a send-up of The Happening redundant. ... No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! ... As depressing and empty a cinematic experience as any other picture this year or last (or maybe the whole decade). To label it as simply unfunny or vacuous or ugly or boring would be a compliment. ... I'm not sure if Disaster is the worst movie the boys have churned out, but, at this point, that's like asking if a bullet hurts more than a knife. ... Garnish with Fluffernutter.

See? Much better.

Word of the day

Foofaraw.

Just wondering

If the Fu Yu in East Rockaway, L.I., merged with the nearby Hoo King in Oceanside, would they rename it Hoo Yu Fu King?

Yes, The Velvet Blog is working blue today.


Note: I'm a little short of time to actually think of new blog posts--work is crazy and I'm having trouble stringing two coherent thoughts together. I noticed I had saved this post as a draft nearly two years ago and never triggered it, probably for reasons of taste. Obviously, my standards have lowered.

An Associated Press news story ... from the future!

I find the tense of this AP story, posted online about half an hour ago, deeply odd:

Former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton closed out her history-making 2008 quest for the White House Tuesday with a prime-time appearance at the Democratic National Convention, ... Clinton paid an advance visit to the convention hall in late morning with her daughter, Chelsea. While her appearance was the main event of the night, it was far from the role she envisioned more than a year ago ... --The Associated Press

I'm glad the reporter didn't go on to review the speech. Still, I'd have gone with "will close out" and "will be the main event" for online copy.

Rats!

I, for one, welcome our new robot rat overlords.

(Trivia points to the reader who identifies the source of the "I, for one, welcome our new [adjective] overlords" setup -- which, yes, I admit to overusing. Sue me.)

Top chef secret

So, Julia Child was a spy. Or was she?

One thing's for sure: She was a one-of-a-kind TV presence.




Pretty busy the next few weeks. Expect posts to be even more half-assed than usual.

Demystification of the Olympics opening ceremony that I really didn't need to know

They faked some of the fireworks? Oh, fine, for the sake of TV spectacularity.* The little girl who sang was lip-synching because the vocalist wasn't cute enough? Well, no one wants to see an ugly kid, especially in high-def. The adult performers were wearing Depends disposable undergarments? Ummm ... what?

"You wanna know a secret?" an International Olympic Committee member from Las Vegas asked me in the lobby of the Shangri-La's Kerry Centre Hotel in Beijing. "The performers are wearing diapers during rehearsals so they don't have to take bathroom breaks." --Huffington Post

*Warning: Not an actual word.

Yet another sign of the coming apocalypse (which really can't come too soon)

Were you aware that there is cable-TV game show called Hurl? It goes like this: 1) Two young men eat. 2) They are then attached to contraptions that twirl them up, down, and sideways. 3) The person to throw up first is the loser.

Although one might argue that civilization is the bigger loser.

Death by the numbers

Number of Google News hits for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who died last week: 297

Number of Google News hits for Bernie Mac, who also died last week: 5,333

Dear Subconscious:

Frankly, Subconscious, you puzzle me. I realize you have things to work out when I'm sleeping. I'm not sure why you continue to torment me with dreams about celebs I don't care about in real life. You know: Screech. Ryan Seacrest. Etc., etc. But I'm just going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure you're doing very important work, and, well, if I don't understand, I must just be a dope.

But I really need to complain about that dream you sent my way the other night. You know, the one in which former Attorney General John Ashcroft appeared on TV with the Singing Senators to perform a version of the god-awful Black Eyed Peas' hit, "My Humps." Do I need to remind you that the song contained two of George Carlin's seven words you can't say on television? (Yes, @#(%@! and ^&@#*.) And that as the dream closed, I wrote a letter of complaint about this to the Federal Communications Commission, hoping to get Ashcroft into trouble?

That's playing dirty, Subconscious. There's simply no reason for behaving this way. This sort of thing must stop.

In retaliation, I'm going to force you to watch this YouTube video of Ashcroft warbling a song of his own composition, "Let the Eagle Soar."

There--how'd you like that? I can play dirty, too.

Sincerely,
Jim