Cereal Wars

Last night my wife came home with a box of Golden Grahams she'd picked up at the supermarket (see pic above).
me: "what the hell? Did you buy cereal in 1983?"
her: "No, it's some sort of vintage thing they're doing with General Mills."
me: "that's actually pretty genius. I mean, I can't imagine kids still eating cereal like that, and if you were born between 1070 and 1984, that's pretty much all you need to set started on your nostalgic impulse buying."
her: "I know, right? I actually want some right now just thinking about it, and I just ate"

and so we did. and it still gets soggy INSTANTLY upon contact with milk. But it was alright, because I haven't had that cereal since I was 9 and eating it there with that box in front of me (even the back was the same!) made me feel pretty much like I was a kid. So thanks for that, General Mills.
and to be fair, I like this layout. I like the brownness of it and the fact that there's no holograms or sparkle foil on it. But it also makes me feel 600 years old to look at this compared to today's cereals, even the adult ones. Seriously, of you had handed me a box of cereal from 1981, I'm not sure I would be able to differentiate it from one printed in 1968. You think I'm kidding? Check it out:
Quisp, 1983 (I was gonna insert some snide remark here about how nobody's seen Quisp in 20 years, but of course I'm WRONG).
Super Sugar Crisp, 1984 (which seems kind of cutting edge until you look closely at the bear. Check out those mini arcade games though!Incidentally, who WANTS to give their kids something called Super Sugar Crisp?)
Apple Jacks, 1980 (though I know they continued this poorly-drawn-and-nourished-kids motif for another few years at least)
Check out Raisin Bran, 1981! At what point to the hyper-development of cereal box design take place?
We can't ignore the long-forgotten cereal spokesthings, though. The Walruses, the random sexy whales (the Cap'ns been out to sea a long, long time), the leering, drunken monarch, the unsettling (at best) monkeys, and of course those other weird ass things. Seriously, who uses a scarecrow to sell children's cereal?

Boo Berry, 1981

My personal all-time favorite (character, not cereal*), though, has to be for the one cereal has the LEAST amount of nutritional value ever. Yep; Boo-berry. What fascinates me though is that again, a ghost to sell children's cereal? Not just a ghost, but one that's visibly on drugs? and on top of being a stoned ghost, he's a stoned ghost that looks suspiciously like a hovering blue turd (which might be an indication as to the byproducts of purchasing this particular cereal). Yeah, we got a stoned dead person that looks like poo. and just when you think you're in the clear -OH SHIT- a red bow-tie? and you tell me that they were buying this shit up? WAY.
So I submit to you, the cereal makers, to stop bullshitting us with all these stupid promotions and worthless sparkle and give us some good old-fashioned mascots. I don't mean that think on the Honeycomb box either. It looks like something I cough up only with googly eyes on it.

Favorite all-time cereal? Probably either Smurfberry Crunch (weird, because I've always hated the Smurfs) or Team Cheerios. what can I say, I'm getting old.

Well, I'm off to start moving again. I doubt I'll have any chances for updates until Tuesday or Wednesday, so I hope you have a good couple of days. and if you find yourself in eastern LA County over the weekend, why not stop by and help us lug some boxes? We've got Golden Grahams....

Most of the images I've used for this post came from here (hence the minimal hotlinking), which is one of the most entertaining sites I've seen in a long time. Obviously.

Greg Palast: National Treasure

It's a shame that so few read him here. His most recent is about McCain's utter lack of conscience. or loss of conscience, I guess.

Pop Smear: A Mix

01.
02. "ShakeShakeShake" - White Denim
03. "High As an Amsterdam Tourist" - Voicst
04.
05. "Aunty Pauline" - H Block 101
06. "This Is How We Kiss" - Throw Me The Statue
07.
08. "The Moon I Dream Of" - Christopher Blue
09. Hard to Begin" - The Paper Makers
10."Something Mellow Buy Hope" - Priority One
11.
12. "Colleen" - The Heavy
13. "Baby I Love You" - Erma Franklin
14. "No One Said It Would Be Easy" - Cloud Cult
15.
16. "In Sand and Dirt" - Howlin' Rain
17. "Right Hand On My Heart" - The Whigs
18. "54-56 Was My Number" - Toots & the Maytals
19.
20. "Mellow Down Easy" - Little Walter
21. "Dice In a Drawer" - The Mumlers
22.
23. "Fishn' Pole" - The Mighty Hannibal
24. "California Girls" - The Magnetic Fields
25.
26. "Taken Too Young By TTA" - Taken By Trees
27.

Running Time 1:03:57
89.8 MB
available here.

So yes, it's time for another mix (I've been cranking these out lately, haven't I? Hopefully this isn't overkill) and this one is a veritable buket of carnival vomit. There's Aussie Oi, onion rings, greasy blues, and Aretha's sister. Also, cheap beer and fried Snickers bars. Anyways, enjoy.

This is a new and improved link because I hate itunes and it jerks me around.

Torture Playlist

I can't even fathom the irony of our government using Rage Against the Machine, Bruce Springsteen and the Meow Mix commercial to torture people.

jesus this is depressing.

More KBR

HOUSTON — KBR Inc. reported Tuesday its fourth-quarter profit rose 65 percent on the sale of one of its businesses, but its top executive said a growing backlog suggests 2008 will be a good year.

While the former Halliburton subsidiary remains the Pentagon's biggest private contractor in Iraq, the company has focused intently in the past year on expanding its engineering and industrial construction operations — its bread and butter before the Iraqi war.

(sigh).

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Buddy Miles R.I.P.

I'm too hung over for pontification right now, but he was always a favorite of mine. It's a shame to see him go.

I have three posts that are on back burners and a mix that will hopefully be done by tonight. yeah.

Serial Vs One-Shots

The other day I was listening to an old podcast in which they were discussing how 30 Rock is the best comedy on TV right now. They also compared it to Arrested Development in the sense that they play with a few recurring jokes as well as sometimes set up a joke that won't pay off for several episodes.

I want to state unequivocally that I hate it when people compare TV shows to AD just because they're funny, or because they're their favorites. I'm not one of those ballbags that hold the show in exalted light or anything (though it is one of my favorites of all time), but it just bothers me when people will compare a show like How I Met Your Mother* or something to AD when they's apples and oranges. I feel like this is pretty common among people like me (i.e. people that fight online about music/movies/pie charts/breeds of dog/antique sextants/etc...) and I'm just putting my foot down. NO MORE will I compare two things that have little to nothing in common!

ANYWAY, I started thinking about TV in general and how this sort of serialized, long-sell format seems to be enjoying something of a renaissance lately in all genres. Shows like Lost and Heroes and The Wire and the ones mentioned above seem to be enjoying popularity** (maybe not the Wire, sadly) and I'm wondering how this will play out. Obviously these shows require a bit more effort and dedication to truly enjoy, but I don't think that this makes them smart TV or anything, it just affords the creators more opportunity to revisit a theme and plot things out. but it's welcome after so many years of the 900 crime drama one-off shows that we're taking a new step.

Clearly, I prefer this format most of the time. I think it pays off more in the end and becomes more of a shared experience for the viewers. I wonder if this comes around every couple years in cycles like everything else. huh. I started this with a point I think, but now I have no idea where I was going with this. but I really like the way this works for a comedy. Someone should be working to bring more of this into comedy. Get crackin', TV people.

*this isn't a slight on this show, I'm just noting that it's different.. I've had it recommended to me by several trustworthy people, but I've just never gotten around to it.

**of course, I looked this up and I'm waaay off. My god you people watch a lot of crap.

News of the Apocalypse.

Prince to receive hip surgery
which I find truly depressing.

oh, and Perez Hilton might be getting an A&R job at Warner Bros. Are you guys just ASKING for us to download all your music or what?

Headline from the future

"Automated killer robots 'threat to humanity': expert"

Clearly we learned NOTHING from Robocop.

“An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted” - Arthur Miller

I wasn't gonna post until tomorrow because I'm exhausted and have a HUGE pile of stuff to catch up on since I got back, but I had some links lying around and figured I could use them here. In any case, I had a great time in Portland and got to spend some time with some of my favorite people on the planet, which I don't get many chances to do anymore. Anyway, here's some stuff to look at. I'm hoping to have a mix complete by Wednesday of this week to post before I send my laptop away to be fixed. I know how many times I've threatened to do this but I really have to fix that thing sooner than later.

-I don't want to get too excited about this just yet, but it looks like people are starting to look at KBR and wonder where the hell all that money went. These people deserve worse than whatever they got coming to them. Great read from the Chicago Tribune about the hilarious world of war profiteering.

-I should probably be wary of a remotely controlled robot vigilante stalking Atlanta, but this is just awesome.

-right about now in California I'm wishing I could build a giant fucking snow fort.

-an interesting little way around smoking bans: pretend you're an actor

-I want to buy everything Luke Chueh has ever painted.

-awesomeness. Even my poor grasp of Spanish doesn't hurt this great site.

-Also, I totally didn't think this actually existed, but I heard on Jordan Jesse Go! this morning about Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden, which has to be -according to this synopsis- the greatest fucking video game of all time. You can find a download link here. Thank you, Jesse Thorn. that made my morning. Now let me know if you ever find that clip of Tracy Morgan on the sports show, because I'm starting to think it doesn't exist.

Strangely, this instills the exact same feeling in me that politics do.

What in the sweet holy hell is running through John McCain's brain?

Bush now the least popular sitting president EVER.

So, I think I've mentioned my weird interest in regional dialects. I've gone so far as buy accent tapes for actors just to listen to and try to get a handle on what these accents sound like. So it should be no surprise to you that instead of packing for Portland this weekend or tying up some errands before leaving, I spend all evening playing around at the site for the University of Kansas' International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA). It's the most entertaining thing I've done in weeks and even though I'm not tying together this new mix (the whole reason I started there to begin with). So instead I nudge you towards the same site in hopes that you have the same absurd interests as me.
For a quick synopsis, check out the "Arthur the Rat" story here.

Hey Cotton, what's been happening since we last heard from you?

well,
kind reader
once I had done whatever I could to put my cousin in jail,
we had the first valentine's day plans we've ever made melted and bubbling in front of our eyes.
and then our apartment got broken into this morning.

nothing was taken that we know of. our cat, however adorable, has been ruled a suspect.
Or the fact that we live a block from a police station.
and it was Sunday morning

I'm not going to turn this into a cat blog, I swear to you. but one more picture because I finally got one where he doesn't look like a psycho.
see? isn't that nice? He's helping keep things calm right now. I'll be more sensible and funny and groin-grabbingly spectacular tomorrow, I swear. or the next day.

I just think it's funny.

When I was in high school, one year we had a teacher strike after a particularly harsh winter. It was a pretty big deal, though I missed most of it because I was out of the country. Anyway, because of the strike and weather, we'd gone over our yearly allotment of snow days, and the school board had decided to keep class in session an extra week at the end of the year.
Naturally, the student body opposed this. We made a decision to state a walkout. So at 1:20 or whatever time, we all got up and walked out smugly, proud of using a time-honored form of protest to let our feelings be known on the subject. About 70% of the students left. We stood in the back parking lot chanting or some shit ("FREE MR. CLARK") for about 45 minutes until the doors opened ans the superintendent appeared with a megaphone. He told us that he appreciated our feelings, and that this would be taken into account for the hearings they were having later that week.
I wish I could say that I felt strongly about it. that I was standing up for my rights as a student and wanted my voice to be heard. But, like most of my fellow activists, we just didn't want more school. and seriously, what better way to protest more school by cutting class? It's win-win! Anyway, the super thanked us for our time and then asked us to return to class. About half the crown started shuffling back towards the school, confident that their point had been made. The rest of us just stood there.
"Wait, we gotta go back to class?", "I'm not going back in there", "I've got a bag of mushrooms in my car", "screw this, I'm cutting my lunch right now"
so the remains of this protest were still out there, sorta wincing at the prospect of going back into class after less than an hour. We all took a step back away from the school. The super took a step towards us.
We took two steps back.
The Super started walking.
"RUN!" a friend of mine yelled, and the remaining hundred or two left just bolted off into the woods behind my school. We jumped fences, found trails and kept on running. Through the retirement community, through the woods, to the McDonald's about a mile away. A calm, suburban fast food joint went from a dead early afternoon to housing the most obnoxious and ill-intentioned group of miscreants that could be scraped from the dregs of my high school. Kids were smoking pot in the bathroom, pouring booze into their soft drink cups, just terrorizing everyone.
The bulk of us ended up going to a park or something for the rest of the day, most of us getting pretty heavily punished in the classes we'd cut. I think I might have failed French that year because of it.

So, the GOP staged a walkout today to protest the contempt charges that the Dems slipped in for Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten. Minority leader Boehner called it a partisan fishing expedition and they all got up and walked out.

Are you for real with this? Really? I only ask, because you're supposed to be the grownup party. A walkout? I wish I could say that these guys just wanted to go get high in a McDonald's bathroom, or maybe just wanted to play the monopoly game to see if they won a free cheeseburger. or even were just sick of the tedium that most accompany being locked up in that place a whopping 150 days a year. But what it comes down to is that these guys weren't gonna get their way so they wanted to throw a hissyfit and do it in front of the press.
Isn't it hard to pitch a fit about this being a partisan action when you REMOVE YOUR PARTY from the action? Also, the Dems have had many, many many occasions to stage protest at plenty of your moves, but didn't. As much as they were pissing me off, they were being the bigger men and women. I still think it was wrong, but I hold a new respect for those guys after watching an ENTIRE party in out political process act like petulant children. Stop it. Knock it the fuck off.
From here on out, you idiots (ALL OF YOU IDIOTS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE) should just stop this pissing and moaning and just grow up. Work together for this country. Make some goddamned compromises. or burn the whole system down. Because I'm sick of this fingerpointing, dirty politics shit. I hope you're sick of it, too. We're supposed to be better than this. We're supposed to be the best! I just wish you'd stop wiping your ass with the laws of this country long enough to read them.
There's dozens of people that I don't agree with at my work. There's a lot of them I don't even like. You know how I work with them, though? (wait, how do I do that?) Oh yeah, by not being completely retarded. Nut up and do your goddamned job already. Stop wasting all of our goddamned time and money with this.
Fact is, Miers and Bolten ignored subpoenas. Which is illegal. Stop acting like we're hiring a third-party group to smear them in the press by telling lies about their service to their country. and stop throwing "national security" around like you're a goddamned cheerleader. Find a new excuse. There's millions of them. Personally, I think eczema would be a funny one, but anything that isn't some bullshit about terrorists. You had 6 years of pissing all over our laws and civil rights. You bullshitted your way into out personal information and then sold it off to Choicepoint a long time ago. You've made weapons contractors richer and richer and richer in the name of national security. You've instilled a few and mistrust in this nation that will never heal in my lifetime. Thanks for that, by the way. If you haven't been able to make our country safe with this, then you're more than likely doing it wrong.

and if you're a GOP congressman that doesn't care about this, that is just going along with this so you get party support for some resolution you're working on, you're the worst of the bunch. Shame on you. If you know this is pure grandstanding and go along with it anyway, then you don't deserve to represent your pet cat, let alone the poor saps you're actually supposed to be helping.

oh and I swear if I found out that you were all humming "Battle Hymn of the Republic" or some other purple-thumbed shit while you walked out I'm driving to Washington and renting Michael Moore's ice cream truck and we'll see what sort of stuff I can make up.

Q: What kind of asshole wears black & blue on Valentine's Day?

A: The same kind of asshole that can be seen frequently chasing his wedding ring down the hallway in his workplace.


I managed to cram some flowers in a mailbox, though. They're kind of smushed, but the sentiment was totally there.

horrible and painfully funny quote of the day:

"I'm pretty sure that Fergus has developed Feline AIDS just from watching this Bret Michaels dating show"

How I get lost without leaving my living room

I was recently asked my how I end up "researching" the crap that I do online. How I go to check the basketball scores from the night before and end up looking at the Hand of Glory or wondering what the dark red liquid is that's all over the control room of reactor three at Chernobyl*.

So last night I sat with a pen and paper and tried to map out how exactly this happens. I wanted to map where I go and how I got there. and looking back on it, I failed spectacularly. I started by checking out what the most recent list on Oobject (this along with Buzzflash, Warren Ellis, BoingBoing, or Fark are generally my starting points for stuff like this, see bar at left for links to all these places), and they had a list of "weird outlaw radio transmitters". Which is pretty awesome as it is. Between that and the page for the B-25 (the plane I took a picture of and posted over the weekend. I wasn't sure if it was a B-25 or a B-26, but I've since learned it was actually a B-25J) I managed to go on a clicking spree that took me from the furthest reaches of experimental artillery to micronations and pirate radio. From painter Thomas Luny to the Stratellite communications airship. Oddly enough, I ended up at the site of this Burlesque Revue, which I was invited to attend this weekend and promptly declined**.

Anyway, excuse my childish penmanship and bear with me. There's no actual diagram here, but it made sense to me as I was writing it. There's a completely logical sequence here, and I can tell you why looking at the wikipedia page for the B-2 bomber would cause me to look up the St. Louis Arch (namely because the picture on the B-2 page shows it flying over St. Louis for some reason and I didn't know you could actually go inside the Arch. Moving on, this was more an experiment for me than anything, and an unproductive one at that. But now I know what the Child Ballads are (see image above). Most of these were wikipedia or directly referred to by wikipedia, with the exceptions of the etymology site, the Fort Flagler stuff, and the Burlesque page. I'm sorry I haven't linked all of that because it would take me for fucking ever. So enjoy this half-assed attempt at explanation:

*As it turns out, it was a heavy foam that was sprayed in the air to remove the floating radioactive particles in the dust from the air that the cleanup crews were breathing.

**I've got my own numerous reasons for doing so, but mostly because I fear my eyes would actually detach their retinas and start rolling my head like windows on a slot machine. Not in a "take it off" way, but more of a "seriously, you already won. I respect your femininity, but it's boring the shit out of me" sort of way.

In other news, I'm rapidly approaching post #400. Which means I should do something celebratory. I almost certainly will not.

"The Pennsylvania Scenario"

PA's primaries might matter for the first time...ever. I'm not sure how I like the "Pennsylvania Scanario", though, since I can't recall anything with "The _________ Scenario" having positive connotations. Still, it's nice that things get relevant once I'm gone.