Lots of Monkeys

Went to the National Zoo today with Morgan and her mother. The relative warmth of today brought out a lot of people.

I hadn’t been to the zoo in a while, and all I could remember was the exhibit where the spiders are happily spinning webs without that pesky glass getting in between them and tasty people. Fortunately, that’s still there. Morgan didn’t really want to see that exhibit, but I forgot that it was in the invertebrate house. So we saw it anyway. Just past it though, is the butterfly exhibit, and that’s really beautiful.

The zoo’s under a lot of construction, so a lot of it is just dirt and chainlink fences. I’ll visit again when they’re done.

We got to see the baby cheetahs at two, a feeding at the reptile house at three (my favorite), and caught the panda feeding time at four. It was a nice route that just happened to work with some good timing. We were hardly in any lines at all.

It was nice, but I think I’ve done my zoo visit for the year. Now it’s time to hit the museums.

Dear Best Buy:

We’ve been together for a while now.

This is not because I enjoy seeing you. If there were other stores with large assets like yours, I would be with them. You are the only game in town, and you know it. Congratulations on reaching the point where you don’t even have to try anymore. It’s not like you care. You pretend to, but you don’t.

You ask me if you can help me with anything, but in my experience, you can’t.

You are incapable of it.

Not in the entire history of our time together have you been able to answer a single question that I’ve asked you. You just sort of look at me with a blank stare and walk away, only to come back and say that you don’t know. I don’t understand why you even attempt dialogue with me.

I find you on the whole repellent, incompetent, and prone to being on the phone when there are more important things for you to do.

What you can do for me is best done in silence. In the future, just shut your mouth and give me what I want.

The only thing I like about you is that you are relatively clean and free of contagious diseases.

Sincerely,

Fil

P.S. Please hold that 30″ Toshiba HD for me, I should be picking that one up in the next couple of months. Thanks!

One of the fondest memories I have of the Warner Brothers cartoons is the bit with the coyote and the sheep dog.

“Mornin’ Sam.”
“Mornin’ Ralph.”

You see, the coyote and sheep dog are just doing their jobs. They punch their time cards, they wait for the morning whistle, and then do what they do for a living.

For the coyote, this means sneaking around the sheep dog and trying to get away with stealing a sheep. (Ostensibly, to eat it.)

For the sheep dog, this means preventing sheep from being taken away, and beating the snot out of the coyote.

But they are coworkers. The sheep dog may be in the middle of punching the coyote’s lights out, but when that lunch whistle blows, they both stop, walk over to the lunch tables, and make small talk.

“How’s the wife?”
“She’s good, thanks. Coffee?”
“Please.”

When lunch is over, they both assume their positions and the coyote gets beaten into a confused pulp. Then at the end of the day, they walk off together and wish each other a good night.

This skit, more than any other skit from Warner Brothers, crawled into my mind, carved a small niche, and has refused to come out. I’ll sometimes greet other coworkers with “Mornin’ Sam.” Usually, they’ll respond with “Mornin’ Ralph.” If they get it.

The skit is larger than just the sum of all the ways a coyote can fail at stealing a sheep. Perhaps not quite a gestalt, but more than an allegory.

There wasn’t any marketing involved. It was a skit, meant to entertain. On another level, it may be social commentary. I think the skit is brilliant. I have never seen its equal. I am hoping that this particular cartoon will make it onto the Looney Tunes collections that they are releasing to DVD.

Now, there is a “reimagining” of the Warner Brothers cartoon properties in the works. It is set in 2772, because 2010 is less than 5 years away, and I assume that the year 3000 would be too “xxtreme!!”

From the article:

“We just said, ‘Wow, what a great way to take the classic Looney Tunes franchise that has been huge with audiences for decades and bring it into the new millennium.”’

It’s going to be called “Loonatics” and it’s going to be shown on Saturday mornings. I doubt that anyone other than marketing is leading the charge to bring them back, considering that one of the new leads is “Buzz Bunny,” Bugs’s descendant.

“Ehhhhhhhh. . . What’s up, j0?”

I hope I’m wrong. I’d like to see some wittiness, some charm, maybe some social commentary, but I’m not holding my breath.

I’m going to get my taxes done in March.

Not the eve of the 15th.

I was getting tired of the blogger-google machine. Long wait times for logging in and posting were also tiring. Rick pointed out that I really do not benefit from this relationship, and they were just using me for content.

And now, I am going to shill for Dreamhost.

They are great. They are better than CATS. I would use them again and again.

Please to be using the above link to sign up for the provider of web hosting. Thank you.