Time for some random ponderings over items that have recently confused or bothered me. These are the sorts of things I think about during traffic lights and long Web page loads instead of thinking about anything, you know, useful.
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Planned Parenthood recently filed lawsuits over “Choose Life” license plates, claiming that offering only one side of an issue was a violation of First Amendment rights. South Carolina State Rep. John Graham Altman, probably only half joking, suggested that “Choose Death” license plates be issued as an alternative. Now, there’s no way I’m jumping in the middle of this particular hot button controversy, but you know what?
I really, really want a “Choose Death” license plate.
Not to express any specific philosophical views, but because it’s just vague and unsettling enough that people would give me plenty of room on the highway for fear I might suddenly make my choice on the I-95 overpass.
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Why doesn’t anyone use the word “android” anymore?
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Why am I seeing more television show and video game commercials at movie theaters? Is it really in the movie studio’s best interest to remind me that I could be enjoying myself at home? With better popcorn?
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Can we get a series of pocket size guides that tell you exactly what foods taste like, so you don’t have to guess from the cryptic menu descriptions? I don’t want the nutritional content or calorie counts, I want to know what I’m about to bite into and how far I should spit it afterwards.
“What the Heck Am I Eating? (Chinese)” might include “Soy sauce: tastes like liquid salt, with a smoky flavor” and handy tips, such as what that weird green stuff is and exactly which part of the duck that duck sauce comes from. Other variants could include “What the Heck Am I Eating? (Mexican)” and so on for Tex-Mex, Southern BBQ, Roadside Diner (“On the Go Chicken Sandwich: contains no actual meat so it’s vegetarian-friendly, if anything that tastes like a shoe insert on watery white bread can be considered friendly to anyone”), Frozen Dinners, etc. They’d sell.
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Getting a nagging song out of your head really isn’t that difficult if you have a brick.
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When you go to see “Revenge of the Sith,” again, don’t bother trying to follow the plot or the character motivations. Focus instead on what the movie was clearly all about, what Lucas obviously prizes over all else.
Ships.
Ships landing. Ships taking off. Ships flying past other ships. Ships entering orbit. Ships leaving orbit. Ships filling the background of every scene like flies in the Everglades. Fully 20 minutes of the movie, minutes that would otherwise have been totally wasted on character development, were used to show every single departure and every single arrival of every single character in a ship.
Watching one scene when Anakin gets out of bed and goes to a different room, I was honestly shocked he didn’t climb out the window into a ship to do it. Followed, of course, by Padme in her nightgown, and a different ship, and possibly a chase scene.
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It is so much easier, and almost as worthwhile, to skip all the security hassles and police problems and just stalk celebrity look-alikes instead.
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If drivers’ licenses are supposed to help authorities identify you, shouldn’t they be pictures of you looking guilty? Maybe running away, looking back over your shoulder? Or through an open car window, looking panicky and drunk?
Personally I think the general self-esteem of people in this country started going down after photo IDs become prevalent and everyone began carrying around a picture of themselves looking like a screenshot from “America’s Most Wanted.” I think the DMV should hire a glamour photographer so that for a small upcharge you could get an ID you’d be proud to whip out. More money for the state, and the benefit to the national psyche would be immeasurable.
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Hotel heiress Paris Hilton is now reportedly engaged to shipping heir Paris Latsis. I’m trying to care, I really am, but it’s just not working. So, how should we in the sensationalistic media refer to them now? Parises? Paris squared? Parii?
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Enough for now, I need something to think about on the way home. Hmm. A pair of Paris? Would their kids be Parisites?