Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog

And are you cheap and/or broke like me? Did you miss one or more of the acts of Dr. Horrible when it was actually up on DrHorrible.com for free viewing? Well, do not despair, little empty-pocketed buckaroos! You don't have to pay $1.99 an act on iTunes to see Neil Patrick Harris in his evil steampunkiness! Through the wonders of Hulu.com, you can watch it with two or three wee commercials. In fact, here are all three acts for you, right here:



Double click on the video to take you to a larger screen on Hulu for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

(And if you can't sit still for 40-some-odd minutes of musical mayhem, you can view each of the three acts separately on Hulu.)

Monday, July 28, 2008

Favorite TV Promo of the Season

Yeah, yeah, it may be high treason for me to tout the Discovery Channel here, but I totally dig this promo featuring "Ain't Nothing Wrong With That" by Robert Randolph & the Family Band. Enjoy!

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Walking the Black Dog

Winston Churchill battled against depression most of his life. He described his depression as the "black dog" that chewed at his mind and soul. It's a fine descriptor for depression, I think. The dog that shadows you, strangely faithful and yet so inconstantly cruel.

I know the feeling of that black dog nipping unkindly at my own heels. It's the gift - the legacy - of my mother's family. Honestly, I would have preferred just a nice photo album and maybe a couple of hand-me-down pieces of estate jewelry.

Most of the time I can keep old Rex under control, but not this time. Fate, finances, and a number of other things outside of my control came together at the start of June in a perfect storm of karmic asskicking that still has me in recovery mode now. Other than speaking with people at work, I was near silent for almost an entire month. I ignored the phone, I slept as much as possible, I learned what it was like to live off two pounds of bologna for over a week when the cupboards and the bank account were both bare. I found new levels of pain when the spigot of my insurance money was shut off for physical therapy, and I learned a little more about hate and violence when I was assaulted by a man who didn't like me because I was fat. He thought I should die, and his effort to help me to that goal took the form of a 44-ounce Big Gulp whipped directly into my bad eye. (Painful? Yes. Lethal? Not at all. Moron!) Add to that a family illness, the impending sale of my rental home, and random, unsolicited, hate-filled messages from a mentally-unstable blog/mailing list stalker from Canada, and - bam - it's been a banner season for me!

When I recounted the whole tale to a couple of very close friends (what I've mentioned here is just the tip of the iceberg - I won't talk about the rest of it here), I saw their blank, saucer-eyed looks of horror. Frankly, I think I should have finished by doing jazz hands and yelling "The Aristocrats!" It's all been a rotten enough joke to qualify, I think.

I'm going to stop there. There's no reason to rehash the simmering summer of my discontent. It has not been nice. I still owe phone calls and e-mail to so many friends. I'm embarrassed to be in touch with some, I've been silent for so long. And I'm still fighting my black dog for control. It pulls at me, and with things still off-kilter, it threatens to run circles around me, tangling me up and tripping me in its unseen leash. Each thing that goes awry finds my breath catching in my throat, with tears threatening to pour forth. I'm working on getting back to where I was before, but it's a slow, long road, kids.

But just to verify that I'm still Karma's #1 Favorite Punchline, let me recount a little of this past weekend:
  • Thursday night, the car starts to reek of burnt Prestone - voila - a leak in the radiator or coolant reservoir (crap!!!), followed immediately by...
  • A really nasty natural gas leak in my stove, which leads to...
  • Me being late to a conference on Friday, as the clown car crew of my landlord, Washington Gas, and the condo association try to decide who's responsible for the "pass out and die" gas fiesta filling the apartment, and then...
  • Of course, I can't drive the car to the conference because it might overheat (and parking at the event hotel is - get this - $31 for more than 2 hours - THIRTY-ONE DOLLARS!!!) So I have to take the Metro, where...
  • The elevator is broken at the destination station, requiring me to take a strange, long, maze-like walk to the hotel, breaking my doc's rule that I only walk two blocks at a time, which means...
  • My back is in so much pain from hoofing around the conference on Day One, I'm forced to leave for Day Two of the event late after spending the morning applying multiple layers of some generic icy hot, early bird dinner goop to my entire spine, which leads me to...
  • A Red Line ride to Hell, wherein a tourist child all hepped up on fruit punch, cotton candy, and popcorn after a visit to the zoo projectile vomits fruit punch, cotton candy, and popcorn all over me before I get to the conference, where...
  • The hotel staff takes pity on me, gives me water, a towel, and a hairdryer (didn't help, I still reeked) and I spend most of the day keeping my distance from a room full of scientists who probably think I have been rolling in dung or simply have the world's must disgusting B.O.
See, some things never change? Ms. Crap Magnet, reporting for duty!!

On the other hand, today has been quiet. I enjoyed the dark afternoon skies and short bursts of thunder and rain as I just tried to remember to breathe now and then. I was planning on making a pork chop casserole tonight and inviting the Sasquatch over for dinner, but since my stove (to be fixed or replaced tomorrow, I hope) is a ticking time bomb, I'm having a tuna sandwich and a big glass of water for my solo evening meal in front of the TV.

It's Shark Week, after all, when all of America gathers 'round that glowing hearth to watch tiny-brained prehistoric killers eat chum and thrash around. And, while talking Shark Week may be considered high treason for me, considering Discovery is my employer's arch nemesis, I have to see what silliness the Mythbuster guys get up to tonight. My friends, in the inimitable words of the certifiably insane Tracy Jordan on "30 Rock": "Live every week like it's Shark Week!"

And, in the words of Winston Churchill, fellow walker of the black dog, "Never, never, never give up."

Am I going to Hell for putting the Churchill quote *after* the "30 Rock" quote? I'll have to ponder that.

Regardless, never give up, kids. Never never never.

Make that black dog behave. Cesar Milan can't help me with this one. I have to keep making it heel all on my own.

Never never never give up.

Amen to that.

Amen, mah wonderful bruthas and sistahs. Don't give up. That's my aim. The Church of the Big Sky is open for business again.

And hey - for the first time since the September car accident, I got back up on the radio horse last week, too. I'll have a commentary on this week's Metro Connection show on WAMU. Details in a couple of days.

Cheers to you all! Thank you for all your queries and words of support. You guys really do rock.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

CNN.com needs a proofreader

...or they shouldn't leave the weekend interns in charge.

Don't know if you've heard the controversy about Nike's "Hyperdunk" ads that feature a guy with another guy's crotch right in his face as he dunks a ball. Over the photo the words "THAT AIN'T RIGHT" appear in outlined text. Here's the image:


There has been outcry from the gay community that the ad is homophobic. Here's a link to a piece on Gawker (one of my favorite websites) about the brouhaha.

Well, Nike opted to use some common sense here and pull the ads. And CNN.com decided to report Nike's decision this morning. Except someone at CNN.com didn't use common sense. Or spell check. Or just had gay community issues on his mind. You be the judge. As far as I know, the "i" key is nowhere near "a", "d", or "s" on my keyboard. See the CNNMoney headline:


CNN very quickly fixed it, just after I pulled the screenshot (which I gleefully forwarded to Gawker.)

Stay classy, CNN!

Coming back

I'm moving slowly, but I'll post an entry before the weekend is over.

Thanks to the folks who have continued to come by during my absence.