I need one of these:

Yeah. I need my own Tuck Pendleton.

There’s a guy named Jack. He’s a nebbish, works at a grocery store. He’s going nowhere. He’s meek, he’s bashful, he’s shy. He has no future.

But Jack is in the right place at the right time, and a scientist (white lab coat, the whole deal) bumps into him, injects him in the ass, and dies.

Jack has no idea what happened, but he rightly suspects something sinister.

A voice starts to talk to him. It tells him things he doesn’t want to hear and stuff he has to hear, and it tells him what to do when he needs to do it.

The voice belongs to Tuck, an astronaut stuck in a miniaturized exploration pod. Tuck was supposed to be injected into a rabbit, but a team of thieves broke into the lab before the injection could take place. Thus, the scientist fled, was killed on the way, and knew the only way to save Tuck was to inject him into a host.

There’s more to the plot, and more about terrorists and stuff, but none of that matters. What matters is that Tuck is the voice of action to a man who has none of his own.

I need a Tuck. I need to know when to jump, even if I don’t want to. I need to know when to grab the brass rings, even when I don’t think I can.

But the truth of it is, Jack always knew what to do. He just needed somebody to tell him he could.

The movie is Innerspace, and it’s probably not as good as I remember it.

I think that’s what he said.

At about 2 AM, I got a text from Cricket that said I had a Multimedia Message in my inbox, which I had to log-in to see. I was curious for a number of reasons. Primarily, I don’t know anybody with a camera phone who would send me a photo. I say this only because I think people use the medium to send pictures of their genitals to potential or current romantic partners. Also, I didn’t recognize the number of the sender. Naturally, I was pretty curious.

My curiosity did not pay off. Or maybe it did. You decide.

I texted the man who messaged me: “that’s a nice picture, what’s it of?”

I soon after got a call, which I thankfully was too busy to answer. He did leave a message, though, which I quoted in the subject line.

I like to think that it’s a picture of his finger.

It’s off to the Apple Repair Depot, wherever that is. I imagine lucite floors and translucent walls, with sourceless light spanging in rainbow explosions and clean, brushed-metal countertops where nerdy, hipster-looking men with shaggy caeser-dos and thick glasses operate on the splayed corpses of dinged, scratched Macintosh computers and sticker-sodden iPods.

I think it’s in good hands, now.

For about 24 hours, I was in the guise of the greatest digger in all of Arabia – then I did a MySpace search for other people named Sallah, and most of them did it better.  Thus, the change – Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got, I’m still, I’m still Jimmy from the block.

—

I was in Oakland this evening, and I missed my bus to get downtown.  You’d think that an Oakland to Downtown bus would be along every few minutes or so, but you’d be wrong.  I then walkrunned to the 16A stop, only to watch said bus turn the corner and take out a fire hydrant in a vain attempt to get away without me seeing it.  Thus, I waited for about an hour and a half until the next 16A came along. 

All the while, I chatted with a somewhat blocky, good-natured young lady who claimed to have been trekking around downtown since 3:00 PM, looking for a bus to get her to Tarentum.  I first guessed, by her speech patterns, that she had also stopped in a few bars along the way (no doubt to get “directions”), but I detected no telltale odor, so maybe she was just a little slurry in regular life – though, frankly, a solid yinzer can easily give the impression of inebreation, even when no alcohol has been consumed. 

She was accosted by a man who saw her pack of cigarettes after she denied being a smoker, was nearly hit by a passing bicycle cop and suffered the temporary affections of two homeless men who found her particularly appealing.  After telling me how she had also, earlier in the day lost her house keys, she simply shrugged, smiled and said “It must be because it’s my 26th birthday.”

—

In most movies, the good guys travel across the screen from left to right and the bad guys travel from right to left.  It’s usually true – Peter Jackson uses that formula a great deal throughout the Lord of the Rings films, though some directors like to switch it up.  Mel Gibson in Braveheart, for example, had the Scots on the right of the screen and the English on the left.  Could this be a subtle reflection of the geography, or did he do it to put the audience off guard, so that the battle scenes were even more jarring?  I don’t know, but either answer works. 

—

I really don’t understand why gay marriage is a threat to anybody else’s marriage.  The most coherent argument I’ve heard asserts that another person’s divorce can affect society because children from a divorce can sometimes exhibit socially-destructive behavior.  It’s a crap argument, obviously, and still avoids the central question: can a couple of the same sex raise a child?  The answer, obviously, is yes. 

Only five views this week!

What’s wrong with you people?  Jesus.

—

So yeah, my beloved 14″ iBook G4 is kaput.  I think it’s a logic board problem, but I’m not sure.  If you want a really nerdy rundown of the issue, and my kvetching on the official Apple discussion boards, click here.  Without sounding totally egotastic, I think that’s probably the best writing ever seen on the Apple discussion boards.  Click around a little on the main forum list, and you’ll see that I’m right. 

I guess one doesn’t have to be literate to use a computer. 

Theme: People with whom I went to school.
Order: Chronological.

That is all. 

My new hero is Penn Jilette – actually, he has been a hero of mine for years, and recently I have rediscovered his influence on me. When reading the story of the Buddha Boy (article here, about his disappearance), I am tempted to point my finger and laugh (uproriously) at the many followers who have flocked to his location.

But that’s not how it works, and Penn reminded me of that (on his radio show).

There’s nothing wrong with believing. It’s easy for some of us to make fun of them, but in the best cases, faith and belief are good things.

Instead of mocking the believers, and holding them responsible for believing in obviously false things, we should instead criticize those who would take advantage of this belief.

It is impossible to live for months without food and water. People believe it anyway, because, even though he can’t, he pretends that he can. He and his handlers are the ones who should be mocked, made fun of and criticized, because they’re taking advantage of the believers.

I had a really long post here and I accidentally closed Firefox. I’m a douche.

The subject line comes from my reaction to the first title I thought of (March Madness!), when I realized where I had heard that particular idiom last.

—

Have you seen the news story about the injured cheerleader who kept right on cheering while strapped to a gurney?

Apparently, she “inspired a nation.”

I don’t know what nation is inspired by her, but I hope it’s not the one I think it is. You know who else inspired a nation? Winston Churchill.

Personally, I just think it’s funny, in that I’m laughing at her.

Also, you better believe that someone, somewhere is masturbating to that picture.

—

Here’s a clip of what I’m writing now:

The same person called again, the next day, slightly earlier, this time while Jeff was was putting the food out for his cats.
“Give me your money,” it said.
“I don’t think I can do that,” said Jeff, patiently.
“Oh, wait, did I call you yesterday?”
“Yes, you did,” said Jeff. “Can you tell me which number you meant to call? Maybe I can help.”
The voice read the number aloud.
“Oh, that’s my number,” said Jeff. “Hmm, this is a tough one. Where did you get my number?”
“From the phone,” said the voice, saying the last word as if it hadn’t heard it before.
“That’s funny,” he said, and he didn’t laugh, because it wasn’t.
“I don’t think it’s very funny. I should have eaten you by now,” said the voice, with the finality of someone about to slam the phone down, if people slammed phones anymore, which they didn’t.
But he didn’t hang up. Jeff had never hung up on someone in his life and he wasn’t about to start.
“Hello?” he said. “Did you say something about eating me?”
The voice sighed with the sound of a fat person siting down in a bean bag chair. It went on for a minute or so, and was followed up by a hacking cough.
This seemed to end the call, because after a few moments, the phone started beeping, so Jeff hung it back up on its dock and cleaned up the cats’ dishes.

Want to know who’s on the other end of the phone? That would give away the ending, but I’ll give you a hint: I’m writing a modern-day retelling of Farmer Giles of Ham. Discuss. Make me feel valuable.

—

Have you seen Eddie Van Halen lately? He’s not a witch, he’s your wife!

—

Why are new crustaceans constantly in the news these days? I have only one question: will it taste as delicious as shrimp, when battered and deep-fried? No? Then I don’t care.

—

Why the hell is anybody scared of human cloning? Do these people actually understand what cloning is? There’s no copy of you, there’s no duplicate, as if from a xerox machine. At best, a clone of you would be your identical twin, except much younger. Do you know any identical twins? Can you tell them apart? Do they have separate personalities? Yes.

Therefore, what’s to be afraid of?

—

Kristin Davis’s biography on imdb.com bears this:

She is the only of the 4 main actresses from “Sex and the City” (1998) to guest-star on “Friends” (1994)

Sadly, there is no mention of any other sitcom, movie or play in which she appeared that did not also feature one of the other cast members of Sex and the City.

I shudder to think of the psychology of the person who submitted that particular nugget of information, doubtlessly convinced of the need for the world at large to know what sitcom Kristin Davis appeared on without the company of her SatC castmates.

—

I Googled myself, and am slightly disturbed by the result that most frequently appears.

I used to ride a bike, when I was eight, and I sure as hell don’t write stories (or books!) about it.

—

This was an angry post. It’s late. I’m tired. Deal.

…by the order in which I met each friend.

Mostly, this means family birth order plus friends from junior high plus friends from college.

Enjoy.

Dave Mustaine is a goddamn bad motherfucker.

But his newish video for “Die Dead Enough,” one of the best songs from one of the best Megadeth albums ever is easily the worst video I’ve seen since the heady days of Grim Reaper.

Dave looks like Tori Amos dressed up as Eric Stoltz.

The video opens with footage of a pair of young kids digging around on a beach. They eventually find a few bones and a skull and finally a cellar door.

This alone would be high art, but we also get to see Dave. He is observes the goings-on via a closed-circuit camera system routed into his dark, inner sanctum, where he watches the beach-borne hyjinx, lip synchs to his own songs, emotes with expansive, incomprehensible hand gestures and, of course, rocks the fuck out.

Sure, it would be nice if you gentle readers could watch it with me. Luckily, Google has your fix.