Month: December 2009

Flying fish gets wings clipped

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments

When people learn that I detest flying, they generally ask, “Why?” Here’s part of the answer.

I mean, shit, c’mon. Osama bin Laden probably saw this directive before Flying With Fish did. It’s like having the FBI kick down your door for for ripping off a Matt Groening cartoon (see previous post).

And what could the bloggers do but bend over and take it? If the TSA tried this sort of stunt with The New York Times it would be wearing a thick coat of lawyers the way a dead hog wears flies. A free-lance travel writer with a kid in his arms is going to be a good deal less aggro’ than a hungover editor with three bitchy ex-wives, ’roids and a bleak professional future without some best-selling book to pitch to Random House — say, about how he stood tall while having his nuts squeezed by some brownshirts from the Department of Open Your Duffel, Take Off Your Shoes and Shut the Fuck Up.

Jesus. This is why I drive everywhere. I don’t have to get to the Subaru two hours before departure, I can carry on everything from bikes to guns to jumbo bottles of booze, and nobody is ever setting his boxers ablaze in the seat next to me.

Fox in the video henhouse

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

Abbey Normal Road, from Matt Groening.
Abbey Normal Road, from Matt Groening.

Bwah ha ha ha ha, as those crazy kids say today. In an Associated Press article noting that revenue from commercials is falling short of keeping TV moguls in private jets, Botoxed girlfriends and Tuscan villas, Fox owner Rupert Murdoch warns that the viewing audience should expect to pay more for satellite and cable service.

“Good programming is expensive,” bleats Murdoch.

How the hell would he know? Looking for “good programming” on TV in general, and Fox in particular, is like looking for virgins in a Nevada brothel. One may turn up now and then, but she won’t last long.

And yes, “The Simpsons” is the exception that proves the rule.

Murdoch and his News Corporation are frantically hunting new revenue streams, dreaming of the day when Fox News, the Times of London and The New York Post can join The Wall Street Journal in walling off all or part of their content, reserving it for paying customers only.

Yeah, good luck with that. While people may be willing to pony up for entertainment, news is another breed of dog altogether. Notes Alan B. Mutter, a media consultant and blogger, in a New York Times story: “One of the problems is newspapers fired so many journalists and turned them loose to start so many blogs. They should have executed them. They wouldn’t have had competition. But they foolishly let them out alive.”

Moe, Larry, Curly, Pete, Jim and Michele

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
You call this a December morning in Colorado? I've seen more color at a Klan rally.
You call this a December morning in Colorado? I've seen more color at a Klan rally.

Feh. Another in our apparently interminable series of gray days. It’s too early in winter to see all this dirty snow and ice piled up all over the place, thanks to a stretch of subfreezing temperatures. It reminds me of Weirdcliffe, only with more horses’ asses than horses.

Speaking of which, it’s fine to see the Repuglitards continuing their craven buffoonery, slavish toadying to corporations and shameless pissing in the political sandbox. If a guy has to be stuck inside, it’s nice to have some entertainment. There are more than three stooges on the national stage as 2009 limps to a close, to be sure. Just check out Kevin Drum’s capsule look at the past two weeks in politics, and don’t miss Mother Jones‘ list of “Capitol Hill’s Most Unhinged Republicans.”

The unfunny part is, of course, that some of our fellow Americans think this lot should be running the country.

Dingbats over Detroit

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

OK, one shit-for-brains Nigerian setting his underwear alight aboard an airliner bound from Amsterdam to Detroit doesn’t warrant any snark from me, though I notice the usual clot of Repuglitards just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to piss on Preznit Obama’s wingtips.

But when another one turns up — this time locked into the crapper of an Amsterdam-Motor City flight — a guy can’t help but wonder: Are the Nigerian spam merchants are finally having to lay a few of the dumber folks off?

Merry catsmas

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments
Norman Rockwell it ain't, but it's all ours.

OK, so this started out as a family holiday photo, but the cats proved reluctant to accept direction.

“What’s my motivation for this scene?” inquired Turkish, raking my left hand with his claws as I set the camera’s self-timer with my right.

“No paparazzi!” screeched Mia. “I’m in the witness protection program!”

“Why do we have all these cats?” wondered Herself.

“I suppose I can always dick around with this lame-o shot in Photoshop,” I mused. And so I could.

Happy holidays from the O’Gradys: Herself (left); Turkish (a.k.a. Turkenstein, The Turkinator, Mighty Whitey the Blue-eyed Bully of Bibleburg, Big Pussy, et al.); Miss Mia Sopaipilla; and Your Humble Narrator (the fat old bald dude at right).