Star Trek: The Next Generation - "The Last Outpost"

Pretty bitchin that the good guys, the Federation socialists, face off against evil Ferengi capitalists at the height of the Reagan administration.

RATING: 73%

The Anti-Obama Demonstration

Overheard at Anti-Obama demonstration:

"Nine-eleven was our borning!"

"Abortion is white slavery!"

At first I thought that maybe these champions of the free market were so busy boning up on their Austrian economics that they missed a spelling test or two, but then I just gave up. I kinda hope that Obama does outlaw freedom, and that his first big education reform involves a mandatory IQ test hooked up to an electric chair. Or at the very least a law that says Americans have to feed their kids something other than paint chips and gravy.

RATING: Free World%

(Image from lookatthisfuckingteabagger.com.)

United States Postal Service

The post office sucks. Everybody who works there is a total dillrod, their hours are like fucking Brigadoon, and the lines during those fleeting hours are filled with the angriest, shootiest people America has to offer. But who can blame them? They are waiting in a 25 minute line to probably not get helped by the one surly asshole working the counter. In conclusion, few other places can brag of bringing into the lexicon a term for going insane and hurting people, except for maybe theme restaurant Medieval Times.

RATING: 23%

Entertainment! by Gang Of Four

Peanut butter and chocolate, lemon and lime, punk rock and badly misinformed Marxist arguments - history is just full of great combos like these, and while only two of them can (so far, science?) be eaten, at least the third makes for a pretty decent album to blast from the speakers of my Honda Accord LX with leather interior as I'm driving through the poor parts of town. Solidarity my friends! After slogging away with the other proles for 10 hours today at work I don't feel like creating an analogy to describe Gang Of Four's sound that at first would seem hilarious and witty but on second read would turn out to make no sense whatsoever for describing any type of music, but here's some links, so maybe you can crack open some PBR to listen for a second. I also just relistened to Franz Ferdinand's first album and that one is fun, but not fun enough that I feel like writing about it (and I barely wrote about this album if that tells you something).

RATING: 81%

FRANZ FERDINAND: 75%

Superman: Red Son

I don't care about Superman. He's too powerful and nice, and his comics are often boring. But this one is an exception, imagining what it might have been like if Superman had crashed as a baby in the Soviet Union rather than Kansas. Basically, what happens is he embraces communism and becomes the leader of the USSR, trying to spread their message anywhere. This might be skeletal for a story, but Millar is genius in that he focuses much of the story on American Lex Luthor's attempts to thwart Superman over the years, even as the United States descends into economic chaos. It's a brilliantly written book, and one of the few exceptions to my "never read Superman" rule.

RATING: 91%

Canada

Canadian-Jewish author Mordecai Richler probably said it best:


"The truth is Canada is a cloud-cuckoo-land, an insufferably rich country governed by idiots, its self-made problems offering comic relief to the ills of the real world out there, where famine and racial strife and vandals in office are the unhappy rule." (Barney's Version p. 386)

Most Canadians are ostensibly polite and self-deprecating, but inwardly smug and sure that everyone else in the world loves us because we're not Americans. We also have free basic health care, which means that if we need hip surgery, we're free to get on a list and wait as long as we want.

It's not so bad living in Canada, if you don't mind the cold. There are almost no poisonous animals or natural disasters, besides snow storms, and we get most of the same T.V. shows that Americans do.

RATING: 69% (78% if you're Quebecois and you don't have lung cancer)

(Image of flag from Tizona's Weblog. Sorry for breaking the usual 1 paragraph format, but I suffer from chronic logorrhoea.)

Doing One's Taxes

Ha ha, get it, because the IRS is mean and just wants our money? Just playing - I'm all for high taxes and government programs because I'm a socialist. On the 0ther hand, it's just a pain to organize my taxes and get all my forms together, and also this year I'm way late because one of my jobs ordered the wrong form and another one forgot to send me my W-2. Also, I should point out that come tax time I've never owed the government any additional money because I am poor.

RATING: 50%