Stuff to click on!

Baseball (and Florida) has hit a new low.

We all know that Miami, Florida brings out the best in people (e.g.: 2.Live Crew, Goldberg, Don Johnson, William Calley, Ricky Martin, Jonathan James, and of course Scarface). That's why it makes perfect sense that the Florida Marlins are home to the world's first two-ton dance team.

The "Manatees" (wow, so clever) are a group of obese men who blunder around the Marlins baseball field during MLB games. Here's a video of one of their sad, sad performances (you don't need sound, I'll fill you in on the pathetic details).

Pathetic details: They have a choreographer, who I'm going to assume is doing this as part of a criminal sentence. As you can see in the video, the ringleader of this operation, "Mr. Mantastic" wears a muscle suit, which simply makes his obesity appear to be more evenly distributed throughout his body.

Major League Baseball isn't known for its on-field entertainment...and these guys prove it should stay that way.

Boom.

That's really all I can say about this beast of a movie. Boom. I saw it in an IMAX theater, so the booms were extra bassilicious, and much of the visuals were stunning. Certainly one of the few movies you must see in the theater to get the full experience. For the high-flying city landscape shots, IMAX really brings it to life.

In terms of entertainment value, I couldn't ask for much more. It is a bit long at two and a half hours, so don't slurp down a 64-ounce Diet Coke in the first 15 minutes. But the story continues to develop throughout, so you never feel that the movie has become stagnant. Starting with the quite bad-ass opening bank robbery scene, the often back-to-back action scenes keep your attention thoroughly affixed to every moment of the movie. There are two action-climaxes, both of which made me feel like a giddy little boy after experiencing them.

The acting was good where it counted. Heath Ledger, who I've never enjoyed in a film before, nailed the role (completely psychotic) perfectly, and without question stole the acting spotlight. Christian Bale was big and cheek-bony as always, and makes the perfect Bruce Wayne. So much so in fact, I may actually someday forget about the sickening agony of George Clooney in that role. Bale's Batman voice at times sounded a bit more retarded than intimidating, something I had to get used to in Batman Begins. Maggie Gyllenhaal was far less annoying and far more convincing than Katie Holmes as Bruce Wayne's childhood friend and it-can-never-be lover, Rachael Dawes. Aaron Eckhart added some nice flavor to the acting mix, as Gotham City's exuberant and very likable District Attorney, Harvey Dent. The acting veterans, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, have perfected their roles.

Similar to director Christopher Nolan's first Batman film, the movie had some social commentary about societal balance, social norms, and fear. Such commentary is usually oversimplified or nonexistent in superhero movies. In The Dark Knight, it is nicely interwoven into the dialogue and storyline. Clearly it's no Shawshank Redemption, but it certainly was more thought-provoking than your average comic book turned movie.

As could be expected, there were a couple of minor unexplained jumps in the plot, usually the result of an abrupt end to a scene. The fight scenes were less choreographed and more edited than those in Batman Begins, leaving you with a lot of impact but unsure of what exactly is happening. But these scenes are quickly followed-up with amazing explosions, insane jumps, and extreme Bat-motorcycles, leaving your every Batman itch well-scratched.

Here's a bunch of images from the movie (click on image for hi-res pic):

I told you so!

Everyone loves the feeling of a good "I told you so!" But there's nothing sweeter than saying "I told you so!" to your friends and family burning in the fiery trenches of hell, while you frolic around Heaven's infinite landscape.

That's why the website youvebeenleftbehind.com was created! (Yes, it is a real website.) For a small $40 annual membership fee, you can store emails to your loved ones that will be sent six days after the Rapture! That's right, youvebeenleftbehind.com will store up to 250MB, or 62 emails for you. The data will be held in a secure location, and will be sent to your damned loved ones exactly six days after the end of humankind as we know it!

Frequently Asked Questions:

- How can the staff of youvebeenleftbehind.com send emails from Heaven?

There is a fool-proof system in place: three employees log in every day - as soon as six days have passed without a log in, the Rapture emails will be sent out! In the rare case that all three employees get sick or quit, you may accidentally receive some very nasty emails from your loved ones.

- With all of the devastation after the Rapture, how do you think the emails will be delivered?

(Quoting the website) "I do believe that the Internet will be up and running. There may be some localized temporary outages...Most of the net is buried underground."

- How will our heathen friends and family receive emails in Hell?

No more questions!



So, boys and girls, now would be the time to write that email to Andy Dick, condemning his drug-abuse and sharking of 17-year-old girls. When the Rapture comes and destroys everything, (except for the Internet, because it's underground....which I guess means that hiding in your basement will allow you to avoid the Rapture) you can rest assured knowing that youvebeenleftbehind.com has safely delivered your email to Andy Dick's hell-inbox, or hellbox. And you can look down from Heaven's pearly gates and yell, "I told you so, Dick!"

That's not cool, man.

I was thinking the other day, what if "Clown" was a race? What if some people were born looking like circus clowns, make-up and all? And people of Clown ethnicity had always been treated as a lesser-class of people, subordinated by all non-Clowns.

Eventually it would become public policy that Clowns should be treated equally as all non-Clowns. It would be politically incorrect to call someone "Bobo" or "Krusty", because of its negative connotation. There would be a host of stereotypes that would be associated with Clowns, like big shoes, malnutrition, obnoxious laugh, or incredibly convenient clumsiness.

"You wouldn't believe the guy who rear-ended me yesterday. It was this fucking Clown! Like, of course dude, of course you can't drive with those giant shoes!"

"I hate taking that bus, there's always some Clown on there being loud and obnoxious with those toys they always have."

"So she actually brings over this guy...a Clown. So of course I immediately start watching his hands around all my stuff, because you know how clumsy they are."

Eventually there would be public-service announcements where someone would say a Clown comment like "I don't want a bunch of Clowns coming to my party, you know how quickly that party will get broken up!", and then his friend would turn to him and say in complete seriousness: "That's not cool, man."

Have You Seen This Man?

He stole my fucking shopping kart. I had spent 20 good minutes in Trader Joe's, wading through countless senior-citizen-zombies to get my hands on some delicious TJ's treats, when my shopping kart, robust with goodies, was feloniously burgled.

I then spent the next 20 minutes aggressively scanning and rummaging through every damn shopping kart in the store. No luck. So someone either bought $50 worth of random groceries that they didn't want, or they actually dumped my shit out of the kart and commandeered it as their own.

The next 20 minutes was spent reliving the exact same 20 minutes I had lived through at the beginning of the hour, but this time I was living it much more angrily. I wasn't angry about the fact that I had just wasted 40 minutes doing essentially nothing in the grocery store. I was, however, angry about the future-fact that I was inevitably going to forget something that I had remembered the first time around.

Sure enough. Dijon mustard. Fuck.

So if you see this man, tell him he owes me 40 minutes and some mustard.

Christie Brinkley’s relationship status changed from "married" to "single"

FACEBOOK! I friggin' love it. Keeps me up-to-the-minute on every single thing that every single person I know is doing. Truly amazing.

Congress passed a wire-tapping bill today, giving phone companies immunity when the US Government wants to tap our phones. A lot of Americans are very, very upset about this...are you fucking kidding me!?! 70 million Americans jump on Facebook every day (4th-most visited site on the web) and voluntarily disclose to the world their relationship status, their friends, their plans, their associations, and even their feelings. And Facebook puts it all into a nice little pretty package for us to review every day. What makes the whole package just that much sweeter? Pictures, millions of hilarious amazing scandalous drunken pictures. If it were up to me, Facebook would replace the US Government.

And don't give me that crap about "you can't see my page unless you're my friend." Bullshit. All I have to do is send you a friend request with a profile picture of big tits or a six-pack (depending on what you're into) and you'll instantly accept, in the hopes that I'm some long-lost friend turned super-hot.

Mucho kudos to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard dork who stole the idea from four other super-nerds, a-la Bill Gates. Apparently being smart enough to invent Internet stuff somehow prevents you from knowing what a patent is.

If I ever hire a hit man to off someone, I'll have him use Facebook to seamlessly pinpoint his target. I can't even count the number of times I've heard "You won't believe who's single now! I saw it on Facebook." And are they ever wrong? Nope, never. Facebook users feel some innate need to fully expose all truths about themselves when on Facebook. It's like an electronic truth-serum.

This...is...SPARTA!!!

Unfortunately this is not Sparta, because now the Persians are flexing balls with 2,000-km range missiles instead of giant gay guys with gold piercings.

Iran fired off some test-missiles, which the United States playfully refers to as "war games" (an oxymoron if I've ever heard one). Iran is pissed because Israel and the United States are threatening them. What's new, right?

This kinda shit fucking scares me. When the US fires off missiles and plays "war games" Top Gun-style, it's often simply because the US military budget looks like Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin, and our troops like to blow things up in their free time. But when other countries fire test missiles, it's because they wanna test to make sure they can effectively kill people. Either that or they want to show the world that they can effectively kill people.

And you know how the US responds when other countries demonstrate that they can effectively kill people? The same way a fat ex-high school football player reacts when someone in the bar gets tough with him: he attempts to smash them. So in this case, the most likely response of the US will be to aim missiles at various Iranian locations, ready to fire at the drop of a dime.

All it takes to ignite this situation is for a spy-plane to accidentally crash near an Iranian nuclear-weapons facility. We blame Iran for the crash and fire some missiles at them, and then they return the favor as aggressively as possible to prove their military might. All of a sudden we're looking at three simultaneous wars in the Middle East. Fan-fucking-tastic.

We do have one temporary saving grace, and for once (I can't believe I'm going to say this) it is George W. Bush. Normally, ol' Bush-bag would be so excited that a country in "the brown part of the world" was acting tough, he would get the party started early by intentionally crashing a US plane in Iran. But right now, Bushy's incredibly powerful laziness is preventing him from taking any action or making any public statements whatsoever. McCain responded immediately (kill 'em!), as did Obama (talk to them), and this seems to be plenty satisfactory for W-Douche. With his approval rating floating somewhere between "fuck you" and "go to hell", Bush-face is plenty comfortable kicking back and playing live Duck Hunt, and letting the presidential candidates respond to the situation. Considering that senators have zero executive power to go to war, McCain and Obama's responses are simply campaign rhetoric - what ifs.

Fortunately, George is so fully checked-out of his role as President, he likely isn't even aware of Iran's missile launches. Instead he's over in Japan "talking" with China's Hu Jintao about "Human Rights." Translation: Bush making sure he gets a front-row seat at the Olympics. http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-07-09-voa7.cfm

This means that, hopefully, the only US response will be to listen to McCain and Obama talk about how they would react to the current situation, until attention is diverted elsewhere - ultimately allowing tensions to dissipate. Quite similar to letting that ex-football player in the bar talk about how he would smash you, until some bachelorette party rolls in and everyone forgets about the whole thing.

The Energy Revolution

The generation known as Millenials, aged 14-31, will likely be the first generation to ever live through multiple technological revolutions. As human technology continues to advance at an exponential rate, the frequency of technological revolutions is also increasing at an exponential rate.

Previous generations have experienced technological revolutions sparked by the discovery of electricity, the creation of of steel and the railroad system, and the development of the assembly line. For us Millenials, we have grown up using the most recent technological advancement, the Internet. The colossal power of the Internet to instantly deliver information has irreversibly changed the lives of all people living in societies that are wealthy enough to have it.

So what is the next technological revolution us Millenials will live through? The Energy Revolution. With non-renewable fossil fuels rapidly depleting, developed societies that rely almost entirely on fossil fuels for production and transportation will soon be forced to make dramatic changes to their infrastructure. Alternative forms of energy, such as nuclear or solar, may be the backbone to such changes. Or perhaps a newly-discovered form of transferable energy will become the primary energy provider of the future. Either way, within the next 40 years, developed societies will be forced to completely overhaul their production and transportation systems, so as to allow those systems to operate on a primary energy source other than oil.

White People in Sunglasses (WPS)

Dub-PS, they've really got an edge on UPS because of that extra U.

White People in Sunglasses are their own breed/race/class of people. A great breed of people really, some of my funnest moments have been in mobs of WPS. Bay 2 Breakers, Union Street Festival, etc.

WPS are native to urban areas, and are generally very affluent. The first WPS was spotted in Los Angeles, CA in the summer of 1989. Often confused with yuppies or preppies, WPS do not wear Polo's with sweaters over their shoulders, and they typically are young, but not urban professionals.

Initially WPS was going to be the premise for a website/photo-blog...but then that guy came up with the much-funnier blog Stuff White People Like, essentially making WPS seem like a feeble, uncreative idea.

Regardless, keep your eyes peeled for WPS. Any time or place that daytime drinking is involved, you will see hordes of WPS, all of whom will ferociously refuse to remove their precious $400 sunglasses, in fear that their eyes will expose their true level of intoxication.

CQ's Law Blog

This is my Blog about Law, also known as a "LawBlog". Younger generations typically shorten it to simply "Loblog" - different spelling, same pronunciation. I extend my sincerest gratitude to Bob Loblaw, who created the Loblog with "Bob Loblaw's Law Blog: Bob Loblaw Lobs Law Bomb". True ingenuity at its finest.

So I'm sitting in my room on a typical overcast Friday afternoon in San Francisco, preparing for my "Oral Blowjob Argument" which is rapidly approaching this Monday. Well, it's actually just called an Oral Argument, but the whole thing is a real blower in my book, so I include Blowjob in the name.

"Preparing" for the Blowjob Argument consists of sitting in my room, by myself, with no music on, staring at the wall, and repeating the same bullshit to myself over and over again like a schizophrenic crack whore outside of the Carl's Jr. on Market St. Two of my three roommates are here, doing whatever normal enjoyable activity you do on Friday afternoons, and every time they walk by my room, they regret living with a crazy secluded law student.

OK, a friend of mine just came over, after a normal human day of working a normal job and actually producing something of tangible value for the world (all things that I am barred from doing as a law student), and he is now urging me to go across the street to a bar that offers, simultaneously, both the best and worst things in the entire city of San Francisco: Every Friday afternoon they have 50 cent margaritas, and every Friday afternoon the bar fills with babies.

Countless illiterate, high-body-fat, balding babies, escorted by a robust mix of Pac Heights yoga moms, Marina moms with strollers that retail for twice the price of my car (another side-effect of being a law student), and dads that just stumbled out of happy hour at the Gold Club, and still reek of brass polish and the (delicious) Gold Club surf 'n turf buffet while they slop big kisses on their pudgy crying infants, squeeze their 2nd (younger) wife's (rapidly depleting) ass (still in yoga pants) and then quickly hustle to the bar to watch the playoffs. Believe me, regardless of the clientele of this joint, I want to go down there and get bombed on these 'ritas that are so cheap they'd put a Mexican cantina out of business. Shit, for 50 cent margaritas, I'd go sit at a bar between Dr. Phil and William Hung. Please note that my never-ending desire to get smashed for under five bucks is, again, a result of my being in law school. And we come full circle...