Let’s talk strange Chinese movies for a moment. Let’s talk about Dragon From Shaolin. I watched my copy of this last weekend and seem to have neglected reporting my findings. It’s quite possibly the strangest HK movie I’ve ever seen. There’s this amoral air about it and I’m not sure if it’s for adults who have no brains or kids that are a bit advanced and think pee-pee jokes are excellent. The plot revolves around an ancient statue of Buddha’s head and the shenanigans revolved around trying to get it back in its rightful place. There’s a pair of kids – one’s a Shaolin monk and the other’s a chubby little con man who with a heart of gold – their chemistry is remarkable and even the obligatory song that the pair sing over one scene didn’t grate too much.

The movie did make me laugh quite a bit, but the tacked-on love story with Yuen Biao and the wide-eyed lovely girl was just a bit too limp and the drinking contest between the Yuen’s character and the aforementioned young hoodlum (!) features a very uncomfortable shot of the kid peeing into a bucket placed under the table so he can keep up with the grownup.

Yeah, I thought so, too. Worth a gander, but don’t expect Hero or anything.

Some truly timeless advice. Found via Boing Boing, once again proving its status as the center of the universe.

Should you ever decide to use bamboo sticks and stretchy, decorative string that�s designed to wrap presents to make a bow and arrow, and should you decide to wad up a bunch of duct tape on the end of your arrow and soak it with WD-40 so it�ll, you know, burn better, I would recommend not shooting the flaming arrow onto the roof of a house, or into the lap of your friend�s cousin. Even by accident.

If you suspect someone likes to do a lot of cocaine, don�t let them �borrow� your CDs. *coughcoughcough*

The Renaissance Faire may not be the source of all your problems, but it sure as shit isn�t helping any.

Click here to create your own “States I’ve Visited” Map.

(What’s sad is that I had to ask Kristin if I’d been to Vermont. She said I had not. )

So, I emailed Cory Doctorow about the ranting tone of a recent BoingBoing post about TinyURL and its ilk. A few emails were exchanged and in one of them he compares using tools that help you shorten a long URL to the shipping records of the Dutch East India Company being encoded and then the key being burnt and lost to posterity.

This is where he and I had a major disconnect – I don’t think using TinyURL is going to bring down the web or make it harder to use for the vast majority of people. He stated that he imagines it will make internet research harder in the future (who was referring to what in what forum or web page at what time), but this seems to me, at least, to be of middling concern at best outside of writers who want to see when people have referred to their Amazon pages. (I’d use a smiley emoticon, but that seems so puerile.) Context is a major concern for Cory, it seems – he wants someone to know where they’re going by the URL, as well as the url being something he can search for in his email via grep or what have you.

While I see the point to his arguments – I personally think it’s great that there’s something out there that allows me to direct you, the person I am addressing, to a site with an overly complex URL without fear that it’ll break in the email. Any system that makes something easier or simpler to process loses some amount of detail that somebody will want to have there. See using a mac versus Unix, before you could open a Unix window. People that want to just do are able to just do versus having to worry about layers of obscure-looking commands.

At least I got to exchange a few words with a writer whose work I’ve enjoyed. It’s better than that restaining order that James Ellroy has against me.

“And how come Velouria never speaks to me anymore.”

This is for an audience of one (1) person. Muah.

Oh, hey. Squawkbox is back. Woo.

Hell of a month.

Squawkbox’s comment system went down, down, down. Added the Haloscan version again, just to see if it works.

I’m currently mired in Don Quixote and it’s fascinating stuff, even if the edition I have (Wordsworth Classics – dead cheap) has the world’s smallest print at a high density which means I spend 3-4 minutes per page (versus my regular reading rate, which is quite decent, but not like Aaron’s “A Book An Evening Keeps The Man At bay” philosophy or Doug’s “The Flash Wishes He Did This” page-flipping) and since I usually can only read in thirty or forty five minute bursts, I’m on page 80 and feeling like I just downed a couple of Grishams int he last couple of days.

Other than that, it’s the end of the month, which means I work.

“Tha last muhfukkah be tha most hardcore, but inna psycho way. He laughed like a hyena, then he assumed a stance I didn’t recognize foe a second. Then he came at me. Holy fuckin’ shit: Tha muhfukkah be a mastah a’ tha Deadly Super Wondah Palm. That certain death. I vaulted ovah him an’ kicked tha back a’ his head on tha descent. We whipped aroun’ 2 face one anothah. He came at me again. I grabbed a stapler, said a prayer, an’ popped a whole cartridge a’ staples at his face. Tha muhfukkah in agony.

‘My kung-fu incorporate office supplies,’ I hissed. ‘That be my Magic Staple-Gun Punch.’”

I love the peoples of Asia, but this so so so beyond fucked up.

Nora: Pretty girl.

Nick: Yes, she’s a very nice type.

Nora: You got types?

Nick: Only you, darling. Lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.

*sigh* They don’t make movies like this anymore.

They dye their monkeys in China. That’s fucked up.

So, BoingBoing pointed to a list list of things that teens can do instead of…it. Not to go into too much detail, but I was quite happy doing…it and some of these come off as a poor, poor substitute. My favorites follow, with commentary.

1. Go for a bike ride.

I used to do that. Rode my bike over to her place to do…it.

5. Hold hands.

This leads to doing…it. Trust me.

6. Play hide-and-seek in a cornfield.

OF COURSE. NOBODY’S EVER FUCKED IN A FIELD. EVER.

9. Pray together.

God…please…let her bra be the black lace one I saw last week!

11. Play Twister.

JESUS, ARE YOU KIDDING? HORMONES + TWISTER = JIZZ AHOY.

12. Have a picnic in the middle of winter.

Freeze your nuts off so you can’t do it! Good idea.

17. Take your grandparents out for dinner at a fast food restaurant.

This might work as effective contraception / prevention at any age.

21. Watch your favorite Disney movie.

Oh, you mean like Kids (a Miramax movie, see, and Disney owns them.)

24. Make a candlelight dinner for each other.

Seriously. You people do know that “candlelight” = “vicious nookie afterwards”, right?

28. Go fishing.

I suppose it’s one way to get your pole wet.

29. Take a hike in the woods.

Note to all who read this list: avoid any state parks in Western Georgia if you want that advice to be an effective deterrent.

31. Eat something you have never tried before.

Ummmmm….

32. Visit a Japanese restaurant and do karaoke.

Yes. Because the Japanese aren’t weirdly fixated on sex with teens or anything.

38. Have a squirt gun fight.

UMMMMM. Look. Wet t-shirts. Squirting. Christ, you people do not think, do you?

39. Play in the rain.

See 38

43. Play 20 Questions.

Is it pink? Is it throbbing?

48. Head to Wal-Mart to try on shoes�in styles you�d never buy.

The fuck? What the fuck is this? WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? WAL-MART? OH, WHATEVER.

49. Jump on a trampoline.

STORY CONCERNING TRAMPOLINE AND A CERTAIN FEMALE DELETED.

53. Play video games.

Do not play DOA Volleyball.

54. Listen to music together.

“Humpin’ Around” by Bobby Brown might be a good place to start.

60. Look at the stars (and share your ideas about life on other planets!).

I bet they do it on Vulcan, too.

64. Watch a scary old horror movie.

Yeah, there’s no nudity in any of those Friday The 13th flicks. (I know, I know what they mean. Trust me.)

65. Get dressed up really nice and go to McDonald�s.

HOW MANY PLUGS FOR MAJOR CORPORATIONS CAN YOU FIT IN ONE LIST?

69. Invent a new game.

In June, 2000, Moby told Britain’s Q magazine that he and several friends have developed a game called “Knob Touch” which he called “the funniest thing in the world”:

“If you’re at a big celebrity party with two or three friends, you take your penises out of your pants and just walk around. No one will notice, ’cause it’s really crowded,” Moby explained. “You see how many celebrities you can touch with your penis.”

72. Surf the Web.

Great idea! Try visiting The Hun (NSFW!) and see what they do.

76. Learn how to juggle.

“I have a pair of balls you can start with!”

77. Take ballroom dancing lessons.

That’d explain why Christina’s not been getting any.

78. Run errands for your parents.

79. Help each other clean out your closets.

80. Play soccer with your younger siblings.

81. Make a present for your mothers.

82. Surprise your parents by cleaning the house.

83. Stay after church and help the janitor pick up bulletins.

84. Rake leaves, shovel snow, plant flowers.

Admit it – this is just a conspiracy to get young people to do all your work, isn’t it?

94. Look at the clouds and see what you can make them into.

That cloud looks like a couple doing it. And so does that one. And that other one.

98. Read a magazine (Guideposts for Teens!).

Or Swank. Either way.

100. Wash your parent’s cars.

See 78-84.

Poor, poor effort, guys. Obviously the writer is someone in their 60s with this strange idea as to what constitutes “fun” with teens. No, most teens shouldn’t be doing it. Yes, it’s a fine idea, providing a list of things to do. No, you shouldn’t be over twenty and trying to come up with suggestions.

No word from the London office on a certain someone’s birthday party. Since I didn’t get any calls requesting that I wire bail money, I suspect all is well.

Saturday night, rather late. I’m watching an old movie featuring international sensation / superstar Chow Yun Fat when my phone rings. It’s Lynn wanting to know where Wookiees come from. I almost start with the “Well, you see, when one Wookiee really loves another Wookiee…” schtick, but she’s impatient. She must know the name of their homeworld. I tell her Kashyyyk. She asks me to spell it. I do so.

It’s only after we hang up that I realize how nerdy the whole exchange was.

From The Boondocks, a favored strip at Chez Beaucoup.

10,000: Approximate number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the conflict

$374 billion: Amount of US budget deficit in the fiscal year for 2003

If this were Livejournal, my “Current Mood” would be a big frowny face (most likely crying or something because, like, emoticons say it all) and the “Now Playing” field would state that “Hate Fuck” by Mt. Sims is currently in the CD player.

Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.

From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight — and with what tactics.

I never, ever, ever, ever want to see a fucking Republican doing another goddamn thing to restrict personal encryption rights.

January 22, 2004 — LAST February, Morgan Spurlock decided to become a gastronomical guinea pig.

Within a few days of beginning his drive-through diet, Spurlock, 33, was vomiting out the window of his car, and doctors who examined him were shocked at how rapidly Spurlock’s entire body deteriorated.

(Courtesy of Kelly Sue DeConnick, who is far too good for Matt Fraction.)

Whiplash the cowboy monkey rides a herding dog as part of a rodeo show. He’ll perform in St. Paul this weekend at the Dodge World’s Toughest Rodeo.

Courtesy of Jeremy, who actually emailed me the link, and the Star-Tribune website.

Also, it’s the start of the Year of the Monkey so…

Thank our animal pals for being there. Hug a monkey if you meet one. They like that.

�We know for a fact that the Klingons have photon torpedoes and phasers. Heck, even Hans Blix doesn�t deny that,� said the President during an afternoon session with reporters in the Oval Office. �And there�s also the Klingon cloaking device. But fortunately the Klingons can�t use their phasers and cloaking device at the same time, but it�s only a matter of time before they figure out how to do it. So we�ve got to act fast.�