One of the more amusing parodies I've seen on television this year occurred on the South Park two-parter "Go God Go" and "Go God Go XII". The episode had Eric Cartman freezing himself only to be revived five hundred years later, featuring a take off of the opening to the 1979 NBC series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Check out the South Park parody of Buck Rogers, as well as a side-by-side comparison.

Incidentally, when I was a kid, Twiki apparently scared the shit out of me. Now I think back fondly of him, knowing he was voiced by Mel Blanc. Also, Erin Grey was hot.

Robot Chicken did an amusing send up of the program too. Check out Fuck Rogers. Yes, you heard correctly, that's the voice of David Hasselhoff.

Listen, I'm as social as the next guy, but there's a time and a place for chatting and the aisle at the grocery store is neither. I was in a hurry today to pick up some food for a dinner party I should have arrived at 30 minutes ago. Complicating the issue was the fact that everyone and their mother was out picking up food for the holiday weekend (or maybe Ford's wake, I dunno). Go figure, of all the aisles in the store, I had to go down the one with the most people in it. I navigated carts and shoppers until I found myself before the food item in question. Unfortunately, I had to negotiate a couple who had decided to stop in the middle of the aisle and chitchat with their kid's teacher or some such nonsense. And, as expected, they were right in front of the items I needed to get.

Needless to say I wasn't thrilled. I wanted to butt in and say, "Pardon me but could you tell me where I can find the 'Shut the fuck up and move along'? I can't seem to locate it."

This is hardly a new trend but the phenomenon has struck several times in the past couple of weeks, I assume because of the infectious joy of the Season spreading like Avian Flu. Twice now at work I've had to drive around cars in the street whose drivers have stopped to roll down the window and parlay.

People: What the fuck?

So, anyway, could you please save the socializing for some other time, preferably when I'm not around?

Grouchy for someone my age,
Kato

I returned home last night from the Land Broadband Forgot. I don't know how people on modems get by anymore. Sure, I was once limited in the bandwidth department, but that was years ago, before everything was Ajax and RSS and YouTube and such. It's almost criminal. What good is tabbed browsing and multitasking when you can't even surf to Google in a timely fashion.

When I walked in the door last night, after being gone for a few days, I noticed an odd odor. And by odd I mean "unpleasant". I followed my nose, much like a toucan might, to the kitchen. I knew from experience that it had to be one of two culprits: the trash or the disposal.

It wasn't the trash.

I looked warily at the sink. I was piled with dishes from a family dinner get-together I had thrown before I left for the holiday weekend. The smell was definitely wafting from there.

It wasn't the worst scent, but it certainly was far from the best. It didn't smell like food or garbage, either. It smelled, as a matter of fact, like shit. That's not a euphemism or colorful slang. It was as if, over Christmas, Santa had come down my chimney and, having run out of coal, decided to squat over my sink and leave me what he felt I deserved.

Oh how pleasant.

Needless to say I let the water and the disposal run for a bit (apparently some leftover taco meat and fixins has been sitting there stewing for the past few days). So learn from my mistakes, kids: garbage disposals should always be run before leaving town. And, just in case, you might want to cap it in case Santa decides you've been extra naughty this year.

Girl, we been together a long time now. And I know I haven't always gotten you just what you wanted for Christmas. But this year, I found the perfect gift. I know you're gonna really going to appreciate it.

It's all wrapped up and waiting for you, baby. Why don't you open it up and take a look inside.

Halls cherry cough drop + Deviled eggs.

'Cause a hacking winter cough shouldn't stop me from enjoying hors d'oeuvres.

I meant to write about this at the beginning of the month and I forgot. Even though Christmas is only days away, I still want to mention it (and besides, late Christmas presents are better than none at all).

In November of 2003, Mike "Gabe" Krahulik and Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, creators of the popular gaming-related webcomic Penny Arcade, founded a charity for sick children called Child's Play. The origins came as a response to the media's assault on gamers and gaming culture:

If you are like me, every time you see an article ... where the author claims that video games are training our nations youth to kill you get angry. The media seems intent on perpetuating the myth that gamers are ticking time bombs just waiting to go off. I know for a fact that gamers are good people. I have had the opportunity on multiple occasions to meet hundreds of you at conventions all over the country. We are just regular people who happen to love video games.

With that in mind we have put together a little something we like to call "Child’s Play". Penny Arcade is working with the Seattle Children’s Hospital and Amazon.com to make this Christmas really special for a lot of very sick kids. With the help of the Children’s Hospital we have created an Amazon Wish List for the kids. It’s full of video games, movies and toys. Some of these kids are in pretty bad shape and just having a Game Boy would really raise their spirits.

The initial response was overwhelming and amazing. In the short month and a half leading up to Christmas, generous Penny Arcade readers donated over $250,000 in cash and toys.

Now in its third year, the Child's Play charity includes over 30 partner hospitals in the U.S. as well as a handful sprinkled elsewhere including Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. Donations can be made in the form of cash (via check or PayPal) or through buying a gift off a hospital's Amazon wishlist. As the charity website states, "We collect no administrative fees or other charges, 100% of all gifts and donations go directly to our partner hospitals, to help make life a little brighter for a sick child."

As a fellow gamer, I know we have big hearts, and here's our chance to put that Christmas Bonus (or money we were saving toward a next-gen game) to good use. Maybe we can make a sick child's stay in the hospital a little better.

www.childsplaycharity.org

The new Blogger Beta is now out of Beta which means I was finally able to migrate today. So far it seems to have worked (except for my hacked categories system which will be soon replaced by Blogger "labels").

WITFITS will probably go through some changes over the next couple of weeks as I play with and implement some of the new features provided by the upgrade. Don't be surprised if you see test posts or other weirdness. You shouldn't be surprised by that anyway--I'm a tinkerer--but as a heads up you may see more of it in the coming weeks.

There is a headline in my RSS reader today from Slashdot that reads "The Dangers of Improper Cookie Use". As you may know, I enjoy a cookie now and then. Who doesn't? I don't think I've ever met a person that has said, "A cookie? No, no thank you. I really don't care for them." If they did say such a thing I would probably slap them across the face and tell them "That is for blasphemy." But it so far hasn't come up.

I couldn't immediately imagine anyone using a cookie improperly. Sure, one's Oreo eating technique is very personal and varies quite a bit, but as long as the cookie is being consumed I doubt I could consider any method dangerous. So, I came up with a quick list of improper cookie uses:

• A coaster.
• As bait.
• For moving furniture.
• Underarm deodorant.
• Athletic cup.
• Frisbee.
• Automotive break pads.
• Attic insulation.
• Home pregnancy test.
• Pasties.
• Eyepatch.
• Contraceptive.
• Packing material.
• For rectal exams.

Of course, clicking the link to the Slashdot story reveals that it pertains to browser cookies. My mistake. Still, says something about me if as a geek I still think of the edible kind first.

This past weekend I was tickled to find that I could finally, finally, switch over to the new Blogger. The button was there. I had at last been tapped. Sure, I felt like the overweight foreign kid getting picked last for kickball, but I wasn't going to complain. I held off, though, because I feared that in my fevered state I might do something drastic, like change the page layout to pink on green, or come up with an actual theme and direction for my writing.

I figured I would wait a few days until my head was clear.

My fever broke and I was ready to take the plunge, to finally realize the desire that had burned inside me for months. I took a deep breath and logged in only to find... nothing. The button was gone. Gone, I tell you! Those saucy bastards dangled it out in front of me like the proverbial carrot, tempting me, taunting me, promising me the fulfillment of my blogging dreams. And then, just as I was about to taste it, they pulled it away. I was the Charlie Brown to their Lucy, and Blogger Beta was the football.

And no, my metaphors haven't gotten any better. Get used to it.

I can only assume that the Blogger team is having a fine laugh at my expense. And surely the button will appear again soon, and I will go to click on it and get a 404 or have my browser crash. I can only assume they are out to torment me, sick bastards that they are.

Or perhaps I imagined the whole thing and the bags of Halls that have been sustaining me in place of real food have made me unreasonably paranoid.

UPDATE: The link has returned. I was all excited until I clicked it and tried to log in and it informed me:

Thanks for your interest in the new Blogger in beta! Unfortunately, we cannot switch your Blogger account at this time, because one or more of your blogs cannot be moved. Please see our help article for more information.

They're screwing with me, I know it.

No groundbreaking posts from me to end this week, I am once again ill. My spirits are good, but it's hard to think when your head feels like it is full of oatmeal. I am trying Theraflu for the first time and I'm finding it to be pretty awful tasting. It's like drinking lemon flavored chapstick. Oh well, if it makes me head feel better and stops me from coughing, I'll put up with the taste. Hopefully, next week I'll be back with the funny, and some clickworthy links. I know some of us could certainly use a laugh.

My hobby is apparently having a negative effect on my eyesight. Not that hobby. I'm talking about computers.

I work on one all day. I often spend evenings in front of one. I know video games, chatting, blogging, and surfing the net are not the healthiest, but I never really considered them "harmful" per se. The warm, glowing, warm-glowingness of the monitor's warm glow is hastening my ocular decripitation, apparently.

I had noticed in the past couple weeks that I was squinting a great deal. As I sit here, a glance over to the digital clock on my cable box, a scant 10 feet away, reveals that it is starting to get blurry. Driving at night, I found, has become more troublesome, the roadside lights and those of other cars smearing together. I have to be practically right on a roadsign to make it out with certainty. Not good. Driving home from work was where I perhaps noticed it most, especially being that it is almost winter now and the sun has set before I leave the office. After staring at a screen all day, I have been finding it quite difficult to focus past the hood of the car. Unsettling.

More disturbing, to me, was a trend I made note of awhile back. Sitting on my couch with the 360, pimping hoes and inciting gang wars, or blasting little Stormtroopers to their constituent blocks, I found myself leaning forward more often than not, straining the hell out of my neck. I went so far as to pull my couch forward about a foot just to make the experience more comfortable. The final straw was perhaps last evening, as my cohorts and I crept across the campus of the fictional Las Vegas University