Patent Pending

In the spirit of Homer Simpson’s cry of ‘Patent Pending’ every time he ‘fixed’ a neighbour’s back in ‘Pokey Mom’ (Simpsons season 12, episode 10), I give to you my list of ‘Other Blogs I Wish I had Time to Write, but will Probably Just End Up as Entry Themes Here Instead’. With a catchy name like that, I say again: PATENT PENDING, suckas!!

These Questions Three

Listen - You Might Learn Something

Anyone with any rudimentary knowledge of Monty Python will remember the character of ‘Tim the Enchanter’ from The Holy Grail. An amazing scene, usually hailed for the ridiculous explosions, the extraordinary volume of spittle that John Cleese produces, and, of course, the description of ‘a creature so foul, so cruel, that no man yet has fought with it and lived.’ Unfortunately, despite watching the film countless times, my knowledge is wanting, and I unwittingly attributed the ‘bridge crossing’ scene (famously falling 'a-fowl' of the ongoing ‘African or European swallow’ debate) to Tim, rather than to the Bridgekeeper. So I’ve taken the blog title from there, and immediately demonstrated that I know nothing. Nevertheless, as a Blog Entry Theme (BET) it could be useful to discuss things I don’t understand. Like idiots who get film references wrong. Fucking tossers, the lot of ‘em.

So’s Your Face

This was going to be about things I should have said at the time, but didn’t. In all of my advancing years, I can think of exactly one occasion where someone said something, and I said something in reply that SHUT THEM UP. My brother and I were playing a pick-up game of basketball at the local Y when one of the other players made an unsavoury comment about my brothers aversion at the oppressively mainstream cultural conceit of soap. The thing is, this dude had two problems. First of all, he was a sweaty 350-pound hairy bastard who used his belly as a battering ram. Secondly, my brother was 10 times the baller this dude was and it showed; Fat Albert was getting schooled. So when Shamu quipped ‘I can’t guard him, he stinks’, my immediate and natural response was ‘So what? You’re fat. We all have issues. Get over it’. Argument settled: Macys 1, Fatzilla 0. This BET would be a record of all OTHER times in my life when I thought of exactly the right thing to say anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 years after I should have said them. The reference, of course, is to JD’s proposal in Scrubs that, as a comeback, ‘So’s your face always make sense’.

Ninety Percent Ross

I never count Mississippilessly.

Anyone that has spent more than a day in my company will know that I am borderline OBSESSED with Friends. I could (and have been known to) watch it all day – even repeats of the same episode that I watched EARLIER that day. It is, by far, my favourite television show of all time. Corny, yes. Cliche, yes. So what... so's your face! Anyway, it seems only natural that I’ve succumbed to the ‘What Friends Character are you Most Like?’ quiz on more than one occasion, desperately hoping that one configuration of my answers will point me in the area of Joey’s confident sexuality or Chandlers’ quick wit. Alas, no matter how I try to rig the results, I am always, ALWAYS Ross. So I’ve acquiesced to the fact that I am, probably, at least 90% Ross (geek, nerd, dork, pseudo-intellectual, often effeminate) and only 10% of the cooler stuff the others have to offer. This BET could focus on my best dinosaur-loving moments, choosing to accentuate the positive aspects of Nerdity, right? God, even I can hear his voice as I right that. Unagi!