Caption Contest: Righteous Kill

This movie looks pretty lame, but I figure you can't go too far wrong with a caption contest pic featuring Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro. And me, of course.

You know the rules. Submit your captions in the comments. The best ones will be posted in a poll on Tuesday. Have fun, and have a super fandamtastic weekend. I think Monday is some sort of Communist holiday here in the States, so I'll probably be back on Tuesday.

Sock Drawer

Yes, it's time once again to clean out the disorganized sock drawer of my mind. First, though, I want to say thanks to everybody who voted for my posts recently at Humor-Blogs.com. I'm back on top, baby! Feel free to chuck a smiley in the general direction of this post too if you feel so inclined. And now, on to the sock drawer....

*****

They say that a cockroach can live on a raisin for a month. So I'd say that your best bet is to just get another raisin.

*****

In the fridges at work they have both Coke Zero and Pepsi One. Supposedly, Coke Zero has zero calories and Pepsi One has one. I can't really taste the difference, so I end up trying to decide which one to get based on how hungry I am. "Am I just thirsty," I ask myself, "or am I craving a calorie?"

I understand the zero calorie thing, but I don't get the rationale of marketing a soda that has one calorie. Did the Pepsi guys pull all-nighters for like three weeks and then finally give up, unable to purge Pepsi of that last calorie? What's the margin of error with calorie counting anyway? Does Pepsi One really have one more calorie than Coke Zero, or are the Coke guys just rounding down?

My guess is that it's a psychological ploy on the part of Pepsi. Zero calorie sodas have been around for probably 30 years, but somehow saying that a beverage has only one calorie makes it sound like you worked really hard to get down to that level. It's like those labels on antibacterial soap that say "Kills 99.97% of germs." It sounds so much more impressive than "kills germs," even if smallpox happens to be in the .03%.

My theory that people are more impressed by the idea of a soda having one calorie was confirmed recently. I was drinking a Pepsi One when my ditch-digger stopped by. "Does that really have just one calorie in it?" He asked. "Yeah," I said. "But I'm on a diet, so I drink it real slow so the calorie settles on the bottom."

*****

Remember when you were a kid and your mom would always tell you not to eat right before dinner because you'd "spoil your appetite"? I don't understand why this idea hasn't taken off in dieting circles. I'm going to buy some late-night infomercial time and start promoting the Spoil Your Appetite Diet. I'll sell a kit consisting of the Spoil Your Appetite booklet and twenty of those Frito-Lay variety packs.

*****

Was there ever an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. where he was put in a headlock and given noogies until he said the name of the organization he worked for?

*****

A few days ago I drove past a car that had a cleaning service logo plastered across it. At the bottom of the ad was the text "We will clean your house for less than you can imagine." This puzzled me, because my imagination doesn't really work like that. I don't have a problem imagining very small numbers. Like four. I'm imagining four right now. Will you clean my house for four?

*****

Would you rather see a movie starring Jack Black with music by Jack White, or see a movie starring Jack White with music by Jack Black? Discuss.

*****

I'll leave you with a lesson that I learned recently: There is no universal hand gesture that you can use to communicate to the motorcyclist in the lane next to you, "All of the shit is flying out of your backpack." I think we as a society should really get on that.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Sock Drawer | Sock Drawer | Sock Drawer | Sock Drawer | Sock Drawer Join me at BlogCatalog

This Post Was Not Tested on Animals

The other day I noticed that my shampoo bottle claims that its contents were "not tested on animals."

This should make me feel good, I suppose, but as usual I thought too hard about what that statement meant exactly, and ended up irritated, confused and wrinkly.

I think the controversy about animal testing arises from a misunderstanding of the word 'testing.' To me, 'testing' something means using something in the manner it was intended to be used, to see if you get the desired result. So to test shampoo on a monkey, you would first shampoo the monkey's hair, then rinse the monkey, and finally smell the monkey to see if the monkey still smells like a monkey. If, rather than smelling like a combination of monkey sweat and poo, the monkey now smells like a combination of strawberries and wildflowers, then success! Otherwise, it's back to the lab again, yo.

So while you may hear horror stories about how scientists smear shampoo directly into the monkey's eyes to see how they'll react, I think that such cases are probably rare, and result mainly from inadequate training of the scientists. I think the scientists just need to be told what shampoo is actually for, and that they can assume that having shampoo smeared into your eyes (or your monkey's eyes) is going to hurt like hell, so they don't really need to test for that. I suggest giving the shampoo testing scientists the following checklist:


The first box is already checked, so they'd be like, "Oh, that's right, I don't have to worry about that one."

I also think that the animal rights activists haven't thought through the ramifications of not testing products on animals. If we can't use human shampoo on monkeys, then what are we supposed to use to clean our monkeys? Monkey shampoo, right? Well who do you think they test monkey shampoo on, genius?

I suppose it would be fair to test human shampoo on monkeys if we also tested monkey shampoo on humans, but that seems kind of arbitrary. If we're going to start randomly testing our hygiene products on the wrong species, then I don't see why the higher primates have to take the brunt of it. Maybe each species should be allowed to pick another species to stand in for it during testing. So humans could pick monkeys, monkeys could pick dogs, dogs could pick cats... all the way down to the animals that don't know any better, like the dung beetle and people who watch Desperate Housewives.

What it comes down to is this: Every product is tested on somebody. If your shampoo wasn't tested on animals, then guess what? It was tested on humans. There isn't really any alternative, is there? If the first bottle of XYZ Shampoo rolls off the assembly line without XYZ Shampoo ever having touched the head of some animal, then you the consumer are the lucky animal who gets to test it. (Although if the product is named XYZ Shampoo, then there's a good chance that there are some monkeys working in the marketing department, because come on, put some effort into it.)

I suppose we could try testing on aliens (the space kind, not the housecleaning kind), because that would only be fair after all the anal probing that they've done to us. In fact, I suspect that all that anal probing you keep hearing about is the result of testing by alien product manufacturers.

Alien #1: Hey Bill, I've got a hot stock tip for you.
Alien #2: Really? Tell me more.
Alien #1: XYZ Company is about to really take off. They've got a new anal probe out that's supposed to just dominate the competition.
Alien #2: Wow. I've heard that anal probing is the future. Have they gotten approval from the Galactic Product Commission yet?
Alien #1: Not yet. They're still in human trials, but I hear from an inside source that the results are very promising.
Alien #2: I don't know, it sounds pretty risky.
Alien #1: Hey, anal probing is always a risky business, but it will be worth it if this thing shoots up like I expect it to. What do you say, are you in?
Alien #2: Sure, what the hell. There's nothing like getting in on the ground floor!

But I suspect that space aliens are hard to find, and the ones I've seen don't seem to have much hair. They've got big eyes, so you could do the eye-smear thing, but then what? And of course there's always the risk of retaliation resulting in planetary annihilation, which is a big price to pay for lustrous curls and extra bounce. So that leaves us with humans.

Now I'm not necessarily opposed to testing shampoo on humans, but it doesn't seem like an improvement over animal testing unless (1) The data is more useful because the testing subjects are more similar to the intended users of the product, and (2) I get to pick the humans.

I would start with the crowd down at the bus station, and move onto any guys wearing girls' jeans or wearing their baseball caps sideways. And for the latter two groups, I'd require the eye-smearing test on principle.

Of course, technically humans are animals. There is, in fact, only one thing that separates us from the animals: the ability to sue other humans. The fact that humans can sue if something goes horribly wrong makes them very expensive test subjects, so product manufacturers have a pretty big incentive not to waste them. I mean, monkeys probably aren't cheap either, but I bet you'd have to kill a good seventy-five monkeys to do the same amount of damage to the company's bottom line as giving cancer to a single Desperate Housewives-watching human. It's not fair, I know, but that's the kind of screwed up culture we live in.

In reality, though, it seems like these test animals have it pretty good. Can you imagine the kind of conversation that would go on between an escaped test animal and his wilderness-dwelling cousin?

Wild Monkey: Hey man, where you been?
Test Monkey: Dude, I got tranq'd and carted off to a shampoo testing lab.
Wild Monkey: No shit? That sounds terrible.
Test Monkey: Yeah, I got shampoo'd like six times a day. I smelled like freaking strawberries and wildflowers.
Wild Monkey: Damn.
Test Monkey: Yeah, and that was bad enough, but then some FNG smeared shampoo in my eyes. My EYES.
Wild Monkey: FNG?
Test Monkey: Effing new guy. That's lab slang. I was like, "read the effing checklist, FNG."
Wild Monkey: Wow.
Test Monkey: Yeah, I had enough of that, so I escaped. So... what happened to your leg?
Wild Monkey: Cheetah ate it.
Test Monkey: Bummer.

At least these animals are getting food and shelter from the scientists, which is more than I got for buying my inadequately tested shampoo. I actually had to pay them $2.95 for the privilege of finding out whether their product gave me some kind of horrible rash. If you think about it, it's the humans that are getting screwed here.

I say that if manufacturers aren't going to bother to go through the due diligence of animal testing, they should be required to pay the first couple hundred humans who try their product. Besides helping to ensure that our shampoos are properly tested before being sold in stores, this system would also open up employment opportunities to individuals who might otherwise not be able to find jobs. I'm speaking, of course, of the chronically dirty.

Just imagine what would happen if a shampoo manufacturer sent a bus through the seedy parts of town offering free shampooing to all of the homeless people, in exchange for a warm meal, a bed for the night, and signing a release form waiving them of any liability. Best case scenario, you'd have a lot of clean, well-rested homeless people who smell like strawberries and wildflowers. And even if things go horribly wrong and they all die of cancer, at least you'd have fewer homeless people.

More importantly, no animals would get hurt. And that, friends, is what XYZ Company cares most about. That and making it big in anal probing.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Too Much to Bear | Urine Trouble Now | Undocumented Thoughts I have inexplicably fallen to #4 in the Humor-Blogs.com rankings. Please head over there and give me a smiley or 2 to get me back to my rightful spot. Thank you.

Congrats, toadroller!

I don't know what a 'toadroller is', but it just won this week's caption contest with something that verges on being a short story.

Toadroller, you may display the coveted In Your Face award on your blog, lily pad, or overpass.



John Stuart came in second with:

No Diesel, this is his Swiss cousin, Yoda Layee Hu.

And John J Savo took third with my own personal favorite:

"Hmmm. Always picked last I am. Different this time, it will be not."

Thanks for playing and/or voting, everyone!

By the way, in case you're curious about the results of the poll about my novel, check them out here. To sum up, 76% of a total of 216 voters said they would be willing to buy Mercury Falls if and when it gets published. That's 164 people, which isn't exactly bestseller territory, but how many novelists go to a publisher with 164 customers lined up before the book has even been accepted for publication? I'm very happy with the results, and I thank everybody who voted. If you would still like to weigh in, please do so. I'll leave the poll open indefinitely.

One more thing: While I'm on the topic of polls, here's another one. I'm trying to figure out how my regular readers found this blog, so if you're a regular reader, please take a second and vote in the poll below. The poll widget will only let me have 10 options, so if you found me through another source (MyBlogLog, HumorBloggers, etc.), please leave a comment letting me know. If you found me through another blog, feel free to leave a comment telling me which one. It would also be helpful to know which post on this site you first came across.

Online Surveys & Market Research

Thanks again, and have a great weekend!

Thursday Shout-out

Some quick links for your viewing pleasure:

• Electromuff explains how Michael Phelps is a Cheating Bastard!
• John Q. Casual has some great ideas for new products using Synergy!
• The Army of Epiphenomenon reports that Guns 'N' Roses has been stop-lossed!
• A message of hope from Crummy Church Signs: Satan will rule you all!

See you tomorrow for the caption contest results.

Join me at BlogCatalog

Due to the Threat of Lawsuits, the Diesel Wellness Center No Longer Offers Wand Cleaning

Elizadoohicky requested that I post proof of the existence of Mr. Bleach and the Diesel Wellness Center, so I guess it must be about time to do a photo post.

Here's the Diesel Wellness Center in all its glory.



The DWC got its start when the author of a book called Eight Steps to a Pain-Free Back came to speak at Google. There were signs all over the place with her book title on them, and it took all of my willpower not to scribble "excruciatingly painful" between Eight and Steps. Anyway, I found out that the author, Esther Gokhale, not only wrote a book but also has a website and runs the Esther Gokhale Wellness Center.

"That's it!" I thought. "I have a book and a website but no Wellness Center! That's the missing piece of my fame puzzle!" So I printed out that sign.

At the bottom, in case you can't read it, it says "Appointments Only." This allows me to sidestep any difficult questions about what the Diesel Wellness Center actually does. I'm not sure why a leaf and a feather are stuck to the sign. They just appeared one day. I guess it's all part of the mystery of the DWC.

Also, you'll notice that I have two name placards, whereas each of my officemates has only one. That's because I'm more important than they are. This also explains why their names are so blurry. The clarity of one's name placard is an indication of one's job security at Google. Better polish those resumes, whatever your names are!

Down the hall is the bathroom, which is unremarkable except for the fact that it has the most crazy space-age toilets you've ever seen.



By the way, ordinarily ripples in the toilet water like that would mean that dinosaurs are approaching, but in this case it was because the toilet sensed movement and was about to flush. Anyway, here's a closeup of the "control panel."



Nothing too fancy, just your standard picture of a blue guy and a pink guy about to be very surprised by a couple of giant caterpillars. But wait, there's more!



Flip it open and there's a whole bunch more controls! I don't know about you, but I don't need that kind of pressure when I'm having my alone time. I mean, literally, I don't need that kind of pressure. And wand cleaning? WTF?!



I'll clean my own wand, thank you very much.

Okay, on to Mr. Bleach.

I started to feel a little left out at my wife's family reunion a couple weeks ago, and just when I was about to go sulk in the corner, Mr. Bleach showed up! He was like, "Hey, let's take some pictures!" And I was like, "Right on, Mr. Bleach!"



The girl on my right was Mr. Bleach's handler. I cut her out of the picture because I thought her parents might not want me posting her picture on the interwebs. For all I know, there's a "pr3teen girls with anthropomorphized bleach bottles" subculture out there some where. Sick bastards.

Here's Climber with Mr. Bleach.



And here's one of Mr. Bleach chillin' with his honeys, who are, ironically, natural blonds. From left to right: Hot Blond Cousin #1, Mr. Bleach, Hot Blond Cousin #2, Hot Blond Mrs. Diesel #1.



And here's Mrs. Diesel's aunt and uncle with Mr. Bleach.



I especially like that picture because it reminds me of that painting, American Gothic.



Some people needed some convincing to be photographed with Mr. Bleach.



Not dogs, though. Dogs love Mr. Bleach.



I have a lot more Mr. Bleach photos, but you get the idea.

One more photo. This, friends, is where the magic happens.



By the way, Hot Blond Mrs. Diesel #1 and I will have been married for 15 years tomorrow! If the moment feels right, I might just drop the "#1." (I'm kidding, sweetie. You'll always be my #1.)

Vote!

This was another tough one to pick. Some really good caption this time.



I'm a little surprised nobody commented on the raccoon trying to eat that chick's head, but I'm sure you guys know what you're doing. Anyway, Here are the finalists. The winner will be announced on Friday.

Carla said...

Sorry I took so long to get here, I was....wait, this isn't Tron.


Uncle Beau said...

"Excuse me, we're looking for any signs of a massive military invasion coming through here. Have you seen anything suspicious lately?"


CrummyJoel said...

For the last time, Kenny: No, we don't have any positions available right now.


elizadoohicky said...

Obi: "$50 bucks, Grampa... for $75 the wife can watch."


Jeffrey Ellis said...

Yoda: When 484 humor-blog.com points *you* have, look so good *you* will not, hmmmm?


John Stuart said...

No Diesel, this is his Swiss cousin, Yoda Layee Hu.


John J Savo said...

"Hmmm. Always picked last I am. Different this time, it will be not."


Sean said...

"Just feed him some mashed carrots and change him twice a day. He shouldn't give you too much trouble. Oh! There goes his robe. You're never really ready for your first glimpse of 900 year old scrotum huh?"


toadroller said...

"Master, padawan; padawan, master"

"Padawan"

"Master"

"Master, padawan; padawan, master"

"Padawan"

"Master"

"Master, master"

"Padawan"

"Padawan"

"Did we get everyone?"

"Hmmmm...."


pschneib said...

Obi: No, Diesel, you do not get to meet Bob and Larry, regardless of what the animation looks like.

Online Surveys & Market Research

Join me at BlogCatalog

Nobody Does it Better

One thing that the world needs more of is songs that sound like they're from a James Bond movie soundtrack.

I have three* James Bond** soundtrack songs in my iTunes library: "The World is Not Enough" by Garbage, "A View to a Kill" by Duran Duran, and Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name." They all rock. Well, not "A View to a Kill" so much, but even that one rocks pretty hard for a Duran Duran song.

There are a lot of other memorable James Bond songs, such as Shirley Bassey singing "Goldfinger," Carly Simon's "Nobody Does it Better," and A-Ha's "The Living Daylights." Granted, the A-Ha song is memorably mainly because it was the one thing that kept Timothy Dalton from being the gayest part of that movie, but that's quite a feat in itself. By the way, Dalton and A-Ha continued their collaboration with 1997's The Beautician and the Beast, which A-Ha scored.***

The better James Bond songs are the ones that sound like James Bond songs. In fact, with the franchise's history of disposable directors and casts, the music is often the only thing other than the name ("Bond, James Bond") holding the enterprise together. They changed virtually everything with Casino Royale: Bond is blond, M is a woman, and Felix Leiter is black. But the Chris Cornell song is a classic Bond tune. It's like the producers gave their okay to screw with every sacred cow of the franchise except for the music.

Producer: Wait, so you're saying James Bond gets outsmarted by a woman?
Director: Yes.
Producer: And then he gets poisoned?
Director: Yes.
Producer: And nearly killed?
Director: Yes, the woman who outsmarted him saves his life.
Producer: With a portable defibrillator.
Director: Right.
Producer: Not, like, a wristwatch that fires miniature missiles?
Director: We're not doing any of that stuff in this one. Still, the defibrillator is pretty neat...
Producer: I see. And on page 47... it says James bond is "stripped naked and tied to a seat-less chair..."
Director: Uh huh.
Producer: And then the bad guy "flagellates James Bond's danglies with a knotted rope for ten minutes."
Director: Correct.
Producer: Well, I have one question for you.
Director: Yes?
Producer: Are we going to be able to do the jangly guitar bit in the theme song? Because I love that bit.

There must be some kind of formula for writing these songs. A few of them were written by the performing artist, but most of them seem to be collaborations or written entirely by studio musicians. One name that comes up a lot is "Don Black," who gets partial credit for "You Know My Name," "The World is Not Enough," "Thunderball," and several others. "Ah," I thought as I came across this information in Wikipedia, "This mysterious Don Black must be the one who James Bondifies these songs." A little dramatic percussion here, some violins over there, and voila! You've made an ordinary pop song into a James Bong Song.

But here's the weird thing: According to the infallible Wikipedia, Don Black is an "English lyricist." He seems to have nothing to do with the proper insertion of piccolos into songs; all he does is write the words. So not only does his involvement not explain how songs are James Bondified, it also implies that Chris Cornell needed help to write lyrics like this:

If you take a life do you know what you'll give?
Odds are, you won't like what it is
When the storm arrives, would you be seen with me?
By the merciless eyes of deceit?

Only a professionally trained "English lyricist" would think to use the phrase "odds are" in that context (because, you see, the movie is about gambling). Sense the dualism of the first line. Sense the awkward phrasing of the second. Sense the nonsensical question of the third.

Do not attempt to write such weighty lyrics without the assistance of a professional lyricist, Chris Cornell! Your past string of twenty-eight different hit songs with fourteen different bands will not help you now! You may fancy yourself a competent lyricist, Mr. Cornell, but know this: If Don Black had written "I Am the Highway," he would have been the the rolling wheels, the carpet ride AND the sky. Because that's how Don Black rolls.

The legendary Don Black's sure hand is also evident in "The Man With the Golden Gun," which contains the following gem:

One golden shot means another poor victim,
Has come to a glittering end,
For a price, he'll erase anyone
The man with the golden gun.
His eye may be on you or me.
Who will he bang?
We shall see. Oh yeah!

A line like "Who will he bang?" could have gone horribly wrong in the hands of a lesser lyricist, but Don Black is the master of the double entendre. Bravo, Don!

Not surprisingly, Maestro Black had nothing to do with Madonna's "Die Another Day," which starts:

I'm gonna wake up, yes and no
I'm gonna kiss some part of
I'm gonna keep this secret
I'm gonna close my body now

You see how she forgot to finish her sentence in the second line? That's the sort of mistake that would be caught by a Professional Lyricist. As for the fourth line, I'm betting that 7-11 closes before Madonna.

I don't understand why more people don't write James Bondified songs. Why do we have to wait for a new Bond flick to come out to hear an overwrought pop song with an orchestral backing that links sex with death through clumsy metaphors? Has the James Bondification process been trademarked by MGM? Do the songs have to be run through a special James Bondifier machine to which only the studio heads have access?

The undeniable talent of Don Black notwithstanding, writing the lyrics can't be the stumbling block. I mean, if Madonna can do it... You see my point.

Maybe I should take a shot at writing some James Bond lyrics. Ooh, that's it! "Take a Shot"! That will be my motif.

"Take Another Shot"
by Diesel

Don't wait for me darling
I'm not going to come
Just let me hold onto
Your big heavy gun

Go ahead and do it
No I really don't mind
The touch of your fluid
At the base of my spine

My agent once told me
This was my last and best shot
But after take twenty-three
It's an unpleasant spot

Take another shot
Take another shot
Take another shot, oh
Take another shot

That's all I have so far, but I want someone to come up with some music before I put any more effort into it. This lyric writing is hard work.

By the way, I just found out that the theme song for the upcoming Quantum of Solace is going to be "Another Way to Die," by one Jack White (the talented half of the White Stripes). I have high hopes for it, despite the fact that he has evidently opted to forgo the assistance of the legendary Don Black. And it seems like it would have been such a perfect pairing, too: Black and White. That's dualism, baby. Kapow!


*Four, if you count the Guns 'n' Roses cover of "Live and Let Die," which I think you should. It's not the version used for the movie, but any Guns 'n' Roses cover automatically becomes the definitive version of a song. I mean, does anybody intentionally listen to the Bob Dylan version of "Knocking on Heaven's Door" any more? Does anybody even remember that that was originally a Bob Dylan song? Say what you want about Axl Rose, but if Guns 'n' Roses covered the national anthem, in three weeks people would be calling it "that Guns 'n' Roses song they play before baseball games." That's how good they are.
**I keep accidentally typing "James Bong," which would be an awesome name for a comedy about a stoner secret agent.
***There is a pretty good chance this is a ridiculous lie.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Join me at BlogCatalog

Caption Contest: Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Man, you guys think you have it tough. Try inserting yourself into a scene from Star Wars: The Clone Wars sometime.



You know the rules. Submit your caption in the comments. I'll post the best ten in a poll on Tuesday. The winner will get to display the coveted In Your Face award.

By the way, everybody who ordered a copy of my book or won it in a previous contest should have received it by now. If you were expecting a copy and didn't get it, email me at diesel -at- mattresspolice.com

Have a swell weekend!

Join me at BlogCatalog

The Post that Explains Everything

The Dark Knight has now made a staggering $442 million. It's poised to overtake Star Wars as the second biggest grossing movie of all time (it'll take a few more weeks to sink Titanic). By contrast, the X-Files movie, released one week later, has made less than $20 million. That means that for every one person who has gone to see The X-Files: I Want to Believe, there are 22 people who have seen The Dark Knight. It's as if every state in the union except Minnesota picked The Dark Knight over the X-Files. This past weekend, six times as many people went to see a movie based on the music of Abba as went to see The X-Files. The legendary Chris Carter just his ass kicked by an aging 70s bubblegum pop act from Sweden. Sweden, people. If you were unlucky enough to wander into a theater showing The X-Files this weekend, you would actually have seen tumbleweeds blow past the screen.

Why is this? Well, because nobody gives a shit about the X-Files any more. Whatever fond memories we had of a quirky little show about a misanthropic FBI agent on a quest to discover the Truth about the paranormal were erased by four years of red herrings and pretentious philosophical discussions as Carter squeezed every last bit of life out of the show. Losing your two principal actors is usually a pretty good sign that it's time to wrap things up, but Carter just kept going. He's the kind of guy you see on Cops who keeps driving after all four of his tires have been torn to shreds by those spike strips, showering the freeway with sparks from the car's bare rims as the police helicopter hovers overhead. Keep going, Chris! You might make it!

This seems to have turned into Movie Week at the Mattress Police, but my point was originally going to be that you can only toy with people so long before they start to resent you. I've been thinking for a while that I really need to do a better job of explaining who I am and what this site is all about, because new readers must be terribly confused and veteran readers must be thinking, "Hey, whatever happened to the Huey Lewis petition / Grundir the Implacable / Diesel's campaign for president / Gibson Praise / Samantha's clone / etc."

As the X-Files entered its death throes, they used to promise that this episode was going to be the one that "explained everything." It never was, of course, and I was left to sit there like Homer Simpson, complaining, "That didn't explain anything." (To be fair, I never saw any of the episodes from the final season, so it's possible that they really did explain everything, long after I no longer cared.)

So here's my attempt to explain (almost) everything.

Why "Mattress Police"?

I like the movie Fletch. Also, the domain was available.

Why "Diesel"?

You'd know this if you read my book. The name started as a joke. When my wife was pregnant with Climber, I used to claim to want to name him "Diesel" because I thought it was the coolest name ever. A few years later I started working at a company where there was already another Rob, who was a real asshole. I would get introduced as "Rob," and I'd quickly clarify that "I'm not the bad Rob." I would then add, diplomatically, that there wasn't necessarily a bad Rob, but if there was, then I wasn't him. Eventually some of my coworkers took pity on me and decided to give me a nickname. They made the mistake of asking me what I wanted to be called, and I said, without a hint of hesitation, "Diesel." They went along with it, and soon everybody, even His Excellency Lord Monkeyhands, was calling me Diesel. You can read a slightly embellished, but more interesting, version of the origin of this name here.

So "Diesel" isn't some sort of blogging persona?

I don't know how to answer this. The question assumes that I have some sort of "real" personality, and that I adopt a different, artificial personality when I blog. The fact is that pretending to be someone else is an integral part of my personality, so if I forced myself not to write facetiously, I'd be doing the very thing I was trying to avoid: putting on an artificial personality. Sure, I can be "serious" when I need to be, but "serious Diesel" isn't any more my "real" personality than "happy Diesel", "depressed Diesel", or "sarcastic Diesel."

Ok, but if you acted the way you write, you'd be... insane, right?

Let me put it this way: In my first meeting with my current employers, I explained that the cougar, mountain lion, and puma were really just different words for the same thing. Not because it had anything to do with what we were talking about, but because I just thought they should know. At the first team meeting that I attended after being hired, I put on a puppet show starring a power cable and a Cat5 cable. Last Thursday I decided to be excessively friendly for about 2 hours. I went around slapping people on the back and saying things like, "Hey, Boss!" A few weeks ago I put a sign up on my office door that reads "Diesel Wellness Center" in giant letters. Beneath that is a small line of text that reads, "Appointments Only." When people ask me about the sign, I ask them if they have an appointment. At my wife's family reunion last week, I got bored so I amused myself by drawing a face on a bottle of bleach and then taking pictures of all of the family members with "Mr. Bleach."

I don't know why I do this stuff. It just makes me happy.

You sometimes joke about taking Prozac so that you won't end up shooting yourself in the head. Isn't that in bad taste?

No, because I take Prozac so that I won't end up shooting myself in the head. Seriously, I have a history of severe depression and if I didn't believe that God has some kind of purpose in mind for me, I'd probably have killed myself long ago. Thankfully, Prozac frees me from having to decide not to kill myself several hundred times a day, so I can focus on other things.

How on earth does your wife put up with you?

Well, it helps that she has an excellent sense of humor. Other than that, I can't really explain it.

What is the point of this blog?

It's good writing practice, I like to make people laugh, and I'm hoping to build my readership to help my odds of getting my novel published. I self-published my first book, a collection of my better blog posts, and I'm thrilled to have sold about 150 copies, but I'm aiming for the big time with the novel.

What is this Humor-Blogs.com thing?

It's frustrating to try to get the word out about a blog like Mattress Police, because search engines return results based on words that other web sites use to link to a site. So someone looking for information on mattresses or diesel engines has a pretty good chance of coming across this blog, but someone searching for funny blog posts will never find it. Humor-Blogs.com was designed to be a conduit that directs people to this blog and other funny blogs. There are other blog directories out there, but frankly they all use pretty crappy ranking algorithms, so the "top ranked blogs" usually aren't even very good. Humor-Blogs.com uses the fairest ranking system I could come up with, which explains why Mattress Police is generally in the top five. Seriously, I'm not cheating. I swear.

So... Are you a programmer? Or a writer? Or a graphic designer?

Yes.

Do you really work at Google?

Yes. I actually work for another company that Google has hired for certain projects, so I'm not a Google employee. I do, however, work on site at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA.

Are you really the treasurer for your church?

Thankfully, not any longer. I was possibly the worst treasurer in the history of mankind, and that includes Judas.

Who is Grundir the Implacable?

Grundir the Implacable is a Nazgul -- one of the nine ring-wraiths or "dark riders" who once served Sauron, the evil overlord of Middle-Earth. After things started to go badly for Sauron, Grundir came to me looking for work. He keeps my estate free of gophers and hobbits, and dispatches memes for me. He first appeared in a guest post I did for SayNoToCrack over a year ago.

Where is Grundir These Days?

Grundir is starting to annoy me almost as much as the memes he dispatches, so he's been making himself scarce lately. He most recently exercised his meme-dispatching services at Sci Fi Catholic, where he explained the origin of his hatred for hobbits:

My hatred for hobbits precedes my death and transformation into a Nazgul. I hate all diminutive humanoids, truth be told. I think it started with my father, who was an exceedingly cruel man. He was not actually short, but he was always very distant, which made him appear much smaller than he was. He used to urinate into wineskins and then toss them at my head from the roof of a neighboring cottage.

What's going on with your campaign to get Huey Lewis played on classic rock radio stations?

Unfortunately for Huey, I have a short attention span and not much follow-through. Also, I'm not sure what to do with a petition that had, at last count, 75 signatures. Huey deserves better.

So you're serious about liking Huey Lewis?

I find your question insulting.

What is M.I.A.S.M.A.?

M.I.A.S.M.A. is the Mattress Police Institute for the Advancement of Scientific Missions of Awesomeness (the 'P' is silent). Its goal is to improve science by subjecting all scientific theories to a rigorous review by a large number of unqualified individuals. Read about its inception here.

I applied to be a member of M.I.A.S.M.A. but never heard back. Am I in or what?

Sure, why not?

Why don't you respond to my emails?

Either (1) You're annoying me, or (2) You fell victim to my notorious inability to manage details, like responding to emails. It's pretty much 50/50. Send a follow-up email if you're feeling lucky.

What's going on with your campaign for the U.S. presidency?

The important thing to remember here is that I'm running in the 2020 race, so there's plenty of time for this shtick to grow thin. Be patient.


Ok, I think that covers just about everything. Let me know if there's anything else you desperately need to know.

Join me at BlogCatalog

More Babble

Man, you guys are unpredictable. I thought I was going to tap into a groundswell of disappointment with my Babel post, but most of my readers who have seen it seemed to actually like it. Several of you were willing to take my word for it that the movie is pretentious crap (and I appreciate your faith in me, although I suspect that most were simply relieved to have an excuse to not have to watch this Important Movie).

Some of you, of course, were just confused. I pride myself on offering a unique point of view on this blog, and while that keeps things interesting, it also means that you can't just show up at this blog hoping for your daily dose of celebrity gossip/conservative talking points/cats wearing pajamas/blond jokes/whatever. Hell, half the time I don't have any idea what I'm going to post when I get up in the morning. As elizadoohicky said:

Well, after reading your post, I was thinking: RENT IT NOW!!! DIESEL HATES IT!

(don't misunderstand: I love you for the very reason that you are an enigma--computer geek/writer/photoshop artist/comedian/father/husband/does not still live with his parents in a garage apartment/drives a practical car/loves Huey Lewis...I mean COME ON! SO freakishly intriguing you are like blog crack! so I want to UNDERSTAND your passionate hatred for things of this nature)

Now first of all, a Nissan 300ZX with a clitoris is not a practical car. (Anything with a clitoris is inherently impractical.)

But to Eliza's point, I suppose I owe you a slightly more more cogent review/explanation.

What irritated me about Babel isn't that it was an absolutely horrible picture. The acting was superb, the music was haunting, and the cinematography was excellent. In fact, what irritates me is that so many people with so much talent decided to make a movie that was so dull, flimsy, exploitative, and cynical.

First, if you're going to do the interconnected plot thing, you've got to do better than "the gun used by character A in plotline X was once owned by character B in plotline Y." This narrative device has been used many times before, most recently (and much more convincingly) in Crash. Put some effort into it.

Second, intercutting between the different plotlines is not a substitute for having an interesting plot or two. Not one of the different plots could have stood alone as its own story.

Third, if one of your plotlines involves two cute blond children going to a Mexican wedding and having a great time, the viewer should not be thinking, "Oh shit, what horrible thing is going to happen to these kids?" for twenty minutes until surprise! Something horrible happens to the kids. That's a recipe for a slasher film, not an Oscar-winning drama.

Fourth, if you're trying to make a point about how life is tragic and bad things just happen to people for no reason, you should avoid contriving to make your characters do increasingly stupid things until bad things do in fact happen. For example, let's say you're a Mexican woman who is illegally employed as a nanny in the U.S., and you find out that your son is going to get married in Mexico the day after the parents of the children you are watching are scheduled to get back from North Africa. Do you:

1. Tell your employers that they may have to find someone else to watch the kids for a day or two, because you want to make sure that you get to the wedding on time.
2. Figure that you're just going to have to miss the wedding, because when you're illegally employed in a foreign country, not everything works out for you.
3. Take the two children, who are not only minors but also concrete evidence of your illegal employment, across the border into Mexico with the assistance of your hard-drinking cousin who has a history of criminal activity.

No reasonable person would be surprised when option 3 results in tragedy, but Iñárritu manipulates the viewer by giving the nanny and children a happy little holiday in Mexico before letting the tragedy predictably play out.

I was equally shocked -- shocked, I tell you -- when Bad Things happened after the Moroccan peasant gave his two nimwit sons a high-powered rifle without stopping to give them ten seconds of gun safety training (like, "Don't shoot at the tourist buses").

I'm not saying that people don't sometimes do stupid things; I'm saying that I don't need a Big Important Movie to tell me that stupidity often results in tragedy. The linkage between stupidity and tragedy is, in fact, another staple of the horror genre. We all know that the character who ventures into the dimly lit basement of the creepy old house against her better judgment is going to get hacked to pieces, but when an illegal Mexican worker smuggling minors across the border with the help of a drunken ne'er-do-well winds up in some deep shit, we're supposed to reflect on the Cruelty of Fate or Man's Inhumanity to Man or some nonsense. And at least in the horror flick, the chick would have been hot.

I do feel a little bad about only doing negative movie reviews on this site, but the reality is that it's hard to make a positive movie review entertaining. Really crappy movies (especially ambitious, well crafted crappy movies) make for very entertaining reviews. Just so you don't think I'm completely negative, though, here are some movies that I've seen recently -- any one of which is better than Babel. My clever ranking system ranges from one to four Mattress Tags.

The Dark Knight
A sprawling, chaotic crime drama with Batman in it. Heath Ledger's performance alone is worth the price of admission. He's scary good. I love the way the movie toys with superhero conventions, like the idea that supervillains need to have an "origin." There's simply no explanation for the Joker. He's just evil.

Four Mattress Tags.


Iron Man
Iron Man is something of a second tier superhero. He's a heavy hitter in the Marvel universe, but he doesn't have the iconic resonance of Spider-Man or the Hulk. And after the lackluster cinematic renditions of Daredevil and The Fantastic Four, I wasn't expecting too much from Iron Man. My hopes picked up when I heard that Jon Favreau was directing, and that Tony Stark would be played by Robert Downey Jr. Those familiar with the comic book Iron Man's ups and downs will appreciate just how brilliant a casting choice that was. But still smarting from the sticky black glob of evil that was Spider-Man 3, I went into the theater not expecting much.

I'm glad to report that Iron Man shattered all my expectations. I'd rank Iron Man second after Batman Begins as the best comic book movie of all time. With a Ben Affleck or Eric Bana in the lead role, this would have been a decent superhero movie. With Downey, it transcends the genre.

Four Mattress Tags.


No Country for Old Men
This is the kind of movie that critics love. Solid cast, good dialog, compelling performances. It's virtually humorless compared to most of the Coen brothers' films, unrelenting sobriety being a big leg up in the Oscar race. Is it going to stick with me the way Raising Arizona or Fargo did? I doubt it. Ask me in six months if I've seen it, and I'll probably say, "Is that the one with Daniel Day Lewis?"

Three Mattress Tags.


In Bruges
Clever, quirky, sometimes touching movie about two assassins for hire on holiday in the quiet Belgium city of Bruges. Definitely worth seeing

Three Mattress Tags.


I'd give Babel 2 Mattress Tags, by the way. If you're interested in more of my opinions, connect with me on Netflix.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: Listed on humor-blogs.com.

An Open Letter to the Producers and Director of Babel

Dear Producers and Director of Babel,

Your film, Babel, just rose to the top of my Netflix queue, like the bloated corpse of a drowning victim floating to the surface of a pond.

First, let me say that you were robbed for Best Picture. This is totally the kind of overlong, self-important, humorless Drama About the Human Condition that the Academy loves. How can you go wrong when you deliberately hit so many of the Academy's hot buttons? Do you think somebody found that copy of the Crash script where you changed the characters' names and wrote "DO THIS PART IN SPANISH" on top of one of the pages? There's really no other explanation.

At the very least, you should have won Best Achievement in Editing. These people obviously don't realize how difficult it is to take four disparate and singularly uninteresting stories and "artfully weave" them (I'm quoting from the Netflix jacket) into something that would almost seem like a coherent motion picture if you were, you know, watching it on mute while stoned. I think the trick is to change gears as soon as the audience starts to think, "Holy crap, nothing interesting has happened for like... oh wait, we're back to the Japanese chick."

Speaking of the Japanese subplot, one of my favorite parts of the film is where the cute 16-year-old Japanese girl spends like an hour of my life trying unsuccessfully to find a man in Tokyo willing to have sex with her. I totally bought this, despite the fact that teenage Japanese sex kittens rank somewhere between signed copies of Abbey Road and enriched plutonium on the supply/demand scale.

While I'm on the topic of sex, thanks for not involving Brad Pitt or Cat Blanchett in the one sex scene in the film. Who wants to see something like that when you can watch a Moroccan shepherd boy masturbate while thinking about his sister? Personally, I'd have gone with goat sex (I mean, you had like 500 goats! Think of the possibilities!), but I understand that child actors can be uncooperative.

Kudos on the performances from those kids, by the way. Especially Dakota Fanning's little sister and whoever that kid was who played her brother. They were so effective at portraying stark terror that I actually believed that the director subjected them to some kind of psychological torture. It's a sign of a truly excellent performance when the viewer feels complicit in a crime against humanity just for watching. I wouldn't want to have to pay those kids' therapy bills in a few years!

Working with child actors is hard enough, but you also had to work with actors in six different languages (seven, counting Japanese sign language)! I mean, you didn't have to, but how else are you going to get that foreign-film cachet while appealing to a broad demographic of international viewers and finding room in the script for some recognizable Hollywood stars? I question the inclusion of Arabic and Berber, as they are the only languages not spoken in any of the top ten foreign markets, but congrats on covering seven out of ten!

I still can't get over how you were able to seamlessly connect so many unrelated subplots. I mean, the part where it turns out that the gun used by the Moroccan kid to shoot Cate Blanchett was once owned by the Japanese girl's father? How on earth did you come up with that, when there are probably eight hundred other equally superficial connections you could have made? Like maybe the Japanese girl's volleyball coach once saw Brad Pitt an the airport. Ok, well that one's not very good, but you get the idea.

I'm wondering if you have any advice for aspiring filmmakers. For example, let's say that I've come up with several different stories involving characters who are subjected to one horrific thing after another for the audience's amusement. Normally this sort of thing is called "exploitation," and the movie would end up being shown on the USA network at 3am. What's the secret of getting something like this nominated for an Oscar? Is it the big name actors? The "artful weaving" of the unrelated stories? The almost unbearably slow pace?

Whatever it is, keep up the good work. I fully expect to see a retooled, internationalized version of The Departed from you in the near future. Keep on making movies that we feel like maybe we would enjoy if we were slightly better people.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend: An Open Letter to Sam Raimi | Blogger of Light Join me at BlogCatalog

Would You Buy this Novel?

In case you haven't been able to tell from my last few posts (seriously, what was up with that baby post yesterday?), I've been a little pressed for blogging time lately. My wife's extended family was in town for a reunion, so I've had a lot of important drinking to do. I'm still recovering, so I'm going to give you a rain check on this week's caption contest.

While you're here, though, I have a favor to ask of you. I've been trying to figure out lately how many devoted, regular readers this blog actually has, but even with a kickass tool like Google Analytics it's very hard to determine. Adding to the difficulty is that fact that a lot of you read my posts in your email or a feed reader. Don't get me wrong; I'm happy that you read this stuff, however you do it, but it does make it tough to figure out how many of you are actually reading.

Why do I care how many regular readers I have? Well, to be perfectly frank, I have two motivations for blogging.* First, it's a way to force myself to write on a regular basis, even if all I have on a given day is some horrible idea about pretending to misunderstand the phrase "celebrity baby." Second, I'm hoping to build my readership to the point where I can interest a publisher in the novel I'm writing.

Yes, I'm writing a novel. And this isn't the proverbial "great idea for a novel" that every blogger has either. I've written a beginning, middle and end -- about 140 pages total. There are a few areas that I need to flesh out more (it will be around 200 pages when I'm finished), but the bulk of it is done. I've gotten feedback from a few people that I trust that would seem to indicate that what I've got so far is pretty damn good. My buddy Joel from Crummy Church Signs actually asked me not to send him any more chapters until it was finished because he couldn't stand not knowing how it ended. Well, that's the reason he gave me anyway. It doesn't explain the restraining order, but whatever.

The novel, entitled Mercury Falls, is about an angel (Mercury) who is supposed to be helping out with the apocalypse, but feels he has better things to do -- like performing card tricks and playing ping-pong. Despite his desire to remain uninvolved, however, Mercury gets pulled into the bewildering politics of Armageddon when a reporter named Christine shows up at his doorstep bearing a mysterious briefcase that was given to her by a high ranking member of the Israeli Defense Force moments before his death. Together Christine and Mercury thwart the attempted assassination of the Antichrist, thereby incurring the wrath of both Heaven and Hell, whose agents have spent millennia negotiating every detail of the end of the world. Will Mercury be sent to Hell for going AWOL in the apocalypse or will he be rewarded for stopping the assassination of the Antichrist? Can Christine stop Armageddon, and if she does, will something even worse happen? And why does she feel so uneasy about her linoleum?

If you read this blog, you pretty much know what to expect from my writing. Just imagine a bunch of my better posts strung together and wrapped around a plot involving an AWOL cherub and the end of the world. There are a lot of semi-serious conversations about religion, a lot of jabs at people who let other people do their thinking for them, and a lot of references to Credence Clearwater Revival, Dishwalla, and Occam's Razor. You get the idea.

So the favor is this: Whether you're reading this in your email, a feed reader, a web browser, or a gay biker bar, please take a moment to answer this poll. It's ok if you answer"no" -- at least I'll know that you're reading and that you're willing to take a few seconds out of your day to vote. Oh, and if for any reason you're unable to vote (like maybe the poll doesn't work in your browser), please email me with your vote at diesel (at) mattresspolice.com. (Update: It's been pointed out to me that if the poll doesn't work in one's browser, then one would have a hard time knowing what the question is. The question is simply: "Would you buy this book?" You can also try accessing the poll here.)

Online Surveys & Market Research

The book cover, by the way, is something that I dummied up using a cool painting I found by a guy named Timothy Vermeulen. How weird is this: I did a Google image search for "Icarus", because I thought I'd find a nice picture of Icarus falling out of the sky. That painting was the first picture that caught my eye. Turns out that the artist and I went to the same college. The odds are pretty good that my dad was his freshman English professor.

Anyway, I hope he doesn't mind that I borrowed his painting. Check out his other stuff if you like it.


*In addition to getting Huey Lewis the respect he deserves.

Join me at BlogCatalog

Celebrity, Babies!

Regular readers of this blog will know that I'm not much for "topical blogging." While the rest of the world is trying to elevate the national political debate by dragging Paris Hilton into it, I'm focused on less sexy issues, like the spamming of periodic table or the plight of Huey Lewis.

This is in part because I stopped reading the local paper as a result of a harrowing incident where I went blind for three days after accidentally reading the "My Favorite Outfit" feature. And then there is the fact that I don't watch TV news, because I've found that TV news programs consist of:

• 18% Advertising for products I don't need
• 12% Advertising for other shows I won't watch
• 8% Stories about animals/children/attractive young whit