Caption Contest: The Hulk

You have to feel a little bad for Ang Lee. He's a respected director who did his best to make a decent superhero movie. Sadly, no one told him that when you're making a movie called The Hulk, you shouldn't make the audience wait 40 minutes before they see the Hulk. Mrs. Diesel and I made the mistake of seeing The Hulk at a matinee; by the time the Hulk started doing interesting stuff like bounding through the desert and biting the heads off missiles and spitting them at helicopters, the theater had been overrun by middle-schoolers who were bored out of their minds after the seventeenth lingering shot of moss on a rock.

So now they're pulling a Batman Begins and making another Hulk movie, pretending that the last one never happened. How do you think that makes Ang Lee feel? (And don't say, "anglee," because you wouldn't like him when he's anglee.) Even I Know What You Did Last Summer evidently warrants two sequels (the last one being called -- no joke -- I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer). But The Hulk was such a mess that they're calling a do-over, only five years after the first one came out. At least Ang Lee was smart enough to make his next movie about gay cowboys, so that there would be absolutely no chance of any audience overlap.

Anyway, you know where this is going. That's me with the big green guy. Submit your captions in the comments. The lovely and pensive Mrs. Diesel and I will pick our favorites and I'll post a poll on Tuesday. Have fun!



I'll be back on Monday with a brand new post that's so awesome that you'll forget all about how lame this blog has been lately.

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Caption Contest: Battlefield Earth

Ok, I think I've gotten a handle on my recent technical difficulties. Apparently the Humor-Blogs.com site and this one were both hacked. The hacker put a bit of code in a hidden frame on the site that would make a call to another website, prompting you to download some sort of executable file, which was probably a virus.

I have removed the malicious code on both sites and alerted my hosting company who, 5+ hours after my initial email this morning, still have not responded. Good show, guys!

I will be posting a more detailed message on Humor-Blogs.com later today.

So, with that out of the way, we can get on to the caption contest for this week. Since I've already done Iron Man and Batman Begins, I was a little short on material this week. Once again, I had to go back to one of the classics. This time I picked Battlefield Earth, the 2000 sci-fi epic starring John Travolta and Forrest Whitaker. That's me with them in the pic.



You know how this works. Submit your captions in the comments. Mrs. Diesel and I will pick our favorites and I'll post the top 10 in a poll on Tuesday. The winner will be announced next Friday. As always, the winner will receive the coveted In Your Face Award, as well as a copy of my book, Antisocial Commentary.

Have fun, and good luck!

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Vote!

Sorry for the delay in getting this posted. Minor annoyances like work continue to get in the way of my all-important blogging duties. Remember, the winner gets a copy of Antisocial Commentary, so vote wisely!


Bee said...

Trimming my fingernails with your teeth shows your loyalty to the family.

Jami said...

"You're soaking in it."

Avitable said...

Unfortunately, Diesel misunderstood and made the man an auger he couldn't refuse.

Wendy said...

With the fifth goon that week stuck to his ring, Don Diesel reconsiders his choice of bling.

Sparrow said...

Don Diesel took great pleasure in this final humiliation of his arch-enemy, Lord Monkeyhands.

Mark said...

"No," said the Don. "That's not the ring I wanted you to kiss."

renalfailure said...

Your lips say "yes" but your scalp says "let's just be friends."

Kadi said...

No disrespect, Don, but if I am to be your right hand man... perhaps you should start wiping with your left.

stushie said...

Your first task, Luigi, will be to shoot the James Caan dwarf that's clinging to my right shoulder.

Annie said...

Yeah, the second hand is just jumping in place. I think you're right, your battery's shot.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

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Caption Contest: The Godfather

Finding little inspiration in the current crop of movies and TV shows, I have once again gone back to the classics for the caption contest.



You know the rules. Submit your captions in the comments. Mrs. Diesel and I will pick our favorites, and I'll post the top ten in a poll on Tuesday. Since I still have a few copies of my book lying around, I will give a free copy of Antisocial Commentary: From the Secret Files of the Mattress Police to the winner.

Have fun!

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Congrats to Renal Failure!

Renal Failure wins this week, taking home the coveted In Your Face award:



Seriously, stop coveting it, people. It's in the Bible.

R.F. also gets a copy of my book, Antisocial Commentary: From the Secret Files of the Mattress Police. R.F., send me an email with your address so's I can ship it to you.

Newcomer Avitable came in second, with:

Diesel slowly works up the nerve to ask for the number of the Boleyn Brother.

And Jay took third, with:

Diesel: "Wait... Let me try one more time. Spock makes this look so easy."

Good job, people. Take the rest of the week off, starting at 5pm today.

I'll be back on Monday with a brand new post that probably won't be good enough to make up for what a crappy job I've done this week.

Humor-blogs.com is up to its chin in neck.

Vote!

If I keep posting later and later in the day, eventually I'll be posting really early the next day, so you have that to look forward to.

The picture kind of sucked this week too. Usually I do the picture the day before, so that I can look at it fresh before posting it. That gives me a chance to catch things that don't look quite right, like my complete lack of a neck. I was too rushed to do it right this time, but hey, that gave you one more thing to make fun of me for.

Mrs. Diesel picked the finalists this week, so at least you can't blame me for that.

And remember, this week the winner gets a copy of my book, Antisocial Commentary, just for funsies. So that should make up for me being such a lame-ass, right? Right.

Vote for your favorite below. I'll post the winner on Friday.



Fold My Laundry Please said...

Diesel laments the fact that Natalie could not afford to have shoulders sewn on
her dress.


renalfailure said...

Diesel caresses that which he has always desired: an actual neck.


Mark Jabo said...

"I don't know, I've never done LXIX before..."


sarah said...

Diesel thinks to himself - Is this the Boleyn girl or the other Boleyn girl?


Jay said...

Diesel: "Wait... Let me try one more time. Spock makes this look so easy."


ArmadilloTrader said...

One step closer to fulfilling his Bride of Frankenstein fantasy, Diesel says to
himself "and the bolts will go right about here."


Wendy said...

Donning his prototype of the first ever transition glasses, King Diesel
realized too late he groped the wrong sister.


Avitable said...

Diesel slowly works up the nerve to ask for the number of the Boleyn Brother.


stushie said...

By eliminating the competition, Diesel was crowned Prom Queen of 1536.


red mojo said...

King Diesel, preferring this much softer skin to that of his betrothed, began to ponder the possiblility of swapping their heads.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

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Caption Contest: The Other Boleyn Girl

I finally settled on The Other Boleyn Girl for this week's caption contest. Sorry for taking so long; my car continues to make my life interesting.

I haven't seen the movie, but I thought this made a pretty good picture.



A little twist this week, to keep things interesting: I'm going to give the winner a copy of my book, Antisocial Commentary: From the Secret Files of the Mattress Police. If the person who wins already has a copy, I'll come up with something else. Maybe a plastic bag of dryer lint.

Submit your captions in the comments. Mrs. Diesel and I will pick our favorites and I'll post the top ten in a poll on Tuesday. Have fun, and good luck!

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Iron Man Caption Contest Winners

In a truly historic turn of events, Brad won the contest two times in a row, for a total of three wins! I even had to make a special banner for him:



In second place was newcomer Jenny, Bloggess, with:

The vasectomy was difficult but a success. There would be no more toaster-related paternity suits in Iron Man's future.

And Barry took third with:

"Hey c'mon Diesel! You said it was just going to be a bit of spanking and back to the script! Hey! Can you hear me? Look I'm using the safety word! Spaghetti!! Spaghetti!!"

I also have to give a special nod to three contestants for Most Obscure Mattress Police Reference. If you get all three of these references, you definitely need to get out more:

carolinebender:

"Frankly, building lawn mowers sounds like a pain in the ass, so how about if I spend an extra three weeks and build a machine that builds lawn mowers?"

stushie:

Sadly, Diesel forgot the fatal difference between building a cyborg, instead of an android.

Deb on the Rocks:

Tentacle porn soon led to more hardcore stuff for the once-innocent lad Diesel.

Thanks for participating, everybody. Have an Ironic end to a Manic week.


Humor-blogs.com is now 99.4% tentacle porn free!

Caption Contest: Iron Man!

In case you're new around here, that's me fiddling around with Iron Man's torso. Submit your captions in the comments. I'll post the best ones in a poll on Tuesday.

Have fun and have a super weekend.

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Oscar Caption Contest Winners

Brad won handily this week, with a caption that was about neither farting nor something being in someone's pocket. Let that be a lesson to the rest of you.

Brad, you may proudly display the coveted In Your Face award:



VE came in second with:

Spielberg: "I don't know who he is either. I thought he was one of those Coen Brothers..."

And in third was y not i, whose contribution was:

A near perfect hand: Four kings and a joker.

Congratulations to the winners. Be sure to come back Monday, when we'll have a special visit from Clay Pigeon publisher and jet-setting bigwig Rusty Gibbons.

Thanks to everybody who's been clicking on the Humor-Blogs.com links. I'm back in second place! And really, who deserves it more than me? Keep clicking!

One more thing: I'm planning another edition of What's the Difference in the near future, so if there are any similar terms or concepts that you are confused about, let me know and I'll clear everything up like I did last time.


I'd like to thank Humor-blogs.com for giving me the courage to follow my dreams.

Caption Contest: The Oscars!

Yes, it's that time of year again, I guess. I can't stand the Academy Awards. What a load of pretentious crap. But hey, that's no reason for me not to capitalize on the popularity of the Oscars for my own purposes.



In case you're new here, that's me rubbing shoulders with Frank Coppola, Marty Scorsese and a couple other blokes. Submit your captions in the comments. I'll post the top 10 on Tuesday. And I'll be back on Monday with a brand new post -- not to mention the second brilliant issue of the Clay Pigeon.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Listed on humor-blogs.com.

Caption Contest Winners

This week's winning caption came from Theresa. Theresa, you may proudly display the image with the winning caption and/or the coveted In Your Face award:



Theresa narrowly beat out renalfailure, who offered up:

The years were not kind to Short Round. Not only was his hairline receding, he completely ceased being Asian as well.

And in third was LOBO, with:

... Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet ... ?

Thanks for playing, everybody. Have a great weekend, and be sure to come back Monday for an earth-shattering announcement. Literally, the earth will shatter.



Humor-blogs.com will never cease being Asian.

Caption Contest: Indiana Jones

You know the rules. Submit your caption in the comments. I'll post the best ones in a poll on Tuesday. Have a swell weekend!

It drops on 2/18.

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Terminator vs. Highlander: The Sarah Connor McLeod Chronicles

Sarah Connor McLeod, proud Highlander woman, is tending her sheep in the Scottish Highlands, when a hulking stranger wearing a kilt approaches.

Terminator: Are you Sarah Connor McLeod?
Sarah: I am. Sarah Connor McLeod of the Clan McCleod. And who might you be, stranger?
Terminator: I am a cyborg sent from the future to kill you. I was reprogrammed by a resistance fighter and sent here to prevent a terrible catastrophe.
Sarah: Kill me? But why? I'm just a poor Scottish peasant type person, living in the Scottish Highlands.
Terminator: You will give birth to a son who will be named Connor McLeod. He will be immortal, as long as nobody chops his head off.
Sarah: Well, that doesn't sound like a bad thing.
Terminator: Yes, but in the 20th century he will father a daughter, who will be called Sarah Connor. And she, in turn, will give birth to John Connor, who is destined to be the leader of the resistance. He will lead humanity to victory against a race of intelligent machines who are trying to eradicate mankind.
Sarah: John Connor? That's odd. My husband's name is John Connor.
Terminator: It was long believed that John Connor died fighting the cyborgs, but we have learned that he dreaded the thought of living a life without purpose after the war was over, so he fled to a more exciting time, long before the cyborgs were ever created.
Sarah: Wait, are you saying...?
Terminator: Ma'am, your husband is not really a cod merchant from Cork. He is John Connor, the leader of the resistance, who was born in the year 1985.
Sarah: No! But that means....
Terminator: That's right, John is his own great-grandfather. We believe that is how this whole immortality thing started. Something about endless recursion in the gene pool.
Sarah: My lands, that's terrible! Now that you mention it, though, it does explain some things. But wait, you still haven't told me why you need to kill me. Sure, John going back in time and marrying his great-grandmother is a little kinky, but....
Terminator: We believe that what he did caused a rift in the space time continuum. All kinds of horrible, unexplainable things are going to start happening.
Sarah: You mean like Egyptians with Spanish names and Scottish accents?
Terminator: Exactly! History itself has become unglued. When you start mucking around with chronological recursion, the principle of cause and effect breaks down. Literally anything could happen, in any order, for no particular reason. Connor could be inexplicably replaced by a younger, better looking cousin, for example. Aliens could start arriving from other planets, trying to kill him.
Sarah: ...Mario Van Peebles could show up, playing a completely unconvincing villain.
Terminator: See, it's happening already. Mario Van Peebles won't be born for 400 years! You shouldn't even know who he is!
Sarah: Remember his breakout performance in Heartbreak Ridge, when everyone was saying what a big deal he was going to be?
Terminator: Stop it! You're only making things worse. I have to kill you so that none of this will ever have happened.
Sarah: Why didn't you just sneak up behind me and kill me? Why did you have to tell me all of this?
Terminator: In my short time here in the Scottish Highlands, I have learned what it means to be human. I am no longer a soulless machine.
Sarah: It's the kilt. Put a kilt on a guy and suddenly he thinks he's no longer a soulless machine. Hark! I think that's my husband on yonder ridge!
Terminator: You think?
Sarah: It's hard to tell sometimes. He can look like at least four different people.

While they watch the man with oddly indeterminate features approach, suddenly another man, slightly less bulky than the Terminator, but also built like a bodybuilder, shimmers into existence before their eyes.

Sarah: Is that...?
Terminator: It's Jean Claude Van Damme. Cheap knockoff of the T100 series. They make 'em in Taiwan.
Van Damme: Hello, folks. I'm agent Max Walker of the Timecop division. I was sent here to investigate a disturbance in the space-time continuum.
Terminator: Everything is under control here, officer.
Sarah: What's with the accent? Is everybody in the future from France or something?
Van Damme: France! I'm from Belgium! You never heard of the "Muscles from Brussels"?
Sarah: Why do you have a Dutch name and a French accent? Who do you think you are, Mario Van Peebles?
Terminator: Belgium is a product of the rift in the space-time continuum. Belgians are a little indecisive as a result.
Sarah: You mean the Belgians waffle?
Terminator: Ha! Good one, Sarah.
Van Damme: You're one to talk, Terminator. Explain to me why you're the only terminator model to sport an Austrian accent again?
Terminator: The terminators were designed to be able to infiltrate groups of humans undetected, but the early models weren't very effective. So they gave us Austrian accents. That way, if we did something really weird, people would just say, "Oh, don't mind Karl. He's Austrian."
Sarah: Good thinking.
Terminator: I've been programmed to kill Sarah Connor McLeod, thereby preventing the rift in the space-time continuum from ever having happened. That should take care of your disturbance, officer.
Van Damme: But if you prevent the rift, then Belgium will cease to exist! I'll never become a movie star!
Terminator: Yes, and it should also prevent any number of other inexplicable events.

John Connor walks up.

John: What's going on here? That's my wife you're getting friendly with.
Terminator: Not to mention your nana.
John: You! So you've come back in time once again to finish me off.
Terminator: Not you. Your wife. And your nana.
John: Who sent you here?
Terminator: You did, John. When the future you realizes the sort of havoc you caused by having sex with your great-grandmother, you sent me back in time to kill her before you give birth to your father, thus preventing yourself from ever being born!
Sarah: But if he's never born, then he can't send you back here to kill me either.
Terminator: True.
Sarah: So by killing me, you're saving my life.
Terminator: I suppose so.
Sarah: Ok, I guess I'm alright with that. As long as I never have to sit through Universal Soldier again.
Terminator: Not a problem. The "Muscles from Brussels" will never have existed.
Van Damme: I don't feel so good.
Terminator: Oh, and this will take care of Dolph Lundgren too.
Sarah: Hmmm. I have to admit, it's tempting.

Suddenly yet another figure shimmers into existence. It is a strange looking humanoid creature, with a long face, eyes on short stalks, and flap-like ears that reach almost to its knees.

Creature: Meesuh Jar Jar Binks!
Sarah: Oh, for f---'s sake. Just kill me already.




Humor-blogs.com is yet another result of the rift in the space-time continuum.

Caption Contest Winners

This week's winning caption came from y not i. Y not i, if you had a blog, you could display the coveted In Your Face award:



In second place was Bex Mitchell, with:

Rambo - "...and I will love him, and hug him, and
call him George..." (Diesel sighs with contentment.)

And in third, AnnieB with:

J*sus! This is like trying to open a f**king jar of pickles!

Congratulations, folks. There were some really good entries this week. Personally, I had to go with Stushie's "Hey, look Apollo! I caught the chicken!" I mean, come on, that's funny.

Thanks for playing and/or voting, everybody. And thanks for your kind comments on my Monkeyhands post. You have no idea how glad I am to be out of that place. As one commenter noted, Monkeyhands was never going to change, so there was no point in giving him the benefit of my opinion. That's really what finally made me gave up on the place: As long as Monkeyhands was running the place, it was always going to be a two-bit monkey show, because he was incapable of learning from the people around him. You'll be happy to know that just about every key employee has left GI since then, having evidently come to the same conclusion. It's too bad, because the company had a lot of potential (which is why I stuck around so long), but Monkeyhands' ego was always going to get in the way of any large scale success. The best thing for all of us was to move on.

I'll be back on Monday with another sock drawer post. Have a great weekend!

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Vote!

Man, there were some killer captions this time. I had a tough time picking. (Mrs. Diesel will occasionally pick a favorite or two, but lately she's been making me do the grunt work. Like this is my blog or something.)

Here are the ten finalists. Vote for your favorite, and I'll post the winners on Friday. And make sure you come back tomorrow to read the conclusion of the Galactic Invertebrates saga. See you then!



y not i said...

After mistaking Diesel's head for a giant Pez dispenser, Rambo becomes enraged when he can't get any candy out.

CrummyJoel said...

...I swear......I didn't know......that it was a fake Rolex....

crazy aunt bea said...

Rambo gives Diesel a little head.

BRWombat said...

I was... kidding... I... LIKED "Stop or My Mom Will Shoot!"

Kadi Prescott said...

I'm sorry! I didn't know it was the last temporary hand tattoo!

Miss Britt said...

When you squeeze me like that, I worry I will fart.

stushie said...

Hey, look Apollo! I caught the chicken!

Bex Mitchell said...

Rambo - "...and I will love him, and hug him, and
call him George..." (Diesel sighs with contentment.)

AnnieB said...

J*sus! This is like trying to open a f**king jar of pickles!

Deb (Missives From Suburbia) said...

No, Diesel, I swear. This is EXACTLY how my chiropractor does it. Wait... wait... yes... Ahhh... did you hear your neck crack? Diesel? DIESEL?!

Opinion Polls & Market Research

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Caption Contest: Rambo 4

Yes, believe it or not, having put the cap on the Rocky series, old Sly is now resurrecting the Rambo franchise. When last we left Rambo, he was assisting the Mujahideen in their struggle to throw rocks at the Soviet army fleeing Afghanistan. Now, still tormented by events that occurred about six wars ago, he becomes a reluctant one man army fighting against something or other that is interfering with his busy Matlock-watching schedule. And I was there when it all went down.



Submit your captions in the comments. I'll post the best ones in a poll on Tuesday. Have fun!


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Mattress Police News Briefs #4

This morning the following headline popped up on Yahoo:

Castro says he's too unhealthy to speak

I couldn't help but laugh at the poor sick bastard. I'm sorry, what was that you said? Something about being too wealthy to pee? Could you speak up a little?

I delved a little deeper and found another article headlined "Castro looks frail, alert in new photos." I guess that beats looking robust but addled like Paula Abdul. I wish I could manage looking alert in photos. I always seem to look a little lost, like James Franco in Spider-Man 3. That's probably going to be my downfall in my presidential campaign: "Diesel looks sleepy, confused in new photos." Maybe I'm not torturing enough dissidents.

I used to love writing headlines for my college newspaper. I enjoyed coming up with little puns and plays on words, like the time that a blood drive on campus was canceled and I wrote "Blood Drive Organized in Vain." Or when the college's board voted to divide the college and the seminary into two separate organizations, and I came up with "Board Members Assess Plan to Divide, and Concur." Of course, then there was the time that I was out of town when the galleys were proofread (yes, I'm that old) and I asked the other editors to look over my stuff so there weren't any mistakes. That was the week that "War Fuels Oil Exec's Speech" became "War Furls Aid Exec's Speech." Thanks for keeping an eye on things for me, guys! Nobody reads the words in the middle of a headline anyway, right?

I enjoyed writing the headlines much more than I did writing the actual articles. In fact, that's still the case, even with my fake news articles. I haven't done a "Mattress Police News Brief" for a while because I usually get bored about halfway through the second sentence of the article. The headline is almost always the best part anyway. My personal favorite is Belgium: France Keeps Touching Me.

So, as a result of my piss-poor attention span, I've got a bunch of fake news headlines for which I've never gotten around to actually writing the articles. Then when I saw that Castro headline this morning, I realized that sometimes headlines are better when you don't read the article. And perhaps even better when there is no article. So I present to you Mattress Police News Briefs #4 (Now with even more briefness!).


Nicolas Cage finds sideburns, won't look creepy
in National Treasure 3
Oscar winning actor claims to have misplaced them on the set of Wicker Man

------------------

Ripon man can't get comfortable
Has tried "pretty much everything"; may need to get a new chair

------------------

Cultural relativists dispatched to the U.S.-Mexico border
"America isn't that great," they tell prospective illegal immigrants

------------------

Owen Wilson recovers from suicide attempt; Cuba Gooding, Jr. announces plans to continue starring in "Absolute Rubbish"
"Slitting your wrists is faster, but starring in Daddy Day Camp and Boat Trip may ultimately be more effective," say experts

------------------

Chad Kroeger Clears His Throat, Gets Dropped by Record Label
"His distinctive sound is gone," says executive

------------------



I hope you're not too disappointed that there aren't any articles to go with the headlines. I'll post the articles tomorrow.

Not really, though. I probably won't post anything tomorrow. But maybe I will. It's difficult to say. Grundir owes me a couple of memes, but he's been busy setting hobbit traps lately, so he may not have time. In any case, feel free to write your own articles in the comments if you want.

I'll definitely be back Friday with the caption contest results. Make sure you vote, if you haven't already.

Diesel out.


Humor-blogs.com peaked with Jerry McGuire.

My Laptop Bluescreened While I Was Trying to Think of a Title

So here's something you didn't know about me: I don't know jack about computers.

"Wait a minute," you say. "Aren't you, like, a computer programmer?"

Ok, first of all, I'm a software developer. "Computer programmer" is a term left over from when computers were the size of a Greyhound bus and packed as much computing power as your curling iron. "Computer programmers" were people who huddled in a dark room feeding punchcards to a giant steel behemoth made of spinning dynamos and vacuum tubes. If they were lucky, the programmers might be able to get the computer to beep or calculate half of 6, but in general they considered it a good day if the computer didn't go on a killing rampage and eat them.

Most people know that the first "bugs" in computers were literally bugs: Moths or whatever would get into the circuits and screw things up. Imagine how big a computer has to be for a moth to be able to get into the workings of the machine and cause 1 + 1 to intermittently equal 7. That's a big freaking computer. The very first computers were so gigantic, in fact, that computational errors were often blamed on stray cats stuck in the gears.

Ok, I made that last part up. It actually wasn't until the mid 90s that computers needed to be safeguarded against the threat of strange p*ssies.

The point is that when the term "computer programmer" originated, computers were nothing like they are now. Computers have gotten so much more powerful, more complicated, and more likely to be used by complete morons that the field of computer science, like human society in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, has fragmented into two completely distinct professions.

As you'll recall, Wells envisioned that in the future humanity would schism into two separate races -- and no, one of those races is not the one that thinks it's ok to use the word schism as a verb. The two races were the Morlocks, who were dark brutish creatures who lived underground and controlled the mysterious machinery that ran everything; and the Eloi, who were gentle, beautiful and vapid creatures who probably thought that Wal-Mart was a place to get "wall stuff."

In this analogy, the creepy guy who smells like Doritos and laughs at you because you tried to connect your printer with an RS-232 interface cable is a Morlock. He knows how all the hardware works. He knows the difference between Cat5 and Cat6, and no, it's notCat1. He knows whether his hard drive is SCSI or ATAPI, how much hard drive space he has down to the kilobyte, and whether he's going to need to dump the odd-numbered Star Trek movies to make room for the final season of Battlestar Galactica.

The software developers, on the other hand, are Eloi. They are beautiful, delicate creatures who use words like "elegant" to describe 300 lines of what, to any normal person, looks like the result of someone typing with his keyboard upside down. They can tell you the difference between a runtime error, a syntax error and a logic error, and may attempt to regale you with an account of the time that they crashed a production web server with an infinitely recursive Java function. A computer is to a software developer what a phone is to someone calling a 976 number: It allows him to do what he wants to do, but it's hard not to think of it as a somewhat limiting medium.

Roughly speaking, the Morlocks are the hardware guys and the Eloi are the software guys*, and there exists an uneasy symbiotic relationship between the two. The Eloi rely on the Morlocks to keep the machines running, and the Morlocks rely on the Eloi to make the machines actually do something other than beep or calculate half of 6.

As an Eloi, I resent my reliance on both the Morlocks and their crude machines. I feel about my laptop the same way I feel about my car: It takes me cool places and lets me do all kinds of fun things, but I don't give a crap how it works. I'm pretty sure both of them involve a wheel and some gerbils. When something breaks, I open up the hood, tug on a few wires, and then take the damn thing in to a Morlock, who might have a chance in hell of fixing it.**

I hate it when people come to me with computer problems. Not software problems, mind you. I don't mind answering questions about Blogger templates or XML feeds. But calling me when your motherboard is fried is like calling up your brother-in-law the architect when your plumbing is clogged. Sure, he might know the answer, but at best he's going to resent you for coming to him regarding such a plebeian matter, and at worst he's going to flood your house with sewage. For architects, sewage exists only as an abstract concept, something to be routed away from the house by some decisive lines on a sheet of paper. That's not going to help you when your basement smells like the wool seat covers in Britney Spears' convertible after a three day rain.

The other day my sister-in-law asked me for advice on buying a laptop. I gave her the same advice I give everybody who is buying a computer: All of the numbers should be big except for the price. That's as detailed as my hardware knowledge gets. If one PC had herpes simplex 2 and another had herpes simplex 5, I'd go with the 5.

The only other advice I have is this: for the love of all that's holy, buy the extended warranty. Extended warranties are the equivalent of the Geneva Convention treaties in the eternal enmity between Morlocks and the rest of humanity. Sure, you're going to get screwed, but you'll know exactly how badly you're getting screwed and for how long.

Plus, you won't have to call me and bother me while I'm dancing and singing with the rest of the Eloi, trying to ignore those ominous rumblings underground.


*I use the term "guys" because, well, I've never actually seen any women in either of these fields.

**These days, of course, there is an alternative to fixing your computer. It's called "USB ports." USB ports allow lazy, non-hardware oriented people to just plug in a new whatever-it-is when the old whatever-it-is inside the box stops working. I've got so many USB devices plugged into my laptop now that I actually have a USB splitter velcro'd to the lid of my laptop, with all kinds of gizmos and dohickeys sticking out of it. When software people see this, they say, "Wow, that's cool!" When hardware people see this, they say, "What the f--- is wrong with your laptop?"


Humor-blogs.com thinks you're an idiot for not knowing what an RS-232 cable is.

Caption Contest Winners

This week wyo once again trounced the competition with a caption that perfectly fit the dumb guy look on my face while simultaneously poking fun at Johnny Depp's history of collaboration with Tim Burton.



Congratulations, wyo! You may display this customized 2-Time In Your Face Award that I stole from another multiple winner, Crummy Joel.



As always, the winner may also post the picture with their winning caption on their own site (you can link directly from my site if you want; Lord knows that I've got plenty of other people stealing my bandwidth already).

Tied for second were Mark Jabo, with:

Diesel: I'm just saying ... I never heard of "cranial liposuction"...

And Sparrow, with:

"I'm sooooo excited to be in my first musical, Johnny! Especially to be working with you! But isn't the script a little short? Mine only goes to page six..."

Congratulations, everybody! This was a particularly tough one to pick the finalists for.

By the way, there's one question I forgot to answer in my post yesterday. Here's the deal with the math problems: The first time you leave a comment, it's going to make you answer a math problem. This is an anti-spam measure. If you check the "Remember Me" box (and you have cookies enabled in your browser), it shouldn't make you do a math problem again. Also, it won't make you do a math problem if you are logged in with your Humor-Blogs.com account.

Anyway, that's the way it works right now. Evidently I'm still getting spammed, so I may need to make people do a math problem every time unless they're logged in. We'll see how it goes.

I'll be back on Monday with another fandamntastic post about something. Until then, make sure you read my plan for fixing the weak dollar by pegging it to marijuana. It will open your eyes and yes, quite possibly, your heart.

Vote and Stuff!

Sorry I never got around to posting yesterday; I was a bit under the weather. Or maybe it was the half bottle of Southern Comfort. Anyway, I was under something.

So Happy New Year and stuff. You'll be relieved to know that Huey Lewis has been declared an underappreciated genius by a ratio of 2 to 1. The Huey-haters never had a chance, although I did catch Grundir scheming behind my back with elasticwaistbandlady to skew the vote in their favor. It seems that Nazgul are not, after all, big fans of catchy 80s pop tunes. Who knew?

Technically, the elasticwaistbandlady is supposed to do a post lauding the genius of Huey and post my Huey banner, but I'm not going to press the issue. The message of Huey is spread by love and friendship, not by brute force. The Huey-haters will come around eventually. And if they don't, we can just round them up and put them in Huey-hater camps.

Ok, on with the caption contest finalists:

CrummyJoel said...

NO ONE resists the COMFY CHAIR!!

Mark Jabo said...

Diesel: I'm just saying ... I never heard of "cranial liposuction"...

Barry said...

Well Doc, I've been on your gravy diet for a week now and feel great! How do I look?

wyo said...

Hey, dude, the razor is cool, but you know what would be AWESOME? If you had SCISSORS FOR HANDS!

Sparrow said...

"I'm sooooo excited to be in my first musical, Johnny! Especially to be working with you! But isn't the script a little short? Mine only goes to page six..."

Derek said...

Just a little off the top please. I'd like it to look like Bruce Willis in the new Die Hard, can you do that?

claire said...

Diesel: If you stop singing, I'll LET you cut my throat!

renalfailure said...

It's easier to listen to someone ramble about voting Libertarian when you're ultimately planning to slit their throat.

LOBO said...

"No, I'm fine. I've just never had a proctologist make me drink three shots of Wild Turkey first."

Stushie said...

Diesel: You want the truth, Johnny? Huey Lewis is a better singer. It's all in the throat and he's a cut above yourself.

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