We at shmuz weekly would like to wish you all a happy holidays, no matter what denomination you are. Unless you have a foot fetish, cuz that shit is weird. Whether you've been naughty or nice this year I have one thing to say.
Don't binge drink on eggnog. Get a nice buzz going, but that dairy is going to hit you. Its going to hit you hard.
Merry Christmas and get ready for the best holiday of the year (besides my birthday)
- A guy
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Disparate Times Call for Disparate Ideas
It's finals week.
During this time, whenever I am not studying, I feel like I should be. This very moment is an excellent example. But I have some ideas I need to share with you, in the hope that they may provide a nice little distraction during your own grueling exam period:
Michael Bolton has the iTunes Holiday Single of the Week. I thought he was just a joke from the movie Office Space. Oh wait, okay. The single is free. Yah Mo Get This.
The funniest sound recognized by college students nationwide: Those hard plastic cafeteria cups bouncing on the floor after someone accidentally drops them. Pop pop, pop pop, poppoppoppp. (The above picture is the first image to appear when you perform a google search for "hard plastic cup.")
It doesn't really make much sense that the sports media agreed on the term "Spygate" to describe when one NFL team is taping another team's signals. I mean, part of the reason Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon ordered a break-in to the Democratic National Commitee's office was to "spy" on the opposing party. The scandal was still named after the building in which it was exposed. Why not call what happened between the Patriots and the Jets "Meadowgate"? Even for Bill Clinton's major scandal, many journalists used a modification of Watergate that more specifically addressed the incident: They called it "Monicagate." If those reporters had taken the same approach as today's NFL analysts, that is, attached "gate" to the end of some vague description of the reprehensible action, they would have called the Lewinsky scandal "Sexgate." That's too much free advertising for one porn website.
Tell me if this sounds familiar:
"Uhhh ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. On behalf of the entire crew, I would like to welcome you aboard Shmuz Airlines Flight 767 with non-stop service to Uzbekistan."
Now I ask you, in all seriousness: Would that sound familiar in a female voice? Do female captains even exist?!*
At least in my own experience on major commercial airlines, I cannot ever remember hearing a woman announce our cruising altitude and estimated time of arrival over that ubiquitous loudspeaker. Perhaps gender remains part of the criteria for certain positions on an airplane's crew, but that seems to be changing in areas outside the cockpit. There are now male stewardesses, for whom the politically correct term has become "flight attendants." This raises even more complex questions. We call female nurses "nurses" and we call male nurses "male nurses." Why can't "stewards" refer to the males that bring us those Mini-Me-sized bags of pretzels and "stewardesses" refer to the females that pour our ginger ale around those ice cubes that could sink the Titanic?
The truth is out there. According to data from American Airlines, of their 3,945 captains, 58 are female. Now it may be the case that I've never encountered any of that 1-2% of the demographic, but we musn't speculate. If anything, the fact that these seductive skippers do exist provides a more concrete explanation for why all captains sound the same. When the captains push in that button on the loudspeaker, there's some voice-altering technology at work, and all of them, whether male or female, all of them sound like a really generic guy who makes over-extended pauses with that back-of-the-throat "Uhhh."
Or, on second thought, maybe travelers just aren't quite ready to accept "the vaginapit."
Anyway, I sincerely wish all of you the best, especially if you're just trying to make it through the hell that you've created for yourself during finals week. Just know that many of us are going through the same thing and that you WILL make it. On the horizon for Shmuz Weekly, we're hoping to get more reader participation, maybe through contests, letters, collaborative articles, etcetera. If you have any ideas, please let us know, or post them on the facebook group. We should have more time to work on all this stuff over winter break. And hey, listen... [Until] I see ya again... Keep on truckin'.
* Thanks to my friend Nina for alerting me to this phenomenon.
During this time, whenever I am not studying, I feel like I should be. This very moment is an excellent example. But I have some ideas I need to share with you, in the hope that they may provide a nice little distraction during your own grueling exam period:
Michael Bolton has the iTunes Holiday Single of the Week. I thought he was just a joke from the movie Office Space. Oh wait, okay. The single is free. Yah Mo Get This.
The funniest sound recognized by college students nationwide: Those hard plastic cafeteria cups bouncing on the floor after someone accidentally drops them. Pop pop, pop pop, poppoppoppp. (The above picture is the first image to appear when you perform a google search for "hard plastic cup.")
It doesn't really make much sense that the sports media agreed on the term "Spygate" to describe when one NFL team is taping another team's signals. I mean, part of the reason Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon ordered a break-in to the Democratic National Commitee's office was to "spy" on the opposing party. The scandal was still named after the building in which it was exposed. Why not call what happened between the Patriots and the Jets "Meadowgate"? Even for Bill Clinton's major scandal, many journalists used a modification of Watergate that more specifically addressed the incident: They called it "Monicagate." If those reporters had taken the same approach as today's NFL analysts, that is, attached "gate" to the end of some vague description of the reprehensible action, they would have called the Lewinsky scandal "Sexgate." That's too much free advertising for one porn website.
Tell me if this sounds familiar:
"Uhhh ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. On behalf of the entire crew, I would like to welcome you aboard Shmuz Airlines Flight 767 with non-stop service to Uzbekistan."
Now I ask you, in all seriousness: Would that sound familiar in a female voice? Do female captains even exist?!*
At least in my own experience on major commercial airlines, I cannot ever remember hearing a woman announce our cruising altitude and estimated time of arrival over that ubiquitous loudspeaker. Perhaps gender remains part of the criteria for certain positions on an airplane's crew, but that seems to be changing in areas outside the cockpit. There are now male stewardesses, for whom the politically correct term has become "flight attendants." This raises even more complex questions. We call female nurses "nurses" and we call male nurses "male nurses." Why can't "stewards" refer to the males that bring us those Mini-Me-sized bags of pretzels and "stewardesses" refer to the females that pour our ginger ale around those ice cubes that could sink the Titanic?
The truth is out there. According to data from American Airlines, of their 3,945 captains, 58 are female. Now it may be the case that I've never encountered any of that 1-2% of the demographic, but we musn't speculate. If anything, the fact that these seductive skippers do exist provides a more concrete explanation for why all captains sound the same. When the captains push in that button on the loudspeaker, there's some voice-altering technology at work, and all of them, whether male or female, all of them sound like a really generic guy who makes over-extended pauses with that back-of-the-throat "Uhhh."
Or, on second thought, maybe travelers just aren't quite ready to accept "the vaginapit."
Anyway, I sincerely wish all of you the best, especially if you're just trying to make it through the hell that you've created for yourself during finals week. Just know that many of us are going through the same thing and that you WILL make it. On the horizon for Shmuz Weekly, we're hoping to get more reader participation, maybe through contests, letters, collaborative articles, etcetera. If you have any ideas, please let us know, or post them on the facebook group. We should have more time to work on all this stuff over winter break. And hey, listen... [Until] I see ya again... Keep on truckin'.
* Thanks to my friend Nina for alerting me to this phenomenon.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Please, Shed Light On SOme Thoughts
Aright, so I have been wrapping up my studies..... thats right, I said it.
But anywhatsagigger...I am writing an essay for Comm class where I am asked to define communication in my own words. I am currently in the proccess of doing so, and until I am finished I won't be able to fully explain how much I know..... oh Im excited.
But lemme hear it, what you think?
Here are several things to think of as you construct your own definition:
-Its purpose is to transmit messages and signasls over space for the purpose of controling a space or people.
-it is the maintence of society in time, the representation of shared beliefs, and not imparting information
-it constructs and defines the reality in which we live in, fully defining every aspect of our society and the interaction that occur within it.
think homies.
Thom, if you don't come up with something good, I will respect you no longer.
Peace, Dave
PS - stay sick wit it
But anywhatsagigger...I am writing an essay for Comm class where I am asked to define communication in my own words. I am currently in the proccess of doing so, and until I am finished I won't be able to fully explain how much I know..... oh Im excited.
But lemme hear it, what you think?
Here are several things to think of as you construct your own definition:
-Its purpose is to transmit messages and signasls over space for the purpose of controling a space or people.
-it is the maintence of society in time, the representation of shared beliefs, and not imparting information
-it constructs and defines the reality in which we live in, fully defining every aspect of our society and the interaction that occur within it.
think homies.
Thom, if you don't come up with something good, I will respect you no longer.
Peace, Dave
PS - stay sick wit it
An excerpt from the life and times of Steven Jacobs
cocacholas: hey buddy
sj42o: yo nucka
cocacholas: whats hood
cocacholas: bsides the kuklux
sj42o: muslims
sj42o: yo mykeys are all fucked up again
cocacholas: hahaha
sj42o: i spilled jugnle jews all over my shit
sj42o: i think god just wants me to be bougetto
sj42o: yo nucka
cocacholas: whats hood
cocacholas: bsides the kuklux
sj42o: muslims
sj42o: yo mykeys are all fucked up again
cocacholas: hahaha
sj42o: i spilled jugnle jews all over my shit
sj42o: i think god just wants me to be bougetto
Friday, December 7, 2007
This Is All reNickulous' Fault, I Swear:
Chris Weitz's screen adaptation of "The Golden Compass" adeptly delves into weighty subject matter while utilizing a dialogue that is distinctly child-oriented. The unfortunate consequent is the notion that we aren't truly acquainted with Weitz's characters, who are certainly not as well-developed as Pullman's. It becomes clear, however, that this was a calculated decision: any addition of children's dialogue sufficient to truly develop the characters, would undoubtedly be sufficient to bore an older audience. And more sophisticated dialogue would alienate a younger audience. In order to draw both the young and the old, Weitz implied quite a lot, while saying almost nothing. The result is a stunning allegory, and a great movie to watch high... Or with your mom and two younger sisters:
Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy is quite often placed in the same category as "The Chronicles of Narnia", and not simply because they are both books that Nick is all about. They both contain subtle references that cause quite a bit of religious controversy. I won't discuss Narnia, but Pullman's novels are considered to be criticisms of the Catholic church. This adaptation of "The Golden Compass" (I cannot speak for the novel itself because it has been such a long time since I have read it), goes much further than simply criticizing the church, it is an all-out allegory to the Crusades. Here goes:
The story begins at Jordan College, in Oxford, England. But the characters are referred to as "Scholars of Jordan", and, as far as I could tell, the name Oxford is never mentioned. This would not be noteworthy, if it weren't for two other references to the Middle East: the Gyptians and Lord Asriel. If we take the Magisterium to represent the Catholic Church, as so many critics have suggested, than The "Scholars of Jordan" and Lord Asriel are not only emblems of scientific progress but also of religious dissidence, and so it is not a leap at all to suggest that they are analogous to the intellectual and cultural affluence of the Middle East in the 11th Century. With this in mind, that the Magisterial Officers refer to "The Scholars of Jordan" as Heretics makes a lot of sense. When John Faa, of the Gyptians, explains that the Gyptians have always been friends to Lord Asriel, we begin to see what Pullman is truly illuminating: that Muslim-Jewish conflict in the Middle East is by no means innate, and that it was the stresses of Western (and Catholic) imperialism that brought it about. In truth, during the Crusades, the Muslim's protected the Jewish communities that inhabited Jerusalem.
Also, the symbol of the Magisterium flipped upside-down is the Freemason symbol, and the Catholic church-Freemason conflict is one of the longest standing conflicts in the History of Modern Civilization.
Go see the movie, it's tight.
Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy is quite often placed in the same category as "The Chronicles of Narnia", and not simply because they are both books that Nick is all about. They both contain subtle references that cause quite a bit of religious controversy. I won't discuss Narnia, but Pullman's novels are considered to be criticisms of the Catholic church. This adaptation of "The Golden Compass" (I cannot speak for the novel itself because it has been such a long time since I have read it), goes much further than simply criticizing the church, it is an all-out allegory to the Crusades. Here goes:
The story begins at Jordan College, in Oxford, England. But the characters are referred to as "Scholars of Jordan", and, as far as I could tell, the name Oxford is never mentioned. This would not be noteworthy, if it weren't for two other references to the Middle East: the Gyptians and Lord Asriel. If we take the Magisterium to represent the Catholic Church, as so many critics have suggested, than The "Scholars of Jordan" and Lord Asriel are not only emblems of scientific progress but also of religious dissidence, and so it is not a leap at all to suggest that they are analogous to the intellectual and cultural affluence of the Middle East in the 11th Century. With this in mind, that the Magisterial Officers refer to "The Scholars of Jordan" as Heretics makes a lot of sense. When John Faa, of the Gyptians, explains that the Gyptians have always been friends to Lord Asriel, we begin to see what Pullman is truly illuminating: that Muslim-Jewish conflict in the Middle East is by no means innate, and that it was the stresses of Western (and Catholic) imperialism that brought it about. In truth, during the Crusades, the Muslim's protected the Jewish communities that inhabited Jerusalem.
Also, the symbol of the Magisterium flipped upside-down is the Freemason symbol, and the Catholic church-Freemason conflict is one of the longest standing conflicts in the History of Modern Civilization.
Go see the movie, it's tight.
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