The Threadless Nut

I noticed as I was perusing the feeds this morning that the film “Easy A” is now available on Netflix, and DVD in general: Netflix: Easy A. This film was released in theaters on 9/17 and to DVD on 12/21.

Now, this is not a film that I’m particularly interested in, though it does seem to have reasonably good reviews. The reason it caught my eye is that I recalled seeing the same film on the schedule of our local discount theater. It is still showing there right now (well, at 7:10 tonight). I see a lot of movies at that theater. It’s $2, and not up-to-date, but for a lot of movies it’s just fine, and makes for an inexpensive night out.

So, what has me troubled is that we now have the DVD release of a relatively well reviewed film being rushed so much that it’s going to squeeze out these discount theaters. There have always been straight to DVD releases, and DVD release schedules have been compressing,  but there has always been enough “first run” content with enough of a gap to keep the discount theaters stoked with content a few weeks behind the multiplex.

Not sure if this is going to be the new normal or this is just an isolated case, but I hope things balance out in a way that preserves a place for the “cinema poco costoso” (blame Google translate if that’s horribly wrong)

I have yet to decide if this is the greatest thing ever, or the sign of the end of days. I saw this product at the store this morning when I ran out to get a couple of things. It’s called Batter Blaster, and it’s basically pancake batter in a whipped cream container. Yes, you read that right. Want a pancake? Spray one out. How about a couple of waffles? Knock yourself out. No waste and no dirty dishes. You only use what you need and save the rest for later. Its certainly got a lot of awesome going for it, but there’s something that just feels wrong about spray pancakes. Spray cheese I’m ok with, but I’m just not sure I can handle this. However, if I could somehow rig it up to spray through a propane torch to deliver a continuous stream of cooked pancakey goodness, I might be able to learn to accept it. Maybe I could mount it to a hat next to my single slice bacon cooker and dispenser. Yum!

Oh and the kicker? Yes, you read the label correctly, it’s organic!

So this is a little story that (mostly) happened to me a while ago. There’s an update today, but since I never posted the original story here, here it is, skip to the bottom if you must:

The Toaster Revolt of 1997

So, I’m getting a bagel this morning. Little did I know I was about to witness the worker’s revolt of 97.

I get my nice sesame bagel, head over to the bagel biter, slice it in half and and turn to go to the toaster. This is one of those commercial conveyer-belt toasters. Anyway, there are about 10 people around the toaster, this 1 woman, whom I’ll refer to as Norma Rae, is pontificating to the cafeteria guy, (we’ll call him Jimbo), on how much of her precious break time is being wasted dealing with this toaster. People are putting their bagels, bread, muffins, puppies, etc into the toaster, staring at it for a minute and taking their item out, looking at it and shaking their heads. It seems the toaster isn’t so much as toasting as it is warming.

Ok, so normal person would say, “Oh, darn” and run the bread product through again until the desired toastedness is achieved, but not your average corporate citizen, no! The folks are standing around, ganging up on the poor cafeteria guy, “What’s wrong with this thing?, “Why aren’t there 2 toasters?”, “Why do my shorts keep riding up?”. Poor Jimbo is just trying to get to the knob to turn the thing up a little, but Norma won’t let him get by. She continues her assault on defenseless Jimbo while one of her compatriots, whom I’ll call Brain Donor, is repeatedly PRESSING the temperature adjustment KNOB. So Norma is quizzing Jimbo on why there is only 1 toaster, Jimbo is mounting his only defense, “I’m just a contractor, the corporation supplies the equipment”, Donor is continuing to press the knob, wondering why it is having little effect.

Meanwhile, another party, whom I will name MacGyver, swoops in to retrieve his bagel. Mac discovers that his bagel is being blocked in the output tray by another. Being the resourceful guy that he is, MacGyver grabs the tongs, removes the offending bagel, placing it on a plate to the side of the toaster, and takes his own bagel, slipping away stealthily. Well, Mac had no idea what he had done. You see, this bagel belonged to Norma, she had finally disengaged from Jimbo’s jugular to get her tasty bagel. Much to her horror, someone…or something had removed her bagel from the toaster and placed it on….a plate! “Did someone take this out?”, Norma demanded. “Who did this, did it fall?” “Is this my bagel? Who’s is this? Mine was a sesame? Is this mine? Who took this out?” My mind was reeling from the assault. It was all I could do to weakly mutter “that’s mine” when Norma pointed at my bagel, which was on its second trip through the toaster.

Well, I got out of there just as Norma was looking for something to make protest signs with and Donor was wondering what the pretty red things inside the toaster tasted like. I heard a distorted scream of pain as I left the cafeteria.

Cut to this morning. I’m wandering around the same cafeteria, with the same (or reasonably the same) toaster. There’s a nicely printed and laminated sign hung next to the toaster. This sign reads:

“Please do not butter item before placing in toaster”

Really?

In case you aren’t aware, there is a lunar eclipse this evening. Neat.

Coincidentally (?) there is also an errant satellite that will be shot down during the aforementioned eclipse. Also neat.

I see this going one of 2 ways, either completely uneventfully, or horribly, horribly, wrong.

The former option probably doesn’t require much exposition. Missile, Satellite, Boom. It’s the latter, and far more interesting option that is not quite obvious, so I’ll lay it out for you.

Some aspect of the eclipse will cause the missile to fail to impact the target. It may be that the alignment of the Earth, Sun and Moon causes a slight change in the gravitational field of the Earth that messes up the guidance system, or maybe just a rather important Navy officer gets distracted by the spectacle, not important which. This error causes the missile to continue traveling through space until it finally strikes our poor, defenseless Moon. The resulting explosion is enough to fracture the little planetoid into several chunks. As the eclipse subsides it reveals the shattered Moon to the horrified population of the earth.

Over the course of the next few months, the orbit of our own planet around the Sun is affected by this change. The Earth’s path becomes more elliptical bringing us both closer and farther away from the Sun at the extremes. The result is stifling summer temperatures and brutal winter conditions. Over time, the climate degrades further and further and we are periodically peppered by the smaller chunks of debris from the moon.

Eventually, the increased radiation from the close proximity to the Sun mutates those who spend too much time outside into bloodthirsty zombies (there are always zombies). The population dwindles as more of us become, or are consumed by, these zombies, and the environment becomes increasingly toxic.

Finally, despite the efforts of a plucky oil drilling crew, the largest pieces of the moon come crashing into the Earth, instantly wiping out huge chunks of the remaining populace. This event pushes our orbit even farther out of alignment resulting in complete, yet spectacular, destruction as we collide with Jupiter.

I’m sure everything will be fine, but would it really hurt to just push the missile launch off until tomorrow?

Some things just must be posted immediately, because if I don’t get the word on this one out, it may be too late. If you’re still reading this blog you have accepted the fact that all of humanity will perish at the hands of zombies, robots, monkeys or some combination thereof. But come on people! Do we have to make it this easy for them?

Read more at Gizmodo or PostlerFerguson.

Don’t miss the pic of the Brain Piercer, um, I mean, Ear Groomer