Gallant Takes Police Work Seriously, Goofus...

Remember that movie Showtime and how everyone in the world watched it and loved it and said "Holy effin' crap, this movie was so amazingly good I wish that for once life would imitate art, but on a much grander and dumber scale so I could finally get a good night's sleep!"

Yeah, me neither.

rock.
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Everyone's Gone to the Moon

Holy effin' crap...we're building a moon base! That's right, in a very Georges Méliès-esque decision NASA has declared that it's time to go have a party on the moon because space shuttles are garbage and the whole program will be scrapped by 2010. Since that will mean newly available budgetary monies NASA was forced to decide whether they wanted to build an internationally cooperative solar-powered moon base or buy an assload of Post-It notes. They apparently went with the former.
This decision comes on the heels of Stephan Hawking's automated assertion that the human race needs to start building condos on other planets for fear of total planetary annihilation.
As of right now there is no definitive plan as to what the base will look like but they do have a location chosen (near the Shackleton Crater on the south pole of the moon) as well as a plan, which in typical NASA style involves jettisoning as much shit into space as possible and bringing the astronauts home in a thimble with a parachute strapped to it. This particular thimble is going to be built by Lockheed Martin.

Now our only concern should be the potential for moon monsters!

rock.
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Blatherskitical Musings

Sometimes I find great humor in the subtleties of the English language. For example switching the word segments "necro" and "nepo" results in some delightful new words:

necrotism - patronage bestowed or favoritism shown toward the dead, as in business and politics.

or

nepomancy - a method of divination through alleged communication with the family members.

I could write about such nonsense for days, but that's probably why my only friend is a hand puppet...and we're not even on speaking terms right now! And with that he sighed ever so languidly.

rock.
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McRocket Scientist

Another bit of oddness from the folks at abcnews.com. Apparently a McDonald's employee was stripped naked and abused by her manager's fiancé while working an extra shift at the restaurant. The crazy part was that it was done at the behest of a man posing as a police officer over the telephone. Holy Stanley Milgram batman! The manager, a Miss Donna Summers (not the disco queen), made the claim "I honestly thought he was a police officer and what I was doing was the right thing," right before she purchased the famed Brooklyn Bridge. However, had she consulted the inordinately clairvoyant McEmployee Handbook she would have found this:

Strip Search
Under no circumstances should any member of McDonald's management or staff conduct a strip search of any employee or customer's person. No legitimate law enforcement agency would ever ask you to conduct such searches. If someone claiming to be a law enforcement official requests that a manager or employee conduct a strip search, try to obtain the name and phone number of the caller and immediately call your local police department to report the incident. Contact your owner/operator or security manager about the incident as soon as possible.

-McDonald's Operations and Training Manual: November 2001

Anyway, apparently the wacky bastard that was accused of perpetrating this hoax was accused of about a dozen similar incidents. The jury found him innocent on the grounds that they were all perverts themselves, while the scumbag fiancé was convicted of sodomy (the girl apparently fellated him in accordance with the pseudo-cop's wishes). The entire event was caught on a McSecurity camera.

rock.
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Inexplicable Happenstance or Aquanautical Tard Party?

It always strikes me as odd how some news stories, even though they are covered by major news organizations, seemingly slip through the cracks. I was recently reading an update about a pair of coast guard divers that died in the arctic this past year. So from what it seems, the AP informs us of a fuzzy partial picture involving what can only be termed as gross negligence. But abcnews.com introduces a bizarre new aspect into the mix.

Autopsy reports reveal the two were 20 feet below the ice when they suddenly descended to nearly 200 feet in a matter of minutes. It would normally take 30 minutes to reach that depth.

The article brings in the big zing with:

After the tragic dive, the families were told by investigators that something pulled the two divers down — but what it was exactly could not be explained.

What? How come only abc.com has that in their report? Did they scoop the world or is it a load of crap? Or more importantly, do colossal squids live in the north as well?

rock.
m$

Soooo Linds-o...

You'll forgive my tardiness to this little tidbit of entertainment news. Between Thanksgiving travel, illness and gay animals I've had a pretty full dance card as of late. Anyway, on with the show.

Lindsay Lohan is officially the dregs of humanity. She landed a spot on TIME.com's quote of the day for her LTA (in this case Less Than Adequite) closing in a letter of condolence to Robert Altman's family. According to Reuters (via the Washington Post), Lohan titled her November 21 e-mail "Dead is hard, Life is much easier," a quote she attributes to actor Jack Nicholson. The rambling indictment of America's public education system can be seen here, if you haven't read it yet.

And so I close with a statement to you Mr. President...Sir, it would appear as though at least one child did indeed get left behind.

rock.
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