PHIRST OF
Barack Obama says he’s going to get to the inauguration by train. This comes as a surprise to a lot of people who thought that Obama was going to get to the inauguration by walking on water. Have you tried that Wii Fit? Stupid game, it told me I was 57 years old and overweight.
SOMEONE PHAMOUS HAS DIED
Ellie Nesler: She tried to buy 10,000 decongestant tablets from an undercover officer back in 1992. Either she was making methamphetamine, or she had REALLY bad allergies.
DEAD POOL '09
Every year Jen and I come up with a dead pool list and see who wins. Jen won last year with one death who was Estelle Getty. This year I thought I would share my list and Jen's list when she gives it to me. Anyway, here is this year's dead pool list...
1. Ronnie Biggs
2. Karl Malden
3. Patrick Swayze
4. Fidel Castro
5. Walter Cronkite
6. Ed Kennedy
7. Betty Ford
8. Billy Graham
9. Nancy Reagan
10. BB King
JANUARY 2ND IN HISTORY
1611
1878
While hunting, farmer John Martin spies a rapidly moving flying disk high in the sky near Denison, Texas. He is the first to use the word "saucer" to describe a UFO phenomenon.
1935
Bruno Richard Hauptmann went on trial in Flemington, N.J., on charges of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of aviator Charles A. and Anne Lindbergh (Broken link for Lindbergh Baby). (He would later be found guilty and executed for that crime.).
1939
Time magazine named chancellor Adolf Hitler its "Man of the Year."
1971
Sixty-six soccer fans are trampled or fall to their deaths during a panic in Ibrox Park Stadium, Glasgow.
1995
Marion Barry inaugurated as mayor of Washington, D.C., four years after leaving the office in disgrace to serve a six-month sentence for smoking crack.
CANNED LAUGHTER
One night, a man and his lady friend were about to enter his apartment, when, before he could open the door, she said, “Wait a minute, I can tell how a man makes love by how he unlocks his door.”
The lady explains, “Well, if a guy shoves his key in the lock, and opens the door hard, then that means he is a rough lover and that isn't for me. If a man fumbles around and can’t seem to find the hole, then that means he is inexperienced, and that isn’t for me either.” Then she said, “How do you unlock your door?”
The man answered, “Well, before I do anything else, I lick the lock…”
YOU WON'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT PHOTOSHOPPED
This giant, terrifying Eddie Murphy head that looks like a badly photoshopped and probably racist 4chan meme, was actually part of an enormous bust they were building to promote the movie, Meet Dave. Incidentally, the only thing that would scare us more than driving next to Axl Foley's humongous noggin on the highway is being forced to see the movie.
SHARPENING AXES
THE MOST MISGUIDED SCI-FI VERSIONS OF 2008
1. President Six-Pack. The Source: The 1955 Isaac Asimov short story "Franchise". The Prediction: In the futuristic year of 2008, a supercomputer named Multivac will lead our proud electronic democracy by selecting the most demographically representative U.S. citizen, asking them some questions, and using the information to select the next President. Accuracy: Not so hot. 2008 saw the election of an intelligent, well-spoken black man. For Obama to accurately represent the average of all American citizens, he’d have to gain about fifty pounds, take a few knocks to the head, and get Mexican citizenship. Add to that the fact that we stopped naming computers “(fill in the blank)-vac” about the time the Beatles were roaming the earth, and you’ve proven once again that Asimov was little more than a doddering, irrelevant old codger. Besides, the idea of a voting machine asking you some vague questions and then telling you who’s President is so 2004. I’m just waiting for Diebold to stop beating around the bush and declare itself Supreme Overlord in 2012.
They’ve Taken Our Freeedooom! The Source: The post-apocalyptic box office bomb Doomsday.The Prediction: In the futuristic year of 2008, the plot of Escape From New York will have sex with the plot of Outbreak and Scotland will get quarantined from the rest of the world due to a plague (or at least, that’s what we’ll say). Then they’ll almost immediately resort to the plot of Mad Max. Accuracy: About as accurate as John Bobbitt’s urine stream after a couple of stiff drinks (too soon?). As evidenced by the tartan and cabers that litter our nation’s beaches and clog our storm drains, the filthy Scots still roam free. My guess is we’ll have to wait till Connery knocks off before we can put the fences up. I’m not saying we can’t take him, I’m just saying, do we want to risk it? Meanwhile, the only deadly viral outbreaks that gained prominence this year were Bird Flu and that bee disease. And even if they both swept the globe, what’s the real loss? Teaching our children about sex will become slightly more difficult (although you could easily use a donut and hot dog), and we won’t get stung or shat on anymore. Although if all the bees were wiped out, it could lend some credence to the next prediction…
With Our Powers Combined. The Source: The forward-thinking ecological sci-fi thriller Silent Running. The Prediction: In the futuristic year of 2008, all plant life on Earth has died out due to our gross ecological mismanagement, and the last remaining forests are being housed in giant space domes circling the rings of Saturn. Then we decide we didn’t want them after all, and order them jettisoned from their moorings and detonated with nuclear charges (just to make sure they don’t somehow survive, return to Earth, and seek revenge, I imagine). Accuracy: On par with Colonel Stauffenberg. First of all, our plant life hasn’t entirely died out yet; we’ve still got several acacia groves, a sopping handful of plankton and a very lovely squash vine, thank you very much, it’s just not producing this season. And as I feel I’ve made abundantly clear up to this point, in order for us to have gotten anything, let alone Biodome, to the rings of Saturn, we would have needed to launch it during the Trojan Wars. Give me Cool Runnings over this tripe any day. It may be equally far fetched, but at least John Candy’s in it.
Suicide is Painless…And Affordable! The Source: My lover, my mother, that glistening God we mortals know as "Futurama". The Prediction: According to some barely-glimpsed signage in "Futurama’s" pilot episode, Stop N’ Drop Suicide Booths not only exist legally by 2008, they are already considered “America’s Favorite.” Accuracy: In keeping with their later predictions that Pauly Shore will become a beloved actor and Coolio’s face will be printed on our coins. Again, there have been technological limitations. We could probably make a booth capable of killing someone and disposing of the body, but the Stop N’ Drop level of luxury—eyes scooped out with melon ballers, a helpful, friendly automated voice control—are all beyond our means. Meanwhile, this country’s medieval stance on the individual right to have a machine stab you in the gut keeps us from even making serious progress towards this lofty dream. The best we’ve got at the moment is Dr. Kevorkian, the crude biological equivalent. Normally I’d suggest a mass Krevorkian cloning project at this point, but apparently there’s something wrong with that too. Sorry Futurama writers; it looks like the religious zealots won’t let you have your citywide killing boxes.
Initiate Maximum Warp. The Source: Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s novel "The Mote in God’s Eye". The Prediction: In the futuristic year of 2008, mankind makes the single greatest scientific breakthrough in its history when it perfects faster-than-light travel, sending Einstein spinning in his grave and countless generations of spacestronauts hurtling through the black void in search of aliens to impress. Accuracy: Pretty abysmal. The fastest a space ship has ever moved, to date, is roughly 550,000 miles an hour, which, while fast enough to ensure that any potential road kill will be thoroughly smeared across the freeway in a bloody swath miles long, is still pitiful in the face of goddamn light, which averages 300 million miles an hour even when it’s been drinking. Meanwhile, the most exciting scientific development this year was the construction of a giant underground tube for smashing stuff together, and even that was greeted by hordes of people claiming it was witchcraft that’d cause demons to emerge from the Underdark and devour us alive. Let’s face facts: in the larger context of galactic civilization, we’re the guys standing in the corner with no pants on clanking rocks together.
The Big Sleep. The Source: Alan E. Nourse’s 1957 novel "Rocket to Limbo". The Prediction:
Okay, so maybe mankind won’t perfect faster than light travel by 2008. But what they will do is launch a ship into space towards the nearest star, and expect the doomed astronauts aboard to reproduce and live in their quarters for many generations while it makes its 350-year journey to Alpha Centauri. I mean, how can you go wrong with a prediction that assumes we’re cold-hearted pricks? Accuracy: Shmaccuracy. Yes, predicting that it’ll take a 2008 spaceship 350 years to travel the 4.37 light years to Alpha Centauri is slightly less ridiculous than imagining we’ll be hitting Warp 1, but it still assumes a ship capable of traveling a minimum of four million miles an hour. As I may have already mentioned, that’s about 8 times faster than the fastest human ship, which was a probe, not a giant space hotel with room and facilities enough to keep a little mini-civilization going and (presumably) not resorting to inbreeding. Although I still think the premise that we’d be willing to doom many generations of children to a cold, sterile life in a tin can hurtling through space in exchange for the slim possibility that they’d crash into a star is probably dead on.
The Blue Bomber. The Source: The original 1987 NES Mega Man. The Prediction: In the futuristic year of 2008, battle robots with sophisticated powers like the ability to throw rocks and cut you, led by an evil scientist named after a cartoon coyote, will enslave a neon neo-Tokyo and do battle with a one handed, child-sized robot maid cum supersoldier in blue spandex who can’t duck. Accuracy: I’ve never been to Tokyo, so I can’t really speak to the accuracy of Mega Man’s endless ladder towers and fan-powered clouds swarmed by flying teeth. Judging by some of the pictures I’ve seen online and my fathomless cultural ignorance, I’d believe it. But a robot that can’t duck? Are you kidding me? Even Aibos can kind of hunker down, and they’re barely on the teetering edge of the uncanny valley. If there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that the Japanese wouldn’t let a robot supersoldier step foot out the factory door without six hands, an equal number of depleted uranium-spitting miniguns, and an integrated all-region Toshiba DVD player.
Suicide is Painless…And Affordable! The Source: My lover, my mother, that glistening God we mortals know as "Futurama". The Prediction: According to some barely-glimpsed signage in "Futurama’s" pilot episode, Stop N’ Drop Suicide Booths not only exist legally by 2008, they are already considered “America’s Favorite.” Accuracy: In keeping with their later predictions that Pauly Shore will become a beloved actor and Coolio’s face will be printed on our coins. Again, there have been technological limitations. We could probably make a booth capable of killing someone and disposing of the body, but the Stop N’ Drop level of luxury—eyes scooped out with melon ballers, a helpful, friendly automated voice control—are all beyond our means. Meanwhile, this country’s medieval stance on the individual right to have a machine stab you in the gut keeps us from even making serious progress towards this lofty dream. The best we’ve got at the moment is Dr. Kevorkian, the crude biological equivalent. Normally I’d suggest a mass Krevorkian cloning project at this point, but apparently there’s something wrong with that too. Sorry Futurama writers; it looks like the religious zealots won’t let you have your citywide killing boxes.
Initiate Maximum Warp. The Source: Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s novel "The Mote in God’s Eye". The Prediction: In the futuristic year of 2008, mankind makes the single greatest scientific breakthrough in its history when it perfects faster-than-light travel, sending Einstein spinning in his grave and countless generations of spacestronauts hurtling through the black void in search of aliens to impress. Accuracy: Pretty abysmal. The fastest a space ship has ever moved, to date, is roughly 550,000 miles an hour, which, while fast enough to ensure that any potential road kill will be thoroughly smeared across the freeway in a bloody swath miles long, is still pitiful in the face of goddamn light, which averages 300 million miles an hour even when it’s been drinking. Meanwhile, the most exciting scientific development this year was the construction of a giant underground tube for smashing stuff together, and even that was greeted by hordes of people claiming it was witchcraft that’d cause demons to emerge from the Underdark and devour us alive. Let’s face facts: in the larger context of galactic civilization, we’re the guys standing in the corner with no pants on clanking rocks together.
The Big Sleep. The Source: Alan E. Nourse’s 1957 novel "Rocket to Limbo". The Prediction:
Okay, so maybe mankind won’t perfect faster than light travel by 2008. But what they will do is launch a ship into space towards the nearest star, and expect the doomed astronauts aboard to reproduce and live in their quarters for many generations while it makes its 350-year journey to Alpha Centauri. I mean, how can you go wrong with a prediction that assumes we’re cold-hearted pricks? Accuracy: Shmaccuracy. Yes, predicting that it’ll take a 2008 spaceship 350 years to travel the 4.37 light years to Alpha Centauri is slightly less ridiculous than imagining we’ll be hitting Warp 1, but it still assumes a ship capable of traveling a minimum of four million miles an hour. As I may have already mentioned, that’s about 8 times faster than the fastest human ship, which was a probe, not a giant space hotel with room and facilities enough to keep a little mini-civilization going and (presumably) not resorting to inbreeding. Although I still think the premise that we’d be willing to doom many generations of children to a cold, sterile life in a tin can hurtling through space in exchange for the slim possibility that they’d crash into a star is probably dead on.
The Blue Bomber. The Source: The original 1987 NES Mega Man. The Prediction: In the futuristic year of 2008, battle robots with sophisticated powers like the ability to throw rocks and cut you, led by an evil scientist named after a cartoon coyote, will enslave a neon neo-Tokyo and do battle with a one handed, child-sized robot maid cum supersoldier in blue spandex who can’t duck. Accuracy: I’ve never been to Tokyo, so I can’t really speak to the accuracy of Mega Man’s endless ladder towers and fan-powered clouds swarmed by flying teeth. Judging by some of the pictures I’ve seen online and my fathomless cultural ignorance, I’d believe it. But a robot that can’t duck? Are you kidding me? Even Aibos can kind of hunker down, and they’re barely on the teetering edge of the uncanny valley. If there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that the Japanese wouldn’t let a robot supersoldier step foot out the factory door without six hands, an equal number of depleted uranium-spitting miniguns, and an integrated all-region Toshiba DVD player.
DOCTOR WHO
This is an announcement so huge, that they had to make a pre-announcement announcement first. The BBC will officially announce tomorrow (Saturday) the identity of the actor playing the 11th incarnation of our favorite Time Lord. The favored odds are Paterson Joseph, who would be the first black person to play the character, but that is not certain. The Beeb along with Steven Moffat could pull someone out of their collective behinds who wasn't even on any of the online lists. The mind boggles at the possibilities, but it should be noted here that Steven Moffat has already worked with Paterson Joseph on his mini-series "Jekyll". I have repeatedly said that I would like to see a woman as the Doctor, however I would be equally satisfied with a black actor simply because it would be a sort of Doctor we've never seen before. I comfort myself with the fact that whomever they choose will be nowhere near as good as Colin Baker. Let the debate begin.
GEEK TALK
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ... Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia. The End! Finit! Voila! All done! Merry Christmas, Narnia! Can you imagine a world where "The Chronicles of Narnia" only made it through two installments? Can you imagine no "Dawn Treader", or "Silver Chairs", or "Horses", or "Nephews", or "The Last Battle"? It's come to be, at least where Disney and Walden Media are concerned. The Hollywood Reporter posts that the companies have chosen to not co-produce and finance the next Narnia installment ("The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"), citing "budgetary and logistical reasons." (And also declining to elaborate on these reasons.) The plan was to get the film in production soon, to be released in May of 2010. But without a company and deep pockets to finance the fantasy, there's a decent chance that this will all go up in smoke. The key cast were attached to the third installment, but there's no telling if they'll wait around for a new bank. However, Walden does plan to shop the film around in hopes of finding someone willing to fork over the money. I imagine that it will be a pretty hard sell -- the second only pulled in close to half what The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe pulled in, so it's far from a sure bet, box office-wise. Are you happy with the news? Is this the chance for someone else to bring the franchise more critical acclaim? The chance for the adaptations to die and fade away? Will the MPAA just mislabel it anyway?
CHECK OUT MY PHRIENDS
Hope you're enjoying the Peverett Phile Interviews. Don't forget to keep check out my new phriends websites and stuff.
myspace.com/jillwagner
myspace.com/amandamarshmusic
proaudioband.com
myspace.com/jeffcameronsingsagain
3Kisses.com
geoffsteinproject.com
webbwilder.com
proaudio.com
myspace.com/jeffcameronsingsagain
3kisses.com
myspace.com/fogdanboogie
PHINALLY
Well, that's it for another entry of the Phile, the phirst for 2009. The next normal post will be next Thursday, January 8th, the Phile's third anniversary! But, before then, the next Peverett Phile Interview will be tomorrow with Martin Stephenson from Martin Stephenson and the Daintes, a British rock/folk/pop band combining elements of "rockabilly, show tunes, rootsy pop, straight-ahead rock and punk". Then on Sunday it's singer Lateisha Lynn, on Monday it's the really famous Dexter Romweber, Tuesday we'll have actress, comedian Charleyne Yi. So, there's a lot of stuff happening, so always spread the word, not the turd. Peace.
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