"Dimsdale!"

Yes, it's another joke image from Daily Kos, but it's delightfully Pythonesque:

A monolith of my very own!

Several weeks ago, Mrs. Mosley and I went shopping for a new dinning room table. While the furniture store guy was filling out the paperwork, Mrs. Mosley asked about large cabinet-type furniture with shelves and drawers inside. The guy showed us a few things in the catalog that we dismissed for one reason or another. When he asked what we would be using it for, she told him it would be for LEGO storage.

The resulting double take he performed was priceless.

In the end, he showed us an armoire that was marked down. This monster was 45 inches wide, 23 inches deep and 83 inches tall. It was solidly made and attractive, which was important since Mrs. Mosley didn't want a crappy pressboard cabinet from Target in the same room as her new thousand dollar dining table. So, we bought it.

It was delivered a week ago Saturday, but that was only the beginning. All my LEGO had to be resorted into new containers that went into the armoire. A total of 31 containers were purchased from Tuesday Morning, K-Mart, Lowes and the local Dollar Store. After about a week of sorting, it was complete. Here they are laid out on the aforementioned new dinning room table:




And here they are snug in the new cabinet.


There was even room left over (the bottom left three drawers) to let Mrs. Mosley have for... whatever. Anyway, that's pretty much my Birthday present for next month, and a swell present it is, too. To paraphrase Doc Brown, if you're going to store LEGO, you might as well do it in style!

"Is that Your answer, Old Man? I guess You're a hard case, too."

Brick, Eddie, Chance, Hud, Luke, Butch, Henry, Sidney, John, and finally, Doc.

Even the Pixar folks could never have matched those blue eyes.

Rest in Peace.

"Wait a minute. There's a bit in here about money lenders somewhere..."

You know what I love about the current economic crisis? Religious fundamentalists have nothing to do with it.

On pretty much every other issue debated between Democrats and Republicans, the Moral Majority has their two cents to throw in. There are, of course, the obvious issues such as abortion, gay rights and stem cell reserach. Then there are the murkier ones like the War on Terrorism, where they have framed it not as a war against individual extremists but against an entire religion.

Even with something like saving the environment, which should be a no-brainer, cross pollination occurs and Republican interests (i.e. Big Business) affects the Christian views instead of the other way around. It's not like they needed a huge amount of convincing, though. Democrats are for saving the environment, my brothers and sisters. What more proof do you need that it must be evil?

But the economy, well, that's where the religious fundamentalist Republicans take a step back and the fiscal conservative Republicans (you know, the smart ones) come forward. And wouldn't you know this looks like maybe the first time in forever where both parties will work together against a problem and find a mutually agreed upon solution that will benefit the entire nation.

That can't be a coincidence, folks.

Cue the Strauss

"What's Alonzo up to?" you may be asking. Well, I'm not ready to reveal that yet, but I will give you a cinema-flavored hint as to what's to come:

"Sounds like a punk band. Are they good?"

Go watch the game in his one house.

I've been seeing this story all morning:

Poll: Obama tops McCain as football-watching buddy

It's all very silly, and reminds me of the ridiculousness in 2004 about Bush being a better drinking buddy than Kerry (which was perfectly skewered by the Onion a year later).

But if nothing else, this proves that a majority of the population isn't buying all that "Elite" BS that the GOP continues to peddle.

It would be kinda depressing to do the first one again.

This is a news graphic appearing on the CNN page right now:



There should be a subtitle that reads: Not that one, but the other one.

(R)eckless (R)omantics

Once again from Daily Kos, and it's importance mandate that I post it in it's entirety:

Wick Allison, current editor-in-chief of D (Dallas) Magazine:

In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the conservative intellectual revival in America. Twenty years later, I was invited by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of National Review. I later became its publisher [...]

[T]oday it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don't work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his "conservative" credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask.

Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world "safe for democracy." It is John McCain who says America’s job is to "defeat evil," a theological expansion of the nation’s mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth.

This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse.

That is, in a nutshell, the conservative argument against Bush/McCain. Elegantly done so, but he's not the first to make this case. But Allison then does something I had yet to see -- make the conservative argument for Obama:

I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.

Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.

"Every great cause," Eric Hoffer wrote, "begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." As a cause, conservatism may be dead. But as a stance, as a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world, I believe it is very much alive in the instincts and predispositions of a liberal named Barack Obama.

How can Allison claim Obama has a "deeply conservative view of the world"? Because of his definition of "conservatism":

Conservatives are skeptical of abstract theories and utopian schemes, doubtful that government is wiser than its citizens, and always ready to test any political program against actual results.

That's a romanticized definition, no doubt, but one I had embraced in my Republican years. My break with the Right came when 1) it was hijacked by cultural conservatives, attempting to impose their theocratic abstract theories and utopian schemes on society at large, and 2) when that "skepticism" over solutions to our problems manifested as outright hostility to change. In other words, I'm not afraid to try new solutions to our problems even if those solutions sometimes involve the government. Skepticism is healthy, and a demand for accountability is crucial, but being paralyzed in fear of change does nothing but impede progress.

Modern conservatives have long abandoned Allison's definition. As he states clearly, Republicans are now the party of "abstract theories and utopian schemes". Witness the failure of deregulation currently costing taxpayers tens of billions and financially destroying countless people, or the failure of utopian schemes to "defeat evil" around the world, costing us thousands dead and closing on a trillion taxpayer dollars. Yet Republicans shrug off the painful lessons and insist on staying the course. The results are irrelevant, their ideology trumps all.

Remember, conservatism can't fail, only people can fail conservatism.

But when you get past ideological blinders, it's clear that modern-day conservatism has utterly failed. If reality-based conservatives want to claim Obama's pragmatism and realism are "conservative", then all the power to them. We should embrace them with open arms.

"And in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them."

Via Daily Kos:

"The Essentials"

Wondermark has been listening to my conversations with Mrs. Mosley, I see:

Tom Waits' Singapore featuring Jack Sparrow

I'd been wanting to do this one since the third movie came out. To my old friend "Blondebeard", this is for you:

I wonder if Besancon is nice this time of year?

As some of you might have already guessed, "Mosley" isn't my real last name. However, I did put in my actual surname in something called the World Names Profiler (via Neatorama). Here's the breakdown it gave me:


Some interesting stuff, here. I had originally thought my name to be more German, but there appears to be twice as many in Austria. And then when we get into specific regions, neither Germany or Austria is in the top but ten, but two regions from France are (Though Alsace is right on the German border).

And then there are the names. I can't say that any of these came up in baby name conversations with Mrs. Mosley, but now I'm going to have to seriously consider "Jas".



Just kidding, hon.

Five best movies adapted from unusul sources:

Best movie based on a board game - Clue


Best movie based on a theme park ride - Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl


Best movie based on characters created on Saturday Night Live - The Blue Brothers


Best movie based on a record album - Pink Floyd's The Wall


Best movie based on a video game - Yeah, we're still waiting on that one.

For those of you as nervous as I am:

Thanks to Defective Yeti for posting this.

Whither, Brian Atene?

About a week ago, Brian Atene deleted his YouTube account. This is at least the third time he's done so, and I can only assume his reason for doing so now is the same as it was then: A bout of melancholy in regards to his life and his fifteen minutes of fame.

For those unfamiliar with Atene and his fifteen minutes, here's the backstory. I myself was intrigued by the man. I watched his videos regularly, commented on them, and as recently as several months ago reassured him that a number of his subscribers and fans were there because we liked him. We were most assuredly laughing with him, not at him.

But I imagine there were others that were not as kind, and that's what probably got to him. The video that started it all reminded him of his young aspirations. Those aspirations came to naught, as he detailed in further videos his life as a "professional waiter". But perhaps worse than the abandoned career plans was the fact that many who watched the video would believe his failure was a result of an abysmal lack of talent rather than, like a lot of actors, just not catching the right breaks.

I hope he's OK (he joked about suicide in one video while rattling a full bottle of nembutals). I'll keep looking for him every now and then to see if he's changed his mind once more.

Stay Gold, Brian.

Well, Stephen Hawking would have laughed!

A Riddle I thought of in the car yesterday:

Why did all the houseplants attack the Dust Buster?









Because nature abhors a vacuum.

The Jaguars make The Onion

Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

The "Centennial" List

1901 The Shootist
1902 The Thin Man
1903 Jumanji
1904 The Shipping News
1905 Good Will Hunting
1906 Fast Times At Ridgemont High
1907 The Shining
1908 Back to the Future 3
1909 Ghostbusters
1910 Mary Poppins
1911 What's Up Doc?
1912 Titanic
1913 Out Of Africa
1914 Avalon
1915 Cider House Rules
1916 Hellboy
1917 The Manchurian Candidate
1918 Anastasia
1919 Godfather II
1920 Grand Hotel
1921 The Parent Trap
1922 Ghost World
1923 The Maltese Falcon
1924 The Cat's Meow
1925 The Majestic
1926 Awakenings
1927 Singin' in the Rain
1928 Phenomenon
1929 Air Force
1930 Wag the Dog
1931 Road to Perdition
1932 Fried Green Tomatoes
1933 Rosemary's Baby
1934 Victor Victoria
1935 The Green Mile
1936 The Rock
1937 Marty
1938 Star Trek VI
1939 Rear Window
1940 A Bridge To Far
1941 Casablanca
1942 Smoke
1943 The Philadelphia Experiment
1944 My Own Private Idaho
1945 Jaws
1946 Dr. Strangelove
1947 Ratatouille
1948 Being There
1949 X-Men
1950 Network
1951 Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1952 Requiem For A Heavyweight
1953 L.A. Confidential
1954 Raising Arizona
1955 Back to the Future
1956 Breakfast at Tiffany's
1957 They Live
1958 No Country For Old Men
1959 Capote
1960 American Splendor
1961 Ferris Bueller's Day Off
1962 Friday the 13th
1963 JFK
1964 My Cousin Vinny
1965 The Apartment
1966 Wonder Boys
1967 Austin Powers
1968 A Mighty Wind
1969 Oh, God!
1970 Ed Wood
1971 All The President's Men
1972 Clueless
1973 Used Cars
1974 Almost Famous
1975 Annie Hall
1976 Heat
1977 Men in Black
1978 Trainspotting
1979 Hot Fuzz
1980 American Psycho
1981 Silence of the Lambs
1982 This is Spinal Tap
1983 High Fidelity
1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four
1985 Back to the Future 2
1986 Flight of the Navigator
1987 O Brother, Where Art Thou?
1988 Rain Man
1989 Dogma
1990 12 Monkeys
1991 Michael Clayton
1992 Sideways
1993 The Wedding Singer
1994 Traffic
1995 Toy Story 2
1996 Star Trek 2
1997 Terminator 2
1998 Death Race 2000
1999 The Matrix
2000 Office Space

"100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers: The Centennial Edition"

Well, here it is: My inevitable sequel to "100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers".





List of films to follow.

Thank you, Lisa Nova, for making us laugh at love... again.

As much as Tina Fey looks like Sarah Palin, I should have realized that, with the proper costuming, You Tube superstar Lisa Nova looks even more so.



Her You Tube channel is going to be mandatory viewing for the next two months.

"Come with us we'll sail the Seas of Cheese."

My latest Amazon order arrived yesterday. At $12.99, it works out to about a quarter per movie. Great stuff.

Hitting my home turf, so to speak

Ah, so she's one of those Conservative Christians (via Crooks and Liars):

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

I recall reading somewhere this past weekend an article that described Palin's general appearance as the "Hot Librarian". Well, now we know she's as much related to a real librarian as Rush Limbaugh is to a Peace Corp volunteer.

Bing Crosby: Dangerous Hollywood Liberal

Much thanks to Crooks and Liars for documenting the historical truth of the Pledge of Allegiance. It's nice to see a political point proved through a scene from a Hollywood classic like The Bells of St. Mary's:

Labor Day Quickie

Headline from MSNBC today:


Good call, because we all know what happens when people act like Republicans.

Giancarlo Esposito Quote of the Month: September 2008

It's amazing how well Bob Roberts has aged since it was first made sixteen years ago. Tim Robbins stars as an opportunistic politician who paints himself as a "rebel" against popular culture and clearly draws a line down the middle of the country for a poisonous "Us vs. Them" mentality. Conservatives lap it up, and Roberts is soon on his way to the top.

In the middle of this is Giancarlo's character Bugs Raplin, an independent journalist who's out to expose Roberts. Because Raplin is a bit scruffy looking and shouts out his questions in a manic tone, the Roberts campaign labels him as some sort of fruitcake. Having created the image of Roberts as the Dylan-esque folk singer patriot, the campaign knows that image is everything.

The scruffy looking rabelrousers of today are, of course, political bloggers, and Republicans are quick to insult these intelligent folks who speak truth to power. And just as how geeks have inherited the earth, bloggers will reign supreme in the long game through their dedication. Bugs, it seems, could have written their mantra:

Bugs Raplin: "If you want the truth in this country, you have to seek it out. You must be vigilant, unrelenting, uncompromising. I will get Bob Roberts. I don't need a gun to do it."