Ah, but first....

Someone requested an XTC puppet show? No?

Well here it is, anyway:

If Mommy or Daddy are in the Nat'l Guard

The Guard would be happy to flatten 'em for ya.

Rather a sad note to start the weekend on, but I, to quote Heidi Klum, am aut.

Auf wiedersehen!

Followup: CRACKED

Funnyboy Michael Ian Black has been named Editor-at-large for CRACKED magazine.

Why they shouldn't let dorks on planes

I played WoW, I became a terrorist (WoW is "World of Warcraft," an online game, for those blissfully unaware).

Of course, you don't have to drop an electronic device in the John to be branded a terrorist -- you can simply wear the wrong t-shirt.

Kinkade-gate!

The L.A. Times reports that Thomas Kinkade, the so-called Painter of Light, is under investigation by the FBI. Among other things, Kinkade may have used his Christian faith to induce the unwitting into opening Kinkade galleries.

Kinkade denies all allegations, and the investigation, as they say, continues.

The most frightening infographic ever

For homeowners, anyway. Urk.

Bad Album Covers Art

Two great Flickr sets.

George Bush: Biggest threat to American Democracy, ever

I haven't done much political blogging because, well, it's all just gone so horribly pear-shaped that it hardly seems worth talking about anymore. If the Dems can take back the House in the mid-terms, I'll have some hope. But here's a great reminder of everything Bush has done to undermine everything good about America.

The drummer on "My Sharona" is no longer with us

Former Knack drummer Bruce Gary is dead of cancer at age of 55.

Shooting squirrels

Having recently witnessed European tourists taking pictures of squirrels in Montreal and New York as if they had sighted Bigfoot, I cannot resist linking to this, which features the rat-like creatures getting on the other side of the camera.

Katherine Harris is nuts

She thinks the separation of church and state is "that lie we have been told," and that "God is the one who chooses our rulers."

What a country.

Slo-Mo Home Depot

Stuff like this tickles me. More people should do things like this for my amusement.

Also, I like pancakes:

Colbert, Jedi knight

Watch this at YouTube. Then watch this. Then imagine how much better the recent "Star Wars" movies would have been if Stephen Colbert had been in the cast.

Living with war on a bad day

Neil Young takes the "fake news" route for his new "Living with War" video. It's good, though R.E.M. did the same thing with "Bad Day" a couple of years back.

DULLARD TAKE: The R.E.M. clip gets a boost by having Michael Stipe as the anchor and Mike Mills as the weatherman, but "Bad Day" is a second-rate "It's the End of the World As We Know It." Thus, Young prevails on the strength of the music.

'For Better' the Best?

This is redonkulus. I've never met anyone who even likes For Better or For Worse. It's Canadian for chrissakes. I'll take Henry over FBoFW any day. Hell, I'll take Funky Winkerbean over the tedious travails of Lynn Johnston's family of moon-faced Canucks.

Best comic currently running: Mutts. The meticulous drawing and inventive layouts more than make up for the frequent lack of actual jokes. Honorable mentions to Doonesbury for remaining relevant and even touching after 30-odd years, and to Get Fuzzy for being reliably funny, if odd-looking. I also kinda like Frazz, for some indefensible reason.

Best of all-time honors go to the unblemished jewel that was Calvin & Hobbes's 10 year run. There'd be no C&H without Peanuts, which was truly wonderful in its heyday, but didn't finish strongly. Old collections of Pogo are worth picking up, as well. And I also have an odd and abiding affection for Skeezix & co. over in Gasoline Alley.

Not making the grade: Dilbert and Boondocks both started strong but lost energy and direction after the first 3 years or so. The ever-popular Bloom County always seemed a little too directly "inspired" by Doonesbury and Douglas Adams for my taste, and someone needs to put Opus out of its misery, stat. Mallard Fillmore should be nuked while you're at it, as well, along with the usual suspects like Cathy and Garfield.

Pioneer Award: You have to give it up for Wil Eisner's Spirit, which had a huge impact on every comic book artist worth a darn.

Online Comic Award: Achewood, what else?

Single Panel Award: The Far Side (Sorry, Family Circus!)

Most in Need of Reviving, Preferably by Warren Ellis: The Outbursts of Everett True

Urk. I knew I was a funnybook geek, but didn't realize I cared so much about the dailies!

Scarborough: Is Bush an idiot?

Wow. Bush has lost Joe Scarborough.

Bush's crib sheet

Bob Harris takes a look at Bush's podium notes from Monday's exceptionally bad press conference -- the one where he claimed his administration never said Saddam and 9/11 were related.

Secretary of State Xenu?!?

Why was Richard Armitage of the State Department meeting with Tom Cruise and other Church of Scientology "leaders" as shown here?

F4 Phantom jet hitting a concrete wall @ 500 mph

Wow. That blowed up real good! Worth keeping in mind when conspiracy theorists question what happened to the remains of the plane that hit the Pentagon.

LISTS: The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s

Pitchfork has a slightly idiosyncratic, but thought-provoking rundown of the best 60s singles. I think there needs to be more Beatles, Kinks, and Smokey Robinson on there, but that's just me.

Hurricane Spike

Spike Lee takes a hard look at Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in a four-hour documentary that begins Monday on HBO.

Now is as good a time as any to restate our case for the removal of Michael Chertoff as head of Homeland Security. This Dullard editorial from earlier this year still stands.

Local reporter ambushes stars at premiere

"Hey, do you like Bruno Kirby? Yeah, well he's dead."

Classy.

Jenny McCarthy is nuts

And her Crystal child is much, much more special than yours.

Kraken art!

This ancient Peruvian headdress, a bizarre hybrid of human, feline and kraken, has been recovered from a London law firm's closet. It looks like something H.P. Lovecraft would have created, and my money says the tentacles come to life at midnight and rip people's eyes out.

Wear it at your own risk.

What the hell are YOU lookin' at!?

Cracked redux

Cracked magazine, the poor kid's Mad, is back. The relaunch includes a site that looks like a blend of The Onion and Fark.

Easily one of the best bands named after a marital aid

Steely Dan is on tour, and obviously have a lot of time on their hands. They have some good career advice and a few song ideas for Wes Anderson, including perhaps the best Dan lyric ever:

Cause baby every single time I'm with you
I'd like to have as many arms as Vishnu

Dispepsia: the real Real Thing

Kurt Vonnegut is not in a good mood.

Dell's burning sensation

Computer maker Dell is recalling more than 4 million lithium-ion batteries over concerns that they can cause laptops such as this one to burst into flames.

KEY BEAVIS QUOTE: "Fire fire fire."

Ghost Town @ the Cinema Bar this Wednesday

Ghost Town is playing a FREE show
this coming Wednesday at the Cinema Bar in Culver City. The fabulous Dafni is kicking off the evening at 9, Ghost Town plays around 10, and Jason Mandell will close the evening at 11.

We haven't played out in months, and we're raring to go with some new material, so come on out!

The Cinema Bar
3967 Sepulveda Blvd, Culver City
Wed, Aug 16
9 pm

Cool things about being married #1756

• Discovering your wife has the Sex Pistols on her iPod.

Bond and Borat

The latest Entertainment Weekly has a good profile of Daniel Craig, the new James Bond in the upcoming origin story "Casino Royale." As discussed here earlier, Craig is a controversial pick as 007. The mag also has a Q&A with Borat, whose movie also opens in November.

Squirrel terrorizes Central Florida!

An angry rodent menaces humans in downtown Winter Park. The creature was apparently not rabid, however, just plain mean.

KEY QUOTE: "They will come after you for something to eat."

Bourdain's Beirut footage to air this month

Should be an interesting show.

Mac vs. Windows

The NYT weighs in on the endless debate.

DULLARD TAKE: We switched to a Mac nearly a year ago and are pleased overall. Now it's time to replace our decrepit Dell laptop. Should we go all Mac all the time, or do we have a Windows laptop around just in case? Yes, the new Macs can in theory run Windows, but it seems complicated.

'Curb Your Enthusiasm' to Return

That season 5 finale seemed pretty...final...but if anyone can make hay out of beating a dead horse I guess it'd be Larry David (and yes, I'm proud of that scrambled metaphor, so there).

Cataract surgery: not as fun as expected

In fact, it had me longing for the happy, care-free days of Lasik surgery. But it's done now, and I can more or less see with binocular vision for the first time in months. My left eye is still a bit swollen from the surgery, and I still need one last round of Lasik on it to correct my astigmatism -- but I have a genuinely usable lens in it now. Pretty cool.

I Was a Junket Whore

If you've ever wondered what goes on at a studio press junket, wonder no more.

Evil Androids unplugged

The sci-fi site Evil Androids calls it quits, for reasons explained here. We will miss you, Gort!

Manatee menaces Manhattan!

The ungainly sea creature, usually a denizen of the waters of Florida, swims up the Hudson.

LISTS: What to play after 'I do'

A British site offers a list of popular songs played at wedding receptions. There's plenty of cheese ("Hello" by Lionel Richie), some guilty pleasures ("The Lady in Red" by Chris DeBurgh) and some really clever choices ("You're the Best Thing" by Style Council). And yes, there are tracks that really make no sense to play at a wedding ("Nothing Compares 2 U" by Sinead O'Connor).

Here's something you didn't need to know.

Sorry. Why should I suffer alone?

Lasik surgery will freak your sh!t out.

People like to re-assure you about how non-invasive Lasik is.

These people are lying. They are not your friends.

First you are flat on your back while the Robotron6000 sucks on your eyeball and turns your cornea into bubble-wrap.

After a half hour or so to give you time to confess all your mortal sins, Doctor Mengele straps you to a different table and tears the perforated sheet that is your cornea. Peeling it back so that the SharksWirthLaserBeams7000 can make a little lightshow in your eye socket, presumably burning out just the right bits of cornea to correct your vision, as long as you manage to REMAIN CALM, JUST BREATHE, AND FOR GOD'S SAKE KEEP FOCUSED ON THE BLINKING RED LIGHT. Finally Doctor Evil puts the corneal flap back down and bastes it with butter until it stops quivering.

It's only a total of about 20 minutes of terror, spread out over 2 hours. You think, "Oh, Valium, this will be fun." But the Valium only staves off the terror a bit. No flying poodles, dammit.

Man, I'm glad that's over.

Until Monday, when they replace the lens in my left eye.

Oh, and then 3-4 weeks later, when I get to have the Lasik again, on my left eye.

(Seriously, though, the vision in my right eye, apart from the haloing [which should subside] is already sharper at a distance than it has been in 30 years, even with glasses. And my doctor and his staff have been really great. They even offered me a teddy bear to squeeze while the Robotron6000 sucked on my eyeball; I don't think I would have made it through without the help of dear Captain Snuggles.)

What would Hawkeye say?

Probably something pretty similar to MASH scribe Larry Gelbart's rant in the Huffington Post.

I'm off for LASIK surgery in my right eye, so I'll leave the blogging to others until tomorrow or Friday.

A Connecticut maverick in King Colbert's court

Senate candidate Ned Lamont met a true test this week: an interview with Stephen Colbert. The Connecticut challenger to Joe Lieberman more than held his own against his inquisitor, as you can see in the clip on YouTube.

Lamont might actually be the best interview on "The Colbert Report" so far. He was witty and articulate, willing to go along with the twisted questioning from Colbert while realizing that he is the straight man and his host is the funnyman. Interview subjects who try to out-Colbert the host always fall flat on their faces. Lamont didn't do that.

Lieberman apparently is too craven to appear on "The Report" — another indicator that he is out of touch.

Months with an 'R', people

This is why oysters really are a seasonal food, despite being available at most restaurants year-round. The simple mnemonic for remembering when you can eat oysters: months with an "R' in them, which is September through April (though, with Al Gore heating up the planet and all, you may be more comfortable pushing that start date back a month or two).