Dick Clark isn't dead, because Dick Clark can't die. They just ran into some temporary problems during a scheduled reboot.

Most men will spend years, sometimes even decades, convincing their ladies to perform outré sexual acts.

As for me, it was trying to convince my wife to watch a DVD...with the commentary turned on.

So, as of Thursday night, success! We both thoroughly enjoyed Aliens, with has a nice 'blended' commentary track, involving Jimmy Cameron himself, ex-wife and producer Gale Ann Hurd, the venerable Stan Winston, along with a couple of FX leads, and rounded off by a quartet of Colonial Marines.

Sadly, no Sigourney Weaver, but honestly, she wasn't missed. On a related note, someone needs to give Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen their own podcast. Great energy from those three.

After almost 7 long, painful years, my quest seems to be finally at an end.

In another couple weeks, I will finally be unemployed.

Sadly, that state of affiars won't last long, nor to my liking. I was hoping to find a nice boring regular job type job, or perhaps even consider staying home and be a domestic goddess, but it seems I've become far too valuable for that.

Which is a shame. I always took a certain amount of pride and happiness in being a regular working schlub, and well, I miss not having that, nor the future possibilty of it happening again.

Little Erick, in the throes of almost year-long deep depression, asks this question:

Have conservatives entered a suicide pact? Has the Republican Party, as a whole, done the same?

Yes, Erick, you have. This is what happens when you spend decades paying lip service to fundamentalism and oligarchy. This is what happens when you think labeling at least half your countrymen as traitors and subhumans is good strategy. This is what happens when you switch to the alternative fuels of hate and fear without doing any of that icky science beforehand to see if it was even a good idea in the first place.

And it's not like you haven't been warned, by no less than the people who originated some of these modern GOP tactics and strategies, that this would end up biting you in the ass. But since you've spent most of the last 40 years winning, you ignored it. But what you need to do, once you get your asses handed to you next year in an election that was only ever yours to lose, is sit the fuck down and do nothing else but some really hard thinking and soul searching, because shit like this

We do not have anyone on our side making the moral case for the free market.

The problem is that candidate, Jon Huntsman, decided to launch his campaign by giving conservatives a middle finger as he raced to get on The View.

we would be crazy not to reconsider Perry

It is hard to dislike a guy who can filet his opponent with a smile and a side of fava beans and a nice chianti.

...shows that you have zero clue of what the problems you're facing are.

Link is NSFW: http://www.moronail.net/img/15045_im-the-man

However, they did get something wrong. When I carry the groceries in toto, I do not need my entire arm, let alone both of them. One hand suffices. After all, I need the other hand free to get my keys and unlock the door.

Long time, no write. But I've been a good boy this year, kept my mouth shut and my ass out of trouble. So what I really, really, really want for Christmas this year is for Newt Gingrich to win the New Hampshire primary. The margin doesn't matter so long as he comes out on top after the voting.

Yours in Coca-Cola,

Captain Splendid

Karl Rove just dickpunched Herman Cain so hard, he's now a eunuch. Guess It'll be Romney/Rubio then.

Strange memories on this nervous night on Wall Street. One year later? Two? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era - the kind of peak that never comes again. America in the late aughts was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or slogans or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . . History is hard to know, because of all the MSM bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a big clash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time - and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened. My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty mornings- or very early afternoons - when I left the Protest completely crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big GMC Canyon through Georgetown at thirty miles an hour wearing Wrangler jeans and a short-sleeve button-down shirt . . . booming down Canal Road at the sights of Arlington and Fairfax and Chesapeake, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too bewildered to find park while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as cranky and set in their ways as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . . There was safety in any direction, at any hour. If not across the river, then up to Bethesda or down US1 to Mt. Vernon or Cherry Hill. . . . You could find comfort anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . . And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Youth and Progressivism. Not in any mean or military sense; we didnâ(TM)t need that. Our righteousness would simply prevail. There was no point in arguingâ" on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . . So now, less than two years later, you can go up on a steep hill in New Jersey and look South, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

As best as I can tell, the reactions to the Netflix/Qwikster split from both users and analysts seems to be mostly negative, with a strong dash of incomprehension. The three legitimate complaints that stand out for me are the separation of customer info databases between the two companies, the feeling of being "abandoned" by Netflix to a new company (as the service is still DVD user heavy), and last but certainly not least, diminishing content.

The first issue is frankly the most bogus of charges. For starters, if they'd announced close integration, the privacy brigade would be howling about this. This was a decision where they could not score a complete win no matter what they did. Second, be honest with yourself: How many times over the last ten years have you entered your name, your address, tweaked preferences, checked boxes, rated an app/pic/post/movie/song, customized an interface, uploaded content? We human monkeys have no problem pushing buttons, expressing ourselves and putting up with abuse. Just toss those extra clicks on the pile with the rest. Hell, if the interface is interesting enough, you'll get reams of social media articles written about you!

As for the second charge, there's not much to say, really. Assuming Qwikster can continue the kind of service Netflix got rich on, I predict at least another decade of at least solid business. I understand there's been a price hike, but I'm sure a lot of money was spent number-crunching it to optimum perfection. This really is non-issue. Sure, competitors are sure to show an increase in new signups, but again, they'll have anticipated this.

What this does is allows Netflix to hopefully exist forever as one of the primary media-delivery services on the planet. The simple truth is that broadband is cheap, and getting cheaper, and the complaint that the majority of customers still rely on the DVD plan means nothing when Netflix has a business that will grow its customer base constantly for over the next 25 years. And this is why I don't understand all the gloom and doom. This is textbook Successful Spinoff. This is exactly as smart as the WB/AOL merger was dumb.

Assuming that the studios don't bite them in the ass first. Not only is there the incentive for producers to share as little of the pie as possible, they've also spent a lot of time and money over the last 10 years trying to decree what exactly can be done with their product. That ongoing quest for control is Netflix' biggest enemy, and, of the three gripes I listed, this is the only one I expect to be still hearing about 6 months from now. The only logical conclusion is that they're looking at the iTunes Store for inspiration and hoping their algorithm and streaming tech is indeed a better mousetrap.

Answer: Because they're gay.