Category: Entertainment

St. Patrick’s Day Trivia — II

pub-483944_1280It takes more than a green t-shirt and a belly full of beer to make you Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.  Well, no.  Actually, it doesn’t.  However, if you want to appear to be more than just a Liam-come-lately to the party, you need to know a little bit about the Emerald Isle.  Here are a few quick and dirties to help you out:

“I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen,” that great Irish ballad, was written in Indiana by Thomas Westendorf, a German-American (whose wife’s name, BTW, was Jennie.)

The O’Connell Bridge across the River Liffey is the only bridge in Europe that’s wider than it is long.

The windmills in Ireland turn clockwise, which is exactly the opposite of the way they turn everyplace else on the planet.

What’s the difference between Bono and God?  God doesn’t walk around acting as if he’s Bono.

There are two official languages in Ireland: English and Irish.  Most stuff is bilingual and everybody speaks English, but if you act like a jackass, especially in the West Country, you might find yourself facing a solid wall of no comprendo Gaelic.  Just sayin’.

The Guinness Book of World Records holds the Guinness World Record for books most often stolen from public libraries.

In Dublin, between 6 pm Friday and 3 am Monday, approximately 10,000 pints of beer are consumed — every hour.

The remains of St Valentine (who isn’t a saint, anymore)are in Ireland.  You can visit the shrine at Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin.

And speaking of saints, Saint Patrick isn’t one.  There is no evidence that St. Patrick was ever canonized.

And, hold on to your shillelagh: Saint Patrick wasn’t even Irish!  In fact, chances are good, he was — OMG — English.

A word to the wise though: don’t go spouting those last two nuggets of knowledge promiscuously around the pub.  It just might put the ire in your Irish friends — permanently.  As my great uncle used to say, “You never want to give a Celt an opportunity to hate you.”  Sound advice.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

The “Unreal” World of TV Ads

adsI love commercials.  I think TV ads are cute, little, itty bitty movies.  So it doesn’t bother me that, for the most part, they’re lying to us.  Look, folks!  Like Skyfall, Terminator and Iron Man, they’re fiction.  Sit back and enjoy the show.

The thing that I don’t understand, though, is how TV commercials ever actually SELL anything.  The ads all exist in these weird-ass Never-Never-Land dystopias that can’t be a good idea to showcase the product.  For example:

Household Cleaners – The houses in these ads are filthy.  They’re disgusting.  Who lives there — trolls?  The furniture and floors look the family pet is a buffalo.  The kitchens are the greasiest, greasy combination of greasy-spoon diner and salmonella experiment known to humanity.  And the bathrooms!  OMG!  They’re covered in so much crud Gollum wouldn’t poop in there.  Even the worst hillbillies I know don’t live like that.  If you live in this kind of squalor, you don’t need “Extra-Strength” anything to clean it up; you need a match to burn it down before the Health Department shows up and does it for you.

Feminine Hygiene – Menstruating women are not that happy.  They just aren’t.  And if they do smile, it’s a lot more evil looking than in the ads.  It’s not a good idea to remind women of this.

Automobiles – Everybody knows the internal combustion engine is a dick to the environment and car ads prove it.  First they drive the SUV through a stream turning the fish habitat into mud pies.  Then, it’s up the mountain, in a 4-wheel-drive rampage to catch the sunset from the summit.  Perfect view!  Except they parked their three tons of automotive junk on a hundred-year-old lichen that just got its endangered species life smeared into the tread of an all-season radial.  Yeah, we’re not destroying our planet fast enough.  I want one of those.

Drugs – I don’t care what wonders the newest wonder drug does, the “side effects” litany scares the hell out of me.  Honestly, “may cause dry mouth, tremors, depression, heart attack, vomiting, internal bleeding, external bleeding, massive bleeding and your tongue’s going fall out” leaves me a little reluctant to try taking it for occasional arthritis pain.

Condiments (ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise etc.) – Nobody puts that much mayo on a sandwich.  It’s like they’re painting a barn — with a trowel.  The bread would be slimy, for God’s sake.  And take one bite and you’d have white crap shooting up your nose, down your chin and all over the room.  You’d look like a werewolf who just murdered an albino.

Snack Food – I don’t know anybody who delicately puts one potato chip on their tongue like it’s a communion wafer.  Nor have I ever seen anybody put chocolate in their mouth and suck it to death.  Nobody chews in slow motion, and not one person — ever! — eats just one cookie. Honestly, if people ate snack food like they do in the ads, they wouldn’t eat snack food at all — why bother?

And finally Yogurt – I can only dream that someday someone will look at me the way all women in advertisements look at yogurt.  There’s no possible way they’re not totally disappointed.

Harrison Ford, You Ignorant Slut!

Harrison-FordI like Harrison Ford.  He might not be the best actor on the planet but when you’ve been Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Jack Ryan and Rick Deckard, all in one lifetime, do you really need to play Hamlet?  I don’t think so!   The problem is, lately, Harrison Ford has been missing a few rungs on the credibility ladder and he’s about to pull a Peter Pan and freefall into jackass territory.

I was willing to forgive Ford one last hurrah in Indiana Jones VS The Crystal Aliens — or whatever.   Okay, the movie was bad — all the way from Shia LaBeouf to flying CGI monkeys .  There were too many gophers, not enough plot, character or development and, no, you can’t escape nuclear annihilation by hiding in your refrigerator.  But, it was still Indiana Jones, with, I might add, Cate Blanchett as the villain, and OMG that’s Marion Ravenwood!  So, I ate my popcorn and shut my mouth.

Fast forward to George Lucas selling out Star Wars (where have we heard that before?) and the new owner, Disney, cashing in on the biggest cash cow since the mouse himself with yet another Star Wars movie.  Big problem!

The original Star Wars was released nearly forty years ago — it’s twice as old as half the people on earth — and, ladies and gentlemen, so are the cast and crew.  Yet word around the campfire is Han Solo and company are coming out of the Seniors’ Facility on Naboo to help propel a new generation of Star Warriors into battle.  Has Disney gone nuts?  These people were grandparents a generation ago.  Luke and Leia are using The Force for regularity, and Chewbacca has a walker, if he can move at all.  But let’s take a reality check.  Last year, Harrison Ford (aka Han) stumbled over a movie set and broke his leg and just recently he crashed his plane into a golf course in Santa Monica.  Are we expected to believe this guy can still pilot the Millennium Falcon?  At my house, we don’t even let Grampy play with the remote control.  Still, I’m an optimist, so, despite the problems, I’m taking a wait and see attitude.

Now here’s where the bike helmet hits the highway.  They’re making a sequel to Blade Runner.  Blade Runner?  Just a damn minute!  Ridley Scott, if you want to poop on the legacy of an entire generation, go someplace else and do it.  You’re getting as bad as George Lucas, for God’s sake.  But that isn’t the worst of it.  They’re resurrecting Harrison Ford to play Rick Deckard and Ford has agreed to do it.  In the 21st century, integrity isn’t even a word anymore.

I’m done.  Ford, look at yourself.  Aren’t you the least bit embarrassed by what you’re becoming?  What next?  American Graffiti: The Retirement Years