Wednesday, November 30, 2005
You Better Watch Out...
Coming this December on Mentok the Mind-taker...
The Twelve Gags of Christmas
Twelve days in a row of unremitting hilarity and satire aimed at the Western world's most cherished and hypocritical holiday.
You have been warned...
posted by Mentok @ 10:35 p.m.,
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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Potatohead Faces Charges
Ivan Potatohead faces charges of comtempt of court and disturbing the peace after a violent outburst at what should have been a routine commercial court appearance yesterday.
Potatohead is famous world-wide for his self-styled line of toys and his numerous TV and movie appearances. The toy mogul is notorious in business and Hollywood circles for his hot temper and foul language.
Potatohead's lawyers were about to make opening depositions to Judge Patrick O'Reilly of the Los Angeles District Bankruptcy Court when the incident occurred.
"Oh, that's just great! A f_ckin' Mic judge! Like I'm really going to get a fair hearing now," witnesses quote Potatohead as saying.
Potatohead then alledgedly stomped around the court room, throwing papers in the air and kicking over chairs and trash cans. Three baliffs were required to restrain him.
Potatohead's financial woes were worsened recently with the announced bankruptcy of Atkins Nutritionals, makers of the once popular diet products, in which Potatohead held 25 per cent of the publicly traded shares. The capricious media personality has long been a vocal advocate of the Atkins diet.
"Those goddamn PETA, vegan hypocrites keep going on about 'Oh, I won't eat anything that has a face.' Well, I've got a f_ckin' face, don't I, ya weirdo hippy bastards!" Potatohead said in an unaired 2003 Atkins promotional video.
posted by Mentok @ 12:23 p.m.,
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Sunday, November 27, 2005
Klein Launches "Say Something Stupid" Program
Edmonton (FN) - Albertans will now get paid for doing what comes naturally according to the terms of the newly announced Say Something Stupid Program.
Premier Klein said the program is a further effort to deal with the oil-rich province's ballooning budget surplus.
"We've got so much money, we've run out of good ideas on how to spend it. So what the hell, why not just blow it all? That would be a lot better than letting those eastern bastards in the federal government get ahold of it," Klein said.
Under the program, Premier Klein will drive around the province handing out $50 bills to anyone and everyone who comes out with a typically outrageous Albertan comment.
"The 'stupid' part is a bit of a misnomer. We're not just looking for stupid sayings. We're also looking for anything that's redneck, reactionary, intolerant, short-sighted, mean-spirited, self-absorbed or inflammatory," Klein said.
Klein promised that, in addition to receiving the cash payment, the best sayings would be added to his personal repetoire.
Klein rejected suggestions that other Canadians visiting Alberta should be eligible for the cash award.
"Geez, I hadn't thought of that. I guess we'll have to ask for ID or something. This money belongs to Albertans and Albertans only. It was our ancestors who thought ahead and killed all those dinosaurs thousands of years ago so we deserve all this oil money because of our good planning and hard work. I still believe that Canada is the greatest country in the world but other Canadians can just freeze in the dark for all I care," Kleins said.
Elected officials and the editorial staff of the Western Standard magazine are specifically excluded from the program.
"Those guys are already paid for what they do," Klein said.
posted by Mentok @ 8:21 a.m.,
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Friday, November 25, 2005
Newfoundland Rocked By Employment Crisis
 |
| Officials confirmed former Premier Joey Smallwood's body did, in fact, turn over in his grave at news of record-high employment levels. |
Statistics Canada labour force figures released Thursday show the province's unemployment rate in November was 10.2 per cent, the lowest level recorded since Viking times.
Experts believe if the employment numbers are sustained it will cause widespread disruption in the lifestyle of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
"Without sufficient free time at our disposal, our cultural industries will shrivel and die. The crappy tourist knick-knacks industry will be the first to go, but the fiddlin' and jiggin' won't be far behind it. I wouldn't even want to imagine what it will do liquor sales and the hospitality industry," said Andrew Rideout, professor emeritus in the Department of Economics at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN).
"Lord thunderin' Jesus! I forgot all about the MUN. Our dear beloved MUN will be like a ghost town if our students start finding actual jobs," Rideout added.
Premier Danny Williams was quick to point the finger of blame for the looming crisis.
"This is yet another example of the federal government screwing us over. If they hadn't ruined the cod fishery, at least we would still have seasonal unemployment to fall back on. Without the cod, Newfoundlanders have been forced into the humiliation of full-time employment," Williams said.
Until the province's employment crisis is resolved, Williams has ordered all provincial civil servants not to sing O Canada but only to murmur along with the tune, except for the French bits which will be mouthed entirely silently.
-MTMT
posted by Mentok @ 9:30 p.m.,
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Thursday, November 24, 2005
’Freegan’ activists reject consumer waste
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| Yum! Garbage is a taste sensation, say freaks. |
Not bad considering the diners find their food by digging through garbage. They call themselves “freegans,” a play on the words “vegan“— vegetarians who avoid all animal products, including dairy — and “free.” In an ideological rejection of consumer waste, they only eat food that’s been discarded. And in New York City, at least, they never go hungry.
“We find more food than we could ever possibly eat,” said Adam Weissman. Just 24 hours before the dinner party, he found a hefty stash outside a gourmet supermarket in Manhattan: bags of salad nearing the sell-by date, dozens of sandwiches, boxes of Ritz crackers, some nice looking squash and loaves of still-crisp baguettes.
Although not all freegans are vegan, they all eat for free. Weissman said that with few exceptions he has not eaten store-bought food, either at home, in a restaurant or as guest of a friend, in more than 10 years.
Weissman and others say they have mixed feelings about Thanksgiving, which Weissman called “basically a celebration of excess.”
Madeline Nelson, the host of the freegan dinner party who says she recently left a job in corporate communications at a Fortune 500 company, says she’s concerned about holiday over-consumption.
“We are heading into wasting season,” said Nelson, who’s serving a semi-freegan Thanksgiving dinner to her family, including her 83-year-old father...
Weissman runs a Web site for the freegan community, offering practical tips, like which city’s trash bins yield the best treats in places from Vancouver to Cincinnati.
For instance, the Giant Gourmet Farmers’ Market in Hackensack, N.J., is a “gold mine,” according to the site. But get there early to avoid sifting through discarded fish...
“People have this image of looking into a Dumpster and seeing slimy garbage, but that’s just not the case,” he said. “At the same time, food poisoning is no joke, so you have to be careful.”
- 30 -
[Source: Associated Press, Desmond Butler, November 24, 2005]
Just when you thought the vegan, PETA, Michael Moore crowd couldn't get any weirder!
- MTMT
posted by Mentok @ 11:29 p.m.,
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Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Irish Discharmament Talks Breakdown
In a statement issued through the republican An Phoblacht newspaper, the group reaffirmed its commitment to a "totally healthy society" in Northern Ireland. It accused the leader of the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), Ian Paisley, of trying to force English breakfast fare "down our throats".
"This was never possible. It is one thing to agree to power sharing and to giving up our weapons. But to ask us to trade in our charms for grease-soaked eggs and overcooked sausage is beyond the pale," the statement said.
It went on to repeat the commitments made by the IRA "to completely and verifiably put all our charms beyond use ... if possible by the end of December". "We restate our commitment to the peace process spelled out in the Good Friday Brunch Accord," it said. "But we will not submit to a process of humiliation aimed at depriving our enjoyment of sugar-sweetened cereals with marshmallows."
Previous efforts to hold joint republican and unionist breakfasts have broken down into violence after the IRA and its political wing Sinn Fein maintained their "historic right to pick fights over nothing."
The IRA also rejected a compromise agreement worked out by British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern that would have allowed the IRA to keep their moons and stars but give up their clovers.
"That offer was a joke. The clovers are the best part. The milk won't even turn a proper Irish green without the clovers. Any school child can tell you that," said one Sinn Fein source.
The IRA is said to still be considering a proposal by John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general serving as a mediator in discharmament talks. De Chastelain's "Canadian solution" would involve coating the charms in gravy and cheese curds and requiring that 25 per cent of all restaurants in Great Britain serve the concoction.
- 30 -
posted by Mentok @ 10:31 p.m.,
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Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Toronto to Host Museum of Feces
Toronto (FN) - Prince Charles was in town today to help Torontonians welcome the city's newest science tourism attraction, the Royal Ontario Museum of Feces (ROMF).
"It gives me great pleasure to see the people of Toronto recognized in this way with this feces," said the royal heir.
The new museum will be a family-oriented attraction with interactive exhibits and displays.
Ken Parc, executive director of the ROMF, said the topic of feces has been overlooked for too long by science-tourism audiences.
"What was mankind's first weapon? Feces. What was our first fertilizer? Feces. What was the first substance used as a pigment in pre-historic artwork? Feces. In the contemplation of the humble feces, Man has reached both the zenith of his scientific and artistic abilities and the nadir of his aggressive use of technology. The phrase 'Holy Shit' may be a joke to some people, but in this place we mean it sincerely," Parc said.
Parc says the museum will soon launch an advertising campaign to promote its first major interactive exhibit. Entitled "Give a Crap", the campaign will ask all Torontonians to make a contribution to the museum's effort to gather the world's largest single collection of donated human feces.
posted by Mentok @ 9:01 a.m.,
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Monday, November 21, 2005
Vin Diesel To Star In Sound of Music Sequel
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| "Captain Crunch!" Vin Diesel to star as Captain von Trapp. |
Fox officials said the sequel, The Sound of Music II: Von Trapp's Revenge, would be aimed at broadening the appeal of the classic cinema franchise.
"The Sound of Music is a very strong, very profitable brand, but, let's face it, the first movie was pretty much the chick flic to end all chick flics. This time around, we're making something that is just for the guys," said Simon Gerstein, press agent for the production company.
The plot of the sequel will involve a group of Nazi agents, led by the nefarious Rolfe, kidnapping Maria von Trapp and the five younger children in an effort to lure the captain back to the German navy. Captain von Trapp, Friedrich, Liesl and a rag-tag crew recruited from an American army prison launch a daring commando mission deep in Nazi territory to free the captured von Trapps.
 |
| "Liesl - sleazel!" Erica Durance has the Nazis grabbing their Lugers. |
Diesel said he is looking forward to refining the 'song-and-dance' skills he acquired in The Pacifier. The action star promises that Von Trapp's Revenge will tie up many loose ends from the first movie.
"You are finally going to get to see Captain Von Trapp beating the crap out of that little weasel Rolfe. You're going to get to see Liesl topless and you'll see battle scences that make Saving Private Ryan look lame," Diesel said.
Fans of the Baroness Ebberfeld character will also not leave disappointed, said Gerstein.
 |
| Angelina Jolie plays Baroness Ebberfeld, who has a score to settle with home-wrecker Maria |
Although action scenes will be more promient than in the first movie, Von Trapp's Revenge will be a musical. Gerstein said the movie will use much of the franchise's familiar music, but the songs will be set to different words and different situations.
Songs will include:
- Ideal Vise, sung by Diesel as he demonstrates various chokeholds during a hand-to-hand combat training exercise.
- I Am Sixteen, Going On Seventeen, sung by Durance in a scene set in a Berlin burlesque club as she tries to distract a group of Nazi officers.
- A Jew, A Jew, set to the tune of So Long, Farewell, sung by the entire von Trapp family as they liberate prisoners from a Nazi concentration camp.
In addition to the tunes from the first movie, the soundtrack will include six new songs from 50 Cent and Black-Eyed Peas.
The current production marks the second time Fox has tried to bring the Von Trapp's Revenge script to the screen. Production was halted in the spring of 2003 when Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had originally been cast to play Captain von Trapp, dropped out to run in the California gubernatorial race.
 |
| "Li'l Mr. Evil" Seth Green brings his devilish charm to the role of Rolfe. |
Although Governor Schwarzenegger has sworn off feature roles while in office, he has agreed to make a cameo appearance in Von Trapp's Revenge in the role of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Diesel was tight-lipped about the movie's long-awaited showdown between Captain von Trapp and Rolfe.
"I don't want to give away the ending, but let's just say that Captain von Trapp finally shows Rolfe where he can put that little whistle of his," Diesel said.
Sound of Music II: Von Trapp's Revenge is slated to begin filming on location in Austria and Germany in April, 2006 with an expected release date in early 2007.
posted by Mentok @ 11:00 a.m.,
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Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Check Back Monday
One of the things I do in real life is party planning. I've got a big gig coming up Saturday that will net me a month's wages and will, hopefully, if all goes well, lead to many more lucrative contracts. So that unfortunately means I'll have no time for blogging until it's over.
Please check back Monday for more fresh, original Mentok brand comedy.
In the meantime, here's my results from the "What Monty Python Sketch Character Are You?" quiz:
You are a cardinal! You love to try & get others
into trouble, even if you have to make up
lies...NO ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition!
What Monty Python Sketch Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
posted by Mentok @ 8:33 p.m.,
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Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Sony Announces New TV Standard
Los Angeles (FN) - The Sony Corporation today jumped into the fray of new television formats with the announcement of their new enhanced video system, dubbed SuckerVision.
Company spokesman Gerry Duarf asserted that the new system is "way, way better" than previous TV advances.
"I can say without a word of hyperbole that our system is a million times better than HDTV, widescreen and flatscreen combined," Duarf said.
SuckerVision (right) vs. conventional HDTV"The name absolutely does not refer to the consumer, I swear to God. It comes from the technical system used to generate the high resolution images. The system, um, sucks tachyon-charged plasma from the warp-coil and routes it in a feedback loop through the deflector array," said Duarf.
Duarf rejected accusations that Sony's alleged system was nothing more than a string of nonsensical Star Trek-style techno-babble.
"Whenever there is a new innovation, there are cynics and luddites who resist it. We stand by the quality of our new TV standard. I mean, just look at it. You would have to be an idiot not to be able to tell that this is way, way better than HDTV."
Sony will begin marketing the new standard in early 2007. TV sets capable of receiving the SuckerVision signals will start at $20,000 US, although Sony will also be offering $10,000 adapter packages to allow existing HD and conventional TV owners to receive SuckerVision signals.
Sony estimates that it will cost several billions of dollars for cable and satellite providers to upgrade to the special "warp necelles" required to transmit the SuckerVision signal.
posted by Mentok @ 10:54 a.m.,
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Monday, November 14, 2005
Captain Meme-O
I've been tagged by Chimera to play one of those damned meme games. (That's a bit redundant. Apparently meme is the phrase currently being used for all blogosphere tag-chain letter type games.) I suppose this is part of the cost of blogosphere citizenship.
This game (not the most interesting of the memes) involves posting the fifth sentence of your 23rd post.
This is somewhat complicated in my case, since I deleted two really boring posts early on.
If you don't count the deleted ones, my 23/5 is from the post Edward James Olmos, Ultimate Macho Man:
"Captain Apollo is constantly being dragged down by the emotional baggage of Captain Starbuck (female in this version)."
I'm going to stick with that one.
I think this meme is supposed to be a reference to the I Ching, but you'd have to get a Jungian psych major to tell you for sure.
Well, now I guess I gotta pass it on, so here are the very nice I'm going to inflict this on:
- When Irish Eyes Are Smiling
- Hacks and Wonks
- In The Dead of Night
- Responsible Government League
- Other Such Nonsense
posted by Mentok @ 10:03 p.m.,
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Saturday, November 12, 2005
Yet Another Inspirational Moment...
By Mentok the Mindtaker
Except in a swordfight.
In fact, a pen actually really sucks in a swordfight.
I learned that one the hard way.
posted by Mentok @ 9:59 p.m.,
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Friday, November 11, 2005
What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?
I long ago swore off serious posts, but today will have to be more or less an exception because today is Remembrance Day, the most somber date on the Canadian calendar, and there's nothing funny about that.
At least there's nothing comedically funny. Remembrance Day is funny-odd, funny-exceptional in a couple of ways.
MOMENT OF SILENCE
Something that really bugs me about Canadians is that, by and large, they figure they are too cool to be patriotic. This is one of the best and most wildly successful countries in the world, yet it's like pulling teeth to get anyone to admit it. Canada Day, for most Canadians, is just an excuse to sleep in. They will go to Canada Day celebrations only if there is a good band playing and there is a beer garden.
But Remembrance Day, for some reason, is different. Everyone honours it. You can actually make a Canadian feel guilty about not wearing a poppy. Look around the crowd at a Remembrance Day ceremony and there's scarcely a dry eye in the house.
Which is all very strange, considering. This country only has a token military and hasn't been involved in a major war for 60 years. Very few people in Canada even have grandparents old enough to have fought in a war. Yet, as a nation, our dedication to bearing witness to the horrors of WWI and WWII is as strong as it has ever been.
So on this one day (and, it seems, this one day only), the bickering stops and we actually act like a nation. There are no self-satisfied Albertans sneering about their oil wealth nor any self-satisfied Ontarians sneering at the bumpkins in the rest of the country. There are no perennial-victim Quebeckers telling us how our latest ass-kissing effort was really an insult to them. There are no socialists or social conservatives, no east vs. west. There are no odes to T.C. Douglas, or Preston Manning, or Pierre Trudeau.
There is only a quiet and firm acknowledgement of the sacrifices made to build this country.
Moment of silence indeed. If only there were more.
FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO BE STUPID
On occasions like Remembrance Day, we often hear that those who died in foreign wars died for our freedoms.
So what does freedom mean? Well, to me, from my Monkey Principle perspective, freedom means the right to be as stupid and as much of a jerk as you like without seriously hurting anyone.
Take freedom of speech. You don't need freedom of speech to tell the government what a good job they're doing or to compliment a politician on his new tie. Even the North Koreans are happy to give their citizens all the freedom they want to say those sorts of thing. No, freedom of speech means the freedom to Photoshop a picture of Paul Martin so that it looks like he's kissing a baboon's butt, which would normally be considered bad manners if you did it with anyone else.
The same thing applies to other civil rights in general. You don't need freedom to have a government tell you how to run your life properly. Any type of government, especially the dictatorial ones, are always more than happy to do that. The great advantage of living in a democracy (in theory at least) is that you are allowed to royally screw up your life as much as you want and no one can (or should) be able to order you not to do it.
Which brings us to the Royal Canadian Legion. As we've all heard by now, the Legion is not allowing websites to use their copyrighted image of the Remembrance Day poppy. If they did, the Legion says, then their poppy image "would be everywhere." That's pretty stupid, considering that they normally want Remembrance images to be all over the place. But, goddamit, those brave boys who gave their lives on Juneau Beach died so that those who came after them would have the freedom to be as utterly, gloriously stupid as they like.
So don't look on the Legion's policy as an insult to Remembrance Day. Look on it as an affirmation of it. I'm actually kinda serious about this.
Regards,
Mentok
posted by Mentok @ 1:00 p.m.,
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Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Arkansas Gov To Push 'Guzintas'
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| Arkansas Gov. Huckabee (right) sets sights on math enrichment. |
Huckabee said that he would like to see guzintas awareness become a state-wide activity, in the same way that former governor and former President Bill Clinton's now-legendary times-bys program captured the state's imagination.
"There is not much that former Governor Clinton and I agree on, but I give him credit for The Great Arkansas Times-Bys Challenge," Huckabee said. [see sidebar]
| Governor Clinton's Great Arkansas Times-Bys Challenge |
| "Billy's family wants to go to a peanut boil 26 miles away. Billy has 4 brothers, 3 sisters and 26 cousins, all of whom have 6 children. All together, the family has 102 dogs, of which 47 are bitches, all of whom are pregnant. The family has 5 trucks between them. If welfare checks come out on Wednesday and the peanut boil is on Saturday, how many of Billy's family will make it to the peanut boil?" |
To craft his guzintas challenge, Governor Huckabee will be drawing on the skills of Professor Michael Cash, head of the University of Arkansas Department of Ciphering and Figuring.
"Many Arkansans are unaware of the importance of guzintas in their daily lives. For example, suppose you have a gallon of some sort of medicinal liquid and you want to siphon it off into 12 ounce bottles. How many bottles can you get? Sure, you can try to dope it out using your times-bys, but guzintas make it much quicker," said Professor Cash.
"Give you another example. Suppose you're at the video store and you have a $20 bill. Well, how many copies of The Dukes of Hazzard can you rent? With guzintas, you can figure that out right away," Cash added.
posted by Mentok @ 10:55 a.m.,
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Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Uranus To Earth: Joke's On You
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| Underneath the thick clouds of hot gas, this is what Uranus looks like. |
Dr. John Vomisa, systems manager at SETI's Allen Telescope Array, described how the contact with Uranus came by accident over two years ago.
"A network of radio telescopes around the world had been trying to pierce through the thick clouds of hot gas around Uranus and peer deep inside Uranus. To their surprise, they encountered a cluster of non-random charged particles streaming out of Uranus. Once they realized that this might be an intelligent message, they turned what they had found coming out of Uranus over to us," Vomisa said.
Over the past two years, SETI scientists worked to develop an algorithm to translate the complex signal. Beginning last June, SETI began holding regular conversations with the beings that dwell on Uranus.
Progress on these early discussions was hampered, Vomisa says, by the fact that their counterparts on Uranus seemed to be regularly breaking down into uncontrollable laughter. A spokesman for Uranus explained that this was caused by humourous word play.
"You see, our word for your planet is Drawkcab, which sounds exactly like the phrase dra kab, which means "ass whipe" in our language. Man, the papers are going to have a ball with that headline: 'Life Discovered On Ass Wipe'!" said Dickwad Pustule, speaking from Uranus.
Pustule scoffed when told that a similar joke exists on Earth about the word Uranus.
"Oh, yeah, that's really mature. We have a funny name for your planet, so now all of a sudden you have a funny name for ours. Look, maybe we had better just invade and get it over with if this is the way you're going to be."
SETI scientists discounted the notion that Uranus could attack Earth since the sheer mass of Uranus makes it unlikely that anything from Uranus could be propelled into space.
posted by Mentok @ 9:47 a.m.,
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Sunday, November 06, 2005
Liberals Admit Mistakes With Sponsorship Program
Ottawa (FN) - In the waking of the Gomery Report on the sponsorship scandal, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin admitted that serious mistakes were made with the beleagured sponsorship program.
"The sponsorship scandal is offensive to me as it is to all Canadians. The sponsorship program attempted to bribe Canadians with their own money. This was a grave error. Instead of using a middle-man, we should have just bribed them directly," Martin said.
In an effort to show that the Liberal Party has changed its ways, Martin announced a new initiative through Elections Canada to ensure such misguided attempts at bribery do not happen again.
"Here's how it works. You vote Liberal, you get ten bucks. Simple. Just tick off Liberal on your ballot, show it to the returning officer, he gives you ten bucks cash. Ca-ching! In fact, that's going to be our slogan in the next campaign 'Today's Liberal Party....Ca-ching!' Roll that over in your mind when you go to vote. Liberal - Ca-ching! Tory - Looo-zer! Pretty simple," Martin said.
The Liberals' new, improved voter bribery system confirms the government's commitment to fiscal prudence, said Finance Minister Ralph Goodale.
"In the last election, roughly 14 million Canadians cast ballots. Under the Ca-ching! Program, even if 100 per cent voted Liberal, it would only cost Canadian taxpayers $140 million, a 30 per cent savings over previous voter bribery programs. This is targeted tax cuts at its finest," Goodale said.
posted by Mentok @ 8:39 p.m.,
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Saturday, November 05, 2005
French Fail To Surrender
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| French President Jacques Chirac leads the National Assembly in a desperate effort to surrender to someone. |
"It is outrageous! A scandal! These rioters are threatening four generations of established French military policy by creating this non-surrenderable situation," said deputy defence minister Serge Lapointe.
Witnesses at the riot scenes report incidents of senior French military officers flapping their hands vigorously, squealing like young girls and fainting, apparently in shock at the prospect of engaging in actual fighting.
"Our men are not trained for this. They have done their best to wave white flags at the rioters, but it seems to have no effect on these beasts. This is an insult to the entire French nation," said Colonel Henri Pierre Pepin.
Historic precedent offers little relief for the beleagured French troops, says Professeur Jean Saint-Gelais of the Academie du Preneur d'esprit.
"It was much easier in the 19th Century and former times. Then, we were a monarchy, so if you had a riot, at least the king could surrender. But in a democracy that is ruled by the people, how can the people surrender to the people? It is, as we say in French, un champ d'avoine."
posted by Mentok @ 1:42 a.m.,
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Thursday, November 03, 2005
Third Time Not "Charmed": Husband Loses TV Court Battle
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| 'Nice Try!' Randall Fletcher tried to convice wife he watched Charmed for the heart-warming drama. |
Lowins' ruling in the landmark case of Fletcher v. Murphy-Fletcher represents the first time a major U.S. court has rendered a judgment in the emerging legal concept of "spousal television rights."
The case began in 2002 when Randall Fletcher, a 36-year-old insurance actuary, got in an argument with his wife, lawyer Louise Murphy-Fletcher over the categorization of the popular series. Fletcher and Murphy-Fletcher had a marital agreement whereby 65 per cent of the couple's television viewing time was reserved for shows of a "family, non-violent, non-sexist or other positive-values nature."
 |
| 'Something's Fishy!' Alyssa Milano's mermaid scene was the straw that broke the camel's back for Judge Lowins. |
Charmed revolves around the adventures three young witches who regularly save the world from demons and warlocks while trying to build successful careers and hold onto boyfriends.
"Although the show does frequently deal with feelings and personal relationships, the context in shows such as the mermaid and Greek goddess episodes demonstrates that these 'chick-flic' elements are merely a facade for the true intent of the show, which is to show the main characters in suggestive and scantily-clad situations," Judge Lowins stated in her judgment.
Ironically, over the course of the legal wranglings, the man who started it all has lost interest in the show.
"The girls have started looking older and then they had that whole maternal, baby plotline that pretty much killed it for me. Fortunately, the missus likes Desperate Housewives, so I'm cool with where things are at," Fletcher said.
posted by Mentok @ 12:20 p.m.,
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Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Charity Nude Calendars Giving Nudism A Bad Name, Say British Naturists
They have replaced cake sales and sponsored walks as the most popular method for charities to raise money or generate publicity. But the naked calendar - immortalised in the film Calendar Girls - is giving nudity a bad name and should stop, according to
Organisations representing
Francis Pickett, the director of the Association of British Naturist Clubs, called the current obsession with naked calendars "absolutely pathetic".
He said: "These calendars have nothing to do with naturism and I am worried that they will get lumped together in people's minds... It's gimmicky and it gives naturism a bad name. I'd like to see these calendars stopped. Enough is enough."
[Source: Elizabeth Day, The Daily Telegraph, November 28, 2004]
Talk about a picture saying a thousand words!
- MTMT
posted by Mentok @ 10:41 a.m.,
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