A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"I was strolling through the gas one day..."

Woo-hoo, a natural resources crime scene in my own back yard:

CenterPoint will be back out tomorrow, as it seems they'll have to replace the entire line coming off the main. Still awaiting word on how much of the carport and garage will be left standing.

And I don't even want to think about the chaos that will ensue if they have to try and move Smogdor.

Todd Sauerbrun is an idiot

I had the opportunity today to sit and watch an entire NFL game for the first time all season: an epic match-up pitting my offensively-challenged Bears against the Denver Broncos. Before kickoff, there was much discussion of comments made by Denver punter Todd Sauerbrun regarding Chicago's feared return man Devin Hester:

Some teams kick out of bounds against the Chicago Bears and dangerous returner Devin Hester. Others squib kick to avoid giving Hester a chance at a big play.

Denver punter Todd Sauerbrun said he doesn't think the Broncos are going to avoid kicking to Hester this Sunday.

"We're not worried at all," Sauerbrun said. "We respect the hell out of him, don't get us wrong. Absolutely. But we're not going to go out there tiptoeing around."

Hester has returned five punts and three kickoffs for touchdowns in his two seasons. Hester has broken long returns despite many efforts to keep the ball out of his hands.

"I think we've seen it all," Bears coach Lovie Smith said.

Sauerbrun said special teams coach Scott O'Brien's style is not to kick away from a player.

"We're not going to do it," Sauerbrun said.

As of this writing, Sauerbrun is officially a goat. Hester returned a punt and a kickoff for TDs, and on both plays, Sauerbrun slipped on the wet Soldier Field turf and Hester either blew right by him or - in one memorably embarrassing move - jumped right over him. If not for Grossman coughing the ball up twice and the Chicago receiving corps dropping half a dozen passes in the middle of the game, the Bears would have won this outright instead of having to rely on a desperate late drive to send the game into overtime.

Aaaaaand Da Bears win on a field goal in OT. Nice game. Don't feel bad Todd, you're not the first German to put his foot in his mouth. Believe me.

No motorboating was involved, I assure you

Dear Female Customers at Lowe's Home Improvement,

What can I say, it was a long weekend. Not only did The Wife convince me that the bathroom needed to be painted a different color, she somehow engineered a significant absence on Saturday, leading to yours truly not only taping off the whole room, but putting down one - then two - coats of primer, and finally saying 'fuck it' and painting it today.

So while my spouse's Tom Sawyer-esque plan may have resulted in a totally new color scheme for our salle de bains, it also indirectly led to no small amount of hostility directed at your humble narrator. For as is the case with virtually any home improvement project, one often finds themself making multiple trips to the local home improvement superstore to procure things otherwise forgotten. In my case, I was totally out of brush cleaner and Goop. And so, after putting the final coat of periwinkle...or what the hell ever...I drove to the local Lowe's to make some needed purchases,

Was my decision to wear a "Hooters" t-shirt with the words "Hoops Fever" on it the wisest? Probably not, but consider my situation. Is the very act of sporting such a garment insensitive? That's arguable, but maybe all of you women giving me the stinkeye while I looked for turpentine could take into consideration that fact that nobody wears clothes they like when painting. I was wearing khaki shorts and my St. Louis Cardinals 2006 World Series t-shirt while I was taping, but changed before opening that can of primer. Surely the fact that my shirt was liberally spotted with paint indicated that this was a garment of which I wasn't particularly fond? Did the bombed-out expression in my eyes not give you a clue?

I suppose I could have upended a gallon of Kilz on my torso to make things right, but I think I'd rather finish this drink and hit the sack. To sum up, let me just say: sorry ladies. E-mail me for some coupons for free wings.

"There's enough time for the frozen pudding wagon later."

Every year, Film Threat publishes the Frigid 50: The Coldest People in Hollywood, our answer to the autumnal parade of power lists trotted out every year by the likes of Premiere and Entertainment Weekly.

The list has received plenty of attention in prior years (see entries from 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006), and since yours truly once again made some significant contributions, I'm linking it here. The quality has, admittedly, fluctuated significantly in years past, but 2007's installment is pretty solid. If I do say so myself.

The standing rule for these ensemble pieces still applies: If it's funny, I wrote it. If not, Chris Gore (or Don Lewis) did.

Hmm...Barney's movie had heart, but "Football in the Groin" had a football in the groin."

Here's one film festival I'm pretty sure I won't be attending:

After two long years of cinematic drought, movie lovers in the war-ravaged Iraqi capital will at last be treated to a feast of Arabic and Iranian films when the Baghdad International Film Festival is staged Dec. 16 to 19.

Films for the fest will mainly be submitted from Egypt, Jordan and Iran, according to Iraqi helmer Dr. Abdul Basit Salman.

Egypt plans to send 27 films, most of them shorts made by students at the High Institution for Cinema, although the country's two main television channels and some private production houses will be sending in features, he said.

The last time a film festival was held in Baghdad was in September 2005 when 58 locally made short films were screened before thronging crowds over six days in a Baghdad hotel.

Since February 2006, when the bombing of a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra unleashed hideous sectarian violence, which has killed thousands of Iraqis, entertainment in Iraq has been reduced mainly to watching satellite television at home.

But with a U.S. troop "surge" since February and a better trained Iraqi army putting militants to flight, violence in Baghdad has been sharply reduced.

Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Sunday that car bombs and roadside bombings across Iraq had dropped by 77% compared to levels prior to February when U.S. and Iraqi launched a drive to clear Baghdad and its surrounding belts of militias and insurgents.

The article fails to mention that the hotel used for the 2005 festival was destroyed earlier this year by suicide bombers.

Look, I've seen some shit, right? I slept on a couch at Sundance, maaaan. I picked up the tab at the Ginger Man after four of us had been drinking for six hours. I'm no pansy. Even so - and even though I made a half-assed attempt to weasel my way into the Middle Eastern International Film Festival (in relatively stable Abu Dhabi) - I'm probably going to be busy that weekend.

I think Alvin and the Chipmunks opens that weekend, after all.

In defense of Mr. Rogers

I was prepared to be appalled by tonight's 60 Minutes story about "The Millennials," that magical generation born between 1980 and 1995 who are going to throw such a monkey wrench into America's corporate culture we'll all be scrambling to provide in-cubicle Xbox 360s to keep them happy. These technologically savvy kids, after all, are the products of an America that gives trophies for participation and tells every child out there that they're winners, even when they haven't really won anything.

Bitch, bitch, bitch. I admit, there are drawbacks to being sandwiched between what I've been repeatedly told are the two most narcissistic generations in history, but I prefer to delude myself into thinking my sterling employment record will measure up favorably against that of some emo-haircut sporting, iPhone-jockeying, Heelys-wearing jagoff.

Anyway, The Wife and I are goofing on the whiny kids talking about how they're going to shake up America, when Morley Safer brings in Wall Street Journal columnist Jeff Zaslow, who went on to rehash his six-month old column laying the blame for this generation's narcissism at the feet of Mr. Rogers:

Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were "special" just for being whoever they were. He meant well, and he was a sterling role model in many ways. But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the idea that being special comes from working hard and having high expectations for yourself.

Now Mr. Rogers, like Dr. Spock before him, has been targeted for re-evaluation. And he's not the only one. As educators and researchers struggle to define the new parameters of parenting, circa 2007, some are revisiting the language of child ego-boosting. What are the downsides of telling kids they're special? Is it a mistake to have children call us by our first names? When we focus all conversations on our children's lives, are we denying them the insights found when adults talk about adult things?

Some are calling for a recalibration of the mind-sets and catch-phrases that have taken hold in recent decades. Among the expressions now being challenged:

"You're special." On the Yahoo Answers Web site, a discussion thread about Mr. Rogers begins with this posting: "Mr. Rogers spent years telling little creeps that he liked them just the way they were. He should have been telling them there was a lot of room for improvement. ... Nice as he was, and as good as his intentions may have been, he did a disservice."

Zaslow and his cronies are - not to put too fine a point on it - fucking idiots. Fred Rogers no more spent years telling "little creeps that he liked them just the way they were" than he did exhorting them to mass suicide. No, Mr. Rogers made a living by telling kids who didn't hear it anywhere else that they meant something. That's all. Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood first aired in 1968, well before the embarkation point of the entitlement generation, and his mission was never to empower the unworthy, but to make everyone, no matter who they were, feel good about themselves for 30 minutes a day. What a crime.

I'm as guilty as anybody of making fun of the guy when I was younger, but then, I wasn't one of those kids who actually needed something in their life called a "Neighborhood of Make-Believe."

Signs of narcissism among college students have been rising for 25 years, according to a recent study led by a San Diego State University psychologist. Obviously, Mr. Rogers alone can't be blamed for this. But as Prof. Chance sees it, "he's representative of a culture of excessive doting."

Prof. Chance teaches many Asian-born students, and says they accept whatever grade they're given; they see B's and C's as an indication that they must work harder, and that their elders assessed them accurately. They didn't grow up with Mr. Rogers or anyone else telling them they were born special.

Come on. I don't know any kid born post-1980 who paid attention to Fred Rogers. Hell, my sister was born in the 70s and she never watched an episode (she was a big Dukes of Hazzard fan, however). He's an easy target for piling on because 1) he's dead, and 2) even if he was alive, he wasn't the kind of guy who'd get involved in a public media imbroglio. All Rogers is to these old assholes is the latest in a series of scapegoats for the newest generation they're unable to understand. Are "the Millennials" annoying twats? Sure, but as with anything else, the parents are perfectly content to assign blame anywhere but themselves. Is your 20-something child a self-entitled douchebag who's never punched a clock in his life yet expects $60K starting salary and his own office straight out of college? Must be Mr. Rogers' fault.

The only surprising part of the 60 Minutes story was that career whiner Andy Rooney didn't show up to complain as well.

Shouting at the devil

I know Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx wason a book tour promoting The Heroin Diaries, his collection of journal entries documenting his life between Christmas '86 and Christmas '87 (which includes the period I saw them play the Summit with Tim, among others), but is he coming to Houston?

I ask because I swear I just saw him driving a Ford Taurus down Westheimer at Dunlavy.

On second thought, it doesn't seem very likely. There are a shitload of tattoo parlors in that area, however.

"They said you was hung."

Would it be inappropriate to start with a Bible reference? I'm thinking Matthew 27:5:

And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

And then there's Warren Jeffs, who seems to have been fond of Luke 10:37, "Go thou and do likewise:"

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs tried to hang himself earlier this year while he was in jail awaiting trial, according to court documents unsealed by a Utah judge on Tuesday.

Jeffs, the leader and so-called prophet of the 10,000-member Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is now awaiting sentencing after being convicted on two counts of being an accomplice to rape.

The documents, released by Fifth District Judge James Shumate at the request of the media, also indicate that Jeffs confessed to "immorality" with a sister and daughter more than 30 years ago

Among the documents is a competency report on Jeffs completed in April, in which social worker Eric Nielsen wrote that throughout the month of January, Jeffs refused food and drink and developed ulcers on his knees from kneeling in prayer for hours.

On January 28, the report said, he attempted to hang himself in his cell. In the days following the suicide attempt, while he was on suicide watch, Jeffs on separate occasions threw himself against the wall and banged his head on the wall.

Let's close today with some more scripture, this time from Titannica:

Try try try again
Try try try again
Head first this time
Dive right in

Quiiters never win, Warren. Keep at it.

"We interrupt this public affairs program to bring you a football game."

Then again, if you live in the Houston area, maybe The McLaughlin Group would've been preferable to what the NFL was offering yesterday:

Anyone else reminded of the map showing the returns from the 1984 Presidential election?

So everyone in the Texans viewing area got to watch two squads with a combined five wins instead of the battle of the last two undefeated teams. Assuming you didn't do like every other right-thinking human being and just go to a sports bar in the first place.

Or, if you were like me, you were stuck in an airport and got to watch one offensive series all day (while queuing up for boarding). So quit your bitching.