Patrick’s Rants

What do you get when you take four comedians, an RV, and only book the smallest of clubs? “The Comedians Of Comedy“ - a road trip like no other. Since I really like comedy and humor, this deemed to be a perfect movie. Except for my own dislike of the screechy voice of Maria Bamford, this was a great film. It takes place over a week with travel to out of the way nightclubs and indie¹ joints. There is a little bit of onstage performance in this film, but what really is fun is the behind the scenes. How do comics behave around other comics? Once you see who they behave offstage you find that not only are the comics holding back onstage, they are even funnier than they appear.

I was surprised to find Patton Oswalt so funny. He plays such a mild part on King of Queens, but put him onstage and off the set and he is downright hilarious. His railings against Bush - and voting Republican for that matter - had me and my wife in stitches.

If you are Republican, conservative, or even just lean to the “right” save yourself some trouble (unless you are planning on buying this for my collection) go watch something else. Otherwise it’s worth a watch for comedy fans.

1. Indie refers to Independent bands - those that produce their own music. For whatever reason they are not signed by the labels of the RIAA (whom I lovingly refer to as “Teabagging Bastards”

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Rating: WTF?
Despite what the review on imdb.com happens to be for “New Guy” I can’t help but want my money back from the theater on this one. Unfortunately, as an avid Netflix user there isn’t anything to refund There is also the time that this movie took away from my life - never gonna get that back.

The genre is listed as: Comedy / Fantasy / Horror / Thriller. It’s more like funky, weird, and how about a new one: WTF? There was only a little bit of comedy in the film. It’s certainly not the same caliber as Office Space - which I thoroughly enjoyed - but it has been compared to it. Again, WTF?

Sometimes I like when a movie leaves me wondering at the end. This one left me wondering “why?” So if you want something funky, pick this one up. If, on the other hand you have been guided - and guided well - by my recommendations, stay away.

The Wall Street Journal is running a story about people who can’t seem to watch all the movies that they want. These poor individuals queue up movies, receive them and let them sit on the shelf for months at a time. Now, I can understand not getting to a movie for a week or two, but to let a movie “waste away” on the shelf and not watch it?

Netflix is a great service for us. We get far more movies per month than we would by going to the store. Even the weird ones aren’t such a big deal for us. I guess the people interviewed for the article really can’t handle the so called high brow movies at all - me, no problem. And that leads me to a couple of upcoming reviews: “New Guy”, and “The Comedians of Comedy”.

Stay tuned, don’t let this post gather dust.

I spent this weekend driving for the Arizona Highland Celtic Festival. The job is a pretty easy gig, pick up people at the High School (Sinagua) and drive them a few hundred yards down the hill to Foxglenn Park. The Society pays the bills as far as the actual cost of the bus, but gladly accepts donations towards the considerable cost of two days worth of bus service. I’m thinking that a lot of people didn’t realize that the service was “free” as many more walked than rode; there were a few that were back and forth a number of times though.

All in all it appeared to be quite a good time (although I spent most of my time on the bus), with throngs of people in and out all weekend long. There were a couple of items that made the drive a little more challenging:

• The guy who parked his Expedition right in inside of the turn that I had to make just to get through the parking lot at Foxglenn
• The firetruck that parked on the outside of the turn to get out of the park - this required a modified turn since it had to be sharper to avoid getting fire engine red paint on the front mirrors, fun.
• Towards the end of the day, one of the vendors (I’m assuming) decided that he had to get by be as I was loading passengers at the park. I looked up to see this truck pulling a trailer creeping slowly up to the side of the bus. Since he didn’t look like he had any room at all I laid on the horn. As he pulled along side me (yes, he had a few inches to spare) he asked me what I was honking at. I told him, “you”.

  His reply was, “You see those things? They’re called mirrors. You use them to drive with.”

  I responded, “You see that? That’s my bus. You almost hit it.” I was thinking, “yeah, I was watching you in my mirrors which is why I honked at you.”

  The thing is, since it’s a school bus (which is only about a year old or so - cost new: around $60,000) I have to think about:

  1. Any accident requires a drug test for me - District policy. Not that there is anything to find, it’s just annoying and takes time.
  2. School buses have to be inspected after any accident by the Department of Public Safety (Highway Patrol/State Police) to certify its safe operation before being allowed on the road again.
  3. Did I mention that this was a fairly new bus? Only 33,500 miles with no damage. And who wants to be the driver that put the first damage on a bus? Not me.

Aside from the impatient guy in the truck (with his trailer) - who everyone agreed was an idiot - it was a fun gig that I may just get to do next year too.

Valerie Plame is suing Dick Cheney, Cheney’s former aide Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove. She is accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career. Other White House officials could include ole Dubya himself - only Plame her lawyers and husband know for sure as the other ten defendants are merely listed as John Does.

Interestingly, at least to me, I wrote about Novak getting a pass after revealing Plame’s name just a year ago. Now Novak has stated that he cooperated with the special prosecutor - how awfully big of him. I find myself torn as to whether Bob was an innocent scape goat in all of this, just the lackey who spilled the name of an undercover officer, or whether he was being rewarded for regularly siding with the Bushies. He certainly doesn’t seem to getting punished for his role. He could have claimed First Amendment protections for his source. After all Freedom of the Press that not only is on his side but that of the “lowly blogger” as well. Maybe he didn’t want to spend time in jail for upholding the law.

Hopefully Valerie and her husband, Joe Wilson, find some peace and closure in all of this - they certainly won’t be able to travel abroad anymore.

All right you might be saying, Patrick was supposed to have his RSS feeds working long ago:
Headline Links Finally Working
RSS Again
RSS Figured Out.
Well guess what? I made a coding error. I noticed that the links weren’t being updated but that the timestamp was. I thought that meant that I was a little behind in running the scripts, somehow not updating the files on this server. I realized after looking into it again and realized that some files were being updated but not others. What that meant was that the timestamp was being updated but not the actual links. That’s what happens when your site gets just popular enough that people are visiting more frequently than once an hour and your forget the proper placement of your curly braces…. so now that things are moved around a bit, it should be working just fine - famous last words, right?

This is an unofficial “How-to” sent by a government employee to tech mailing list. This is not the official position of the government… and remember we’re here to help
Edited somewhat for layout purposes (and to prevent Deborah being spammed by bots)

Hi Gang,

As you know, one of my activities has become “cheerleader” for jobs at the USGS here in Flagstaff. If you’ve been applying and met with naught but frustration, I feel your pain — I don’t like hearing my “recruiting targets” aren’t getting called for interviews any more than you don’t like getting called. I’m not sure why getting an interview is so damned hard, but I’m working on figuring it out.

For those of you who have been applying to federal jobs advertisements, I’ve got a few tips. This is purely my opinion based on a small amount of experience, so take it for what it’s worth (iow, this e-mail in no way represents an official statement by Uncle Sam, jus’ little ol’ deborah sittin’ on her couch). I googled for some good advice, but really didn’t find much that seemed like really good, federal-job-specific advice.

Here’s my general advice for government job apps: (more…)

While it might seem like a trivial matter to some, there are those of us who really like our coffee. I have been looking at one from Mr. Coffee ever since they got one at the “office”. Walmart has the best price on them and it’s on its way even as we speak (my wife is bringing it home) and the old Procter Silex will hit the trash - it’s gotten really old and takes 45 minutes to brew a full pot of coffee, the new one I have seen brew a full pot in something like 10 minutes.

Of course it will have to be test driven just as soon as we can get it out of the box and onto the counter.

Yesterday it was the Communists, today it’s the terrorists. The government keeps control over its citizens by exploiting fear. Joseph McCarthy was allowed tremendous leeway and destroyed lives in the process. “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” We have heard these words many times, but do we understand them? Do we understand that now our rights are eroded secretly under the guise of protecting our country from outside threats, that our government listens to our phone calls, watches our money flow from account to account under the Bank Secrecy Act which - like “Fight Club” - the first rule is we don’t talk about the Bank Secrecy Act? Probably not. Do we forget there was a plan to make us all watch our neighbors and to report “suspicious activity” to the “authoritites”? Probably.

Clooney’s 2005 film portraying Edward R. Murrow’s exposé of Joseph McCarthy as the rabid fear mongerer that he was, reminds us that we must always be vigilent against those would make us fear one another. Many a critic has projected Clooney’s dislike of the Bush administration onto his recent choices in films. Like Fred Friendly, the character Clooney plays in Good Night and Good Luck, Clooney the man tries to bring light to what the American public is all too willing to ignore.

I applaud Clooney for a well made movie that frankly scared me, not just for those accused of being communists during the “pink scare” and for those now accused of being terrorists. And while Clooney may attempt to make light of the subject matter - probably in an attempt to continue getting accusatory movies made - I say that it only takes one little boy to point out that the Emporer has no clothes.

We must not confuse dissent from disloyalty. We must remember always, that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another, we will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason. If we dig deep into our history and our doctrine, we will remember we are not descendant from fearful men. Not from men who dared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Sen. McCarthy’s methods to keep silent or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history but we cannot escape responsibility for the result.

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Ken Lay, founder of Enron, bilker of thousands of employees, corporate thief, is dead. For those who believe in an “after-life” and accountability to God, this means he will receive his final reward - unless of course he repented, asked God for forgivness. In that case all is good and Kenny Boy, gets to enter into heaven completely devoid of sin. It’s too bad that he didn’t have to spend time making amends here before passing on. His wife and estate will probably still be held accountable for any civil penalties or lawsuits. “The good men do is oft interred with their bones” and the bad will bite your widow in the behind….