komplexify!

04.30.2009

Talking turkey

Me: So how many stories should we read tonight?

Ladybug: Five stories!

Me: How about three stories?

Ladybug: Five stories!

Me: How about three stories?

Ladybug: Five stories!

Me: How about two stories?

Ladybug: Five stories!

Me: How about one story?

Ladybug: Five stories!

Me: How about no stories?

Ladybug: Five stories!

Me: Do you want to read a story tonight?

Ladybug: Yes!

Me: Then you need to compromise a litle.

Ladybug: Oh.

Me: So how many stories should we read tonight?

Ladybug: How about two stories, and then three stories?

Filed under: Ladybuggin'

04.28.2009

Red tape

One of the main items at today’s department meeting was an unpleasant discussion about the Department Head, which is a new bureaucratic position dreamed up by Komplexify U’s administration, who apparently believe that the best way to deal with the inefficiencies and conflicts caused by having (essentially) three different deans is to abolish them and instead step up nineteen independent department heads.

These would be permanent executive positions tied very closely to the administration.  No one in our department wants the job, which despite being a 12-month contracted position (as opposed to the faculty’s usual 9-month contracts) almost exclusively centers around external recruitment, advertising, retention and assessment, areas in which none of my colleagues have any specific training.  (Hell, we’re mathematicians and computer scientists… to us, being extroverted means looking at someone else’s shoes when we speak.)

Unfortunately, the only other option is to essentially set up a job search to hire what amounts to a department czar, and no one here is comfortable granting some outsider carte blanche authority to completely overhaul our department however he or she sees fit.  Indeed, several of my colleagues actually fled to Komplexify U from their previous universities when their department life became unbearable under the increasingly Napoleonic rule of their Department Heads.

Hence, it was decided that someone needed to bite the bullet.  As a department, we batted abount the idea of simply nominating someone for the post, but this ran into problems as anyone who was nominated graciously — but quickly and infallibly — refused the nomination.  We momentarily toyed with the idea of nominating our new CS hire who, being not actually present at the meeting, couldn’t refuse.  Unfortunately, that idea was quickly abandoned once we tried to figure out how we’d break the news to him..

Well, we’ve got good news and bad news for you!  The good news is you’ve got summer support! …

Eventually our department chair, being the team player that he is, offered to continue on as a temporaty “Interim Department Head” until such time as a more permanent solution could be devised.  To make it official, Professor Z motioned his nomination, which was quickly seconded and thirded and n-ed by those releived to be off the hot seat.

The Chair sighed, but otherwised nodded in assent.

Sensing his utter lack of overwhelming excitement, Professor Z spoke up again.  “Look at it this way… it’s like an opportunity we’re offering you…”

“Oh, it’s like we’re offering him, all right,” replied Professor Y.  “It’s like we’re offering him to a volcano.”

Filed under: School daze, Storytellin'

04.25.2009

Headline FAIL

Today’s top story, according to the news widget on the Queen B’s computer:

Well, it’s either that or an EPIC MILE-HIGH CLUB FAIL.  You decide.

04.24.2009

Link o’the week

Your argument is invalid

If you were to cross the funny-captioning of I can have cheezeburger? with the surreal weirdness of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and you’d have Your argument is invalid.

The site reminds me of the Panda on a Zamboni image I once saw ages ago, except these can be altogether more inexplicably bizarre… and hilarious.

The webmaster there I think gives an accurate description: I find these funny in the same way that Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy are funny. Others may disagree. However, their argument is invalid.

Filed under: Link o'the week

04.22.2009

Everything you’re about to read is utterly true

Usually the Onion prides itself on its parodies of news reporting, but I can find nothing in the following article that suggests anything other than the truth.

Michael Bay Signs $50M Deal
To Fuck Up ‘ThunderCats’

LOS ANGELES — In the largest deal ever made to shit out a movie, Warner Bros. and director Michael Bay announced a landmark $50 million agreement this week to monumentally fuck up ThunderCats.

“I couldn’t be more excited to completely fuck this up,” said Bay, who plans to begin production on destroying the live-action adaptation next month. “ThunderCats has a great story, endearing characters, action, adventure, space-travel, and fantasy. It will be an honor to run it into the ground.”

“I’ll use every directorial tool I have to suck the very life and charm out of this beloved cartoon,” added Bay, claiming that the film could turn out to be the most colossal piece of shit he’s ever worked on. “I won’t rest until I get every last scene exactly wrong.”

According to executives, Warner Bros. settled on Bay after a 12-month search of Hollywood’s most reviled directors, including Joel Schumacher, Roland Emmerich, and Brett Ratner. In the end, the studio decided only Bay could be relied upon to deliver a 220-minute cinematic clusterfuck with enough tedious performances, overblown cinematography, and CGI explosions to make even the most casual fan want to scratch their eyes out.

“No filmmaker working today has Bay’s ability to somehow direct his actors to be both emotionless and melodramatic at once,” Warner Bros. CEO Barry Meyer said. “And I personally can’t wait to see how he needlessly overcomplicates the plot.”

Bay reportedly only agreed to fuck up ThunderCats after several specific conditions were written into his contract. According to the terms of the deal, Bay must be allowed to eliminate the character Panthro entirely to focus on the asinine relationship between Snarf and Snarfer, and include nearly 22 minutes of frenetic, impossible-to-follow action sequences that he hopes will annoy the living Christ out of audiences.

“We’re just getting started on the storyboards, but I’ve already got a lot of really contrived ideas about zooming in way too close and shooting everything at nauseating angles,” said Bay, who claimed viewers won’t be able to tell if the climactic final battle is between two blurry elbows or a half dozen leopard-print pillows. “I promise you’ll walk out of the theater feeling like you just flushed $12 down the toilet.”

“You will all fucking hate me,” he continued.

Hollywood insiders agreed that Bay — who has reportedly been closely involved in each of the 45 progressively worse rewrites of the script — was a natural choice to take a steaming dump on the popular ThunderCats property.

“Michael Bay has this innate sense of how to ruin a great story,” Variety reporter Todd Brick said. “His ability to create astonishing plot holes, pepper dialogue with groan-inducing clichés, and abandon storylines halfway through is unparalleled. He was born to destroy this movie.”

Though he admitted there was still “a lot of fucking up to do” before the script attains his trademark shit-slicked sheen, Bay has recruited hack writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to punch-up the screenplay with hollow characters and by-the-numbers jokes about kitty litter boxes and hair balls.

But all the time and effort, Bay claimed, is worth it to ensure that he fucks ThunderCats up as badly as he knows he can.

“Ever since I failed to ruin Scarlett Johansson’s career with The Island, I’ve been looking for a challenge like this,” Bay said. “Who knows? With Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and ThunderCats coming out in the same year, I may finally reach my goal of making all of America hate cinema forever.”

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