Kinda Hot in These Rhinos

Man this picture makes me laugh, as does that scene in Ace Ventura II: When Nature Calls.

Too bad Jim Carey made "The Number 23" instead of Ace Ventura 3.

But this got me to thinking, since this rhino scene is probably the culmination (culmination) of the great comedy moments of my formative years, it really got me thinking that we've gone down-rhino ever since then.

Are you happy with the current comedy options being offered to us? On TV it is okay, The Office and 30 Rock make me laugh on a consistent basis (beer me that disk). But even TV might be slipping. Saturday Night Live is defunct (although it's spawn child 30 Rock is hilarious, even though it did take me like 6 months to figure out it wasn't a spin-off of 3rd Rock). SNL's replacement in training new comedians, The Daily Show has had mixed results. It launched the careers of Carrell, Colbert, Corddry, Helms and Hodgman, although I am getting kind of tired of seeing those John Hodgeman Mac commercials (is anything more synonymous with pompous than a mac computer?). The Daily Show was on a roll for a while until I saw the first episode of Rob Corddry's "The Winner," which also taints the Family Guy writers's already American Dadded reputation. Family Guy has also been slipping in recent years. Maybe it's because people are trying to do too much with too few jokes/humor/ideas.

Movies have been even more lackluster lately (don't know what lackluster means but sounds like something from SpaceBalls). In the past year or so the two big comedies were Borat and Blades of Glory if I remember right. I don't know, I definitely laughed at both of them, but Borat seemed like the same jokes over and over again (basically Borat was a glorified Jackass/Tom Green Show but this time with funny accents, more awkward interactions, and adorable English language misconstructions, over and over again) and Blades of Glory was kind of a recycling of all of the last Will Ferrell movies, complete with doing for Will Arnett what Anchorman did for Paul Rudd (put an incredibly funny person in a position where, because of the role or the movie or whatever, they just weren't funny).

So correct me if I'm wrong on the comedy thing, but I just feel like they're not making them like they used to.

Encyclopedic Knowledge Part II: You’re an Encyclopedia and You Didn’t Know It!

My previous post was really all I wanted to say about internet encyclopedias. I was supposed to get that off my chest and be able to wash my hands of the matter and get on with my day. I was looking forward to it. Then this happened.

If you are reading my post, you’ve probably read the CapeTownDissenter’s post which mentions the new Conservapedia, a Conservative Christian version of Wikipedia. Now, after having read about how much I hate the original (and utterly useless) Wikipedia, you can probably imagine my disgust when I learned that some lunatics made another one of these things. At first, there was no consoling me. No sooner had I (quite rightly and eloquently) pointed out how ridiculous it is that we even have Wikipedia in the first place (and I did so quite ingeniously, I might add), than the amount of Wikipedias in the world doubles! I mean I was pretty angry. First I considered putting my fist through a wall, but then I remembered that the walls in my apartment are load bearing walls, which means that it was going to hurt me more than it hurt the wall. Next I considered inviting the creators of both Wikipedia and Conservapedia to a cocktail party at my apartment where I would sit them down and, – like a high school football coach who yells at the team after screwing up a big game – after giving all of them the verbal tongue-lashing that they so desperately deserve, I would then stare silently at them for a few minutes, and finally try to give them a motivational speech about how to pick up the pieces of our previous, blissful Wikipedia-free world which they so carelessly smashed to…um, pieces, and try to start anew. Next I considered making pages on both Wikipedia and Conservapedia called “Useless Wastes of My and Your Time” and then explaining (quite systematically and compellingly) exactly why we should all be ashamed of ourselves that we even know that these things exist.

After a couple of deep breaths and one beautiful little ditty by Julieta Venegas (WBUR, you never fail to comfort me during my darkest and most troubled hours) I calmed down. I started to think about it a little bit. First there was Wikipedia, I thought. Well, no, I corrected myself (politely), first there was Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky Button.” Then there was Wikipedia, a shameless rip-off of Google. And, thanks to the CapeTownDissenter who (unforgivably) broke the news to me the other day, now I know about Conservapedia. I was pretty incredulous as to the fact that not only is the original Wikipedia still in existence but that imitations are now springing up, so I went to the site just to see if I wasn’t having a terrifying nightmare (the test is that the internet never functions properly in a dream – it always takes too long to load and every link takes you to the same web site no matter what you are trying to access).

So I visit Conservapedia’s web site and it turns out that Conservapedia is the exact same freaking thing as Wikipedia except they recently started it from scratch whereas Wikipedia is about six years old and about a billion times bigger. I mean they didn’t even try to make it look different, or even change the name (they only changed half the name?! From “Wiki” to “Conserva”?!). Then I realized that Conservapedia means Conservative Wikipedia, which I guess is a Wikipedia for Conservative Christians who want to write these articles instead of whatever bozos are writing them for Wikipedia. Honestly I had no idea that Wikipedia was biased against Conservatives and against Christians (I thought it was just useless), but in any case we now have (an equally useless) one that takes an explicit effort to be biased in favor of these groups.

Now, unlike some of my co-dissentators, I don’t consider myself a member of either of America’s two main political parties, which I guess makes me a (hey voter voter voter voter) swing voter. To give you an idea of my moderateness, I often find myself farther to the right than many of my liberal friends, and I often find myself farther to the left than many of my…actually, wait…I’m not sure if I even have any conservative friends (they don’t call me the BostonDissenter just because I also happen to throw a glorious tea party). So, as a moderate open to all views (except those in favor of these ridiculous web sites existing), even I found this web site over the top. At first I was upset, I thought the “Anti-America bias” of Wikipedia claim was something of a stretch, and that maybe they should call the site “Psychopedia” (even a psycho would admit that name sounds better than Conservapedia (also conservapedia I believe is Spanish for “a whale’s vagina”)).

Then I realized something pretty amazing which totally turned me around on this Conservapedia. I did a little investigating and found out there was like nothing on it. Now, I realize it is just starting up, so this might not be true for much longer, but currently we are living in a golden age where – if we are willing to accept this thing as an encyclopedia – we know more than an encyclopedia. To give you an example of your encyclopedic knowledge, let’s start with a simple one. How about the country Spain. Conservapedia says:

“Country located on the Iberian Penninsula. Borderd by the Alantic Ocean to the west and the Mediterranean on the east. Portuagal is located on the same penninsuala. Is the same country as was in the medieval times. And known for its famous explorers.”

Now if you already knew all that, you have encyclopedic knowledge: the person searching should have just asked you! You maybe even know more! You maybe even know how to spell the words “peninsula,” “bordered,” “Atlantic,” and “Portugal!” Now I know this thing is supposed to favor America so things like countries, oceans, peninsulas and borders don’t really matter, but if we are supposed to be smarter than people from other countries, we should know more about their country than the know about America, which is hard to do post-Borat. So let’s try another country, Germany:

“A country in central Europe that was blamed for both Wolrd Wars and claimed to be the dominate race of mankind.”

Again, if you knew that too, you are as smart as an encyclopedia! And you probably would have called the “world” a “world” instead of a “wolrd!” I mean what is a wolrd anyway? I tried to look it up, but there wasn’t an entry for it. Then I looked up “world,” no entry for that either. Honestly I looked up “earth” and all the page said was “Mostly harmless.” Again if you know more than that about the earth you have encyclopedic knowledge. Now I know what you’re thinking: Conservapedia is pro-America so it really doesn’t matter whether there are articles about the wolrd or the world or whatever the hell that thing is that you were talking about. Well that’s why I looked up some American stuff as well. Now I know what else you’re thinking, you’re thinking what if you didn’t know as much as Conservapedia? For instance, what if you didn’t already know that Spain “is the same country as was in the medieval times”? Well don’t worry because to persuade you that you really are smarter than an encyclopedia, I have found a bunch of things that have no entry at all in Conservapedia, so if you have heard of even one, you have encyclopedic knowledge and you should start charging people to access your brain instead of those charlatans at Wikipedia and Conservapedia and whatever hell-spawned pedia’s that spring forth next. So those items are:

1. Alan Greenspan
2. Drudge Report
3. Rush Limbaugh
4. Argentina
5. David Brooks
6. John F. Kennedy
7. Supreme Court
8. Iraq
9. Mao Zedong
10. Taepodong
11. Ari Fleischer
12. CNN
13. Rolling Stones
14. Rice
15. Boston
16. Brain
17. Condoleeza Rice
18. Garth Brooks
19. Franklyn D. Roosevelt
20. London
21. World Bank
22. Wal-Mart
23. Jon Stewart
24. Harvard
25. Michael Jordan
26. New York Yankees
27. New York Times
28. Liberty University
29. Wall Street Journal
30. Education
31. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Incidentally, I don’t mean for this to be a contest between which of these two useless web sites is less horrendous, but I did find it noteworthy that while Conservapedia has no entry on the Taepodong, Wikipedia has three different Taepodongs in their encyclopedia.

In closing, I believe I’ve (quite nimbly) proven my point – that you are an encyclopedia and you didn’t know it. If for some reason you still haven’t heard of any of the above items, and you are still on equal footing, knowledge-wise, with Conservapedia, I will tell you something about Argentina. So to be smarter than Conservapedia (no one’s ever accused me of not making my readers smarter (than Conservapedia)), all you need to know about Argentina is that it gave us this.

To (youtu)be or not to (youtu)be

I had a conversation with my students today about the popularity of media sites like Youtube and social networking sites. For college bound high school students, by the way, social networking sites start and end with Facebook. When one of them asked what I thought of Facebook, I told them that I didn’t have an account, so I wasn’t really sure. He said “I know,” but he said it in a way that would make just about anyone shiver. He had spent an hour the night before searching for anything about me online, just because he was bored.

I mention this because it highlights the permanent and shockingly accessible amount of information that floats around the internet. This is far from groundbreaking, but I’m looking at it suddenly from the eyes of high school students. Picture every bad decision you made along the lines of:

1. Pictures or video of you doing something illegal / unattractive
2. Writing (poetry, humor, hatred) that should never see the light of day
3. Angry comments delivered to others without full consideration of their impact
4. Professions of never-ending love

Some of the students that sit in my class everyday may end up someday running for political office. The possibility of a bad decision being dug up by their opponents may be much larger than just finding someone who will testify to seeing / hearing that decision. Some have argued that without the macaca debacle, George Allen would have retained his Senate seat and the current Democratic majority would not exist. The world of politics is in no way ready for the day that a presidential candidate realizes that the pictures of him hitting a beer bong are in hundreds of hard drives because he shared it as an eighteen year old on his Facebook page. Slate put together a pretty clever video on the subject of politician ambush during campaigning but it doesn’t address my concern, that information can be put into the public domain before someone even knows how many Representatives are in the House, let alone whether or not they’ll run.

There’s something tragic about ruining your life by saying something inappropriate to a small audience that is then broadcast to a large one. If you’re old (read: 30 or older) though, it’s your own damn fault. When you’ve not even finished high school or college, you should be able to speak without worrying about it costing you a job when you’re old (again, 30 or older.) Watching the Borat movie I relished the humiliation of the old rodeo director advocating the execution of homosexuals. But I felt sorry for the meathead, frat-rat, douchebag jocks. Those are the type of guys that I hated in college, but now I feel some pity for them. The fact that those guys may not get a job because they got drunk and made some (admittedly heinous and racially insensitive) remarks as 20 year olds strikes me as unfortunate.