» On 3/20/2011 07:25:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
SHORT SCREENPLAY: "Let them eat cheese."

INT. GOVERNMENT BUILDING - HALLWAY

An ornate plaque on the door reads "Office of the Wisconsin Governor." Below the plaque is a photo of a man who looks like Scott Walker, with a bright orange cheese-wedge hat on his head. Inside the office, a SCOTT WALKER LOOK-ALIKE sits behind a massive desk, flanked by American and Wisconsin flags. He's dressed in a suit and tie, and uses a gold toothpick to clean his teeth, which he SUCKS LOUDLY. A male AIDE ENTERS, carrying a massive 18th-century court dress with extremely wide panniers.

AIDE: Time to get ready for the Halloween party!

Scott removes his jacket and shirt. The Aide begins strapping him into the court dress with velcro fasteners.

SCOTT: Marie Antoinette, eh?

The Aide picks up a high-piled wig, and places it carefully on Scott's head.

AIDE: Shows your solidarity with the gay community.

SCOTT: By dressing like an 18th-century French queen?

AIDE (pauses, staring): Duh.

The Aide starts applying rouge to Scott's face. The guy's actually not a bad-looking dame. A male INTERN ENTERS, looking worried... but he takes a moment to admire the low-cut dress. A few chest hairs are peeking out.

INTERN: Nice rack. (pause) Hey, there's a huge mob of people gathering out there.

He points to the window. Scott tries to look, but the Aide is applying mascara to his left eye.

SCOTT: What's the problem?

INTERN: They're poor folks. They're hungry. They don't have any bread.

SCOTT: Let 'em eat cake.

INTERN: Okaaaaayyyyy...

Scott, who is turning into quite the cutie-pie queen, finally gets a chance to look outside the window.

SCOTT: What is that contraption they're building?

INTERN: Hm. Looks like... yup, it's a guillotine.

Scott turns whiter than he already is.

THE END

 
» On 3/18/2011 08:20:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Facebook Math Lesson.

Screenplay, The Social Network, p.143:

EDUARDO: How many shares of stock will I own?

LAWYER: 1,328,334.

EDUARDO: Jesus Christ.

LAWYER: That represents a 34.4% ownership share. Why the increase from the original 30%?

EDUARDO: Because you may need to dilute it to award shares to new investors.

LAWYER: I like working with business majors.

EDUARDO: Economics.

LAWYER #2: You should know that Mark's already taken his percentage from 60 down to 51.

EDUARDO: Mark doesn't care about money and he needs to be protected.

LAWYER: Dustin Moskovitz owns 6.81%, Sean Parker 6.47%--

EDUARDO: I can live with that.

LAWYER: And Peter Theil [sic] 7%. Would you like to use my pen?

***

34.4 + 51 + 6.81 + 6.47 + 7 = 105.68%

Same math in the book.

No wonder Wardo got screwed...

 
» On 3/15/2011 04:15:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Raccoon Attack!

Ref: KSDK and the Quincy Herald-Whig...

So, Dallas and Dorothy Crawford had a house-trained raccoon. They bought him from a breeder, taught him to use a litter box, took him for walks on a leash.

As you know, raccoons are enormously curious creatures. (If you don't know, you probably shouldn't own a raccoon.)

These wild animals like shiny things. Sparkling things. Fluttering things.

The Crawford's four-day-old granddaughter came over for a visit, and the bow on her headband was enough to pique the raccoon's curiosity. In his attempt to examine the bow, he left puncture wounds and a cut on the kid's head.

The doctors, of course, wanted a rabies test on the raccoon, which requires euthanizing the little guy and performing a biopsy on his brain.

The Crawfords didn't want their raccoon to be killed. They believe he was properly vaccinated. He had papers. He was registered.

They persisted in these beliefs, even after they were taken to court.

Luckily, wiser heads prevailed. The kid is doing well and the raccoon is now a coonskin cap. The sheriff says it's too soon to know if any charges will be filed in the case.

Dorothy Crawford's parting shot was priceless: "I feel like in hindsight I wish I'd have been thinking."

 
» On 3/05/2011 12:45:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Sorry, Charlie.

Re: Charlie Sheen Is Infecting PCs Everywhere, Experts Warn (FoxNews): "[...] Charlie Sheen's bizarre meltdown is captivating websurfers worldwide, but those Googling updates on the TV star won't be "winning" when their search results crash their computer. [...]"

[First, it's "computers," you illiterates.]

The news media is desperate to convert the current Charlie Sheen Mania into ratings points by finding a Charlie Sheen connection to everything under the sun. I know, because I'm being encouraged to write Charlie-Sheen-Tigerblood-DNA-Analysis sidebars and Charlie-Sheen-Offends-Droopy-Eyed-Armless-Children features. This FoxNews story could do some good, if it clearly instructed websurfers to Right-Click-And-Close any suspicious browser pages on their task bars. In our household, this became Standard Operating Procedure, after last year's infamous and long-lamented "Eighty-Dollar Click" (don't get me started).

But since FoxNews is recycling this bit of old "news" with a new tie-in (Sheen) and the trademarked FoxNews Sensationalism, it will probably just spread fear and panic and Sheenimosity. Sorry, Charlie.

 
» On 3/04/2011 02:35:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
TV ad for Arizona tourism - "ZONI PSA" script. 

VISUAL NOTE: Saguaro cacti dot the landscape in each of the following scenes...

BACKGROUND MUSIC: Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture ("Lone Ranger" theme)...

EXTERIOR DESERT - DAY

A brown-skinned man, wearing a sombrero and sporting a mustache, drags a beat-up lawn mower bumpily across a straight white line marked on the rocky ground. Following him is a brown-skinned woman, wearing a maid's uniform and bumpily dragging a beat-up hose-and-rolling-cannister vacuum cleaner. Attached to an upright signpost planted exactly on the white line is this sign:
<==ARIZONA | MÉXICO==>

ANNOUNCER (VOICE OVER): We live in a state that wants to get rid of the people who mow our lawns and clean our houses.

EXT. FREEWAY ON-RAMP - DAY

A homeless man begs for money beside the roadway, holding a cardboard sign: "I have the right to starve in a right-to-work state."

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): We live in a state that treats "union" as a cuss word.

EXT. BAR IN A SEEDY, CONTEMPORARY SLUM - DAY

A man dressed in a garish, child-like cowboy costume, complete with six-shooters and fuzzy-hairy chaps, walks into a modern-day run-down pub while brandishing his pistols. He is met with a hail of bullets, all of which miraculously miss him. He fires back into the pub interior, as he continues to swagger through a pair of swinging, Western-style saloon doors.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): We live in a state that lets us carry guns into bars.

EXT. CARNIVAL SHOOTING GALLERY BOOTH - DAY

A man with a pellet rifle aims and fires at several staggered rows of ducks, moving back and forth in the target range. Some of the ducks fall over, as he shoots them. Cheers erupt from the watching crowd.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): We live in a state that treats elected representatives like sitting ducks.

EXT. CARNIVAL SHOOTING GALLERY BOOTH - ANOTHER ANGLE, CONTINUOUS

The shooting-gallery crowd turns away from the carnival game and towards the camera. An Arizona flag waves in the background.

SHOOTING-GALLERY CROWD (IN UNISON): We are proud to live in Arizona.

 
» On 3/01/2011 03:10:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
What would Charlie say? 

Charlie Sheen's new live show is much more entertaining than his old two-and-a-half sitcom. He has become the most quotable man in the universe. I now try to live my life by asking myself, "What would Charlie say?" Examples:


"You can't process me with a normal brain."

"You borrow my brain for like five seconds and be like, 'Dude! Can't handle it! Unplug this bastard!"

"My brain fires in a way that is... I don't know, maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm."

"Have you seen her? She's hot as sh*t." (Ex-wife Denise Richards.)

"Get out of my face with your corduroys." (Directed at his former producer, Chuck Lorre.)

"They can't hang with me, their bones would melt like wax." (His former bosses.)

"Sober Valley Lodge." (His house.)

"The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards, all of them, look like droopy-eyed armless children."

"I'm battle-tested bayonets."

"I've got magic. I've got poetry in my fingertips."

"I'm tired of pretending my life isn't perfect and bitchin' and winning every second."

"I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body."

"I see things in a different way. Sometimes life is boring and I've got to make it exciting."

"Another one of their mottos is 'Don't be special, be one of us.' Newsflash: I am special, and I will never be one of you!"

"They lay down with their ugly wives and their ugly children and just look at their loser lives and then they look at me and say, 'I can’t process it.' Well, no, and you never will! Stop trying! Just sit back and enjoy the show."


More: Charlie Sheen's Craziest Quotes, Presented by Adorable Bunnies and Cats Quote Charlie Sheen (also, part deux), Charlie Sheen Quotes As New Yorker Cartoons, Sheen Family Circus, CS Twitter, CS Twitpic.