That's a Fight You Don't Wanna Pick, Mr. President

So I'm told that the Bush Administration wants you to remember John Kerry's infamous quote that "I
actually did vote for the $87 billion...before I voted against it."

Now, we already know that the Bush administration reads Furdell.com and incorporates our ideas as policy. That being the case, I have a message for George: do you really want this election to be decided based on quotes taken out of context? Or even in context, for that matter?

And another thing, while I have your ear, Mr President: a war for oil was all well and good, but how about a war for gasoline? Cause oh man, that stuff is expensive.

My Brother and Aspect Ratios

This article, about how widescreen DVDs are now preferred over full screen by Blockbuster, reminds me of the halcyon days when my brother used to work there. Remember that, James? Those days sure were halcyon, huh?

Anyway, if I recall James's story correctly, it goes something...like this.

Well, I'm just relating the story as it was told to me about ten years ago. My version might not be completely accurate, but it's probably way more interesting than the way James tells it anyway.

This is going to be one of those entries that bores people who don't watch '24'

First of all, I'm back, and yes, it was awesome. Thanks.

Now, on to the blogging.

Why is it that when the U.S. military holds suspects' relatives hostage as bargaining chips I see it as another instance of abuse, whereas I cheer every time Jack Bauer does it on 24?

Uh-oh. It's another one of Andrew's posts about 24. Looks like everyone who still insists on not watching every Tuesday in a quiet, dark room with unplugged phones will once again be bored.

Anyway, I was disappointed with this season's finale. Oh, it had its moments -- especially the part where Jack chops off his friend's arm with a fire axe. Yeah, my discretion was definitely advised for that scene. And his friend was totally okay with it, too. He was all, "Hurry up, before I lose my nerve." Sweet.

But the season ends with Jack in a car, crying like a little girl. Wha? OK, I understand that it's been a stressful couple of days, but from a Jack Bauer point of view it wasn't anything all that bad. Here's the rundown:

• His annoying blonde girlfriend, who he met last season, dumped him.


• His much hotter Latina girlfriend got shot in the head.


• He also gunned down his ex-girlfriend, Nina. That made me cry, but not Jack.


• He's trying to drop his smack addiction (incurred undercover!).


• One of his coworkers melted; another is going to jail forever. I'm pretty sure that sort of thing happens every day at CTU.


• President Palmer told Jack that he's not seeking reelection. That's a shame because Jack has saved Palmer's life about a million times, so he could call in almost any totally insane special favor he wanted to at this point. But that's more of an "aww shucks" moment than a "boo hoo."


• Jack's partner (also Jack's daughter's boyfriend) made the mistake of telling Jack at the end of the season: "I think I'm going to ask for a desk job." Of course if he'd said "I'm going to retire," he would be dead. Instead Jack was merely forced to chop off his arm.


• There were about 800 other incidental casualties, but who really cares?

And that was just about everything. I mean, come on. Quit being such a crybaby. As Penguin would say: "Waugh, Batman."

My other problem with the ending: it had no oomph! Season 1 ended when Jack's wife was murdered. Season 2 ended when President Palmer was assassinated (apparently he actually didn't die, though this was never explained). This season ended with...Jack crying. Great. As such, I present to you the following Improved Ending to Last Night's 24 Season Finale, written by me. It picks up at the part where Kim (Jack's daughter) meets Jack at the hospital.

JACK exits the hospital. Cut to PRESIDENT PALMER, who is solemnly being driven somewhere.

The PRESIDENT'S BROTHER shoots the PRESIDENT in the head. It is awesome. Cut to Jack, who enters his Ford SUV. His phone rings.

JACK puts his hands on the wheel and stares straight ahead. Suddenly NINA pops up from the back seat!

Beep! Beep! Beep! End of season. Are you listening, FOX network? I am Andrew Furdell, and I am the greatest television drama writer of all time! Hire me now so I can make your shows ROCK HARDCORE!!!

Sniper Update

Apparently I've lost my touch since yesterday, because today it took me five tries (at 6 pesos per attempt) before I finally edged out the factory-set high score of 310,000 (damn you, 'SS2', whoever you are). In my defense, the scope was off by a half-inch and occasionally it jumped to random parts of the screen. I'm still fairly confident at least that nobody in Mexico can beat my score, and most tourists won't ever find that mall.

So, you can rest easy. I am still the Ultimate International Sniper. Huzzah.

Umm, that's all I wanted to say. Not that exciting really. I'd better spice things up: Bush is a fascist. Hah! Mission accomplished.*

*note: this joke is too subtle.

My Ultimate Sniper dream destroyed

As a seasoned world traveller, I like to leave my mark everywhere I go. Since you?re not allowed to carve your name into coral reefs, my preferred method is to get such an obscenely high score in a local arcade?s copy of "Silent Scope 2" that my glorious initials, ALF, will forever grace that town?s machine.

Currently you can view my handiword in Spain, Switzerland, France, and England; or, if like some of our readers, you hate foreign people, check out the Luxor at Las Vegas and see if you can approach 1/3 of my score. (you can?t. I?m that good.)

So today I attempted to make my move at Playa del Carmen in sunny Mexico. The game was going great; I had many head hits and had not missed a single target in the first two rounds. In the third round, I hit the first four guys easily enough. From then on, everything would be icing on the cake. As the fifth assassin sped towards me on his skis, I took aim and fired, hitting him -- and so astounding the machine with my skills that it went blank. "IO Failure." Damn.

Next time, Mexico. Next time.

Later, fools.

I'm going on vacation this week, which means not a single Furdell will be in the country. (Or at least none of the important ones.) If everyone gets anthrax while we're gone, I swear it's a coincidence.

Speaking of terror, I'll take this opportunity to rebuke some more comments from commenter Chris.

They may have showed them at the time, but I haven't seen a World Trade Center video, based on why we are fighting this war on terrorism, in about 2 years. Bush used one image in a commercial and all the liberal activists went crazy. Why? Because it reminds Americans why we are fighting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Did you know that every time you remember something, the memory gets rewritten in your brain with a whole new set of perceptions and links? Often the new memory barely resembles reality. An interesting, totally unrelated fact.

Back on the subject at hand, it'll interest you to know that those liberal activists were in fact firefighters and victims' families; and that they were upset because they believed Bush was exploiting the tragedy for political gain.

If I had seen the video, I probably would have responded by putting my hand through the TV screen. It enrages me that human beings would do this to someone else. It further pushes me to believe what we are doing is the right thing and the ultimate defeat of the Islam-o-fascists is something all countries should strive for.

You don't seem nearly so upset by what white human beings were doing to Arab human beings at Abu Ghraib. Innocent people died there too -- do we American fascists therefore deserve to be ultimately defeated as well? (Correct answer: "No, but now I understand why those guys are so pissed at us. Hmm.")

In conclusion, your jingoism disturbs me. It disturbs me so much that I'm going to leave the country! Goodbye, you obese bunch of losers!

My Review of 'Troy'

Troy **

Tonight I saw Troy, yon blockbuster adaptation of the Iliad. I give it two (2) stars out of 20.

Ah, perhaps you're wondering exactly what scientific method I use to rate movies? The only one that makes any sense: I award one star for each actor that was formerly a Bond villain. 'Troy' gets 1 star each for Julian Glover (aka Kristatos) and Sean Bean who you remember as Alec Trevelyan.

It should be noted that, with a score of three (3) stars, Ronin is the best film of all time. Personally, I'm not a fan. But I'm not going to argue with the system.

Blame the Press

I had assumed that the conservative response to the Iraq prison torture mess was going to boil down to something like: "Torture isn't so bad! In fact it's expected, nay, required in a war of this magnitude!"

I was totally wrong; the token response is instead to blame the press for releasing the photos of the abuse. HAH! Forget about the abuse, it's revealing the abuse that's really causing problems!

But wait a second -- isn't it the responsibility of the press to publicize exactly this kind of thing -- namely, governmental abuses? If the press had failed to publish those photos, it would have been just that -- a failure. Sure, non-photo coverage is powerful too, but the term "photojournalism" exists for a reason, and those pictures were news.

So if you're thinking the press is to blame for people getting their heads cut off, consider this: our government does what it does knowing that, if the press finds out, so will we. It is not the responsibility of our newspapers to censor themselves in the hopes of saving lives; it is the responsibility of our leaders to do the right thing or be held accountable.

The following weblog occurs in real time.

Due to scenes of extreme awesomeness, viewer discretion of the following weblog is advised.

For those of you who missed last night's 24, I pray for your doomed souls. But also I shall give you a synopsis of the Most Awesome Scene in last night's episode, which may have also been the best scene of the season that didn't involve Nina.

Our scene opens with Jack "Kiefer" Bauer chasing Saunders (this season's quasi-foreign villain mastermind) under a bridge somewhere. A helicopter arrives.

cut to This Year's Expendable Computer Expert at CTU headquarters.

cut to awesome jets

cut to Saunders running towards helicopter

cut to jet firing rocket

The Game of Pluck

Hey, kids! I think I have strep throat. I'm not sure, but I'm in horrible pain! Oh lordy.

Well, that's enough pity partying. It's time now that I tought you all the game of Pluck, which I learned about a month ago while waiting with some other degenerate gamblers for a poker game to start. Pluck is great because, like baccarat, there's no skill involved; but unlike baccarat, I understand it.

OK, here's how you play. First of all, each player names a specific card (suit and value). Then all the cards are spread out face down on the table in an unorganized pile. Moving clockwise, each player "plucks" a card (get it? get it?) from the pile. Depending on what card they get, they might get money!

Here's how it works: suppose my card is the 3 of diamonds.
* if I get a diamond, everyone pays me $1.
* If I get a 3, everyone pays me $5.
* If I get the 3 of diamonds, everyone pays me $20! Give me your money!

Ah, but the money-giving doesn't stop there. After each player has 5 cards, everyone pays $3 to the player with the best poker hand (or $6 if their hand is 3-of-a-kind or better).

Believe me, this game is fun. Highlights include: picking your card and suddenly getting $80; and, getting super-drunk while you play and realizing it makes no difference whatsoever and possibly even helps. Play Pluck(tm) today.

Rest easy, sportsfans.

And lest we be condemned for only focusing on the negative, let it be known that Spider-Man will not be appearing on a third base near you.

Though I, as the non-baseball-watching Furdell, find the whole thing silly. It's not as if there's no precedent for commercialization of sports. Would you have been less offended if they'd chosen a more well-worn path -- like, say, Spider-Man Stadium?

Actually that would be pretty awesome. I would go to Spider-Man Stadium every day, I'll tell you that much.

Fahrenheit: Retarded

Moore: What should I name my next movie? Ah, eureka! I'll name it as a reference to Fran?ois Truffaut's worst movie, which itself was based on Ray Bradbury's most overrated book. Brilliant!

Eisner: Great idea, Michael! Hey, here's a brainstorm -- your last movie was cheap to produce and made a huge profit. So I'll refuse to distribute this one on political grounds! It'll cost me a fortune! Oh, joy!!!

Moore: Good one, Michael! Hey, time out, another thought is coming to me! Yes, here it comes, here it comes -- I got it! I'm going to wait until the last second, so I can blow this whole thing out of proportion! OH MY GOD I'M SO SMART ARRRRGH -- * (heart attack)

Moore devotees: Oh no! Probably nobody's going to pick up distribution on a definite box office hit! We'll never get to see the movie! Oh, woe is us! REVOLUTION!!!

Bush: There goes the neighborhood! (smiles at camera and shrugs; still frame, roll credits)

Top Five (3) things I (re)learned playing poker last night

I learn a lot of things every time I play poker, really I do. But last night I learned exactly five things -- and that lends itself well to a Top 5 List.

Well, actually, I already knew these things. And technically there's only three of them -- but two of them are really long.

1.) The last few times I played poker, I lost, sometimes substantially. Actually the last time I played before last night I ended the evening with more money than I started, but only because I played a hilarious all-luck game called "Pluck" in which you pick a random card and people give you stacks of money. I won something like $250 playing that and then lost all but about 10 of it back at the poker table. Go figure.

So yesterday, I took a sick day from work. I'm sitting around at home doing nothing, so I started re-reading my many-times-read book on Texas Hold 'Em. It's a great book. I had noticed in the past that if I thumbed through it during the day before a game, I did better on average. (I have many charts and graphs.) Sure enough, reading the book I realized what had happened: I had slipped into a routine of playing "weak tight," the worst kind of poker play. I was just calling all the time, not raising pre-flop remotely enough, and I'd forgotten how to re-raise entirely. Not good. Then I watched the World Poker Tour, made bearable by Tivo's ability to skip through its long commercials, long Hold Em lessons, and long biographical segments about the players.

And then, in spite of telling myself I wouldn't play for a while because I've been on a losing streak and I'm supposed to be saving up money for a big vacation, I went and played last night, and sure enough I kicked some serious poker ass. I mean, it wasn't my biggest win ever, but I definitely did better than anyone else at the table, and we're talking about 8 or so pretty good players. I made something like $100 per hour. Nothing to sneeze at, indeed.

So what did I learn from all this? In poker, studying is important. I already kind of knew that, but I need to make it my mantra or something, because if I would just read a little bit before each game, I'd do much better.

2.) Poker slang is hilarious, and needs to become useable outside the realm of card playing. Witness the following actual conversation between three Degenerate Gamblers, overheard by me last night:

DG1: "This philly cheesesteak pizza is da bomb."
DG2: "The cinnamon sticks are better."
DG3: "I don't know about that. The philly cheesesteak..."
DG2: "Cinnamon sticks are the nuts."

That was it. End of conversation. Nothing beats the nuts.

3.) Are you very wealthy, but also very bad at poker? Have you been winning at poker all night, but only because you've been lucky and not because you're a better player? If you appear to be either of these types, poker players will do whatever they can to pressure you into staying, and it is creepy.

No joke. Personally I fall into the second camp, or at least I appear to, which is all that really matters. Skill wise I'm probably a bit better than the average player in the game I've been playing semi-regularly (a game that is full of strong players). Let's say I'm in the 65 percentile. Luck wise I seem to have sold my soul to the devil, and when the cards start coming, oh man.

Take last night, when the cards started coming at about 10:45pm. This is bad. You see, I am a fan of the sleep, and on a weekday I prefer to be abed before 1am. Not unreasonable I think. Since this poker game, like all others, is at least 20 miles away from my home, and since I'd like to sneak in some quality time with my TV, I always leave this game at around 11:15.

In a casino, none of this would be a problem. You can sit down, play a hand, win, get up, and go home. Nobody will stop you. At a home game, people gotta be bitches. I mentioned a losing streak before; well, before that, I was on the Winning Streak that Would Not Die. I'd make lots of money and then want to go home. To these people, going home at 2am is unreasonably early, so they got the impression that I was leaving just so I could take home their money. One particularly obnoxious player, now banned from most games in the city, used to (loudly) call me "Hit 'n' Run." I believe it was his complaints that led to the game's host pulling me aside and telling me to announce my intention to leave at least an hour in advance from then on. Even though I never ever stay past midnight. Assholes.

So, back to that previous paragraph. At about 10:45, the laws of mathematical probability fell apart, and all the money started going my way. In Omaha Hi-Lo, I hold A-Q-T-3, and the board reads K-Q-J-T-8 giving me the nut straight two different ways (I went with the A-T). Then in Seven-Stud Hi-Lo I scoop the pot with 2-3-4-5-6. Then Hold 'Em starts. I hold Q-T, both diamonds, and by the turn the board is A(d)-K(d)-J-4, giving me both the nut straight and a draw to the nut flush. (The flush didn't come.) On my last hand I had J-4 in the big blind, and sure enough the flop was J-4-K, and the turn was another 4 giving me an unpredictable full house.

The long and the short of it is, when I stood up from the table, even though I had announced that this would be my last round, there was some incredulity. They say it like this: "I don't know how you can leave with a run of luck like this going." What they really mean: "You'd better stay here and lose my money back to me, you lucky son of a bitch." And yes, the more you leave with, the exponentially worse it gets.

Poker players are surprisingly bad at hiding their intentions, at least en masse. Try to imagine eight or so men, none of whom particularly likes you in the first place, all at once trying to urge you to stick around. You get the idea.

Co-opting my funnier friend's work

I was going to do this really heavy rant about naked Iraqi sex torture, but instead, since this weekend we're in the spirit of giving non-Furdells a voice, I shall instead copy-and-paste the work of my friend Mark.

Long-time readers who recall my sucky previous blog will remember Mark as the guy who has hilarious out-of-office automatic email responses. Here is another of those. Enjoy.

I'm spending a long weekend with my girlfriend Lydia.

Lydia, whom I probably haven't mentioned before, is German and by all accounts genetically superior to any woman I have ever met. I have even gone so far to apply phrenology to her head and discovered that her skull dimensions are indicative of a remarkably high intellect and that the distance between her nose and chin reflects superior leadership qualities. Her only imperfection, if you'd call it that, is her unrelenting desire to take over the world under a brutal totalitarian regime. She has her hobbies I have mine. I for instance enjoy tennis. The key is that we support each other.

Right now many of you are asking how Lydia and I met? Well, our love affair started rather suddenly. We were both coincidentally running through a field of wheat in the early afternoon sun when we both unexpectedly tripped and fell on top of one another and proceeded to make love. At least that's how I remember it. The police report has it as a foot chase, a tackle, and a sexual assault. However, I couldn't press charges against her once I saw her face in court. Her bewildering eyes staring at me, much the same way they were in the field when she was choking me for no good reason. To say I dropped the charges out of intimidation is hardly a substantial claim. I dropped the charges out of love. And it is this love that compelled me to change my story.

It was perhaps my reversal on the assault charges that redirected Lydia's homicidal feelings towards me into somewhat less homicidal feelings. Her new outlook on me promptly started a whirlwind love affair, complete with full access to my credit cards, the use of my apartment, car, and pretty much everything else I own.

About now you're probably wondering about how good our sex life must be. Well as I said before, Lydia is German, and like most Germans she likes sex to be as well planned as possible. The standard German rule of thumb is to produce the greatest possible orgasm with the least amount of energy. Foreplay consists mainly of drawing up schematics of each sexual position and then determining the proper movement, thrust, and weight distribution of each maneuver verse the amount of calories needed to perform it. And once we're done with a fully clothed rehearsal, we commence in an act of sex that has the precision of a laser beam and the efficiency of a Japanese auto factory.

Unfortunately, sex hasn't solidified our relationship as it has for so many other couples. From my understanding, sex usually leads to unintentional declarations of love just before lift off, but in our case I've been the only one screaming "I love you" while she lays totally silent engrossed in some kind of repetitive breathing pattern. Undeterred, I began saying "Ich liebe dich," which means I love you in German, but that must of tried her patience because she reprimanded me for improvising during a our well choreographed sex itinerary. I, perhaps the more emotional of our dyad, asked why she never says the words "I love you" back to me. Furious, she explained that the 1.2 seconds it takes to say such words would totally throw her off her very well laid out schedule. She further explained that if she were to say those words once a day it would add up to her being off by 8.4 seconds a week and more than a minute after a year. I certainly couldn't argue with how terribly inefficient my request was, but nonetheless it made me angry to hear it. So there I stood, conflicted between whether to walk out of the room in a huff or to see if she was still amorous enough to finish the last three sexual maneuvers; #4A, #15, and #31, in that specific order. I choose the later and found to my chagrin that the mood was indeed broken. As Lydia reattached her bra she yelled at me once again, this time informing me that the time involved in this totally unnecessary conversation would be coming straight out of our sex life.

So that's where our relationship left off as of last week. Since then we have hardly talked. And during these last seven days of silence I have learned that I can't live with out her. So I have come to the conclusion that I must ask Lydia to marry me. The problem with this realization is Lydia's tight and uncompromising schedule. In light of her pet peeve with inefficiency I have worked on getting the proposal down as much as I can. I figure it'll take 3.4 seconds to pop the question, and then when you factor in her dramatic pause, answer, and the time it takes to put the ring on her finger, I'll be approaching a total time of 12 seconds. From looking at her yearly planner she doesn't have an opening for an unscheduled 12 second marriage proposal until July 2008; which happens to be around the time she expects Western Europe to fall to her brutal air campaign, but just before she launches her blitzkrieg on China. I personally don't want to ask for her hand in marriage when most of the Far East is still resisting her quest for global supremacy. And even if I did, what time does a dictator have for a guy like me? All the killing, persecution, and oppression will demand almost all of her attention, leaving me what, a wedding ring and my own private Gestapo death squad to order around willy-nilly? That's only half a marriage. I want the other half. The half filled with snuggling, cutting out coupons, and inviting other ruthless despots over for drinks and maybe a game of pictionary. How can I have that half? I don't know, maybe I'm silly for thinking this can work, but isn't that what love is about, making things work? I mean if Lydia can cause the whole of Europe to fall in 7 months as planned she could certainly make our marriage work, right? Anyway, I'm taking a personal day to get my head together on this.

Hey, Shorty! It's my birthday.

My birthday isn't until July 28th, but you should really start figuring out what you're going to get me now. At this rate, anything you buy me will pale in comparison to what DVD manufacturers are cooking up. They've decided to release everything awesome on July 27th. Isn't that sweet?

First off, the old softies decided to release the Dawn of the Dead remake, knowing full well that I am a lover of the zombie movie in all its forms.

Secondly, these beautiful bastards -- who are well aware that my favorite director is Paul Verhoeven -- decided to give a gift to both me and my birthday-sharer, Liz (me and Liz go way back). That present is the Showgirls VIP Edition. You don't know how long me and Liz have been waiting for a Showgirls release with some actual special features. It's taken great restraint on our part to not by the sucky-ass barebones edition.

And finally, as if gold and frankincense were not enough, I have been honored with the myrrh that is Sledge Hammer!, a show that James and I loved in our youth. They even removed the laugh track for the DVD release! Oh, true joy, thy name is DVD.

I'm just saying, you have a lot to live up to.