Beth's Contradictory Brain

Florida Girls

Man, the video of those teenage girls in Florida beating the hell out of that other girl is whack. I don't necessarily find it shocking, I think most girls/women know girls can be brutal physically as well as mentally and emotionally.

Nerdstar thinks they should get six years in jail.

I think they should be made to join the Marines for an 8 year enlistment, four of which they cannot be promoted. If they were boys this might be more likely. I think it would do them a world of good. I think jail would/will only make things worse.

Ideas

I really wish I had media skills - you know, I could pull videos up and edit and dub and soundtrack them. I don't know how, but I sometimes have ideas that I think would be fun.

Tonight watching AI and seeing Paula's poor squashed boobies I immediately had Rage Against The Machine's Bulls On Parade in my head. Wouldn't it be fun to insert boobs for bulls and have a steady video stream of boob/cleavage shots for the duration of the song.

I'd also love to do all the out takes from The View of them being totally gay. Those small moments alone make it worth DVRing every day.

If I Were...

We've been to all levels of baseball games, from college to pro. One of the cool things is how sometimes (maybe more in college and semi-pro) the batters have theme songs that are played when they come up to bat.

So...

If I were a baseball player - my theme song would be AC/DC's Have A Drink On Me - and every time I hit a home run everyone in the stadium would get a free beer!

I'd be the.most.popular.player.ever.

Penny Idea

Every so often the idea of discontinuing pennies is floated. I think it's a great idea. Here's how I think it could be done.

Announce on January 1 that in exactly one year no more pennies will be made or circulated. In that one year period everyone can take their pennies to any bank and get the equivalent of 2 for 1 - that will encourage everyone to actually turn in all the pennies out there. Then the govt. can sell them as scrap metal to whoever wants it and probably make a profit. (I'm pretty sure the metals in the pennies are worth more than 1 cent.)

Car Tattoos

I'm really liking having a brand new car. But there's one small issue.

I drove a '69 camaro from age 15 to 35. That car was mine and everyone who saw that car knew it was mine. (It even got me in trouble a couple of times when people saw it parked somewhere I shouldn't have been.)

So I'm having a little trouble with the new Corolla feeling like mine. I don't really like bumperstickers. I'm not likely to bother with personalized plates.

I keep thinking there should be car tattoos. Not sure what I'd want mine to be - but there'd probably be more than one.

Yeah, I could probably find some expensive body shop and some cool dude to do some custom paint something or other. Not sure it's worth what it would cost...

Mobile Pods

Driving around today I heard one of those commercials for OnStar and got to thinking about one of my old ideas again.

I think we're at a point technologically where we could have vehicles that are completely programmable and self driving.

Imagine a vehicle - a kind of personal pod that can come in models for any # of people; one person, two person, six person, whatever, pods - that all you do is get in - type in your destination, and sit back and let it take you there. In the pod there is wi-fi, music, video, whatever you'd like for entertainment, or even just space to sleep until you arrive. These aren't train like vehicles, they're all little individual vehicles, but could be smaller than current cars.

I think we could use existing infrastructure - roads and highways and such - maybe just lay whatever it is that would direct the cars in the middle of the lanes. This way it wouldn't be like building a whole new rail system or anything.

I know the initial cost would be massive.

But...

just think what it would be worth to never have to pay for car insurance, or traffic tickets, or to sit it traffic, or have another crash or fatality due to vehicles.

It could be set up where people either own their pods, or there could be X number of pods per house or whatever, not individually owned, but everyone has a swipe card and you just pay a per mile fee.

Anyway. Yes, these are the kinds of ideas I've had all my life. This one's not exactly The Jeffersons, but I think it's feasible if we wanted it to be.

Pimping out the Dog

While apartment hunting and eating in DC last week, we got to talking about ways to make some extra cash to fund Nerdstar's food habit.

We had Ramen with us on the trip and one afternoon we were outside Nerdstar's future workplace waiting for one of her co-workers to come meet Ramen and several people stopped and asked if they could pet Ramen.

It simply can't be stated how much Ramen loves to be petted, I think even moreso by strangers than us.

We simply put two and two together and figured we'd place some ads for fur therapy - $15 for fifteen minutes of petting Ramen.

Another service would be to rent him out for weekend afternoons to people who for whatever reason can't have a dog but want one - they can take him out for walks and hikes.

(I'll leave it to my dear readers to figure out just how serious we are!)

Oscars

I thought Ellen - the straightest lesbian in America - did a pretty good job last night. Yes, the show went on way too long, but I'm not sure how you could make it shorter without taking out the semi-entertaining bits. I liked the dancers.

I think the commercials were better than the ones during the Super Bowl. Loved the iPhone commercials and the American Express ones. Finally got to see the sad little robot commercial - thought it was cool.

My idea for winning best documentary - figure out "the formula" - like making a documentary about children with AIDS trying to stop global warming while ending the tragedy that is Darfur. But then, at the same time, make a documentary about making the documentary just to win the Oscar - and that one would win the Spirit Awards.

And, if the Oscars were "green" this year - did all the people involved get their by hybrid car or bicycle instead of limo? Probably not.

Two Things

Two things I'd like to have...

A digital gas gage telling me exactly how much gas I have left and exactly how many miles it'll get me.

A "mute" button on the tv remote to turn off all the graphics on the screen, including all those annoying news crawls.

Day Dream

It's a darn shame I like living in the US so much (even if it's here in the Midwest)! One idea that hit me while listening to that AFI 100 greatest movie songs the other day was how cool it would be to go to Iraq and teach things like that.

Then tonight at Barnes and Noble I picked up Christopher Hitchens' new biography of Jefferson and a book about the transcontinential railroad by Stephen Ambrose. It led me to expand on that idea and think about how it would be fun to set up a big movie theater/cafe in Baghdad and show classic American films, have book discussions on people like Jefferson and Lincoln and really find fun ways to share this big crazy idea of democracy.

I'm in no way saying Iraq's government and democracy has to mirror ours. We can all certainly hope they never go thru a civil war like we did. But what's the point of over 200 years of trail and error and history if we can't be some sort of example - and what more fun way would there be to share that example than thru movies, books and music?