With all the water cooler talk at work this week centering on the Hollywood blockbuster Dawn of the Dead, it really got me thinking about asteroids and meteors and comets and moons… again. The reason being? Although the movie never mentions the cause of the wide-spread zombification, I imagine it has to do with the effects of a passing meteorite, becasue that is the root cause of most evil things, scientifically speaking. To fully understand the basis for this theory many factors must be calculated. As such, I have compiled a timeline, because as a scientist a timeline is essential.

I think my interest in and subsequent fear of astronomical phenomenon began when I was 8. During the opening sequence of one of my favorite cartoons, Thundarr the Barbarian, a comet was depicted passing between the earth and its closest moon, the Moon. In doing so, the Moon was cracked in half and the Ozone layer was dragged away by the comet’s gravity. Of course, this lead to harmful radiation and crazy gravity which brought about a time of wizards, warlords, wookie-like creatures called Ooklas, and other assorted characters that looked like things I later saw on the show Xena. Of course, Thundarr was not real, but it's astro physics was dead on. It is the basis for my theory that during the times of ancient Greece (most accurately depicted in Xena) both the ozone layer and the Moon were recovering from a similar catastrophy depicted in the cartoon.

My mother tried to assure me for years that comets held no malice towards men. I was almost swayed. That is, until I saw the movie, Maximum Overdrive, which renewed my fear of comets and introduced a new fear of Emilio Estevez. The plot of this movie is that a much slower, much more charismatic comet than the comet from Thundarr commands all the machines of earth to rise up against their human oppressors. As a little leaguer at the time I was horrified by the scene in which a little league team was decimated by a soda machine that could launch its cans with deadly accuracy and velocity from hundreds of feet. To this day, I am unable to watch an Emilio Estevez film, unless it also has Charlie Sheen. I really like Charlie Sheen. I’ll watch anything with him in it, unless it also has Jon Cryer.

This time my father tried to convince me that a soda machine doesn’t have the mechanical inner workings and mechanisms to unleash such an assault. But he was a soda sale rep and distributor, not a soda machine mechanic, and I’m just supposed to take his word for it?!

Several years later, I smuggled a juice box into the local mega-plex to see Armageddon. The driving concept is there not only is an actual “best driller in the world” but when all the “drilling experts” are asked who the best driller in the world is, they unanimously agree it’s Bruce Willis. Also, the best drillers are often misfits, the kind of drillers other drillers are afraid to drill with because they’re dangerous “mavericks”. Anyway, if this rock hits the earth it’s going to infect the world with Space Dementia, and quite possibly, although not mentioned specifically, Space Herpes. As if the world didn’t have enough diseases of its own?

Released at roughly the same time as Armageddon, was Deep Impact. I never saw Deep Impact because I thought it was a porn I had already watched several times. Once I learned it was actually a different film, I figured what’s the point of seeing it? I figure there’s going to be drilling, and Robert Duvall is no Bruce Willis. Remember, it was unanimous.

This brings us to today and the release of Dawn of the Dead. Again, although not positive of the plot, I have seen many zombie movies and most of them have melded together in my mind. One thing I recall from at least one of these movies is that a mysterious comet turns people into zombies either via cosmic radiation or cosmic microorganisms. Rest assured; it’s cosmic. As you can see, the earth is in constant danger from astronomical assaults and the varied dooms they can bring. The point to all this is... curse you Haley! I curse the day you first unleashed your comet upon us! Sure, your comet may only come about every 76 years, but the last time it was here, in the mid 80’s, was the height of the Brat Pack, and more importantly, the height of Emilio Estevez!

After watching the trailer for 50 First Dates which includes a scene where Adam Sandler pretends to be beaten up by Rob Schneider so he can be “rescued” by Drew Barrymore, only to have Barrymore retaliate and repeatedly strike Schneider’s head with a bat, I had a strange feeling.  Then I remembered the scene in Mr. Deeds where Winona Ryder pretends to be mugged by a friend so she could be “rescued” by Adam Sandler, who unwittingly beats up the friend by kicking his head in.  Then I recognized that strange feelings as “taking a several hits to my own head from the dumb stick”.  Why would I pay to see this?  Let’s just say I didn’t.  Let’s just say if the movie had made me laugh really hard and if I happened to be drinking milk at the time, I would have ruined my keyboard.

Adam Sandler plays Henry Roth, a zoo veterinarian living in Hawaii.  This was the first thing that bothered me, because it always bothers me when Adam Sandler plays someone who isn’t named Adam Sandler.  I mean really, what’s the point?  Drew Barrymore plays Lucy, who has short term memory loss and is constantly reliving the same day over and over.  While her on screen relationship with Sandler is not nearly as toxic as the one she shares with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu, it’s not nearly as charming as the chemistry between Sandler and the pet penguin.

There are many things that are hard to explain about this movie.  Why does Lucy’s family go to such elaborate lengths to fool her into thinking nothing is wrong?  Why does “Henry” come up with a crazy new scheme every day to get her to fall in love with him instead of sticking with one that works?  I estimated 26 at most, where did the number 50 come from?  Was a lame, gay stereotype on ‘roids the best role Sean Austin could land with all his Samwise Gamgee heat?  He’s killing my portfolio on the Hollywood Stock Exchange.

Some have called 50 First Dates a cross between Groundhog Day and Memento.  I like to think of it more as a cross between Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dare to Love, the Lifetime TV movie about the toll a young woman’s schizophrenia takes on her lover - thus proving the old adage that two wrongs make a worse.  On a scale of things that happen on actual first dates, where throwing up after dinner is a 1 and sex is a 10, I rate 50 First Dates as being taped for an appearance on The 5^th Wheel and then being voted as the fifth wheel, the numerical equivalent of a 3.

I believe some of the best movie ideas probably happen in college dorms when someone is watching something like Forrest Gump and then somebody else who is completely stoned walks by and says something like, “I’ve seen this but it would have been so much better if Forrest Gump traveled into the future, too, and met the Time Bandits.”  This would likely be followed by an explanation to the passerby that Forrest never “traveled back in time” in the current film- it was about his life as he lived it, told in a flashback, so time travel of any kind would make no sense.  The explanation misses the point.  The beauty is that if this person ever had the chance to actually make his own movie, he would call it Forrest Meets the Time Bandits and it would make a million dollars.  This is because in today’s market even the worst theatrical releases make a million dollars.  But it’s also because he had the guts to call it what it is.  Hollywood is busy ripping off and combining old movies, then trying to fool us into thinking we’re watching something new.  Somehow, this fooling process just makes them all terrible.  For example, I don’t know much about the upcoming Alien Vs. Predator movie, but I do know it would be better if they just remade Aliens, gave the Bill Paxton role to Jack Black, and half way through the movie threw some Predators into the middle of the shit storm for no apparent reason.

When it comes to zombie movies, filmmakers are virtually forced into cribbing from previous zombie movies.  Unlike comedies or dramas, where there is a lot of wiggle room when it comes to plot, a zombie movie pretty much has to have an army of undead walking the earth.  Whether it’s because of radiation from a passing asteroid or an unleashed virus from some lab monkeys, it’s still an army of undead walking the earth.  This is one reason why most zombie movies are good – they can’t try and pretend something they’re not.

The concept of a new zombie flick from down under sounds a little like something dreamt up during one of those aforementioned dorm encounters, combining Night of the Living Dead with the Kiwi sensibility (and aliens) of Bad Taste, plus a farmer who has some John Woo guns.  If you’re thinking that sounds like the greatest movie ever made, you’re wrong.  But it’s still very good.  And for those who like their walking dead with a dash of laughs and a heroine who progressively peels off more and more of her clothes because the acid rain keeps eating through them, then Undead is the perfect goulash of ghouls and gags.

The movie is unavailable on American shores at this point, but rumors of a global release continue to spread.  While I cannot recommend anyone fly to Australia just to rent the DVD, I can still rate it positively.  On a scale of movies with regards to how much better they would have been with the inclusion of Forrest Gump, where One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is a 1 (pretty much the same movie) and Jaws 2 is a 10 (‘I think we need a bigger boat… named Jenny,’ Hanks would recite in his Oscar acceptance speech), I give Undead the rating of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the numerical equivalent of a strange and exhilarating 8.

During a typical day, I have plenty of mental idle time – mostly when I’m waking up, driving to work, working, driving home from work, watching TV, and falling asleep. For the bulk of this time, I like to have brain tournaments to deduce what is the best of its kind. Diet Vanilla Pepsi, for example, was the winner in the diet soda contest I held during a meeting with my boss last week. Other bouts have included favorite colors, fast food chains, dating-themed reality TV shows, and grunge supergroups. Incidentally, the latter category is also a deciding factor in sizing up a potential girlfriend, as it is important she has an opinion on the subject, no matter what it is. “I like Mad Season,” is just as legitimate as “I prefer Temple of the Dog’s high-minded meditations on loss… and guitar feedback!”. But if she gives me a funny look when I ask her about the matter, then intercourse is probably as far as the relationship will go. And even then, I’ll be inserting “Hunger Strike” on the foreplay tape just for spite.

Yesterday, I came upon a dilemma that could not be solved in my head. It would require notes and charts and the issue was this: What is the best sports maneuver in film history, the Pamchenko Twist or the Triple Lindy? The Twist is from The Cutting Edge, an ice skating drama starring D.B. Sweeney and Moira Kelly as two polar opposites paired together on the rink for one final chance at personal redemption and Olympic gold. The Lindy is a platform dive featured in Back to School, which stars Rodney Dangerfield as a senior citizen who returns to college for hi-jinks.

In comparing the two, I had to look at several categories, the first of which was believability. The Pamchenko Twist is a pairs ice skating trick in which the male grabs his partner by the ankles, swings her around like he’s performing the hammer throw, and tosses her into the air with sufficient vertical force as to provide enough time for him to skate under and catch her. It sounds like a definite loser until you consider the Triple Lindy is an old man doing flips from diving board to diving board in slow motion. However, I had to consider the context of each. The Cutting Edge purports to be based in reality, so the Twist becomes slightly

Next, I had to balance the emotional impact. The Pamchenko serves as a climax not only to the quest for Olympic greatness, but as a poignant climax between the two protagonists, who have just declared their love for each other after an hour and a half of sexually charged arguments about what music they’ll perform their ice dancing routine to (she wants classical, he wants rock ‘n’ roll!). The Lindy, on the other hand, is really just a funny way to end the movie, as the film’s true core involving the sub-textual love between a crazy millionaire and his street-wise limo driver has already been resolved by this point. Yet, the dive does win the

It was around this time in my analysis with so many areas left to cover that I began to grow tired of the exercise. It all seemed so… pointless, almost as if I was some media slave completely wasting my life with this shit. It just so happened it was then I saw that commercial again on television for a company that sells mail order replicas of the swords from shows like Xena and Highlander. I realized I needed to be thinking about more important things. Like what’s the best late night ad on channel E! ever, this new sword-themed one or Girls Gone Wild: Spring Break 6?

During the final battle, when Mary or Pippin or whoever said “It’s the Eagles!” instead of giant eagles swooping in to attack, fuckin' Donovan McNabb and the boys rolled up on horseback and McNabb threw a tight ass spiral through an orc’s head, and goes, “It eats like a meal!” Then all his boys started callin’ blitz packages and the orcs don’t know what to do because they’ve never played football. Or…

If the Orc General that looked like a cross between the Toxic Avenger and Sloth (from Goonies), had a fat little colonel sidekick named Chunk and the soldiers of Gundor wouldn’t open the gates unless he did the Truffle Shuffle. Or…

During what I believe was the third ending, when everyone was getting on the boat, Yoda and Obi Won and Anakin were bringing up the rear. Or…

There was a scene where a muppet jams a small crystal into a larger crystal in a very sexual manner.

My name is Kevin Shaughnessy and I love monkeys. During the Superbowl this year, there was a commercial featuring a man that had a “monkey on his back” because he was having so much trouble finding a “hip family sedan”. In this case, there literally was a monkey on his back, which I’m assuming was supposed to be the funny part. When he finds his car, the monkey stays at the car dealership with a bunch of other monkeys presumably left by other men who were facing the same sedan predicament.

Linguists will tell you the phrase “monkey on his back” originated in the early 1600’s after Shakespeare saw a picture of a Pygmy Marmoset perched on the back of a Papua New Guinea tribesman. Of course, this particular species is a very hostile primate when living in packs. So in reality, the salesmen at the dealership in this advertisement would have been attacked almost immediately by these monkeys using what one anthropologist has called “the Pygmy’s fearsome claw seemingly designed for eye-gouging.” Also, all the cars would be smeared with feces. My name is Kevin Shaughnessy and I love monkeys.

One of my college roommates is having a baby. Every time this happens, I am forced to reflect on how unprepared I am to start saving for a big screen TV, much less even consider the possibility of fatherhood. I’m 27, but most of the time I feel like I’m in high school and confused about life. Or junior high and girls, respectively. Or elementary school and body hair. Or college and my sexuality. The other times I feel like I’m 75 and very bitter about how I never even owned a television set larger than 32 inches. I suppose this would be OK if I didn’t harbor similar doubts about my old friends and their ability to deal with children.

When my last college roommate had her baby, I was afraid all the years of “slutting for homework” may have paid off with a fast graduation but left her unqualified to treat a newborn properly. Sure enough, she sent me this picture of him pimping for this website almost immediately. So now he’s on the same site that often features words like “fuck”, “diarrhea”, “vomit”, and “polish”. I wasn’t too worried, though, because her husband is a real adult and has things like maturity and emotional fortitude – things I imagine come in handy when dealing with kids. Of course, aside from the picture (which I appreciate)

But now another one is having a baby. You may know him as the guy who writes the “My Monkey of the Week” segments here. I know him as the guy who complains to me about using his name to write about monkeys in a way that will apparently get him fired someday. I love him dearly, but am seriously afraid in 9 months he’ll have prioritized “buy diapers” and “help son develop motor skills” way below “keep searching for a baby bib that says ‘Han Shot First’”. And does he know it will be at least a few years before he can start teaching this kid about military stealth and tactical maneuvers using X-Box Live? And even then, will he even be able to convince his wife the art of Tom Clancy sneak attacks are more important than spelling?

Perhaps I am just upset that he doesn’t own any pornography, hence denying all his friends the traditional “Porn Bequeathment Party”, wherein a soon-to-be father jettisons his collection because of the guilt generated by a baby within 50-feet of Rocco’s Anal Adventures - something that still could have been enjoyed on my crappy TV. Yet, with regard to the prospects of successful parenting, I will grudgingly admit it is probably better he never had any in the first place.

In the end, I’m sure he will rise to the occasion the same way all the other people did who at one point in their lives have fallen asleep with their head in my toilet. It should be noted, most of the ones who did this after final exams, not the ones who did it the night before, are the ones having kids. And for that, society can be thankful.

Of course, the Bush campaign was responsible for one of the ugliest campaigns in recent history against John McCain in South Carolina during the 2000 primaries. Though in retrospect, maybe push polling McCain as a “liar, cheat, fraud” and a “pro-abortion… fag candidate” was not so much negative as it was spiritually disapproving. Now, John Kerry and John Edwards are getting in on the intra-party shit slinging. With the field narrowed to two, Edwards has begun to point out the difference between himself and northern senator, which prompted Kerry’s manager to quickly declare “it’s funny how fast he turned negative”.

The irony is that a lot of recent “negative advertising” is just “true advertising” and the only way some see to defend it is to marginalize and discredit it with disingenuous language. “Negative” and “bad” may be synonyms, but negative campaigning is not necessarily a bad thing, not as long as it’s accurate. If I can’t have that, then at least give me something I like to call “push positive” commercials:

You see how it only accentuates the positive of the contender speaking? Plus, just about anything is perfectly legitimate:

All of this would most certainly be true (and positive) for any Democratic candidate.

It has been a while since my last diary and that’s because I stopped taking my medication. Many people will equate the phrase “stopped taking my medication” with paranoid schizophrenia and the self-infliction of scissor cuts, but in my case, it only meant getting a DVD pass from Blockbuster and watching 60 movies in 30 days. You’d think this would provide an abundance of material to write reviews with, but I can do that very quickly right now- On a scale of popcorn toppings, where pepper is a 1 and sugar frosting is a 10, I give most of the movies I saw the rating of something I found in my kitchen cabinet called Instant Bouillon Chicken Granules, the numerical equivalent of a 2. As for the rest, Freddy Vs. Jason and Seabiscuit, I give them the rating of pepper.

When I last wrote, I was about to start Paxil. I don’t think it did anything but my girlfriend said she heard “it makes you hate people”. Since I already hated people, I couldn’t tell a difference, but it did pique my curiosity about the unqualified opinions and shared myths of lay persons about medicine. So I did an internet search for the side-effects. I found one site, www.prozactruth.com, asserting that all psych drugs can result in horrible nightmares, nipple discharging, joint pain, profuse sweating, and best of all, depression. I laughed, I mean really laughed, for the first time in months.

So, I went back to my doctor for something else. He offered me a list of new antidepressants to choose from but provided no real information as to the difference between them. Put in this type of position, making a completely blind selection, I do what I usually do – pick whatever sounds most like a character from the He-Man: Masters of the Universe cartoon. I took home a prescription for Effexor with new hope.

I’ve tried this only five times, but each time has resulted in thirty minutes of calm, followed by an hour of crippling nausea, and then 3 hours of clement nausea. I don’t know the molecular apparatus by which Effexor works, but if it’s supposed to make you forget about the farce of human existence by inducing diarrhea, then it really works!

I am thinking about giving up on the anti-depressants all together, but then I look at my feet, and I am always wearing at least one of the pairs of socks you can see in these pictures. Yet, it is never Christmas or Easter or even gay pride day, so something must be wrong.

I don’t really know anything about computers. However, I recently was given a computer for Christmas (technically, it was given to my girlfriend, but I’m terribly demanding). Not really knowing how to take advantage of this new technological tool to gain access to all the porn, I figured the first step would be to invest in a little high speed internet, a T-1 line to be specific. Again, I don’t know what that means, but everyone seems somewhat impressed and very much shocked when I tell them. They never believe me either until I explain that it’s shared by entire apartment complex. But that’s not the point.

The point is that there are an awful lot of websites out there. For instance, when I typed in the keywords “ninja” and “pirate” after a friend of mine told me about a website that featured stories written by an 8 year-old in which pirates did battle with “fucking crazy” ninjas, I came across over 3,000 sites. That seems to me to be an awful lot of sites that deal with both ninjas and pirates. Desperate to read the stories, however, I systematically began searching through every web page. Unfortunately, I was able to only get 3 sites into my journey when I happened upon a site that foretold of impending doom.

I was disturbed to find out that February 3rd, 2004, is Ninja vs. Pirate day, and we must all align ourselves to our preferred particular side in a global fight to the death. That’s not a lot of warning. Maybe this has been posted for a while, but what about those of us who just recently obtained internet access? Or more importantly, what about those out there who have yet to do the “pirate ninja” internet search? It seems as though thousands of poor bastards will invariably be caught in the deadly crossfire between throwing stars and cannonballs. My advice to those that read this is to quickly choose a side. Though you may be swayed by the argument made on several message boards that “there is no way a ninja is going to sneak up on a pirate in a creaky wooden ship while it's in the ocean”, just remember that many ninjas can teleport, and also keep in mind that many people think a wildcard third party, robots, will somehow factor in the ultimate decision. Good luck... unless you are a Ninja sympathizer, then may God grant you a quick musketoon death when you come face to face with Jolly Bob the Pillager (that’s me).

It’s the new year and the holidays are upon us. I feel it’s my duty as an underground internet science reporter to separate the religious “jibba-jabba” from the factual basis for these seasonal observations.

Of the three major holidays, Kwanza is the one I know the least about and therefore, will be the easiest to debunk. Quite frankly, the word sounds made up. Sure, it’s fun to say, Kwanza, but so is “tallywacker”. Also, my wife Wendy (whose last name shall remain unmentioned for anonymities sake) laughs whenever I say “tallywacker” until I begin to jokingly slap her in the face with a thawed polish sausage. She eventually makes me go sleep on the couch, even though I say “But it’s Kwanza!” to try and cheer her up again. I’m just saying, any holiday that ruins foreplay and then makes you sleep on the couch as part of its celebration can’t be all that fucking great!
.
If I know the least about Kwanza, then I know the most least about Christmas, the so-called “Hollywood Holiday of the Stars.” The main theme of Christmas involves placing offerings in front of a pine tree in hopes that it will grant you prosperity in the upcoming year. And although I enjoy celebrating nature, there’s one thing I enjoy celebrating more. And that is fucking science!

When I think of major holidays and science, I think about Hanukah, and then I think about spelling and then I think about the 5th grade spelling bee and then I get sad and then I need cheering up, so I think about Hanukah again, the perfect marriage of religion and science. It’s a holiday that is based on candles, which of course means fire, man’s first and most significant scientific discovery. Now that’s a holiday I can fucking dig on! And don’t even get me started on the physics of the centripetal force required to keep that crazy top spinning. Seriously, I’m not in the mood!

And of course, there is the most greatest of all winter holidays, Festivus. Festivus is a holiday which I learned about on the Jerry Seinfeld Show and it involves placing an aluminum pole in the corner. Pole! Corner! Polish Corner! An interesting side note, by the way- when I played high school baseball, my teammates referred to me as “The Aluminum Pole” despite my wishes for them to call me “The Tallywacker.”

So until I can get time off work for Festivus, or the Pope invents a Christmas that involves lighting a spinning tree on fire, I’ll continue celebrating in the same fashion that I have since I was a boy, by adorning my Christmas costume and going from door to door offering to grant my neighbors three wishes if I can rub their magic lamp and if they give me candy. This year I’m going as a pirate… a science pirate! Arrgh!