Stupid Governmental Act #34,723

Sex offenders in some American prisons are recieving Viagra via Medicaid. The programme was apparently started by some mid-level appointee's letter, sent out to states during the Clinton Administration, and has continued to the present day.

Given the sheer, unadulterated stupidity of this policy, I fully expect to see the following new government "services" get handed down from some enterprising bureaucrat's desk soon:

• Gun permits for armed robbers in jail. Hey, prison's a rough place and these guys need to defend themselves from the prisoners with shivs.
• Appointing convicted poisoners to the prison cafeteria. They've got to have a chance to reform, right? That would be a pretty good test, and if they fail, well, they're in prison already, so problem solved!
• Using prisoners convicted of fraud to make credit cards for companies. We won't let them have any pen and paper while their working. They couldn't possibly memorize all those names and numbers, could they?
• Ken Lay gets to do bookkeeping at his penitentiary. He's good at it isn't he? Just don't let him handle the guards' 401K plans.
• High speed chase criminals in the auto shop. These people like cars. Is it so wrong to take advantage of their passion for speed to build better prison buses? We'll lock the garage doors, we promise!

War over? Already?

From the amazing but true department: The BBC is reporting that two Japanese soldiers from World War II have reportedly been found in the mountains of southern Mindanao island in the Phillipines. Apparently they have been hiding in these mountains since the war. I immediately rang them up, via satellite-phone, and then a local connection, courtesy of Archie's Phillipino Grocery, located right in the area.

Earl Fando: Hello, I'd like you to tell me about your experiences since the war.

Japanese soldier #1: Iie, Wakashimashite!

(Fortunately Archie speaks a bit of Japanese and could translate.)

Earl Fando: So, you've both been hiding since the war. Were you aware the war was over?

Japanese soldier #1: Oh, yes! However, we were not comfortable going back to Japan under the circumstances.

E.F. : Were you concerned about the Allied occupation?

J.S. #1: No, no... we both hate sushi and teppanyaki! Do you realize how tiring ramen noodles get after awhile?

E.F. : Having just had strep throat, actually I do.

J.S. #2: Say what? You have a strap on your throat?

E.F. : Never mind. Why did you choose the mountains in Mindanao.

J.S. #2 : We didn't. We were actually on a small island in the Pacific.

E.F. : Really? Well, that's news. Why and how did you leave?

J.S. #1: Well, we had planned to stay for quite awhile, but a small boat became shipwrecked there.

E.F. : Didn't you want the help and the company?

J.S. #1: We were going to ask, but the group was very troubling. There was a large man who always wore a blue shirt and a captain's hat, and he shouted all the time and complained about the war.

J.S. #2: And there was a mad scientist who made all kinds of strange things out of bamboo and coconuts, including a bicycle, a car, a radio, and a still. We thought he might do medical experiments on us. We did managed to steal some martinis though.

J.S. #1: We almost stayed for the women. One was older and married and quite standoff-ish, but the other two were really desperate for male company, especially the red head.

E.F. : Wait a minute. Blue shirt? Scientist? Red head? Are you trying to say that you were on Gilligan's Island?

J.S. #2: How did you know the name of the skinny one with the floppy hat? That was his island? I thought Mr. Thurston was the rich one!

E.F. : That's a TV programme! You two are fakes!

J.S. #1: All I know is that Mary Ann girl gave really good back rubs.

E.F. : Enough.

J.S. #2: OK, OK, it was a little joke... we've had satellite TV in the mountains for the last 20 years.

E.F. : Satellite TV in the mountains?

J.S. #1: Did I stutter? Yes, we watch a lot of American TV, via Australia...especially old reruns from the 70's.

J.S. #2: We really miss Baretta.

Both J.S. (singing): "Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time, yeah, yeah!"

As you can see, this is a truly amazing, albeit pathetic, story. The soldiers claim they want to go back to Japan now, because they want to see one of the Japanese pop music countdown programmes in person, and also because of all the McDonalds.

Earl Fando...

...has mononucleosis.

No, that doesn't mean I'm radioactive.

The real question is, since I only kiss Mrs. Fando, and she doesn't have it, how did I get it?

Blimey, I hope I haven't been sleepwalking around the neighborhood kissing people. That would explain some of the looks I get though.

I wasn't going to say anything.

I have avoided the Michael Jackson trial like the plague due to the subject matter and the fact that I just let Norm MacDonald explain my position on it. If you don't understand that please look into it yourselves. This article however is the final straw. I mean this would be ten million times more disgusting than pictures of Saddam in his BVD's. Let us just try to think happy thoughts and hope it all ends soon.

Oh, and the blemish, I hear it's really a tattoo. (Seen below under electron microscope)

 

A coat of arms, a hand, and a how's your father...

Oh, yes...

I should just like to add that the picture of Prince Charles with his hand down his polo trousers should be added to the Royal Coat of Arms if and when Charles becomes king.

And now a brief announcement from Earl Fando...

For those who have still not seen the FA Cup Final, please avert your eyes from the following part of this post:










ARSENAL WINS!!!!!!!!!!



Thank You

I laugh sometimes just thinking of them...

Word reaches us via the news media that British people are suffering a humour (humor) failure. It seems odd to me that a country that brought us Monty Python, Benny Hill, and marmite is suffering a "humour failure". Now, a failure of good sense, a failure of culture (at least in the last ten years), or a failure of good television programming I can understand but not a failure of humor. With all of the tea and chocolate these people eat they should be in a constant state of giddiness. I love the British and we here at DOUI will do everything in our collective power to return them to a good humor. In order to get started I have devised a collection of British related material which should have them rushing into the streets with howls of laughter.

The DOUI British Re-humorization Project

First some food words to warm you up:

Bangers and mash

Neeps

Tatties

Spotted Dick

Dumplings

Haggis

Cornish pasty

You should now be feeling a strange sensation we know as laughter, please observe the following set of photos to increase the sensation and enjoy your newfound humour.

Tonight on Question Time, why can't we laugh, let's take a look at our panel. 

Obviously a large mirror has crossed their path. 

Hitting the Glenfiddich early today. 

Now that's one headdress I would steer clear of luv. 

Broke a tooth on a biscuit...horse biscuit I assume. 

Bit of a sticky wicket here chaps sorry. 

Well played Charlie, sent that one up the crease he did!!

Oooo, I just luv a man in uniform! 

Cheerio!! 

Top 100 Films...Um, yeah if you say so you clueless gits.

Critics Richard Schickel and Richard Corliss of Time Magazine have graced the rest of us with their list of the Top 100 Films of all time. Of course, no one asked them, except perhaps the entertainment editor at Time, sensing a really slow month prior to the big Memorial Day weekend, and lulls in the Michael Jackson pedastry trial. So why not? A couple of big time critics sit around and hash out a list of their favorites, throw in a few world renowned art classics, just to give the list stature, and leave off Gone with the Wind to generate some controversy. This is the number one rule of modern American film criticism, isn't it? Generate publicity.

With any luck, Roger Ebert will open up an enormous tin of W.A. on the two of them (rhetorically of course), David Denby and Andrew Sarris (is he still with us?) will craft wicked and vaguely sinister reviews, and the ghosts of Bosley Crowther and Pauline Kael will rise and haunt them in all their condscending, ego-blasting glory,and this list will wind up where all the other 100 best films list go...the index of the AFI reference book, for a good read and a good laugh. I for one love to see critics argue. It's like the end of Welles classic The Lady from Shanghai, in the hall of mirrors, everybody shoots everybody, and everyone gets bloodied.

By the way, just in case you're thinking that the strep throat is making me irritable and cranky, which it is, here, just off the top of my head, are some great films that I've seen that are not on the list (take note - this is a serious cineaste's list - if you don't know what a "cineaste" is, then skip on down to the articles on Dan Haggerty and Nazi doctors) :

Alexander Nevsky
Andrei Rublev
Annie Hall
Ashes and Diamonds
As Time Goes By/Kings of the Road
L'Aventura
La Belle et Le Bete (Beauty and the Beast) the Jean Cocteau version
The Bicycle Thief
Blazing Saddles
Chariots of Fire
Duck Soup
Fitzcarraldo
The French Connection
The General
Gone with the Wind (Not a favourite of mine, but epic nonetheless, despite what those nitpickers at Time say.)
Grande Illusion
Greed
Intolerance
Kwaidan
The Lady from Shanghai
The Last Laugh
The Magnificent Ambersons
Manhattan
Miracle at Morgan's Creek (Which I watched part of this evening courtesy of TCM and Michael McKean - Thanks Lenny! - or should I say David St. Hubbins)
Modern Times
Napoleon (The Abel Gance version)
A Night at the Opera
Open City
Ordet (My favourite film of all, the classic by Carl Theodore Dreyer)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer's silent masterpiece)
Paths of Glory
The Producers
The Quiet Man
Rashomon
Rear Window
Rules of the Game
The Seventh Seal
Seven Samurai (Which confirms that the boys at Time are blithering idiots - also my second favourite film of all time)
Shoot the Piano Player (Tur le Pianiste)
Stagecoach
Sunset Boulevard
The Shop on Main Street
La Strada
Strangers on a Train (My favourite film by Hitchcock)
The Third Man (The Third Man you nincompoops!)
2001, A Space Odyssey
Vertigo (Hitchcock's finest work)
Wild Strawberries
Winchester '73

And may I ask Mssrs. Corliss and Schickel which of the above films and countless others is not the equal of or superior to the following which do appear on the list (and, to be fair, I have seen, and are quality work, but Top 100? It must be the chablis talking...):

Barry Lyndon (Good film. Ryan O'Neal's finest hour. One of Kubrick's lesser efforts)
Blade Runner (Blade Runner? Maybe if you're fifteen.)
ET (Sigh. I suppose we must represent all our inner children.)
Finding Nemo (Ahem...Beauty and the Beast? Was that the animated film you were trying to remember? Toy Story perhaps?)
The Fly (All right, I've only seen parts of this but it does what flies do...it sucks. If you want Croenberg on the list, try Videodrome or better yet, don't try at all.)
His Girl Friday (I like the film, I like Hawks' work, this isn't even his best though. Bringing Up Baby or Key Largo...surely you can whistle that tune.)
Mon oncle d'Amerique (charming film by Resnais, but Hiroshima Mon Amour was much better. You're just trying to be different now, boys.)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (Of all the Woody Allen films, this is the one that leaps to mind? Lovely idea but better than Annie Hall? Manhattan? Crimes and Misdemeanors? Hannah and Her Sisters? Sleeper? Bananas? All right, I'll give you Bananas.)
Star Wars (I still hear Bill Murray singing the title track...We'll all fondly remember it but please, it's a Saturday Matinee feature that cost a bajillion dollars, that's all.)
Yojimbo (One of my top 10 favourite films to watch. I have it on DVD. Still not Seven Samurai though.)

Film rant over...Have at them Rog! And bring Roeper along for the feast.

It was an easy mistake...

Apparently a bear invaded someone's pool in California before being tranquilized and returned to the wilderness. I just got the update for the story via the AP Wire.

Bear Takes Dip in Suburban L.A. Pool

Before being taken away the bear stated, "I thought it was Dan Haggerty's pool, really, I mean he said I could come over anytime and use it." Asked how the bear knew Mr. Haggerty it told us that it's mother had done some work with him in his Grizzly Adams days. "Yeah, she said they were really close but people just didn't understand. Whatever that meant. Anyway, I met Dan at a Shriners convention in Las Vegas a few years ago where I was doing some circus work and we hit it right off." Dan Haggerty could not be reached for comment.

Strange but true.

Weekend illness...

Stew will have to carry the water tomorrow (unless we can discover where Juan and Zimpter have skulked off to) as I have strep throat.

The last two times I have played golf, I have come down with an illness immediately afterwards requiring a shot to my bum, or hip as the nurses gingerly describe that part of my posterior. (Note to nurses: Any part of my rear that involves me hitching down my trousers, even slightly, is officially considered bum. I believe that's an international medical law.)

Anyway, I will rejoin the living, blogging world when I have sufficiently recovered. I'm very depressed that I cannot currently ingest anything more solid than soup, especially with two Walker's shortbread biscuits, that the Millers brought back from Disney World, waiting for me on the dining room table.

They're Mickey's shortbread in case you were wondering. Apparently, Disney has deals with everyone on the planet to convert all existing products to Disney related fodder. This arrangement is to help pave the way for Walt to completely conquer the world when they bring him out of his cryogenic slumber, sometime in 2013.

Now where did I put that Daisy Duck Advil?