One Lucky Beaver

          Whenever I have a few moments, I like to imagine woodland creatures meeting cultural and historical figures of note. I told the great, intrepid Jess this and she drew one for me, in MS Paint no less. Exhibit I: A Beaver Meets Jim Morrison

Movie Reviews, Schmovie Schmeviews

         While Dana is engaged in her training for our imminent rumble and Andy fights the good fight against his intruding legumes, we here at Ok Times thought you could use a little heads up for the holiday movie season, the most consistently disappointing time of the year not counting the televised hockey season. Hence, a new bit: Ok Times presents: Movie Reviews, Schmovie Schmeviews: Episode I: Drastic Colon Overuse:

Aeon Flux

I’ve seen pretty girls in leather suck before, but never like this.

Syriana

Ever wish you could see an anonymous six-year old and George Clooney’s fingernails finally get their just desserts? Wish granted In this groundbreaking film from Steven Soderbergh’s precocious left testicle, George Clooney and Matt Damon fight thousands of Arabs and one black guy to an oily death, high above the futuristic oil fields of Syriana, a futuristic nation state where the remaining 1% of Earth’s population fight for survival in the future. Just who is that black guy and what is he doing for whom? Twenty dollars if you can figure it out.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

What does Disney have against my childhood? Honestly, it never did anything to Disney, except that Herbie the Love Bug incident in fourth grade, but I thought we were even after Johnny Depp and Danny Elfman shat down the collective throats of the world with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Apparently we weren’t. No, Disney had one more knife to firmly plant in the pale, fleshy back of yesteryear. Did you know that if you hang out with Liam Neeson at a Renaissance Faire for two hours you become the greatest swordsman in the world? Did you also know that if you sit in a theater for two hours watching this movie you’ll hate Santa Claus and little children? Et tu, the estate of C.S. Lewis, et tu?

Brokeback Mountain

I’ve seen cowboys suck before* but never like this.







* The Cowboy Way, City Slickers II, and Young Guns 4: These Guns is Young

Open Letters From America

         

Dear Mr Walken,

Allright, we get it. You can stop. You’re wacky, we understand. Relax.


Sincerely,
America



Dear Guy on King of Queens.

I don’t know who you think you are, but I must remind you, sir, that this country has a tradition of disliking shitty kings. Unless you are on the very cusp of reinventing your self as the Elected Public Representative of Queens (in which case your mediocrity would be expected and welcome) then let me be the thousandth to tell you to, ahem, Get Out of Me.

Sincerely
America



Dear Africa,

Let me start by saying how great it is to finally write you. We don’t see each other enough Hey, sorry about letting you die of AIDs for the last few decades. We were all really busy, you understand. I mean Britney Spears wasn’t going to make herself famous. But seriously, about the debt, well, about that debt, Haha. The thing is, we’ve fallen on kinda hard times (Did you see the gas prices? 3.50?! Whew! ) and we need you to pay up. Please send cash, check, or money order to, well who are we kidding, just give it to China next time you see her.

Sincerely
America

P.S. BFF XOXOXOXOXOX

Lies I've Told Children

         As you might not know, I don’t just sit around writing brilliant quips and revolutionary blog entries all day. In fact, I occasionally work. As an elementary substitute teacher. Sometimes in the course of daily events, I find it necessary to polish the truth a bit. I tell different lies to different age groups, but I’m not sure why. See if you can come up with a good answer and post your hypothesis as a comment. Here is a collection of exaggerations, half-truths, and lies I’ve told children:

Lies I’ve Told Kindergartners

Anybody can be in the space program.
Money doesn’t matter.
I met the President, and he says you should put your head down and be quiet.
No one’s going to hurt you.
I wrestled a bear, but it wasn’t a big one.
It’s okay to cry.

Lies I’ve Told Fourth Graders

I am very rich.
You are a great reader.
I’ve never seen a cow.
I could lift you with one arm.
Jefferson Starship is a great band from the seventies.
Love conquers all.
You know, back in the old Soviet Republic, nobody was allowed to have puppies or kittens, so they took all the puppies and all the kittens and mashed them up and let them rot in a big underground chamber that would collect all the gas from all the rotting and turn it into electricity. It powered Moscow for three years.

So it's come to This

         Well, I guess you can invite people to share a "information-super-highway-journal" with you, but you can't make them actually write in it. Andy could be dead for all we here at Ok Times know. Dead and, as he often was in life, full of maggots. Maggots and beer. And pornography. Maggots and beer and pornography. All three. Dana's probably busy teaching the dying children of sub-Saharan Africa how to add appendices to their women's lit papers, or some other "worthwhile" "goal". Will we see her again? Let's "hope" so.

Which leaves me. I've got plenty of time. My 4-8 job down in the Irregular Product section of the local muffin factory, Jonah's Most Magnificent Muffinery (23rd and 2nd Ave), leaves me plenty of time to do fun things, like see how much sunblock I can eat (6 3/4 tubes), or how much sunblock I can make a cat eat (3/5 tube), or driving to the hospital for a scratched cornea when one of my stupid friend's stupid cats scratches me ON THE EYE for NO GOOD REASON! But I digress. The point of this all is that, for obvious reasons, I am challenging Dana and Andy to a fight, to be fought within the next three months, on grounds of their respective choosings, with weapons to be drawn randomly from this list:

1. Ike Turner
2. High Heeled Shoes (1 box)
3. Unexpected Tenacity
4. Any novel by Ernest Hemmingway, or that Proust guy. (not sharpened)
5. Scrabble letter tiles (2 bags)
6. Hot glue (just the glue, no guns allowed)
7. Squash (the sport, not the vegetable)
8. Kitanas
9. silenced Berringer Semi-automatic .42 caliber pistols (standard German issue)
9. A nice game of Chess
10. Thermonuclear Warfare (Did he just reference War Games? Yes. Yes, yes he did.)
11. Nerf javelins atop Mounted polar bears
12. A one hundred dollar bill (unfolded)
13. The Boxcar Children
14. Fisticuffs (although I must warn you, I boxed at Yale)

So there, consider the gauntlet thrown down, picked up, and thrown down again. I will consider a post to the site to be your acceptance of the terms in full and should you not respond within two days out of this post, be it for inconvenience or the cowardly coward's fear of a coward, I will consider it your total and unconditional surrender, coward. The winner will of course recieve glory, a small monetary donation in their name to the charity of their choice, and an entire family of slaves.

Put thine dukes up.