This gentle baker got away with murdering his team after a particularly soggy batch of CTC.

Anyway, that got me thinking about other dystopian societies, which in turn got me thinking about all the required reading I had to do throughout my education. (Required reading is wrought with images of worlds that are only slightly less depressing than being an adult.) All those hundreds of hours spent reading books when I could have been playing Nintendo. What was I supposed to have gotten out of that? A more informed world view? I don’t have that. Should it have made me a better person? It didn’t. Could I even remember what some of these stories were about? I don’t know, probably. I’m going to try to recount some for you.

Remember when you had to read this?

Our first selection is Johnny Tremain, written by Esther Forbes, first published in 1943. (I looked that up.) This is the story of a seemingly ordinary boy who came to the newly formed country of America on the Mayflower. Most of the action takes place in humble Plympton, Massachusetts. Johnny lived a normal life, apprenticed to a blacksmith. Each day he would wake up, slaughter a pig for breakfast, and milk all of his master’s cows. He would stop for a short visit with Jane, the girl who lived at the farm next door.

They took everything he had. Now, he was going to take something back.

Johnny was in love with Jane, but they were not meant to be, as she was betrothed to one of the indigenous savage peoples’ clans as a peace offering. On the same day he learned this, a downtrodden Johnny arrived at the blacksmith’s shop to find that his master had been slain– by none other than the same tribe of natives into which Jane was going to marry! It was then that he laid out his master plan. He would have his revenge and make them pay. He set to work on creating a sword– one of incredible power that would be matched by no other.

Historians believe this is what Johnny’s sword was to look like

Several days of cool sword making passed, when none other than the governor, a young Thomas Jefferson, (who also was Jane’s father!) knocked on the door of the blacksmith’s shop. Thomas Jefferson put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder and said “Boy, I require your assistance immediately. There’s something I need you to see.” And so, Thomas Jefferson lead the hopeful Johnny to the town square. When they arrived, he couldn’t believe his eyes. In his determination to avenge his master and win back the heart of the woman he loved, Johnny had forgotten about the most important day of the week: Witch Trial Day.

Justice.

However, this was no Witch Trial to enjoy like on any other common Sunday. The witch on trial was none other than Jane Jefferson, the love of his life! Here she stood, facing execution from her own father for the crime of witchcraft. What had tipped off the town that she might be a witch? Being betrothed to a native, of course. But why had they brought Johnny here to see this? Certainly it would only bring him heartache.

As it turned out, the townsfolk had taken a vote and it was divided at exactly fifty-fifty whether Jane should be burned as a witch or hanged as a traitor. It was up to Johnny to cast the deciding vote. With tears in his eyes he told the people in an impassioned speech that while he was in love with Jane, he knew in his heart that she would never betray the town. Therefore, she was a witch and must be burned. Once that gruesome work was done, Johnny returned home to make the final modifications to his ultimate weapon.

Johnny in an early film version

Johnny finished creating his sword and held it straight into the air, ready to chop off the head of the evil Chief Wampanoag, when suddenly it was struck by lightning. The sword, much like his dreams, was shattered. Burned to a crisp, Johnny laid there, waiting to die. But something unexpected happened. He didn’t die, but it turns out HE HAD NEVER LIVED! Johnny looked at his mangled hand, finding it to be made of metal.

Learning his true robot nature triggered a program in Johnny’s memory banks. He now knew his true purpose. He had been built by the redcoats to look like a human and travel back in time to live among the colonials, spying on them. If his nature were ever to be revealed, he was to carry out his mission: to kill Paul Revere before he could warn anyone who was coming.

Want to know how the story ends? Does Johnny get to kill Paul Revere and win the war for the noble redcoats, or does he get his ass handed to him by Crispus Attucks at the Boston Massacre? Well I’m not here to ruin it for you. Maybe you should try reading a book.

The Staypuft Marshmallow Man

Hello folks. I’m here to comment on a facebook status that I read today. I’m not going to name the person who posted it. It’s not someone I’m going to just go and hang out with I don’t think, nor do I ever think they will see this article. If they were to see it, I would hope that they would come away from it feeling educated and enlightened.

The status in question, nearly an hour after I’ve seen it, has 11 likes and no comments. I had briefly considered defriending the person who made it, but I realized that since I am not friends with any of these likers, I cannot defriend those people. I want to, but I simply can’t unless I sent friend requests to all of them, then suddenly and dramatically defriend all of them. So I remain friends with the person who made this status, and I’m quietly thinking of a way that I can inflict some kind of harm on the 11 likers.

Facebook statuses aren’t art. Anybody can do it, and you don’t need any talent. Facebook let’s JUST ANYBODY write WHATEVER THEY WANT on there. It’s ridiculous. On a scale of one to ten, the following would be a seven:

I just had lunch. It was good.

That is an amazing facebook status. I would like the shit out of that status. You’ve told me something about your life and how you feel about it. Bravo. We have all learned something today. Let’s crack open the champagne and celebrate our great accomplishment.

This is the greatest album of all time. Unrelated to this article in any way.

So, why then, am I simply not just clicking the comment link and writing “GO TO HELL, JERK!”? I don’t know. That probably would have saved me some time. But here I am, having googled for a bunch of unrelated images to include in this article and I’m 300 words in. I can’t quit now. I want to, but I’m committed to this. Did I mention I have a lot I need to get done today?

At this point, I guess I should divulge what I’m talking about here. It’s really been unnecessary to string you all along this far, and like I said, I’m busy. So here goes; this was the status.

Ready for Downton Abbey!!!!! …still do not understand why biggest loser would put the primer on at the same night as Downton…

Now I’m no expert on television. I have posted many articles on Kittensharks that prove that I might not even be qualified to watch television myself. Have you read both of my articles about Dr. Who? Look, I am rewatching the original Star Trek series while I’m writing this, and I can remember a time where someone accused me of not liking science fiction, because I am an ill-informed jerk.

A re-used image of Mary Steenburgen. Is she on Downton Abbey? I wouldn’t know.

But here’s the thing. That’s cool. You’re ready for Downton Abbey. As far as I can tell, I think you’re also a fan of the Biggest Loser. That’s great. You go get ‘em, champ. I haven’t seen either one of these shows. The fact that all my idiot friends are tweeting about them and making facebook statuses about them assures that I probably never will see them.

A quick recap. I’m bad at television. Bad at it! You don’t understand why the Biggest Loser  would put an important episode on at the same time as Downton Abbey.

I know why. I get it.

According to a google search I did, Downton Abbey is on PBS and the Biggest Loser is on NBC. They are on competing networks. Done! That is why these shows are on at the same time. Isn’t that friggen incredible? That’s right, these competing networks, which by the way do not want you to watch each other’s content, are making you CHOOSE whether you want to pretend you’re fancy or pretend you’re not as fat as these other assholes. They don’t want you to do both, because these shows are not being provided to you by the same media organization.

Again, The Third Doctor

No one at NBC said to anyone else who was there anything like “Wait a minute, Steve, PBS is airing Downton Abbey tonight, we CAN’T air The Biggest Loser. People will be upset!” Then Stephen Burke, the CEO of NBC (also googled) pulls a lever and The Biggest Loser is pushed to another night and reruns of Charles in Charge take its place. Trust me, I wish that would happen, too. I want to see Charles in Charge back in prime time. Who doesn’t? But that’s not the world we live in.

Really, that’s all I had to say. Your status was bad. YOU’RE THE BIGGEST LOSER (not me for writing this).

It was good.

]]> http://kittensharks.org/?feed=rss2&p=546 0 http://kittensharks.org/?p=539 http://kittensharks.org/?p=539#comments Mon, 10 Dec 2012 02:27:29 +0000 Zelda http://kittensharks.org/?p=539 Continue reading →]]>

iPad with Keyboard Case.

Some months ago, one of my first kittensharks articles was a review of Amazon’s Kindle Fire; I discussed the purchase in terms of what made me decide to buy it instead of an iPad ($$$) and what I found useful about it in terms of my life and how I would be using it. These are pretty general terms for a review, and I still think that, at that time, I made the right decision. Things changed a few months later and I needed more productivity than the Kindle Fire could provide, so I was forced to make a change in devices. Here is the story about how and why I bought an iPad as well as a description of its usefulness to me.

At the time I made the Kindle Fire purchase, all I really needed it for was to absorb media and do some mild browsing online. I didn’t feel like lugging tons of DVDs and books with me on my frequent trips, so the obvious answer was a tablet. The Kindle Fire price was right, and it easily integrated with the Amazon store, so I was able to do everything I wanted on the fly. Pretty sweet, right?

Eventually, my job required me to be able to do a lot more production work using a database to create and print lists, produce multiple documents a day and so on. I do have a MacBook, but it’s getting old and I wasn’t sure it would make it through the campaign; if it didn’t, I’d have been screwed (it did – holla @ Apple!). My Wacom Tablet was also starting to die after 6 glorious years together. This was a dark time for me. At this point, not only did I need a huge increase in functionality of my tablet device, but I also wanted to be able to draw and paint digitally without having to spend another $500 on a Wacom Tablet. The answer seemed obvious: iPad. It could do everything I needed it to do; the only real block in purchasing it, aside from spending extra cash, was that I had already made a decision not to buy one six months before.

Needless to say, I got over the block. I saved a little money by purchasing iPad 2 (I didn’t need retina display), so that was $100 I kept. I also sold my Kindle Fire to a friend for a cool $100 and used the money to buy a Zagg Bluetooth keyboard case for iPad (which I got for half off a $50) and a stylus to paint with. One $9.99 Art Rage drawing app later, and I was set. As I investigated other productivity apps, I found Pages and Documents, which both make excellent substitutes for Word on my MacBook. I made it through a very intense campaign almost exclusively using my iPad. It also freed up the MacBook for volunteer use, and all in all, it only cost me about $300 total.

Since then, I have gone ahead and purchased a new Wacom Tablet, but I only bought the Bamboo Capture (review coming soon) for $100 instead of the much nicer Intuos models I had used before. I still use Art Rage on iPad, but I hated knowing how much money Photoshop cost me and not using it was killing me. The moral of the story is this: iPad fills every need I have right now, and I don’t think I’d be comfortable with any other product. It’s fast; the battery life is excellent, and I can still use everything I bought on Amazon via the Amazon Apps available for Apple products in App Store. #Winning

I updated the header image finally.  Love it or hate it, it’s still bright pink, and that’s how it will always be.  I also made a Facebook page (go Like it!!!) because people seem to need that for whatever reason.  Anyway, there are some great new additions coming up today and in the next week, so keep watching!

Also: Zelda’s updated review of the Kindle Fire/iPad situation and new book reviews -  PLUS a new kittenshark!!!

Some people see cooking shows like this.

I never thought I would be a Food Network enthusiast. I never got that hunger-porn feeling a lot of people get when they watch cooking shows. I don’t even really like food that much. If I’m alone I often forget to eat. I suppose that makes me a poseur. It’s a shame I have to learn to live with.

It was last year that Zelda started introducing me to Food related television. She started me off easy with Good Eats. There were costumes and puppets that would entertain me if the food didn’t. Then it was Chopped. I was hooked pretty much instantly. The judges were awesome to watch. The competitors were always hilarious, whether or not it was intentional.

Alex “Kick-Ass” Guarnaschelli

Then along came Next Iron Chef last year. I was seeing the cooking talent that Geoffrey Zakarian and Alex Guarnaschelli had that got them into those judges’ seats on Chopped. In retrospect it would have been awesome to see a Zakarian/Guarnaschelli face off at the end. It didn’t happen and I could live with it. I don’t know anything about Elizabeth Falkner so it was much easier to keep using the #TeamZakarian twitter hashtag. To this day one of my most retweeted tweets was something to the effect of “I hope Geoffrey Zakarian set up Falkner’s area with Home Alone-style traps.”

Over the summer I learned just how emotionally invested I can truly get over a cooking competition show. Food Network Star absolutely captivated the Kittensharks. A tear-stricken Alton Brown in the promos had us setting up the DVR immediately in case we couldn’t be around to see it live.

Definitely not first, certainly not the last time we’ll be mentioning this lovely lady.

Ultimately, our standard brand of antagonizing people on the internet would end up getting us to root for the lovely Nikki Martin, who we are STILL waiting for Food Network to just give her a show already despite not having been the champion. We consider Nikki a Kittenshark. (You have to be one if we say you are. That’s just how it works.) Giada De Laurentiis blocked me during an episode about midway through the series because I said she looked like a Bratz doll. She was my second Food Network block. It was one of the happiest feelings I’ve ever had.

Now we’ve got Redemption, and I just can’t wait for it. The Kittensharks are going to support Alex Guarnaschelli with our usual level of ferocity. She’s the rightful champion of this competition and I know she’s going to cook with the heat of a thousand suns.

If you can’t stand the heat, don’t host a cooking show.

Here’s a few reasons why we love Alex:

1. Her descriptions of food on her twitter feed will immediately make you hungry. I never understood hunger-porn until I started following her on twitter. Listen to this classic youtube video when you have a few minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p48BKFOh1zs  (WordPress doesn’t want to turn this into a functioning link. You’ll have to copy/paste.)

2. As far as Chopped judges go, she cares the most BY FAR about how the food tastes. The others will go into presentation and other elements of a meal more often. I love it when Scott Conant tears into some would-be chef because the food wasn’t stacked all pretty, but Alex has an appreciation for flavor goes unmatched. At the end of the day I’m more excited about how my food tastes than how it looks.

3. She wished the cat at the top of this page a happy birthday this year.

If she wins I will kill myself.

4. Amanda “Bones” Freitag must be stopped. I mentioned above that De Laurentiis was my second block on twitter. Freitag was my first. Apparently I like Chopped too much. Sorry every time you try something new you find bones in your mouth. The Bones in your mouth are teeth, Amanda. They’re supposed to be there.

5.

Someone is about to bring it.

Go get ‘em, Alex. You just let us know whether you like #IronChefGuarnaschelli or #TeamAlex better.

A Nightmare

Anyway, this is about one particular traumatic event. What is waking me up with cold sweats and the the sensation that my entire decision making process has been sullied comes down to math class. You know, 5th grade math where you learn the same shit you learned in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade again? That math class. One day in that class everything began south. I will forever bear the burden of learning what it means to be confused and unconfident that day.

Some bright-eyed 5th grade piece of garbage I found on google

You see, Mrs. West was a pretty inept of bag of fat and hatred. To teach math, the most basic of all elementary school subjects, she had to employ the use of a teacher’s aide. I don’t remember the name of the teacher’s aide. (Aid? AIDS?) I’m gonna call her Mrs. Turtle Fetus. The class had been split up into groups of 6-8 bright eyed already-learned-this-three-times fifth graders. We all had in our mathematical arsenals a wide variety of ways to multiply and divide: let alone add and subtract. It didn’t matter. Arithmetic if your bitch when you’re a 5th grader. You don’t even need to care about whole numbers, you can do fractions like it’s nobody’s business. But I digress. The point here is that we all basically knew how to do math and were just waiting for middle school to start so we could start feeling each other up and listening to alternative rock and Puff Daddy, because that’s what was cool back then.

So we’re sitting there and we’re supposed to all solve the same math problem. That is, the six-to-eight of us that Mrs. Turtle Fetus was overseeing. We were each supposed to pick a unique method of solving our problem and I picked the tried and true Lattice Square. It involved no double-digit numbers and as a 5th grader I still found something mildly humorous in that it sounded like “lettuce.”

We go around the circle, directed by our egg-less embryo of a teacher’s aid. Everyone has their ridiculous number circle or just-doing-math or number divining method they’ve used. It comes to me and I announce that I’ve used the Lattice Square. Before I even get to describe the genius level of math solving skills I’ve employed, this fat, disgusting slut of a 5th Grader Katie Gray shouts out that the lattice square is “only for checking!” Only for checking? What the hell does that mean? It’s math, I’ll do math how I want, idiot. I glare. I try to kill her with the boundless hate that I have for her useless life. It turns out that I’m not capable of doing that yet. Someday, Katie Gray, I will destroy you with pure hate energy.

Worse yet, a chorus of the little fifth grade assholes rings out in agreement with the lie that has just emerged from the be-toothed anus on her face. I am shunned. I never knew that there were rules about which correct way to go about something. It would forever add a level of hesitancy to all my planning and decision making. That fat idiot had ruined my life.

Your Husband

Well Katie Gray, I can’t look find you on facebook. I guess you married someone. An ex-con or maybe a blind guy or perhaps a mentally challenged man. Most likely, all three. You’ve probably pooped out a couple of disgusting offspring who are ruining the lives of their classmates now. I hope you’re proud of yourself. Me? I’m living the dream now more than ever. I’m allowed to drink soda any time of the day and I play Battletoads whenever I feel like it. Try as you might have your attempt really didn’t do as much long term damage as you’d hoped. Hope you’re choking on a chicken bone while you read this. I hate you.

Just lump this into the pile with Dr. Who and Lost already, Rob.

I don’t really know how it happened. It was all kind of a blur to me. Rob came to our place for what I had expected to probably be a night of watching Rifftrax or perhaps playing some Beerio Kart, when he blurted out that he wanted to join in some online trivia show. I can’t remember if I actually face-palmed myself or if I just really wanted to at the time. I’ve got nothing against trivia shows and nothing against things Rob likes (despite all evidence to the contrary on the latter), it’s just that when Rob gets into something, he gets into it in such an intense way that I’ll dislike it because I know it isn’t possible for me to enjoy it as much as he does. I secretly envy him. (Okay, it’s not a secret.)

The show is called Something You May Know. Rob tried explaining it to us, and since we are pretty much idiots we didn’t understand. After becoming frustrated and realizing he was wasting his time he said “Look, it’s a trivia show, it’s about super heroes tonight, and there’s prizes.” That’s when we understood that we were definitely playing. If there’s anything Kittensharks are good at, it’s thinking way too much about super heroes. Also, prizes!

Crystal just might be a #tweetlikerob situation.

Here’s how the show works, or at least worked in my one experience with it thus far. The topic of the next show is announced some ten days before the show airs, which is every other Wednesday. Between the topic announcement and the airing of the show, they’ll post some video clues to sort of give you a grasp of what aspects of the topic you should maybe brush up on. Then the show airs for 20 minutes, during which three questions are asked, and the first viewer to type the correct answer into the accompanying chat window wins a cash prize.

My favorite super hero was not mentioned. It’s okay, though. Not everyone gets Ollie the way I do.

During my experience there was an awesome pre-game where we had to make some dude named Ben laugh. We were challenged to come up with the funniest imaginary superhero/villain combination we could, and I took home a sweet $15 iTunes code because of my entry, Pre-Emptive Revenge Man! Let me restate: BEFORE I EVER ACTUALLY GOT TO PLAY IN THIS TRIVIA GAME, I WON A PRIZE. My reluctant participation radically transformed into a frothing rage of enthusiasm. I was sold… FOREVER.

The next twenty minutes in my place looked and sounded exactly like several montages from the movie Hackers, only with way less Matthew Lillard and definitely not enough Fisher Stevens. There was dramatic 90′s techno music (Juno Reactor all night, dudes) and we were typing into our many customized and themed laptop computers. In the end, we emerged both triumphant and exhausted, drenched in sweat and victory. Zelda dominated with a haul of $175 and a bonus $100 she got to give away, which she chose Rob to receive and he and I to split. At this rate the Kittensharks were making an effective $825/hr talking about super heroes.

Standard Trivia Team

Once the after party died down it was determined that we would definitely be back. It was an awesome experience and everyone should join in. Try it out next week on August 15th at 9 PM EST. The topic is the geocentric universe model, and definitely not youtube. See you there.

Bush doing his daily prank call to the Kremlin.

Step one is to try and make the other person assume you are person that they were texting to. This sounds easy, but actually takes a bit of work. The professionals do extensive research and accurately replicate the other person’s texting fingerprint. On a side note, fun science fact:

Everyone has a unique texting style or fingerprint. The government has programs that can track who is texting just based on how many OMGs are used and common grammar errors. So you better watch yourself.

Me on the other hand, just take the easier approach and make it seem like I know what I’m talking about.

The true story I have involves a man working for a transportation company. This guy, who texts me that his name was Dave, looking for some guy named Sully (I mean, c’mon!) and apparently was trying to pick someone up to bring them to the airport, or somewhere important, but had the unfortunate luck of texting me instead. He asked if he could pick me up fifteen minutes early. Me not doing anything important, said, sure, no problem. I just asked that he would contact me when he got to where he was going. So sound like I know what I was talking about? Part one: Complete.

Part two involves continuing the conversation and trying to delay the inevitable, the moment when the person discovers that you are actually more awesome then the person they were trying to reach. This involved me for some more time to get ready, about 15

This is why you shouldn’t wrong number text and drive. Right number texting and driving is completely fine

minutes, which makes the text message completely unnecessary. Luckily Dave was willing to wait a bit for me to get ready, because that’s the kind of guy I assume Dave is. I can only assume as we have just met. I finished up this part of the task by asking him to beep his horn when he gets ‘here’. Part two: Complete. Which brings us right into part three..

Part Six. Discovery. So this is the fun part when your mark, or sucker, realizes that they sent the text to the wrong person. If you play your cards right, this is not where the fun ends. Even though part two involved putting this moment, this is the cherry to your jerk sundae. How Dave reacted was that he of course asked if he had the wrong number. He thanked me for keeping him busy on his way to his destination. I said it was a strange coincidence that I was waiting for a guy with the same name. To what he replies, well I didn’t give you my name. If you’ve been paying attention kids, Dave told me his name right away. I told him, Sure Dave, whatever you say. You have to make sure you can squeeze every part of embarrassment out of the situation. He asked me what I was being picked up for, and being the science fiction fan I was, decided to go with a “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t let you do that.” I assumed Dave was over the age of 30, and would get the reference. He seemed to not like the subtle joke I made. I told him goodbye, and he expressed that he didn’t get my name to even say goodbye. I told him that he should learn to live with disappointment.

So that is a true story, and the proper method to respond to a wrong number text. You might have to improvise for some of the steps, but you should always follow these basic steps to get the most fun out of the conversation. I know I do. And yes, it has happened to me again since then. When will these suckers learn?

And stay tuned!