I’ve stayed away from editorializing in the last few months, but I suspect a lot of “off the table” topics are going to come up in the new year — there’s just too much going on in the world that’s pissing me off.
Let’s start today with this jackass story pile of crap in the New York Post:

IN this season of ecumenical brotherhood, here’s a suggestion for how to advance the cause of peace: Sell your stock in Take-Two Interactive Inc.
In case you can’t quite place the name, New York-based Take-Two Interactive is a Nasdaq-traded company in the video game business.
[…]
[L]et’s first pause for some thoughts on the core question of what this company actually does – which is to produce and market video games of such luxuriously violent and disgusting content as to leave one simply speechless.
The latest installment in the company’s best-selling “Grand Theft Auto” series – “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” – has been on the market for a little over a year now and has already sold more than 5 million copies.
[…]
In fact, “whatever you want” is what the game is all about. Thanks to its artful and complex programming and its incredibly realistic graphics, the game creates the impression of being inside a totally unscripted, live-action drama in which you can manufacture your mayhem as you go along.
People, this is insane. This is 10,000 times worse than the worst thing anybody thinks Michael Jackson ever did to a little boy – or than any lie the feds think Martha Stewart ever told them, or any line in any song that Bruce Springsteen ever sang that rankled a cop in the Meadowlands.

Yeah, you read that correctly. Michael Jackson’s accused of seven counts of commiting lewd acts on a minor — that’s legal speak for a whole bunch of inappropriate touching and who knows what else — and this genius suggests that the content of a video game is WORSE than that.

I can’t believe that it’s already December the 24th. I guess the past few days have all blurred together, and now it’s suddenly Christmas Eve.
I wanted to give out a cool WWdN Christmas gift, but the stupid flu put a halt to that plan, so I’ll just have to leave you all with my Christmas wish:
I wish for peace on Earth, and lots of Guinness for me.
Merry Christmas, everybody. Thanks for reading WWdN, and making this an amazing year!

I have watched more TV in the past three days than I have in the last several months, and I can now declare with great authority: television is teh sucks.
My god. I can’t believe how horrible daytime TV is, and the crap the news networks show to fill their 24 hours is just plain stupid.
However, I did find two things that brightened my day just a bit. Yesterday, SciFi channel ran several episodes of The Twilight Zone, and I just watched an hour of The Battle of the Network Stars on Trio. I think it was from 1977. The hazy quality of the tape, Howard Cosell interviewing Patrick Duffy (credited as “The Man From Atlantis”) and the general weirdness my fever (moving between normal and 101 today — currently it’s at 99) casts upon everything made for a very surreal experience. I remember watching that show when I was very young, in the den at my mom and dad’s house. I remember how cool I thought that show was, and how much I wanted to be on it one day. (Everyone was on that show. Look at this cast list I found!) I thought that obstacle course they all had to do was just the coolest thing ever.
I also suffered through two episodes of The Newlyweds on eMpTyVee. That’s right: two. Holy Mother Jesus Balls. Is Jessica Simpson really that stupid? She’s 23, I think, and doesn’t know how to cook? Are rich and famous people really that lame? Why in the world is that show so popular? I just don’t get it. It’s actually more painful than that stupid Anna Nicole show.
I wonder if any sociologists have studied a correlation between the staggering stupidity of so many people and the explosion of these “reality” shows. I wonder if art imitates life, or the other way around?
Okay. Enough of my cantankerous ranting. I’ll end today on a positive note: Since I got sick, I have watched the entire extended cut, and all the appendicies on my The Two Towers DVD. It’s awesome. It’s very clear that TTT was an extremely difficult film to make, even more than Fellowship of the Ring . . . I mean, they spent three months of night shoots to film the battle of Helm’s Deep! Three months of night shoots! I once did three weeks of nights on a movie, and I was ready to lose my mind. I can’t imagine three months, in the rain, doing complex battle sequences.
The esprit de corps that the cast and crew had really comes through, and it reminded me of all the different shows I’ve worked on where the cast and crew became family. I miss that. If I get a chance to work as an actor again, I hope I get to experience that again.

I just got this e-mail from MoveOn:

As we enjoy the holidays with our families, our thoughts naturally turn to those who can’t: the 150,000 American soldiers who are spending the holidays in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve run across a great way to support them and make a real difference in their families’ lives — by turning your unused frequent flier miles into trips home for our troops.
We’ve checked out this website — created by Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) — and it really works. If you have frequent flier miles with virtually any U.S. airline, you can participate by going to Heromiles.org
Do you have a family member serving in the military? Or are you a veteran? Heromiles.org is a great example of citizens looking out for those who have risked everything for their country. Help us do the same by letting us know who you are and how your family member in the military is doing.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and I encourage everyone who reads this to participate.
UPDATE: Ernie, of the essential Ernie’s House of Whoopass (NSFW) runs Let’s Bring ’em Home, which takes “donations to purchase plane tickets for junior enlisted military personnel, allowing them the opportunity to fly home and spend the holidays with their families.” (Thanks Flaim!)

I’ve been sick since Friday night. This is the first time I’ve been really sick since 1995, and holy shit is my body making up for lost time.
Yesterday, I had a fever of 103 (yes, try to not sing “hot blooded” now) for most of the day, and an oh-so-joyous dry hacking cough. The fever, the aches and the chills are nothing compared to the cough. I feel like someone’s been punching me in the stomach and hitting me across the ribs with a baseball bat. Last night, I was coughing so violently, I woke myself up and wasn’t able to fall back asleep for almost an hour.
This could not have come at a more inconvenient time. I still need to pick up some gifts for my wife, I have packages to ship at the post office, and we have to get our house in order for a family dinner on the 25th.
I also don’t believe in medicating the hell out of myself, so I take all sorts of homeopathic stuff, and let my body heal itself . . . but the coughing is do painful I broke down and took some cough syrup this morning, and some advil to bring my fever down. Right now my fever is down to 99, but I still feel a little woozy, almost like I’ve found the bottom of a few pints of Guinness.
I’m going to go back to bed, but I wanted to let WWdN readers know that tomorrow night, Drew from Fark and I will be on Tech TV’s Unscrewed. We did some really funny stuff, and I know that you’ll enjoy it. Check local listings for times and stuff.