The adult feral cat has been turned in for TnR

Posted on August 7, 2023 by Steve

Still don’t know which gender this cat was but we made no progress on getting them to calm down, plus they’re a bad influence on the two kittens. Yesterday was the final straw as they tore a hole in the nylon playpen/cage; a great discovery to start my morning! Hmm why is there a tuxedo kitten by the window sill…what the! Oddly, the adult was the easiest to round up. I just opened the door to a carrier and they walked right in. The kittens had more luck hiding under furniture but I’m persistent as all the monsters from the Horror movies are!

The big Austin Animal setup on the South Side took them in and I made a $50 donation to help offset their costs. They’ll call me when the cat is ready to be released back into the area they roam. I’m secretly optimistic the surgery will cause a change of personality and they’ll realize our house is cat friendly. We’ll know if it’s a girl or boy. We’ll feed them, give them cuddles and get them ready for their new home. I hate to think the poor creature will need to return to a life of wandering and also living in fear of other cats, cars and coyotes.

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Snappy Replies to Stupid Answers #1

Posted on August 6, 2023 by Steve

Definitely a great, truthful cartoon mocking why we all need to press our advantage with dipshit interviewers while the job market is good. By now, everyone knows “competitive” means “We’re still going to squeeze you” alongside, “We have no fucking idea what we are really looking for.” It’s why many robber barons have fled Colorado, there’s a law saying you must post the salary and since the cheap bastards don’t want to admit to slave wages, they think it’s cheaper to move the New Confederacy.

One question I despise with all my being until the day I die is the “What is your biggest weakness.” I cribbed my answer from someone else but modified it to what mine really is and it’s my polite way of saying, your question is asinine, “Cheetos.” As if anyone on Earth other than Homer Simpson will ever admit to sucking.

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We have a new cat playground-jungle gym!

Posted on August 5, 2023 by Steve

Jennifer is just spoiling the new kitten we got and I’m OK with that. It was also a reason to pay her son Mason for some extra chores by having him assemble this beast of a setup. I’ll have to get a picture of it later to give you a better of its scale.

Oddly, two of my adult cats took to it immediately. Well, I put Metztli into the hammock to give her the idea, she chose to stay, pose and be adorable. Agamemnon used the cave to scare me when I couldn’t find him around the house, fearing I had locked him into my office or the very hot garage. Klothos will be all over the gym when she’s bigger I think. Isis will check it out while we’re sleeping.

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Well…duh! (Aug ’23 edition)

Posted on August 4, 2023 by Steve

If someone does succeed, I gotta know how they pulled it off!

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A birthday gift to myself from Fright Rags #2

Posted on August 3, 2023 by Steve

In honor of War Games turning 40 along with how well the artist combined the artwork from all those awesome Atari 2600 game boxes…I wanted this! I was never wild about the movie when it was in theaters and I didn’t get to see it until the following year when it was played to death on HBO. Actually, I hated the movie throughout the Eighties. It wasn’t the acting, it wasn’t the cast, it wasn’t the plot holes (more on this later); it just heightened my anxiety and fear of dying in a nuclear war because I saw it after seeing The Day After, which will be turning 40 this Fall. Had I seen this in 1983 like the general public, maybe I would’ve seen the danger as more existential and not something keeping me from going to sleep, worrying if crazy Reagan was going to launch a pre-emptive strike so we’d all meet his Jesus.

My father also ruined the movie (the plot holes, remember?) thanks to his career in data processing, the forerunner of today’s coders. He said there was no way Matthew Broderick could keep plugging away at a government mainframe in 1983 with a modem until he gave the correct password, especially if it was a backdoor into a military system. He would get at best, a few tries before the computer monitoring the connection locked him out and then if he was lucky, he’d receive a message saying “see your system admin for a password reset.” Afterwards, these attempts would receive attention from a human who would at worst, just cut off the backdoor forever all the way to what does happen, the government traces where the intrusion originated from figuring it was espionage. They’d just do it way sooner, thus never giving the hero a chance to research the life of Dr. Falken, leading him to deduce a very lazy password.

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Meet the Summer Fosters

Posted on August 2, 2023 by Steve

One surprise over my birthday weekend was picking up these three. The two kittens are female. The semi-adult is too hostile to tell. So far the gray tuxedo is the most mellow and will be the easiest to domesticate.

Currently, they’ve been moved to a larger cage for lack of a better term. I did have them in the old playpen Rhea, Remus and Romulus lived in until they cool with life amongst our menagerie, or really when Rhea stopped charging our adults screaming, “Don’t you touch my babies!” My friend Summer and her neighbor are still trying to capture their siblings and mother. Darned possums keep beating them to the wet food!

I hope we can bring the adult around. Poor thing has a nasty injury on their nose. Probably got into fights with other feral cats in the area. They hiss more than claw or bit, thank the cat gods! Odds favor they’re related to the kittens and may have the same father as the black tux given the facial markings or patterns. The kittens definitely trust this cat, namely when they’re scared, they scramble under them. Wish us luck. Jennifer likes to call these types of cats, “spicy.” You know I’ll be watch numerous YouTube movies for advice to gain their trust like I did with Agamemnon and then they’ll be someone else’s cuddle monsters!

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Welcome Klothos (aka Chloe)!

Posted on August 1, 2023 by Steve

There is a new kitten in the Maggi house and she’s very bonded to Jennifer, it was in a matter of hours! Her name is Klothos, one of the three Fates from Greek mythology. She is a Highland Lynx (hence the ears and tiny tail) with polydactylism (you can see extra toes on her front paws). She is also a fearless little firecracker! All the adults are afraid of her. I bet Agamemnon will come around to Klothos first, he is the most sociable and he loves to play with kittens. Her purring is very loud and does enjoy sleeping on our bed. More as it happens!

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RIP Paul “Pee-wee Herman” Reubens

Posted on July 31, 2023 by Steve

CRAP! I hate it when a link on Twitter leads to bad news but those bastards behind Social Media got us! Now to wait for the Fresh Air episode of when he was a guest.

Paul was a very talented Comedian and I’d put him in the same company as Steve Martin in that he grabbed the spotlight via a stage persona but could hold his own playing other roles which kept him in the public’s mind. Obviously, Martin has a larger body of work so you can hold back the comments saying I’m full of baloney.

I first saw him on the annual HBO special showcasing new comedians when Carl Reiner was the host. Paul definitely stood out with Pee-wee Herman, a combination of prop comic and goofy personality with a little audience participation. I probably caught him with his periodic appearances on David Letterman’s NBC show and I figure MTV. Then Pee-wee’s Big Adventure came out late in 1985. My brother Brian saw it immediately and told me it was actually funny for its duration; I probably feared it would suck since a 10-minute skit doesn’t equal a movie, what ex-SNL alumni still don’t understand. Thanks to my exile to North Dakota, a mall theater in Dickinson was showing Adventure and I loved it. Danny Elfman doing the music was an added bonus; now we know Elfman’s a Louis CK-level piece of shit.

Pee-wee-mania followed, namely his Saturday-morning show Pee-wee’s Playhouse. I was in college by the time it aired. I would catch when I could. I did like his guest spot on SNL as its legacy was the debut of Jon Lovitz’s Tommy Flanagan character (the serial liar). I bet Paul felt vindication too. He auditioned for the frequently unfunny show and was rejected. It’s a fortunate thing because if he succeeded, he would’ve faced the long, hard climb back to relevance along with the others from the infamous 1980-81 cast: Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Charlie Rocket and Laurie Metcalf. It’s a bummer his second movie Big Top Pee-wee flopped. I bet it was a labor of love given his upbringing in Sarasota, FL, where the traveling circuses hunker down for the winter.

Around these years (1985-1992) was when I recognized him in past appearances as some version of Pee-wee. The annoying arcade operator in Midnight Madness (also starring an unknown Michael J. Fox); The Blues Brothers; two Cheech & Chong flicks; Mork & Mindy; Faerie Tale Theatre (Pinocchio!); and Steve Martin’s special mocking commercials.

It came to an immediate halt in the Summer of 1991 and we all know what happened. I bet we may remember a couple of the lazy jokes. CBS cancelled Playhouse and all the toys got cleared from the shelves; they’re worth a fortune now. Everybody predicted Paul’s demise. Instead, Paul bravely doubled-down on his public humiliation at an MTV award show that Fall by asking a supportive audience chanting his name, “Heard any good jokes lately?”

Pee-wee was then retired after a stupid PSA about the dangers of crack, one of the terms of his probation. Paul wouldn’t bring him back at length until a Netflix special or he’d just do a cameo as per a parody of The Dark Knight Rises. He proved he was more than Pee-wee Herman in other hits: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Murphy Brown, Ally McBeal, Everyone Loves Raymond and Matilda. A pair of his best performances were in Mystery Men, I love him as the smelly hero known as the Spleen; and Blow, a serious movie with him as Johnny Depp’s co-hort in making cocaine big in the US (I need to see this).

For me personally, he will live on in two ways. The first is what a fantastic and memorable voice actor he also was. Before he was no longer “family friendly,” he provided the voice of RX-24, the robot pilot on Disney’s Star Tours ride and he reprised the role on Rebels! Paul then appeared as these shows: Hercules, Rugrats, Teacher’s Pet, Tripping the Rift, Tom Goes to the Mayor, Tron: Uprising, Chowder, Adventure Time, Robot Chicken, Sanjay and Craig, Phineas and Ferb, Tigtone and American Dad. Paul was the greatest choice as Bat-Mite in Batman: The Brave and The Bold and I’m holding back tears since one of his last performances was this year’s season finale of Bob’s Burgers with him as the masseuse in training, Pat, for Linda’s Mother’s Day surprise.

The second dates back to seeing Pee-wee’s Big Adventure on the VCR with my high school buds Mike and Jon. It was out on VHS by the Spring of 1986. I cajoled them into renting it. When it got to the scene of Josh Brolin and Morgan Fairchild playing Pee-wee and Dottie during the movie within the movie, we had to pause for five minutes after Brolin said, “I know you are, but what am I?” Jon and I couldn’t stop laughing. Mike was bewildered. I should ask Mike if he remembers this.

Farewell Paul! Thank you for all you did. You made at least a billion people laugh and you did your part to make the world a better, happier place while you were living your dream. I’m going to miss you because you made my jaded teen years, not so jaded.

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A birthday gift to myself from Fright Rags #1

Posted on July 30, 2023 by Steve

It’s an obscure little joke from Weird Al’s movie UHF. Not sure why the only reseller I’ve ever found that make this focuses on Horror but I’m good. Much like my Star Wars shirt with Bea Arthur and Harvey Korman on it, this piece of geek wardrobe is a litmus test.

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Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes as I made it to 55!

Posted on July 29, 2023 by Steve

It’s what one former roommate called the double nickels. How fitting, it’s the partially the title of the only Minutemen album I know! Double Nickels on the Dime.

Today was pretty good and mellow. As money has been tight due to the IRS and recent cat funerals aren’t cheap. Don’t feel sad nor worried. It’s better to have the means to get by on these recent adversities than how nightmarish it was in the past!

So what happened to celebrate. I got all the free stuff (or discounted) I enjoy scoring at the Eightbucks and Pluckers. Having a nice lunch with Anje, Wyatt and Cannon was awesome! I will be running into them again one more time before they return to the Netherlands and Qatar; Anje promised to be a guest on my newly rebranded interview podcast Guests of the Maggi. I’m just kicking myself for not thinking of this sooner! Jennifer gave me a really funny card. We hit Pinballz with my friend/producer Kathy who spoiled me with all these cool Body Shoppe stuff…or she’s telling me I smell horrible! I also had enough E-points to score a LEGO set to cannibalize for my ongoing Star Wars project. Speaking of which, the boys told me they’ve taken good care of the 727th Jump Brigade. Phew! I told them I only wanted it back temporarily for more photos and to make sure its intact to return when one of them becomes an adult.

The mailbox didn’t disappoint neither. Christina, my friend of 30 years now, mailed me the means to have a lunch/dinner on her. It would be even better if she were present as we both miss our times at the Penguin Cafe in Peoria, IL. I really hope the restaurant remains. I can’t say the same for Dynamic Graphics which is a pisser.

What else? It was just a pretty damned cool day. I’ll reflect later but I do want to bring up this as per my sensei Lester. He mentioned how life expectancy has improved by not just nutrition and medicine, attitude matters. There’s the annoying cliché…50 is the new 30. It does have a kernel of truth. When our ancestors were working themselves nearly to death, since agriculture employed the majority (it was this or massive starvation), they looked like crap by 55. I’d be a grandpa and if I lived another decade or longer, a great grandpa! Or maybe it’s just my ego keeping me in denial about my age. Nah.

It was a wonderful birthday. I have Jennifer in my life. I have wonderful friends living on three continents. I’m loved by some sweet cats. Work has turned a corner thanks to the a positive regime change and I will be learning some new stuff I’ve been itching to figure out for years! Not every birthday has to be a big deal like 20 years ago in Las Vegas. This one was more on par with another favorite weekend in 1995, the Summer Austin had finally come to fruition. Oh yeah, it was on a Saturday then too.

Next up? Taking advantage of all the Senior Citizen discounts I’m allowed. Fear not my fellow Gen Xers and Mill/Gen Z allies. I will not use my age for evil, aka at your expense. I am not a fan of mortgaging our mutual future for short-term gain.

Thank you all! I love you all. Especially in your part of making me a better person.

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RIP Sinead O’Connor and Randy Meisner

Posted on July 28, 2023 by Steve

I’m going by order of the news announcing their passing, not by how much I actually enjoyed their work.

First is the sad death of Sinead O’Connor. I was never a big fan of her stuff which mostly came out while I was in college. Due to her shaved head, we usually mocked the singer by calling her “Skin’ead O’Connor.” The couple hits from the debut album were decent as her Irish origin helped propel popularity being the wake of the overrated U2. I think the cool guitar parts from “Mandika” were played by Johnny Marr. To me, the kiss of death wasn’t her politics or outspokenness, it was covering a Prince song and this becoming the general public’s true introduction. Turned her into a one-hit-wonder overnight with America. The incident on SNL, feh. If Charlie Rocket carried on after the saying the F word in 1981, she would’ve bounced back but Sinead never let up on her beliefs. Nothing wrong with sticking to your beliefs in my opinion, Show Business just doesn’t care for it and having truly good music won’t save you. The Media hasn’t revealed her cause of death. I fear it was likely a suicide. She seemed to be someone in much pain from her numerous struggles both from work and personal.

Second is bass player/singer Randy Meisner, a founding member of The Eagles. I forgot he stuck around through Hotel California but it was the final straw for him, namely how hard the tour was. They say he was homesick. I’d say all the drugs, booze alongside the swelling egos of Don Henley and Glen Frey taking over the band; I would throw in the assholism of Joe Walsh joining. Randy was a silent member, only singing about one song per album yet he is behind their first super hit, “Take it to the Limit.” For me, “Try and Love Again,” is under appreciated along with “Wasted Time” on Hotel California. Obviously, life after the Eagles was a mixed bag; after being in one of the biggest Rock acts defining the sound of what the Seventies were like, Randy lived mostly in obscurity. Sure, he formed new bands and even rejoined Poco, he was the original bass player until 1969. Nothing really repeated all the past success he had experienced. I think the what really hurt the most was Henley and Frey never inviting him on stage to sing lead on their big hit together whenever Randy was in the same city.

Nevertheless, I loved his voice on the tunes he got the lead for. It was a nice change of pace from Henley’s seriousness and Frey’s often cavalier tone since Meisner’s voice was more vulnerable. And like many vanguard Gen Xers, I had a copy of Eagles Greatest Hits which is the best selling album of all time, around 50+ million sold; and I got into an Eagles funk during my senior year in North Dakota.

Farewell Sinead and Randy. Thank you both for what you contributed to the world’s pop culture. Sinead, you were yourself and I may not have bought your stuff, at least you were genuine and not a fame hag like Madonna and Lady Ga Ga, blech! Randy, I appreciate all you did and if I were immortalized by one hit song, I would wish it to be yours.

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RIP to Alan Arkin

Posted on July 28, 2023 by Steve

One big overdue tribute to a comedy legend alongside two rather recent passings. I wanted to get them out of the way before my big 55 day tomorrow since nothing but fun, fun and happiness over the next 24 hours!

First up is Alan Arkin. What a great comic actor! From time to time, he did some Drama too and I’m not talking about Glengarry Glen Ross (ugh, Mamet and everyone sounds the same!). Try Argo, The Slums of Beverly Hills (he’s cringey) and this gem, The Defection of Simas Kudirka from the Cold War days. But Comedy was obviously his strength. What a long and incredible resume too. His only misstep was Inspector Clouseau in 1968, well before Steve Martin also failed to fill Peter Sellers’ huge shoes.

What really got his career rolling as a solid comic actor was The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming from the mid-Sixties. Me, it would be two late Seventies Comedies he starred in back to back and I enjoyed them immensely thanks to HBO. I’ll start with The In-Laws, an Action-Heist-Comedy co-starring the equally hilarious Peter Falk which takes some very odd turns making it funnier than it should’ve been. Sadly, a big moron in Hollywood decided to remake it with Albert Brooks and Michael Douglas. A huge waste of time and Brooks. The other is Simon a very offbeat comedy co-starring Judy Graubart (the lady from The Electric Company!), Fred Gwynne (Yes, Herman Munster), Madeline Kahn, Wallace Shawn and Austin Pendleton (The Muppet Movie 1979). Arkin plays a Psychology professor who has difficulty getting funding and serious consideration for his studies in sensory deprivation. Enter a government think tank that tricks him into joining with their promises of funding but instead they brainwash him into thinking he’s an alien. It’s not exactly for mass audiences. It’s an obscure memory for me to share with other like-minded fans such as Blaine Capatch or Michael Price.

Thanks for everything Alan! You were a true actor and comedian of great range. Someone who trailblazer the way for others emulating you: Robin Williams, Ton Hanks and Olivia Colman. (Cloris Leachman was your contemporary.)

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Something Mickey D’s of the US should consider

Posted on July 28, 2023 by Steve

One suggestion, they should offer this sandwich in grilled form because the middle bun is too much bread. Then again, why does the Big Mac have that stupid bun? I’m guessing it’s an appearance thing. Ray Kroc was a tightwad of the biggest order so I figure he wanted it removed if they sold the burger nationally. I would like to try this once despite a couple more objections I have. The big one is thousand-island dressing doesn’t go very well with chicken and make sure the cheese is melted.

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Bugs Bunny is 83!

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Steve

To counter my digs at someone else, let’s hear it for my animal-spirit guide! You know I’m wearing one of my three pairs of Chucks featuring him too. I really also want to say “You’re doing a great job” to Bugs’ current voice actor, the very talented Eric Bauza! Mel would’ve been proud of you. When I have the money to burn on HBO…I mean Max, ugh, I will have to see what new material they’ve made of the wascally wabbit and his co-horts.

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Gary Gygax would’ve been 85 today

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Steve

I guess his ears were burning from the grave since my sensei and great friend Lester and I had a fantastic conversation last Sunday. Obviously, we revisited the GDW days along with our work on Gygax’s underwhelming comeback. I don’t care to flog a dead horse, Gary just came up in our discussion on who our favorite game designers are; or was it us agreeing on the recent movie being actually good?

Having been one of the few people who edited his raw material alongside Lester, I could see he had a huge imagination but it was cursed with being a prolific writer. The latter was not a blessing, especially when one doesn’t believe they need an editor. Thusly, quantity never equates quality which I feel plagued Prince, Karl Marx and obviously the screeds of Ayn Rand. Now before you interrupt me (as Lester did) about putting Gary in the company of two greats and a wannabe who became the patron god of Libertarians. Hear me out. I’m arguing that the downside to not tempering one’s creative spigot results in the gold getting ignored because it’s covered in excessive crap. For example, if Prince made three albums worth of music and then heeded the advice of his peers. He would have then only released the solid stuff worthy of one record every couple years. Prince’s sales could’ve been strong enough to counter leaving Warner Music.

Gary suffered this fate and in the end I think it’s why as each year passes and Hasbro puts out a new edition of D&D, he fades from the collective memory. He won’t disappear. He’ll just be sidelined as the sole (inaccurately) creator to get matters started and then dozens followed to improve on this, incredibly true. Despite my continued hostility (broke a major rule, never meet your heroes, kill them!) until the day I die (he was an egotistical bullshiter who thought he was an intellectual) I pity him. With a tad more humility gained from his ouster at TSR and the rapid failure of his second company, Gary Gygax might go on to be a name remembered more easily (and positively)…until his MAGA-esque views were outed publicly like JK Rowling.

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