* No matter how bad things get they will be resolved before the next major crises comes up.

* Always make plans in a huddle, in the corner of a dark room.

* Listen for music cues.

* Any addiction can be treated by simply admitting you have a problem and then coordinating a group hug.

* No one poops.

* When you come down the stairs in the morning, it’s best to pause at the bottom and stare off into the distance, with your arms held slightly out. This will center you.

* If you notice you don’t have any ethnic friends, you suddenly will have one, who will teach you all about his ethic background by saying two words in his native language and laughing.

* No one ever brings work home with them, unless it is part of a larger issue.

* Money kinda just happens, unless the loss of money is part of a larger problem.

* School bullies will be stopped by teachers.

* All crime can be forgiven, simply by saying you’re sorry and returning the merchandise.

* Even though the staff probably make minimum wage they are treated like your own family members, if not better.

* Underage drinking only ever causes hilarity, and forgiveness is a hug away.

* The guy who owns your local diner is the funniest, nicest man you will ever meet, despite the fact that he looks like a local mobster / criminal.

* All girls are simply one hard math test away from falling for the geek.

* Being a nerd leaves you alone, but still surrounded by people, all the time, who: laugh at your jokes, hate to have you around, ask for your help, secretly love you and think highly of you though they’d never admit it.

* All political leanings are simply a character flaw.

* Everyone gets exactly one pimple at a time.

* Sharks are for jumping.

[And now the notes section: I didn't put in a "at the end of 30 minutes" because damn it I remember two-parters. I also, it must be noted, was raised in the 70s/80s. So the sitcom rules apply to that period. They are different now, to be fair. Not many but some. "What I Learned from Watching arrested Development" is a totally different post, for example. And one I might do. This list is far from definitive, hence "A Few" at the start. I also wish to say that I was raised on a sitcom diet of Facts of Life Diff'rent Strokes, Brady Bunch, I Love Lucy, Cheers, Family Ties, Full House, M*A*S*H, Mork and Mindy, Happy Days and The Cosby Show, to name a few. I still look up if I hear "Sit, Ubu, sit" and call Ron Howard "Opie Cunningham" in my head.]

Got to the bar early. So I just wandered in. Lights were mostly off, M and Miran were sitting around talking. The band was staggering in. The clock was turned off. Yeah I was a bit early. Not that it mattered.

M was exhausted, it turned out. She had just moved (two weeks ago she was off looking at a new apartment: since then she has gotten it and moved in already) and spent all day painting. when I say all day I mean she got up at the crack of fuck-you and had painted until she realized she had to be at work.

Which just makes everything funnier. Because a very tired M is an M that isn’t inclined to do much of anything. Except sit and raise an eyebrow. Miran got into the habit of “M, I need a… oh I’ll get it myself,” by about 9. Yeah. That was the kinda night it was. The clock was its own issue. Plugged in, looking fine, the clock just didn’t turn on. So we’re sitting around talking and I catch a flash out of the corner of my eye.

The clock had turned on and then off very fast. So M wiggled the plug and look! the clock works. Until it cut back out an hour later. Fuck the clock. Fuck it up its stupid ass. Of course that meant that every ten or fifteen minutes M would turn to me in a rush and ask what time it was.

Their food got there and M and Miran started to eat. Just before they did, M went to get me a beer. She wanders back, chattering away, sets my beer in front of Miran and sits down. Miran and I look at each other. Then we lose it. I mean, sure, it was an interesting night but I didn’t think it called for Miran to start drinking that early. Sheesh.

It was, I repeat, that kind of night.

M told us about this ass over the weekend. Apparently he started some shit in the back of the joint and then to the front, still going on. M followed him and he started telling her to “shut the fuck up” and how her job was to take his orders. So, and M was proud of this, she took his 99% full beer bottle and poured it over his head. Now, pouring out a beer like that over someone takes time. This guy just stood there in utter shock.

But back to the very sleepy night. Because it was one. At one point the band leader came by and chatted for a few, like he’s taken to, and took my name and address because, it turns out, sometimes they throw private parties for regulars. Which I am now going to be invited to. And as cool as that is? Really I think I am just on their mailing list now. Let’s be honest here.

Yeah it was sluggish and quiet and slow. Which fit. And so we left, as we always must, and took a cab home. Which is when we had a cabbie with the best name in quite some time.

Took cab home with Hammerpants post-bar. Recap tomorrow like normal, but this I had to share right now. I noticed, after a few, the cabbie’s name. I took a picture.

His name, if you can’t read it, is Mohamed Bah. Or as it says on the license: BAH, MOHAMED. BAH! I wonder if he knows anyone with the last name Meh.

(via NYTimes) Steady work has been scarce for actors in gorilla suits since “The Electric Company” went dark in 1977.

But all that changes this week as shooting begins in Washington Heights and the Lower East Side on an ambitious reboot of the PBS literacy series that turned on a generation of schoolchildren to the rudiments of reading. The first graduates of “Sesame Street” found in “The Electric Company” a companion piece that relied on pun-filled sketches, Spider-Man cameos, and lots of primate shtick, all backed by a Motown beat.

Refitted for the age of hip-hop and informed by decades of further educational research on reading, the 2009 version of “The Electric Company” is a weekly, more danceable version of its former daily self. The series, which is expected to make its debut in January, faces challenges the original never did (trying to stand out amid so much children’s programming and to shake the stigma of educational television) as well as familiar ones (trying to make reading a positive experience for youngsters).

“It’s the old one mixed with ‘High School Musical’ and a Dr Pepper commercial,” said Linda Simensky, senior director of programming for PBS Kids, a block of children’s shows that will include “The Electricity Company.” There’s a touch of “Fame” to it, given its cast of culturally diverse city kids who sing and dance, as well as nods to the original series. (A cameo has been offered to Rita Moreno, a regular on the original “Electric Company,” remembered for her show-opening exultation, “Hey, you guyyyyys!”)

Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit media corporation formerly known as the Children’s Television Workshop, will once again produce. As before, when the show began in 1971, it is still directed at viewers 6 to 9 years old.

In keeping with the original show’s ties to theater (many in the cast, like Morgan Freeman, had stage backgrounds), the new head writer is a Tony-Award-nominated playwright and lyricist, Willie Reale, with experience in children’s theater (“A Year With Frog and Toad”).

In the first episode Mr. Reale establishes the show’s conceit: Somewhere in the big city lies a natural-foods diner that is headquarters to a not-so-secret society known as the Electric Company. The four semi-superheroes who meet there — Keith, Jessica, Lisa and Hector — have pledged not only to use their powers for good but also to eat sensible portions of healthy meals. The gang ranges in age from 13 to 20 and can scramble, recall, project and animate words in astounding ways.

Plotting nefariously is a clutch of comical misfits and poseurs known as the Pranksters. “They’re villains without being villainous,” said Scott Cameron, the show’s research director, “just neighborhood kids who cause chaos.”

The Sesame Workshop hopes to raise $25 million for the project, $17.7 million of which has been provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through the federal Department of Education. Twenty low-income, low-literacy pockets across the country will also be the focus of an extensive outreach program in the months leading to the show’s premiere.

“There will be billboards, bus ads, notices in their dollar stores, television and radio ads, all about the power of reading,” Randell M. Bynum, who is coordinating the outreach, said. “When the show comes on in January, these communities will have already been primed to the importance of reading and bombarded with resources.”

Ms. Bynum, along with the production team and cast members, has been testing strategies at P.S. 188 on Houston Street in the Lower East Side. A group of that school’s students in first through fourth grades recently screened a 30-minute demonstration of the series, which included a music-video tribute to the transformational power of the silent E, the sneaky letter that can turn cap into cape and at into ate.

Music for the series will come from three people involved in the Broadway rap-salsa-pop musical “In the Heights”: the director Thomas Kail, the co-arranger and orchestrator Bill Sherman and the actor Christopher Jackson.

In a category by himself is the beat-box artist Shockwave (Chris Sullivan). Besides slinging hash at the Electric Diner, he speaks in one-word bursts only — no sentences — and appears in guises like the much missed gorilla and a butcher who cleaves words. But it is his D.J. routine that may be mimicked on playgrounds next year. He appears to be scratching syllables from dueling turntables to form words. It all emanates from his “bruh-bruh-AIN, bruh-bruh-AIN, brain.”

(More at at the link)

Ever watch Thundercats?

Cheetara was kinda hot.

They were idiots.

Come on, it was a fun show! That Snarf, well he cracked me up.

You and my Grandmot… oh, right, well that makes sense.

I… well… damn it, yeah.

They were still idiots. Do I talk to myself? Maybe I do. My parents died, it was a dark and cold night in Gotham when…

We can hear you!

My parents AND my uncle died.

Uncle was your own fault.

Well, YEAH! But I learned from it, see?

I learned not to let my relatives get killed after the first two.

Oh Red White and SNAP!

Dayum.

Just sayin’. But we were discussing why the Thundercats were so stupid.

No, you were espousing.

Close enough.

All right, I give, why were the Thundercats dumb?

They were fighting one magical Mummy. One. There were, what, eight Thundercats?

Five, not counting the kids.

Count the kids, they can fight.

what is it with you two? All these teen sidekicks that get killed and you have no problem with it, again and again! It’s sick!

You just whine because you were a teen sidekick with no mentor. Loser.

Ha! Yeah where was… Big Spider to teach you?

You wanna see Big Spidey? Cause I’ll drop trou right now.

Please don’t. It probably shoots webs. Or something horrible. Listen! My point is that the Thundercats had superior numbers and technology and they couldn’t defeat one Mummy! Do you know why?

They didn’t really have clothes on?

It’s true but I don’t think it was really a tactical disadvantage.

No, think about it. Mumm-Ra was in bandages and a cape. The Thundercats were in, what, booties? He had the advantage in cold region fighting. Fur or not!

That doesn’t hold, but regardless it isn’t why. Mumm-Ra, if he saw his reflection, had to retreat into his pyramid. Did the Thundercats ever just wear mirrored outfits? Surround the doors and windows of the pyramid with mirrors maybe? No.

What about Ma-Mutt?

Ma-Mutt was a horrible merchandising mistake.

Like Ace, the Bat-Hound?

Fuck you! Ace is a kick-ass dog and could eat you for lunch.

I wouldn’t push him on this. I once joked about Bat-Mite and got an Bat-earful for three days.

And now you know better.

Than to taunt the crazy man? Yeah. So. Ok, what about Galaxy Rangers?

Oh fuck Galaxy Rangers.

Seriously. At least let’s talk about Silverhawks.

Sure. So… Silverhawks…

Let me tell you why they were idiots…

Just a cool music video. Apprently the song is “Again & Again” by the Bird & the Bee.

Mothers: They make us who we are. They shape us. They help us find our true path in life.

So have a happy Mother’s Day and make sure to make your mom proud!

Have new glasses. And backup pair. Taa-daa.

So tonight my glasses broke. Right in the center, which is a very spindly little bar of metal. Solder didn’t work and tape wouldn’t hold because there simply wasn’t enough to hold.

Now one of my eyes is near-sighted and one far-sighted. So without my glasses I can see pretty damn well. Except. Depth perception is pretty shot as my eyes work overtime to compensate. Also I get splitting headaches after a few hours.

Did I mention I can’t read text, either?

So until I get new glasses: No reading, no writing. ‘Rithmatic might still be doable. Also, of course, my sunglasses were add-ons to my glasses that cost a fair amount. So as we lead into summer I lose those, too. Still and all - not the worst thing in the world. All manageable. Just kinda sucky.

Anyway! Tomorrow my first thing is to go out and get new glasses.

(I don’t know why I was compelled to make this, either.)