Idiocracy on DVD
Buy it at Amazon


Plot Outline Private Joe Bowers, the definition of "average American", is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes 500 years in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive.

When Mike Judge's highly anticipated futuristic satire "Idiocracy" opened and promptly closed in a few cities last fall the blogosphere lit up. Idiocracy" appears on DVD today, and once again Mike Judge, best known for TV shows "Beavis and Butt-head" and "King of the Hill," has gotten the fuzzy end of Fox's lollipop, there is no promotions or advertising announcements. Idiocracy indicts American culture with a combination of scathing humor and barely concealed rage, as Judge projects what the country will look like 500 years from now... I agree with him but I don't think it will take 500 years.

His dystopian vision includes avalanches of trash, a U.S. government that has been purchased for corporate sponsorship by a sports drink, and a citizenry that, through demographic reverse Darwinism, has become congenitally fat, lazy, stupid and violent.

Angrier and far less forgiving than "Office Space," Judge's "Idiocracy" doesn't possess the same cult potential, if only because the current lazy, stupid and violent people see they're distant future a little too clearly. No one likes to have they're faults put in front of them including me. But, at look at any city new paper or just go to MySpace and read a few profiles and you'll what may have inspired the movie.

Some more information about the movie.

"Idiocracy" tells the story of an Army private and major slacker Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson), who in 2005 is drafted to take part in a confidential hibernation program; the Army finds a female counterpart in a prostitute named Rita (Maya Rudolph), and she and Joe are put into individual "pods" before being sedated for a year.

Things go awry, and the two guinea pigs don't wake up for 500 years, by which time the country has become populated by porn-addicted rednecks and Uzi-toting gangstas; the English language has been replaced by a patois of "hillbilly, Valley Girl and inner-city slang." A trashed-out landscape that's part zombie film and part broken-down "Blade Runner," the America of "Idiocracy" has become one vast junk food-entertainment complex, where bread and circuses take the form of super-size burritos and monster truck rallies.

With the help of a dimwit named Frito (Dax Shepard), Joe and Rita try to track down a time machine to return to the 21st century, and on the way, Joe is drafted to serve in the White House. But his picaresque journey through one bleak scenario to the next is a mere hanger for Judge's chief point, which is just how close we are already to his apocalypse of mindless consumption, substance-free politics and anti-intellectualism.

Scooby Doo creator dies


Iwao Takamoto, the animator responsible for the creation the animated dogs, Scooby Doo and Mutley, has died at the age of 81.A spokesman for Warner Bros, where he was vice president at the time of his death, said that he died of heart failure.

Takamoto began his career at Disney before moving to the Hanna Barbera studios.During his time there in the 1960s, Takamoto created the remainder of Scooby Doo’s friends, including Daphne and Fred, as well as the characters in The Flintstones and The Jetsons.

He also worked on numerous animated films in his 60-year career, including 101 Dalmatians, Sleeping Beauty and Lady and the Tramp, Cinderella and directed Charlotte’s Web.In 2005 he was honoured with a Golden Award to mark over 50 years of working in the animated industry.

His death comes three weeks after that of Hanna-Barbera co-founder Joseph Barbera, who died at the age of 95. Takamoto is survived by his wife Barbara and two children.

Karaoke at Orchid - Los Angels, CA

I thought Karaoke was sort of weird and something only drunk or super vain people do while drunk. However, it was Avicado's birthday and he was having a Karaoke birthday party at Orchid. I trust his judgement and I'm always up for an adventure, broken or not, and I didn't make any plans… so I figured why not.

Other than a couple of bars nights that had they're Karaoke machine pushed to the side, I had never been to a Karaoke bar so I was expecting just anther bar with a couple of different bar areas and a lonely looking Karaoke machine sitting in the middle. What I walked into was something so completely different that it looked like a movie set opened to mundane customers for a night.

The elevator doors opened into what looked like the reception area of a dance studio with formally dressed waiters. I inquired about my party group and was told room 16, 3^rd door on the left. I walked past large bay windows to a large Karaoke room where there was disco lights peeking out from curtained shades. In the next room, I saw a lively teenager standing on the table doing his impression to some rock metal song complete with air guitar. Than I finally reached Studio 16

Apparently I was only a few minutes late as 2 enthusiastic soon to be Karaoke singers actively wrote down song numbers and exclaimed several times "They have XXX, I can't believe it!"

The attendee after me asked what one particular song was and the enthusiastic soon to be Karaoke singer exclaimed "ohhh you'll find out"

Studio 16 had a multiple screens playing a variety of different videos and commercials. The karaoke song words appear in the middle screen while videos played on the other monitors, some of which heinously matched the words without trying to. Such as when two ducks were in a lake and one duck was rapidly poking at the duck in front of him in a rather suggestive manner during the song "You Give Love A Bad Name". Yea, that would give love a rather bad name if I had someone constantly poking at me from behind with his beak. Especially if he hadn't killed dinner for me first!

Than there was there Japanese animation characters dancing during Dio's Don't Talk To Strangers and Green Day's America Idiot song and acted out by Avicado's roommate.

As everyone was drinking, we eventually had to use the bathroom. This is where a little traveling would have been helpful. The bathrooms were modern Japanese culture style women toilets. As one of the guest announced to everyone in the room…

"If you want a very thoroughly clean bathroom experience, go to the bathroom. "

I'm going to be polite here….

In Japan, these bidets (state of the art toilets) are commonly called Washlets have heated toilet seats and wash the anus and or vulva of the user (including a number of pulsating and massaging functions) and gives the user the option of using the blow dryer type function afterwards with warm air. It was pretty different and being the curious Libra that I am, I tried it. For someone not use to it, it's weird but also cool. I totally dig having one of those in my home.

..

I learned that I have no talent for singing but I had a blast singing with the others. There was just as many femmes as bois and the gurls I think had more fun. Some very girly songs were chosen and the other femmes avidly encouraged the other femmes to get up and or sing along.

While this isn't something I would have chosen, everyone, including myself had a blast! Avicado was as cute as a button singing and sexy dancing to Come Together and the two much younger women were adorable. Even those who hate the sound of our "singing" voice sung a song and joined in with others. With ages ranging from early 20's to late 60's, a couple of people surprised the rest of us with exceptional voices or knowing the words to a song to a current or very classic song. I think I would try that again.

Idiotarod Races

This is what happens with boredom in the city. Idiotarod Races

"The Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. The IDIOTAROD is pretty much the same thing, except that instead of dogs, it's people, instead of sleds, it's shopping carts, and instead of Alaska it's New York City."
NY Idiotarod

The New York IDIOTAROD is based on San Francisco's Urban Iditarod where teams of ? people dressed as dogs lead by a musher will pull their sleds shopping carts through San Francisco’s tourist areas. The teams of barking humans negotiate through the urban dangers of San Francisco frontier.


IDIOTARODs are located in:
Washington DC
and
Brooklyn

Unlike Christmas and Halloween parades, the Idiotarod has no permits from the city. Doing so would mean having to outline a race route and hiring off-duty police officers. So finding information and organizations can be difficult.

Try looking on websites such as Tribe.net, MySpace and Live Journal. I would love to see a Idiotarod race in Los Angeles.

I found this picture on the Laughing Squid website.