January 31st: World News: "Aliens Abduct TDQ Editorial Staff"

AP:

At approximately noon on Friday, January 27th, 2006, the entire staff of "The Daily Quotidian" was abducted by "aliens". Reports are only now coming in, and details are spare, but police have confirmed that "aliens" were indeed responsible for the heretofore unexplained disappearance of the beleaguered and underpaid staff and the halting of all news. Looking haggard and smelling God-awful, the staff of the "Newspaper of Record", a title claimed but not believed and quickly litigated, refused comment on the abduction.

"I won't talk about the aliens that abducted us and kept us from writing any news, I just won't!" said Editor-in-Chief Roark Howard. "Talking about aliens and abductions and how they performed tests on us is just not a subject that should be discussed or debated because it only further delays the production of actual news."

When asked about where the staff had been abducted or when or why, Mr. Howard again refused to comment. "I won't say, but we were eating nachos in a great Mexican restaurant called 'Los Casa del Perro' when they just ran out from the kitchen and grabbed us." Mr. Howard, visibly shaken from the memory at this point waved his hands to show he had finished explanation. "It was awful. They took us to the back and made us listen to that f****** Tejano music with that... that... what is it, an accordion that makes that sound?" No one at the press conference was darker than whole milk and was unable to answer the question.

"Alien" abductions, thought at one time to include actual aliens from another planet or dimension and usually much more interesting and dramatic, have become common of late and are now thought to be sheer fantasy and a new excuse for getting out of work.

"Screw it, ya got me, are ya happy? My modem went down on Friday and I couldn't get on the Internet so I took a four-day weekend." Mr. Howard, unable to explain why a failed Internet connection would keep him from showering all weekend, quickly and thankfully disappeared back to his low-rent duplex and muttered something about getting out more news.

January 26th: Movies: "The Dukes of Hazzard"

The difficulty in writing a review of a movie like Warner Brothers recent DVD release “The Dukes of Hazzard” is that as soon as you say something obvious like “this movie stinks worse than a dead hooker” a cadre of rabid stinky-movie apologists will come crawling out from under large rocks and proclaim that the reviewer is just too serious and does not “get” the humor in the film or the point of remaking a bad television show for the big screen. The unintentional boot lickers for the corrupt studio heads responsible for the film go on and on about how “it’s just a fun movie, man, it doesn’t have to like win a Golden Globe or a Grammy or nothin’.” True, but just because a movie has lower standards for production than Brittany Spears has for sexual partners doesn’t mean it has to be awful. “The Dukes of Hazzard” is, of course, awful.

Granted, the movie was never intended to be good in a conventional sense: no one wrote the screenplay, there was no director hired, and the “actors” were allowed to tape performances on cell phone cameras and upload them over the Internet to an editing guy at Warner’s main studio. But even so, most movie-goers expect something for the forty-eight dollars spent on a movie ticket or DVD rental. No plot? Fine, but Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke had best spend most of the movie in the shower learning the embarrassing joy of a pulsating shower head. Action not great? Okay, but Sean William Jingle Heimer Schmidt (or whatever his name is) as Bo or Luke Duke had best be mangled by a bear or something equally cool. Since a used sausage casing (Burt Reynolds) is playing the villain, he need do nothing more than stand around and wiggle a little, but that is the only part of the movie that needn’t be changed. Something, anything, should be funny at least once in the film to justify the inclusion of the movie in the “comedy” section at the local video hut. A viewer does not need to “get” that dialogue like “Common Luke, let’s fix Boss Hog! Yeah, we gonna fix him!” is not funny… unless Boss Hog is actually a female Golden Retriever and then it’s ironic comedy. Nothing in the film comes close.

Sadly, as bad as the wooden acting, absent direction, lame action sequences, and ho-hum score were, the movie as a whole was not even over-the-top horrible enough to make it unintentionally funny like “Glitter” or “Three Men and a Baby”. Obviously the cast (which is at least enjoyable to watch) was having fun making the movie and that comes across clearly in their constant on-screen smirks (either that or they couldn’t stop staring at Jessica Simpson’s smokin’ hot ass, hard to tell). But all those drooling flunkies reminding reviewers that the film was “fun” are just suffering from a sort of “Stockholm Syndrome” for movie renters where they have come to love the people beating the crap out of them. Sad.

In all fairness, at least to the DVD, there is a “special features” section that makes the disk worth owning. The outtakes are humorous and the music video of Jessica Simpson “singing” a remake of “These Boots Were Made for Walking” will make even post-menopausal heterosexual women card-carrying members of the carpet munchers set. Just don’t expect more than that, and when you “get” it pray they have a cream that will make it go away.

TDQ Staff Writer

January 25th: Health and Beauty: "Scientists Discover New Orgasm Flashback"

Roiters:

Government scientists at the oddly, but somehow poetically named Robert "Grand Wizard" Byrd Memorial Institute for the Study of Flashback in Orgasm today discovered, appropriately, an orgasm flashback. Starting with funding and hoping to discover something fun but not useful, the Institute in 1982 started exploring the question: "Why do we have drug flashbacks and flashbacks to bad skiing accidents but not cool flashbacks like from orgasms or really tasty Mexi-melts from Taco Bell?" Spending the first 15 years and 48 billion dollars the Institute finally cast aside the study of Taco Bell and arrived at the orgasm flashback.

"I think we really nailed this one," ejaculated lead researcher Clip "All Hands" Suffield when asked about the newfound heretofore unrecognized transient condition. "It's been out there, I guess, for a long time but we finally proved it in a lab where it counts most to the taxpayers."

Citing a soon-to-be-published brief on the discovery in "Jugs", Director of the Staff at Large William "One-Eye" Shmidt claimed that the money was not a waste and further funding was important because he needed this job. "You can't put a price tag on information like this and you can't just stop because you found what you were looking for. People need to know more about the orgasm flashbacks they are having if they are to put an end to them... or have more, whatever those perverts want."

Other unnamed and disgruntled workers claimed, however, that it was all rather obvious and more than a little nasty considering most of the test subjects were transients and people you wouldn't want to have sex with anyways. Requesting anonymity and a small cash payment, one researcher was recorded as saying, "I'm sure some of those losers made up the sex stories; no guy that drives a Nissan Sentra really screws a model in an airplane bathroom, please."

Details of the actual condition were still sketchy however one scientist claimed in a naughty voice, "If you had one, oh yeah baby, you would know."

Verification of the findings were easy and the condition quite common in the general populace. Security guard Ken Squirt affirmed when asked about the flashbacks, "Sure, I had one today right before I threw out one of those homeless freaks who keep urinating on the lab floor. It hit me pretty fast, but I wanted to dry off with a towel after, so I'm pretty sure it was from my quick pull in the shower this morning and not from that chic I met at the bar last Friday."

Noting that not all flashbacks were of the same caliber secretary Elaine Scone reasoned with, "I started having one and it was alright, but it was from a time I faked it I'm positive because I just wanted it to be over so he could get off and then get off me if you know what I mean." When pressed for details Scone added, "The flashback started good but it just wasn't there, you know, and so I started pounding my hands on my desk and yelled 'yes, yes' until my co-worker said 'I'll have what she's having' and I went back to my work."

Thirty-nine states have signed emergency legislation to prohibit the lewd bio-behavioral memories in public and the FDA issued warnings today on the new street drug designed to stimulate episodes named "CumBack" and another oft misquoted copy, "CumAgain?"

TDQ Staff Writer

January 25th : Headlines: "Daily Quotidian Doubles Content by Adding Second Post!"

After consulting with several leading thinkers, all located conveniently in a bathroom stall, the editors of "The Daily Quotidian" voted to establish a format for the wildly popular but heretofore unheard of new, but instant classic, internet publication. In the vein (sic) of such eminent dailies as "The Onion" and other things like but not all that similar to "The Onion" both real and imagined, "The Daily Quotidian" will have posts organized thusly:

1. by date (wherein date refers to the date)

2. by section (which will approximate the sections in a real newspaper but probably not)

3. by article (that may be in first person narrative or any other grammatical way)

So for example: August 15th: Style Section: "Why Underwear as Outerwear is Wearing on Me" might be a headline. Keep in mind no such article exists yet, as it is either not yet August 15th, or it has been many times in the past but let's face it, underwear as outerwear is sexy and it would definitely not wear on me.

Unlike any real publication with a staff, talented writers, a budget, or a point, "The Daily Quotidian" will rarely contain more than one or two sections unlike the imaginary paper on which it is based which usually has coupons and painfully lame cartoons. The editors, attempting to cover for their own inadequacies both in and out of the bedroom, would simply like the reader to imagine picking up only part of a paper on the subway and only reading a few choice items on the way to work before being interrupted by an unplanned mugging.


TDQ Editorial Staff

A Forced Confession

As seemingly provocative yet somehow lame and familiar in a dirty way as "A Forced Confession" is as a title, I promise that this blog is not about an infamous child abuse case, a child-abusing Catholic Bishop, or a Soviet-era potboiler (whatever that may be) about child abuse. In fact, I promise never to mention children again if I can at all help it because like a dancer in an upscale strip club on karaoke night, they should be seen, not heard. I also promise not to continue with that analogy because it is dangerous, maybe criminal, to equate kids with strippers. I should have used dogs in my example except they are awful at karaoke.

Which brings me to my "Forced Confession": I like karaoke.

Actually, that wasn't it at all and instead it is this: although I have written for publications, electronic and printed, in the past I have never written a blog.

So although I imagine my blog to be something like a cross between "The Onion", "EOnline", and "The Drudge Report" I must realize the limitations of my technical ability and beg patience from anyone unlucky enough to read what I have to say about movies, music, politics, love, and gluttony (which are really all the same thing if you think about it).

I refuse to say something like "This blog is a snapshot of life as I see it" because I just ate and I prefer that my intestines, not my carpet, receive the benefit of my efforts to obtain nutrition. This blog is life as I wish to see it, not actually what I observe. That I will make comments on the ridiculous and real (especially in movies) is simply a way of getting to my point on how I would rule the world if given the keys to the global car of humanity.

I promise to mix metaphor until it's a frozen margarita of virtue, humor, and good old-fashioned horse-sense rolled into one erudite buffet for the soul.

I cannot promise, however, that any of it will be worth being seen... unlike a karaoke-singing child dog-stripper in a Soviet-era pot boiler, whatever that may be.

Roark