This Week in Nelson, volume 3, number 14

SO WINDY TODAY! Good for traveling by sail across the ocean. Less good for writing This Week in Nelson. So let’s get moving. This week we’ve got zombies, zombies, zombies! Plus, a birthday wish granted, a satisfying visit to Guantanamo Bay, a more satisfying trip to the car wash, the hazards of having fur, and the hazards of having foreskin.

Birthday shout-out to the Easter Bunny! Or Jesus? How come you never see them both in the same room? Could they be the same person? Of course not! Jesus wears glasses. The Easter Bunny doesn’t wear glasses. It’s impossible. Besides, if they were the same person, Lois Lane would surely be able to tell. She’s a world-class reporter. No, they’re totally different people. I feel like a fool for even suggesting otherwise.

Books read this week:
-Radi Os by, Ronald Johnson
-Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
-Started reading Goodbye, Colombus by, Philip Roth

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is the shit! It’s totally just the book Pride and Prejudice, but pared down a bit, plus there’s a zombie epidemic in England that’s been going on for fifty years as the book starts, and the Bennett sisters have all been trained in Shaolin Kung Fu to combat the undead menace. So it’s so much more awesome than the regular version. Also, Mr. Darcy keeps making surreptitious ball jokes to Elizabeth, which is honestly stranger than all the zombie mayhem. Seriously, though, I can’t recommend this book highly enough. As it says on the back cover, it “takes a masterpiece of world literature and turns it into something you might actually want to read.” If you like zombies and/or comedies of manners, read this book! It makes me want to see more classic literature get the zombie treatment. Like A Tale of Two Cities and Zombies. Or War and Peace and Zombies. Or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombies. Or Romeo and Juliet and Zombies. Or The Canterbury Tales and Zombies. Or The Communist Manifesto and Zombies. The possibilities are endless!

Random out-of-context quotes of the week:
--“They set off together, armed only with their ankle daggers. Muskets and Katana swords were a more effective means of protecting one’s self, but they were considered unladylike; and, having no saddle in which to conceal them, the three sisters yielded to modesty.”
--“I know of nobody that is coming, I am sure, unless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call in— and I am sure my dinners are good enough for her, since she is an unmarried woman of seven-and-twenty, and as such should expect little more than a crust of bread washed down with a cup of loneliness.”
--“She remembered the lead ammunition in her pocket and offered it to him. ‘Your balls, Mr. Darcy?’ He reached out and closed her hand around them, and offered, ‘They belong to you, Miss Bennett.’ Upon this, their colour changed, and they were forced to look away from one another, lest they laugh.”
--“Okay, so you’re Genghis Khan, but you also really need this job.” (Best director’s note ever!)
--“I tell you what, if you give him a free release, and he can get behind you, he can do some real damage.” (Best Madden 09 commentary ever! John Madden, you rogue!)
--“Somehow we have to recapture that love, the innocence and tender beauty of autoerotic-asphyxiation.”
--“Robyn is totally embarrassed to be my boyfriend right now.” (That last one was drunk Mick, calling me on his birthday. Your birthday wish of being quoted in This Week in Nelson, Mick? Granted. And for those that don’t know, it’s funny because Robyn is a girl.)

The O’Reilly Factor for Kids book quote(s) of the week:
-CURRENTLY UNDER RECONSTRUCTION. PLEASE EXCUSE OUR MESS!

Interesting news articles of the week:
-“Miss Universe paid a visit to Guantanamo Bay military base this week and declared it ‘a loooot of fun!’ After seeing the detainee camps and recreation areas, Dayana Mendoza of Venezuala said, ‘I didn’t want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful.’”
-“It was a bad week for having God as your co-pilot, after a Tunisian pilot was sentenced to 10 years in prison because he paused to pray instead of taking emergency measures before crash-landing his plane, killing 16 people.”
-“An Iowa 13-year-old was arrested this week for biting 11 kids at his school. His father said he meant no harm, but was obsessed with the vampire movie Twilight.”
-“A Connecticut middle school has banned all physical contact between students. The ban came, say officials at East Shore Middle School, after a student was hospitalized following a blow to the groin. From now on, principal Catherine Williams wrote to parents, students may not touch each other in any way; the possible penalties including expulsion. ‘What if they are out at the playground at recess, or in gym class?’ said parent Kathy Casey. ‘You know, gym class is physical.’” (Recess at middle school?)
-“A Michigan man has been sentenced to 90 days in jail for having sex with a car-wash vacuum cleaner. Jason Savage, 29, pleaded no contest to charges of indecent exposure after being caught in flagrante with the vacuum. Saginaw County Judge Fred Borchard told Savage that he should be ashamed for making Saginaw a national laughingstock. ‘I believe you owe the community an apology for what you’ve done,’ Borchard said during sentencing.” (Come on, did you see how that car-wash vacuum cleaner was dressed? Your honor, you know you would have hit that!)
-Two bits of science news I read: 1) Two separate groups of scientists using the same process have claimed to have produced energy from a fusion reaction in their labs, though there’s some disagreement in the scientific community as to their findings. And 2) a study in Uganda revealed that uncircumsised men are 25% more likely to contract herpes, 35% more likely to contract HPV, and 60% more likely to contract AIDS. Damn! Apparently Jewish God was onto something!

Something(s) I’m tired of/ mad at:
-Myself. And God. And nature. My cat, Cassidy, he has the long hair. And consequently he’ll get matted hair under/behind his legs. Because long hair, and he’s crazy active, and you can brush a cat, but you can’t really brush the undercarraige. So, he gets matted chunks of hair, and I have to trim them out. And it’s an arduous process, because you have to go slow, making small cuts, watch for the skin where it’s close, letting him go when he freaks out too much, then picking him back up to keep going, over and over, over the course of a few days, and he hates it, and he looks at you like, Why!? Why are you doing this to me! I hate it! And I’m none too pleased with you either! Luckily, he’s such a good natured little guy that as soon as you let him go, he completely forgives you, and he’s ready to be petted again and play. But damn, the trimming process, she’s a bitch. I’m just glad his sister, Custer, has short hair, because, while generally a real sweetheart, she’d be nowhere near as accommodating or forgiving if she needed trimmed.

Something(s) I’m delighted by:
-Dollhouse. That show’s really starting to hit a stride. And two weeks ago it was finally seriously funny. In retrospect, a Whedon show always takes a little while at first to cement its mythology and get some momentum, and I get the feeling that the slower start also had to do with the initial network meddling. Regardless, I’m enjoying it more each week, and I’m happy to see news reports that its renewal and even possible move to a more respectable night of the week, while still unannounced, is more than likely going to happen.

Something(s) I found really kind of odd:
-Kal Penn getting a job in the White House. Just a little odd. And how long will we have to wait now for the epic conclusion of the Harold and Kumar trilogy, “Harold and Kumar vs. Bill and Ted: Who Will Win?”? Yes, I wrote a Harold and Kumar/ Bill and Ted movie. No, no one has bought it, yet. But I’m hopeful. There are too many questions left unanswered without this movie! Get moving, Hollywood!

This Week in Answers to Your This Week in Questions This Week!
–Still no questions? What’s the deal?

Going to go see the Royals on Saturday. Looking forward to it. I haven’t been to a game in a couple years. Good times, good times. And I’m going to see Observe and Report tonight. I’ll let you know how it was.

That’s all for now. I’ve got things to do, people to see, and it’s windy as all fuck out here.

Till next time,

–> N.