L o b a B l a n c a {dot} c o m

No, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting breast implants as a Christian. I think it’s a personal decision. I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where it says you shouldn’t get breast implants.

So said Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean during a recent Q+A she did for Christianity Today.

I suppose that’s one way of interpreting the Christian’s call to stand “firm” in their convictions.

Poor Carrie. You sure do know your Bible rules when they’re spoon-fed to you. But when you’re allowed to speak based on your own knowledge of the religion you constantly profess to love, you kind of go astray, don’t you?

See, the Bible actually does say things that speak to your human vanity, your immodest apparel (I don’t think heaven has a swimsuit competition), as well as your tampering with the body you believe God gave you:

I Samuel 12:21—And turn ye not aside: for then should ye go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver; for they are vain.

I Samuel 16:7—…for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

Psalms 26:4—I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers.

Proverbs 31:30—Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.

I Corinthians 3:16-17—Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

Philippians 2:3—Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

I Timothy 2:9-10—In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array. But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

II Timothy 2:16—But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

See? These are but a few of the examples of the guidance provided on vanity and modesty from your good ole KJV. Goes along with your own statement, made in this same interview:

If you read the Bible, it seems like everybody is trying to argue with the truth. It’s in the Bible, and if you believe in the Bible you believe it’s the truth.

From the mouth of babes, indeed.

Bottom line: Your additions to your temple are a boob boo-boo, according to what you profess to believe (unless, of course, God sent you a special permit to make those additions to His temple). After all, Yahweh has dictated, “Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am the Lord.”

Now you’ve gone and broken the manufacturer’s warranty, little sheep. Whatever are you going to do?

Of course, one must keep in mind that little bit of biblical advice about how even the devil can cite Scripture for his…or her purpose. Loba has been called a little devil before…

Courtesy of Dan Piraro's Bizarro

Christmas decorations are already being hung here in the city where I work. Yeah, I said Christmas. I know, I know…we’re supposed to say “holiday” instead of “Christmas” to be more inclusive. Sometimes I do that. But last time I checked, Jewish people didn’t hang green and red wreaths for Hanukkah. Red and green are the Christmas gang colors, thank you.

Remember the days when the barrier for Christmas cheer was Thanksgiving? No wreaths. No tannenbaums. No fat men in crushed red velvet (well, except for Uncle Mert, who still hasn’t left the 70s leisure suit era behind him). None of this stuff ever appeared on the scene until, at the very earliest, the day after Turkey Day. The day that is now celebrated here as “Black Friday,” when we’re all supposed to stumble out of our homes at half past way-too-friggin’-early o’clock, the stink of tryptophan and pie still clogging our brains, to shuffle with the other holiday-rage zombies and beat each other senseless for the last awesome deal on the hottest piece of breakable insipidness to hit the market this season.

Obviously, I don’t do this zombie walk. But I like writing the word zombie. Some of my ImagiFriends^TM have pointed out that zombie is a very popular keyword search. ZOMBIE. ZOMBIE. ZOMBIE. BRAINS!!!

Heh.

Wait. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Premature holiday cheer. Is it wrong to want November to be free of Christmas decorations? I don’t think so. I enjoy the oranges and browns of Thanksgiving. They’re reminiscent of the orange and black of my beloved Halloween. I like a little extra time with Halloween, mmkay?

Ah well. When have I ever tried to fight against the accepted norm? Oh yeah. Always

Anyway, I ran across this Christmas ornament during a recent search for something somewhat tangentially associated. This is the most horrible UM Testudo ornament EVAR. First off, it’s the new mascot (and by “new,” I mean the mascot that they started introducing the year I graduated…an undisclosed number of years ago). I hate this mascot. I’m so glad my aunt found an ornament for me with my Testudo. That ornament rocks.

This ornament, however, in addition to bearing the ugly mascot, also looks either like Testudo has a disturbing basketball-shaped hemorrhoid or the worst case of elephantiasis of the scrotum in modern medical history. Who on earth would want this dangling off their tree?

That’s how our local talk radio traffic reporter described the hella awful computer meltdown that’s been crippling the D.C. commuter scene since early yesterday morning. Seems that the computer system that runs the operation of all the county’s traffic lights took a massive nosedive right at the beginning of yesterday morning’s rush hour. What did this mean? It meant that the transitional program that switched all 750 stoplight systems from “normal” to “rush hour” mode was not there to perform its function. So all those stoplights remained stuck in “normal” mode.

And that’s when rush hour traffic became traffuck.

Can you believe this? An entire county crippled by what WaPo described as “a Jimmy Carter-era computer.” Are you kidding me? Jimmy freakin’ Carter? You mean that peanut farmer who was elected president the year I was born? For a human, that ain’t all that old. In computer years…well, let’s just put it this way: I think Bette Davis is in better condition than this computer system. My iPod can do more advanced technological tricks than a late-70s-era computer system!

The solution? Right now, technicians are driving around the county, resetting the stoplights manually. Yeah. They’re also keeping in touch with each other via smoke signals and Pony Express.

Meanwhile, HAL is still not responding to resuscitation. So this morning’s commute was even worse than yesterday’s. A drive that should take me 25 minutes but usually takes me double that time during rush hour took me almost 2 hours this morning. Can you guess how unhappy Loba was this morning? I couldn’t even stand listening to my iPod, I was so irritated.

I really hope the computer geeks figure things out before the evening commute. I don’t know how much longer I can contain my LobaHulk Fury. You know how temperamental red heads can be…

So in all my excitement over “the most wonderful time of the year” for me, I forgot to mention my traffic altercation.

Friday afternoon, my boss came in around 3 and said, “Why don’t you go home early?” Seriously? Early Halloween treat!! Score! So I packed up my junk and happily headed out to Sammy for the commute. I had dinner plans later in the evening, but I decided that I would just burn up some time perusing the books at a Barnes and Noble near where I was heading rather than trudge all the way home. Any excuse to look at books, right?

Traffic wasn’t too bad on the Beltway, but I reached the exit to the main thoroughfare I needed to get where I was going and things started looking grim. Apparently, I’m not the only one who got to bail on work early that day, fo’ sho’.

So traffic is snooching along at a sluggish pace with spurts of total traffic light stoppage. At one particularly long red light, I kind of zone out a bit, staring out the front window while listening to a podcast. Then I feel Sammy lurch forward. I immediately think that I’ve somehow become so distracted that I’ve let my foot slip from the brake a bit. I strengthen my pressure on the brake, but I happen to glance into my rearview mirror as I’m doing so.

Behind me, there’s a woman sitting in her car, gesturing at me with a “homeless crazy” kind of frenetic energy. She then gets out of her car and starts marching over to my driver’s side window. That’s when I realize that the lurch was not my error; apparently, Sammy just got bumper-kissed.

I roll down my window, prepared to say something like, “I don’t think you hit me hard enough to get that worked up,” but before I can say a word, she starts yelling at me!

“Didn’t you see me?”

Um. Didn’t I see you what? Hit me?

So I put Sammy in park and turn on his hazards. The light is still red, but I want to be cautious. “Homeless Crazy” is still yelling, “Didn’t you see me?” in a huff that indicates she truly believes that I was somehow at fault for being one of the four cars ahead of her, stupidly stopped at a red light.

So I turn to look her in the eyes and state as clearly and obviously as possible, “You. Hit. Me.”

She suddenly just stops talking to me and turns to go look at her car. Not mine. Hers. I follow, look at her bumper and then mine. Nothing. No dents. No scratches. Not even rubber marks from her bumper caps. Nothing. I didn’t expect there to be anything. It really was the most incidental of taps. Definitely nothing worth the hassle of having to deal with her.

I look up, prepared to hear her ask her ridiculous question again, and I see that she’s gotten back into her car! I decide that this is probably for the best since I don’t really feel like dealing with her anymore and having her kill my Halloween buzz, so I do the same.

Only, as I’m putting Sammy back into drive and getting ready to go, I glance again into my rearview mirror. “Homeless Crazy” woman is snapping a photo of the back of my car before zipping into the next lane and passing me!

WHATHAFU?

Now, believe it or not, I’m actually quite used to seeing people snap photos of Sammy’s derriere. I have two items on his bumper and trunk that people find particularly amusing. In fact, the other day I nearly backed over a teenager who thought that it would be a good idea to squat down to snap a photo right before I started to back out of a parking spot. Don’t they even pretend to teach common sense in schools anymore?

I don’t think “Homeless Crazy” was at all interested in Sammy’s baubles, though. I’m not sure exactly what she was up to, but you can bet that I immediately called my insurance company. I refuse to have some nutter try to scam me or Sammy. As I explained the altercation, my insurance agent actually started to laugh. Good sign, right? So she made a note in my file and promised that if anyone contacted them regarding an “accident” involving my car, they would let me know.

So, there you go. I continued on to Barnes and Noble, where I roamed about longer than I anticipated (surprising, I’m sure) and bought a book of favorite scary stories as listed by famous modern-day scary story authors. Not a bad ending to this tale, no?

And hopefully, this really is the end of it. I’ll be sure to let you know if it’s not…

It’s not a new thing for companies to resurrect deceased actors to plug their merchandise. Fred Astaire came back for one more dance…with Dirt Devil cleaners. His Funny Face co-star Audrey Hepburn was reanimated for some dancing as well, to advertise skinny black pants for GAP. And, as if their beer wasn’t reason enough to stay away from them, Coors did the ultimate in tacky by bringing back The Duke to hawk Coors Light. Really, guys? Do you think Marion Morrison would drink your skunky light beer?

But this latest one? It made my soul shrink a little bit from the sheer misery of it all.

What. The. Hell.

It’s one level of tacky to bring back long-gone actors for some forced product shilling. But Chris Farley has barely been gone more than a decade. Never mind too tacky…isn’t this simply WAY too soon? And David Spade? We all know that you pretty much lost your meal ticket when Chris died, but this really nailed that fact home in a huge, ugly way. You’re still riding his gravy train, man, and now it’s not just sad…it’s sick.

I love Tommy Boy. I think it’s one of the greatest movies to come from a former SNL cast member. Chris Farley was a brilliant physical comedian with demons far larger than even he could tackle. But what he left behind still makes me laugh (and occasionally cry out “Holy Schnike!”). To see his work reduced to nothing more than background noise to Spade’s Direct TV spiel? To quote Tommy Boy, “Richard, what’s happening?!”

I’ve heard of people who only have one thing on their mind…but this is taking it a bit too far, don’t you think?

No real explanation or reason for this one, denizens. October has been a pretty Trek-less month so far, and so I thought a little Janeway bounce would do the trick. I also wouldn’t mind some of that coffee she’s bogarting…

Know what makes me tired? How so many recent events have proven that we are a society trapped in a downward spiral of uncontrolled rudeness and stupidity. What am I talking about? Why, what everyone else is talking about, of course: Joe, Kanye, and Serena, oh my!

We start out with Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst during Obama’s address to Congress. It was disrespectful, yes. Then again, so were the Democrats who booed George W. Bush during his State of the Union address in, I believe, 2005. Wilson, however, is also being labeled racist. (Those booing Democrats, in case you’re wondering, were never labeled moronists.)

I’ve gone over this one before, but apparently I’m screaming into the wind yet again. Now even former presidents are getting in on the racism tagging. To Obama’s credit, he refuses to take this tired, stale bait. Perhaps because he realizes that this is simply another smokescreen to detract our attention away from an honest debate about important issues. Kind of on the same level as death panels and tea baggers (yes, please giggle if you must at that one).

That’s what Republicans are guilty of at this juncture: not being blatantly racist. No, their specialty is fearmongering as a smokescreen to deflect attention from real issues. How do you think they convinced half the country to re-elect Dubya even though he didn’t have enough qualifications to be elected school crossing guard? Fear. “If you don’t vote for George W. Bush, the gay terrorists will invade and turn all your children into gym teachers and nancy boys! And they’ll do a FABULOUS job of it!”

Same difference now. “Obama’s health plan will mean Great Aunt Myrtle will have to be put to sleep because she’s too old! Obama’s going to personally euthanize her! Then he’s going to turn her into Soylent Green and serve her to the unemployed!”

Okay, that last part was a bit over the top…but so are the death panels. What purpose does this kind of panic serve beyond the obvious of detracting from intelligent discourse? Yeah, like we’re capable of such a thing in this country.

Actually, though, I’m derailing myself. I’m not here to talk more about the universal health care issue or all the other political piffle that’s been irritating me. It’s too early in the day to get my blood pressure that high. No, because now we move from Joe Wilson to Kanye West. I don’t want to say much about him, because he’s really not worth a lot of commentary. I’m simply acknowledging that he was a big douchewanger…yet again. But then there’s Serena Williams threatening to cram a “fucking ball” down someone’s “fucking throat.”

All righty then. Women, we still don’t make the same pay for doing the same work as a guy, but we’re now able to throw tantrums in the sports world, like the big boys do! Just like Mary Tyler Moore, looks like we’ve made it after all!

Now, of course, all three of these hotheads have apologized. It took Serena a little longer, but she finally came around (after much pushing from her agent and others within her financial inner circle, I’m sure; we mustn’t tarnish ourselves too much or the money won’t keep rolling in). And now all will be forgiven (well, at least for Kanye and Serena; Joe’s going to keep getting dragged through the racist ringer a bit longer).

But why should we accept their apologies? Better yet, why should we tolerate this kind of behavior at all? Why shouldn’t Joe Wilson be censured? Hell, why weren’t the booing Jackasses..er, Democrats from 2005 censured? It’s the State of the Union, not a pep rally! Why shouldn’t Serena Williams be told she’s out the rest of the tennis season? Yeah, she was fined. $10,000. Wow. That’s pretty much the equivalent of fining one of us mere mortals a dime.

(Why am I not trying to punish Kanye? I think he’s punishment enough, both to himself and to anyone who listens to his music.)

Why am I bothering to rant about this, as if what I say here is going to make any difference? Will Serena read this and realize the error of her ways? Will Kanye tweet me his apology for being a wanker yet again on national television? Will Joe Wilson care that a Democrat outside his jurisdiction is commenting on him? Why should he? He’s raised more than a million dollars thanks to his outburst. And Kanye got me to talk about him (because Lord knows I sure wasn’t talking about his music). And Serena? Hell, she earned $350,000 just for getting to that match where she had her little meltdown. She’s a winner no matter what the score, if you ask me.

Which, of course, no one did. But I shared anyway, because that’s the kind of wolf I am. Now it’s back to work. I promise I won’t try to shove my mouse down anyone’s throat, although if you’d like to pay me $350,000, I’ll see what I can do. I do have that infamous red-haired temper working in my favor…

NO!!! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!!

I just checked my tracking info and saw a highly disturbing keyword search, spawned by one of my recent Flashback Friday entries: “Poltergeist remake.”

NO!!!!!!!!!!!

Dammit, no. This is my perfection. This is the movie that placed me on my horror movie journey. This is my first. Now Hollywood is going to muck it up, like they did Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and now Freddy Krueger. The Poltergeist remake hasn’t been cast yet, but MGM has announced that they’re hoping for a Thanksgiving 2010 release date.

Who do I have to contact in Hollywood to make them stop this? Some things shouldn’t be tampered with. This movie is one of them. What next from my childhood? Jaws? Gremlins? Adventures in Babysitting? “Don’t fuck with the babysitter” is more than just a line from the movie, guys.

All I have to say is this: If I hear even the tiniest rumbling of a rumor about Blade Runner being remade, something horrifying will happen. I’m not saying what, but it will involve cutlery and Tabasco sauce.

You might as well settle in for more geekery. I’m in that kind of mood right now.

So I’m finally watching my Voyager discs that I showed off here a while ago. Actually, I’ve skipped the first three seasons and gone straight for the Borg jugular. Season 4 was around about the time that I stopped watching the show the first time around. I’m slowly learning that this decision was definitely my loss. As off-putting as I originally found the character of Seven of Nine to be, I’m discovering that Jeri Ryan indeed brought more to the show than a catsuit with heels and a padded bra. I’ve seen quite a few of her episodes throughout the remainder of the series, thanks to SpikeTV, but now I’m filling in all the remaining gaps. So far, so good.

However, as I was watching an episode yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice something very familiar being used in a very…different way. I know that in the past, set designers have used various everyday objects as futuristic devices. Several of Dr. McCoy’s instruments were in fact re-dressed salt and pepper shakers from Roddenberry’s personal collection. And the TNG first season episode “Arsenal of Freedom”? Those targeting weapons that attack the away team are nothing more than plastic tubing and shampoo bottles.

Nothing wrong with either instance. It’s just set designers and props people getting their creative juices flowing a bit. But then there’s the vegetable peeler that Tom Paris used to repair Seven of Nine’s damaged hand in the episode “Revulsion.” Don’t believe me? Take a look:

Seven, we're going to have to peel away this damage...

Now tell me that doesn’t look like a stainless steel vegetable peeler with a pinkish glow added in post-production! Need another look?

This is how we cure tuber-culosis. Get it? Tuber...potato...cuz this is a peeler. No? Damn humorless Borg...

That, my friends, is a potato peeler if I ever saw one. A futuristic-looking peeler, true…but come on, guys. Dress it up a little bit more! At least make me work to figure out what kitchen utensil is being used in sickbay!