I've Seen the Future and the Future is Women.

El Duderino has kicked off a new venture, The World's Greatest Seattle Walking Tour. This post is a shameless plug for that business and the means to add an all important "inbound link" to the Website. Google, Bing and Yahoo require such things. The Duder thinks you can help by also posting www.theseattlewalkingtour.com to blogs, Facebook accounts, Twitter, etc, etc. Many thanks.

Headline Quote Movie of Origin: Can't Hardly Wait
Character: Mike Dexter
Setting: Mike Dexter just dumped Amanda in preparation for the next chapter in life... college. He's to convince his three knucklehead friends to join him in his newly found independence. His winning strategy involves the headline of choice.

The quote is relevant how? It's not. Deal with it.

Contact El Duderino at jaipf@hotmail.com.

You Stay Classy, San Diego. I'm Ron Burgundy?

Anderson Cooper is considered one of the better TV journalists.

I have a conspiracy theory that The Daily Show and Colbert Report are funding the broadcast news industry just so they have jokes. Kind of like when Tim Watley converted to Judaism for the jokes. That theory is the only thing that keeps me from vomiting every time I unwittingly watch broadcast news.

Evidently some news outlet ran a story that Barack Obama went to school at a fundamentalist Islam school when he was like 6. Tonight Anderson Cooper set the story straight… by sending a reporter to Jakarta… to visit the school where Barack Obama went to school when he was 6… 40 years ago! You know, because the reporter can find all kinds of sources to confirm or deny the presence of a young Barack Obama 40 years ago.

Not only was the whole thing absolutely ridiculous but Anderson Cooper ended the segment by getting all high and mighty, “other news agencies report news. We check facts in person.” Shoot me now.

Headline quote movie of origin: Anchorman

Character: Ron Burgundy

Setting: Ron Burgundy, star anchor of the Channel 4 news team, has dedicated himself to the art of the spoken word. He’s the master and kind of a big deal. He has many leather bound books and his apartment smells of rich mahogany. However, every superhero has a weakness. Superman and kryptonite. Mighty Mouse and cheese. Silver Surfer and global warming. Ron Burgundy’s weakness? A literal and perfect reading of the teleprompter.

The quote is relevant to this story how?: The Channel 4 News team is from a bygone era. A time when broadcast news delivered hard hitting stories that kept the world on its toes… stories like Panda Watch: the birth of Ling Ching.

Contact El Duderino at jaipf@hotmail.com.

She Was a Hip, Hip Lady, Man

The federal government’s crackdown of online gambling continues with the arrest this week of two former directors of a popular transaction service called Neteller. I just don’t get the government’s fascination with online gambling.

A person can go to nearly any shady, rundown boulevard in nearly any city in the Seattle area and bet to their hearts content. I’d imagine it’s the same in other places nationwide. Poker’s hype cycle seems to be over but you can still watch OTHER people play poker for large sums of money pretty much any late night. The American public clearly could give a rat’s ass about gambling.

So the government’s crackdown seems to be purely motivated by the fact they’re not profiting through tax dollars. There’s an easy solution… make online gambling legal and tax the bejeezus out of it. There’s your deficit reduction strategy right there, G-dub.

Headline quote movie of origin: Dazed and Confused

Character: Slater

Setting: There’s a party at the moon tower. Slater, the weed seller guy and the weed seller guy’s girlfriend are discussing the principles of our Nation’s founding fathers. The quote of record is in reference to Martha Washington, who in the eyes of Slater was a hip, hip lady.

The quote is relevant to this story how?: According to Slater, our founding fathers recognized the value of cash crops, some of which are now considered illegal. Gambling certainly falls into the same bucket as the greens, of which our first President was evidently a grower of. Didja ever look at a dollar bill, man? There's some spooky shit goin' on there. And it's green too.

Contact El Duderino at jaipf@hotmail.com.

I promise, that one day, everything's going to be better for you

I was still but a twinkle in my parent’s eyes during the Vietnam conflict and admittedly have only a basic understanding of all the ins and outs of that time period. But, I believe the high-level theme of America’s involvement was to stop communism from spreading in the region. America lost… but did the world?

What seems to be missing in all of the political conversation surrounding the decision of whether or not to bring home troops from Iraq is what we’re actually trying to achieve and if America is truly the best entity to satisfy that goal. All of the original aims outlined by Bush have proven to be completely baseless and false. Is our sole objective now simply to stop the country from complete anarchy and to prevent a Taliban-style government from assuming control?

If that really is the new goal, are American troops on the ground really the means to that end? The people of Iraq, the countries of the Middle East, and hell, the rest of the world, all have a pretty big stake in the final outcome of Iraq. It’s not just an American problem. I get the sense that the rest of the world just wants to give America a big “told you so” before taking a more active role in helping to put the necessary political pressures to help Iraq eventually succeed. That’s not to say a withdrawal will solve the immediate problems. It won’t. But those problems are going to exist with or without an occupying American force.

While a withdrawal will undoubtedly hurt our bloated egos, if a positive outcome is eventually achieved, like Vietnam, than ultimately the world has won. That should be the goal, not proving that we’re the biggest and baddest.

Headline Quote Movie of Origin: Donnie Darko

Character: Donnie Darko

Setting: Donnie and Cherita Chen, the butt of much schoolhouse ridicule, find themselves alone in a hallway. Cherita, wearing earmuffs, is speechless, given her ginormous crush on Donnie. Donnie whispers into her ear that everything is going to be okay.

The quote is relevant to this story how?: Our country has an arrogance that we can solve any and all of the world’s dilemmas. While the current unrest is largely of our doing, it’s certainly likely that it’s a problem we won’t be able to solve. However, just as Donnie reassured Cherita, eventually the world seems to right itself. Everything is going to be okay. I hope…

Contact El Duderino at jaipf@hotmail.com.

My name is George. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents

It's about friggin time they put Seinfeld on DVD, if only three seasons for the time being. As a kickoff, here's a link to a top 10 sports-based moments list in Seinfeld history.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page3/story?page=katcher/sports_seinfeld

Contact El Duderino at jaipf@hotmail.com.

No, Donny, these men are nihilists. There's nothing to be afraid of.

It would be very un-Dude for this site not to at least make a mention of the recent Artestian affair in Detroit. The story has been covered from just about every angle, so ED doesn't really have anything unique to add. But, of all the articles, two sum up the incident perfectly, one from Slate and one from the Sports Guy (links below).

To summarize those articles with a few thoughts from ED... this isn't the sign that the end days are upon us and that the NBA is on its last stand. No one died. No one even got seriously injured. The NBA ratings will go up from this incident, not down. Pistons fans are a bunch of meathead idiots but doesn't this show that the NBA does have passionate fans, not the opposite?

Artest officially has an anger problem. You could almost see him trying to hold himself back after the initial fracas with Ben Wallace. Then after he initially tackled Corey Haim in the stands and realized what he did, you could see him try to reel in the devil on his shoulder urging him to kill someone… “ronny, see that guy over there with the black shirt. He said your momma dresses you in combat boots. Rip his head off. Do it. Do it.” Then after he lost it again a few seconds later after getting hit from behind…

(quick digression, the guy that hit Artest from behind was the same guy who threw the first cup at Artest, thus starting Smackdown at the Palace 2005. This guy is on tape throwing the cup. It's not really up for debate. Anyhow, this guy had a moustache or some sort of facial hair during the game and was wearing a hat. He held a press conference yesterday in which he basically said that he didn't do anything and wasn't involved. At the press conference, he shaved off his facial hair, took off the hat, was wearing sunglasses and had on an ‘I’m guilty’ leather coat... very Dr. Richard Kimble of him).

… he went berserk for a few more minutes before the angel on the left shoulder again took over the devil on the right shoulder. Once again, he retreats to his happy place (think midgets playing horsey on broomsticks and lovely ladies sipping pina coladas on lawn chairs) before a chubby wannabe tough guy with a Pistons jersey and gold chain confronts Ronny on the court. Artest gives the guy a Mr. Sandman right hook. Game over. While it was nice that Artest showed several moments of restraint in the whole affair, what it really showed is that at the base soul of Ron Artest is a raging lunatic.

Slate… http://slate.com/id/2110079/.
Sports Guy… http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/cowbell/041122

Headline Quote Movie of Origin: The Big Lebowski
Character: Walter Sobchak
Setting: The nihilists have come to collect from The Dude the million dollars they’ve been promised by Bunny Lebowski. The Dude explains that there never was a million dollars and that they’d been had. This doesn’t seem to deter the nihilist and they decide to take physical actions to rob The Dude, Walter and Donny.
The quote is relevant to this story how?: The ensuing melee that erupts between the nihilists (we believe in nothing, Lebowski) and The Dude and friends is eerily similar to Smackdown at the Palace 2005, minus the basketball players, fans, television monitors and pepper spray. Oh, and no one died at Smackdown at the Palace. But otherwise it was quite similar.

Contact El Duderino at jaipf@hotmail.com.

The Latest Prisoner Mistake

As some of you may have seen, there has been widespread coverage the last few days of a Marine being taped shooting a seemingly unarmed and wounded insurgent in Fallujah. As with the Abu Ghraib scandal, there has been commentary from all sides; those denouncing the brutality of the supposedly “moral” American forces to those saying that it was irresponsible and anti-American for the American media to show such a video.

Whatever your opinion, the article located at the following link is a must read. It’s the account and reasoning of the journalist who filmed the incident. Give it a go… http://www.kevinsites.net/2004_11_21_archive.html#110107420331292115.

Contact El Duderino at jaipf@hotmail.com.