Well, we’re big clown hoaxers;
We got loads of coaxers
And they freak everywhere we go:
They freak about noses and they freak about clothes
And they freak when we simply don’t show.
We’re takin’ all kinds of risks
To get arrested and frisked,
But the risk we’ll never know
Is the risk that they’ll hail us
‘Stead of screaming to jail us
On the cover of the Rolling Stone!
filk
On the Cover of the Trolling Stone
I Should’ve Been a Jedi
Hey, country music fans, find yourself an overripe banana (or in Sarah Hoyt’s universe, a ten-pound carp) and get your swingin’ arm ready. I used to write a lot of filk songs but got out of the habit twenty or thirty years ago. Well…guess what?
Just in case you’re not familiar with the original, it’s on YouTube.
I Should’ve Been a Jedi
(By Jeff Duntemann; to Toby Keith’s “I Should’ve Been a Cowboy”)
I’ll bet you never heard ol’ Luke Skywalker say:
“Princess Leia, have you ever thought of runnin’ away?
Settlin’ down, would ya marry me?
(or at least get me the hell away from Tatooine..)”
She’d’ve said “yukkh!” in a New York minute;
Incest’s against the law; there’s no future in it.
She just stole a kiss as they swung away;
Luke never let his hormones…get out of place.
Refrain:
I should’ve been a Jedi
I should’ve learned there is no “try…”
Wavin’ my light saber, knockin’ the arms right off some ugly guy.
Blowin’ them Empire ships
Right out of the sky;
Nukin’ those Death Star cores;
Oh, I shoulda been a Jedi.
I mighta had a sidekick with a fuzzy mane,
Flyin’ blind by the Force, just like Ben explained.
Takin’ potshots at a Tusken Raider;
Givin’ a hand to your daddy Vader…
Blast off, young man, ain’tcha seen them flicks?
Outer space is full of rayguns, wookies, and chicks!
Sleepin out all night inside a tauntaun’s guts,
With my dreams in the stars instead of freezin’ my butt…
(Refrain X2)
I should’ve been a Jedi!
I should’ve been a Jedi!
Odd Lots
- In order to adfertote plus catuli, you had better facite plus catuli first. A number of very sharp people I know are working on this. Their feckless critics will doubtless help.
- September 12 was the annual peak in hurricane activity. Alas, there were no tropical depressions, tropical storms, or hurricanes anywhere on Earth. And as best I can tell from the National Hurricane Center sit, there still aren’t.
- I said this back in 2010. Now, according to a book reviewed by National Geographic, I was right. I love being right. (Thanks to Bill Roper for the link.)
- Carol and I tried several flavors of this stuff when we were in Phoenix recently, and it’s mighty good in coffee. (I also poured some of the black cherry flavor into a bottle of not-quite-meh Reisling and found it much more drinkable.) The manufacturer told me that Wal-Mart sells it, but we looked in two stores and didn’t find any. However, you can order it from Amazon.
- Here’s a nice article on the world’s first science fiction convention, held in Leeds, England, in 1937. Arthur C. Clarke and Eric Frank Russell were there.
- Reader Scott Schad put me on to a phenomenon he’s discovered on Amazon, in which somebody is concocting fake tech books and publishing them under the titles of popular books, including my own Assembly Language Step By Step. I’m looking into this, but (as if it needs saying) be careful what you buy online.
- Esther Schindler sent a link to the earliest use of the F-word, which appears in 1310. I’m guessing it goes back a little farther than that.
- What are asteroids made of? No snipes or snails, one would hope. However, 810 times the amount of ruthenium in the Earth’s crust sounds really good. (Thanks to Charlie Martin for the link.)
- While we’re talking exotic metals, here’s a YouTube video of gallium melting in someone’s hand. (It’s a slow process; FF to about 4:30, where it starts getting interesting.)
- And another showing what happens when you pour liquid gallium on your iPhone 6. I love the way the guy picks up liquid metal with his fingers and drops it on the phone. Mercury doesn’t work that way. Then again, mercury doesn’t eat aluminum phones, either.
- Gallium became a short-term character in Metal Men, the only comic book I ever paid my own money for and read regularly.
- From the ya-gotta-see-this department: My old friend Doug Rice was a designer and storyboard artist on a cartoon filk parody of the Macarena, starring the Animaniacs.
- Take a look at Pastime Projects for vacuum tube ham radio kits, mostly centering around the 6V6 power pentode. There’s an associated blog for the site, and it’s worth reading if tubes are your thing.
