I’ve got some important news about a form of discrimination that is being totally ignored by the main stream media: tall people-ism. It has long been known that tall people are paid more, are more likely to be promoted, and are more frequently elected President than short people. But did you know that now there are now jobs that were meant specifically for short people, but are now being given to tall people just because of this awful form of discrimination?
Look at the facts: Yesterday I was doing some job hunting online, and found the audition information for Universal Studios Hollywood. Specifically, the audition requirements for the various “atmosphere” roles (characters that walk around and have their picture taken and things like that). Even more specifically, the audition requirements for the role of Wolverine.
Now, I don’t know how much you know about the X-Men, but one thing you should know is that the character of Wolverine is supposed to be short. 5′ 3″ to be precise. But what do you think I saw listed as the requirements to try out for Wolverine? Male actor. Athletic Build. And now - wait for it - 6 to 6′2″ tall. It bears repeating: you must be at least six feet tall to try out for the role of a character who is 5′3″ tall! What the balls is that about!? I think we all need to band together to fight this awful height-bias that plagues our country.
That’s my short political rant (short rant - cha cha cha). And now on to Recent Events. I had a rather blah week from up until Thursday (I was in a blah mood, and I was feeling lonely and uninvolved), at which point I heard that I was actually supposed to have been invited to the party that I was feeling sad I didn’t get invited to on Wednesday. So that did a great deal to cheer me. Also on Thursday I had a reading of the first scene in my musical in playwriting (it went well, but I won’t be putting the script on here because I’m holding on to this one for future production), and my script treatment was voted as one of the two that the class will be working on for the rest of the quarter (it’s about a psychic who wrecks her career by wrongly predicting the end of the world, and then ends up helping a group of terrorists so that she can get a book deal out of it), and that night I went to see the play “Convention,” a quite hillarious play about an office in which *strange things happen.* I’d describe it as a blend of “Office Space,” “The Twilight Zone,” and “101 Greatest Poop Jokes” (a book I just made up, but I think would sell well).
Speaking of jokes, I found a website that can tell you how funny Google thinks your jokes are:
For example, if I put in this classic joke:
Knock knock!
Who’s there?
Aroo!
Aroo who?
Aroo gonna eat that lima bean?
It tells me that google thinks that it has a funniness percentage of 89.6694%. Not too shabby! And the classic from 101 Greatest Poop Jokes, “Hey, your pants are brown! Is that because you pooped in them?” has a funniness percentage of 74.9304%. And just to show that it has good taste, it says that the Mitch Hedberg classic “I haven’t slept for 10 days… because that would be too long” is 100% funny, while if you try a sexist joke, such as “What do you tell a woman with two black eyes? Nothing, you already told her twice.” it says “Google does not laugh.” and gives it only %10 funny rating.
But, here’s the trouble. Google is a racist. Just as an experiment, I put in the racist joke “Black people all look the same! Nobody can tell them apart! I think that’s so, when they all commit crimes, nobody can tell who did it.” it gives it a funniness rating of over 90%! Whaaaat? And just to make sure that google actually understands that it’s racist, and not an innocent observation, I tried “Black people are inferior to white people! Black people are so stupid! White people are way better than black people!” and it still gives me over 83% funniness. Now come on - even if it weren’t racist, how could you give that a higher rating that the hillarious poop joke above? That’s just nonsense!
And if that’s not bad enough, it gives 100% funniness to “a guy gets hit in the balls.” Come on, google, you’re better than that. Get some culture!
Now, back to Recent Events. on Friday I was supposed to go ice skating, but then I remembered that every time I’ve gone iceskating I’ve wound up with horribly injured feet and not a whole lot of fun. So instead I ordered a pizza and watched “A Night at the Opera” (the Marx Bros. movie). I enjoyed it.
Saturday, in addition to discovering the google sight and the horrors of height discrimination at Universal Studios, I went to the Convention / Return of Random party. I picked up a bottle of wine at Haggen, and then walked to the party - but along the way, I slipped on the thin sheet of ice that coated the sidewalk all along the steep hill of Indian Street, landing directly on the bottle of wine. I thought for sure that some calamity had ensued, but upon inspection, I saw that it hadn’t been shattered… until I actually got to the party and went to open the bottle. I took the foil off of the bottle neck, and the entire neck of the wine bottle fell of into my hand. Woops. But of course, if anybody asks, be sure to tell them that I didn’t want to waste time with a corkscrew, and so instead bit the neck off the bottle with my teeth. I even have photographic evidence of this, as I posed with the bottle in one hand and the neck in my teeth, but unfortunately I don’t know who took the picture. In fact, I pretty much don’t know any details of the party, because while I usually only drink enough to get tipsy, last night I drank far more than usual, and everything sort of blurred together. And today I got to experience my first-ever hang over. But still - it was quite a fun ride while it lasted.
Now for another entertainment break - on Wednesday I recorded my puppet JC Chasez doing some dance moves and arranged them into a music video for “Bad Boy” by Cascada. After I was finished, though, I checked to see what other songs might fit with it, and so slightly re-edited the video to fit the song “I Like to Play With My Balls,” by the Nigel Mustafa Memorial Quartet. Neither of these videos are too great, but you can look at them if you like: Bad Boy, and My Balls
And now, Today: I woke up with a mighty headache, and so spent a while trying to get rid of it, using all sorts of remedies I found online. I also watched a couple episodes of Jim Henson’s “The Storyteller” that I just got in the mail, and I ordered some recording equipment (a microphone with a stand, and a studio preamp) to replace the little cheapy microphone I’ve got hooked up now. I’ll have to wait a few weeks for that, though. When it arrives, I’ll be sure to show off my new studio-quality recording capabilities. For now, though I’ll end this post, because it is very long.
The End
Oh - PS: There is also a new page of Instant Entertainment at NathanielJones.com!
