South Korean Scientists Clone Glow in The Dark Kittens

For the longest time, I've held the not very popular opinion that North Korea is the greatest Korea. Today, I am pleased to report that although I still deeply respect and admire the wise, fair and balanced leadership of socialist revolutionary superbrain Kim Jong Il, recent news has forced me to revise my views. I am now firmly in the pro-South Korea camp.

The reason for this seismic shift in my political perspectives was not due to anything involving uranium enrichment, concern for human rights, or any sort of newfound respect for capitalism or democracy. Instead, I am backing South Korea because their scientists have not only cloned kittens, but cloned kittens that glow in the dark.

First off, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a glow in the dark kitten, but thanks to South Korea's scientific community, I know this as well as the fact that there can now be more of them. If you read the article you'll notice how they try to downplay the awesomeness of this action in and of itself and talk about how it could lead to treatment of human genetic diseases and stuff like that. To me, this is just a bunch of boring nerd talk. There are so many better things you can do with a glow in the dark cat than attempt to cure diseases.

I would like to state right now that I am in favor of using this technology to give cats a more prominent role in the rave subculture, but the possibilities for house pets are what I'm most interested in.

One of my roommates is a grey tabby named Mr. Business. He's a pretty sweet cat for the most part but sometimes he can get into mischief, like the time he crawled into a hole in the wall that my landlord still hasn't fixed yet so I had to go and use a claw hammer to free him. (I covered the hole with some JC Penny ads for the time being. I just hope my landlord gets on the ball before the holiday sale ends) Mr. Business, although a very sophisticated and astute gentleman in his own right, is sometimes guilty of regressing back into the ancient hunter-predator role assigned him by his blood memory.

I'll be getting myself a midnight snack with the lights out and no sooner will I have started to open the lid on the peanut butter will Mr. Business jump at my leg and try to eat it. Other times he'll be sleeping in the hallway and I'll accidentally kick him because I can't see him and he'll give me an especially grumpy meow.

If Mr. Business glowed in the dark, I would be able to step around him without accidentally kicking him and waking him up. Furthermore, I would be better able to anticipate his sneak attacks, thereby giving myself the ability to more easily capture him, hold him in my arms, and sing him parodies of pop songs with the lyrics changed to be about either him or just cats in general. (current song: "We built this kitty on rock'n'roll.")

Plus, having a glow in the dark cat would come in handy on nights like the one where my friend Jackie left the front door open and we thought Mr. Business had ran out and so we were franticly trying to see if he was hiding in the bushes but we couldn't see him because it was dark. It turned out to be a false alarm though because after we started calling for him he came out from under the couch. Still, that could have potentially been a bad situation.

For some people, a cat is perfect as it is and does not need to glow in the dark. Well consider this: if human beings are allowed to use science to better themselves, why can't cats? Isn't that a little bit speciesist? I think that the glow in the dark gene should be placed into the DNA of every clone. Not just cats. That way, if a scientist were to clone me, for example, the clone wouldn't be able to lie and say he's the original and take over my life. His claims would be easily disproved by a flip of a light switch. I know that my clone would attempt this because that's exactly what I would do if I were in his position.

With scientific breakthroughs like these happening more often these days, we should not be slow to reap the benefits of this knowledge. On the contrary, we should encourage scientists to further speed up the evolution of cats. This glow in the dark thing is a great step, but it's not going nearly far enough. I want a cat that grants wishes by the year 3000.

So hats off to you, South Korean scientists. Your glow in the dark cat clones are inspiring. I just hope that mankind has the maturity and the foresight to use this gift for good and not evil.

Adventures in Retail Episode 1: "I been drinking since seven o'clock."

A lot of folks think working in retail is wiggity wack and many think the same is true of working the graveyard shift. When I tell people I work the graveyard shift in the retail sector, the common response is "How can you do that?"

It's easy if you heed the advice of the Carter Family and "keep on the sunny side." It also helps if you generally tend to find the behavior of insane and/or drunk people more amusing than irritating.

Last night a man in a green sweater staggered into the store and collided with the stack of shopping baskets at the entrance, knocking them over. He continued to stagger to the bathroom, unable to miss making impact with a necktie display. We just assumed he was drunk like half the other people hanging out in and around the store so when he went into the men's room, we thought he was going to just vomit in there. A while later he left. Not long after, a co-worker was informed by a customer that the men's room looked like Dracula's napkin. I checked it out myself and saw that the floor and the sink were covered in blood. He wasn't drunk at all. He just lost a ton of juice.

Another of my co-workers was given the honor of cleaning it up. I went back to the cash register. One man bought over $100 worth of candy canes.

Later on, at around 3:40 am I was behind the register when a big drunk dude with a thick Jamaican accent and real bad hiccups asked me when the next bus was coming by. I told him that the buses stopped running two hours ago. He said "I know, *hiccup* I missed my bus. I need to know *hiccup* when the next one is coming."

"Not until about 5:30ish."

He said "Aw fuck, *hiccup* you mean I *hiccup* really got to wait a whole hour?"

"It's more like two hours, sir."

"Fuck."

So he walks out of the store. My co-worker who had cleaned up the blood was working the register while I tidied up around the cosmetics isle. The dude came back 20 minutes later and asks if he can take a nap somewhere in the store. My co-worker politely tells him that that would not be permissible and the man becomes irate, basically yelling fuck a bunch with hiccups in between and stormed out yet again only to walk back in and lay down in the store's entrance and go to sleep. We just left him alone there because we figured it wasn't worth the hassle to try and deal with him for the two hours before his bus shows up.

5:10 comes around and my manager wakes him. He doesn't want to move, saying "I was having a nice nap."

She lets him know that the bus is going to be there soon. He growls "I KNOW!" then in a soft voice he repeats "I was having a nice nap." She told him he couldn't stay there any more and he goes "leave me alone, fuck." So by this time she's had it and tells him if he doesn't leave right now she's calling the cops so he gets up quick and leaves. My manager goes back to what she was doing before.

He comes back in not more than 5 minutes later, walks up to me and says "where's your deodorant?" I point him to the appropriate isle. He says "How much does it cost?" I tell him that that varies. He goes "Yeah, but how much does it cost?" I told him to read the price tags. It was then that I noticed that homeboy had pissed his jeans. He asks "do you have the spray?" I answered in the affirmative and entreated him to go back there and get it. The next thing I hear is the alarm that gets activated every time the deodorant case is opened go off and continued to do so for an entire minute. He walks up to my register absolutely reeking of body spray. I could smell it from a short distance and by the time he got to me it was almost unbearable. I asked him if he found the deodorant he was looking for. He said "You have a lot of different kinds of deodorant. That's good."

Then he says "let me ask you something man, what would you do if your manager tells you he's trying to get you fired?"

I said "if my manager is trying to get me fired?"

"Yeah."

"I dunno, maybe start looking for another job."

"No no no, I don't mean that. I mean how would you feel if your manager, he just a small man, he say to you 'I am trying to get you fired.'"

"I would think that that was not very encouraging to say the least."

"He is a small man. Maybe only five feet. Maybe even less than that. I might have to fight him for this but I don't want to. It would be too easy. That's not a fight."

"Yeah, you don't want to be known as the guy who beats up midgets."

"Exactly. Where is the challenge? They should give me someone like Shaq. That would be a fight."

"That's true, but I doubt that Shaq would try to get you fired."

He laughed and said "that's true. He would give me a million dollars instead of being a pain in my ass."

My boss sees that he is here and yells at him again. "Get out of the store like I told you before."

He goes "You have a problem with me?"

She said "Yeah, I do have a problem, you're in here drunk."

"I AM DRUNK AS HELL!" he roars.

"I can see that, now get out."

"I AM DRUNK AS HELL!"

"Get out before I call the cops."

"You want to know something?"

"Go!" He is heading toward the exit.

"I tell you something. I'm drunk as hell. I been drinking since seven o'clock!"

"Good, I hope you're proud of yourself. Now get out."

"I am proud." He's almost gone.

"Good."

"I am very proud of myself." He's just out the door. "Hey! You want to come settle this outside?"

"You want to fight a woman? What kind of man are you?"

He doesn't answer. He just wanders off. Then one of my favorite customers comes in. She's a super-cool Portuguese lady who's always really cheerful and every time I see her she tells me facts about Portugal. Today she informs me that she was going to fill out an application for a job at my store the day after the last time I saw her but was afraid that she wouldn't get hired due to her poor penmanship. "Nobody can read it" she says. I told her she should just have someone with good handwriting fill it out for her since we don't have to do any writing at all here.

"Oh you people here in America all have such wonderful handwriting. In my country nobody can write very well. Over there you have to get a private tutor and spend a few years practicing but over here you all can do it so clean and so clear."

I suggested that maybe the educational system in Portugal doesn't concentrate on penmanship as much as the one here does. She said "That's exactly right. Over there nobody cares if you write good or not. They probably think it's the parents job to teach them at home but the parents can't write good and they don't care. They don't even care if the kid does his homework most of the time. So of course they don't care about handwriting."

"Yeah," I said, trying to pretend like I know something about Portugal, "it's like 'mow the lawn and then leave me alone.'"

"Exactly, only in Portugal we hire somebody else to mow the lawn. We don't do it ourselves."

So yeah. To recap: Retail + The Graveyard shift = Non-stop party. You people with fancy hotshot jobs like Investment Banking and Civil Engineering might be able to watch TV Links in your office all day and get paid way more than me, even though you can watch every episode of 30 Rock while sipping the finest champagnes in your well lit cubicle, I am still having a way better time than you.

Max Fleischer

Max Fleischer was one of the earliest pioneers in the field of animation and in the early days he was Walt Disney's main rival. Many of his shorts are very quirky and surreal and hold up very well even today.

Here are a few of my favorite Fleischer cartoons.

Ko Ko's Harem Scarem (1929)
Synopsis: Originally a silent film, this version contains a more recent film score. Ko Ko the clown and his dog Fitz are captured by a knife-wielding Arab and go on a wild romp through a cartoon Middle East.



Swing You Sinners! (1930)
Synopsis: A man steals a chicken and escapes the police only to inadvertently wind up in a Kafkaesque nightmare world located at the local cemetery.



Betty Boop - Bimbo's Initiation (1931)
Synopsis: Betty's pal Bimbo is tormented by the strong-arm recruitment tactics of a secret society.



Betty Boop - Minnie The Moocher (1932)
Synopsis: Don't run away from home or the devil will get you. With music by Cab Calloway and his Orchestra.



In My Merry Oldsmobile (1932)
Synopsis: A would-be rapist is thwarted by a midget with cool wheels. Then there's a really nice musical number with one of those karaoke dots so that the audience can sing along.



Dancing On The Moon (1936)
Synopsis: Love hurts. A lot.




Betty Boop - Be Human (1936)
Synopsis: Betty Boop is shown as a precursor to the Animal Liberation movement. A bad man is unimpressed by her song of peace and is subsequently imprisoned and tortured. Fun Fact: In this short, her outfit is more conservative than in the previous one. This is due to the Hays Code, an early self-regulation measure taken by Hollywood and the precursor to the MPAA ratings system.

Genesis

Dear Friends, Hot Babes, and Assorted Strangers,

This is the official weblaunch of my new blog Single K.O.

For quite some time now people have been saying to me "Jeremy, you should do a blog. People would read it if you made one" but I never really gave it much serious consideration.

I was originally going to just skip over this whole blogging thing and go straight to podcasting but I kept forgetting to buy a microphone and then I found myself plagued by all kinds of self-doubt. I worried that my podcast plan would turn out to be stillborn like my brief and unsuccessful attempts over the years at such diverse hobbies as learning bass guitar, cooking, tap dancing, kung fu, and Arabic.

Getting into the podcast market requires a monetary investment and since I can't afford to divert any more funds away from my 401(k) (read: the Pennsylvania Lotto and back-alley crap shoots), I decided that the best option for a cautious, risk-averse investor such as myself would be to hop on the blogging boat. So here we are.