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Here’s your Conspiracy Theory of the Day, courtesy of Slashdot.

For the uninitiated, Zero Wing was a Japanese video game whose English translation was, well, if not the seminal example of Engrish, at least a very important milestone in the development of the Engrish phenomenon. It is best known for its introduction of the phrase “All Your Base Are Belong To Us,” which has been perpetuated throughout the Internet community for years. (West Michigan fans of AYBABTU will enjoy the 2003 April Fool’s prank perpetuated by some college-age kids in Sturgis.)

Due to the combined effects of a semi-dead hard drive and a three-week vacation, coverage here has been rather spotty lately. After a marathon session yesterday, the hard drive problem is temporarily fixed, and our yard is no longer a wooded lot…but it still needs another mowing, probably tomorrow afternoon if the weather holds up.

Expect continued spotty coverage for at least the next two to three weeks. I’ll be moving to Jacksonville (FL) in a week and I anticipate being very very busy with the move.

No, not Clinton. Chamberlain. In Binghamton, New York. At a Motel Six. You know, Tom Bodett, “We’ll Leave the Light On For Ya,” big-red-number-six-on-a-blue-background Motel Six.

Mr. Roger Chamberlain has been charged with felony criminal mischief after coating the entire inside of his room with Vaseline. Oh, and himself. He was found at a nearby motel after checking out, still covered in Vaseline.

Lube, anyone?

An Odessa, Texas high school student is now in the hospital after taking a two-dollar dare to drink chemicals from his high school chem lab.

You always wondered why they had to say “NEVER TASTE ANY CHEMICALS IN THE LAB” in all those safety videos…well, this kid is why.

Red Forman Dumbass Rating:

Next time you have a spider walking across your ceiling, or a wasp nest under your gutters out back, be glad you don’t live in Dover, Florida, where a nest of a quarter-million yellow jackets was recently destroyed in an abandoned trailer.

Up there on the list of jobs I think would be wicked fun for a year or two: wasp nest exterminator. I mean, you get to dress up in a beekeeper suit and shoot a fire hose of toxic chemicals at a giant swarm of angry stinging insects for an hour. How much more exciting can life get?

ESPN has had Sunday Night Football for a while. No big deal, right? OK, how about some Sunday night college football?

This fall, ESPN is trying to get the University of Tennessee to move its season opener against UNLV from Saturday afternoon to Sunday night. Need I remind readers that Tennessee is in the so-called “Bible Belt?”

Yeah.

This is going to go over like a lead balloon, folks.

Not that you can’t go to church on Sunday morning like normal people, but for the love of, well, Sunday, why on Earth would you put a college football game on a Sunday night? It’s just unholy!

Last Saturday, a bunch of high school seniors in Lexington, KY, got together and decided they needed to go out and do something that would make that night memorable for the rest of their lives.

You know you’re in Kentucky when the thing high school seniors think of doing when they want to make a night memorable is that storied game…

Throwing Things Off The Interstate Overpass

Well, apparently this bunch of high school seniors forgot to tell their friend Jacob Thompson that he wasn’t supposed to throw himself over said overpass.

Mr. Thompson died after falling 27 feet to the shoulder of I-64.

Red Forman Dumbass Rating:

Some thoughts on the Survivor finale and “reunion show,” fresh out of my stream of consciousness…

Jerri: Get over yourself already. Just because you whine like a six-year-old doesn’t mean that the American public has to like you. WE DON’T LIKE YOU. DEAL WITH IT, and move on with your life. You signed up for a reality television show that was to be broadcast around the globe, and now you’re pissed that a bunch of people don’t like the “character” you “played?” Like I said: GET OVER IT.

Rupert: You’re getting my vote for the extra million bucks. Love the roar and the tye-dyed shirts. Just don’t let your kid grow up to be a total Deadhead or Phisher, OK?

Big Tom: Three words for you, my man. Speech. Class. Please. I know that sounding like a total hick is part of your “charm,” but would it really hurt if you enunciated just a little bit?

Rudy: Nothin’ but respect, sir. You are a class act all the way around, and if you ever feel the need to lay a whoopin’ on a certain back-stabbing Bostonian, I support that 100 percent. I nominate you for the upcoming Survivor: Nursing Home when you get to be about 90. Also, thank you for your service to this great country.

Lex: You are a tremendous hypocrite, and quite possibly the most unjustifiably self-righteous person I’ve ever seen on television, including the entire lot of modern-day Pharisees on Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power. Either accept this fact and move on with your life, or work to change it. God hates a hypocrite, and you’re making baby Jesus cry. Also, you aren’t a rock star. Stop trying to look like one.

Shii-Ann: You are hereby awarded the honour of Most Changed From Original Game to All-Stars. As a great man said in a great movie, “I always hated this song. Now I kinda like it.”

Kathy: For someone who went to the trouble of hiring a psychologist to profile all the contestants, I would have thought maybe you’d have a bit more sense. Go back to that shrink and tell her that you need counseling on why you allow bastard men like Rob Mariano to walk all over you. Rob treated you like absolute shit. He put you on the jury. And all this despite his being “like a son to you.” Don’t try to pretend like he didn’t know how you felt, either. He was exactly the same way in the Marquesas. He hasn’t changed a bit. Women like you are the reason so many cases of abuse go unreported, because you don’t have any spine to stand up and say, “This has to stop.”

Alicia: Funniest. Vote. Explanation. Ever.

Richard: OK, we get it, you’re fat, naked, and gay. You’re also an arrogant, pompous ass, like Rob C. is (more on that in a minute). Your “I’ve been bamboozled!” exclamation will live forever in my mind. But please, sit quietly like Ethan or Colby. We don’t want to hear your opinion on everything everyone else says. So shut it.

Colby: What, did Schick quit paying you to do razor commercials? What’s with that scruff on your chin? Oh, right, you look like you’re twelve if you shave.

Rob Mariano: You are a misogynist pig, you have no class, you have no morals, you apparently have no conscience, and you need to eat less. You looked better when you were living on rice and fish. Now you look fat, just like your brother and your dad. I hope Amber’s happy with you.

Amber: I know no one can help their last name — well, not really, anyway — but I couldn’t resist. The Onion has an article for you. You need a vowel or two. Best of luck with Rob, by the way. I predict a divorce before 2010. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Oh, and make him sign a pre-nup so he doesn’t get too much of that million bucks, too.

Rob C.: I don’t care enough to figure out how to spell your last name, but hear this: You are a) not that smart, b) not good-looking, and c) nowhere near the “Greatest Survivor Player Ever” or whatever the hell title you attempted to bestow upon yourself. See, if you were so great, why didn’t you win? Heck, why didn’t you make it any further than you did? Hint: it wasn’t because people were afraid of the threat you posed.

CBS: Let’s be honest here. You got waaaaaaay more drama, intrigue, and romance than you ever imagined possible out of All-Stars. Now, for the love of God, stop beating a dead horse. Survivor was good the first three seasons. By the time they got to Thailand, it was getting a little tiresome. Did anyone actually watch Amazon or Pearl Islands? You’ve used up all the good locations, except for maybe Antarctica or Siberia. Just let it go. Go out on a high note. Don’t create another Seinfeld, please.

Also, I know you’re pressed for time in the reunion show and all, but can we please dispense with the five-minute commercial breaks interwoven with two minutes of actual programming? I would have liked to see a bit more Q&A with Jeff — and maybe the audience — but noooo. You had to run half an hour of commercials in 45 minutes. Shame on you.

As one passenger recently found out, Qantas Airlines of Australia are now the world leaders in fresh airline food. So fresh, in fact, that when you order a frog-legs salad, it comes with live frog.

Mmmm, crunchy!

In a development that should surprise absolutely no one outside the Sinclair Broadcast Group, the ratings for last Friday’s Nightline show were up nearly 30 percent compared to earlier broadcasts this week, and up nearly 25 percent over the previous Friday’s show.

John McCain sez: “I told you so.”

Red Forman Dumbass Rating:

Regular readers, and people who know how my mind works, probably don’t need this brief expository introduction, but here goes…

I got up this morning, checked my e-mail, and hit my usual two Web sites.

Slashdot has a story about a car-eating robotic dinosaur that linked to a very amusing photograph of said robot in action at a recent airshow in California. I saw the aircraft in the background and thought I recognised it as a military version of the Douglas DC-10. Which I then confirmed by performing a Google search, and found myself at the Wikipedia page for that aircraft.

After reading several related articles, including one on the Airbus A300, one on ETOPS (also jokingly known as “Engines Turn or Passengers Swim”), and several on related aircraft, ending with the BAe 146, and realising how remarkable a similarity the BAe 146 bears to a four-engined, turbine-powered Dash-8, I decided to do a search for the Dash-8.

No dice. I figured I probably hadn’t gotten the designator right, because I remembered the Dash-8 was officially called something else, but I also stumbled across the Wikipedia English home page in the process.

The current featured article as of this writing is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which enlightened me to several interesting bits of trivia. For instance, though many people believe that L. Frank Baum wrote the book as political allegory, Baum himself has vigorously denied this, much as J. R. R. Tolkien always denied that his Lord of the Rings epic is an allegory for anything.

Other interesting trivia concerning the book and the movie:

• Baum wrote 14 total Oz books, and Ruth Plumly Thompson wrote an additional 19 after Baum died. Other authors have also written books in the series.
• Ray Bolger was originally slated to play the Tin Man but traded parts with Buddy Ebsen (best known as Jed Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies), who then had a severe reaction to the aluminium dust used in the Tin Man’s makeup. Whilst Ebsen was in the hospital recuperating from his near-death experience, MGM reformulated the makeup, fired Ebsen, and cast Jack Haley in his place.
• The now-classic movie was shown on television for the first time on 03 November, 1956, with a viewing audience estimated at 45 million. This might not sound amazing at first, but remember this: in 1956, approximately 3/4 of American homes had television. The 1960 Census puts US population at approximately 180 million, and the 1950 Census claims approximately 150 million. Let’s estimate the 1956 population at 165 million. That means about 125 million people had television. Now for the amazing part: over one-third of everyone in the United States with a television was watching this movie.

Getting back to the original subject, a Google search reminded me of the proper designation for the Dash-8: De Havilland DHC-8. So now I’m happy. And you’re entertained.