fine whine

"I've lost my ability to tell between what's cute and what's idiotic."

Today I noticed that my garage door and my car's retractible antenna descend at the same rate.

I have a much more serious topic to discuss, though, as I have been watching the collected complete series of the Critic. That's where the slightly relevant quote up top first appeared, though I plan to now use it in my everyday conversation. The show's as funny as I remembered, and even more so now that I can catch more than half of the film in-jokes (before, I'd probably not have noticed a reference to Every which way but loose, though any mixup with Clint Eastwood and a chimp must just be funny).

That said, I'm having trouble enjoying the show without recognizing voice actors (at least, their voices) from Matt Groening shows (and possible even Nickelodeon). I'm starting to wonder if Mark Hamill's in here somewhere, but I'm not holding my breath.

But really, this DVD set is serious business. Why, here's the WARNING that appears before each set of episodes:

The copyright proprietor has licensed the programme (including, without limitation, its soundtrack) contained in this video cassette or Digital Versatile Disc for private home use only. Unless otherwise expressly licensed by the copyright proprietor, all other rights are reserved. Use in other locations such as airlines, clubs, coaches, hospitals, hotels, oil rigs, prisons, schools and ships is prohibited unless expressly authorised by the copyright proprietor. Any unauthorised copying, editing, exhibition, renting, hiring, exchanging, lending, public performances, diffusion and/or broadcast, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. Any such action establishes liability for a civil action and may give rise to criminal prosecution.

I didn't make any of that up. In fact it worries me that I transcribed it, threats of civil action and prosecution and all, because I'm sure doing so was unauthorised (with an 's' no less). Go back and read that again (if I can, I authorise you to do so).

Oil rigs? Hospitals? Oil rigs?

I'm tempted to grab my portable DVD player and take this to a school, airline or oil rig and watch it without authorisation. Then I'm going to go out and figure out how to diffuse it too, while I'm there.