I've got my finger back (watch while I attack)

Susan/Circle:
So our fair city's reputation as a bastion of intelligence has taken quite a hit.

 

---

Mike:
Yes, but our reputation as a cathartic, the sky is falling, waiting for the other shoe to drop, panic-stricken people remains quite firmly intact.

 

---

Susan/Circle:
So I guess by now everybody knows about the Mooninites from the innah core of the moon.

 

---

Mike:
As they should for their race is hundreds of years beyond ours.

 

---

Susan/Circle:
Indeed, some would say that the Earth is their moon.

 

---

Mike:
But, of course, that would belittle the name of their moon, which is: The Moon.

 

---

Susan/Circle:
Meanwhile, the Yankees are going full bore into China to evangelize their brand and look for future talent.

 

---

Mike:
And not to be outdone, the Red Sox are hoping to increase their revenue stream by going into, er, NASCAR.

 

---

Susan/Circle:
Yeah, let me see if I can get this straight. The Yankees are taking their pinstripes to the world's lahgest country, the fastest growing economy, and the planet's other Supahpowah, while the Red Sox are going into the foreign land that gave us fried Coke and two terms of George W Bush.

 

---

Mike:
Way to go Red Sox! W00T. You go John Henry and Lucky, you keep on, keep on out smarting them Yankees.

 

---

Susan/Circle:
Hey, it's not all bad. At least Matsuzaka has found the vegetables and fish in the United States much bettah than he could have hoped for.

 

---

Mike:
I guess Matsuzaka has been so busy throwing the gyroball that he never noticed his homeland is a small, overcrowded island without an agrarian sector and, as a result, imports nearly all of its vegetables from the United States.

 

---

Susan/Circle:
Yeah, well, since at any given time over half the Red Sox playahs are engaged in a one-way, personal conversation with their magical best friend Jesus, I'm willing to cut Matsuzaka some slack for being naive to the import/export particulars of the global market economy.

 

---

Mike:
Amen to that.

 

---

Author's Notes
Today's Mooninites conversation is a reference to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode where the Mooninites were first introduced.

Comments

[illegitimate son of dwight evans]

As moronic as our authorities look (and to be fair, a lot of this was prompted by separate individuals calling in tips about similar suspicious packages on bridges) - does anyone else think Aqua Teen Hunger Force is just not funny? I mean, I'm a big fan of Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law, but I just never found the Aqua Teen show to be anything but sporadically entertaining, at best.

So Daisuke plans on showing up to camp 4 days early this year. That's a nice change from the usual "what's up with Pedro?" comments from the media. Though I'm betting if this goes on year after year, the standard trumpet blown will be "what's wrong with Daisuke that he needs to show up early every year?"

La plus change...

[COD]

Of course, Boston will have over prosecute the hell out of the guy they arrested - just to justify shutting down the city over a couple of Lite Brites.

[Rob in CT]

"does anyone else think Aqua Teen Hunger Force is just not funny?"

Agreed, Dewey. It's no Venture Bros., for sure. I actually hope Ted Turner himself has to spend a week cleaning grafitti off bridges and tunnels for that lame stunt. Who the hell green-lighted that anyway?

[Devine]

I think Aqua Teen Hunger Force is effing hilarious. But Venture Bros. probably is funnier on a "laughs per minute" basis.

Hey, h.b., I know you're down with the Harry Potter. 7/21/07 release date for the final book...

[Ryan with a capital "R"]

Aqua Teen Hunger Force can be an acquired taste. Like any show, there are episodes that are funnier than others. It's like Assisted Living Dracula: it starts out a little slow but it's really good once you get into it.

[h.b.]

The funny thing is, if I were a terrorist and I did want to blow up a bunch of shit in Boston or anywhere else, I now know exactly what I'd disguise my real bomb as.

Everybody would be all, "Oh, fool me once, ha ha, that's not a bomb is a lite..."

KA-BOOM!

[h.b.]

Yeah, I just preordered the book and IM'd my wife to warn her that I will pretty much be "missing" from the moment the FedEx guy drops the book off on Saturday July 21 until I finish it.

[COD]

If we follow the pattern of the last couple of HP books, my son will disappear into his room with the HP book on 7/21 and I'll get it on 7/22. It'll take me a week to reread it, and over the last 3 days my son will by on my ass to finish so he can read it again.

[Rock]

I know there are a billion plus people in China, but are there enough people there who even know anything about baseball, much less the Yankees, to shell out the money for Yankees gear? I mean, how much of a return are they expecting to get for flooding the Chinese market with Yankees hats and shirts?

As far as turning towards NASCAR fans with Sox branded stuff, this would have been a smarter move after the '04 season, considering that team was a winner. The '06 team wasn't and the '07 team is shaping up to be just as craptacular, if not more so. Who wants to back a loser when you're a fair weather fan anyways? Besides, nobody picks to be a member of the Nation; you're born into this misery. It isn't a choice; it's destiny.

[Jason O.]

All you Godless Satanist heathen Potter readers are damned to eternal Hell-fire!!

In all seriousness, the bottom line is that with our freedom of movement/association/speech, it's child's play to convert any one of thousands of "normal" products or processes into a weapon.

It's not if but when, people.

So it's a misunderstanding...public officials are talking about who's gonna pay for the first responders? Guess what, it's their job to respond to shit like this.

Thought Experiment:
Your fire alarm goes off because you're cooking or smoking a cigar (mmmm...cigar) and the fire dept. shows up...and they decide to bill you for the time/labor cost, gas for the fire engines, etc...

Where do they get their funding in the first place? (Hint, look at your W-2) It's a necessary public service, and there will always be mistakes/false alarms. All's well that ends well.

[Bob]

I don't fault our emergency responders either. Someone reports a suscious box with wires and tubes protruding from it, they HAVE to respond. And if you're on the bomb squad, do you say, "hell it's just a 'Lite Brite,'" or do you protect your life and your family's future by being cautious?

As Richard Reid said to airline personnel, "it's just a shoe."

[Jack]

Magical best friend Jesus

I love Susan. She's like my own personal magical best friend. :)

[Soulie]

Not bad, Jason, but what about the gobs and gobs of OT that was probably used yesterday? And more to the point, what if a real incident had happen while Boston's finest were out shaking these things?

It's sort of like when people complain that the cops and teachers can't afford to live in their town. But then when the property tax bills comes due, hot damn, well, I guess they don't really need a raise. It's all tied together.

[COD]

We can't go through life afraid of our own shadows. Yes, sooner or later it won't be a false alarm. However, I can't see how any reasonable person sees a goofy lite brite in a public place and immediately thinks bomb.

It's paranoia that is not so subtly encouraged by the government. A scared and paranoid populace is much easier to control.

[Jason O.]

I always thought the standard of criminality was when a person/group makes intentionally false statements, i.e., calls in a bomb scare to a school, or "the runaway bride's" phone call to police, or a similar matter.

The major problem here is when several "hrrumphing" pols decide to scapegoat the poor schlubs who made a couple hundred bucks by installing the signs.

[h.b.]

I definitely think this looks sillier in hindsight.

The placement of some of these things, like on bridges, just doesn't make me think "oh, funny, guerilla ad meme!" right from the get go.

And add to that that most 99% of the people in Boston wouldn't recognize a character from a very obscure animated show on the Cartoon Network and probably just saw it as a bunch of lights connected to batteries, then I think the response made sense.

What is kind of strange, though, is why was Boston the only place out of the 7 cities, that went defcon4?

[Natalie]

On a note completely unrelated to the current discussion, but given the appreciation for all things Hoff that's been expressed here, I couldn't resist passing along this link. Had me chuckling...

http://www.waxhoff.com/

Now on to your regularly scheduled programming...

[Billy Mahty]

I wonder what impact Harry Potter as the lead in Equus will have on a generation of children.

I had a problem with the police in my town a few years back. My band got some permits to put on a show in a local park. Apparently we didn't have all the right permits though, and a squad of police was waiting at the park the morning of. They told us we weren't having our music festival without these permits. After a little discussion it was obvious we couldn't play, so we left, called it off. A few days later the cops got sue-happy and went after everyone and their mother for the cops' overtime and all that jazz. It was total b.s. - they could have sent one cop to do the job; or, novel idea, they could have actually contacted us beforehand, since they apparently knew about the event, and explained to us the situation.

My point is that this overtime issue pisses me off.

[miketc]

On the one hand, the city responded to a suspicious item in a serious fashion. (as they should.)

On the other hand, the lite-bright sets were put up 2 weeks ago; evidently not ONE public official decided in that time they were dangerous, (or worse, in 2 weeks not one official noticed them illuminating the night sky...); once they were determined to be benign, they stil brought out the bomb squad to take each one down; at Mumble's 4 pm press conference, he was still inferring they were dangerous; in NOT ONE of the other 10 cities was there any sort of a panic...

To steal quotes from the Globe: L.E.D. not I.E.D... and yes, we've just witnessed "War of the Worlds, II"

We can thank the Mayah for Life for this one -- getting a political hard-on over the opportunity to look like Gulianni II, that everyone forgot to take a step back and THINK for just a moment.

And now, like he typically does when he gets totally embarrassed, Mumbles is going take revenge by hanging the two poor idiot schleps who put the stupid things up. Great idea. Tell you what, mayah -- just admit you were duped.

Sorry for sounding so much like Doug here... Don't get me wrong -- I want the city to take a potentially dangerous item seriously. But for the love of Lisa, THINK, people!!

[Survived75]

Look on the bright side - this clearly signals the War on Terror is over, at least in Mr. Menino's fair city. Yes, at last it is "Mission Accomplished" for the Bad Guys - behold a society once so pleased to consider itself the mightiest and most advanced on the planet, now rendered impotent by universal paranoia and childish bickering 24/7. Our long national nightmare is over, indeed - all that remains to be done are the surrender formalities, and then we can slink home, grab the TV remote, pull the blankets up over our heads, and get on with our lives in peace and fear. At least we still have the best cartoon shows, right?

/sarcasm off

Jeebus wept. In the words of Thos. Jefferson, I tremble for my country.

[Kluv]

Ignignokt: "Our god is a god of vengeance. A god of hate."

Err: "A god of action!"

Ignignokt: "Our god is an Indian who can turn into a wolf and--"

Err: "Dude, that's Wolfen."

Ignignokt: "Yes, well, Wolfen will come after you, with his razor."

The Moon Rules #1!

[mikeya2k1]

MY NAME IS... SHAKE-ZULA THE MIC RULAH THE OLD SCHOOLA YOU WANNA TRIP? ILL BRING IT TO YA
FRYLOCK AND IM ON TOP ROCK YOU LIKE A COP. MEATWAD YOUR UP NEXT WITH YOUR KNOCK KNOCK.
MEATWAD MAKES THE MONEY.SEE
MEATWAD GETS THE HONEYS. G
DRIVIN IN MY CAR
LIVIN LIKE A STAR
ICE ON MY FINGERS AND MY TOES AND IM A TAURUS
CAUSE WE ARE THE AQUA TEENS MAKE THE HOMIES SAY HO AND MENINO WANNA SCREAM.
AQUATEEN #1 IN THE HUB G

[jen in HI]

Ah, mistakes were made on both sides of the ATHF issue. Wish I'd gotten to see one of the Lite Brite ads though. Anybody find any pics?

As far as HP/Daniel Radcliffe being in a play in the buff...I sure hope that he takes it on the road to my town. Now that I know he's not a teen I can feel less guilty about those impure thoughts. I mean have you seen those pictures??? Hot. (i know...so very wrong of me)

[jamesfrmmaine]

"Aqua Teen Hunger Force is just not funny?"

Sorry if you don't get it but ATHF is fucking hilarous... just reading this strip with the mooninites quotes got me laughing... Two of my favorite forms of entertainment, Soxaholix in the am, ATHF in the early AM and Im happy.

The media response is a whole nother matter though. If you want to get really sick check out the guys at little green footballs who seem to be enthusiatic that they were actual bombs... is this so they can say oh we were right? bush is right? be afraid be afraid.?.. ugh this post is incoherent because it makes so sick.

"Boston will fear our quad laser"

[meredith]

mikeya2k1, you now owe me a new keyboard. ;)

ATHF is hilarious, but not in the LOL way. More like in the "shake your head and wonder if you really are actually seeing this on television" kind of way. The Mooninites are by far the best thing about the show.

I don't fault the authorities for investigating the initial call (though really, the moron who made the call should be flogged). But once the bomb squad got there and saw it was just a harmless Lite-Brite, they should have called off the dogs and chilled out. Instead, the whole situation spiralled out of control for the next several hours. Pathetic.

The news media has the most to answer for, though. News flash: this was NOT a "terrorist hoax". There was ZERO intent to cause panic. It was a viral marketing campaign that went on for weeks in 9 other cities across North America without generating a peep of concern. That's it.

My sincere hope is that the two guys who were arrested as the scapegoats here aren't Jose Padilla-ed in an effort to help Mumbles et al. cover their paranoid overreacting asses. Ted Turner had DAMN well better be sending his best lawyers up to Boston to help those guys out.

[Bob]

As an advertising guy, I'm surprised that nobody on any of the ad sites I've come across today has mentioned how utterly lame the actual promotion was.

A light-up box that shows a character flipping the bird?

I like the show. It's funny. The guerilla marketing, not funny. (Pronounced out loud in a bad Terry Bradshaw accent.)

BTW, funniest comment yet (on Adrants I believe): "Nobody likes you Bob."

Now THAT's funny.

True, but funny.

[h.b.]

Bob,

I think that's the first time I've read the comments at AdRants, though I'm a regular reader of the site.

That "Nobody likes you Bob" was pretty funny.

But, heck, we like you, Bob!

Meanwhile, I enjoyed ariel's line:

"Yes, because terrorists used LEDs to attack 'Merica and our freedom. I remember now, thanks for the memo Bob :)"

Made me want to replace it with:

"I mean really it's a box cutter. Not a real knife. Not a gun. Not a bomb. A box cutter. Like, right, what are the 'evil' terrorists going to do to 'Merica, open a bunch of boxes of kraft mac'n'cheese on our asses? Whoa. I'm *so* scared."

As you wrote: "Glad that AFTER THE FACT, you could tell what those boxes under the bridges were, Ariel."

Agree, too, that the viral promo was pretty lame as well.

[h.b.]

Off topic:

Lostaholix if you haven't already seen this spoof of the Lost writer's meeting, do check it out.

Lost writer's spoof

Note: the site says "for mature audiences" but there's nothing not work safe in the video or on the page.

[mikeya2k1]

but doesnt williams street (adult swim) always use "lame promo"? and did anyone catch the bumps last night? they made reference to the days events that i admit to not knowing about till watching it last night on the weekday swim. btw futurama is the best.

[Dave S.]

What's the saying? "We're rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic"? Bomb squads taking out toys? Well-after-the-fact hand-lotion confiscation at the airport? The scrambling to "beef up" security is so indescribably lame, so well past expiration, and our media attention is breathless. I just don't know where to begin in how pathetically the US is behaving here. Lite-brites and lip gloss: there's your homeland security. As J.O. says, it ain't if, it's when. We look like the keystone cops time and time again. We'd be better served putting all of our resources into mortician services, and settle for an efficient clean-up. It's a bad, bad joke.

[COD]

The press conference with the two guys arrested in Boston is comedy gold.

[Bob]

//But, heck, we like you, Bob!//

Why thank you, H.B. I like you and everybody else here, too. Even Jason. :)

I actually think it's a big compliment that my fellow ad folk despise me. I do try to distance myself from them at every opportunity.

[h.b.]

FWIW the fave IED disguise is as a, er, toy.

But I hear what you're saying, Dave S.

On the other hand, I'm not sure "terrorism" needs to be the focus. First responders, by their very nature, tend to go all out regardless of the situation.

Case in point. You ever call the fire dept about a very minor "small" fire in your backyard? They'll bring the whole works, hook and ladder, and everything.

Or ever come home to find your place broken into with the door swinging in the breeze and call the cops? They'll come in pretty heavy on the assumption the bad guys are still inside though I'm sure they know that's highly unlikely.

I think once these professions start to take an "ah, it's probably nothing" attitude, we're screwed whether it's suspected bombs or a grease fire in the kitchen.

[h.b.]

Despite their flippant attitude, those guys sound like they're about to shit their pants with fear.

[COD]

They should scared. A government official intent on covering his ass by throwing you under a bus can do a lot of damage.

[Johnmeister]

h.b.

you must have lived in a nice place if the cops come in heavy on an house robbery. Where i grew up near the Bronx, the cops performed triage over the phone. If the house was broken into, they would send a car over eventually after asking us to stay away from the house.

As a kid, when I got my bike stolen in the street once, the cops took over an hour.

Recently, my friend and I were walking thru the streets of Manhattan. Some kids were on the roof of a house throwing eggs at passerbys. I almost got hit in the eye. We called the 9/11 to get the cops to show up. We waited as more eggs were thrown. They didn't show up for more than 30 minutes. We called back and were told they were busy. So we left.

My point is that emergency officials also use their common sense on how to react. Like hospital ERs, they triage the situations to decide how to react.

[h.b.]

What didn't I tell you guys the John Edwards is my neighbor?

[Johnmeister]

You need an entire platoon to respond to robbery at Edwards' house!

[h.b.]

Yeah, I'm really upset that his new 28,000 sq/ft home is going to totally take away my view of the lake.

Talk about your "Two Americas"... there's the view with the lake and the view without the lake.

[Dave S.]

The "triage" theory is interesting. I also guess that it has a lot to do with the responders themselves, and how numb they've become to their function. For example, I was sitting in Grand Central a couple months back drinking coffee when the cops cleared out the bench behind me because there were two unattended suitcases left there. These were big, black and nondescript suitcases. The cops looked bored, and I waited around to check the response. There was little to no urgency. Eventually a couple other officials wandered up and simply carted the bags off, presumably to their storage unit. It was hardly the "GO! GO! GO!" one might expect, but then again, how many bags are left in Grand Central every day? Of course the cops there aren't going to worry, until it's too late. I am truly astonished that the US hasn't seen significantly more in the form of terrorist attacks, especially via bombs in public spaces.

[Kaz]

lol @ the haircuts of the 70's. I am really disappointed that the media didn't followup on the origin of 80's hair as an overreaction to the 70's styles. That's where the story was.

These guys know that they're in a mockery of the judicial system, so they might as well mock the media at the same time.

Next time they arrest someone putting up those dumbass Taylor Hicks posters in Roxbury, then I might take this seriously as an issue of vandalism or trespass. This wasn't Mohammed Atta Jr.... hell, it wasn't even a guy wearing an Osama mask walking into a 7-11.

We're so self-centered in today's day and age, that we're allowing "*I* interpreted that incorrectly, therefore *you* are wrong to say/do it that way" to replace "Oh, that's what you meant, my mistake". A total lack of civilized discourse and I'm getting tired of it, personally.

Should Turner or the marketers done a better job labeling their product/ad? Sure.

Should the city sue Turner and charge these guys with a criminal act? No.

Did the first responders begin the day correctly? Sorta, they really could have done a much better job getting information about the first device out so that others could correct them at 10 AM instead of waiting until 5 PM after 8 more were called in.

Did the city go downhill quickly in terms of how it handled everything? Absolutely and the aftermath keeps getting worse and worse.

I do have to say that if this had been a real emergency, at least I could follow a crap-ton of blue signs out of town in "evacuation"..Whew. Thank you Menino!

[Survived75]

As-bo-lutely right on, Kaz.

"So in the Libyan fable it is told
That once an eagle, stricken with a dart
Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
"Withour own feathers, not by others' hands
Are we now smitten."

-Aeschylus, Fragment 135

[h.b.]

Now while on the subject of creating a false panic or whatever, how about Curt Schilling asking for a contract renewal just now?

[slam182]

On behalf of all exercise planners, I'd like to thank the city of Boston for validating our assumptions regarding the sober reactions of the media and local politicians to a potential IED event...

[Kaz]

Saw a good one today on another website:

Don't worry, Boston.

It was just Moonie being Moonie.

[Kaz]

Saw a good one today on another website:

Don't worry, Boston.

It was just Moonie being Moonie.

[El Jefe]

Well, at least Bush has the will to win. Unlike the Sox last year.

[steve]

Clossing the italics ...