8 Ways to Sunday

“Blessed are the couch-jumpers, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.”

When I started this blog, I never expected to be offering continuing coverage of weird Tom Cruise–related shit. When the news gets this strange, however, I just don’t have any choice.

According to British tabloid The Sun, Scientologist leader David Miscavige has described Cruise as having a Christ-like role for the cult:

Like Christ, he’s been criticized for his views. But future generations will realize he was right.

Miscavige can say whatever he wants, but I’m pretty sure Jesus never promised to eat a placenta.

Here’s Keith Olberman with more point-by-point comparisons between Jesus Christ and Tom Christ Cruise:

(Props: SF Gate, LAist)

Updates

• 2/24/2007 — Karin Pouw, Public Affairs Director for the Church of Scientology, has officially denied that Miscavige ever compared Tom Cruise to Jesus Christ. The denial was issued in the form of a letter to the Boston Herald (and probably many other newspapers) that had run the story in their gossip sections. Thanks are due to Greg, who informed me of the denial in one of his comments.

  This denial may or may not mean that the story is bogus. The Sun isn’t exactly the Wall Street Journal, of course. On the other hand, famous people say stupid things — then retract, deny, or apologize for them — all the time. What the official denial tells me is that Miscavige may not have made the Christ comparison, but that if he did he sure wishes he hadn’t.

• 2/24/2007 — I’m happy that the comments up until today have been generally courteous, even when people disagreed with each other. Unfortunately, I just had to delete an obscenity-laden screed from some trolling jerk and another commenter’s angry follow-up (which was less rude, but now totally without context). Read the rules before you comment. This is my blog, and I will delete you with extreme prejudice if you act like an asshole.

Outside my window,
Ten inches of purest white.
I sigh: “Winter sucks.”

Last year was so mild.
Global warming giveth, and
It taketh away.

Blendtec is a little company that makes kitchen appliances, most notably some uncommonly powerful blenders. Faced with the question of how to market their blenders, Blendtec decided to do something… different. You’d best take a moment to steady yourself before pressing the “play” button, especially if you own an iPod. (more…)

I’ve been preparing to upgrade WordPress — the software that powers this blog — by upgrading all the WP plugins that I have installed. Somewhere along the way, the form that allows people to subscribe and unsubscribe to e-mail notifications of new posts stopped working.

I’ve taken the form down until I can fix whatever has gone wrong. If you have an urgent need to change your e-mail subscription status for this blog, you can send me a request using the contact form and I’ll make it happen.

I am so glad that Amazon enabled commenting on product reviews. Now I can enjoy vitriolic Internet flame wars without even having to visit Slashdot or a discussion forum!

Case in point: Read the back-and-forth between E. Keech and Jim Harrigan in the comments on this review of An Inconvenient Truth (the book, not movie). It’s like watching some kind of bizarre postmodern comedy skit, wherein two allegedly educated professional men discuss the issues of the day by sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming at one another full-volume. They’re only reading enough of each other’s comments to figure out which canned talking points to copy-and-paste next.