That's Not Why

I'm going to make this brief because I had thought that we had already gone past this. Apparently not. Remember last summer when some lunatic in Norway went on a rampage and shot and killed 77 people? He was a most prolific lunatic indeed. Now he's in a Norwegian court (whatever that means) and this is the crap that he's pulling. Behold!

In case you can't read that (and have forgotten how to click to make the pretty pictures bigger) the caption on the left reads: Killer Breivik trained on video games for massacre. Anders Behring Breivik, who admits killing 77 people in Norway last summer, tells a court he used a video game to train for the shooting spree on the island of Utoya. (Wasn't Utoya Michael Jackson's sister? No, wait. That was LaToya. Honest mistake. Never mind.) And the asinine caption on the right reads "Anders Behring Breivik posted details of the murderous intentions online before last year's Norway massacre. Andrew Keen questions whether the internet, social media and video games encourage his actions." Aaaaarrrrggghhhh!

Do people really think that playing video games can lead them to kill 77 people? Really? Why would that be? Because there's killing in video games? And since there's killing in video games then that would influence someone to kill in real life? Well, in order for that to be true, wouldn't one have to look at the overall influence of video games as a whole in order to determine their effect (if any) on human behaviors? It wouldn't just be the violent stuff that influences people, right? It would be the non-violent stuff as well, wouldn't it? I don't see how you could argue a theory about video game violence encouraging violent behaviors without seeing if the video game influence encouraged other behaviors as well.

Seriously, if video games were that influential over people wouldn't the majority of people on Facebook be farmers right now? Do you know how many times Farmville has been installed? Over 110 million times. Over 63 million people dink around with that ridiculously annoying game every month. 32 million people waste time with that game every single day. Where are ALL THE FARMERS?!

Let me explain something that, if you're reading this blog, you probably already know. Sometimes, the most likely explanation for something is also the easiest explanation. I guess people don't like easy very much because those explanations almost never come up. In the case of this nutjob in Norway, I'll explain to you exactly what happened. And I'm going to try not to get all technical so that I'm easily understood. Stop me if I go too fast or there's something confusing about this. Ready? Here goes...Some people are just freaking crazy.

That's it! That's all there is. Simple enough? You'd think that it would be. But I guess that the news outlets wouldn't get enough ratings if they reported the news like: "Today in Norway, a man killed 77 innocent people. Some folks are just freaking crazy. Now we go to Bob with the weather. Bob..." I'm sorry that sometimes crazy people get in the way of not crazy people. But it happens. And it certainly isn't going to do any good to blame video games for the aforementioned craziness, all right? Video games didn't make that guy kill all of those people. He just did. And I'm sorry that it happened, but not so sorry that I'm going to start feeding into BS theories that have absolutely no basis in fact. Now for the weather...

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"Let It Be" In Norwegian Is Still "Let It Be"

I never thought that I'd be writing about the promo video for a Norwegian TV show called 'Gylne Tider', which translates into 'Golden Times', but yet I am. How the Norwegians managed to put this together, I have no idea. I also have no idea what this promo video has to do with their show. Actually, I'm really confused about all of it. And it's not like I can't explain it. I just don't get it. But I really like it anyway.

Here's the scoop: Apparently, the Norwegians that make promo videos for upcoming television programs in Norway decided to have a bunch of random celebrities lip syncing to The Beatles "Let It Be". And when I say random, I mean freaking random. There are people who participate in this endeavor whose names you likely haven't heard for years. At the very least, you certainly haven't thought of most of these folks for years. And the ones that you have thought about? You're going to wonder what they're doing making a Norwegian video with some of these other folks. I know that I'm wondering that very thing still.

I've taken the time to compile a list of the folks who are in this thing. I'm not sure why I did it, but it does save you the trouble of watching the entire thing, as it does run just a few seconds over six minutes. The video is below the cast of characters, but if that doesn't work, try watching it over at Videogum. It's really worth a gander. It's so random that it's awesome.

Roger Moore (James Bond)

Huey Lewis (Sans The News)

Jason Alexander (The one from Seinfeld, not the one that was married to Britney Spears for an hour.)

Rikki Lake (From the show with the same name)

Josie Bissett (Hot, hot Jane on the Melrose Place that didn't suck)

Alberto Tomba (Olympic skier)

John Nettles (English guy, plays something called Bergerac)

Corbin Bernsen (Arnie from the late 1980s series LA Law)

George Wendt (Norm from Cheers has had plastic surgery)

Paul McKenna (A "top hypnotist", whatever that means)

Philip Michael Thomas (Tubbs from Miami Vice. Really?!)

Steve Guttenberg (Mahoney in the Police Academy movies)

Katarina Witt (German figure skater, which they call "OL mester i kunstlop". I like their way better.)

Tonya Harding (Really? They call her "kunstloper i trobbel" which translates to "figure skating in trouble.)

Glenn Close (Awesome US actress, dubbed "Farlig begjaer" (Fatal Attraction) by the Norwegians)

David Faustino (Bud Bundy from Married With Children)

Gorden Kaye (English actor guy)

Alfonso Ribeiero (Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)

Pamela Anderson (From Baywatch and from just being freaking hot)

Leslie Nielsen (So...does that make this his last work?)

Mickey Rourke (They list 9-1/2 weeks as his known achievement)

Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks)

Jamie Walters (The afterthought character Ray from Beverly Hills 90210.)

Larry Drake (Who played the mildly retarded Benny on LA Law. How do you even find someone that obscure?)

Dolph Lundgren (Rocky IV)

Malcolm Jamal Warner (Looking a lot like Bobby McFerrin, but Theo from The Cosby Show)

Judd Nelson (Now bearded and bespectacled, but still from The Breakfast Club)

Ana Alicia (Extremely attractive and apparently known for being Melissa on freaking Falcon Crest.)

Peter Falk (From Columbo...he's still alive?)

Kelly McGillis (Now gay, but not when she was in Top Gun sweating under Tom Cruise)

Sherilyn Fenn (a one Audrey on Twin Peaks.)

Rick Schroeder (Who I met at a wedding reception in July and who was the kid in Silver Spoons)

Bud Spencer (Dubbed a "Spaghetti-western filmer")

Robert Englund (Freddy Kruger from A Nightmare on Elm Street)

Roy Marsden (Who played someone called Inspector Adam Dalgliesh)

Boyzone (An Irish boy band)

Dan Jansen (Olympic skater)

Kathleen Turner (They have her listed as from War of the Roses, but to me, she'll always be Chandler's Dad on Friends)

Maggie Reilly (Everytime We Touch)

Harpo (Listed oddly as simply "Movie Star")

Maria McKee (Show Me Heaven)

Meja (Very attractive and from something called "All About The Money")

Fab Morvan (That's right. From Milli Vanilli. He's probably really good at this lip syncing stuff.)

Dee Snider (From Twisted Sister but, thankfully, not looking quite as scary.)

Dr ALBAN (Sing Hallelujah)

Right Said Fred (The "I'm Too Sexy" guys. And by the way, they're not.)

Daryl Hannah (Still looking like a hippie chick and still from Splash!)

Rednex (Cotton Eye Joe)

Michael Conner Humphreys (The guy who played Forrest Gump as a child with braces on his legs, but who now sports a nose ring.)

Michael Learns To Rock (The Actor)

Ten Sharp (You)

Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk)

Berlin (The "Take My Breath Away" chick)

Style (Vill Ha Dej)

I told you they were random. All in all there are fifty four people that, for the most part, we weren't sure were still kickin' around. My only question is how can you go from Tonya Harding, a certifiable, trailer trash, whackjob to Glenn Close, a class act, Emmy award winning actress?! I have many other questions as well. How did they find all of these people? What is the significance? Are all Norwegian TV show promotions six minutes long? I need to know!

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Is That a Snake or Are You Happy to See Me?

I understand why people smuggle drugs. It's because there's enough money to be made that the rewards outweigh the risks. I mean, that's the kind of sense that it makes to the people who actually smuggle drugs. To me, the very real possibility of going to prison for eons does outweigh the rewards. That's the number one reason that I'm not a drug mule. (Well, that and the fact that I prefer to think of my sphincter as 'exit only'.) But while I understand the drug smuggling trade, I do not understand the creature smuggling trade.

And there are some pretty strict laws in place against smuggling animals of many sorts into a variety of countries. I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I surmised that the United States probably is more vigilant against people smuggling exotic animals into this country than they are against people smuggling other people into this country. (Oh! What am I saying?! Silly me, this country barely enforces the borders that it has! There's no need to smuggle! Just wander on over! Come on! Hola!)

I don't know how I would smuggle animals if I were to go into that line of work. I'd want to smuggle something cute, though. Like kittens or bunnies or puppies. Especially if I had to smuggle the creatures on my person. The cuter, the better if I'm doing that. I would absolutely NOT smuggle live royal pythons taped to my chest which, of course, means that I would also absolutely NOT smuggle live geckos taped to my legs. I especially wouldn't do this in Norway and if I did I surely wouldn't forget about the tarantula in my bag that would tip off the officials to my sinister scheme. I would NOT do any of that. But this guy would. Behold!

OH, what the hell is that? According to a section in the L.A. Times called L.A. Unleashed-all things animals in Southern California and beyond (doncha know?) THAT is a guy who was discovered "...during a routine customs check of passengers who had just arrived via ferry into Kristiansand." (By the way, Kristiansand is apparently in Norway. He was travelling from Denmark, if that's of any assistance to you.) Yeah, see, in each one of those little socks is a baby royal python and there's fourteen of the suckers! Behold!

Good Lord, I think I'm gonna be sick. Fourteen snakes. But wait! There's more! Behold!

::: whimper ::: What the hell is that, you ask? THAT would be ten, yes ten, ten cans of baby geckos! Bwah-ah-ahhhhh! (I feel like the Count from Sesame Street.) And, why yes, they are taped to his legs! What is wrong with people?! I don't know either, but here are the geckos. ::: sigh ::: Behold.

Well, according to The Sun, the guy claimed that "...he was a collector and had bought the creatures legally in Denmark." Um, I've known a lot of people that "collect" a lot of things, but that doesn't make it necessarily legal or anything. The ones that do "collect" things and are doing so legally certainly don't feel the need to tape them to any spare space that they may have and may not be using upon their body! Ever think you'll see a stamp collector do that? How about weird, still lives at home in the basement, baseball card collector guy? (Granted, he'll do weird stuff, but none of it will involve taping his baseball cards to his body. Yet.) By the way, just to give you some sort of an idea as to how many geckos this actually is (other than the number 12 I've already provided you), I've taken the liberty to Photoshop twelve geckos onto this man's legs. It's disgusting. Behold!

But I guess it doesn't matter if he bought them legally or what kind of a "collector" he is, importing reptiles into Norway (ie, taping them to your body and hoppin' on a ferry) is against the law. And while all of this is weird, here's the part that I really don't get. You wouldn't think I'd have to ask you to guess how they figured this out, would you? Seems pretty obvious how they figured it out, doesn't it? Well, it didn't quite happen that way.

No, see, they found a tarantula in his bag and that's when they decided that they'd give him a little full body search as well. Wait. What?

Correct. They found a tarantula in his bag. THAT is what tipped them off. The tarantula. In his bag. What in the world was this man wearing? The world's biggest parka? How can you not know that there are fourteen snakes and twelve geckos taped to someone's body? Are they not moving around? And look at that picture. It's not like they don't stick out a fair amount! You're telling me that if it weren't for that spider crawling around in his bag that he would have made it through customs with the reptile cage of the zoo strapped to himself? Are we supposed to be happy about that? I don't think I am. I just don't think I am.

So let's put all of this together, shall we? We've got the guy with the geckos and the pythons who gets caught smuggling all of these creatures on his person because of the inexplicable ONE tarantula in his bag. We've seen what the geckos all look like if they were just taped onto him instead of stuffed into what appear to be Skoal tins. Now let's see how many snakes that looks like, courtesy of yours truly here and Photoshop. Behold!

And they couldn't have figured this out without the tarantula in the bag?! I find that hard to believe. You're telling me they couldn't find THIS:

But THIS they caught onto right away:
OK, then. Good luck with that, Norway. Gooooooood luck with that.

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Yes, Sir, Penguin, Sir!

I don't know a lot about Norway. I know even less about the military of Norway. But I do know this: I know that penguins shouldn't be in the military, whether you're in Norway or any other -way.

The fine folks over there across the pond at The Metro have informed us that Nils Olav was knighted today by the Norwegian Army. That's not usually something that makes the news, unless the newly knighted knight is a penguin. That is correct. A penguin. (This is not to be confused with "The Penguin", the Batman nemesis. Although strangely enough, that would actually make more sense than this type of penguin becoming a knight.)

The Metro tells us that, "Nils Olav is already a Colonel-in-Chief in the Norwegian King's Guard, as well as being their mascot." Apparently, Nils Olav lives at the Edinburgh Zoo and every few years or so the Guardsmen visit him whenever they are in Edinburgh. Apparently, the Guardsmen make there way there to perform at something called the city's Military Tattoo. And today when they were all together, all Guardsmen and all penguins, Nils Olav was knighted with the permission of King Harald V of Norway. Correct. The King gave permission to make a flightless waterfowl creature a knight. But Nils Olav didn't get there overnight.

Apparently, sometime in the 1970s, a lieutenant named Nils Egelien had seen the penguins at the zoo and liked them. (What's not to like? I mean, they're black and white which is a very popular color combination within the animal kingdom. Think about it. Black and white animals. The zebra. The skunk. The killer whale (come on! People loved that Willy movie.). The cow. And of course, those damn pandas. (Everyone loves a panda for some reason, but I don't know why. Maybe it's because if you're looking at one in the US, you know that it's really not ours and we're just borrowing it from China. That strikes me as odd. Are there any other animals in the world that are loaned out by their country of origin like a library book? Not so much, really. Why can't they just cough up a couple of them and let us keep them? Then we could name them something that makes more sense. Like Steve or Bill. But I digress. Where was I? Oh, right. The penguin in the army. No wonder I got sidetracked.) IN fact, Nils Egelien liked the penguins so much that he made one of them a Lance Corporal.

OK, first of all, does he have the power to do this? And second, how much had this man had to drink? Quite a bit, I'm guessing. But since when can you just go around assigning military ranks to imprisoned zoo animals? I know it's Norway and all, and that I am far from Norwegian, but I think I would have heard something about that by now. Regardless, the bird became a Corporal and it was only up then on.

Since the indoctrination of the Lance Corporal penguin, the bird has "received medals for long service" and "had a 4ft bronze statue built in his honor." No word on WHY the penguin was being honored in bronze, but really, what else is there to do in Norway besides make things out of bronze? But when I say that the penguin has "received medals for long service" what I mean is that A penguin has received medals for long service, as Nils Olav The Original croaked sometime during the 1980s and was replaced with the current Nils Olav The Imposter.

But that doesn't matter to anyone over there, least of all the zoo employees. David Windmill (cute) who is the chief executive of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the charity that owns Edinburgh Zoo, said: "We have a long-standing history with the Norwegian King's Guard and it is something we are extremely proud of. It's an honor that they take the time to visit us and we are all looking forward to welcoming them on Friday. Edinburgh Zoo is famous for its king penguins and Nils Olav is definitely the most famous of them all." I'm just going to take his word for it. I'm still working on the "we knighted a penguin" concept they all seem perfectly fine with.

Then we have Darren McGarry. He's the animal collection manager at the zoo. He says that ,"Nils always recognises the Norwegian Guardsmen when they come to visit him. He loves the attention he receives at the ceremony and takes his time inspecting the troops. We're all very excited about his new promotion and we've all been wondering what it could be." Clearly, this man is under the impression that a penguin, yes, a penguin is capable of "inspecting" troops. Sir, it's a penguin. It doesn't even know what a "troop" is. It doesn't even know what YOU are, sir. But don't take it personally. It's only because it's a penguin.

As far as the Norwegian King's Guardsmen themselves, a one Captain Rune Wiik stated, "We are extremely proud of Nils Olav and pleased that an enduring part of the Royal Guard is resident in Scotland helping to further strengthen ties between our two countries." Now it's like some sort of peace keeping penguin. What's the next promotion? Secretary of State?

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