Pun Salad

• Mr. Jason A. Czekalski of Rindge, NH has an interesting letter to the editor in my local paper, Foster's Daily Democrat, this morning:
  Today I heard an interesting idea that I would like to share with everyone: a plan to finally solve all of the financial woes of the American People. This is not some pie-in-the-sky pipe dream. It is within the ability of the U.S. Government at this moment.

  The idea is to take a part of the $1 trillion bailout and distribute it directly to the people. No, not some piddling $1,000 tax rebate. I mean a real bailout: $1 million to every man, woman, and child in America. That's approximately $300 million, or less than one-third of the bailout. Think of it: America, the nation of millionaires.

  If President-elect Obama hasn't already picked a Secretary of the Treasury, he might want to check out Jason A. Czekalski, who has the kind of, er, creative accounting skills that have been sorely lacking in previous appointees.

• Here's a neat article showing per-state, per-vote, TV ad expenditures by the presidential candidates in the recent election. (Yes, did you hear? We had one.)

  New Hampshire was one of three states where Obama spent more than $10 per vote received. ($11.18, to be exact.) In contrast, McCain only spent $6.94 per NH vote. (Via Protein Wisdom.)

• Let it not be said that Pun Salad is into automatic knee-jerk Obama-bashing. Pun Salad agrees with everything the President-elect says here.

• But let it be said that Pun Salad thinks The Big Bang Theory is a wonderful TV show. It's about time that geek culture got some prime-time love. Some people have put up a fansite. So, for example, if you missed Sheldon's rules to Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, it's there:
  It's very simple. Look -- scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors.

  The CBS geniuses have YouTubed it:

  And—whoa!—you can play online here.

  And, if you missed it, you can also watch the lads play Klingon Boggle.

• Which segues nicely to: the new Star Trek movie trailer is viewable here (Quicktime), and the movie site has been upgraded from "neat" to "awesome". May 8 is (as I type) 170 days away …

Simon Pegg stars as Dennis Doyle. (No, not the 1975-77 Red Sox second baseman. That is a story for another movie.)

As the movie opens, it's his wedding day, and the bride is the lovely (and pregnant) Libby, played by Thandie Newton. But he gets cold feet and runs off, leaving Libby screaming in dismay and anger.

OK, so there are at least three unbelievable things right there.

We jump to five years later; Dennis's son is—well, five; Dennis is still a slacker, but he gets periodic visits, and he and the kid adore each other. Libby has taken up with prosperous, handsome, slick American, Whit (Hank Azaria), and this makes Dennis feel a tad competitive. Whit is a runner, and so Dennis vows to run in and complete an upcoming marathon.

This is all extremely predictable, but it's still quite funny, thanks to the talents of Simon Pegg and the rest of the cast.