The Hotel Room

I had an idea for a series of commercials that some chain of hotels, like Holiday Inn or Best Western, could do. It follows the basic format of celebrity endorsement, with a twist that I think will be very successful. Here's a sample run.

EXT. HOTEL

A nice shot of the outside of the hotel, in bright sunshine, with a few scattered clouds

DESK CLERK
Thanks for choosing us, sir.

INT. HOTEL LOBBY
The camera shows a side view of SHAQUILLE O'NEAL receiving a hotel key from a young female DESK CLERK

DESK CLERK
Here's your key. I really hope you enjoy your stay, Mr.O'Neal
SHAQUILLE O'NEAL accepts the key

SHAQUILLE O'NEAL
Thank you, I'm sure I will.

DESK CLERK
Tommy will show you to your room.

DESK CLERK gestures off-screen. SHAQUILLE O'NEAL turns. The camera changes to his point of view to show TOMMY WISEAU, dressed as a bellhop. Cue theme to The Room.

TOMMY WISEAU
Oh hai, Shaq!

Camera cuts briefly to SHAQUILLE O'NEAL, looking bemused.

TOMMY WISEAU
So let's go to your room, hah?

INT ELEVATOR
TOMMY WISEAU struggles to get luggage cart into elevator.

SHAQUILLE O'NEAL
Do you need a hand with that?

TOMMY WISEAU
Don't worry about it!

INT HOTEL HALLWAY
SHAQUILLE O'NEAL walks down the hall alongside TOMMY WISEAU, who's pushing the slightly damaged luggage cart.

SHAQUILLE O'NEAL
So then he says, "If I'd known you were on the Lakers, I would have charged you double!"

TOMMY WISEAU
Hahaha, what a story!

INT HOTEL ROOM

SHAQUILLE O'NEAL enters his room, followed by TOMMY WISEAU. The camera is focused on the two actors, not showing the room.

TOMMY WISEAU
Well, here you go!

SHAQUILLE O'NEAL
Thanks, but isn't this unusual for a hotel room?

Camera cuts to shot of the hotel room, which is dressed to resemble the apartment from The Room.

TOMMY WISEAU
It looks just fine to me. Anyway, enjoy your stay in THE ROOM.

Cut to splashscreen of the hotel's logo.

INT Hotel Room

SHAQUILLE O'NEAL fishes in his pocket for something.

SHAQUILLE O'NEAL
Oh here, a little something for you...

TOMMY WISEAU
Don't worry about it! A-hahahaha!

FADE TO BLACK as TOMMY WISEAU continues to laugh.

-Long Days and Pleasant Nights

It takes all kinds to make a can of mixed nuts

A while back, I was reading this "theory" by one of those Young Earth Creationists, trying to pose what he clearly thought was "definitive" proof that dinosaurs didn't live no millions of years ago.

His stance was this. His wife had bought a can of mixed nuts, and he'd been messing around with them, shaking the can. He noticed as he did so that the largest nuts tended to sink to the bottom. He left his conclusions out, clearly as an exercise for the reader. His intent was clear, he was trying to say that dinosaur bones "sank" to the Earth's lower strata, which is why paleontologists think they lived a long long time ago.

I probably don't have to enumerate the problems with that "theory," but I'll give you a random sampling. One, the Earth is not a can of mixed nuts. Maybe if the entire Earth was one big sandy beach about 30 feet deep, with regular Earthquakes spread uniformly across its entire surface, his idea might have some weight. But it's not, and the geological strata scientists dig through to get to dinosaur bones (among other thing) is solid rock, so there's nothing for the bones to sink through. Also, despite public perception, dinosaurs weren't all huge monstrosities that made the Earth quake with every ponderous step. Just like now, dinosaurs (and the other animals alive at the time) came in all shapes and sizes. For his theory to be true, the largest dinosaurs would mostly be at the bottom of the Earth's crust, and the smallest would be at the top. This is not what we find when we go hunting dinosaur bones.

And perhaps most importantly, what this man did was not a scientific experiment. It was what's commonly known as "grasping at straws." Anyone can take some random observation and make a wild generalization based on it. Here's a few examples.

1) I threw a ball at the ground, and it came back up. How can gravity exist if the ball is allowed to travel away from the Earth?

2) I took a rock and threw it as hard as I could. It didn't travel to Miami as I expected, it instead landed not too far from me. Therefore airplanes cannot exist.

3) I own two dogs, and they mated and had puppies. Extinction can't be real.

4) I once climbed to the top of a tree, and I could still breathe. All those pansies at NASA don't have to waste my tax money building spacesuits, they should just cowboy up and breathe space air!

See? It's fun.

-Long Days and Pleasant Nights

EXPECTO BENGHAZI!

Has anyone noticed that to the 15 or 16 die hard fanatics out there who just won't let go of it, the word "Benghazi" is like a magic wand that can be waved to end any partisan debate. And to those determined to turn it into a scandal if it's the last thing they'll do, they'll find a way to shoehorn it into any discussion of politics.

"Hey, the ACA enrollment numbers are up. Some commentators are saying they may reach their goal for enrollments."
"Millions of insured people are nothing compared to fpur dead Americans in Benghazi."
"No, I guess not, but look. Three more States are considering expanding Medicaid coverage."
"Medicaid wouldn't have saved the lives of four dead Americans in Benghazi."
"I don't see how that applies, but I suppose it's a true enough statement. But hey, how about Chris Christie? I bet this whole George Washington Bridge thing is hurting his popularity."
"If you think I'm going to let some real scandal distract me from four dead Americans, you can Benghazi my Benghazi."
"What about Bob McDonnell? Looks like there's a lot of trouble brewing with the GOP right now."
"No cuz Benghazi."
"Or Dave Agema. So far the Republican Party has had a rough year."
"BENGHAZI! BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI!"

Edit:

On further reflection, I think "Reductio ad Benghazium" would have been a better title for this blog.

Second edit:

Another point that I wanted to make, but forgot to include in the original entry, is that I find the language these few true believers use to be very interesting. Whenever they talk about the attack, they always say "four dead Americans." Not "four innocent lives," or "four people died." It's as if the important part isn't that four people died. The important part is that 'Merica. One gets the impression that if the only people who died in the attack were, for instance, four Libyan groundskeepers, nobody would care. "They should have thought about that before being born in Libya," people might say.

Perhaps the Left should adopt this strategy, and instead of talking about "America being plunged into two wasteful, pointless wars based on a lie," they could instead talk about "6,795* Americans dead" in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

* Number obtained from figures at http://icasualties.org/