...they named a dinosaur after her.

Would Mojo ever lie to you? No, she wouldn't. Because unlike most of the wretched people in your sad, pathetic life, Mojo cares about you, oh lucky internet stranger. Cares enough about you to always tell you the truth. Granted, if you ask my beloved Favorite Mother, she will insist there are times when I've mentioned her on this blog where she believes I have maybe "stretched" things a bit for comic effect. To which I say: I am shocked, SHOCKED, I tells ya, that she would ever say such a thing about her Forgotten Middle Child. And people wonder how Mojo turned out as well as she did, with THAT sort of thing going on in the background.

But I digress. This is just a quick non-mockingbird post to announce that yes, indeed, they have indeed discovered a new dinosaur and named it after Yours Truly. And none of them wimpy stupid scurrying ratlike chicken dinosaurs, neither, but a proud 'Ceratops style critter. The sort that could turn over your car and gore a T-Rex. And then make it with da ladies like nobody's bidness.

Have a good weekend, folks. Even if you're one of those sorry sorts who DON'T have a dinosaur named after you....

Mojo  MORE Mojo! »

I don't know why I've been thinking about this lately, but I have. And as we all know, that's good enough for Mojo.

Years ago, I had a fun, cushy job in academia, in the AV department of a fairly prestigious college. My job was to order, schedule and show all the AV materials the profs needed for their classes. Back then the majority were in 16mm format (when dinosaurs ruled the earth), which, unlike any of today's formats, really needs to be babysat so the film wouldn't suddenly decide to skip a sprocket and self-destruct. Hence I have watched many, many documentary and feature films in a variety of disciplines--anthropology, foreign languages, sociology, art, psychology, first aid, you name it--as well as all the classic oldies like Akira Kurosawa, Sembène Ousmane, blah blah blah. I mention this not to be utterly pretentious but just as a reminiscence of a really great, swell, fun time in life, where I got paid to hang out with cool, intelligent people and watch movies. Many of them over and over again.  MORE Mojo! »

So last Friday I picked up my Six-Year-Old Friend to come home and spend the long weekend with us. He brought lots of his Chased By Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Park DVDs, which my Favorite Husband enjoyed. I find them amusing as well, but as usual I am annoyed when nature people feel the need to pester wild animals for no apparent reason other than entertainment. At least Wild Kingdom and its ilk used to radio collar them and weigh them and whatnot. But now the trend seems to be just to pester them to get them to do entertaining stuff in front of the camera.

Of course in THIS case the animals are all CGI and/or puppets, so heaven only knows why Mojo is complaining except to keep her complaining muscles in shape. Oh, and another thing, as I frequently harp on when you mention the movie Jurassic Park--the tendency for the so-called "experts" to encourage approaching and attempting to pet wild animals and explaining they are "harmless" because they happen to be herbivores. Nigel (the guy in the videos we watched) is ALWAYS saying, "My, what a beautiful (insert name of very large easily-induced-to-go-on-a-trampling-rampage dinosaur here)! I've just GOT to get closer and pet / feed / otherwise aggravate him! Oh, NO! He's CHARGING! RUN!"  MORE Mojo! »

Not so much that they consciously lie, although we are starting ever-so-slightly to bend the truth to fit the circumstances. Only because they lack the life experience to know the correct response to some things, and don't think to ask for further clarification but instead jump to conclusions. You know, like some adults we know.  MORE Mojo! »

As regular Craptacular readers know, Mojo often hangs out with five-year-olds, probably because older sorts are too smart to put up with her. Consequently Mojo has gained insight into the human five-year-old mind.  MORE Mojo! »

Speaking of movies, there's ads out for a new Hannibal Lechter movie. Problem is, it's NOT Anthony Hopkins. Instead it's someone I don't know PRETENDING to be Anthony Hopkins playing Hannibal Lechter.  MORE Mojo! »

Lately my Favorite Husband has taken to watching the Jurassic Park movies, in backwards order. Not because of any particular reason, it's just the way our acquisition schedule has been working.

I don't MIND them; they are harmless fluff and sometimes funny and the dinosaurs are well done. I read the book before I saw the first one and TOTALLY hated the book, but luckily Spielberg was smart enough to cut out all the useless annoying chaos theory lectures.

We just got done watching the second one, after watching the third one a few days earlier. Mojo does not like sequels as a general rule, for they are chockablock full of stuff not good enough for the final cut in the first of the series. But since they are meant to be brainless entertainments and nothing more I can sit through them, although the impending Number Four I envision the entire bottom of the barrel has been scraped so much they're gonna poke a hole through it.  MORE Mojo! »

Yeah, okay, so I was going to take the day off, and I still am, but I spent most of yesterday with a five-year old and I have learned Valuable Life Lessons to share with all of you.

1. It is important to know the Latin names of all the dinosaurs, even the gazillions that have been discovered since Mojo was a child, and you must pronounce them properly.

2. The words "Catastrophic Hard Drive Failure" are essentially meaningless, no matter how much they may occupy Mojo's thoughts.

3. Getting really really angry and biting Mommy is very, very VERY bad, even though the actual event was several months ago. ("You get a time out for that. She was really angry. I was just a baby at the time. I learned my lesson" was the plaintive admission when we talked about it.)  MORE Mojo! »

Hold on to your teeth, kiddies! I know, I know, Mojo calls a lot of things "crap" when really there's nothing wrong with them. While she herself does not want them and/or does not find them useful and/or decorative and/or whatever, that does not mean that other people may find those very same objects to be their Holy Grail, their DaVinci Code, their....ah, Mojo is tired of trying to come up with any more popular culture references. You know.  MORE Mojo! »