The Daily Briefington Post

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My free psychiatrist, the A.L.I.C.E. chatbot, says I didn’t get enough attention from my mom as a kid. Then, last night, I had a dream that I was at the house of Pitch Editor-in-Chief C.J. Janovy, and she came down from her attic with a big box of all the art that I made when I was a little kid. The obvious conclusion will be horrifying to Ms. Janovy, and I can only apologize, sincerely, on behalf of my apparently attention-deprived subconscious. As an attention-getting device, from now on, I’ll be posting Daily Briefs in the spastic JAPAN BOMBS HITLER style of the Huffington Post, a Website that always looks like it’s right on the verge of a howling panic attack, even if they’re only talking about the Obama girls’ first day at their new school. Like this:

Hopefully this will ameliorate the whole situation. If nothing else, it shakes up the tiresome format of a daily web feature that’s become more and more like a lingering phlegmy cough as each month goes by.

LICENSE PLATES TO BECOME RIGHT WINGIER, MORE RETARDED.

“Choose Life” license plates are going to be available in Missouri, HOORAY! Putting aside the whole thorny argument about who decides which moral stances are appropriate for state dissemination, I actually don’t have a problem with individual people who want to publicly affirm their blastocyst advocacy, or even to urge other people to incubate their blastocysts into a late fetal stage. They’ve got their position, I’ve got mine. They’re never going to convince me that a blob of cells = a baby; I’m never going to convince them that their surplus of interest in other peoples’ uteruses is creepy.

Besides, I know how it feels to be on a particular side of a contentious issue. Last year in Daily Briefs, I said I thought the Watchmen film adaptation was probably going to be terrible. Horrified nerds immediately gasped albuterol mist into their asthmatic air passages, taped their glasses together, launched their Ubuntu-based Galeon web browsers and slipped on their carpal-tunnel wrist braces to fire off some angry, angry comments about my character. HURTFUL. And then some time passed, a new president was elected, my abdominal muscles became even more pronounced and ripply, and early this month, Warner Brothers released Watchmen to almost universally negative reviews.

As an FTD Pick-Me-Up Bouquet of olive branches to the nerds, I went to see Watchmen with my lady friend — in a nearly-empty theater! — and we both hated it. You’re 0-1, nerds. I was right and you were wrong, and the precipitous drop in box office receipts during its second weekend only proves that you all hated it, too. Which makes me extra right. So I’m pretty sure I’m also right when I say that the ladies shouldn’t come asking me for advice about the disposition of their fetuses. Seriously, ladies, that’s between you, your conscience and whatever retarded bumper stickers you encounter while driving. But I would, at some point, like to see a “Choose Life” license plate mounted right above a pair of Truck Nutz.

Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. Corp. to begin Operation: Neat Trucks

SWEET. Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. Corp. is going to build an assembly plant out by the airport, bringing 200 actual industrial-type jobs to Kansas City. This is an indisputably good thing. But why the fuck does the “operation” have a “code-name?” Apparently, the company, the state, or “Kit” Bond or somebody has named their little environmentally sensitive, carbon-emission-free vehicular business venture “Operation High Voltage.” Here’s a little tip about code-names: Once they’re published in the newspaper, your code has been cracked. And this is coming from a guy who once drank a jar of rubber cement to try to get a buzz on. Imagine how the actual geniuses are going to feel about the whole thing when their giant brains get wind of it.

Look, I realize this is a U.S.-British consortium, which maybe evokes a lot of allied powers Saving Private Ryan/Hogan’s Heroes-type nostalgia. But you guys aren’t trying to sneak past Jerry’s front line to sabotage a Panzer division, or tricking Col. Klink into drinking a supply of heavy water by telling him it’s a “youth potion.” You’re just trying to sell trucks. NO CODE NAMES NECESSARY. In fact, they’re probably counter-productive. I seem to remember that the first rule of advertising is “Do not encrypt the message.” And apparently, the second rule is “EVERYONE LOVES THE VERIZON GUY, HE WILL HAVE HIS JOB UNTIL HE DIES.” Jesus Christ, I hate that guy.