Adventure Combat Ops lets Vegas tourists tactically assault zombies

By Dan Brooks in Ethical Dilemmas 1 Comment

Las Vegas Review-Journal entertainment columnist Doug Elfman wins Lead of the Day for this emotional rollercoaster right here:

Las Vegas is about to get a new military attraction made for civilian entertainment — a hardcore, two-hour “Call of Duty”-esque immersion being built by some top forces who were part of the raids that killed Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein’s kids.

Tactical combat sounded so fun right up until we got to the part about killing kids. But don’t worry: Uday and Qusay Hussein were fully grown when we killed them. By “we,” of course, I mean the people heroes of US special forces operations like Seal Team Six, Delta Force, and the Green Berets. By pretty much universal assent, they are the coolest people in American society. It is extremely awesome to burst into a building and surprise hell out of everybody while shooting their center masses. Now you can do that, too, but with pellets instead of bullets and zombies instead of people.

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Friday links! I did it for the money edition

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 1 Comment
Benicio del Toro enjoys some on-the-nose dialogue with James Caan's bagman in The Way of the Gun

Benicio del Toro enjoys some on-the-nose dialogue with James Caan’s bagman in The Way of the Gun.

“Fifteen million dollars is not money,” some hard case says in Christopher McQuarrie’s The Way of the Gun. “It’s a motive with a universal adaptor on it.” That criticism of contemporary screenwriting applies even better to contemporary society. We all agree you shouldn’t do things just for the money, but an awful lot of what we do now compensates us little else. From financial services to country music, society encourages growing numbers of people to perform empty tasks joylessly for money. What used to be a sad admission around bar close has become an operating principle. Today is Friday, and if you don’t take whatever money they offer you to do anything, you’ll starve. Won’t you buy in with me?

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Uber to bankrupt Missoula taxi companies, finally doing justice

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 5 Comments
One-star Yelp reviews of Yellow Taxi

One-star Yelp reviews of Yellow Taxi

There are two taxi companies in Missoula: Yellow Taxi, which currently enjoys a one-star rating on Yelp, and Green Taxi, which may or may not have purchased a second car. If you call a cab in this town, the wait is usually between one and two hours. I’ve been utterly stiffed at 6am by Green Taxi and missed a flight as a result. Also on my way to the airport, I’ve been picked up an hour late by Yellow Taxi and then told we were going to stop for a second fare. The dispatcher of the same company once told me to fuck myself when I called to ask where my cab was.

These two enterprises have been protected from the invisible hand of a free market by the Public Services Commission, which has used its regulatory authority to quash any competing cab companies in Missoula for the last several years. But this cabal of incompetents can suck it from now on, because Uber is coming to Missoula. The Montana legislature approved the transportation network carrier’s operation in the state, and because Uber is technically not a cab company, the PSC cannot regulate it out of business. Soon, the owners of Yellow and Green Taxi will be starving in the streets, their children reduced to performing janitorial work at the customer-service call centers of Chinese pornography companies. Or they’ll offer better, more reliable service. Either would be okay with me, as I explain in this week’s column for the Missoula Independent. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.

Republican strategists prepare for alternate-future 1992

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 1 Comment
Donald Trump sees a squirrel.

Donald Trump sees a squirrel.

Midway through this strange Hill story, in which Senate Republicans inexplicably describe Donald Trump as a “smart guy” instead of a “shit-eating wildman,” GOP strategist John Ullyat articulates a frightening vision of the future:

The Republican candidates who decide to take him on and attack him do so at their peril and the party’s peril, because the worst thing for Republicans is for Trump to go through the primaries and make a third-party run.

But that would never happen, right? It seems pretty implausible that this country could see a three-way election among a Bush, a Clinton, and an outspoken billionaire—god dammit.

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South Carolina senate votes to take down Confederate flag, 30 or 40 cold beers

By Dan Brooks in American History 0 Comment
The South Carolina State House

The South Carolina Statehouse

In the third of three required votes, the state senate of South Carolina has decided 36-3 to take down the Confederate battle flag and one or two cases of cold beer. The three votes against came from Senate Majority Leader Harvey S. Peeler, Jr., Lee Bright, and Daniel B. Verdin III, with Deke the smell-hound abstaining. Senator Verdin called for a Confederate memorial holiday on which the flag could be flown, and Senator Peeler complained that “we won’t change history by removing the flag.” Senator Bright, on the other hand, felt that the problem with taking down the Confederate flag was that it would not stop gay marriage:

“This nation was founded on Judeo-Christain principles and they are under assault by men in black robes who are not elected by you…What I would like to see is these folks that are working in the positions that are doing …marriage certificates do not have to betray their faith or compromise their faith and in order to subject [themselves] to the tyranny of five… Our governor called us in to deal with the flag that sits out front. Let’s deal with the national sin that we face today. We talk about abortion, but this gay marriage thing I believe we will be one nation gone under, like President Reagan said.”

The senator’s speech concluded when the firecracker he was holding went off.

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