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Your Honor, I move for dismissal on the grounds that the movie sucked (Classic Legal Nonsense Repost)

17 Jul

July 17, 2012

Silly lawsuits never go out of style. Enjoy.

From November 4, 2010

Coming up is a story that you’d expect came straight from the United States, where it is every citizen’s right to file ridiculous lawsuits and waste the court’s time with nonsense. In fact, it has been estimated that if all frivolous lawsuits were dismissed immediately, and no further frivolous lawsuits filed, the entire legal load of merited cases could be handled by Judge Judy in a single afternoon, leaving the Supreme Court free to do what it does best, which is age at an alarming rate.

Of course not every lawsuit is frivolous, just ask these fine folks who filed suit, as found in The Huffington Post:

  • In 1991 Richard Overton tried to sue Anheuser-Busch for $10,000 because upon drinking copious amounts of Bud Light, beautiful women didn’t come to life in a tropical setting, as shown in the commercials.
  • Allen Heckard had a unique problem: people constantly told him he looked like basketball star Michael Jordan. Except Heckard saw it a bit differently, Michael Jordan looked like him. Naturally, he decided to sue Jordan and Nike for $832 million for his “emotional pain and suffering.”
  • In 1995, Robert Lee Brock attempted to sue himself for $5 million claiming he violated his own civil rights by getting intoxicated and committing crimes. He was serving a 23 year prison sentence at the time and thought the state would have to pay because he was incarcerated.

So obviously the legal system is pretty busy these days.

This problem is not unique to America. This story comes from China, where if they saw what passes for Chinese food in this country they would have a good laugh:

A lawyer in Xian, China, filed a lawsuit in September against a movie house and film distributor for wasting her time — because she was exposed to 20 minutes of advertisements that began at the posted time for the actual movie to begin. Ms. Chen Xiaomei is requesting a refund (equivalent of about $5.20) plus damages of an equal amount, plus the equivalent of about 15 cents for “emotional” damages — plus an apology. [The Guardian (London), 9-8-10]

Are you as shocked as I am? Imagine- only $5.20 for a movie! OK, she sat through some commercials, big deal. I sat through Starship Troopers and I paid around $8 for that. Other lousy films I paid to see were Batman and Robin and Any Given Sunday. Trust me, if anyone deserves to be sued it is Oliver Stone for that cinematic piece of crap. And Starship Troopers? If you voluntarily rent this film knowing that it is near the pinnacle of Casper Van Dien’s craft you deserve what you get. But this when he was only a new bad actor, not an established bad actor. I was young, I was naive, I was disgusted that the film wanted me to root for the Nazis.

But I digress.

I actually think that Ms. Chen Xiaomei should consider herself lucky. Not only would that film have cost around $12 in America ($145.50 in NYC, $195.50 for 3D) but while waiting for the commercials to end she would have likely consumed here entire 7.50 bucket of popcorn and 7.50 large soda. (Of course, she could have easily saved some cash by purchasing one of the theater’s combos, where the soda and popcorn would have only cost her $15.)  That amounts to $27 even before the coming attractions, and of course doesn’t take into account a date, which this female attorney didn’t seem to have.

I hope she wins the $10.55 she is suing for.

All this brings me (nearly) full circle from lawsuits to movies to lawyers. Can you imagine that this lawyer values her time so little that she is filing suit and spending time arguing a case for $10.55? (Ironically, the case is about wasting time.) She is either a very poor attorney or has very low self-esteem, either of which would also explain why she was alone at the movies in the middle of the day.

At any rate, and perhaps more importantly, she is also suing for an apology. Yes, an apology. She wants an “I’m sorry” from the theater, which makes me wonder if this case was filed in Ms. Wagner’s third grade class. I wonder if the judge will sentence them to shake hands and make nice? Or perhaps to kiss and make up, which may work out well for Chen Xiaomei if she can parlay that kiss into a date.

However, I may be minimizing the importance of the apology. No less an esteemed legal mind that Judge Marilyn Milian of The People’s Court says that small claims court is usually not about money, it is about the principle. She must be right. How else to explain the case, from the crotchety old Judge Wapner era, where one man sued another for 65 cents, the cost of a can of soda?

Frivolous lawsuits and bad movies will always be with us. True as that is, it is hard to believe that there are not many movies about frivolous lawsuits. Even if they were, however, they would not be prosecutable. If so, I’d have sued Jennifer Lopez for Gigli years ago, and put an injunction on Ban Affleck in the process. That man must be stopped before he acts again!

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Space Travel- A Primer (Classic Repost)

19 Jun

June 19, 2012

Kicking off Summer Classic Repost Tuesdays is this primer first published back in 2007. Has anything changed since then? Nope. Lindsay Lohan is still a punchline.

from September 29, 2007

I have been interested in space exploration since July 8th, 1978. That day my uncle Buzz Yeager Armstrong took me to NASA to show me where he works. Uncle Buzz was an astronaut, and he took me behind the scenes of both the Johnson Space Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratories. I got to wear a spacesuit, I walked on their simulated moon environment, and I was even blasted into near-Earth orbit when I stowed away in the payload of a Gemini 6 rocket. I came back with only a few ill effects, but I was kept in quarantine for a week because of exposure to cosmic radiation due to poor shielding in the cargo compartment. To this day I still yell “Flame on!” in times of extreme stress.

Since then, I have taken an interest in space travel and have now taken it upon myself to write this primer for you, the aspiring astronaut-to-be.

PART ONE- So You Want To Be An Astronaut.

It’s not easy becoming a member of the elite space corps. Buzz Yeager Armstrong was an air force test pilot for 25 years and flunked out of flight school twice before he was accepted for astronaut training. They don’t take just anyone. Lindsay Lohan, for example, cannot be an astronaut, no matter how much we would all like to blast her into space.

Astronauts go through rigorous training, both physical and mental. They must be able to withstand the enormous physical trauma of space flight- the high gravitational forces on takeoff and reentry followed by no gravity and weightlessness. Mentally, the stress is even harder. Ever see the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he stacks a dozen cases of dynamite on top of each other and lights the fuse, blowing up poor Elmer Fudd who was tied to the top? Well, that is space flight in a nutshell, and every astronaut knows it.

But if you have “the right stuff” you can be an astronaut. What is “the right stuff?” I don’t know but they have it. And if you have it, this primer is for you.

PART TWO- Space

Space is a very big place, and there is relatively little in it. Let me give you an example: Space is even emptier than Paris Hilton’s head. “That’s hot.” (No, Paris. In fact, space is very very cold.)

Before space flight, scientists believed that space was very crowded with a substance called “ether.” They could not see it or measure it, but they believed it was there nonetheless. Those early scientists were pretty stupid. (Or pretty religious, if you replace the word “ether” with the word “God.”)

Today we know that space is a vacuum which spans a distance many trillions of light-years across. What is a light-year? It is defined as the distance a ray of light will travel in a year. In terms of miles, it is a quazillion-billion-doodad miles, a long way in anybody’s book.

PART THREE- Objects Found In Space

Despite the relative emptiness, there are things in space which can kill you.

1- There is no air in space. If you ever find yourself going there, remember to pack some oxygen or you’ll have a very short visit.

2- Asteroids. These are also called “comets” or “meteorites,” depending on how accurate the movie you are watching is. Asteroids are 70% ice, 10% rock, and 20% anger. They exist to smash into planets and kill dinosaurs. This is what happened on Earth. An angry asteroid smashed into the planet and sent a giant cloud of dust into the air, blocking all sunlight, killing most plants, choking most oceans, and forcing the large animals that depended on plants and oceans to die. (No, no, Mr. Gore, I am not talking about your “Inconvenient Truth.” This is factual.) If you ever played the old video game “Asteroids” on the Atari 2600 you know how dangerous these objects can be.

3- There are a great number of planets in space, but only a fraction of them are thought possible of sustaining human life. According to Abbott and Costello go to Mars, the planet Venus is populated by a race of beauty pageant contestants who have never seen a man. (And one giant dog.) Since this movie’s release in the early 1950’s NASA has made a Venusian colony a top priority.

4- The sun. Look into the dawn sky. The big yellow one’s the sun. But don’t look directly at it! (I should have warned you first. Sorry.) It is a very hot environment. Don’t go there.

PART FOUR- Aliens

The official government position is that there is no life in space. We know that is untrue. Look no further than Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise is a Scientologist. Scientology is a science-fiction-based religion founded by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and its main tenets can be found in his science-fiction novels. And Tom Cruise is an actor. Since when has Hollywood been wrong about anything?

Scientology believes that Earth is an intergalactic prison and that problems on Earth are caused by evil aliens. Lost your job? Drink too much? It is the aliens fault. Scientologists also believe that one day the Evil Alien Dictator will return to destroy the Earth. That is why Tom Cruise has green-lighted Mission: Impossible 4- while there is still time.

You may run into these aliens as you travel through space. You may also run into Klingons, Vorlons, or Marvin the Martians, all of whom will have a better ship and cooler uniforms than you do.

PART FIVE- So You Still Want To Be An Astronaut

After reading this primer, many of you may still want to become astronauts. Good for you, junior space cadets!

Being an astronaut is one of the noblest callings of humanity. A man may be chosen Pope, a woman may experience the joy of motherhood, but only an astronaut can spend four hours on the launch pad only to have a couple of clouds and a seagull scrub the launch.

To you, Astronaut-To-Be, I say “clear skies and happy trails!” I salute you.

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