The Numbers Game

I guess I'll just post something short since I haven't really felt like blogging recently. I don't know why...I just feel kind of drained, creatively I mean. So it's ID4-plus-1 and here I am, back at work again. It's pretty dead here because everyone else was smarter than me and took the day off...well, actually that's not true. I basically ended up getting screwed (again) because my coworker decided to schedule a shoot for today and then take off, leaving me to deal with it. I guess I don't really have any right to be bitter, when I've been here as long as he has (and, by the way, shoot me if that happens) I'll make sure to dump as much crap as possible on the new kid, if only so that the cycle continues in perpetuity.

Anyway, like I started to say...I'm back. For those unfamiliar with current events, I've been at the Jersey Shore (Long Beach Island, to be exact) for the past couple of days. I've never been there before but I guess I pretty much knew what to expect. Pretty standard beach community, if not a little cleaner than what I'm used to. Now I'm by no means a "beach person," I burn too easily...but whenever the opportunity presents itself, I still manage to be the first in line. Family, high school pals, girlfriends, it doesn't matter. Something about the ocean gets me every time (though the beach itself is a whole 'nother thing. I hate the sand, it's coarse and it gets everywhere...) This time, the rogues gallery incuded some guys that started out as "my video gaming friends" but evolved at some point into actual friends. It was initially myself, Kevin, Jon, Dennis, and Paul but at some point, the roster expanded to include x-factors Nick (Kevin's brother) and Kelly (Paul's girlfriend.) The point of the trip? Relaxation. Mission accomplished? Not so much...

Here's a breakdown:

-Number of days spent at the beach: 3 (essentially)

-Amount of time actually spent ON the beach: 45 minutes (at about 4:30 in the morning)

-Number of hours spent "relaxing": 6

-Number of hours spent "recovering": at least 20

-Dollar amount of electronics contained in the house before we arrived: >$300

-Dollar amount of electronics contained in the house after we arrived: <$2500

-Number of episodes of "Chapelle's Show" watched: 4

-Number of times "Chappele's Show" was quoted: Approx. 200

-Number of times Jon refused to laugh out loud at either "Arrested Development" or "Reno 911," (even though you could tell he really wanted to): at least 10

-Number of clubs visited: 4

-Number of cover bands seen: 4

-Number of cover bands that thought they were hot shit: 3

-Number of cover bands that were actually hot shit: 1 (and it was 2 middle aged guys playing oldies covers on a guitar and keyboard for a bunch of senior citizens)

-Number of Bon Jovi songs heard: 2

-Amount of times I heard those same 2 songs: at least 6

-Number of times I actually wanted to kill myself after listening to aforementioned Bon Jovi songs: 5 (it was novel the first time, being Jersey and all)

-Number of increasingly bizarre text messages sent to friends while krunked: 5 (I think Matt ended up with the 'A' material...)

-Number of drinks consumed: 30 (counting homemade Beam & Cokes)

-Average price of a drink at the bars: $6.00

-Number of well poured drinks: 2 (and they were both at the wood paneled oldies bar)

-Number of meals eaten: 8

-Number of meals actually eaten at mealtime: 0

-Number of meals I'd describe as "fucking awesome": 1 (and, of course, I cooked it myself. Jon, and whoever else ate either the shrimp or the veggies, can back me up on this.)

-Best name for a dish: Stoner Pancakes

-Best time to eat Stoner Pancakes: 3:30 am

-Number of times I was burned by Nick Kelly's cigarette while waiting to order Stoner Pancakes: 3

-Number of "attractive" girls seen: Hundreds

-Number of girls I actually found attractive: 3 (maybe 4)

-Number of templates used to create the rest: 2 (the molds used were "Blonde W.A.S.P." and "Irritated Jewess.")

-Number of douche bags with pink shirts: 5

-Number of douche bags with their collars up: 13

-Number of smartass comments made about said douche bags: Infinite

-Amount of fun had by all: At least 5 trash bags full

-Number of drinks we all owe Kevin for being the ship's captain: Several

So there you have it. While it's a little longer than I'd originally intended, that's a pretty accurate representation of the trip...save a few boring details. Chances are, other pieces of the whole story will be available via everyone else's blogs (hopefully Jon'll do one about the meals on his Food Blog) and there'll be some good pictures up soon. Hm...I guess I should probably get back to the part of working that makes vacations actually mean something... Woo! Aught Five!

Part 2: A refusal to name names...

So I guess I was going to have to finish the Chicago report sooner or later. It's been almost a month, so I guess it's kind of a moot point now, but whatever. It was a genuinely quality trip and, while I didn't get to have a threesome with our stripper friends (it was brought up...and not by me...but never followed through on) or do any illicit substances off of explicit body parts, the bar has been raised yet again. That's all the words you're getting. Whatever, you'd rather look at pictures anyway...

We were all more attractive before 8 hours of drinking and 3 hours of dancing...

Andy and Chris are intrigued by 2 completely different things.

This didn't work out as well as we'd hoped...

Chris was behind the camera singing "Happy Together" by the Turtles.

I like stuff that's on an angle.

The fake moustache makes its first appearance...

...but not its last.

Is this not the scariest thing ever?

Erin, it almost looks cute on you...

Where would we be without Myspace?

Wow, that really does look like a diaper...

I'll miss you, Chicago...

Coming soon to a retard near you!

As if I really needed any reinforcement for my feelings that MMOs are just about the dumbest thing to happen to video games since the Virtual Boy, along comes some jackass and does the legwork for me. For those of you that don't know what an MMO is, it's a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (for those of you that don't care, come back later when I'm done being a geek...I'm sure I'll be talking about drugs or tits or rock and roll or some such hot shit in no time.) An MMO means that you create a character that inhabits a virtual world populated with other online players from all over the world. These games come in lots of different forms. There's one based on Star Wars, one taking place within The Matrix, one in the Final Fantasy world and dozens of others. As a (primarily offline) console-based gamer, I first became aware of these games when I dated a girl was was addicted to this game called Everquest. 

Now apparently this game was so highly addictive and integral to some peoples' lives that they would start to replace their reality with this false fantasy world. You'd hear about people losing their jobs, marriages failing, or becoming addidcted to amphetamines all in the name of being able to play for "just one more quest." I personally never got into this whole thing because I've got a short attention span and can't really get into any game that I can't pause or turn off at any time. I'm even reticent to play shit like Halo online, just in case the phone rang or I wanted to smoke a cigarette or something.

Anyway, like I said, evidence of the hold these games have on certain can be seen in their real world reflections. People will dress up as the characters and spend RIDICULOUS amounts of real world money on eBay for leveled up characters and items and shit. This concept just seems unbelievably fucking dumb to me, but I spend money on some stupid shit too...so who am I to judge? The thing that really gets me is just how serious some people take this. According to my friend Jon, there are entire sweatshops in China and other places where there are just rooms of dudes chained to computers spending all day on these games gathering experience and items to be sold over the internet. Now apparently, over there they do things a little differently when it comes to the concept of "virtual property," something I'm not incredibly clear on in the first place. This sometimes leads people to take the law into their own incredibly inept hands...which is what spawned this rant in the first place. This is an article from the gaming site ign.com that basically sums up just how fucking insane people are over these games:

Gamer Murdered Over Virtual Property

In Shanghai, one MMORPG player crosses every line.

by David Adams

June 8, 2005 - In an extreme example of gamers taking a hobby (obsession?) too far, Shanghai gamer Qui Chengwei stabbed Zhu Caoyuan in the chest, killing the fellow gamer, according to the BBC News.

The motive for the murder? Zhu sold a virtual sword in the online game Legend of Mir 3 -- a sword Qui Chengwei had loaned him.

Qui had apparently tried to take the virtual property dispute to the police, but China lacks laws covering virtual property like an online sword. Zhu had offered to pay Qui the money he'd earned from the sword, but Qui refused.

Qui Chengwei now faces a suspended death sentence, meaning he could spend his life in jail, but that he may also be released on "good behavior" in 15 years.

Victim Zhu Caoyuan was 26 years old. His parents are currently seeking appeal for an immediate death sentence.

 

Need I say more? Between shit like this and that retard who ran over those two cops a while back while he was trying to reenact his little Grand Theft Auto-erotic fantasies, it's no wonder video games are getting such a bad rap these days. I understand that when you're in a business that takes in more money than the porno industry (in the same, highly coveted, demographic) you're going to eventually come under fire for something, but c'mon guys, let's not go fanning the flames...

Hell of a town...(Part 1)

I really wanted to write this yesterday while everything was still really fresh in my head but hopefully I'll still be able to do it justice.

Ingredients for a successful Chicago trip:

Step 1: Fly into Midway Airport. Fuck a whole bunch of O'Hare. You will end up sitting on the runway, bored out of your skull.




Step 2: Find a free place to stay, preferably with someone who has a nice place. That way you'll be able to save enough money for Step 3...




Step 3: Drink. A lot. Yeah, drinks there ain't cheap...but they're not any worse than in DC.

Step 4: If you end up in a ultra-trendy bar or club by mistake, find the most down-to-earth people in there and chat them up. Chances are, you won't want to stab them nearly as much as the nouveau glitterati.

Step 5: If any of those people give you their phone number before leaving, put in the correct name. This will eliminate any awkwardness when you go through your phonebook the next day and can't figure out who the fuck "Spanky" is.

Step 6: If, for any reason, you are invited back to some girls' apartment to hang out after closing time, make sure that her stupid drunken boyfriend isn't wandering around there shirtless and talking shit about you like you're not in the room. If you do find yourself in this situation, bail before you have to fight him. It'll save everyone a lot of trouble the next morning.

Step 7: Don't forget to eat! Also, make sure you don't go anywhere that serves white-people food. That shit fuckin' sucks!

Step 8: Find out from a cool local what will be going on while you're in town. It'll save you a lot of trouble down the line. (Mad props to Bree, for telling us about the Q101 Block Party)

Step 9: Drink. A lot. It will make you like Interpol far more than you did before. Queens of The Stone Age, however, need no assistance in kicking ass.




Step 10: If you're at a show, wearing a t-shirt with a joke about strippers on it, and the girls standing in front of you keep stealing glances at your shirt and giggling, find out if they are A) On mushrooms or B) are, themselves, strippers. If it's both, make sure and get at least one of their phone numbers.




*So apparently this is running a little longer than I thought it would. I think I'm going to break it here and continue with Part 2 a little later. Your crappy little attention span will thank me for it...*

Photo Dump, 5/25/05

I was going through my work hard drive today and found a couple of pleasant little Photoshop hackjobs that I'd made back a few months ago and kind of forgotten about...

Enjoy!

I made this one back when all that wholly unnecessary Evolution vs. Creationism bullshit started popping up.

Yeah, okay...this one was kind of obvious but you'd be surprised how much time it took to do the lettering, so here it is anyway...

Unmasked! Halo 2.5's surprise twist ending...Master Chief finally removes his helmet, to reveal...Uncle Jesse?

This was the first propaganda "poster" for the Pokemon Defense League.
It will not be the last.

The Dark Side? You're soaking in it!

News!!

Awww, damn! You got SITHED!!

Reviews!!

C.H.U.D.!!

The New Yorker!!

The Village Voice!!

Opinions!!

Looking back on Episode III almost a week later...

The Good:

• Some of the vehicles were kinda cool
  
  
• That once scene between Anakin and Palpatine at the aquatic Cirque de Soleil or whatever the fuck they were watching. (That must have been one of the ones punched up by Tom Stoppard.)
  
  
• That part with Yoda and the Emperor's Guards
  
  
• The inception of the Vader armor
  
  
• Yoda and Palpatine's fight in the Senate (I just wish those box seats could have been filled with Gungans and E.T.s at the time)
  
  
• A good portion of that final fight between Marv and Kevin in LavaTown USA.
  

The Bad:

• NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
  
  
• Um, pretty much everything else.
  

The Ugly:

• What's with all the hand chopping?! So according to Lucas, it's okay to have sex with little boys but masturbation is absolutely out of the question? I mean yeah, I guess the clergy motifs are pretty obvious if you think about it...but jesus George, that doesn't make it right!
  

Obsessions!!

Oops...looks like we're all going to HELL! Well, I had a good run...

The scariest thing in the world is knowing that when these people breed, they breed with eachother...

No way we're getting out of here without a good power converter joke...

Mind, flayed.

So Lightning Bolt played last night and SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS!! It was, if not one of the best, easily one of the most uniquely memorable shows I've ever been to. If you've ever been to the Talking Head, you can imagine that it would be an unbelievably BAD place to see them, since they play down on the floor with the crowd around them in an arrangement like this:

Now imagine 200 people crowded into the first floor of the Talking Head, which is pretty much the size of my combined living/dining rooms, all rocking out with their cocks out. Sounds like a terrible idea, doesn't it? Yeah, well, apparently the band agreed and they ended up playing outside in the alley behind the club (territory that I'd "marked" more than my fair share of times back when it used to be the Ottobar.) Luckily, I've got friends with their ears to the ground and when we heard the rumors that they were going to move the show outside, we shoved our way though the now overwhelming crowd and set up camp outside. The tip paid off and there we were, mere inches from having our teeth knocked out by a stray tuning peg from dude's bass. Then it began...and we prayed at the altar of the almighty rock, distilled down to its purest essence. Bodies compacted into one sweaty heaving mass all vibrating in time with the beautifully brutal aural onslaught. The feeling was indescribable. About four or five songs in, it started to rain. Luckily, it wasn't going hard enough to make them quit and actually helped to cool us all down a little bit, though really not nearly enough. So pushing on, they continued their assault for another handful of songs before the cops showed up and forced us to scatter.

In retrospect, it was probably for the best since I don't think my brain could have taken much more before either shutting down or just melting completely and running out my ears. Either way, words can't really do it justice. It was easily the best show I've seen all year and a definite contender for top 5 of all time. I can't stress this enough but if you've never seen them, then make it a point to do so.

There's still a couple more chances this tour for you east coasters:

• May 23 - Philadelphia - Pygmy Street


• May 24 - NY - North Six


• May 26 - NY - The Hook


• May 27 - Providence

Results may vary, however, I can guarantee you won't regret it. If you've never heard them, get the hell over here now and prepare to be mind-raped. These guys don't fuck around...

Episode III, summed up in 3 words.

Actually, I'm halfway between "IT'S A TRAP!" and "I'M A MONSTER!"

That's really all you need to know for now. I might write something else about it when I've fully processed everything and it comes full circle back to the point when I actually kinda liked it. Right now I'm somewhere between, "Wow, that one 5 second part was pretty cool." and "Why doesn't anyone on the crew shake Lucas and just be like 'George, what the fuck?! Midichlorians? Darth Plageius? R2-D2's little hand thingies? Infantry robots built with emotion engines and self preservation units? The whole Bush/Cheney thing...it all needs to go!'"

Also, apparently, there's a Jedi named "Kit Fisto." It doesn't really have to do with anything but seriously...what the fuck?

Also, also...this movie is pretty gay. No, that's not just a figure of speech. I really mean it.

Also cubed...I happened to be lucky enough to see some real life "Jedi" showin off their moves! (It's a known fact that Jedi can move so fast, half the time they cannot even be caught on film. Luckily, through the magic of digital photography, we can make out what is, most assuredly, an intense lightsaber battle taking place on what looks to be Asphaltia, the Parking Planet.)

Stop the show...

A little bit of background...Back in my freshman year of college, I had a roommate who loved Built to Spill. I mean fucking LOVED them. It made sense...he played guitar and smoked a lot of pot...Doug Martsch plays guitar that seems to sound better after smoking a lot of pot. Now I'm not that great at math but that seemed to be a pretty simple equation to me. However, what I never could understand was his inexplicable love affair with his CD player's repeat button. As a music lover, I get wanting to listen to a particularly excellent album again and again...however, as someone with ADD, I cannot understand how someone can listen to the same album 15x in a row...especially if you owned as many albums as, well, pretty much everyone I know. Well, as the year dragged on, his obsession slowly became the bane of my existence. I began to lose it. One by one, beloved albums (as well as their creators) fell victim to my knee-jerk backlash. Dinosaur jr.'s Without a Sound, Weezer's Blue Album and, most notably, the incredible There's Nothing Wrong With Love by Built to Spill.

I didn't want to hate these bands, I didn't want to hate these albums...I was driven to it! Time passed and slowly the horrible memories of their undue overexposure faded. They crept back into my collection and eventually Built to Spill returned to its rightful place in my "Top 10 bands of all time" list. Songs were caught up on, missing records were eBayed, and shows were attended. BTS was back at the center of my universe, and all was well with the world.

Jump forward to September 11th, 2001. The world was poised to end, as far as we all knew. All my friends and I could ask eachother was "Well, is Built to Spill still playing this week?" We wanted it...no, we needed it. They're one of those bands that, if the world ended tomorrow, I'd be like, "At least I got to see BTS one last time." So the day of the show rolled around and sure enough the 9:30 Club was packed wall to wall with screaming fans. We were together in a single mind. There was no way in hell we were going to let a little thing like a potential apocalypse get in the way of our God-given right to Pac-Northwest stoner-rock! And they played...and it was good. Amazing, actually. They played everything we could have possibly hoped to hear...including a full 15 minute cover version of Skynrd's most tragic mistake, Freebird (I think that shouting "Freebird" at a show at this point in 2005, should be an offense punishable by death...or at least a public flogging.) It was one of those shows that after you leave, no matter what's going on in the world, you know that somehow, it's all going to be alright.

In the years that followed, BTS dropped further and further off the map. There were no new albums, no new tours. There were rumors of a breakup. Doug Martsch went solo (his album, Now You Know is actually a pretty excellent folky/bluesy/old timey record. I'd definitely recommend it.) It was sad, but we all eventually accepted it. Built to Spill was no more.

Then, a few months ago, I was surfing around and stumbled across a headline. "Built to Spill to release new album, tour." So I dug deeper. I found a copy of their schedule online and noticed something different from every other BTS schedule I'd ever seen...it included Baltimore. I lost my shit right there. Finally, after years of having to go to hated DC to see them, they would be playing right here in my hometown! This was a huge deal for me and I decided that no matter where, when, or how expensive it was...I would be there.

And there I was at Sonar (a place that should never, ever have rock shows,) packed into their former "main" room with a couple of hundred kids who, like me, were all grinning like retards and singing along to their favorite indie/stoner-rock jam band. I'll admit, the show wasn't perfect...there were a few minor hiccups along the way. One of the backup mics fed back something fierce when the other guitarist (formerly of the NW outfit Caustic Resin) tried to take over lead vocals for a cover of one of Resin's songs, driving him visibly crazy (which is no small feat considering he already looked like the president of the Unibomber Look-Alike Society.) The other problem was the lighting. I still don't get why it was a problem, but apparently Sonar's lighting has exactly two settings: "I'm tripping balls" and "off." When, about 3 songs in, Martsch announced to the guys in the booth that the "...laser show is giving our drummer a headache" Sonar's response was to shut down everything except for the blinding spotlight. Brilliant. When it began to make the band noticeably uncomfortable, they finally managed to figure out how to turn off the laser show and put on some nice purple sidelights that didn't seem to blind or irritate anybody. The problem was, this all took far too long and I hope the incompetents responsible were given a proper talking to. Anyway, yeah...like I said, not perfect but pretty fucking good. They played, from what I can remember:

• Big Dipper


• The Plan


• Carry The Zero


• Sidewalk


• You Were Right


• Strange


• In Your Mind


• I Would Hurt A Fly


• Built To Spill


• When Not Being Stupid is Not Enough


• Conventional Wisdom (new one)


• Stop the Show


• Alien Fugue (Caustic Resin song)

I might have forgotten ore or two (the memory ain't what it used to be) and this definitely wasn't the order they were played in, but I do know that those are some really good songs, and made me very happy. However, what made me even happier is that when we were standing outside after the show we ran into the aforementioned Unibomber-esque guitarist and he agreed with my opinion that from now on they should play Baltimore from now on, whenever they tour. I guess we'll see how that one pans out...

My only regret? I didn't bring my camera. If I had, however, the picture probably would have ended up looking pretty much like this, so I don't feel too badly...

It's the final countdown...

*UPDATE*So, this morning I opened my mailbox and got some totally excellent news! It's official...the execs at FOX have pulled their heads out of their asses long enough to actually listen to their viewers! In previous years many other excellent shows on there with less-than-American-Idol-sized ratings (Futurama and Firefly come to mind) have gotten the axe long before their time.

This year, Arrested Development was that show on the chopping block. As with other shows that gain a strong following of rabid fans, when it was announced that our beloved show was "on the bubble," we sprung into action. Petitions were signed, letters were written, ads were taken out in Variety, DVD sets were purchased at an alarming rate, and more (I assume many folks even sent bananas to FOX,) all to show our support for this masterpiece of modern television.

For me, this felt like deja-vu since I had just done the same thing a year or so before when the WB was threatening to pull Angel's feeding tube...and just like with Angel, I paced for months in that metaphorical waiting room, not knowing whether it would be life or death for this show that I'd invested so much of my time and energy into (I mean, as much as I could without actually working on it.) I would scour the trades and internet message boards, for the tiniest scraps of information. The last thing I had to go on was the fact that before the season ended, FOX had cut their episode order down to 18 from a standard 22. Not so much the beacon of hope I'd been searching for.

Then, recently, when AD won the USA Today's annual "Save Our Show" poll, it felt this uphill battle was finally coming to an end but with May 19th (the day when FOX would announce their fall lineup,) still in the future , nothing was set in stone. Then more and more unofficial "reports" started trickling in saying that FOX was in talks with the producers about renewing! Of course me, being the cynic that I am, wasn't jumping up and down over the "news." That is, until this morning when I opened my email and was greeted with this:

Now is the part where you (providing you're still reading at this point) come in. It's up to you to keep this show on the air. If you've never seen it before, watch the reruns this summer. Find the episodes on the internet. Buy the DVDs. Ask me to lend you the DVDs. Whatever...just WATCH! I guarantee this hermanos, you will not be making a huge mistake.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, as some of you might know, while I don't watch a lot of TV...I am fiercely loyal to the couple of shows I do watch. Now, the problem here is that all these shows usually end up getting cancelled and I am usually left high and dry (as far as TV is concerned.) I have a couple of theories about why this is (one of them being that the Nielsen Ratings are inversely proportionate to the viewers' IQs. This theory can be supported by the charts found here) Over the past couple of years, I've watched excellent show after excellent show get shitcanned, (Futurama, Angel, Wonderfalls, Freaks & Geeks, and Firefly, to name a few) while Law and Order is in it's fourth or so spinoff and they run American Idol 3 times a week (to the tune of 11+ million viewers an episode.)

This time, the show on the chopping block is my beloved Arrested Development. For those of you that haven't seen this show, I can only describe it as brutally funny. I laugh out loud at least two or three times an episode, and there's very few shows I can say that about. I mean, shit...The Simpsons hasn't made me bust a gut laughing in years...literally. What makes AD so brilliant is that they don't pander to the audience one bit. They assume that the viewers are at least as intelligent as the writers, which makes for the same sort of humor as, say, Futurama, where jokes may actually even go over your head the first time around. The upside to that is that it basically forces you to watch the episode more than once in order to even catch all the jokes, as they come at you non-stop (unlike Friends, for example, where they'll do a setup, then some lame joke, then wait for the laughtrack before setting up some other lame joke.) Each episode of AD is so densely packed with a stellar cast, clever wordplay, callbacks to previous episodes, ridiculous slapstick, and the best guest stars on TV (Ben Stiller, Ione Skye, Carl Weathers, Bob Odenkirk, Dan Castellaneta, and Henry Winkler...to name a few.) I really can't praise this show enough...which gets me back to my point. Fox, in its infinite wisdom (*coughgreedcough*) is currently reviewing its initial decision on whether or not to cancel the show. Apparently, they've already cut this season down to 18 eps. from 22 and the final fate will be decided soon. This is where you come in. I urge everyone who comes across this to not only check out Arrested Development but to sign this pledge to Fox that you will be a regular viewer (it only takes a second and you paranoid types can even send it from a fake email account, so quitcher bitchin you fucking baby.)

Now if you've never seen it before, it's on Sunday nights after the Simpsons (which, due to the sharp decline in both quality and viewership, may be AD's main problem) at 8:30. Since it's a show that builds on previous episodes, I'd also recommend checking out the first season on DVD. Rent it or, better yet, buy it today. Or, if I know you, just ask and I'll lend it to you. Fuck, I'll even buy it for you! I mean, the more DVDs they sell, the better chance the show has. My point is, just watch the damn show, please! You'll really be glad you did...and I'll be even happier since I won't get screwed out of, yet another, brilliant show.

There is a god, I think...

As far as I've been able to gather from a recent pre-EpIII interview given by The Flanneled One himself, Jar Jar Binks (who is quite possibly the worst character to come out of Hollywood since Jack Valenti himself) will not be appearing in Episode III!!

Lucas can be quoted here in regards to the whereabouts of one Mr. J.J. Binks, Esq.:

"'And about Jar-Jar Binks: "He goes back to Naboo and he's a representative. He probably stays on the council, he's probably in the senate, because it becomes completely worthless. Senators are just for show, which they talk about in Episode IV. Actually, in Episode IV they get disbanded, so Jar Jar probably goes home to his wife and kids.'"

Now I don't know about you, but to me, those "probablys" mean that the Gungan Uncle Tom is gonna be nowhere near this film. Geeks the world over breathe a collective (yet slightly asthmatic) sigh...




Whassa Me Worry?

Inspiration City

So I was really inspired by today's Something Awful Photoshop Phriday topic, "Sin City." Now for any of you who haven't read the comic before...fucking do so! For those of you that haven't seen the movie yet...WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?! Anyway, I made this little picture for some photoshop practice so that I can eventually create some dope propaganda materials for the future Pokemon Liberation Front (name subject to change) website. If all goes well, this won't be the last time you'll be hearing about that. Until then...

Aw man, this is too good...

An update on the previous "Star Wars" post. Apparently, those dumb fucks are lined up at the wrong theater. I'd make a joke about this, but it seems they've already done the work for me.

A simple equation...

I've figured it out! Apparently the amount of words written in a blog are inversely proportionate to how many comments are left.

Also, apparently the word "blog" itself isn't in Blogger's spellcheck dictionary.



How ironic...

I really hate to say this...

but I kinda miss MySpace. Sigh...

You're effin' kidding me, right?

So apparently on April 1st, a shit-ton of dateless losers decided to plant their fat fanboy asses square in front of the famous Chinese Theater in Hollywood to wait for tickets to George Lucas's upcoming bloated, self-serving debacle entitled Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Ludicrously Long Titles. It seems as if several of these inbred toolboxes have banded together and started a website chronicling the next month's greasy adventures in sitting on their asses.

Wow, it's going to be a real page-turner, I'm sure:

-"Day one...sat here and played PSP. Got laughed at by hundreds of passerby."

-"Day two...argued with Jim about midichlorians as a metaphor for the potential in all living beings...tried to play PSP only to discover that the battery has roughly the same life-span as a fruit fly. Got laughed at by overweight Midwestern tourists wearing Hawaiian shirts and sandals with black socks."

-"Day five...today, some unbelievably hot looking women were walking by and stopped to ask us what we all were waiting here for (even though the fact that Rob and Steve were two feet behind me fighting with plastic lightsabers should have given it away.) When I told them that we were waiting in line for tickets to the next Star Wars movie, they proceded to mace me and repeatedly kick me in the balls until I had no choice but to curl up on the ground, sobbing until they turned away in disgust. Still, that was the most contact that I've ever had with a member of the opposite sex, so I guess this counts as my best day ever!"

-"Day eleven...so cold...so hungry...Oh, and got laughed at by hundreds of passerby."

-"Day fourteen...the hunger is unstoppable. Steve was the first to succumb. His sacrifice, however was not in vain as, not only did his significant girth provide all of us with a hearty banquet but the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi came to me and told me that if I hollowed out his lifeless corpse (Tauntaun style) I could use it as a sleeping bag to get me through the chilly nights ahead."

Actually, that's probably MUCH more interesting than their blog so I guess I'll have to stop right now. Anyway, the point I guess I was trying to make is that while I would have once considered myself a Star Wars fanboy, there is no way in HELL I'd have even waited for a month in line to see Episode 1 even though it had been like 20 years since the last Star Wars movie. I mean, did any of these retards even SEE the last two movies? I mean they ranged from "Shit-on-a-stick" to "Unen-fucking-durable!" These people have to know what they're getting into here. You can only have so much blind faith, you know? It's like waiting in line for over a month for voluntary rectal surgery. I just don't get it. Hopefully, one or more of these people will have an "Oh, I've wasted my life!" sort of epiphany, while standing in line (or at the very least, after they finally leave that theater in May)...but I'm not holding my breath (well, unless I happen to walk past any of those kids as I'm sure the stench is unbearable.)

They go in threes*...

So last week was pretty busy for the reaper squad, huh? They say that people tend to die in threes, and famous people are no exception. Last week was pretty major in the death circuit. If I'd been in a death pool, I'd probably have cleaned up right about now. To be fair, the most highly publicized deaths were the two locks, as far as I'm concerned.

The first, Terri Schiavo was, for all intents and purposes...pretty much dead already. I mean even if they'd left her on life support, she was a mass of barely functioning brain cells. Nothing more. Regardless of whether or not there is a heaven or an immortal soul (I can't even fucking believe that this was an issue in two-thousand-and-goddamn-five) or whatever superstitious mumbo-jumbo was used as an excuse to bridge that important and necessary gap between church and state (that's getting uncomfortably smaller by the day,) I guarantee that Terri is in a better place (even if that place consists of nothingness.) She was also an inspiration to those of us who've not made out a living will. I made one a few years ago as part of a "Death Ed" project, and my parents have it on file. I'm pretty sure I asked that if I were ever brain damaged and fully incapacitated, that I be killed immediately, cremated, and my remains either be shot out of a cannon into the sun...or have my ashes be turned into a diamond and then have it set in a stripper's belly button ring. Doesn't that sound much better than being used as a drooling, brain-dead pawn in some crazy political power play?

Whatever, moving on. Next on the list of people who seem to be getting much more press now that they're dead, The Pope! Oh the Pope...what can I say. Oh, right...I don't really give a shit. I mean yeah, I guess it sucks that he's dead but at the same time, did you see the guy at all in the past 3 years? Next to him, Terri Schiavo looked like an Olympic gold medal gymnast! Believe me, you want to talk about better off? I mean, providing there is a hereafter, if anybody makes it in, it'll be the frikkin' Pope! The real upside to this is that it'll give the Catholic Church a chance to re-evaluate some of their unflinching positions on some outdated shit, like abortion and gay marriage (two things that really shouldn't even be issues but well, the religious always think they know what's best for the rest of us and will push those agendas via legislation or even gunpoint, if they have to.) Now I'm not a praying man but please God, let's let his replacement be just a little bit more progressive than the last guy...

Last, but certainly not least (and the only one out of the three that I actually gave a shit about, as shown by the fact that this is my second mention of his death in a week) was Mitch Hedberg. Man, talk about a fucking waste...I mean the other two were gonna bite it anyway. From a "where-do-we-go-from-here?" standpoint, it was really the smart move on their parts. Mitch, on the other hand, had nowhere to go but up. I mean, I keep up with comedy and all but I had really only listened to his stuff relatively recently and it was obvious that in a time where your choices are either "kinda funny" comedians or "overrated douche-hacks with their own shitty sitcoms" (fat guy from King of Queens, I'm looking at you!,) Mitch was truly a breath of fresh air (and by that, I mean pants-pissingly funny.) He was working on some stuff for a new album as well as an HBO special, as well as touring (he was supposed to play Baltimore the day after he died.) This was a man with a brilliant career ahead of him. Unfortunately, like most awesome creative geniuses, he also had a SERIOUS drug problem. I don't know what the deal is with that, dope must quiet the voices or something. It actually makes me genuinely angry that someone so brilliant would end up doing that to themselves. I mean, sure, it happens all the time (River Phoenix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, John Belushi...) I just think it's so incredibly selfish to rob the world of all that talent. We needed to laugh Mitch, and all you could do is break our hearts. You fucking bastard, we miss you already!


*an honorable mention goes to Bass Wolf, from the band Guitar Wolf...who also died late last week. Unfortunately, his passing was pretty much buried in this last batch so he didn't make it into the top 3. Better luck next time, dude...oh, right.

Only the good...

Well, if I needed something to take the wind out of my sails today, this headline would pretty much sum it up:

Comedian Mitch Hedberg dead at 37

BY MATT PEIKEN

Pioneer Press

Even family and close friends had a hard time understanding Mitch
Hedberg, a St. Paul native who ran away from home and, despite living
a scattershot life, became a runaway success as a standup comic.

Hedberg, whose space-case persona was as much part of his soul as it
was his act, died early Wednesday morning in a New Jersey hotel room.
He was 37. A medical examiner hasn't issued findings, but Hedberg's
family is told he suffered a heart attack. His wife was with him.

After graduating St. Paul's Harding High School, Hedberg rose through
the ranks at Minneapolis' Acme Comedy Co., and caught his big break
through a Comedy Central special. He made several appearances on David Letterman's and Conan O'Brien's shows, made more Comedy Central appearances and produced two comedy CDs. His big dream, to have an HBO comedy special, was in the works.

Hedberg's one-liners, dished off in a spacy staccato, were based on
absurdist, random observations. His long, dirty blond hair harkened to
the image of a 1970s stoner, and his success occurred in light of, in
spite of and even because of his quarter-century affair with drugs and
alcohol.



"I'd probably be living in Costa Rica, eating oranges on the beach, if
I wasn't doing comedy," he told the Pioneer Press last September.

"There's no two ways about it, having a son in entertainment industry is
challenging," his mother, Mary Hedberg, said Thursday.

She recalls being at work when her oldest daughter called in a panic
to tell her Mitch had packed some brown paper bags and left home. Mary
Hedberg couldn't get home in time to either see him off or talk him
out of it.

"That was heartbreaking for us, but he kept in contact with us. He
called as soon as the car broke down," she said. "You know, it was
like putting him through college, even though he wasn't at college.
But when he got his first break, we were just so thrilled for him,
because we wanted him to know he was O.K., and to have that
self-confidence that he could do what he wanted to do."

Louis Lee, owner of the Acme, said Hedberg not only became the Twin
Cities' first breakout comedian of the 1990s but, along with Lewis
Black, helped shape a national resurgence in standup comedy.

"It's very difficult for one-liner comedians to get an audience going,
but when Mitch worked here, you could see the kids call out the
punchline," Lee said. "Mitch made the whole comedy community realize
how important good writing is. It's a huge loss."

Unlike many comics, Hedberg was demonstrably thankful to his fans. Not long ago, a group of college students in Florida, speaking with Hedberg backstage after a show, mentioned how hot their dorm room was. Hedberg surprised them the next morning by showing up to their dorm with a new air conditioner.

"Mitch presented a lot of challenges, but a lot of opportunities for
traveling that we wouldn't have otherwise had, and he had a heart of
gold," his mother said. "He was a brilliant comic and a wonderful
person."

Dates haven't been set, but eventual visitation and services will be
at Wulff Family Services, Woodlane Mortuary, in Woodbury.

------------------------------------------------------

If you haven't heard Mitch's comedy, I'd highly recommend it. It's pithy wit sort of in the vein of George Carlin with a little bit of Bill Hicks-esque insight to it. Check it out. Mitch would have wanted you to.

Viva Los Retardos!

I had written a post here about Vegas but my fucking computer ate it. Here's some pictures from that trip instead...Oh, and yeah, I lost the beard about halfway through the trip. I'm still hoping the hotel's gonna mail it back to me...

Just warming up the ol' typing fingers...

I know that this is probably well covered territory at this point but, just out of curiosity, when did drinks cease coming in 'small' sizes? I ordered a medium coffee at Dunkin' Donuts (my first mistake...don't trust any place that does the cream and sugar for you. They will fuck it up.) and they brought out this little ass cup. "I thought I asked for a medium, is this a small?" The squat little tank of a woman behind the counter replied, "Yes...is medium" and directed me toward the menu where I discovered that the sizes are now M, L, and XL (shows how often I get fast food.) My question then is, why not just make the medium a small and downgrade the rest of them accordingly? I know it seems like common sense but, well, I think that's in short supply these days...

Sam Fisher just got 0wn3d!!!

Oh hallelujah! The day has come! I now hold the fate of the free world in my hot little hands! Enemies of freedom, beware, for my name is Baby Sea Tuna, and I am a Splinter Cell...

Why I <3 The OC

If you know anything about me, you know that I have a serious love/hate relationship with drama. In real life, I try to avoid drama at all costs while at the same time doing all I can to create more and more of it. I can't help myself, it's just the way I wind my clock.

On TV, drama isn't my genre of choice...but it is an essential part of my balanced diet. The hourlong TV drama is a very crowded genre with few variations in the formula. Once something hits, the networks scramble over eachother to make the quickest, cheapest clone of that show while the network that aired said hit scrambles over themselves to create the quickest, cheapest spinoff. That's how you end up with like 9 Law & Orders and CSI:Bangor, Maine featuring Jimmy Smits (or some equally dumb shit.) Yeah, I keep hearing this stuff is the greatest and, while I'm sure it is, the fact remains that I hate cop and lawyers shows almost as much as I hate cops and lawyers themselves. Hospital shows? Well, I'm not really all that sympathetic a person. I was all excited about Desperate Housewives...until I found out it was a TV show and not a dating service.

Just as my personality dictates, I tend to gravitate toward the odder genre shows. Those tried and true formula dramas are just that. Fucked up interpersonal relationships are a solid basis for any good TV drama (just like in real life) but I'll be damned if a watch another one unfold in a police precinct. If you want me to watch, set it aboard a spaceship like Firefly. Make one (or more) of the characters dead a la Dead Like Me...or undead, like on Buffy or Angel. Give them special powers like Wonderfalls or Joan of Arcadia. Have the show's lead character be an unconscionable monster like The Sopranos. Show it in real time, like 24. What I'm saying is, it needs a hook. Something extra for me to chew on. That je nais c'est quios that so few shows have nowadays. Now, if you've done your homework, you'll have noticed that out of all the shows mentioned in this paragraph, most of them have been cancelled already and one or more will be ending soon. So where does that leave me? I'm too smart to watch most of the garbage out there but not smart enough to come up with my own shows. This is a bothersome place to be. Enter The OC...

Last week, I took a chance and bought the first season of The OC. Let me just say that I was not disappointed. Within the first three episodes, I fell in love with all the main characters. Within five or six more episodes, I fell in love with all the secondary characters (or loathed them, if that's what the writers wanted.) The show is based on a very simple "fish out of water" premise, much like Beverly Hills 90210. If you've never seen it before, The OC centers around Ryan Atwood, a troubled teen with a lot of potential but no direction. He is, much like 90210's Brandon and Brenda Walsh, the obvious outsider and our "in" to this foreign world of money, sex, and power. Through certain circumstances, he is transplanted from Chino, CA (the "wrong side of the tracks" so to speak) to lush Newport Beach in Orange County. As the series progresses the veils are pulled back on the community members and we find out that for all their wealth, they are not unlike the rest of us. They have secrets, desires, and problems just like everyone else...and that's where the real meat of the story lies. Now, without writing a dissertation on the show, I will simply give you my five top reasons for tuning in (as taken from an email where I was asked to defend my position on The OC.)

1. Exec. Produced by Doug Liman (director of Swingers, Go, et al)

2. Razor sharp writing. The OC's writing team has done eps of Buffy, Alias, Firefly, Sex and the City, The Gilmore Girls, and several other highly successful/critically acclaimed shows.

3. Some of the directors have come from such excellent shows as 24, Dead Like Me, Buffy, Gilmore Girls, Smallville, and Oz.

4. Music on the show includes: Spoon, Modest Mouse, Sufjan Stevens,The Walkmen, A.C. Newman, Gomez, Pinback, Death Cab, Mascott, Elliott Smith, The Eels...(believe me, I could go on)

5. Peter Gallagher. Oh, and his eyebrows.



All this coupled with a incredible eye for continuity (where viewers are truly rewarded for keeping up with the show's events;) a wonderful self aware/self effacing humor (the characters are often found watching a show called "The Valley" with a very similar plotline to The OC itself;) an intelligence that rivals that of its Balboa County based comedy counterpart, Arrested Development; and adult characters that are every bit as rich and entertaining as their teenage counterparts.

The bottom line is, after floundering for half a season (post Angel) I think I've found my new nighttime soap opera...and even though the premise is a bit formulaic, the end result is anything but. And who knows...maybe by staying home to watch this show on Thursday nights, I'll avoid all that real world drama I desperately need to steer clear of.

First crack at 'Random Question' proves too much for Blogger

In filling out my profile, I came across the "Random Question" at the bottom and figured I'd give a go at answering it the best I could. Like many things in my life, the answer seems to have gotten a little out of hand. I was informed by my new buddy "Blogger" that must limit my answer to a mere 150 characters. Asking me to edit my answer is akin to asking me to choose which of my children was to be killed by the Nazis (though I guess if you knew me, you'd know that I hate kids so it really wouldn't be much of a choice at all.) What am I saying here? I guess I'm saying that you, Blogger, are worse than Hitler! Now without any further hot air, I present you with the most important question asked since "How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a Tootsie Pop?":

Do you believe that forks are evolved from spoons?

My answer:

Of course not! They obviously evolved from the trident. You see:

Back in ancient times the God of the Sea (also known as 'Aquaman' in the secular world) wanted a way to share the delicious fruitas del mar with people of the non-mer variety. Since, unlike Aquaman, the humans could not telepathically command the fish to jump into their mouths (and the culinary wonder known as 'the fish-stick' was still centuries away from invention,) the fork was invented as a way of transporting the delicious fish from the sea directly to the hungry peoples' mouths.

If history has taught us anything, it is that the fork was the not only one of the earliest advancements in seafood technology, but far more significant than many of its successors (including fire and the $9.95 all-you- can-eat shrimp sampler at your participating Red Lobster.)

Hello world...why are you still here?

I've created this blog under silent duress. After numerous pleas from various random intarweb pals, as well as some light prodding from the members of my Gmail "Inner Circle," I've decided to start blogging again for the first time since my Myspace suicide sometime last fall. The chances that this space will end up solely as a dumping ground for my personal beefs, job woes, and financial grumbles are high...just as the chances of my keeping this up with the fanatic fervor of my previous Myspace based web campground, are pretty fucking low. Honestly, if I can manage to pull my head out of my ass long enough to update this on (at least) a weekly basis, I'll consider this experiment a moderate success (and since my standards for excellence seem to run inversely proportionate to my age, moderate success is all I can really ask for these days...)