okay, so i was chilling out at home tonight watching a friend's first shot as a network primetime television actor (congrats on a great performance on the mentalist, keenan!), and i got into a discussion with some facebook friends about the following scenario:
who wins a fight between a half-bear, half-werewolf and a shark who's also a vampire? the vamp-shark has he-man's sword of power and the were-bear has the sword of omens from the thundercats. also, they're both robots.
i understand this may be a lot of variables to take in, so i've created a composite of what it might look like.
who wins? the robot were-bear with the sword of omens or the sharkbot vampire with the sword of power? only you can decide.
so this happened at work the other day and i thought i'd share it. you'll have to suspend your disbelief and imagine we're talking on the phone. i'm trying to upload it to my youtube channel, but it doesn't seem to be working.
for more facepalm inducing stories like this one, check out other people's tales on notalwaysright.com.
the world don't move to the beat of just one drum. what might be right for you might not be right for some. and to confirm this, here are the underlying concepts of several past and present television shows and networks.
the A-team: jumping out of an exploding building or vehicle will always prevent injury, all gunmen have terrible aim and the only way to get mr. T on a plane is to feed him quiche.
blossom: hideaous wardrobes and heavy-handed social messages are a great way to hide a lack of personality. also, tony danza does not have dominion over the word "whoa".
brothers (feat. michael strahan): white women are pregnant strippers who only see their athletic children as paychecks. also, women of any color are willing to throw away relationships with significant others to oogle muscular black men.
buffy the vampire slayer: there was a time when vampires were not totally lame, and that time is long gone.
charles in charge: there is nothing creepy about having a virile young man watch your teenage daughters.
cheers: spending the majority of your time in a sports bar equals meaningful friendships and in no way contributes to alcoholism or other health problems.
desperate housewives: being made out of leather in no way hampers your sex appeal.
duck tales: scottish ducks can cause massive amounts of damage to public and private property without reprisal.
espn: nothing of interest exists outside new york or boston unless it involves barry bonds or brett favre.
freaks and geeks: at some point, tv executives weren't complete morons.
friends: there are only like 3 black people living in new york city.
late night talk shows: no matter what you do, jay leno will get anything he wants.
ghost hunters: paranormal activity exists in every building in the world.
golden girls: old women spend their days with the same energy levels as teenagers. also, they are not completely gross.
lifetime movies: all men want to rape all women.
jersey shore: young italians are orange cartoon characters.
miami vice: the salary for a police detective in miami is enough for a boat and a pet alligator named elvis.
roseanne: the white trash lifestyle will result in a lottery win. also, roseanne's children are suprisingly well adjusted, despite being roseanne's children.
saved by the bell: blond teens with enormous mobile phones can do anything up to and including murder, without repercussion.
the simpsons: gross incompetence in a nuclear power plant always ends in hilarity.
the sopranos: violent crimes against innocent people are always justified as long as you're able to buy nice things for your family. also, nose-breathing is sexy.
twin peaks: david lynch is the weirdest person ever.
walker, texas ranger: roundhouse kicks to the face solve all of life's problems.
who's the boss: angela's hairspray is the sole purpose for the hole in the ozone layer. male housekeepers pronounce words humorously. horny old redheads are disgusting. on second thought, i've learned so much from who's the boss, it might actually need its own blog in the future.
well, we've taken the good, we've taken the bad, we've taken them all and there we have the facts of life.
i've said it before, and i'll say it again. humanity has jumped the shark. the fact that these people not only exist, but that other people view, highly rate and/or subscribe to their youtube channels shows just how out of whack our collective priorities are and how far we've fallen as a species.
their "fans" would have you believe that someone who shares my opinions is just jealous of their fame. nothing could be farther from the truth. i would sooner take a cheese grater to my knuckles than to be famous without having a worthwhile, legitimate reason.
I'll get the obvious one out of the way first:
chris crocker
i almost didn't even embed a video here because you know who he is and within seconds it becomes obvious why he should be reviled and hated. what you might not know is that since his "leave britney alone" days, he has continued to post video blogs sharing his unneeded "wisdom" with the world. after seeing a few, the first thought that comes to mind is that i feel very sorry for his parents. the second thought is that he needs some professional help. immediately.
real world equivalent: a series of paper cuts all over your body, followed by a bath in lemon pledge and salt water.
heidi montag & spencer pratt
this couple is the embodiment of what is wrong in hollywood. she has no discernible talent or redeeming qualities. the same goes for him, obviously. why are they famous? as far as i can tell it's because she's a rich blond who gets lots of plastic surgery and says moronic things in public, and he's an idiotic d-bag who says d-baggy things to stay in the public eye.
and they keep putting these two on tv.
are you starting to see why i think our priorities are screwed up yet? real world equivalent: choking on a gallon of vomit from a cat with feline leukemia.
boxxy
i, in no way, endorse hitting a girl. but c'mon. if you watch more than 15 seconds of the above clip, you start thinking of places to bury the body. if anyone in the outside world ever talked to me the way she talks, i'd start looking for an old priest and a young priest. this girl is obviously possessed by something evil and needs to be exorcised.
i like to think boxxy is the inspiration for parry grip's ingenious song:
real world equivalent: holding a nail to my elbow while stevie wonder tries to hammer it in.
fred figglehorn
when i helped my little bro move out to LA last summer, his roommate told us this fred guy was at the mall by their house signing autographs. yes, autographs. a guy with ADHD talks in a funny voice and tells unfunny stories for free in a public forum and somehow he has fans. wow.
from what i understand, he (and the guy below) consider themselves youtube comedians. isn't that like saying if you can play guitar hero on expert you're a master guitarist? i'm dumbfounded at the thought.
to quote the player haters' sketch from the late, great chappelle show, "i hope all the bad things in life happen" to him. real world equivalent: waking up in a tub full of ice to find several of your organs have been harvested without anesthesia.
brandon hardesty
that's all i could stomach posting. this "thing" is the biggest waste of space on the internet. what i've embedded is only the beginning of his shenanigans, and somehow his internet fame landed him a role in a hollywood movie. does it make me a bad person to hope he dies alone? real world equivalent: whatever your worst nightmare is multiplied by a thousand. cthulhu is somehow involved.
mike judge's dystopic world of idiocracy is clearly not too far in the future.
i had the day off today, and while doing some chores around the house, i had the tv on. spike was showing several star wars movies. only paying marginal attention, i noticed something i never had before. the jedi are jerks.
sure, they outwardly appear to be benevolent protectors of the masses, but some of their comments and behaviors seem suspect. in episodes 1, 2 and 3, they work tirelessly to preserve a dying government whose main goal appears to be not asking too many questions when one member planet invades another. so pretty much their overall stance is not to rock the boat.
that general theme has to have some effect on individual jedi, right? to answer that, let's look at pretty much any interaction a jedi has with a non-force sensitive person in the movies. pretty much every instance shows the jedi talking down to "lower" life forms. qui-gon and obi-wan pretty much bought jar-jar binks from the gunguns, claiming he owed them a life-debt. when queen amidala questioned their tactics on tatooine, qui-gon (thinking he was talking to one of the queen's doubles) basically responded by saying he could care less about her reservations and that nobody had to know.
annikan tried to stop mace windu from killing chancellor palpatine, and windu replied with, "nah, he's too dangerous. i'm gonna just go ahead and execute him here without due process of law getting in the way."
the main reason i thought about this, though, was the patronizing way the jedi council reacted to meeting annikan. they kept calling him "young skywalker" and were quick to say he was not worthy to join their little club. i half expected one of tehm to demand that he shine their shoes!
yoda, voice of reason for the republic, is supposed to be able to see the future and thwart evil-doers plans. yet at every opportunity, when asked what the future holds, he always responds with something like, "clouds the future, the dark side does." how convenient, jedi master.
perhaps the most egregious example of their jerkiness is their knack for controlling people's minds. basically, if someone responds to them in a way they don't want to hear, they simply change that person's mind for them.
by now, the rumors have been confirmed. nbc wants conan out of the tonight show driver's seat. since a respectable start, he's been completely dominated by rival/mentor, david letterman.
i had hoped the suits at the peacock would let it ride, but clearly this will not happen. as funny as he is, people just aren't tuning in. regretfully, myself included. i'm not sure i speak for the others in my generation, but i'm just not interested in a talk show at that time slot. (especially when the daily show and the colbert report are monumentally more entertaining.) and just as unfortunate, the repalcement nbc is looking to is not funnyman jerry seinfeld as we were led to believe, but instead, the habitually unfunny jay leno. a giant leap backwards indeed.
jay leno is specifically the reason why my generation tuned out when the tonight show came on. in fact, other than "jaywalking" or the bit with the newspaper clips, i defy anyone to find a single funny thing leno has ever done or said. he gets ratings, though. i guess the old folks want bland cliches rather than biting comedy just before hitting the hay.
conan has been given an ultimatum. take a later time slot or leave the network. a hard decision indeed. instead of dwelling on this depressing news, let's rate the players of the current late night landscape, starting with: 1. conan o'brien conan's offbeat brand of humor was a breath of fresh air when it came on the scene in the 90s. quirky, goofy, and sometimes shocking, conan introduced us to pimpbot 5000, the coked up werewolf, preparation h raymond and a vomiting kermit the frog, pretty much none of which translate to his current time slot. conan has also teamed up with the insanely funny robert smigel, the bark behind triumph the insult comic dog's bite. smigel also voiced many of the celebrities lampooned in mock video interviews conan's show brought to life.
and let's not forget taking his desk for a drive, in the year 2000 and "if they mated". whatever conan decides to do, he's got this fan's support.
a look at some of his finer moments:
2a. george lopez i started watching george after listening to him on the comedy channels of xm radio. i've been aware of his comedy since his early days of stand-up, but his sitcom never piqued my interest. his talk show is a riot! not since arsenio has late night talk enjoyed such an energetic show. one can feel the vibe that his guests are genuinely having a good time being there, too.
the "[my race] does things this way, and white people do it this way" schtick has been done to death at this point, but he actually makes it funny again. also, he allegedly manhandled carlos mencia for stealing his act. kudos on both counts.
i'd love to post some of his stand-up here (it's hilarious), but i'm still at the point where i'd like to keep this blog pg-13. welcome to late night, mr. lopez.
2b. wanda sykes this one floored me. her stand-up has always been kinda hackey in my book. and any movie role i've ever seen her in has been dreadful. so imagine my surprise when i watch a clip of her show and laugh out loud. here's the clip:
i adore her. "okay, here's the real story ..." that bit guarantees i'll be tuning in to this firecracker again. she ties with george for a spot closely behind conan.
3. craig ferguson craig ferguson is underrated. there, i said it. he's legitimately funny, and he actually brings personal, heartfelt moments into late night talk:
not to mention, he shares a lot of my crotchety views on young people and their styles:
4. jimmy fallon jimmy has been hit or miss on occasion, but i think he gets a bad rap on how entertaining he really is. clearly, he's aiming for younger audiences than his rivals as this clip shows. i couldn't find a youtube clip to embed, so for those who just want a recap, it's jimmy showing the audience an upcoming technology xbox 360 fans will soon be seeing.
plus, any show that has the roots as the house band wins in my book.
5. david letterman i was a big fan of dave growing up. he practically invented the top ten list. in recent years his humor seems to have just devolved into being a mean old man, though. sometimes that translates to funny awkward moments with his guests. sometimes it just translates to him coming off as a jerk.
that said, here's one of my favorite letterman clips ever.
thought i'd share some videos i made using xtranormal.com. i've made more, but these are my faves so far. you can check out the others on my youtube channel or just wait for me to post more. also, you can make your own on the xtranormal link above. enjoy.
i was cruising youtube the other night and somehow came across one of the cosby show intros. it wasn't the one i remembered, so after searching a bit more i remembered there were several. so now for no reason at all, here is a ranking of all the cosby intros. jello pudding pops not included.
also, youtube embedding seems to be disabled, so you'll have to click the links to see the videos. not ideal, i know, but this is my first night of blogging, so GET OFF MY BACK! season 4 class, pure and simple. the formal wear was a fantastic addition, and bobby mcferrin's quirky vocals make this one my favorite. plus, theo's aloof expression and dance take the cake. A+
in my research, i found this parody to the 4th season intro i thought i'd share. freaking hillarious!
season 1 a classic. completely different from subsequent years. no dancing, just a family spending a day out at the park together. it was here that i remembered just how prevalent hyphenated names were in the 80s: phylicia ayers-allen, keisha knight-pulliam, heck even malcolm jamal-warner got in on the act. B+ seasons 6 and 7 love the wardrobe. love the minimalist set. love the apollo signage in the background. all-around win-win. B
season 2 great music, fun dancing. most important aspect introduced here? the cultural icon known as "the cosby sweater". B season 3 the cosby sweater perserveres in this entry. and while i love mixing things up, i don't know if the tito puente-inspired latin mix was the right sound here. B-
season 5 pastels. ew. and while i admire thinking outside the box, this entry left me missing the intros with bill danced alone or with one other member of the family. definitely not the worst of the group, though. C+
season 8 this intro is still kinda fun because it's changes the previous pace of dancing on a stage. granted, it feels like it's gotten away from the simple earlier intors by overwhelming the viewer with bright colors and objects drawn on cityscapes. plus, if the late 80's pastels were bad in season 5, the colors in this wardrobe were simply hideous. C
final season following the season 8 theme of showing previous dances, this just rehashes the earlier, better intros. so it's a rehash of a rehash. not to mention, the wardrobe colors made me nauseous. and the addition of erika alexander was completely unneccessary. she's a fine actress, but the show had clearly jumped the shark by this point. C-
still, the cosby show was one of the greatest entries in american pop culture. honest to goodness family entertainment without ever working blue. i have the best dad EVER, but bill cosby will always be america's dad to me. class act all-around. also, cliff and claire had some downright HOTTTTTTT daughters! i think the beautiful phylicia rashad gets the lion's share of the credit there. so, good work on that.
here's another blog i moved over from the old site:
Here's a follow-up to the crazy dream I just posted. After a little research I found that keeping a dream journal is a good way to train yourself to lucid dreaming. That's what started this whole thing, btw.
The day before senior thesis presentations started for my student group, finishing my presentation was all I could think about. When I got home from class, I took a nap, intending to pull an all-nighter to finish everything. In the impending dream, the entire Fine Arts department (students and staff) took a weekend getaway for a team-building exercise.
When we got there we were split into two groups: male and female. We were each charged with coming up with a motion project. I had the perfect idea that everyone in my group got behind. In it, a static image of Adam Richter, our AIGA student group president, was displayed on screen. A cheesy 90’s-style rap (think "Whoomp, there it is!") started and Adam’s mouth began moving in a cartoon fashion. The lyrics were:
Is your jacket on the left or is it on the right?
Then static images of the rest of our group took over the screen with moving cartoon mouths, singing:
On the left! On the left! Our jackets on the left!
Different verses followed with the jacket being on the right, then on the left again, and so on. The imagery of the project alternated between images of Adam calling to the group and the group responding with which direction we felt the jacket was on. Sometimes he would appear with sunglasses or a funny smirk on his face. The group in the dream loved it, and when I woke up I could have sworn it was a real song. I even tried to Google it. Alas, if I want to hear it, I’ll have to produce it myself.
This wasn’t the first time I made up a song in one of my dreams. Right after I got Guitar Hero, I woke up singing a song to the tune of Motley Crue’s Shout at the Devil. It was called No More Dishes. Basically, it just repeated No More Dishes over and over to the chorus of the Motley Crue song from which it borrowed. That song was stuck in my head for a couple of days until I figured out where I had gotten the music for it. Who knows how long I’ll have The Jacket Song stuck up there.
here's another blog i moved over from the old site:
I've had some pretty colorful dreams over the years, and I thought it might be fun to share one. I changed the names to protect the innocent (and/or guilty). Please note that they are real people in my life. They were placed seemingly randomly in my subconcious, so if anyone thinks he or she is the character in the dream, they are probably right.
In the dream, I was on a holiday with my family, I think to some fictional city, but it felt an awful lot like Chicago. They went off to see sights, but I walked to what looked like the tallest brownstone ever ((99 floors) to visit some friends. I wanted to go to the top and look down at the city from an atrium on that level, but after getting about 18 floors up, I started panicking and got off the elevator. The floor I got off on apparently housed a legislative body of some sort, presumably Congress, as it housed what seemed like 200+ lawmakers in a chamber I’ve seen on C-Span before.
I looked around and found a stairwell and after a couple flights I ended up meeting Dan Gretter and going with him to his nephew (and my cousin) Jon Gretter’s apartment (in the same building), which was a combination of a hippie commune and a fun house-style maze of rooms (which is weird because in the waking world, Jon hates hippies as much as I do). After hanging out there a while, we left and met Dave Stabak just outside the apartment who told us he was going up to meet up with friends at the top. Apparently he lived there with his girlfriend/fiancée(?) and a group of other people.
Being over my near-panic attack, I boarded the elevator again and went up with the group. Some of Dave’s roommates were playing roller hockey on the far-side of the top of the building. (I don’t actually know what dimension this building existed in, but it seemed to defy physics.) I saw Hercules from that Kevin Sorbo show years ago (Note: it was Hercules and NOT Kevin Sorbo), and I became consumed with a hatred for him. We had apparently been rivals of some sort in this dream world because there seemed to be a mutual dislike.
We decided to play roller hockey 1 on 1 and he quickly scored first. Cocky, he talked some trash. I got the puck and skated around him with the puck to the goal. At 3 feet from the net I missed wide. Hercules nearly got the puck but I was able to snatch it away and get back to the goal. I missed again and just barely made it back to the puck first. I skated back to the goal once again and at two feet away missed again. A final time I made iot to the puck first and with only a few seconds left, I scored. I’m not sure why but I won. (I guess Hercules’ goal didn’t count or he didn’t actually score it – I wasn’t sure at this point). He seemed pretty miffed by losing to me, his rival, so as we were walking back to our friends, I leaned over and said, “Nice game … douche.”
Hercules didn’t care for this so he took a swing at me but missed as badly as I had in my first few shots at goal. He must have been embarrassed because he just kind of faded into the crowd.
I made my way back to the bottom of the building and met up with my brother. We were talking on a park bench just outside the building and he told me he heard on the radio that the police were looking for a guy named Mark who had beaten up his girlfriend, Linda. Soon after I got a call from Mark Waters who told me it was he for whom the cops were searching. He had gotten into it with Linda Doublet (who’s married to Jason Doublet in the waking world) in their apartment, which was apparently right next to Dave Stabak’s and the hockey atrium on the top floor. Mark was distraught and wanted to turn himself in. He said the whole thing was a lie and that he wanted to clear his name. After agreeing to help him, I woke up.
It was 12:30 and I couldn’t get back to sleep so I watched some TV and hopped online, getting back to sleep around 4:30 (not uncommon these days). When I got back to sleep I had another fairly vivid dream:
I was in the neighborhood of some small rural town and was about to be attacked by a little girl with long blonde hair, who seemed to be the host body for some interdimensional/extraterrestrial monster. Luckily Doctor Who was there to save me by rolling a restored 1967 Volkswagon Carmengia convertible over her. Also, Doctor Who was now a woman. I don’t think that’s ever been the case in the TV show. There was another person with us who, after the little girl/monster was vanquished, began to show us the 7 martial arts stances he learned, possibly as some sort of celebratory gesture. I don’t remember the names of the stances, but one involved him in the sitting position, lifting himself in the air with his closed fists and kicking straight out. It was kind of like the foot version of the 3-inch punch. I think that’s when I woke up.
Saw the Spiderman 3 teaser trailer the other night, and it looks pretty cool - especially having Venom (Topher Grace?!?) and the black suit.
I was watching a baseball game at the time, and it got me thinking. Aside from Albert Pujols, what Marvel superheroes would I want on my baseball team? Yes, I'm a dork. Anyway, who would you change out?
position players: C - the Blob (can't be knocked over by base runners trying to score) 1B - Albert Pujols ;-) 2B - Wolverine (baserunners would think twice about stealing second if he's on the bag) SS - Spiderman (range, agility - plus, with his web, nothing would get by him) 3B - the Thing (assuming he was agile enogh, any liner he caught would immediately be launched 1st, no question) Strike that. I'd pick Captain America. OF - Quicksilver (great speed, range) OF - Nightcrawler (range - can teleport right under the ball) OF - Silver Surfer (range)
pitchers (4-man rotation): SP - the Hulk (helluva fastball) SP - Colossus (see above) SP - Magneto (nasty curve, sinker) SP - Jean Grey (she could probably put some stank on a pitch with that telekinesis thing) RP - the Punisher (ability to adapt to a variety of pitches, not afraid to throw at a batter if necessary.) RP - Human Torch (get ready--he can put some heat on it-sorry, couldn't resist) RP - Thor (throwing that hammer has to have given him some advantage)
specialty/other: DH - Juggernaut (hate the DH, but would want him hitting for me) pinch runner - Invisible Girl (how would anyone know when she was stealing?!?) utility man - Iron Man (can play most positions with decent degree of skill) 1B coach - Dr. Strange (too old to play, but knows the ins & outs of the game) 3B coach - Mr. Fantastic (brainpower would come in handy here, not stretching ability) manager - Prof. X (mastermind behind it all) batboy - Rick from the Incredible Hulk (since that's about all he'd be good for) again, this is an old blog i moved over from my old page. feel free to comment.
to paraphrase the article, gilbert arenas of the washington wizards was been indefinitely suspended for brandishing a weapon (a handgun, of course) in the team's locker room. this coming after news of an altercation with a teammate during a card game.
while the league's front office mulled over an appropriate punishment for bringing a deadly weapon to somewhere it clearly didn't belong, arenas jokingly cocked his forefinger and thumb - during a televised game - as if to mock commisioner david stern's attempt to bring any semblance of dignity to the situation.
i guess you can bring the thug out of the ghetto, but you can't bring the ghetto out of the thug.
an arenas quote from the above article that shot milk out of my nose: "It's kind of funny how people like him are supposed to be for the people, make a comment like that when he hasn't really heard anything."
yes gilbert, because al sharpton, racist pillar of justice that he is, condemns bringing a gun into a professional locker room, he is clearly no longer a voice of the people.
let's look beyond this incident, though. the nba's credibility as a legitimate professional sports association has been circling the drain for some time. at this point, the wwe almost seems classier by comparison. why is this, you ask? simple. the nba is clearly chock full of trashy thugs. yes, every league has some bad apples: nhl - mike "put a hit on my agent" danton and todd "sucker shot" bertuzzi
nfl - mike puppy power" vick, leonard 'drink 'n' drive" little and ray "stabby" lewis
mlb - randy "mr. child support" johnson, roger "all-around jackass" clemens and milton "clubhouse cancer" bradley
the list goes on. yet somehow, nba thug activity transcends these isolated incidents with habitual behaviors that continue to drive fans away. some low points in the league's thugism include, but are not limited to: latrell spreewell's famous choking of his coach in new york, and then upon his suspension whining that he's got a family to feed. sorry if the consequences of choking out your boss have inconvenienced you.
ron artest asked for time off from a possible playoff run to promote his hip hop album. no really. following that, mr. artest started a redonkulous riot when someone threw a cup of ice at him by running into the fans and swinging fists wildly at the people who pay his salary, the fans. awesome.
i could go on with examples like allen "it's just practice" iverson pulling a gun on any number of people, i'll just hope the nba continues to circle the drain and that a new league will emerge with talent and teamwork at the forefront. i want the baskteball i enjoyed as a kid. michael jordan, magic johnson, kareem, byrd, etc. instead, i'm stuck with this gangsta train wreck. stay classy, nba.
(and yes, i realize this comes across as a crotchety "back in my day" blog, but when you're right, you're right.)
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