Links!

- Gina Carano in Red Alert 3
This one is for you Alex.

- History of Nintendo peripherals
I've always wanted to try the Power Glove.

- Game console controller family tree
The SNES controller was so fucking awesome. Great D-pad and ergonomics. If only the 360 controller had a good D-pad, it would be perfect.

- Off-Road Velociraptor Safari
This flash game is too fucking awesome. You're driving in a jeep... and you SMASH VELOCIRAPTORS! I love how the game supports achievements as well. Also if you look closely, you play as a velociraptor driving the jeep. It's kinda sick.

- Jetpack Brontosaurus
From the creators of Off-Road Velociraptor Safari comes " Splendid jetpack dreams of the Apatosaurus named Brontosaurus". This game has prettier visuals, but the gameplay is not nearly as fun and addictive as the safari game. However, the concept art on the splash page is the balls. The thing is wearing a god-damn bicycle helmet!

5/30/2008 07:03:00 PM | Comments (0)

Weezer - "The Red Album"

Best song since anything from Pinkerton: The Greatest Man That Ever Lived
- This is essentially a Queen song. The Weezer version of "Bohemian Rhapsody".
- When he hits the falsetto at 3:17... fucking SWEET.

Best album closer since "Butterfly": The Angel and the One.
- Rivers at his best. He sings with so much fucking passion in this song.
- Where is the fucking guitar solo in the song? At the 3:56 mark would have been PERFECT.
- Could have been the next "Only In Dreams"! Needs a big finish!

Pros +
- Better than Make Believe and possibly Maladroit (undecided at this point)
- The 2 songs I've mentioned are some of the best songs Rivers has written in years
- "Pork and Beans", "Troublemaker", and "Dreamin" are classic Weezer

Cons -
- Terrible choice by Rivers to let the other members of the band have their own tracks.
- "Everybody Get Dangerous" blows
- Where are all the guitar solos?

5/27/2008 09:44:00 PM | Comments (0)

A Secret And French Toast

Badonkadonkey - Born Ruffians

Here's a little personal blogging secret. When I'm putting together a post, I occasionally find myself writing with a particular person in mind. There are certain jokes I'll make or won't make and phrases that I know will resonate with said reader and it actually makes things go a lot smoother most of the time. Thus, there are certain tales that I've already recollected orally that I choose to put on here because they're good stories and I don't always know when I'll have a chance to share them with people. Jess has been really busy with school these days and I don't know when she'll have time to hear this story, so in this case I'm writing for her. Plus, I think it's a story she'd get a kick out of.

Did you know Shirley is psychic? Her power manifests itself in strange ways, but it is there, no doubt about it. For instance, she has the uncanny ability to call my cell phone in the rare instances where I don't have it on me. Like, it'll be at my side the whole day, but in that short window of time that it takes me to take a shower she will inevitably call. It's one of the reasons I've stopped showering altogether.

This came up on Saturday when she called me to have breakfast...as I found out hours later. I charge my phone about once a week and yes, I turn it off when I do so. I've heard legend that it's good for the battery, but I don't know for sure. It goes without saying that she called while it was off, leaving a nice message that promptly had me cursing into my pillow after I finished listening to it.

Saturday breakfast became Monday brunch and here is where the story begins. Following Annia's advice, I suggested that we eat at Cora's. I've never eaten there before, but she said it was cool and that Shirley would like it and I didn't have any other ideas so that was fine with me. It wasn't my first choice. Actually, when I got her message on Saturday morning I thought about how cool it would be if I had her over and cooked something for her. Then I remembered that the only thing I could cook was an omelette. Then I remembered that I forgot how to do that. Oy. We talked on Sunday.

Me: Hey, do you want to go to Cora's tomorrow?
Her: Why don't we make breakfast instead?

Did you know Shirley is psychic?

Now when I was tric...er, volunteered for this I thought that it would be a 50/50 kind of thing. Like, maybe I'd crack the eggs and flip the toast and she'd do, well, everything else. She quickly informed me that this would not be the case and that her role would be simply to instruct and observe. I should mention here that up until this point Shirley was almost deathly ill with some kind of virus, but once she got into that kitchen she was possessed by some kind of cooking demon. Crack the eggs! Beat the eggs! Dip the toast! Flip the toast! Cut the bananas! Crack the eggs! Whisk you son of a bitch, whisk! I'm paraphrasing.

I definitely learned some things. For one thing, when you're cutting bananas, it is not wise to act like you're Miyamoto Musashi, as tempting as that may be. Don't get me wrong, those bananas will not be forgetting who they fucked with on this day, but my slices weren't easy to cook with. I also learned that an effective whisker makes a circular motion when beating the eggs. Shirley explained that I need to imagine that I'm drawing a circle on a piece of paper. As we all know, drawing a circle freehand is nearly impossible so I don't know how this was supposed to make things easier for me, but eventually I found some kind of rhythm.

The food was not poisonous and I didn't burn a single body part or any of the kitchen equipment so on some level, this experiment could be considered a success. At the very, very least, I have to think that I provided Shirley with a potent combination of amusement and anxiety, which is not as easy as it sounds. You can't see me, but I'm patting myself on the back right now. Sitting down and eating was almost an afterthought, but I realized that it had been so long since I'd sat down and had breakfast or brunch with anyone. It's my favourite meal of the day and it was nice to have it with her.

We also watched The Motorcycle Diaries aka "Shirley's Favourite Movie Ever For Reals". It's excellent. I have to say that I had one of those awful reflective moments early in the film when I realized that the main character was 23 or 24. I'm 23 or 24. The film's protagonists embark on a journey across South America to live and learn and fuck. I'm sitting my room writing a blog. I'm always acutely aware of what other people are doing or did when they were my age. When I was 14, I remember that the first lines of the song You Get What You Give were directed at us. When I was 16 or 17, I remember first hearing about some kid named LeBron James who was actually younger than me by a month or so. Here I am, watching a young Che Guevara journeying through the land on a busted old motorcycle and I can't help but wonder if my time is being mispent.

Then again, I don't think Che ever learned to make French toast.

*****

I really enjoyed Robert "Mr. Fantastic" Muraine on So You Think You Can Dance, so please watch this if you haven't already. You really only need to watch the first half, but the post audition chicanery is also quite charming. I don't know why this performance affected me so much. I'm not a dancing or popping expert by any means, but I found this routine so funny and creative and precise that my eyes start to tear up when I watch it. No lie.

My eyes also start to tear up when I watch this Van Damme dance scene from Kickboxer, albeit for different reasons. I'll admit that I took this from an old list I saw on Stuffmagazine.com. I challenge you to watch this and not laugh. I CHALLENGE YOU.

Will you tell me something?
Perhaps.
When I dream, sometimes I remember how to fly. You just lift one leg, then you lift the other leg, and you're not standing on anything, and you can fly. And then when I wake up I can't remember how to do it anymore.
So?
So what I want to know is, when I'm asleep, do I really remember how to fly? And forget when I wake up? Or am I just dreaming I can fly?
When you dream, sometimes you remember. When you wake, you always forget.
But that's not fair...
No.

5/27/2008 01:57:00 PM | Comments (0)

Pork and Beans video. Yes, it's crazy.

5/23/2008 07:01:00 PM | Comments (0)

I don't know how these bastards do it, but here it is. The Hold Steady's new album, "Stay Positive" leaked over a month early. The album is set to release on July 17th.
album --> Stay Positive

I also bring to you this ridiculously catchy song by Le Tigre .
mp3 --> Deceptacon

Lastly I have a song created by Rivers and the Weezer community. Through the magic powers of Youtube, he is crafting a song step-by-step with whomever chooses to participate. They're already on step 10 so it's been going on for a couple of weeks now, but if you have the patience you should sit watch them. His mustache creeps me out by the way.
link --> Let's Write a Sawng
mp3 --> Turnin' Up the Radio

5/22/2008 11:16:00 PM | Comments (0)

For the first time ever...a post from a mobile device! Truly a watershed moment in the long and storied history of The WAMBAG.

I am at a restaurant eating (actually, waiting for) all-you-can-eat Japanese food. To prepare for this meal and to best take advantage of the all-you-can-eatness, I kept a special diet throughout the day which I will outline below (I kept notes with the intention to post about it later.)

What I Ate Today, by Choking Yak

11:45 AM - After pissing the entire morning away checking my fantasy baseball team, I have a bag of Miss Vickie's original potato chips. It will later stand as my entire lunch, as I realize the meeting that I have yet to prepare for is at 1:00 instead of 2:00.

1:51 PM - The 1:00 meeting ends early enough for me to get a Coffee Crisp before my 2:00 (turns out I had two meetings!), again from the vending machine.

5:42 PM - MAN, I am hungry. I want a giant pretzel.

5:46 PM - This giant pretzel is making me thirsty. I buy a can of Mountain Dew from a convenience store because I spontaneously feel like walking on the white side of life. It costs $1.25 but I use the old, "but I only have $1.17 in change" trick which makes me feel cool, until I realize that even $1.17 is way too much for a can of Mountain Dew.

And that is my day so far. Thank you for taking this magical journey along with me.

Do the Dew!

5/22/2008 07:57:00 PM | Comments (0)

Brand new Flight Of The Conchords video, Ladies Of The World. Right where they left off, it's like they never even stopped.

Unfortunately still no word on when Season 2 will actually air though.

"You get a love triangle. You know? Fleetwood Mac situation. Well, there was four of them, so more of a love square, but you know, no one gets on."
"Okay, I see."
"Mind you, they did make some of their best music back then."
"'Rumours.'"
"No, that's all true."

5/21/2008 04:14:00 PM | Comments (0)

So we've been having a minor tagboard spam crisis on our hands...though to be fair, you never really know - maybe that's just our demographic, and I've been deleting posts from loyal WAMBAG.COM readers and alienating our entire fanbase. That "PUSSY VIDEO" one is my favourite so far. It's really just the essence of internet porn spam boiled down and distilled into its most concentrated, efficient form. Are you looking for pussy? Check. Are you looking for it in video form? Check. Can the urgency of this need only be highlighted by the use of all capital letters? Check. Ergo..."PUSSY VIDEO." What a fantastic age we live in.

The link didn't even work. Not sure whether that makes it better or worse.

Spam bots have stepped their game up considerably lately, so as you can see, I've put some top of the line spam blocking measures in place, which will somehow, electronically prevent the tagboard from being spammed. I'm very confident the new spam defenses will hold up - we'll give it a floor run, see if it plays.

Now here is a funny link, to salvage the post. Pretty straightforward, no real need to guess what direction it's taking - you already know. A Day in the Life of Nick Swardson, who you might best remember as the psycho fan from Blades Of Glory that informs them of the loophole which allows them to skate as a pair, or as the guy that says "thug life" in the Pineapple Express trailer. That's how I remember him, anyway.

No exaggeration, I could not love a human baby more than I love this brush.

5/20/2008 12:09:00 PM | Comments (0)

I have a calendar pinned up in front of me on my cubicle wall, though it's from my company, so instead of pictures of say...bikini models or puppy dogs or whatever else usually adorns pin-up calendars, I look at pictures of fake families smiling about how awesome their mortgage rates are and how they can afford that kitchen renovation with that extra breakfast nook or whatever the fuck that old people with nothing left to live for anymore want in the twilight of their slow and meaningless lives.

For whatever reason - either the actual calender itself is too heavy or the penetrable cushiony section of the cubicle wall is too thin for a tack to dig in and find enough leverage or whatever - but a single push-pin tack is not sufficient to hold the calendar up by itself. You need to use two tacks to keep it up, you need to poke two tacks into the same hole because one is not enough. But for some reason I don't see anyone else having this problem (I've stayed behind late before and went around to people's desks to check) so it's either something with my calendar, like maybe the hole has eroded a bit, or my cubicle wall is thinner than others, or if I'm just fucking retarded and I have some fundamental lack of understanding about how to poke a pin into a wall properly.

It's weird too, because I'll use just one single tack sometimes, and it'll hold. And then it sits there, right in front of my face the entire day, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, like a half hour later it'll just fall down on its own. Completely silent office, I haven't even moved out of my chair in that half hour, no one's walking by, no discernible change in air pressure and whatnot...eventually, the tack just can't hold out, and it suddenly decides to go "Ah, you know what? Fuck it." and it pulls itself out of the wall. Sometimes it'll be half an hour, sometimes it'll be two hours, sometimes it'll be like two days. So I guess if I wanted to constantly repin this fucking thing up over and over again at completely infrequent, random intervals, then I could stick with one pin. But I can't handle that amount of mental and emotional pressure, so I go with two.

Anyway...regardless, the situation with MY calendar is that I need to use two tacks. (Pins? Tacks? It's the standard type you poke through posters to keep up on walls, with the plastic bit on top that comes in all sorts of colourful flavours. I'm just going to use them interchangeably here, follow if you can.) But there's only space for one tack, I guess, because the calendar manufacturers assume that you're not a fucking idiot and that a single tack is sufficient to hold up a damn calendar and thus they only manufactured one single pin hole. So I have to come at it from an angle; I push one pin in a bit at one angle, and I poke the other pin through the tiny window to the cubicle wall that's still exposed. This ultimately solves the problem, but it creates another issue entirely - neither pin is really that deep into the cubicle wall. Let's say there's like a tack factor of 1.0 that you need to meet before all the external forces acting on the closed system with this calendar balance out and it stays up. For some reason one pin on my wall only goes up to 0.9, so a single one isn't enough. If I use two it's okay, but neither one is at full strength - it's like each one is at 0.5, so together they total 1.0 and I'm okay. But since both individually have less strength than a normal, single pin pushed in normally, the whole system is much more fragile - it's almost exactly at 1.0, so like a 1.000,000 - throw in some more sig digs there.

Meaning that the calendar stays up forever as long as I don't touch it, but if as soon as I exert even the tiniest amount of force, it throws off the entire system altogether, and both pins fall out and it's a horrible mess (...one calender and two pins) and my entire day is ruined.

That very thing happened this morning, while I was reaching over for something else or whatever and I just brushed the thing with my sleeve, bringing the whole goddamn thing down, making all sorts of noise and causing people to look over, wondering to themselves "What is this fucking douchebag doing that's so noisy?" Another problem with the two tack approach is that if the pins fall out, you have double the amount of tacks to look for. So I found one of them, but I couldn't find the other one, even after looking for what seemed to be like an hour (but in reality was probably closer to like ten seconds). So I concluded that it'd be impossible to find ever again, and I just gave up the search and went with the single pin approach, figuring I'd just deal with it again when the time came. And you know, as any other rational human being would do when they lose track of sharp metal objects around them, I ignored it and put it out of my mind. How's that old Latin phrase go again? "Out of sight, out of mind?" That's Latin, right?

Life carries on. Fast forward five minutes later, when I take a swig from my coffee mug. And I discover where the missing tack fell.

...it wasn't in my coffee, in case you were wondering. That would be a pretty ridiculous story. But it turned out the pin had ended up just rolling behind my mug, and when I picked up my mug, lo and behold, the missing pin was found.

And that is the anatomy of a Friday morning.

Now here is Craig Robinson in a commercial for The Foot Fist Way.

You want your orange belt?

5/16/2008 11:13:00 AM | Comments (0)

Can't really think of anything to write about, so I'll just post some links.

- Ah, fuck me. Proof that I can't come up with anything original, even if I think I did. Must be some subconscious type of ESP. And while we're on the subject, this one's my favourite, his "Why?" bit. Anything that hates on children that much...can't lose.

- Copped this from Penny Arcade, but if you haven't seen or heard much about Left 4 Dead (the new four player co-operative zombie survival FPS from Valve) yet, then you need to click this. By the way, I didn't quite understand why there was a numerical '4' in "Left 4 Dead" up until I started typing this post out...it got one of those "Huh? OOOooooh...haha, I see what you did there, clever!" reactions out of me just now. I'm retarded. It looks absolutely awesome, and I actually believe them when they say that this will do for multiplayer co-opt games that Counter-Strike did for multiplayer games. And that's saying something, because Counter-Strike is one of the greatest multiplayer games of all time (and probably also just one of the greatest games of all time, period) and the fact that I was always better at it than StarCraft leads me to think that it was just a better game, because if I suck at a game, then it's the game's fault.

- Speaking of which, first looks at Guitar Hero 4, which will be exactly like Rock Band except the drum set has two additional cymbals and only three drum...things (meaning a total of six different "notes" along with the pedal) and a song creation feature. I thought it was very considerate of Activision to not let you just use Rock Band and Guitar Hero stuff interchangeably - just a classy, classy organization from top to bottom. So now if you want to get Guitar Hero 4, you'll probably have two pairs of guitars and two drum sets sitting taking up space in your living room. Not that I care, since I'm never playing this fucking game ever again anyway, in whatever form it shapeshifts into.

EDIT: Apparently Konami is coming out with Rock Revolution for all platforms as well, with another new drum set. God, they can't make enough of these, can they?

- This is a transcribed interview with President George Bush, the bulk of which is largely uninteresting. However, of particular note is when asked if he could build a baseball team of whichever players he wanted (which was an odd question, especially since the one that preceded it was about brokering peace in the Middle East), he mentions Chase Utley (though it was transcribed as "Ottley") and our very own Roy Halladay. You'll have to do some CTRL+F'ing to get to it as it's a long article, but I thought that was neat.

- Man Babies is one of the most horrifyingly captivating things the internet has ever produced. I don't think it would be inaccurate to say that it's probably up in the top ten creepiest things I've ever stumbled across online. And it's not even Japanese, which actually makes it even weirder.

I could beat the shit out of THOUSANDS of two year-olds, all day, just walk around...they would never even gang up on me, they SUCK, I'm not afraid of her.

5/15/2008 12:42:00 PM | Comments (0)

A quick one. Some guy took comparison shots of real life NYC and then set them right beside the GTA 4 Liberty City counterparts.

5/13/2008 09:35:00 PM | Comments (0)

Old Favourites

All I Want Is You - Barry Louis Polisar

Softball season has begun anew! I'm going to excuse William not making a post about this because it was a meaningless pre-season tournament and the results were inconsequential. In other words, we lost two games, tied one and I played like garbage. So like I said, inconsequential. Softball is still one of my favourite things and Saturday was no exception. Sure, we could have played better but there's nothing better than that feeling of the grass under your feet, the sun on your forehead, the ball hitting your glove and then popping out, the cold glare of your teammates, the sound of the other team laughing at you...ah, softball. It's magic.

This news is secondary to a new season of AMERICAN GLADIATORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, that's right, I plunked myself down on the couch and watched two sweet, sweet hours of Gladiator entertainment or as I like to call it, Gladutainment©. There's no way that I can write about this show in a coherent manner, so let's go to the ol' bullets, shall we?

(By the way, I know I'm alienating most of our fanbase by writing about this show, but I don't care. Just skip ahead or go read a book or something. Why are you here, anyway?)

* From the opening, explosive, genital disintegrating montage we can see that there are going to be eight new Gladiators (more on them later) and some new/old events. The only truly new event I saw was called Vertigo and while I thought it was an interesting concept (contestants race against a Gladiator by making their way across adjacent 30 foot tall poles that rock back and forth with the slightest push), it didn't make for great television. Then again, it did introduce us to a new red-headed Gladiator called Phoenix. I'll admit that Phoenix was awesome in her debut, going as far as to stop in the middle of the race to taunt the contestants. Now that's some old-school Gladiator action. Also, she's pretty hot and not just because she's reawakening all those old Jean Grey fantasies I had as a youth. But she still can't hold a candle to my Crush, who continued her dominance in Joust monday night and also made a fine showing in Pyramid and Gauntlet.

* The other new event that debuted was Rocketball, which was really a variation of one of my old favourites, Swingshot. The contestants are attached to a bungee cord and they press a red button, which shoots them up into the air and they have to put these balls into these large baskets. It's not too complicated, but it is super fun to watch. Also, it looks like Atlasphere is coming back. ATLASPHERE!!!

* The other new Gladiators that debuted were the winners from last year. Monica Carlson is now Jet and Evan Dollard is now Rocket. Straight up, Monica really sucked as a Gladiator. She failed to catch her contestant during The Wall, got blown by several times during Powerball and didn't look that great on the Pyramid either. Bad form, Jet. Evan fared much better, especially since the first event he got to do was The Wall, which as you all know, he dominated at last year. His contestant got up the wall really fast, but when you're dealing with the Michael Jordan of The Wall, you're screwed once you grab that first hand hold. Rocket is off to a good start.

* Everything is just...better now. Clearly, the budget has increased about tenfold. Everything is bigger (Hang Tough is finally back to its former glory) and the events are much improved. Assault no longer has the contestants searching through the sand for an arrow (huh?), though one contestant still managed to fire one of the new weapons backwards (huh???). The Wall is freakin' huge now. The Eliminator seemed kind of clumsy to me, but they got rid of some stupid elements and added in some older elements that they never should have removed in the first place. Also, the contestants are at risk of falling into a ball pool now. Ball pools are awesome.

* Laila Ali and Hulk Hogan are back! Whoo...actually, I love Laila. I think she's perfect for the show, but Hulk is just awkward to watch at this point. I said it last season and I'll say it this season: The man clearly has no soul.

* The contestants were mostly boring except for this one black guy named Randee who did a wicked job on the eliminator and had a good personality. The other three guys were a loud mouth S.W.A.T. team officer (loser), a Filipino guy who performed well but who was overshadowed by his opponent...a guy with one leg. Now I'm all for creating compelling storylines for the sake of game shows and reality television, but this former Paralympic athlete made things kind of uncomfortable. You know that the Gladiators aren't going to go after him hard, you know that some of the events are going to be near impossible for him to do, so why put him on the show? I think he's an inspirational story, but it came off as a cheap ratings grab. Truly a blight on the good, dignified name of American Gladiators.

Mmm...okay, I think that's it for now. Most of my good comments occur during the show and are gone the next day. You guys are lucky, SO lucky that I don't just keep a running blog of this show. Hey, that's actually not a bad idea. God, I love this show.

From the Nothing To Do With Nothing Department: Matt Groening's Hellboy

Here is how a link is born.

1) I'm sitting at home watching pro-wrestling and after a match, one of the wrestlers starts singing a victory song. You know, that song that goes You've got to know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run. Yeah, that song. I couldn't remember the name either.

2) I go to my computer and Google the lyrics and up comes Kenny Rogers' The Gambler. Well, duh!

3) As I'm downloading the song, I read the Wikipedia entry about the song and learn that he apparently performed it on The Muppet Show.

4) One quick visit to YouTube and voila! Kenny Rogers performs The Gambler on The Muppet Show. It's strange, because this song involves some lyrics about drinking and smoking and death and I thought The Muppet Show was for kids. Good for them to learn these things early, right? On a side note, this would actually make for a decent Rock Band song (as long as you don't mind your bass player slitting his wrists out of boredom).

See? That made a lot more sense than me saying, "I was watching pro wrestling so here is Kenny Rogers on The Muppet Show."

I play a lot of basketball games, so I can't wait for this one. I feel bad for Diana Taurasi, even though she is fugly.

One night last week I was up around 2 or 3 in the morning on my computer and all the power went out. I grabbed a nearby flashlight and wandered over to the window in my grandpa's room so that I could look out onto the street. It was scary, because the other neighbourhoods that were still lit were creating this eerie glow and I could swear that I heard movement on the streets. I didn't want to flash my light out the window because anyone who saw 28 Days Later knows that that is just asking for a zombie attack. Also, I swear that I could hear some kind of alarm ringing faintly in the distance. I deduced that it was the Zombie Alarm©, unearthed at last for this fateful evening. Even with my softball bat clenched tightly against my chest, I did not sleep well.

I never found out what that sound was and as far as I can tell there was little to no zombie activity that day. Regardless, I'm glad I found this instructional video a few days later. As you watch this, you keep expecting the satire to kick in but it never does. This guy seems to genuinely believe in the usefulness of this video and God help us, he might just be the most important person who ever lived.

We're getting a little old to be making such a big deal out of having sex.
Yeah...you're right.
I'm just playing, man!
Oh, thank goodness. When you said that, I died a little inside.

5/13/2008 04:07:00 PM | Comments (0)

I woke up this morning to Any Way You Want It, which I thought was weird, because my radio alarm is always set for 680News and at first I couldn't figure out why they would be playing a rock song from 1980 instead of giving me traffic news. But then the chorus just kept on looping over and over again...and I realized that it was just all in my head. The radio wasn't even on - I had completely forgotten to set my alarm last night and I had overslept 20 minutes, only to wake up all on my own...with Journey in my head. And my only exposure to that song from recallable memory was from that Will Forte video in my last post.

A rather bizarre way to start the morning. But then when I got to Fairview Mall (because I had woken up too late to get a spot at Finch) the gate that bars you from entering the normal mall parking lot in the morning was open, so I saved myself three entire dollars! Life is sweet.

Now here are a few links.

- I'm going to give it at least a week for me to come down from the usual movie high I get from watching ANY semi-entertaining movie before I comment about Iron Man, but my initial impression was that it could have been my absolute favourite comic book movie ever. It was certainly right there with Batman Begins, X-Men, and X2...but we'll see if I still feel the same way in a week's time. In the meanwhile, here is some super duper concept art for the movie done by comic book artist extraordinaire Adi Granov. I love stuff like this.

- In related news, Marvel has announced its next four movie release dates, including Iron Man 2, a Thor and a Captain America movie, and finally a full out Avengers one in July 2011. Hard to get excited about movies that aren't coming out for another three years (I mean, who even knows if I'll still be alive by then?) but still very cool nonetheless. In other news, DC's movie division continues to sit idly with it's thumb up its ass.

- Ah, just kidding. Here's some new posters for The Spirit, featuring Samuel L Jackson as The Octopus, Scarlett Johansson as Silken Floss, and Eva Mendes as Sand Saref. No, this doesn't look like Sin City at all. Not even a little bit. ...at least there's no Comic Sans MS this time.

- Also, here are the two brand new television spots for The Dark Knight, here and here. UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

- Just kidding - here they are for real, here and here. I'm such a fag.

- Jimmy Fallon has officially been announced as the replacement on Late Night when Conan leaves for The Tonight Show in June 2009. The apathy I feel for this announcement is of incalculably massive proportions. It is behemoth in scope, and I suspect it could generate it's own gravitational field that would cause smaller celestial bodies made of less apathy to orbit it, creating an entire solar system of disinterest.

- More news! Didn't think it'd be this soon, but I think I've already found a real life news story that trumps that earlier one with a guy trying to cash a cheque for $360 billion dollars. 13 Year Old Steals Dad's Credit Card to Buy Hookers. Which doesn't sound completely outlandish at first, but when you start reading the article...

• they paid two escorts to just play Halo with them


• their explanation for being such ballers was that they had won a World of Warcraft tournament


• the father was planning on taking his teenage son to Disneyland


• they told the escorts they were actually circus midgets and not 13 year-olds

...then the story just crosses from the realm of absurdity and into the realm of being truly epic. Texas, dreams of becoming a politician, Halo, a blatant lack of common sense and respect for parental authority, Dr. Pepper, Fritos, and Oreos...sorry, there's no way this kid isn't white.

- Why are they even asking this kid what his future career ambitions are in the first place? What an odd question to ask. But I'm not complaining, interviewing kids after they commit crimes is always entertaining. That grandma's going to fucking wreck that kid's ass, that much is certain. I mean it's crazy to think that we live in a world where stuff like this isn't even really that unexpected, but at least in this one particular case, I'm certain that justice will be served, and there's at least some small level of consolation in that for me. Thank God for black grandmothers.

- The small bit with the cop in the last video reminds me of Patton Oswalt's bit on COPS, so I'll just link it here as well, just for completion's sake.

Any way you want it
That's the way you need it
Anyway you want it

5/12/2008 01:07:00 PM | Comments (0)

So softball season starts tomorrow...and I think the last time I was this excited, it was like the Halloween of 1992 or something, when life still held joy for me. (As a kid, I always enjoyed Halloween more than Christmas...probably because you got to run around all over the neighbourhood at night, which is something that's generally not encouraged at Christmas.) I can't wait for my first at-bat, it's literally giving me an erection right now just thinking about it. And this is still the preseason!

Links!

- Another Funny Or Die video featuring a behind the scenes look of how John Mayer makes his music. "Have all the chords in music been found? Most people say yes. I say, 'not so fast, asshole.'" A great, unexpected music/comedy crossover talent (like Garth Brooks) - remember his bit on Chappelle's Show? I haven't quite yet been able to put my finger on it yet, but it just reeks of Judd Apatow. Maybe it's the overwhelming amount of celebrity cameos or the brief, dry, improv style exchanges, like with the two song writers talking about supermodels. It's just automatic at this point; they're sleep walking through these, and it's a hit every time.

- Although I like this one better. Falseface starring Will Forte and Brian Petsos. The soundtrack throughout...pure brilliance.

- Loosely related...a collection of clips of Nicholas Cage in The Wicker Man. I've never seen it...but now I kinda want to. Not the bees! They're huge and they're sting crazy!

- Another page from the book of Only White People...3 accused of using corpse head to smoke pot. At least they might get a fair trial. Stay classy, Houston.

- Apparently the rights to Short Circuit have been newly acquired, meaning that a new remake might possibly be in the works. (Hopefully it's something like these, complete with the speed reading bits.) So I would like to thank Hollywood in advance for fucking up another of my cherished childhood memories. Short Circuit 2 was one of my most favourite movies as a kid, although I remember being horribly traumatized and emotionally scarred from that one scene where they're killing Johnny 5 (they snuck up on him from behind by speaking pig latin!) and he's just screaming "NO STOP DO NOT KILL ME AAAAAAAAHHHHH" throughout the entire thing. (Can you believe this movie was rated PG!?! The world was different back then.) Some might also tell you that the movie featured the best use of Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out For A Hero of all time. But despite my abundant love for this movie, I'm unfortunately forced to reluctantly disagree.

i still refuse to believe that this hot bitch came from the sky and landed in a split. i cannot believe it.

THE BEST ROUTINE EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRr

5/09/2008 03:57:00 PM | Comments (0)

Sometimes I worry that this site has gotten away from our racist, homophobic, and general all around inappropriate roots. It's essential that we dip back to that everlasting well of material from time to time, to refill and refresh our bodies and minds. I have drank deeply from this well of hate and prejudice today, and it is the fuel of which this post was powered with.

- Boring CNN article about the new trend of coed dorms popping up in colleges, featuring what is apparently a typical pair of coed roommates in a Russian studies residence with standard fluff piece questions and stock answers about how there's absolutely no issue or sexual tension involved with being roommates with a member of the opposite sex. Forgive me for my brashness, but if the article picture is of any accuracy, then I'd wager that was less because of their mature and responsible mindsets, and more just because that the two of them are so fucking ugly.

- Here's a guy you'd love to hate - typical rich white douchebag that hospitalized his girlfriend was sent to jail last week after the judge didn't buy his claim of suffering from intermittent explosive disorder. (Two highlights - the reaction picture and the absolute last sentence of the article.) What's the most nuts to me is that this "condition" is actually recognized as a mental disorder and was even entertained, no matter how briefly, as a legitimate excuse for this asshole Phoenix Smashing his girlfriend in the liver - just yet another way that modern society tries to make up shit to excuse its members for failing to lead responsible lives, and legitimize douchebaggery by blaming it on external factors, like bullshit mental disorders, video games, or the media. Why can't we just call a spade a spade and acknowledge poor parenting and people being retarded all on their own, without blaming Grand Thief Auto for their stupidity, like this asshole probably will?

EDIT: Addendum to the last link...for those of you that managed to catch the fact that the accident happened on Batman Avenue, Melbourne...it turns out that there was actually a man called John Batman who founded the city of Melbourne. A quick Googlin' turned up this page which details the life and times of Batman, the Australian farmer of the 19th centry, including his role in the Aboriginal Wars of Tasmania. Easily one of the most bizarre and surreal articles I've ever read in my life.

- I was reading these two news stories, and the first thing I thought for both of them were how much it would suck to die that way. And then I realized I was disappointed that they didn't actually die, because then that would have made those stories even better and more entertaining, in a horribly morbid sort of way. Imagine if the last words of that silo worker was him shouting "I HATE PEEEEEAAAAAAS!!!" while he was crushed to death by them. I won't lie, I'm chuckling to myself right now as I write this.

- Stop me if you're heard this one before - so a man strapped with a gun and a bag of weed walks into a bank and tries to cash a cheque for $350 billion (yes, that's $1 x 10⁹) so that he can start a new record company. Now with just the facts available to you, and without clicking on the link yet...just imagine, hypothetically...if there is any, ANY possibility at all that this guy is NOT black? Now try to imagine what this guy's face looks like, click the link, and proceed to be amazed at how accurately this article can read your mind. I mean, I don't even really think it's a racist thing at this point...it's like there's no other possible outcome. If you walk into a bank inadvertently loaded with guns and drugs looking to cash a cheque for $350 BILLION from your baby momma's momma to start a new record label...I'm sorry, there's no way you're not black.

In his defense though, he was most probably high as a fucking kite.

- Just like how if you read a story about a 73 year-old man who chained his own daughter in his cellar as his incestuous sex slave and sired six children with her...you're thinking...that guy has to be white. And if you read a story about some crazy rural villagers murdering single women so that their dead buddies can hook up with their spirits in the afterlife...you're thinking...those guys gotta be Chinese. I mean, at what point does it get beyond racist and just fits into like...statistically supported conclusions of common sense? I mean, I'm the absolutely least racist person you will ever meet in this lifetime or the next - and even I have to acknowledge that yeah, people are fucked up on the whole, but people of different races are fucked up in different ways. And that should be celebrated.

- From the same guys that brought you Safe Baby Handling Tips, comes Safe Baby Pregnancy Tips. I'm a big fan of inappropriate pregnancy and infant related material, and this site should continue to reflect that.

- I wonder if there's a lesson to be learned in this incident involving a razor blade flavoured muffin, about not eating random food you find lying around.

...

I don't know, I was never really one for the metaphorical stuff. I can't blame the dude, I mean...it's college, you're hungry, you're cheap, you'll eat free food wherever you can get it. How the fuck are you supposed to expect that these muffins you found wrapped in tin foil, left over in an indoor college classroom on private property had razor blades baked into them? How is this not a felony? If I laced candy with anthrax and scattered them around a random sandbox full of kids, you think I'd get away with that with just a written statement about how much I "regret" that it happened?

What the fuck kind of class encourages and rewards people for baking razors into muffins to illustrate "ideas of absurdism and randomness?" Existentialism? That's some stupid shit. Oh, you liberal arts majors...I just want all of you pretentious asshats to die in a fire. And not like a subjective metaphorical, figurative fire symbolizing the rebirth of a new postmodern perspective of collective objectivity or some nonsense like that - I mean in like a real fire, made of flames and heat. And AIDS. Bake that into a muffin, you stupid motherfuckers.

"Oh, boy! This thing is shredding my insides!"
"Er, Krusty, that wasn't the metal one, that was a regular KrustyO."
"It's poison..."

5/05/2008 01:00:00 PM | Comments (0)

I bring the newest hippest shit!

Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs

and...

Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

Prepare to have your balls/boobs knocked off by the first track on "At Mount Zoomer".

5/02/2008 08:58:00 PM | Comments (0)

Ah man, I don't know how I forgot to post the Nicholas Fehn links I had. In addition to AL's below, here is the first one, which was funnier just because you had no warning as to what was going to happen.

I really get a kick out of the way the laughter comes in waves, because the audience has no real idea or clear opportunity when to laugh. Since it's all just stuttering, there's no clear defined punch line, and no clear point that's pointed out to the audience that "THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU LAUGH" which is always the funnier way to do it. Fascinating to me. Fred Armisen is absolutely brilliant, of that there can be no debate.

What - who asked!?!

5/02/2008 11:08:00 AM | Comments (0)

Say A Prayer For An Eye Infection

In A Cave - Tokyo Police Club

As I mentioned on the tagboard, I like to have a reason to post rather than just throw up a bunch of links. I mean, even William usually accompanies his links with some unique, albeit disturbing, insight into his life. How can I do any less? Even though my life has been on hold these days, there are still lots of positives to discuss.

The other day, Shirley was back in town. I hesitate to say "back home", because as she'd quickly point out, Markham isn't exactly her home anymore. I guess her home would be in Waterloo with Niki, but that may not even be the case. She's one of those gals who's just "of the world", for lack of a better term. Shirley and I usually find some time to hang out whenever she's back, but this time it didn't look like we'd get the chance. She had other things to do during the day and I had plans with Annia in the evening so it looked like I'd just be stopping by her house sometime later that night to get my battery charger that I let her borrow and that would be that.

When I last saw Shirley a couple of weeks ago, she had been nursing a cold. Unfortunately for her, she hasn't been able to get string together a few solid days of rest because she's out and about New York and Boston giving tours to high school bands. So this cold has apparently persisted and worse, it reaggravated an eye infection that she picked up somewhere along the way. I became privy to all this information on Tuesday, when she called me to take her to the doctor. I hadn't been planning to...let me rephrase that. I'd been planning to leave the house to go for a walk or something but I probably wasn't going to, so I was more than happy to have an excuse to get out.

It was a beautiful sunny day and we listened to the Juno soundtrack on the way to the doctor. For the mostpart, I can associate every song with the appropriate scene in the film, which is a credit to the strength of the soundtrack and the film itself. Bravo, Jason Reitman. The perfect soundtrack to a spring day.

We were told it could be about an hour before the doctor would see us, so we went to the mall and I picked up Grand Theft Auto IV. When we came back, about thirty minutes had passed and I was thinking, "We should be done here soon." An hour and a half after that, the doctor saw us. Three minutes after that, the diagnosis was done and we were out of there. To clarify: Two hour wait...three minute diagnosis. I still support free health care.

Shirley got the unwise idea to eat at the Popeye's next door. Her reasoning was that she hadn't eaten Popeye's in a long time. There's a reason for that! I love Popeye's chicken as much as the next guy, but it's not exactly the most healthy/nutritious/non-artery clogging meal that you can find. After we packed up the leftovers, Shirley looked like all the life had been drained from her and decided that she needed to go home and take a serious nap. I noticed the early signs of "the meat sweats" developing on her forehead and concurred.

It's funny. A few weeks ago, Annia took Shirley out to a nice dinner and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra to celebrate her birthday. I treated her to Popeye's and we toasted over bottled ice teas. She keeps diverse company, eh? Still, I personally can't think of anyone I'd rather spend two hours in a doctor's office with. And I wouldn't even need the magazines.

A good time like that usually carries over for me and even though I was still sore from a weekend contest of driveway basketball and an intense session of softball practice, I played really well at pickup basketball last night with Max. I wasn't a star or anything (that's not my thing), but I definitely had a little extra hop in my step after Tuesday. I just felt refreshed. Also, Derek and Max really kicked my ass on Saturday night and even though I didn't have much fun, it helped me with my game a ton.

Whoops, I've gone way overboard on the rambling-to-links ratio. Let's get to it.

It seems like I'm always talking about how Fred Armisen is one of the most underrated SNL performers of the last decade and if I'm not then I should be. He's got this new character, Nicholas Fehn, who is supposed to be a parody of all those cool social commenters who think they're so hip with their complicated shoes. It's not brilliantly written, but it shows how far a good performer like Armisen can go with such a simple concept.

You know your basketball lacks chemistry when noone is giving you love at the free throw line.

William is always talking about burning the Marvel vs. Capcom 2 soundtrack onto a CD. Well, here it is. Gonna take you for a ride!

And since William already posted that "Iron Man Trailer Movie" gag that I'd been saving for weeks(!), I'll just have to settle for posting this trailer for a movie called Blood And Bone. It's an indie release featuring some MMA legends and newjacks like legalized murderer Kimbo Slice and *swoon* my girl, Gina Carano (aka "Crush" on American Gladiators.

Speaking of Gina, here she is on Inside MMA (1, 2). There's nothing funny here, I just love her.

How did she die?
I guess you could say she died of...blunt force trauma and blood loss. She got into a car accident and plowed into the side of an airplane hangar.
God.
Yeah.
She was so innocent.
She was stoned, apparently.

5/01/2008 04:43:00 PM | Comments (0)