The Saturday Sketch: "Girl Drink Drunk"

Tanner say "Girl Drink Drunk," so here it is:


A True Kids in the Hall contender for "funniest comedy sketch of all time." Especially since so much of it rings so true to life.

A Grind-My-Gears Final Crisis Friday

You know what really grinds my gears? Deicide. It just seems disrespectful. Most places don't have a law against it, but the Green Lanterns will police it anyway.


They even have a code for it, 1011. Apparently it doesn't come up a lot.

"Smut is more fun and porn is illegal."

It would probably be weird enough to discuss on television the differences between sentai and hentai as an adult, but doing it as a 13 year-old? What kind of masochistic planet do you live on, man? P.S. I did that and it was somewhat embarassing.

P.P.S. Nah, I got over it. Here, enjoy an unrelated related link about cartoon boobies.

There was a lamppost in there, too.

Has anyone seen that Prince Caspian movie yet? Not me, but I did see the trailer. And speaking of trailers, I was unloading a trailer full of boxes this morning, and the trailer just seemed to keep going and going and going.

"I must be halfway to Narnia by now," I thought to myself, quite cleverly. Then a supervisor came over.

"Yeah, you probably noticed you got the bigger trailer today. It's 20 feet longer."

"Oh," I said, choking at the opportunity to share my bon mot. But I guess that's why people have blogs.

Excellent Use of the Mistral Font

It gets used a lot on The University Network, too.

Regional Differences in Understanding Divinity: The Duct Tape Litmus Test

Sign outside a church in Northwest Arkansas:

We often try to fix problems with WD-40 or Duct Tape, God did it with a Nail.

Sign outside a church in Southern Missouri:

God's Love is like Duct Tape, It fixes everything.

Someone should put together a book.


Oh, they did.

Gone Polar Bear Hunting

Will I catch one? It is possible, since I am on a river in Missouri and polar bears are native to that region as far as my education has led me to believe.

The Saturday Sketch: "Jimmy Tango's Fat Busters"

This week's sketch is by request of Nick, who wanted something with Jim Carrey in it. Not specifically this, but go ahead and RIDE THE SNAKE:


That was, of course, from the episode of Saturday Night Live that Carrey hosted. I like Nancy Walls in that sketch, playing the woman who talks about making out with Scott Baio. In real life, she married Steve Carrell, which is a step or two or 100 up. Interestingly enough, SNL just last week went back to the well of "satirical program about losing weight" with host Steve Carrell as Charlie Flitt. Unfortunately, that sketch didn't have Nancy in it, although she did make an appearance during the monologue. And that concludes today's trivial trivia.

Shia "The Beef" LeBeouf

It's not that I really like Shia LaBeouf or would even go see a movie he is in, but they keep putting him in movies I was already going to see. Now, Ryan, on the other hand...

Tom's New Haircut

Who's the fruitbat now, Tom?

I'm behind on my Spider-Man reading.

Otherwise, I would have complained a lot sooner that when Wolverine's claws are retracted, the sound effect is SNAKT, not TKINS (SNIKT, or the sound of the claws popping out, backwards). Nah, I'm just kidding, I'd never complain about Amazing Spider-Man, it's great!

Asses to Ashes, Busts to Dust

SOAPnet cycled through the last episode of Melrose Place yesterday, meaning that after twenty-plus weeks of dedicated viewing, I have seen all 227 episodes of 90s America's favorite prime-time soap. If there are two things that helped me through it (besides my incredibly dogged stubbornness), they are TiVo and sobriety. I never could have done it without them. I would also like to thank my mother, my brother, John, and Kevin, all of whom watched at least partial bits of episodes when they were putting off stuff that needed to be done or were too hungover to get away.

So what did I take away from the experience? Well, I learned that the only worthwhile things in life are hooking up and succeeding in advertising, and that if either of those things happens it's really just a harbinger of misfortune to come, usually in the form of an explosion, catfight, or falling in the pool (although that last one also happens for comedic purposes). But more importantly, I learned that unlike the comeuppance delivered in the last episode of Seinfeld, you can be a reprehensible (but entertaining!) person for years and still be rewarded in the end. Which was especially true for Thomas Calabro's character, Dr. Michael Mancini, who lied, cheated, embezzled in at least two separate plotlines, and went through six wives in seven seasons, and still ended up with a million dollars, a hot nurse, and a cushy chief-of-staff position, smug as ever. Which may be a misconstrued version of Seinfeld's line "the best revenge is living well," but, hey, whatever works.

Women of the X-Men

Chris Claremont and Milo Manara have been working on a graphic novel featuring the women of the X-Men for a while now, to be called Women of the X-Men or X-Girls or Girls on the Run or really who knows? But it's coming and some preview art has finally been released.


Claremont has always had a thing for strong women of vision, and Manara's teh awesome at drawing strong visions of women, so this should be a book to look forward to whenever it gets released, even if lesbianism is unlikely.

Left-Eyebrow-Arching

io9 has had some excellent coverage of Joss Whedon's upcoming show Dollhouse this past week, including the first upfront trailer. It might be too soon to say, but so far this looks to be the only new show I will be watching in the coming season. And I may not keep up with some current shows that are continuing next season, for instance Smallville, especially if that show will no longer feature Laura Vandervoort as Supergirl, who gave me a reason to keep watching among all the threats of kryptonite gum and Bizarro-loving Lana.

But I don't consider Dollhouse to be a replacement for Smallville, even if Eliza Dushku is just as beautiful as Vandervoort. Just...as...wait a second...


Well, it's close enough for government work. These two do not look all that much alike, but makeup, lighting and the possibility of some digital manipulation (maybe, who's to say?) tend to obfuscate the differences between them. Still, there are definitely similarities as well, my favorite being both Dushku's and Vandervoort's arching of the left eyebrow. Neither actress uses that left eyebrow to the degree that, say, Vanessa Williams in Eraser does (I would suggest creating a drinking game out of William's left-eyebrow-arching, but I don't think that eyebrow ever came down, so where would you take a shot?), but there are times when both use it on-screen.

But I don't want to give the impression that just women are acting with their left eyebrows. Over the last three seasons, Jason Lee's left-eyebrow-arching in My Name is Earl has been downright notorious, to the point where the writers finally brought it up in the show itself:


I have a pet theory that this was something that the writers wanted to address in season one, but no one had the heart to criticize Lee's acting, in jest or not, because it likely would have psyched him out and led to some blatant inconsistencies in his performance, which would have hurt the then-nascent narrative. With a couple of years under the show's belt, now is a more comfortable time for such meta-commentary.

On the other hand, no matter when the joke was used, its use does draw attention to the left-eyebrow-arching, and once you start to notice it, there really is no going back. You are going to notice it until the day you die. Unless, of course, you have the good fortune to be an "Active," in which case, upon the completion of the mission to read this post, you will have your mind wiped and never consider the merits of left-eyebrow-arching again.

The Saturday Sketch: "GloboChem"

Today's sketch is from Mr. Show's first season, and this little motherfucker's tasty:


Could it be the eventual winner of the title "funniest comedy sketch of all time(s)"? This motherfucker dragged me down here, I don't know.

A Grind-My-Gears Corn Syrup Friday

You know what really grinds my gears? Massive inflation in food prices. I was reminded of this again yesterday when I noticed that coke machines on campus now charge $1.50 for a 12 oz. bottle of sugar water. That is somewhat of a mixed blessing, because soda is kind of crap, and if it takes a ridiculous amount of price inflation to get people to stop drinking it, that is alright by me. My brother takes an even more hardline stance against high-fructose corn syrup: most people have something they will rant about if you let them, and his soapbox is actually a soda crate that he stands on to tell you how terrible coke is for your health. I say, next time you want a Jack & Coke, just take the whiskey out of your boot, pour it in a glass, add a spoonful of sugar and cut out the middle man.

Most experts agree that what is driving up the price of many foods is not just regular-type inflation or the rising cost of transporting food, but also the government's subsidies for ethanol-based fuels. That's funny, right, that we are diverting attention from using corn as people food and concentrating on making it machine food?

Well, I think it's funny, but not as funny as the fact that in either case, as food for people or cars, corn is a terribly inefficient source of fuel. Excuse my hyperbole for the sake of metaphor, but eating corn is about as energy-efficient as eating gold, and it could end up costing you as much in the not-too-distant future.

Meanwhile, in the bit-more-distant (and highly fictionalized) past of our great nation, when cartoon John Smith told cartoon Pocahontas that his people came to the New World to dig valuable yellow stuff out of the ground, she assumed he was talking about corn (prounounced maize) and not gold (prounounced gold). If only that Smith was (a) real, (b) extremely long-lived, and (c) prudent enough to invest in corn futures (otherwise known as the "Maize Hat-Trick" of investment strategies), he would today be a very wealthy man. Instead, he chose to learn how to paint with all the colors of the wind, which is a fine thing to do but far from a perfect dietary plan. Not that it seemed to matter, because the only character in that movie who ever ate anything was the raccoon.

Pray

If you ever wondered what song people most often sing whilst floating on the river:


Wonder no longer, because it's this one.

Urge for Bullet Points...Rising...

Bullet points, like music, have a rhythm. This particular song consists of six sharp notes, like deathly drumbeats.

• How I Met Your Mother renewed for fourth season. Urge to kill...fading...
• Before the server went down, bids to meet the cast of HIMYM were up to $27,500. Urge to kill...rising...
• Shayne won Matt's heart, and also completely eviscerated any theories I might have come up with (cough cough), but a quick change of plans before the finale still netted me a mighty dollar profit in wagers. Fading...Now if only ABC would trim each season by three weeks...
• Speaking of trimming, The Real World Hollywood is apparently only 12 episodes, but each one is an hour long. Rising... Also: next up, Brooklyn. Rising...
  
• Deanna is the next The Bachelorette. If you told me a woman was a Greek goddess with a little southern twist, I would say, "Congratulations, you have just described the complete opposite of what I am looking for." Rising...
• Speed Racer: Advanced? Wait, what was the definition for advanced again? The good news: Speed Racer is an enjoyable movie with some new party tricks. The bad news: It bombed. The (Joel) silver lining: No possibility of a sequel diminishing the appeal of the first film. Urge to kill...mediated...
  

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Crockett will teach you about relationships.

And now, the only three minutes of Miami Vice that you ever need to see:


"I need to know something. The way we used to be together. I don't mean lately, but before, it was real, wasn't it?"

A good preventative measure for drunk-dialing would be a timelock on your phone, or maybe a breathalyzer. But even better than that would be a function on your phone that makes it so that if you call an ex after 3 a.m., you don't get connected, but instead your ex just hears that line of dialogue, backed by Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight."

A foolproof plan sure to have every ex saying, "You bet it was."

Lazer Bass, Happycore, and the Battle for the American Soul

One of my favorite useless trinkets is a piece of candy a raver girl once made for me. We met in class, and it was clear from her attire that she was really into the dance music scene (and also dance music itself, which does not always happen). When she found out that I was also into electronica, she asked what specific kind of stuff I liked. I knew it would be embarrassing to say happycore, so I figured a safer response was just to say I liked trance.

"Fucking Trance!" she said, in a rehearsed tone of spite. She was into jungle, which is alright too. The next day, she brought me this:


I think it was a nice gesture. My knowledge of what makes music belong to a certain sub-genre (and the merits of those sub-genres) is limited, but the trick to presenting knowledge (especially in social situations and especially about music) is to sound authoritative without being condescending. And you have to know your audience. I managed to spend an hour on a road trip once describing the differences between house and trance, because what the other people in the car knew about electronica allowed me heavy wiggling room for descriptive bull plop.

So I always keep the potential level of bull plop in mind when reading ABOUT music (and as they say, writing about music is like dancing about architecture). Further, the level of hyperbole exhibited when discussing anything you like can get kind of nertz real quick, as is the case with Sasha Frere-Jones and his new favorite sound, Lazer Bass.

When I first read about lazer bass, it was in print, so I didn't get around to listening to it until yesterday, and actually spent the entire weekend going around inaccurately describing everything I heard as lazer bass. It turns out lazer bass is really just Squarepusher, only more "dubby," with the sampling technique of good lord can you imagine listening to me yak about that for another hour?

So, while I love the descriptive title of lazer bass, the music itself is not really for me, falling into that ubiquitous category of "things to play to trick people into dancing so we can put on the real dance music," or, "electronica that sneaks in through the side hatch." It's probably just a failing of mine, but I tend to see dance music that's not happycore as a pose, sub-genres that are not being too terribly honest about what's on the agenda. But that's just me, and what do I know anyway? I like fucking trance.

College Graduate at Play

I went to the dentist Thursday, and got rick rolled while there was a drill in my mouth, which is the kind of thing R.L. Stine could get 300 pages out of, but in real life the situation is not so bad, eh? Later, I was assembling an executive chair when this came on the radio:


Rick Astley - "Never Gonna Give You Up" (Solly Remix). Works for me!

The Saturday Sketch: "Celebrity Jeopardy "

This week's sketch is a "Celebrity Jeopardy" parody from Saturday Night Live, featuring Ben Stiller as Tom Cruise and Jimmy Fallon as Adam Sandler, with Will Ferrell as Alex Trebek and Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery. This sketch is funny even without the video: my first exposure to it was as an Mp3 in high school, and I listened to it hundreds of times (on minidisc!) before I ever saw the actual sketch on TV. But judge for yourself, by clicking play and closing your eyes:


SNL's "Celebrity Jeopardy" sketches are always good times, but I think this one is my favorite. Another really good one, though, is the one with Norm Macdonald as Burt Reynolds, Darrell Hammond as John Travolta, and Matthew Perry as Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton is probably the funniest person to imitate on the planet. Watch him on screen, he does not care what anyone else is doing, he is just going to be INTENSE and FURROW HIS BROW. And in the sketch, Macdonald put on a giant cowboy hat and made everyone refer to him as "Turd Ferguson." I probably like that sketch so much because we performed it in high school as a one-act play. I was Turd Ferguson.

A Shift-Your-Gears Mach 6 Friday

The Wachowski Bros. really seem to have it in for the number 5, as the erstwhile digit is often cast in an antagonistic light in their movies. To be generous, it is possible to say that 5 as portrayed in their movies is, at best, representative of a life that must be escaped from, and that it is indicative of, if not outright Evil, at least a hive-mind mentality. Put bluntly, the number 5 is anathema to Wachoski-written protagonists, individuals who must separate themselves from the pack (although really, this makes the protagonist anathema to the hive-mind).

This is all pretty clear in the Matrix trilogy, with Neo designated as the sixth integral anomaly, and the world of the matrix downright plastered with 101 designations (addresses, highways), what in binary is 5 decimal. And in V for Vendetta, V's instigation of an anarchic uprising leads to thousands of individuals donning Guy Fawkes masks, as they all symbolically become V (5) in an act of public disobedience that glorifies the hive mind while doing nothing to effect real change (the promise of 6). Of course, in V for Vendetta, they had to radically change the original work to get there (upsetting author Alan Moore), but you could say that 5 didn't come out looking like such a pillar of "right number behavior" in the comic, either.

Anyway, it was with those examples in mind that I wondered how the Wachowski Bros. would deal with the presence of the Mach 5 in their new film, Speed Racer, opening today. I mean, that's Speed's car. And what about the delightful pun of "go" meaning 5 in Japanese? Surely the protagonist's car isn't a symbol of the hive mind?


Well, okay then. If you want to break away from the pack, I guess you're gonna need a Mach 6. Roku, Speed, Roku!

Why "Annuale" is a Funnier SNL Sketch than "Monex"

Checking in on the global economy, it looks like the word is "gold," which must mean the global economy has been watching the same soap opera reruns I have, and has thus been bombarded with advertisements demanding that they send for their FREE GOLD KIT NOW.* If you are not familiar with them, the companies running these ads helpfully want to buy your old gold jewelry, and they are willing to give you cash for that gold and you keep the gold!**

I didn't pay attention to the national spots on the subject of FREEGOLDKITS, because really, sending gold through the mail is cumbersome, who's got the time? Which is why I was thrilled when I started seeing ads for local operations that were in business strictly to buy my old gold. Imagine, I could bring my gold right to the store and walk out with paper currency, something that can be exchanged for goods and services. Try doing THAT with gold! What kind of crackpot business even buys gold? A crackpot business, that's what kind.

Unless, of course, the Fed has been trying to keep economic markets calm through suppressing the price of gold by selling more than half of the nation's supply. Which really makes gold a buyer's market now, but also guarantees that it becomes a seller's market as soon as (A) the Fed stops selling all the gold or (B) the Fed sells all the gold. Who's the crackpot business now?

My favorite part of that article, though, is when the author begins what can only be called the Pizza Metaphor Imperative (or PMI):

...all I want is just to make a lot of money so that I can move into a nice house in a gated community that has armed guards, a nice golf course and completely surrounded by sleazy strip clubs and pizza parlors where you can get any kind of pizza you ever heard of at discount prices.

Obviously, the man is talking about sex pizza, but why he felt the need to be so coy about it is beyond me. He leaves no time to dwell on it though, because immediately after that the PMI continues:

...as to the notion that the Fed has sold half of our nation's gold... I see no reason why the Fed would stop at only half, sort of like when I am starving and I sit down with a whole delicious pizza in front of me, and my wife thinks I am just going to eat half and leave the other half for her, and then she acts all surprised when I see no reason to stop at half, either!

Yeah, what's that broad thinking? Really, though, I don't believe it's fair when what is initially a well-reasoned article on the global economy so quickly turns to madness with no warning. So, here is my warning to you, I am about to do the same thing with a new metaphor ready go:

Trying to regulate market prices of finite materials is like regulating a woman's menstrual cycle with hormones for an indefinite period of time. There is no profit*** in it, and when you run out of hormones, there's going to be hell to pay.

So, why is "Annuale" a funnier Saturday Night Live sketch than "Monex"? Because the writers at SNL (as well as everyone else) know what would happen if you fucked with a girl's period for a year, so everyone can relate to the catastrophic/hilarious results. But nobody at SNL (or really anyone else) knows what's up with gold, so they see the commercials and write a parody where Kristen Wiig moans "Gooooold" for three minutes.

But, just like the rest of us, the writers at SNL do better when dealing with paper currency.

*FREE GOLD KIT includes 4 lbs. lead, whiskey boot and VHS tape with instructions on constructing your own philosopher's stone out of common household items.

**You don't keep the gold.

***Let's say profit = babies.

The Real World Makes You Stupid

This clip from The Real World: Hollywood is an uncut version of a fight between Kimberly and Brianna that was aired a couple of weeks ago, and is superior to the edited version in every way except that it excises Kimberly's best racist line: "I don't care if you're from the most inner-city...BLACKVILLE, you do not act like that." Still, there are some choice A #1 racist comments up in this mug:


The best part about alcohol-fueled blow ups peppered with racists barbs is the opportunity for make up racism later that week. Make up racism is a lot like make up sex, only way more racist.

The Many Faces of Stan Lee, Cameo King

Wired has an interview with Stan Lee about his cameos in Marvel movies, the most recent of which is his appearance in Iron Man. In the movie, Tony Stark only sees Lee's character, surrounded by beautiful women, from behind while on the red carpet, and says hi to "Hef," quickly moving on before Lee turns around. It creates an interesting ambiguity, leaving the audience to decide if Lee is playing Hugh Hefner or an alternate-universe Stan Lee who has a lifestyle very similar to Hugh Hefner. Or, most unlikely, an alternate-universe Stan Lee who spends much of his free time emulating the lifestyle of Hugh Hefner, renting smoking jackets and hiring expensive call girls to accompany him to premieres and parties.

While we may never get closure on that point, Marvel's announcement of an Iron Man sequel to be released in 2010, as well as three other Avengers movies to take place in the same shared movie universe as Iron Man, points towards plenty of future cameo opportunities for Lee.

Annals of Drinking Pt. 1,478

Back once again with the Renegade Master:


'D' for damage with the ill behavior.

CRQ: Everything You Love About Comics, Nothing You Don't

Comics Review Quarterly is the result of an exercise I did in designing a dummy copy of a new magazine; in this case, a magazine about comic books.


Click here to see a gallery of the 12 pages I put together, but keep in mind that because this was only an exercise in design, all the text is place-holding gibberish, and not Bulgarian, as Ryan originally thought when I showed him the finished product. However, my letter from the editor is an actual letter from the editor, but that personal paean to Gareb Shamus' ghostwriter is just slightly less gibberish than the rest of the issue.

The Saturday Sketch: "Tattoo Parlor"

And now, a sketch suggested by Ryan, from the Whitest Kids U'Know, describing a great idea for a tattoo:


Will this sketch be crowned "the funniest comedy sketch of all time"? I mean, it's possible. Bowser winking over a pair of sunglasses is crucial.

A Grind-My-Gears Iron Man 2020 Friday

You know what really grinds Arno Stark's gears? Rotating his arm at the shoulder.

Somewhere in this post a metaphor falls apart.

I saw There Will Be Blood last night. I heard it was long, and it turns out it was quite long (somewhere between 30 and 400 hours). I also heard there was a line about milkshakes in there, and that is true too, but they put it at the end, so you have to watch the whole movie to hear it. Or you can just watch this clip from Saturday Night Live, and BOOM! You just drank that movie's milkshake!



YOU DRANK IT UP!

If you don't have five minutes, I can just tell you that it is funny when you shout "I Drink Your Milkshake!" at the top of your lungs like you have a thick moustache, and there you just drank SNL's milkshake. If there's a way to cut it down further I do not want to hear about it because that's my milkshake.*

*metaphor falls apart here