Belated Christmas Present:

Merry Late Christmas!

Spoiler- the bottom of the article is a let down; turns out they're just taking his show off the air, not locking him in a bunker underneath a mountain like they did with Carlos Mencia.

End of Decade List

So I called it my "End of Decade" list because I really wanted it to have that "End of Decade" punch, but here's the thing; whether it's an "End of Decade" list or an "End of Year" list really depends on what I do next year, right? I mean, if I do something strikingly similar, then this is going to kind of feel like an "End of Year" list, but if I wait 10 years before doing another list (impossible, we'll all be dead by then... 2012 People! It's in the Bible) then this will seem like an "End of Decade" list... it's a tough call. Regardless, with the end of the decade fast approaching everyone's clamoring over each other to list things and as the list of "End of Decade" lists got longer, I found myself thinking "What?! Do they think they're better than Me?!"

So without further ado, here's my list of 100 things!

100. Lime Juice - if orange juice and lemon juice came to a party, and they had a child and you were like "That child could be theirs, or it could be adopted, it's hard to call also it's good on Mexican food." that child would be lime juice.
     
99. Spaceships
    
98. Racket Balls - When I was a kid, I loved racket balls... don't know why, maybe it was the blue, maybe it was the rubber, maybe it was because when you open a can of them they smell like old fake peanuts.
    
97. Toothpaste
    
96. Canned Tomatoes
    
95. Retirement Plans
    
94. Third Base –The second most advantageous place to be, offensively, in baseball. Also slang for an arguable array of adolescent sexual conquests.
    
93. Texas
    
92. John Leguizamo - The Jerk... Well, that's all I can think of. I know he did other stuff, no time for a trip to IMDb though, I've got 97 more items on this list!
    
91. Mid-day
    
90. Ontario (Canadian province)
    
89. Ontario (California)
    
88. Horse-Diving –Remember that movie about the girl who went blind from horse high-diving? Also, remember in Braveheart when he jumped the horse into the moat? Awesome.
    
87. The color red - the go to color for things that you want in red. less effective for things that you want in green.
    
86. Operation
    
85. “Softly”
    
84. Flatware
    
83. 67
    
82. Name Tags - the world’s second most efficient name delivery device.
    
81. Time
    
80. The Concept of “Time” –yeah, you’d think I’d have something to say about this, I don’t.
    
79. Tree Frogs
    
78. Questions - Seriously, where would my blog be without them? Where would my life be without them? Where would any of our lives be without them?
    
77. Textiles
    
76. Fairhaven
    
75. Mayan Calendar- More date combinations than Heidi Fleiss -Zing! Take that mid 90's pop culture reference and "Hollywood Madam"! I certainly took her down a peg. Also it predicts the grisly end of the human race or something.
    
74. Queen Victoria
    
73. Jell-O
    
72. Existence
    
71. Trains
    
70. The Dodge Challenger - Honestly, I don't know much about it, but it's a thing. This is a long list of things.
    
69. Pineapple
    
68. Heidi Fleiss - Hmm. Heidi Fleiss beat out the very thing with which I zinged her -on my own list of things. Now I've been taken down a peg.
    
67. Text
    
66. Murphy Brown –Sass by the boatload!
    
65. Extreme Sports
    
64. Quitting - Constant companion, always whispering in my ear that there is a better way.
    
63. Doing things half assed -A little more work than quitting, but can often be played off as "an honest effort"
    
62. Murderous Rampages
    
61. IMDb - Honestly, if my blog came with a bibliography, it would look like this:
    
    1. IMDb.com
    2. Mike's Big Book of Made Up Stuff
    
    Also, it would be incorrectly formatted.
    
60. Bunny Rabbits
    
59. Sticky Notes
    
58. Patagonia (The region of Argentina)
    
57. They Might Be Giants –Nothing in particular about them… I was just reading an interview with John Flansburgh (he’s in TMBG) and I thought to myself; “I like them”.
    
56. Contextualizing things
    
55. Facing your own mortality –more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding than facing someone else’s mortality.
    
54. Actions –Particularly the ones that “speak louder than words”
    
53. Old Timey Bicycles
    
52. Terms of Service - the second least read collection of words in the English language. The first; Sarah Palin's Going Rouge. -I know what I wrote.
    
51. People that think they’re better than their old man
    
50. People that think they’re better than me
    
49. People that think they’re too good for conventional fabrics
    
48. Adolescents that think they’re too cool to be dropped off by Mom in front of their school.
    
47. Sarah Palin - in 2008 she proved that "I'll be more attractive than your average fat old white guy" was a valid campaign promise. Also she was zinged by me on thing # 52.
    
46. Nature
    
45. Any list that involves a run on “people that think they’re better than, or too good for, something”
    
44. Accents –Not the talky kind, the kind that tie a room together
    
43. Accents –The talky kind
    
42. Eternal Youth
    
41. Sandals - One thing's for sure; they cover less of your feet than conventional shoes!
    
40. People that hold steadfast to music that anyone in their 30's probably listened to and liked at some point, but we should all be ashamed of.
    
39. People that use jokes about their friend's musical tastes to advance their blog's dumb "End of Something" list
    
38. The US Postal Service
    
37. Calvin urinating on things
    
36. Cincinnati - considered to have been the first American boomtown in the heart of the country in the early nineteenth century to rival the larger coastal cities in size and wealth.
    
35. Kayaks
    
34. James Taylor
    
33. James Gandolfini
    
32. Pregnancy – The most effective way to propagate our species. The Second most effective? Destroy the Mayan Calendar and avoid the destruction it promises.
    
31. Nostalgia –The #1 way to make things better than they were.
    
30. Patriotism –Best if it’s misdirected.
    
29. Thresholds
    
28. The word “Labradoodle”
    
27. Kirk Cameron –If there’s anything better than regular faith-based passive aggressive conversion campaigns, it’s cleverly organized faith-based passive-aggressive conversion campaigns to be carried out on college campuses nation-wide. Also, he was in Growing Pains with Boner.
    
26. Boner –Not like that! Jesus!
    
25. Low Hanging Fruit
    
24. Synergy
    
23. Trespassing
    
22. Exact Matches
    
21. Acronyms
    
20. The Blues – “The Blues isn’t about making yourself feel better, it’s about making other people feel worse” –Bleeding Gums Murphy (may not be true). Also, it’s a nice portion of the color spectrum.
    
19. The Anasazi
    
18. Chewing Gum
    
17. The Wikipedia page for “Spells in Harry Potter”
    
16. Dentistry
    
15. WikiHow
    
14. Pottery –You ask; “What has pottery done for me?” I ask; “What hasn’t pottery done for you?”
    
13. The Volkswagen Thing –Apparently it’s known in the United Kingdom as the “Trekker”… so am I.
    
12. Canaries
    
11. "Feathery"
    
10. Personification –There are a lot of things. If you’re going to make something something else, why not a person?
    
9. Wood –A major component in wooden boats, wooden houses, woods, etc…
   
8. Weightlessness –I’ve never experienced it myself… but it seems pretty cool, no?
   
7. The grisly end of the human race –As discussed in thing #75. What would the Mayan calendar, the book of Revelations, Nostradamus, and the Discovery Channel do without it?
   
6. Hyperbole –The unrivaled absolute champion for delivery of anecdotes… Unrivaled
   
5. Jesus –Some people think he’s God in human form, some people think he’s just a guy. Something everyone can agree on; He -at the very least- exists as a concept.
   
4. Me –Yes, I beat out Jesus… well it’s my list, isn’t it?!
   
3. Inconsistency –Like, say, listing 100 things as though they have no rank or meaning, then occasionally commenting on one thing ranking higher than another thing.
   
2. “End of something” lists –There’s no better way to sum up a period of time than a hastily put together list.
   
1. The Fiancé –Call it a self serving #1 on my list of things, I don’t care. Call it “sappy” or “Persian” or "elegant", even “exemplary” I don’t care. You don’t like it, get your own list.

I sincerely thank all three of you for reading! Happy New Year!

Quick Link

I'm working on Year-end stuff. Also, I promised -and plan to deliver- Marci X, I just haven't had time yet.
Anywho, despite my "working on Year-end stuff", I couldn't let this one fall through the cracks;

This is one of those ideas that seems great until you think about it for more than 45 minutes -unless you're me, it only took me 3 minutes, but I'm very bright.

Go Here

Winter is a season for giving

And CBS has given me so much.



Also there's a Jewish version... I'm pretty sure he over enunciates "schmear" at the end... it's not Yiddish.



Also, CBS realizes that Jewish and gay aren't the same thing, right?

Meet the Spartans. Also meet Mike who's begun a slow descent into madness.

"I am a man of my word... until it becomes too hard. Then I quit." - Jesus

All right, Jesus didn't say that, I did. That's not the point.

I have not quit yet! Standing a mere 10 paces out from the starting blocks in this marathon of bad movies I've embarked upon, I can respond to questions of my impending early exit with an enthusiastic "Not yet!"

I watched Meet the Spartans. The Fiance watched Meet the Spartans. I laughed a handful of times, she laughed a handful of times, but I'll get to that in a minute.
This movie gave me -for the first time since my dramatic declaration last week- a realistic view on just how much of this metaphorical marathon will be uphill. The answer; all of it.

We watched the "Pit of Death" edition which the fiance clocked at an hour and 9 minutes (according to the blu-ray player... yes, we watched this on blu-ray). This creates two questions in my mind; first, I'm assuming that it's the "Pit of Death" edition because it has some kind of extra footage or something, how much extra footage could there possibly be in an hour and 9 minutes? Oddly, this is a harder question to answer than one would think. IMDb lists run-times of 86 and 84 minutes for Argentina and the UK respectively. I couldn't find a US run-time on IMdb, though netflix lists it at 89 minutes (I'm assuming we skipped 20 minutes of previews and credits). An hour and 9 minutes of actual movie is sparing (I choose my words carefully), which brings the second question; is the short run-time of this movie a sign that there might be some glint of self-awareness in the film's creators? Or is it just a sign of abject laziness? It's certainly not the former. A case could be made that this was not a result of laziness, that this is just the best that Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg can do. Based on the evidence from the "unrated" version, I could entertain that argument, but the number of times this movie showed any comic wit leaves no room for argument that there was any sort of "comic timing" involved in it's length (or, really anything else). Which leaves us at; Lazy or just really bad at what they do? I'm going with (c) "All of the above."

I did say earlier that there were a "handful" of times that The Fiance and I laughed. The aforementioned laughs? I can arrive at two; Leonidas (played by Sean Maquire, who also played the title character on Comedy Central's "Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire", and Jason Begley on Growing Pains) swore a few times that if the Spartans made the Persians attack through this narrow valley that "their numbers won't count for shit!". Side note- Kevin Sorbo (Hercules in the late 90's television series... um, Hercules) also had a supporting role in this movie. Two main actors with histories in "fantasy warrior" television series... hmmm.

The second chuckle; the entire existence of Ken Davitian (his IMDb photo is priceless- and inset in this paragraph) . Ken Davatian played Xerxes, who's character was pretty consistently left out of crude, unfunny, jokes -save the his introduction which involves a nipple-ring tearing/staple gun incident... not funny. Anyway, Davatian's been around, the only role I could identify (and it was identified for us by the movie itself) was Borat, but he's at least not so much in your face obnoxious, which is saying something for this particular movie.

Bonus chuckle: The scene with the oracle was mildly (and I stress mildly before I imply that any part of this movie was funny) funny. Also, the Spartan's skipping to battle. That's it.

This was essentially a feature length version of Hans Moleman's "Football in the Groin" padded with poor attempts at homophobia and "hot chicks", and dated-before-they-were-put-on-film pop culture references. The Fiance said it well (I'm paraphrasing); "You know a movie's bad when the 'hot women' aren't even that hot... I mean, how hard is it to get actual hot women, there's a lot of them."
That's why I'm marrying her.

Next movie: Marci X

I do this for science.

My Brilliant Scheme or How I Ended My Engagement

Hello Dear reader!

Seriously, at this point I'm positive that I've driven away even the most tolerant reader I might have had with my inconsistency -or more accurately my consistent non-existence. Still, I have a blog, and I intend to use it!

Good News! I've been struck with an immensely brilliant idea. A unbelievably brilliant idea that will, undoubtedly, result in the following three things happening: First; it will either make myself immeasurably more dim-witted or immeasurably more cynical -probably not both, Second; it will cause The Fiance to vomit with rage, and third and most important; it will give me an angle that should give me blogs through -at least- the end of the year, if all goes well, it could get me through considerably longer.

At this point, you're probably asking yourself -well, you're probably not, because no one's still reading, but if I were reading, I'd be asking myself; "What is this brilliant idea he speaks of?! Could it be learning to use a semi-colon properly?!" No. It is not learning how to use a semi-colon properly; I have always been, and will always continue to be an artist that can't be limited by the rules of "proper punctuation"... myself and e.e. Cummings.

Anyway, my idea is this: IMDB has a list of the 100 worst movies of all time. I will -for your sake dear reader (funny side note here: I'm pretty sure my only reader at this point is The Fiance, and since we live together, and watch movies together, I will not be sparing her from anything) Anyway, for someone's sake, dear reader, I will ingest and report on every one of these 100 worst movies of all time! (another side note: some of these movies are way old, and foreign, and obscure, I may not be able to find them... I don't know what I'll do when I come to that, but I'll do something).

The list is here: http://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom

One more thing: I'm assuming this is a dynamic list. Because that could cause all sorts of problems, I'm going to stick to the list as it is right now:

Meet the Spartans (2008)

Marci X (2003)

Hababam sinifi merhaba (2004)

Doogal (2006)

Levottomat 3 (2004)

Bolero (1984)

Daddy Day Camp (2007)

Blackwoods (2002)

Kazaam (1996)

It's Pat (1994)

Büyü (2004)

Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000)

Gigli (2003)

Araf (2006)

Hababam sinifi askerde (2005)

Hababam sinifi 3,5 (2006)

Alien from L.A. (1988)

The Smokers (2000)

Ed (1996)

Alone in the Dark (2005)

Love in Paris (1997)

The Underground Comedy Movie (1999)

Phat Girlz (2006)

Simon Sez (1999)

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

Cool as Ice (1991)

Nine Lives (2002)

Baby Geniuses (1999)

Epic Movie (2007)

American Ninja V (1993)

Mitchell (1975)

Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996)

3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain (1998)

Demon Island (2002)

In the Mix (2005)

Chairman of the Board (1998)

Ein Toter hing im Netz (1960)

Son of the Mask (2005)

Laserblast (1978)

I Can Do Bad All by Myself (2009)

Leonard Part 6 (1987)

Snowboard Academy (1996)

Car 54, Where Are You? (1994)

Space Mutiny (1988)

Feel the Noise (2007)

Glitter (2001)

Troll 2 (1990)

Santa with Muscles (1996)

House of the Dead (2003)

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964)

Eegah (1962)

Surf School (2006)

Anne B. Real (2003)

Tangents (1994)

Going Overboard (1989)

L'uomo puma (1980)

Keloglan kara prens'e karsi (2006)

Santa Claus (1959)

Soultaker (1990)

The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II (1985)

Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam'in oglu (2006)

The Hottie & the Nottie (2008)

The Creeping Terror (1964)

Ator l'invincibile 2 (1984)

The Tony Blair Witch Project (2000)

Crossover (2006)

The Apocalypse (2007)

The Wild World of Batwoman (1966)

Die Hard Dracula (1998)

Girl in Gold Boots (1968)

Stjerner uden hjerner (1997)

Who's Your Caddy? (2007)

Zodiac Killer (2005)

The Maize: The Movie (2004)

The Hillz (2004)

Kis Vuk (2008)

Los nuevos extraterrestres (1983)

Troppo belli (2005)

The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)

From Justin to Kelly (2003)

Hobgoblins (1988)

Disaster Movie (2008)

Emret komutanim: Sah mat (2007)

Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (1996)

Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag (2007)

Pledge This! (2006)

Dis - en historie om kjærlighet (1995)

Zombie Nation (2004)

Track of the Moon Beast (1976)

Fat Slags (2004)

The Final Sacrifice (1990)

Zaat (1975)

Ben & Arthur (2002)

Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

The Skydivers (1963)

The Starfighters (1964)

Monster a-Go Go (1965)

Daniel - Der Zauberer (2004)

Night Train to Mundo Fine (1966)

Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)

So when does this start? This weekend I will watch The Mist -BTW, fantastic monster horror movie, with one of the most awful, rip your heart out, unfair endings of all-time. Seriously, I like the movie, but probably a good idea to stop 5 minutes from the end... as soon as he gets out of the Jeep turn. it. off! Seriously. So when I finish The Mist, I will return it to Netflix and my next disc will be #100 on the list; Meet the Spartans. The Fiance may quash this before it ever gets off the ground- But at least I wrote a blog.

Something about shows I haven't seen before

Oh boy,

It's been years and years since I've blogged, so much has changed; people no longer tie a team of horses to their carriages to get from place to place - they now use so called "horse-less carriages". They no longer use block ice to keep out perishable foods cold, they now use "Electric Ice-boxes". I no longer wait for the second, undoubtedly thrilling installment of the Twilight movie series, and most importantly, The Fiance is no longer referred to as "The Girlfriend"... in fact, she will henceforth be referred to as "The Betrothed".
So I've decided (over the last 45 seconds) that I'm in my wheelhouse when talking about new shows -at least shows that are new to me- and recently a reader (or a person who did read my blog, you know, when I used to update it) a reader who -for the sake of anonymity, and because it's funny to me- will be called "Gummer Soff" told me that I should watch "Community" and I did. Here's the thing; is it funny? Yeah. Does it belong in "the squared circle" with the likes of The Office, what appears to be the future of Parks and Rec (that's turning into a good show!), and the ghost of 30 Rock past (that's turning into a not-so-good show)? No, certainly not. If ABC knows what's good for them, they'll -oh- if NBC knows what's good for them, they'll make this a one-season and done series, I just don't see a future in it.
My sister, a non-reader, we'll call -for the sake of anonymity, and because it's funny to me- her "Laura Lester"... crap, that doesn't work with her name... we'll call her "Naura Nester" told me to watch ".... I don't remember the name of the show... it's the one with the guy who played Al Bundy on Married with Children. It doesn't really matter. I didn't watch it. I did record it though, so I might watch it later.

Bam! Blogged!