Underclassman - A Filmless Review

Nicholas Scott Cannon.

A few years ago, when I first saw that "Your Pops Don't Like Me" video on MTV, it dawned on me that I had possibly missed something in regard to this Nick Cannon character. I had heard of the guy, but through some strange twist of fate (some would call it "aging") my Nickelodeon watching ceased JUST in time to have never seen Nick Cannon actually perform on a television show. Not even on "All That". As a result, I can't really give an opinion on his work there; outside of the fact that it allowed that horrendous song to be written, produced and piped into my ears... which means that I hated it (Although I must admit that the song he made with R. Kelly was pretty good; not that I can remember anything he said in it). I can't neglect to mention that pro-life song, Can I Live, that he put out recently with Anthony Hamilton. Something about thanking your mom for not aborting you nearly 30 years ago is kind of... weird? And the children's choir that joins in really puts it over the top. This is a "movie review", right? So I should probably get to that.

Ok, ok, sorry. But I've got to talk about his new show on MTV. To start with it's called "Wild 'N Out"; I guess in an attempt to sound urban and edgy. Here's the thing... the phrase they were shooting for is more like "Wildin' Out" or even "Wyling Out". "Wild 'N Out" is more like a late night program on Logo. (As of right now, that link doesn't make the reference obvious enough... people will figure it out) I'm gonna give him a pass on this though; that's probably more of a problem with stupid MTV executives than Nick Cannon failing miserably at trying to be "down". His lack of "down" comes through more in the actual content of the show. Some genius decided that this thing needed to be as urban as possible; complete with bad lighting, faux-brick set pieces, and a variation of this as one of the standard segments. The grand finale every week, I guess you would call it a battle rap relay, is always of extraordinarily high caliber because we all know that stand-up comedians and professional choreographers are so good at that sort of thing. It has its moments, primarily because of the guests that drop by being so bad at everything (Christina Milian is on the Alba Plan) but all in all it's not so good.

Now about that movie... Nick Cannon and his ridiculous moustache (pictured) play a detective going undercover as a student at a private high school to investigate a murder. The whole black comedian as a cop thing is very fresh and original, so I must give credit there. This isn't a dumb idea for a movie so much as a lame one. Judging by the fact that I don't remember seeing any commercials for it, and that it's a teen action-comedy releasing on September 2nd; this movie's assiness is guaranteed.


Next Week's Filmless Review: "THE MAN" STARRING SAMUEL L. JACKSON AND EUGENE LEVY. AND I HOPE THEY BURN IN HELL!!! ENGLISH MOTHER****ER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!?!?

2005 MTV VMAs

Don't Give Me That Look



Well; I watched all of it. Did I enjoy all of it? Hell no, but I tried to stick it out and deal with even the worst of the garbage. This "award" show was broadcast from beautiful Miami, Florida and hosted by Sean "Puffy, Puff Daddy, P.Diddy, Diddy" Combs. No, I don't know why. I'm not going to give any kind of chronological breakdown, because that would be annoying; instead I'm gonna talk about everything categorically:

Hosting - No, just no. Look, I like Diddy more than most people, but this is not his thing. His delivery stunk, his improvisational (or the things that I have to assume were improvised) stuff wasn't funny, and the prepared bits all bombed. His dancing, while apparently not intentionally, were the funniest parts of his act.

The Awards - I find that a lot of people get a little... "confused" with the VMAs. Even though they are the VIDEO Music Awards, people seem to enjoy talking about how bad the winners are musically in comparison to everyone else. The VIDEOS are being commended, not the songs. That said, the winners sucked.

Green Day took most of the awards; with various videos from their "American Idiot" album. I wasn't a huge fan of the album, so the constant drone from the media about how good it was is tiring. I think they were actually getting awarded for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" most of the time. It was a good video, but I felt like there were better choices out there.

Kelly Clarkson won 2 or 3 times, which was strange since everyone watching (including the audience and HER) expected her Moonman haul on this night to be somewhere around zero. I have never really seen the video she won for ("Since You've Been Gone"), but I had heard about previously and just assumed it was crap. I could have been mistaken, but probably not.

Personally, I thought the best videos this year that I saw were Kanye West's "Jesus Walks" and My Chemical Romance's "Helena". In hindsight, the "Jesus Walks" video isn't really THAT good, but it tried really, really hard to be. That should count for something. "Helena" on the other hand was legitimately good; excellent choreography, some semblance of a story, the required number of performance shots, etc. Can you really get better than a zombie ballerina? Didn't think so.


Performances - The bread and butter; since these awards don't mean much of anything. I'll go one-by-one.

Green Day "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" - They might have been lipsyncing, but if they were, it wasn't obvious to say so definitively. This was a straightforward performance, and they sounded pretty good. The pyro was nice I guess. 7/10

Ludacris "Pimpin All Over The World" - They tried to "class it up" a little with some piano, I guess it was a nice touch. Went a little nuts on dancers and breakdowns and garbage like that. Ludacris also fell prey to the "I need to have some member of my posse up here ruining my performance" thing. 6/10

MC Hammer "Can't Touch This (remix???)" - This wasn't really a full performance; but I needed to mention it because it was HI-LARIOUS. They tried to freshen the song up or something, but they just made it like 57x worse. He must be hurting for money.

Shakira "Spanish Song Title That I Don't Know Off Hand" - This was actually pretty good; even that guy that does the song with her whose name I don't know. her dance moves are questionable, but she can sing and on the looks front... well, yeah. 8.5/10

R. Kelly "Trapped In The Closet" - This performance consisted of R. Kelly lipsyncing and acting out the parts of every character. It sounds like a terrible idea, but he seemed to have put some effort into it. You haven't lived until you've seen R. Kelly switch back and forth between playing himself, a woman, that woman's husband, and that husband's gay lover within a matter of seconds. 8/10

The Killers "Mr. Brightside" - This performance was done at some area hotel I think. It wasn't so hot. Brandon Flowers (the lead singer) may have "enjoyed" Miami a little to much the night before. More importantly, he was wearing a white suit jacket on top of a black V-neck t-shirt. Bad times. 5/10

P. Diddy, an orchestra, Dead 90s Rapper #2, Snoop Dogg "Don't Know What To Call This" - Literally SECONDS before this started, I said to myself "Shouldn't Diddy have started fellating Notorious BIG by now?" Well what do ya know... This was a good performance. "Juicy" was in there, along with other stuff; all done over a full orchestra. 8/10

Generic Reggaeton Artists "Reaggaton Is Terrible" - Daddy Yankee (I only know this guy's names because Jorge Posada has the song played before all of his at-bats at Yankee Stadium) and some other dudes did excerpts of their terrible songs. Horrible. But wait! While introducing this act, Fat Joe made a little remark towards 50 Cent; joking about the massive security force that he travels with. MORE ON THAT LATER. 2/10 for the music, 14/10 for Fat Joe provoking 50 Cent

Coldplay "Speed of Sound" - One of my favorites; but they really sounded like crap. I don't know what happened. Not much more to say. 5/10

Kanye West f/ Jamie Foxx "Gold Digger" - Best performance of the night, hands down. I was really shocked to head Jamie Foxx sing this strongly. Getting the crowd to chant "We need prenup!" deserves a ribbon or something. 9.5/10

Mariah Carey "Two Songs That I Hate" - I really, really dislike Mariah Carey; so much so that there's not even a point to discussing my feelings on her performance because I'm going to say that it sucked either way. Sucked/10 (But seriously, it was bad)

50 Cent f/ Tony Yayo "Candy Shop, Outta Control, So Seductive" - This stunk until Tony Yayo joined in did the Yayo things that are entertaining, like his ridiculous "shake my hand in front of my face really fast" dance. The real story here was the profanity-laced tirade directed at Fat Joe that they went into at the conclusion of the song. Most of it was censored, but I did make out "Fat Joe is pussy". 8/10 just for that.

My Chemical Romance "Helena" - They didn't sound too great live. Watching the zombie ballerina woman dance on stage wasn't as impressive as it is in the video. At the end the singer yelled "This is you grandma" nice moment. 7/10

Kelly Clarkson "Since You Been Gone" - I really didn't understand why she was closing a show of this magnitude (this spot is usually reserved for BIG TIME people) but she did well with it. She was getting drenched with water towards the end for some reason. Basically she went nuts for 6 minutes. 8.5/10



And that's that. The show wasn't very good overall, but there were some bright spots along the way. MOVE THE SHOW TO NYC/LA, NOW.

The NFL Ruined American Pro Sports

There's a slight possibility that the 1-2 punch of Super Bowl 35 (Referees stole that game) and THIS DISASTER did irreparable damage to my pro football fandom; but I'd like to think that I'm not that fickle. It's just that I have recently found myself to be less and less interested in the NFL. At the same time I'm just as, if not more so of a college football fan (Go Irish!?!?!), so it isn't an issue with the sport itself; it's an issue with the National Football League.

You're probably thinking I'm going to go into a rant about Terrell Owens being greedy (don't care), Chad Johnson showboating (I'm all for it), or Randy Moss publicizing his marijuana use (duh); but that isn't what this is about. I am fed up with the "Salary Cap Era". I remember a day when my team's draft picks were allowed to grow and develop into contributing members of a successful franchise and then actually STAY with that team until they decide that it's time to hang up the pads. Unless you're an absolute superstar, the chances of that happening in today's NFL are next to nil. I remember way back in 1994 (when I was first getting into pro football) seeing the headlines about the departure of Phil Simms from my hometown New York Giants. I didn't understand it back then; but Phil Simms, a Super Bowl winner, was forced into retirement for salary cap reasons. It certainly wasn't an issue of diminishing skills... in fact, Simms' 1993 was arguably the best regular season of his career. I also got to see the same thing happen to Jesse Armstead and Jason Sehorn in later years. These guys were all still contributing, wildly popular, and big presences in the community (well, it's New York; so as big of a presence as a pro athlete can be). They were dumped solely to get under the NFL's Salary Cap. This kind of thing isn't getting any better as the years go by either. Just this season, established, veteran players like Peter Boulware, Ike Hilliard, Darren Sharper, and Ty Law all changed teams NOT because their former squads had no use for them; but because they had to get under the cap.

So how exactly is the NFL ruining pro sports? Well, this system that they have set up (the one where connections between players and fans is nonexistent and the overall quality of play falls every season) is also incredibly successful for the owners of the franchises. NFL teams make A LOT of money EVERY season regardless of the team's on-field performance. This is all thanks to the utter failure that is the NFL Players Association (these guys can get cut at any time, for any reason and their contracts mean jack... and people wonder why players holdout for guaranteed money) and the massive media contracts that the NFL is able to wrangle out of ESPN/FOX/CBS/NBC. Everyone makes money and interest has never been higher... right? What's not to love? For the owners of franchises; nothing. For the fans; a lot. There are some things in play here that people enjoy overlooking:

1. NFL teams play once a week. Going on and on about NFL ratings in comparison to those of the NBA, NHL and MLB is a joke. How would you expect interest on a game-by-game basis in a sport where 8-9 wins gets you into the playoffs to ones where 44 and 90 are necessary? That's just reality; and as a result, the NFL is going to be able to demand far more in media contracts. A salary cap didn't magically make NBA Finals games pull 45 Nielsens; it won't do so for the Stanley Cup Finals, and it wouldn't for the World Series.

2. The NFL's dirty little (not so) secret is that interest in the sport is derived so greatly from gambling. You think injury reports are out there for the service of the casual fan? HA. They're in the newspapers all week to serve the needs of the bettor. Real fans aren't going to decide to "skip this one because Brady is Questionable"... but I WILL think twice about laying 6pts on the road with a banged-up signal caller. A salary cap doesn't make a sport any more inviting to Vegas. That comes from being a weekly affair rather than a daily one.

3. "Parity is great for the fans". Really? First of all, the term "parity" in relation to the NFL needs to be clarified. The playing field has certainly leveled-- because all the teams suck. I'm not even that old and I can pull the "I remember the good old days" thing. The 90s NFL Dynasties (Cowboys, Broncos... and kinda-sorta the Bills, Niners and Packers) were all FAR superior to the teams of today, with the possible exception of the two most recent New England championship teams (and that's why they kick everyone's ass). One-sided monsters like the Ravens, Bucs and Rams of recent history were not of the same caliber as those complete teams fielded in Denver and Dallas. I'm a Giants fan and I know that their most recent Super Bowl team was nothing special. The same thing is starting to bear its teeth in the other salary cap sport (NBA), as witnessed over the past two seasons with Detroit winning (come on... they were good, but not "defeat the team with two of the top 5 players of all time" good) and the quick turnarounds in Phoenix and Seattle last season. Franchises in Salary Capped leagues are incapable of putting together both star players and capable role-players (at least ones not based in New England or San Antonio). The NHL shut down for a full season to get their own salary cap... Do I really need to see both an extended hiatus and the end of ACTUAL great teams in Major League Baseball too? No.

Maybe this is the Yankee fan in me speaking; but:

I don't care if you think your team can't compete; they can. The Marlins won a championship with no fans and moderate payroll, the Twins and A's compete every season with low payrolls, and the defending Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning were in the bottom third of the league in that department... along with their finals opponent Calgary Flames.

I don't care whether billionaire owners make money on their teams.

You realize that owners aren't FORCED to push salaries to levels that they can't handle, right? They need to stop running their teams like 4 year olds that got into the cookie jar.

Google Talk: The 3rd Horseman of the Googlepocalypse

Google Talk

First there was Google Maps, with the eerie "this was taken in broad daylight yet there isn't a person to be found" thing, then there was Google Desktop where they indexed your entire hard drive and mysteriously needed an internet connection to operate at full capacity (even though they "aren't doing anything with the info they collect"), and now they're jumping with instant messaging... and the big selling point is voice chat!

The last thing I need is people seeing me online and trying to bombard me with voice messages that weren't even worthy of a phone call. I was also unaware of the great telephony collapse of ought-three. The primary appeal of Instant Messaging is the ability to communicate with multiple people simultaneously. This proliferation of voice chat is a bad thing. I can't voice chat with more than one person, and I don't know if you've ever tried to IM people while on the phone, buuuut it doesn't go too well. IM also allows you to carry on conversations even when you have absolutely nothing to talk about. Just drop some links, and BOOM, discussion sparked. I CAN'T DROP LINKS IN A VERBAL CONVERSATION. In the end, I see this becoming an elaborate music piracy tool... but don't tell anyone I said that.


As much as I hate Wikipedia, at least it's loosening Google's grip on the human race a little bit. How about getting this website fully indexed first... huh? HUH?!?!?!

The Brothers Grimm - Much Like the Prospects of Me Seeing This Movie! A Filmless Review

*rimshot*

We all are familiar with the Brothers Grimm; Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel... the list goes on and on. But did you know that they are also the lead characters in a Hollywood blockbuster staring Matt "Will Hunting/Jason Bourne" Damon and Heath "Ladies love me and I share my name with a mediocre candy bar" Ledger? The commercials are annoying and the plot synopses that I have read are so convoluted and asinine that I can't be bothered with trying to actually unravel that web of idiocy. I've gathered that the Grimm Brothers, Wilhelm and Jakob (but for the purposes of this supercool flick, Will and Jake!) make ends meet by convincing presumably ignorant townsfolk that supernatural creatures are running amok and can only be dealt with by employing their services. Apparently the scheme gets exposed at some point and they end up having to deal with "real" supernatural creatures. I would write this off as a stupid kids movie, except it's PG-13; so I'm forced to write it off as simply a stupid movie.

This is almost as stupid as Stealth... but at least Stealth didn't involve real people being thrown into a fantasy plot, so this might even be worse.

As I alluded to earlier, this film is reminding me how non-existent Heath Ledger's career is. I know he was in The Patriot with Mel Gibson, and Ned Kelly (which is apparently a good movie; not that I saw it), but... what else? I figured I was forgetting some things about him, so I went to his IMDB page. Turns out I'm not forgetting anything-- unless you consider "10 Things I Hate About You" to be something. He strikes me as a male Jessica Alba, where the stardom far exceeds the production. Of course, comparing Heath Ledger to Jessica Alba isn't entirely fair-- since she's pretty much the worst actress ever.

I suppose that this crap cloud's silver lining is that Monica Bellucci is in it. Two problems. One, I can only post one picture per post (not really, but I don't care enough to go through the procedure required), two, even if I were considering putting a picture up, "Monica Bellucci" and "tasteful picture on Google image search" seem to be mutually exclusive; and three, she didn't de-suck those Matrix sequels... so why would I expect her to save this piece of garbage? She's that person between Ledger and Damon in the poster anyway-- if you get a magnifying glass or something you can see her better.



Next Week's Filmless Review: "Underclassman" with Nick Cannon. Oh Yeah.

The 40 Year Old Virgin Scores

The 40 Year Old Virgin has been getting outstanding reviews (89% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes) and managed to overcome its horrible, horrible title; coming in first at the box office this weekend (~20million). This only leads me to believe that this movie could have pulled 25-30 with a decent name... and Carrell still has to deal with being known for his 40 Year Old Virgin for the rest of his career (I guess he could do some kind of action or dramatic role to "cleanse the palette", but I don't see that happening for him any time soon).

Finally, considering that its big competition next week is going to be that Brothers Grimm monstrosity; 40 Year Old Virgin has a fair chance of racking up consecutive victories. Then again, The Force* is strong with Matt Damon and Heath Ledger.



* - "The Force" being the teenage female audience that runs mainstream media.

Everyone's Favorite Peruvian Deferred Columbia Grad Student Named Johanna

I just really wanted to use that title. It's so good that I will probably make several posts in the future of the same name. You'll deal. Also, this post contains some spoilers for the rest of Real World: Austin... even if they are kind of obvious and easily found on MTV's website. Once again, you'll deal.

If you watch The Real World, you've noticed how Wes (the frat guy) has been enamored with Johanna (everyone's favorite Peruvian deferred Columbia grad student named Johanna) since day 1. You've also noticed that EFPDCGSNJ is fully aware of this fact, and has had a grand old time playing along with it. On the latest RW, Wes had the great idea to "make Johanna jealous" by bringing a random RW groupie home and sleeping with her; because that works (???). This is not to say that plucking the jealousy strings doesn't work-- but I don't know if its effectiveness stands up once penetration is achieved. I'm gonna go with "That's a tad bit too far".

Ok, spoiler time.those that don't want to know should scroll down to the bolded text

A Columbo-esque scan of MTV.com's Real World content, namely the MTV.com member profiles of Wes and EFPDCGSNJ turned up some interesting info. In the "keywords" section of those pages you'll see "Wes kissing hella slow" in Johanna's and "Johanna. Kissing hella fast!" in Wes'. There are some conclusions to be drawn here.

1. Some MTV employee, probably several, and likely every single one of them, is an idiot for allowing this to be on the website. This thing is one click away once you access the Real World section. That's just stupid. I can fully understand Fratty McFraterson and Johanna having no problem with ruining plot secrets; but MTV should care... not that I'm going to stop watching.

2. Wes is from Kansas and typed out the word "hella". That is California lingo if I've even seen it, and this guy is from about as far away from California as possible without a traveling over some major body of water. Conveniently, EFPDCGSNJ is from... RIVERSIDE, CA. As any frat brother worth his salt would say; "wha-chish". I'm aware that Wes goes to Arizona State, which is populated by a good amount of Californians-- making it quite reasonable that he would pick up such catchy slang as "hella"; but that explanation isn't entertaining at all.





LACEY HOOKS UP WITH NEHEMIAH

The 40 Year Old Virgin Suicides

Steve Carrell is a funny, funny man; from his work as a correspondent on "The Daily Show", to his work in "Anchorman" as Brick Tamland,and even the Americanized "The Office" that lasted on NBC for about 3 weeks. In fact, to celebrate Carrell's contribution to the history of the motion picture; I will post his introductory quote from Anchorman:

"I'm Brick Tamland. People seem to like me because I'm polite and I'm rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks. Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an IQ of 48 and am what some people call 'mentally retarded.'"

Fantastic. The inevitable debut of Steve Carrell as a Hollywood leading man is finally upon us, but strangely I'm not overly excited. Why? Well, let's just say that the evil marketing people that I spoke of in a previous post probably should have had more input on this one. I think a simple glance at the movie poster (provided above) makes the problem sufficiently known. I have a number of issues here:

1. I have to go up to a ticket booth and say "One for 40 Year Old Virgin". That just feels stupid. This might be the most order-unfriendly movie name ever. What other options are out there? I guess you could say "One for Virgin", but that's probably worse. "One for 40 Year Old" would probably work, but that is so obviously an attempt work around the actual name of the movie. I'm really not seeing a good solution outside of getting other people to buy your tickets for you; or sneaking in, which is illegal and NOT endorsed by this fine and upstanding blog. The Carrell-aholics, as they prefer to be called (according to me 7 seconds ago) are just going to have to deal with it.

2. Let's take a trip to Hypothetical Land, where this movie's unfortunate title doesn't cripple it at the box office and drive Universal Pictures out of business... How will being typecast as The 40 Year Old Virgin serve Mr. Carrell? You may say "Hey, Jim Carrey got past Ace Ventura", to which I would respond "Yeah, but it took several years, and even Ace Ventura didn't have this dopey of a grin on his face in advertising materials".

3. I don't really have a #3, so I'll just go with THIS MOVIE IS TITLED "FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN". I'm gonna see it anyway, but this should be stowed away for future reference.

Mighty Morphin Breaking News

First of all; let's have a hand for VH1's "Kept" taking the crown as most-discussed topic on this blog. How this happened, who knows. This third entry has arisen because it just struck me that there was a little throwaway line one episode about one of the Wonder Twins (Ricardo and Slavco) having been Power Ranger in the past. Thanks to the magic of the internets, I was able to investigate. As you can see from the picture above, this investigation produced results. Ricardo Medina Jr. played Cole Evans (RED RANGER) on Power Rangers Wild Force.

This effort raised a number of issues. One, HOW MANY DIFFERENT INCARNATIONS OF POWER RANGERS ARE THERE?!?! Wow. From what I can tell here, there have been 13 seasons of the show; and ELEVEN different versions of Rangers. Lightspeed? Dino Thunder? What the hell? Second; while I already knew that the original Power Rangers shows consisted of American actors combined with fighting footage from an older Japanese show, I didn't know that the fighting sequences were from 1975. I feel like my world is falling apart. On top of that, I also learned that the Japanese series only had one female in the original lineup... meaning that the Yellow Ranger that you saw doing all the sloppily choreographed martial arts WAS A GUY. Trini (who died in a car accident a few years ago) was obviously a female, but the one doing all the fighting? 100% dude.

Back to Ricardo. I cannot believe that this guy was working in children's television. This show doesn't try to seem "educational" or anything (I do seem to remember a minor environmentalism push), but if dirtbags like this can reach our children on a weekly basis -- let's just say that I fear for the future. This guy was narcissistic, rude, dumb and made some "interesting" comments in regard to race. I disliked him slightly more than the other Wonder Twin... which says a lot.

Real World Austin: I'm a Believer (Part 1)

I probably say this every season, but this year's Real World has been the best in a looooong time; if not ever. (No, wait -- what am I saying? Philadelphia was horrendous. That was a dud from day one... definitely never called that the best of anything.)

I. Melinda dumping "The One" in about 14 hours

It is scientific fact that you probably shouldn't even audition for Real World if you're in a "serious relationship"; let alone attempt to maintain that relationship once you get into the house. Guess what Melinda tried to do! Seriously -- do these people get cable? You can't tell me that Melinda OR her boyfriend (his name was definitely revealed on the show... But did I really care? No. Why? Because I knew he wouldn't matter for more than 4-5 episodes) thought they were gonna stick it out for 3 months; especially with her nymphomaniacal tendencies. This is the woman that was once seen in her casting tape screaming "I NEED ASS" and then going on to streak across a Wisconsin beach in broad daylight. That said; Melinda must have broken some kind of record this season. MTV makes a point of giving the viewer zero ability to determine how much "real time" has elapsed; but as far as I could tell, Melinda had punted "her soulmate" at about the 2:24 mark of Episode 1. I don't know whether to laugh, or to be disgusted. I guess Danny is just that damn good.

II. Danny breaking his face ON THE SECOND NIGHT IN AUSTIN

Everyone's favorite Peruvian deferred Columbia grad student named Johanna got a little "wild" on the first night (I seem to remember dancing on bars, bodyshots, random kissing -- all that good stuff), so she enlisted Nehemiah to watch out and make sure that she wouldn't do anything too crazy during her drunken blackouts. Of course, she gets epically drunk the next night and ends up trying to physically fight Nehemiah. Lucky for us; he decided to just leave the premises (some Austin club) ASAP. Danny and Wes (just as, if not more drunk than Johanna themselves) freak out when they hear about Nehemiah's escape, and proceed to crawl the streets of Austin asking "Have you seen a black guy?". I think I should repeat that one; but with style: They proceed to crawl the streets of Austin asking all within earshot, "Have you seen a black guy?" While carrying out this journey of stupidity, Danny runs across the wrong intoxicated frat boy and gets his orbital bone pulverized. Somehow he ends up blaming Nehemiah for this, drunkenly yells at him a bit, and has it all blown out of proportion by the good folks at MTV. Well, his eyes getting blown out of proportion kinda took care of itself, but the producers created the nehemiah thing. I'll get back to that in Part 2 (which may or may not ever be written)

Part 2 Coming When/If I Feel Like It...

A Followup Post for the Ages

In an update to this post, the show that I discussed with Jerry Hall picking out which contestant to play Sugar Mommy to has run its course. Surprisingly, (as indicated by this quote: "If you haven't gathered this already; Seth's time on the show is likely to be wrapping up shortly, so you might want to start watching it about two weeks ago.") not only did the Wonder Twins get eliminated; but our man Seth actually pulled this thing out! Being a goofball and openly mocking the ridiculousness of the show's premise worked. This is akin to someone on The Real World opening up the season with an admission that he would be acting completely fake for the next 3 months. I have to say that this trend of Massachusetts winning every and anything possible (Well, not basketball... but the Celtics are just really, really bad; and uhh that Kerry dude) is getting on my nerves. By the way, did I see the runner-up crying at the end? Whatever scrunched-up face thing he was doing was definitely close to it.

Peter Jennings: July 29, 1938 – August 7, 2005

I was never a big Evening News watcher; but during the big events I always went to ABC because I knew that Peter Jennings would handle the moment with composure and professionalism. He left the air in April due to complications from lung cancer, and passed away last night. Mr. Jennings will be missed.

F*** The Kids!

On occasion I protest a little too much about things that aren't very important. One of the better examples of this would have to be my now life-long hatred of NBC for ruining "Ed" with cancellation threats (totally destroying the plot-line of the show) and then finally following through on those threats. I'd say "I'll be going into this more in the future" but I have been told several times that this was a horrible show and that I should be ashamed of myself for ever tuning into it. Anyway...

Unless you live under a rock or some other large object which does not have internet access or an electrical outlet; you have to have heard about Congress passing a national energy bill recently that has a Daylight Savings Time adjustment tacked on to it. Once this baby goes into law, we're going to have four more weeks of DST (as I will be referring to it, because I am already really, really tired of writing out "Daylight Savings Time"). DST would be starting three weeks earlier and ending one week later. I'm aware that this is "no big deal", but this is seriously the dumbest thing I have heard about getting through Congress in at least three weeks.

Starting DST three weeks earlier is going to mean three more weeks of children getting the "stand in the dark at this bus stop" start to their school day that we all dream about sending our own brood off to one day. Psychologically, the idea of getting up and going to school in the dark is bad enough; but there are also safety issues at hand. Car accidents and general street crime are more prevalent during night hours; and conveniently enough the places least likely to offer dedicated school busing happen to be places where these things occur at the highest rates... And what about all the kids that walk? From what I've read/heard on the topic, this move would also cost the airline industry millions of dollars on international flights since every nation isn't so stupid as to duplicate this nonsense. Not even Canada.

Those thinking that I'm going a little too far on this issue are probably assuming that there is some great purpose to this DST adjustment. The political supporters would have you believe that the energy savings (these projected savings are based on a study completed in the 1970s, by the way) are worth it. The thing is, that the figure that I have seen in regard to energy conservation here is ONE HALF OF ONE PERCENT A DAY. I know that in real terms this equates to a large amount of energy... But I'm going to choose to ignore that. Savings like that aren't enough to force me to eat dinner in absolute daylight (I find this to be very depressing for some reason).

Bottom line: this is political trash that some congressmen are going to point to in their next campaign speeches and claim to have addressed the "energy crisis". Do me a favor and actually ADDRESS THE ISSUE legitimately; and without endangering children and harming American business.

Girls Are Mean (Ladder Theory)

I wouldn't dare put LINDSAY LOHAN references in here just because were listed in search engines that like that sort of thing... she was in MEAN GIRLS after all.


I would have put a sad face icon thing in the title, but we can't use them. That sucks. Moving on... Alright I can either explain this, or just link and expect people to read it; but I know I wouldn't want to do that. Explain it shall be:

Apparently women take each man they meet and immediately place him on a "ladder"; some go on the "friend" ladder and the chosen few get thrown onto the "date" ladder. It's called a ladder because these people are "ranked" by your chances to end up with them (or be great friends?). Now supposedly this happens immediately; so if you got put on that friend ladder, bad times for you. I was introduced to this whole thing by a friend at college, but if you want to read up knock yourself out. Men on the other hand have one ladder on which they place every female they meet because apparently they are incapable of meeting anyone that they wouldn't "get involved with romantically"

This whole idea has both its merits and its unbelievably stupid for an actual sociological theory moments. I don't want any kind of relationship - physical or otherwise- with every woman I meet. According to Ladder Theory I'm lying right now... But I'm not dammit. Mr. Sociologist would have you believe that males are nothing but heartless, conscious-less predators out to get whatever they can from whoever they can. I'm not going to lie and say I don't know people like that-- I mean 30 minutes of this season of Real World would tell you that much. I'm personally a little tired of the demonization of my gender. Everyone isn't an asshole; just most.