in the what?

Deep Fried Chicken Parts! Part the Second

2011-08-25T18:03:00.000-04:00

In no universe that will ever exist should fried chicken look like this.

But y'know something, it tastes pretty damn ok. Nevermind that the batter part comes off in one piece and you can kind of put it back on like a little helmet.

So I'm going to go eat this meal while you all get excited thinking about how I'd be in my own damn cooking show. Pro Tip #1: Drink your orange juice out of a free wine glass so you can pretend you're not still in your underwear.

Deep Fried Chicken Parts!

2011-08-25T17:37:00.001-04:00

One of the great things about being unemployed is the time and energy to do stupid little projects that will inevitably fail. Last week I tried to make a collage, and I glued a bunch of paper to my little TV table accidentally and it took forever to get off. So that's gone. I also pulled out my old saxophone today and tried cleaning it up, but I broke something and now half of it won't work right.

So ok as I blog I am doing another stupid thing: Improvising Fried Chicken. I have these 4 chicken legs, right, and I've totally been craving fried chicken ever since I saw The Help last week, so I'm making it happen but none of the recipes I found are easy. They all say "Let this sit for 12 hours!" or "Go out to the store to get these things you don't already have in the house!" so they can all go eff themselves. (I'm talking to you, Food Network dot com!)

So anyway I put some flour in a bowl and then I put some paprika and cayenne pepper in it and then I drenched it in beer to make a paste. It looks just like cookie paste but is absolutely vile if you eat it. I also melted some lard in a soup pot because I don't have a frying pan. If you have anything to say about how I keep lard in the house, post it in the comments.

So now the chicken legs are frying in this pan and it smells absolutely amazing, but I'm pretty sure something horrible is about to happen, stay tuned.

I Ate Us

2011-08-17T10:52:00.001-04:00

So I've been jobless a month now. You might have thought "OH BOY HE HAS NO JOB HE WILL BLOG ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT UNTIL THE SUN COMES UP" but you were wrong. I've had far too many other things to do like nothing.

Honestly, I have almost nothing to show for the past month except failed eye surgery and my surprising ability not to go over budget on unemployment. I've also done some sitting and thinking about where I want to be professionally and creatively. No conclusions have been reached. You guys, WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MYSELF!?

No it doesn't matter. For the moment I am very happy with no purpose. I'm seriously way quieter inside. I don't even get mad when people cut me off or block the subway doors, and it's not just because I'm no longer in a hurry.

Oh but do you want to hear something that IS pissing me off!? Yeah, this blog's new name is 'More Apartment Problems, Everyone!' because I have some major water damage on the ceiling of my kitchen and the backsplash. Wanna see?

Those pictures were taken Sunday, and it's much worse now. My building manager got a plumber here (in 2 days -- record time!) and apparently the apartment above me didn't know their kitchen sink was leaking water all over the floor. Because that's reasonable. Please spend all day dragging furniture around and dropping things on the floor so heavy that my lights flicker, yet fail to notice that you are swimming.

So everybody is invited to my party where I will have 16 sq. ft. of ceiling replaced as well as most of a wall and probably all of my cabinets and then a brand new paint job because this is exactly what I need to spend money on right now.

Slice of Life

2011-07-12T15:05:00.000-04:00

Come on. Be nice.

Schedule

2011-06-24T16:02:00.001-04:00

Last Night's Agenda: Start watching Alien at 11:00 at night for no reason and have funny dreams all night.

Tonight's Agenda: Learn to pronounce "Thibault" so I can scream the name of the assmagnet who ousted me as Foursquare mayor of the wine store.

Tomorrow's Agenda: By something awesome to wear at a wedding next week. I'm thinking something in a light grey suit/white shoes kinda deal. The goal is to look half glam, half hipster so everyone in Chicago thinks I'm successful and hip. Then it's back to ill-fitting t-shirts for the rest of my life. Oh, and the Green Lantern shoes I'm totally about to order.

Sunday's Agenda: NYC Pride Celebration. I am proud to be going to brunch. I am proud to be intending to drink all day. I will also be proud to poop out after two hours and go home, where I will be even prouder to play video games until I pass out at 6 and wake up at 11. At 11, I will be proud to go to the Toolbox and NOT repeat the horrible Pool Table Incident of 2010. Following that: Proud Tea, Proud Sleeping, and Proud Alien Dreams.

Future and Unscheduled Events:

Writing a blog all about my trip to New Hampshire. ("Part the First -- Orange Julius, You Rule-ius: An Instillation Celebration")
Meet-Up/Date/Non-Date with a dude whose name I call Dr. Science.
Photo journal of completed shelves (feat. BOOKS!, Mallow the Squishy Penguin Who Smells, and my wooden pixel cat Lord Ephesius "Pixie" Aginwood-Mewsworth)
Getting Gay Married!?!?!?

Adventures of Mop Top Curlyface McTittykins

2011-06-18T15:09:00.001-04:00

Went out last night and have the feeling I was really obnoxious all night, though I can't remember why. Does anyone remember me being obnoxious? If I was I blame my new hair.

WHAT I DIDN'T TELL YOU ABOUT MY NEW HAIR YET!?!?! That's so weird because I won't shut up about it on Facebook.

Don't look at me.

Top view.

So basically we pared down the sides and she took a curling iron to the top. And then she put a bunch of crap in her hands and ruined the curls. I love it.

The best part is she (Stylist She) said I can probably not shower for 4 or 5 days and still have good hair. So I'm trying that. Gas masks are available for your convenience. Here's Day 1:

The curls are destroyed because my hair is so vehemently disagreeable and can't listen to simple instruction. (Get punchy! Fruit drinky?) So now you know. Anyway I'm heading to New Hampshire with Ry Ry for a few days. Please don't miss me, I promise I will return and generate more narcissistic and utterly inane internet content for your perusal.

But it's not a trip unless I go out and buy a bunch of shit for no reason.

This curling iron is for after my No Shower Ever experiment. I'll post pics of all my scalp burns, don't worry.

All boys with hair should have this product. Body hair included.

I rented Alien. The guy at the video store I have a crush on told me it is slow but that I should watch all 4, so I am doing that. I'm pretty sure he's into dudettes, but he is so cute when he talks about movies that I'm thinking of Missed Connectioning him to see.

I bought this game and am going to go play it now until I have to get ready to go bye.

I Think I Can

2011-06-16T13:47:00.001-04:00

Attention everyone! If you loved Choose Your Own Adventure Blog, then you will also love Choose Your Own Adventure OKCupid Profile that I made because my stupid friend told me to.

Of course it hasn't attracted anybody at all. I've gotten 4 messages, but they are all from people I already know. On the plus side I am reconnecting next week with the very first person I ever hung out with when I moved to New York. (Hi, Brian! Don't forget! Love, Brian)

I haven't slept in three nights so if I throw up coffee all over you right now don't be offended. Speaking of coffee... cans... made into other things, Liz at work and I made a new tip jar for the dudes at the little restaurant next door where we get breakfast every morning. Apparently the cheap-ass students at the community college and the cheap-ass librarians here don't give them much in the way of gratuity, but part of the problem is that their old tip jar was stupid. So ok here look at these shitty iPhone pictures.

I did the drawing parts and Liz did the contact paper and layout parts. Anyway apparently it is such an awesome tip jar that one of the asshole college kids walked away with it the first day it was out (Whitney believes the children are our future) so now it's tied to the counter with a rope. Because this is the sort of place I work now.

Choose Your Own Adventure Blog (feat. Cheeseburgers!)

2011-06-13T12:54:00.002-04:00

ONE

You guys all feel sorry for me because I feel like shit today. You read my blog over and over again to make me feel better. If you would like to know why I feel like shit, go to TWO. If you would like to hear about the Tony awards, go to THREE. If you would like to hear about the basketball game go to ANOTHER BLOG.

TWO

Probably because I had two fucking cheeseburgers from a New Jersey McDonalds and my body can no longer process Grade ZZZ beef. You laugh at my digestive upset and the smörgåsbord of germs I got from the little Mexican child who tried to plow me over so I get mad and breathe on you. You die. THE END.

THREE

The Tony's were surprisingly entertaining. You are shocked because you don't find live theater relevant. You are wrong. I encourage you to seriously find a YouTube of the opening number because it is cute and funny and reaffirmed my 1,000-ton crush on Neil Patrick Harris. Here, I will do it for you.

Doesn't that bring back memories off all the things you want to inflict on Brooke Shields? Furthermore, although he cannot sing his way out of a plastic bag and I still wish he would shrivel off of the celebrity circuit forever, I have to admit that Daniel Radcliffe danced the shit out of his How to Succeed number.

Ok that's all I have to say about the Tony's. If you get on your knees and beg me to link to the new Selena Gomez song, go to SIX. If you do not want me to do that for some reason, go to FOUR.

FOUR

Too bad.

Go to FIVE.

FIVE

If you don't like that song yet, go to SIX. If you do like that song now, go to SEVEN.

SIX

Here.

Go to FIVE.

SEVEN

Bravo. Now you love Selena Gomez. Is this awesome? Circle one: Yes/yes. Go to TEN.

EIGHT

Inside the mailbox is a portal to Narnia. You are stabbed in the eye by Tilda Swinton's cheekbones. You are dead. THE END.

NINE

Weren't they delicious, cow? Here is the story of their creation. Jen and I are starting a new tradition where we bake stuff and watch movies every.... now and then. Saturday it was red velvet cupcakes and The Wizard. (Yes, I watched the fucking Wizard again.) After the wizard, Ry Ry took us on a tour of the best parts of Queen of the Damned, which weren't very many. Next time I will make lemon tarts, she will do something else, and we will watch makeover-themed movies.

Anyway it was a lovely fucking evening before you ruined it by eating all the cupcakes. This is why you are a cow. That's it. Ok. You are killed by a grue. THE END.

TEN

You are in a field. You see a mailbox. To the north is a house. Exits are north, northwest, and south. If you open the mailbox, go to EIGHT. If you break into the house and eat all the red velvet cupcakes I made with my friend Jen this weekend, go to NINE, you cow. If you dig a hole to China, go to ELEVEN.

ELEVEN

You die in China. THE END.

Amateurish HDR Foray

2011-06-07T10:01:00.001-04:00

Ok last (I wanna say) September or October, my friend Mike and I went to some weird park on the Shore of Jersey to teach me this photographic technique called HDR(high dynamic range) and anyway blah blah I didn't get around to playing with the photos until yesterday because that's how I roll.

Anyway they turned out terrible and overdone but it was a fun exercise in playing with a new feature in Photoshop so ok suffer through them:

Blue.

I like the lens flare on the left in this one and I'm pretty sure that drippy thing in the sky is the return of Zuul.

Lens flare is the #4 cause of mistaken UFO sightings after delusion, craziness, and being from America.

Pretty sure this is the rapture.

I rather like this one. It's name I call "Turgid".

This one I will make into a postcard you can order on Etsy for $90.

So ok now you have seen them, happy?

Shelves by Amalgam

2011-06-06T16:18:00.000-04:00

Ok the big event this weekend was the completion of my giant shelving unit that I've been telling people about for ages. It's by Ben ("The Architect", who you know) and Adrien (who you don't) of Amalgam, based in Brooklyn. They did some sweet design work and a dedicated weekend installation which the following shitty iPhone pictures will do no justice.

In progress.

Computer sit part. That monitor will be on the wall soon.

Stables and wine rack detail.

Further wine rack detail. Note the felicity with which the wine bottles do not go crashing to the floor.

Millwork detail. This is the coolest part. The top 4 shelves have part of a Frank O'Hara poem etched into the bottom. You can read the whole thing while you're sitting in the chair.

and the little box is out on the sidewalk
next to the delicatessen
so the old man can sit on it and drink beer
and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day
while the sun is still shining

oh god it’s wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much

The poem is a love letter to New York City, but it also reminds me of some important friends from the past, so it's a whole bundle of good feelings doing their best to make people vomit rainbow happiness.

So tonight is all about putting crap on them like books and stuff. I like the big spaces and am considering printing some photos and putting them back in there with some subtle lighting underneath. So that'll be neat.

If any of you want to commission your own totally awesome designwork from Amalgam (which I highly recommend), I suggest you contact them immediately because once all the celebrities show up at the housewarming party I'm finally having, they will be too busy making playpens for Angelina Jolie to be bothered with you plebes.

Movie Night: The Wizard

2011-06-01T16:37:00.004-04:00

You guys, it's been a terrible month. I'm single now, my house is a wreck of unfinished materials, I ripped through another pair of jeans, and the rapture didn't even come to put us all out of our misery. When things go down like all that, I react by dropping off the face of the Internet.

But there are also a lot of things turning around right now including how I came back to the Internet, grabbed a shitty default blog template, and powered up the typing fingers just to tell you that I watched The Wizard starring Fred Savage, Christian Slater, and Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley. It was SO GOOD so I've decided you all are going to watch it with me right now. Warning, the following blog contains spoilers for 1989's The Wizard and by reading it, you agree that this is the best movie about a video game competition ever made.

Ok cue title.

This is my TV and it is playing The Wizard.

"Everytime I make a wide eyes and teeth face take a shot. Take two if I make this face at Jenny Lewis."

"No dad, you can't put our autistic brother in a home!" Ok the plot of this movie is that Christian and Fred's little monkey half brother (born with their mom's new husband's plasma) keeps running away from home, and the only thing he says is "California!" and builds things. So eventually Fred runs away with him to take him to California for some reason because he is 12 and the little brother is like 6 so it is one of those things that only happens in 80's movies.

This is all he had to do the entire movie. Anyway, Fred Savage catches him playing this game at the shitty diner they're at, and he's like:

TAKE A SHOT, he's like "Whoa, 8 whambillion at Double Dragon, shit!"

And Simba is there, and that's when the movie gets good. So Simba tells them "We will use the little monkey to win $10,000 at a video game competition at Universal Studios!"

Nice flyaways. We find out later she's total white trash.

"I'm the only reason you're still watching this movie, dudes." Way to use a cream rinse, Simba.

Remember when these glasses were cool haha trick question they were never cool. He is the P.I. the parents hired to find the kids. He's the bad guy because he represents rules and the establishment and it turns out he kinda hates kids. Pretty sure that's Allison Janney back there before he career took hold. No lines, so I can't verify.

What stinks?

Oh it's you guys. Mrs. Doubtfire called, she says she can't see since this family stole her glasses, yet she's still positive it was a run-by fruiting.

Whoa, dude, who are you? "Who, me?"

"It's Lucas, bitches."

Lucas is the undisputed Lord God King Bufu of Video Games. He's gonna challenge the little monkey to a video game showdown and when he loses, his friends will kick the shit out of Fred Savage... or something, I don't remember. Lucas has a secret weapon.

In case you couldn't tell, this is the point in the movie when shit gets real.

Lucas is literally part machine.

Pederast Warning, this one gets me going a little. Anyway he's totally kicking ass at his shitty racing game.

His actual line at this moment: "I love the Power Glove."

Fade to black BOOM game over, what, you think the rest of the movie will be anywhere near as good as the Power Glove? It's not.

Christian Slater playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He's on a road trip with his dad to catch Fred and the monkey before that shitty PI does, so obviously he brought his Nintendo to hook up in the seedy motels.

Then dad gets into it. "Come back to bed, honey."

Rape scene, guess Dakota Fanning was busy being unborn.

Haha take a shot for this one too. That's for the Wonder Years.

Photo of monkey's dead twin because exactly what this movie needs is more plot. It came with the frame.

That's Spanky, the gigantic, uneducated black guy with a heart of gold. Simba is calling out bets for him and they win a ton of money.

The best this movie could do with a training montage is put her on the phone with one of those expensive hint lines (remember those? I called about a King's Quest game once I think). She looks like a snotty cunt here, but she's still white trash.

Watching Oprah.

Here's me over spring break, how did that get in here?

You have no idea how many shots like this I cut.

Fuck this stage and fuck Contra; this is as far as I ever got.

Ok end training montage, now the monkey is video game rainman. P.S. He doesn't enjoy any of this because of his brain condition.

aaaaaaaaaa

YEEAAAAAAH!

This one's for the men.

And for the ladies.

Oh no he found them at the casino resort somehow! Create a diversion, Simba!

"HE TOUCHED MY BREAST!" (Actual line)

Sorry, Fred, this is as good as it gets.

"So, you touched her breast, huh?" I wish I were making this up.

Make up your own joke for this one.

Spared no expense on the banner there.

Yeah right why would there be girls with clear skin looking happy here, is NKOTB playing at halftime?

Wow it's sure fun watching from behind the 24" tv sets. Here's another inexplicable hot girl.

Guess which of these girls made the finals. Hint: it's the one you expect.

"I am the MC and this is what I look like all the time."

Oh the PI found them so they ran away and ended up on the King Kong ride.

Watching Oprah again.

This is my favorite still from Lolita.

HO LEE SHIT and here we have the reason anybody saw this movie in the first place: a sneak peek at Super Mario Brothers 3! The contestants are aghast that they must compete on a brand new game.

No glove, no love.

Like looking into a mirror.

YOU DIDN'T GET THE MUSHROOM HOUSE!!!!!@U*!($YRIHF*FS$Y($&*@

Oh it's over. The monkey won, obviously and the parents and everybody ended up being there and seeing it, and they were happy which is great because their kid is still riddled with autism but none of that matters with Dr. Nintendo on the case. Anyway in the car on the way home, the monkey shrieked and made everyone stop at this dinosaur park to leave behind a lunchbox filled with his dead sister's crap.

Admiration shot.

Lunchbox. The end.

The Breasts of Mortal Kombat

2011-05-05T12:53:00.001-04:00

Dudes, I'm gonna tell you right now this one is about video games. You have been warned.

Anyway, has anyone played the new Mortal Kombat yet? I got it earlier this week because my Rybrarian friend made me buy it

I've never been the fighting game type, but turns out I can kick some ass. So far, I am nigh unstoppable as Sonya "Pink Ranger" Blade and Queen "I Whip My Hair Back and Forth" Sindel. (I generally play as women.)

But I love it. It handles well, it's attractive and detailed, and even I -- a MK neophyte -- identify with the nostalgia dripping from the story mode.

That's not what this post is about, though. This post is about the one major objection I have to the new Mortal Kombat: the boobs.

Now, I'm not here to talk about the gargantuan proportions. This is video games, and the topic has been done to death. I'm just happy that at least one plastic surgeon found a market in the demonic Outworld. Those ladies need false self-confidence too. (Speaking of Outworld beauty, razor-toothed half-demon-thing Mileena has an adorable do. That stylist must have some big, brass testes. I'm thinking Tabatha Coffey.)

I'm also not going to complain about the practical issues of a giant-chested woman moving, jumping, and punching with narry a nip slip. No, the problem I have with those boobs is that they're all exactly the same... and they don't move!

First off, if you're designing women after adolescent boy sex fantasies, that's fine. To be honest, I actually like the aesthetic even though my preferred MK bedfellow is a coked out Johnny Cage. But you can't alienate all your small boob lovers out there (and I know you're out there.) I would love to have seen just one nymph-like physique in the cast. I vote Jade, I guess. Or, hey, what about an unlockable? There's Cyber Sub Zero, so why not Reduction Kitana?

And then there's the rigidness. I mean, ok, the concept of jiggle physics is a joke at this point, but if you're going to design a desert arena where the shuffling of the fighters actually affects the sand at their feet, you might as well have a little movement in the chest region. I guarantee you not one of those outfits has any built in support, yet the breasts are like rocks. When one of those women is knocked to the floor after being beaten to death with her own tibias, the globes on her chest being at full attention is just... disturbing.

Where's the sex appeal in that?

Publicity

2011-04-27T15:20:00.000-04:00

Friends, I went to a great bar last night in Bleecker St. that you need to go see. It's called Peculier Pub, and I've been meaning to check it out for 5 years since a friend in grad school told me about it before I even moved here. Anyway, they've got like 300 varieties of beer from all over the world, each served in a bottle accompanied by the appropriate-shaped glass for pouring.

I was with this guy Christian from Germany, where (obviously) European beers are more readily obtained, so he introduced me to his two favorite Czech brews. And I had.... some other things. I don't really remember, but the experience was excellent and totally inexpensive. Plus the place has some kill beer cap mosaics on the wall. I took 3 crappy pictures so here they are:

That's a bumper sticker on the cash register. I have the t-shirt of that at home! It's pajamas.

This was an accident, my camera was acting up. But I like it.

This sign is in the bathroom. It starts out alright, but.... then it deteriorates. I'm not sure what happened there.

Anyway, I invite you all to come back with me. I think I'll plan a beer party soon.

The New Class

2011-04-20T15:31:00.000-04:00

If you know me, you know I love conceiving of big, fun projects and then failing to follow through on them. Well I've started working on the latest! I'm thinking of writing a shitty little comic strip to scan and put on the internet... y'know, for my friends! So I started doodling up some shitty little concept drawings for potential shitty little characters, and I want to show them to you, the readers of my shitty little blog. It only seems appropriate.

Before we begin, the medium is "ink on Post-It", and my iPhone made my desk look all pink. I don't know why it insists on that. My entire office is pale gray straight from your favorite oddball comedy about a boring workplace full of CRAZY characters such as The Office, which I have still never seen and have no interest in especially now that Will Farrell's in it. Anyone notice how deformed he's looking these days?

Meredith. Eternal awkward stage. Learning to use make-up.

Ooya. Tenure track --> Stalked a gender studies student --> Community college.

BatCat. Poops like a bat, pees like a cat. Adorable sneezes.

Bieberstein. Died and became a reanimated corpse. Nobody noticed.

And that's all she wrote! So far. I'm not good at drawing bodies or faces, so it's possible BatCat will be the only survivor. My artistic skills are very limiting. I wanted to have a character that was a woman who was taller than all the other characters like in Peanuts so you only saw her middle and legs, but the character would actually be an alien baby that bursts from her stomach and quotes Shakespeare or something, but it was too hard to draw so you get fucking BatCat instead.

Sexy Jeopardy Dudes #2

2011-04-19T13:00:00.000-04:00

Last night I watched one of my backlogged episodes of Jeopardy, right, and there are TWO reasons why it was the best backlogged episode of Jeopardy ever. #1 is Dude #2:

That's Matt or Mike or something. I dunno. He was on the show back at the beginning of March. He won two episodes. At the beginning of this, his third, Alex Trebek made a comment about how little money he won despite having two victories.

For those of you who are not fans of the show: Alex Trebek is a huge dick. Lamenting his utter lack of charisma and a sense of humor, Trebek resorts to shooting passive-aggressive barbs while on screen and plain old aggressive ones behind the scenes. Don't ever be on Jeopardy if you have cried any time in the past 15 years.

Anyway Mike or Matt is hot, and I don't feel like I have to justify myself. He has a sort of weird, gross way of moving his lips when he talks, and he mumbles. So... I guess I like those things in a man.

And the second reason this Jeopardy is one of the best ever:

"Harley" and "Quinn". Could there be an Animated Series fan in the crew of Jeopardy? (P.S. Quinn ended up winning.)

The Internet is Creepy

2011-04-13T16:50:00.002-04:00

I took this screengrab a few minutes ago. This search at first yielded nothing. One second after I published that blog entry and posted the link on Facebook, it turned up as the first result as shared by my Twitter, which showed up because my GMail contact follows my Twitter feed. It is SO creepy.

How did Twitter even know about my blog update? I never told Twitter. Twitter has spies.

Nobody is safe.

C3D

2011-04-13T16:29:00.000-04:00

So... these guys exist:

In real life...

In the 21st century...

What do you think of that?

Their.... their music's not that bad, actually.

Strangely, the Internet has no record of them ever existing. They are Club 3D: the Latin boy band that SEO forgot.

Amenities

2011-04-06T16:17:00.000-04:00

Look.

Yeah, that's for days now. I don't know if you can see, but on the second row from the bottom, the item on the left is Chuckles. Not surprisingly, those disgusting little Whatever-the-Fucks go all the way back.

(n.b. If you look to the upper left, you can see the reflection of my awesome new t-shirt and be accordingly jealous.)

The drinks machine doesn't look so dire until you consider that the green things are Mountain Dew and the whole row of water at the bottom is stupid because we have water coolers in every room here. Before I took this picture, there was a little note someone had taped to the machine saying "To: Delivery Man -- More Mountain Dew Code Red, please!" I took that off and threw it away. This machine is already half Mountain Dew on the best of days, and we don't need that abominable Code Red taking up any more space. More seltzer please! We never get seltzer anymore.

And lastly...

Awesome.

My Killer Week (Digest)

2011-04-05T11:49:00.001-04:00

Hi guys. I haven't been in the mood to blog this week, which sucks overly because I have SO MANY things to tell you.

Most importantly, last Wednesday I went to a free screening of this new film, Super at IFC aaaaand it was absolutely fantastic. Best movie I've seen in a while. So you all have to go. Also, Liv Tyler was there, right, and she totally sat super close to me, and before the movie started she whispered something to her friend and I was like "Arwen!?!" (because remember who in Lord of the Rings she whispered her entire role?) Anyway Super is brilliantly-written and incredibly creative and not at all a Kick Ass knockoff. Go see it. I noticed it was playing at Sunshine Cinemas on the Lower East Side when I walked by Friday, but hopefully you can find it somewhere less bufu. But in all seriousness, it's worth seeing if you're not a total snob about superhero stuff (or slightly religious-themed stuff).

Oh and BEFORE the movie, I was decided to kill an hour at this random coffee shop I found near the theater and who should be working there but the ORIGINAL SEXY LATTE BOY from Joe: The Art of Coffee in Grand Central whom I was obsessed with 3 years ago! He didn't remember me when I creepily asked him if he "ever worked at a different coffee shop". He totally knew that meant "I know who you are, but you don't know who I am." Anyway, he looks fantastic. Sexuality = Still ambiguous.

Right, then my mom visited this weekend. I bought a ton of awesome stuff. She met C.C., so that's done. It was a refreshing weekend. You should see my new bag.

So far, all that's happened this week is I bought this:

Well, one of them. It's one of only 20 in the world... though there are more than 20 in that picture. Anyway, I need stuff for a big shelving unit I'm having put in soon, so I've decided I'm going to try and only decorate it with things that have buttholes.

Watch This!

2011-03-30T16:31:00.003-04:00

I was going to write something substantial today, possibly about Sucker Punch (not so good), but... well it hasn't happened. I've gotten a ton of work done instead, sorry. So instead, I'm gonna share with you some of the things that have occupied my time in the background in between listening to and learning about the different subgenres of electronica, which was my major occupation on the job today.

WARNING: These get more asinine as you go.

"Chernokids", a sad little animated short (via Ze Frank):

Chernokids (english subtitles) from Les Chernokids on Vimeo.

Totally lame Invisalign rap (via Tosh.0 Blog):

And lastly, in honor of this month being the 20th birthday of Street Fighter II, a scene from the Jackie Chan classic City Hunter. This is a ridiculous yet surprisingly faithful homage.

Yeah, on more than one occasion, I've considered a similar Chun-Li outfit, but it never came to be. I totally have the thighs for it, though.

k bye

Fine, Leave!

2011-03-25T16:48:00.001-04:00

One of my coworkers is leaving today. This is upsetting news (that I've known about for 3 weeks) because a) she's really awesome and b) I'm the one who's going to be absorbing most of her work until she is replaced in approximately 1,000 years. We just had her little farewell party in which I was dragged into a ton of pictures. Thanks to technology, I was instantly made aware of how fleshy my face is starting to look in close-range flash photos. So that was... neat.

Anyway, I didn't come here to talk about my fat face for a change. I came here to express my guilt at sneaking out of the party a few minutes early and my further guilt that I am planning to also sneak out of work a few minutes early, all in the name of avoiding saying goodbye.

I hate saying goodbye. That's not uncommon, I guess, but the reason I hate it is not because it's hard, but because it's so easy.

Crap, she's coming.

Ok, that wasn't so bad. Anyway, goodbyes are one of those social conventions I've never been able to wrap my head around and have therefore always awkwardly stumbled my way through. No matter how close (or not close) I am to someone, saying goodbye never feels real to me. Somebody's staying and somebody's going, and you'll both have lives for better or for worse or possibly for exactly the same quality. Either you will stay in contact or you won't, you'll think of each other a lot or you won't... so what's it all about?

Actually, I can answer that. It's about acknowledging the role you've played in each other's lives and expressing mutual sadness that things are ending. But nothing's ending, really. At least not the important part, right?

I guess I feel that if something is coming to an end, the separation happens in the goodbye itself. All the "I'm gonna miss you!" and "Stay in touch!" and "Take care of things while I'm away!" and "I'm gonna miss you most of all!" -- to me -- create this sense of finality that doesn't need to exist. It makes me feel more separate from a person than a simple "Alright. *hugs* See ya!" would. The emotional send-off is a tactic to help your brain make a clean (and therefore easier to handle) break and prepare for oncoming changes, but since I don't feel that somebody leaving is equivalent to something ending, it seems more the cause of a separation than a necessary coping mechanism for same. The strength of stoicism to me indicates an honest belief in the permanence of a relationship despite changes in proximity and circumstance. (And that's not to say I won't miss someone after they're gone.)

But I know that everybody handles and interprets things differently, and that's where my sense of guilt comes from. I don't do the tearful goodbye, though many people genuinely need it. I'd rather say "Good luck to you, talk soon, tweet me!" and be done with it. I know that comes off as cold, but I also refuse to affect emotion for the sake of fulfilling some sort of social code because that never helps anything. Hence: avoidance, which... also never helps anything. Whatever, I'm not perfect.

Ok I'm leaving bye.

Watch This Movie

2011-03-24T12:13:00.000-04:00

You guys, Sucker Punch. Am I the only person that cares more about this movie than pretty much everything else Hollywood is doing these days?

I read all about it in this poster. It is about girls with weapons. That's all I know. I'm sure they'll try to fit some sort of theme in there like revolution or empowerment or escaping the bonds of the boy-run media, but I'm ok not knowing about that until the event itself... which is tomorrow, wow, I just realized March is ending.

From left to right: Young Charlize Theron, Young Angelina Jolie, Young Lucy Liu, Young Cameron Diaz, Young Nicole Kidman.

I don't know what it is, but after almost 3 decades of film consumption, fine arts education, and taste refinement, there's still something about hot chicks kicking ass that fills me with boyish glee. I can't even begin to imagine the explosion of involuntary bodily functions that will accompany the release of the first Hunger Games movie.

Alright, I've also been meaning to show you that. That's a tattoo Cor de Leon revealed to me on Valentine's Day. That design is a doodle I put on something I gave to him the first month we were dating. He had it reproduced exactly, including all my little mess-ups (like along the top where the red line extends a little too far.) Anyway, it's the cutest, sweetest, most heart-warming thing anyone has ever done for me. Couldn't you just shit?

Here They Are My Pokémon!

2011-03-23T16:08:00.002-04:00

Ok I know it's a very long time coming, but I have some wonderful news. First of all, I have started watching Xena: Warrior Princess once again. I started over from the beginning to revisit all the classic episodes, but this time I plan to proceed through Season 4 to the end. Holy crap, I just hiccuped while drinking cold coffee and it went up my nose. I feel like I'm drowning, it's disgusting, Christ you guys!

My second piece of good news is that it is finally time for you to start hearing all about my Pokémon. So obviously I am playing the new Pokémon (I got the black version), and it turns out that texting my boyfriend every time I catch a new Pokémon and telling him its type and what I named it is not satisfying enough. I need to tell the world.

I'm only a few hours into the game, and I've got maybe 25 little animals. They are all awesome. If you are playing Pokémon yourself, I would like you to not be sad that my animals are way better than yours.

Anyway, at the very beginning of the journey, you have to choose your starting Pokémon from a selection of a grass-type, a water-type, and a fire-type. In the franchise's history, fire-type Pokémon tend to be hardest to come by -- a statistic I have much shame in knowing -- so I chose the fire pig Tepig. See? Here he is:

I named my Tepig Pigglesby because "Mr. Pigglesworth" was too long for the game's 10-character limit. (n.b. 'Tepig' is the thing's breed, not its name -- I don't know why the species are capitalized.) Anyway, Pigglesby looks adorable, but he's actually an A-1 ass-kicker. I love him. Here's a comment about Tepig I left on a blog post before the game came out (yes fine I commented about Pokémon on a blog ok it was ONE TIME!):

I like Tepig for his apparent rejection of the fire-type tropes. The vague orange coloring, piddly yellow flame, and a name that's a pun on 'lukewarm' belie his evolutionary future as a fire-collared, ass-kicking luchador.

Nobody said anything about my comment probably because it encompasses their feelings so perfectly. It's true, too! Pigglesby already became a JV wrestler when he evolved into a Pignite!

That's what he looks like now. Try to restrain yourselves, ladies. Pigglesby's only interested in his career right now.

Ok now you get to meet two Pokémon that haven't left my party (i.e. the ones I use to beat up other Pokémon) because they manage to kick the ass of anything. First is the Timburr, a muscular Pokémon I named T. Dalton after the immortal star of License to Kill and the 1983 television serial Jane Eyre:

You can see the resemblance, I'm sure. The species Timburr is the only Pokémon I can think of that smacks things around with a giant plank of wood. T. Dalton has almost never lost a fight since I caught him in the bushes. The one thing I don't like about T. is that he will eventually evolve into a roided out nightmare ogre, but until that happens, he is my super sexiest team member. This is another one to stay away from, though, ladies. T. Dalton is a notorious racist, and I'm pretty sure he hates women too.

And last, my other favorite Pokémon is my Tympole, a tadpole Pokémon. I named her Topanga because she is adorable and also because in every Pokémon game I have ever played, I've had a Topanga. Here she is:

Whoops! That's not her! Sorry, I have so many files marked "topanga.jpg" on my computer that I got confused.

There we go. Topanga is a water-type Pokémon, so the best thing about her is that even though she's tiny and needs some eyebrow work, she can kick the ass of Pigglesby whenever he starts with his macho backtalk bullshit. She's an easy one to underestimate. For some reason -- even against Pokémon better than her -- Topanga will step up and tear a bitch down.

Despite her oceans of raw power, however, Topanga never forgets her favorite things about being a girl. She loves going to the beach and hanging out with her friends like at the beach and stuff and doing beach karaoke, but her favorite thing ever is wearing bikinis at the beach. Topanga has 10 bikinis. I haven't told her that one day she is going to turn into a creepy frog that no man will ever look at no matter what Disney tells her.

Ok that's enough for today I think. I'm really excited to have lost half my readership by talking nonstop about fucking Pokémon, and I can't wait to alienate even more of you tomorrow!

Gettin' Down on Friday

2011-03-16T16:41:00.004-04:00

Alright, I feel obligated to comment on this. If you've been on YouTube this week for any reason other than looking for Japanese disaster footage (you ghouls), you've probably come across this gem of a music video.

That's Rebecca Black, one of the many teenage girls the record label Ark Music Factory (a fitting moniker) is throwing at the Internet in a desperate attempt to create yet another disposable pop star. Black answered the casting call, though I doubt this is the stardom she had in mind. The video went instantly viral and is being criticized, mocked and parodied like nothing else. I actually feel bad for the girl. She just wanted to be famous (judge the value of that goal how you will), and she just happened to fall in with a supremely untalented group of people.

I've listened to some of these Ark songs. They're all terrible, but this is the only one that's downright funny. I'd hope the ridicule they're getting would cause them to disappear and leave these girls to find their own musical voice (if indeed a single one of them cares about music at all), but you know how the Internet is. Visibility is credibility. So who knows?

The bottom line is I have been listening to this song on repeat since Monday morning. I dedicated my cereal to Rebecca Black this morning. And I really hope she comes out of this unscathed. Being a teenage girl already sucks beyond the telling of it. Rebecca, I wish you lots of good humor as well as luck in your future career. Keep up that pretty smile, and uh... stay away from the blue eyeshadow. You are definitely an autumn, not a summer.

What Big Eyes You Have

2011-03-16T12:42:00.000-04:00

Has anyone seen that Red Riding Hood movie yet? Yeah.... it's pretty bad, but it's got some sex in the form of Max Irons and Shiloh Fernandez:

So you should probably check it out.

As teen movies about girls and werewolves go, its way better than Twilight (i.e. it's not unwatchable), but it's overacted and atrociously written with the exception of keeping a mystery who the Big Bad Wolf is (though if I knew the theme of the film was going to be "yucko teen girl sex fantasy" it would've been much more obvious). Luckily, Amanda Seyfried can still carry a film; she's definitely one of my favorite newcomer leading ladies. Ever since that pile Mamma Mia was dumped into theaters, I've trusted her to make bad movies tolerable again... though I still won't approach Dear John armed with anything less than a mute button and a fiery Channing Tatum fetish.

To conclude, people like Amanda and I look really good in blood red cloaks, and Easter's coming up so... consider getting me a gift and go see this movie for inspiration and so she keeps getting work.

Up next, I tell you all about my favorite Pokémon from the ones I've collected so far. Also, don't miss my special feature, "What in Your Bathroom Might Kill You?: The Truth About My Boyfriend's Netty Pot".