One Year in Texas

Debate: What is the best time zone?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 03:16:00 +0000

By Glenn and Jake

Stop. Immediately look to the upper right hand corner of your computer monitor or iPed (Chinese bootleg of iPad). What time is it? It’s debate time! But it’s also reflective of your time zone. Somewhere else in this great nation it’s a different time for someone else. Wherever you hear two people arguing over time zones (in Indiana, southwest North Dakota), we’ll be there. In the following debate, Jake and Glenn use the Socratic method to determine which of the four American time zones is the “best.”

Jake: Out of all of the timezones in the United States, my allegiances always have and always will lie with Central Standard Time (CST). It is right in the middle, so you get to experience the best of both Pacific and Eastern Standard Time. You even have a shadow cast over you by Mountain Standard Time. In this age of global warming and rising temperatures, it is occasionally nice to find some shade to cool down. CST is an old friend to me. If I left CST, I would feel like I was leaving my wife for a much uglier and stupider woman. I will never leave my wife and I will never leave CST. If that makes me a hopeless romantic, than so be it.

Glenn: It certainly makes you hopeless. Mark Twain once said “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” You aren’t doing any of those things if you stick with Central Standard. I too sprang forth from the womb of CST but have since managed to travel through or live in all other American time zones. Mountain Standard was by far the worst, and I would rather spend the rest of my life trying to climb Mount Rushmore than live under such a detestable regime. PST and EST are the same insofar as both show the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on TV at 11:30pm, which is late enough to prevent children from watching it and falling down a dark spiral of milquetoast comedy. CST cannot say the same, showing what amounts to a live execution every night at 10:30pm.

Jake: Quotes about boating aside, your point does not say which time zone you think is the best. At least I had the guts to put my horse in the race. Your horse is still in its stable, being pumped full of performance enhancing drugs, but, as we all know, you can’t win a race if you don’t enter it. CST is the time zone in which people with bold opinions live. Glenn, who currently lives in New York, has become as indecisive as a regular New Yorker. EST and PST is not a true choice. This is war, pick a side. EST contains Rhode Island and most of Indiana. Sure, I lived in Indiana, but in the CST part around in the Chicago metropolitan area. Rhode Island is the most insignificant state in the union because of its small size. Plus, everything happens later there than it does here. PST, things happen too early! I don’t want to watch watch a live TV event two hour earlier than CST or, God forbid, three hours earlier than EST. That is my nightmare, and it keeps me up at night more than any of the Leprechaun films or Jay Leno.

Glenn: I wanted to confuse you, like a Missourian visiting California for the first time and expecting to see NBC’s hit show Parenthood on at 9pm. Turning on the TV, he fills with despair at seeing the show’s 10pm start time. So instead he decides to peruse Twitter and has a heart attack. The heart attack stems from looking at the feed and seeing the results of that night’s show spoiled (someone has autism and someone has a secret) because it’s 11:30pm back in Missouri. The show has been over there for an hour and a half and your friends are already tweeting about it. Since you’re on the ropes let me deliver my knockout blow: Eastern Standard Time is the best. You get everything first (the sunrise, the Tonight Show, incoming ICBM nuclear missiles launched from Iran) and contain the best things in the US (Rhode Island, most of Indiana, the Liberty Bell). As a teenager, I used to hate EST more than myself, but now that I’m living in it I couldn’t imagine going back. It’s time to force everyone to move east the way liberals employed forced busing in the 60s and 70s.

Jake: First of all, NBC doesn’t have a hit show. Some of their shows may be of quality, but none do all that well in the ratings compared to American Idol or other excellent reality programming. In fact, many of NBC’s shows are set in cities using EST. Coincidence? I don’t think so. NBC seems to have put all of their eggs in the proverbial basket that is the Eastern Time Zone, and all of those eggs are either broken, rotten or hard boiled far too long resulting in greyish green yolks which are not at all appetizing. Much like our president, I am a moderate. That is why I choose to reside in his favorite timezone (he is a citizen of Chicago, IL) and support the three wars in which we are currently involved. CST is the timezone where the most patriots live. Shortly after 9/11 everybody else threw away their American flags like they were yesterday’s bagels and replaced them with pennants of their favorite sports teams. In the CST, people are still dressing like Lex Luger in 1994: head-to-toe in the red, white and blue. The two greatest colors and the greatest neutral in the entire color wheel. God bless America, and God bless Central Standard Time.

Glenn: God bless Central Standard Time? No no no - god DAMN Central Standard Time! God damn the Central Time Zone — that's in the Bible — for killing innocent people (the great Chicago Fire). God damn CST, for treating our citizens as less than human (Scott Walker’s attempt to destroy collective bargaining rights). Eastern Time, like Eastern religion and culture, is the pinnacle of human development. Even if we put aside Jake’s criticisms of #1 network NBC, full of hit shows like Cheers and Perfect Couples, his argument still falls apart. He is selfishly arguing for his own time zone just as I am selfishly arguing for mine, but the difference is that I have lived in three of the four American time zones. Pacific is nice, but it’s too close to the poisoned ocean and by the time you wake up at 1pm, the day is over in EST. Jake says that the CST is full of patriots, and this may be true insofar as Texas resides in the CST but what about South Carolina, the only state patriotic enough to secede from the tyrant Abraham Lincoln. They, and I, are sitting happy in the Eastern Time Zone - waiting for our second chance to defeat the North.

Debate: Does ALF Believe in God?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 21:56:00 +0000

By Jake and Glenn

When the alien life form (ALF) Gordon Shumway crashed his spacecraft into HAM radio enthusiast Willie Tanner’s garage, America’s pulse rose to a near catastrophic level. This sarcastic alien made the country roar with laughter, and, I’d like to think, existential dread. While America was having a love affair with this fuzzy brown space aardvark, making cucks of us all, one question lingered like a pervert outside of a maternity dressing room: Does ALF believe in God?

Jake: The famed folkie Joan Osborne once pondered a similar question: “What if God Was One of Us?” We never got a satisfactory answer (and she has since been murdered, so we never will) but at least we can attempt to answer this pressing question in honor of her memory. ALF does, in fact, believe in God. In several episodes he clearly states that he does. While these were unscripted lines and always hidden behind clanking pans during cooking scenes, this is undeniable proof. ALF may not be a Christian, as much of his planet’s iconography most likely revolves around cats, but he surely believes in God. As a Christian, I find it impossible to wrap my head around somebody, even a space puppet, not believing in the same God I do. I guess we can just wrap a bow around this debate, because it is over.

Glenn: This debate, like our national nightmare, has only begun. What we have here is a case as old as time itself: a skilled debater projecting his own beliefs onto a genderless, HILARIOUS alien. Alf has specifically condemned many, but not all, of the religiously-inspired terror of the last few decades. Alf condemned ISIS throwing homosexuals to their deaths. Alf condemned Christian anti-abortion activists murdering doctors in cold blood. Alf condemned orthodox Jewish women for wearing thick dark clothes on a summer day. Does this sound like the actions of a monotheist? Not to me, and I’m a polytheist.

Jake: If ALF, the famed space monster, does not believe in God then there is simply no God. That's how this works. Let me spin you a yarn, then knit you a scarf of a tale, that you will wrap around the neck of your brain to keep your thoughts warm. In 1986, I was a mess. My wife had left me for a guy with a motorcycle louder than my own. I was low. I was drinking a whole six pack of Zima every evening, and I was skipping church. Not just on Saturday, but Sunday, too. Wednesday was not even considered. Then one evening as I was stumbling around my loft, a lovable alien appeared on my TV and said, “No problem.” Sure, I had problems. I had more problems than I had pubes, and I have more pubes than there are stars in the sky. This declaration by ALF jostled me awake and sent me down the righteous path. And that's why I voted for Gary Johnson in the 2016 presidential election.

Glenn: You made the right choice in the election, but the wrong choice in this debate. What you describe here, historical inaccuracies aside, does not make the case that ALF believes in god but rather the case that ALF is god. I ask our readers to loosen the straps on their adult diapers and bear with me here. More and more low-grade science fiction (Arrival, Prometheus, 2069: A Sex Odyssey) are positing the theory that there’s no “god” as we conceive of it, but rather aliens who came in our ancient history and in some way set the stage for the amazing, contemplative, sustainable species we are today. Might ALF simply be one of those aliens who so loved the humanity he created that he gave his own life, so that he could stay with us instead of returning to his home planet? Seems absurd, I know - but no less absurd than moviegoers seeing Prometheus and then paying money to go back and see its sequel.

Jake: While it may be interesting to posit if ALF is God, as you so recklessly propose, it doesn’t fit in with the true words of The Bible. The Bible is “the good book,” which is confusing because technically it’s two books. It’s sort of like how Nymphomaniac is one movie, but they split it into two. And, buster, I am a “nymphomaniac” for the word of the lord and ALF. Of course, ALF believes in God. How could anybody not? It’s actually physically impossible to not believe in God, as a recent study in The Journal of Christian Science conclusively proved. If the only magazine I subscribe to says it, then it has to be true. “The Good Book”? How about “The True Book”? Right? Yeah, I think I am. And I think that ALF isn’t God, but does believe in God. I declare myself the winner, as I always do in both debates and the Winter Olympics.

Glenn: Glad you brought up the Winter Olympics since it was around that time ALF first denied the existence of god outside the sitcom. After those low rent thugs kneecapped Nancy Kerrigan there was infamous video of her screaming “Why? Why?” To whom is unclear, but assuming it was our NON-dark lord is extremely reasonable. In the longer, unedited clip you can see ALF trying to comfort her as she’s taken to the hospital by saying “Because there is no god, Nancy. Nothing happens for a reason!” Now, you can make the case that four years removed from his sitcom being on the air ALF was despondent and in a dark place where he was more willing to accept atheism - lord knows it happened to both of us - but the point remains: ALF, from the time his show ended to the day he was murdered with Joan Osbourne, did not believe in god. And let’s honor him by committing blasphemy today!

Welcome to The Resistance

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 02:17:00 +0000

By Jake

Ever since Donald Trump became president there's been an elite group standing up to his agenda of hatred and class warfare: The Resistance.

To join The Resistance one needs to do little more than vocally disavow Donald Trump. The Resistance goes beyond political lines. It's a partisan effort to do whatever one can, outside of anything actionable, to stand in Donald Trump's way.

Here are some stars of The Resistance:

Hillary Clinton
The yas kween herself, Hillary Clinton, ran against Donald Trump in the 2016 US General Election. She somehow struck out on a slow lob, but nobody holds it against her. Instead, the fingers point at much more nefarious characters: Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein. Hillary has done some exciting resisting like charging $50 to $350 for tickets to her book tour, not marching in the Women's March, and hanging out in the woods with her sexual predator husband.

John McCain
Earlier this year, John McCain was diagnosed with a brain tumor. That didn't keep him from coming back to vote against overturning the ACA. It also didn't keep him from more recently voting for a tax reform bill that overturns the ACA that was passed at almost 2AM, which is way past his bedtime.

Jeff Flake
Jeff Flake called Donald Trump something like "a rude McDonald's bitch," and then continuing to vote right in line with the Trump agenda. Jeff Flake is proof that anybody can and should resist.

Mitt Romney
This Mormon robot has often spoke out against Trump. At the rate the democrats are moving, it's not fully unlikely that he's the DNC's dream candidate for 2020, even if he's an abhorrent conservative piece of shit.

Jimmy Fallon
Many people have pointed to the Tonight Show host tusseling Trump's fucked up hair as a humanizing moment that possibly helped get Trump elected. Yet, Fallon has been sticking it to the president in milquetoast monologue jokes and dances that mock his tiny hands. Jimmy Fallon, you're forgiven and my sides are split.

See? It's not difficult to be welcomed into The Resistance. You can 100% fall in line with Trump and still be part of it, just as long as you call him rude or make a far noise when he's on television yelling "blood and soil" at an audience of white dipshits. Keep resisting everybody and when all the entitlement programs have been killed and we're fighting over moldy scraps of bread that fell out of Steve Mnuchin's pocket on his way to a sex museum, we can reflect on how we sat at home and resisted an administration of bigotry.

Fart Sketch

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 01:14:00 +0000

By Jake

[Employees shuffle in.]

Sheryl: I'm excited for this presentation. I've never met the CEO. What's he like?

Will: He does a solid presentation, but you gotta be careful around this guy. He's a bit of a hard ass, pardon the language.

Thomas: oh definitely. I heard that he fired a guy for farting.

Sheryl: For farting?

Thomas: it was at a Chillis.

Sheryl: A waiter?

Thomas: No, he can't fire a waiter at a place he doesn't work. It was Bob Fresno. He invited him to lunch. Made him order 3 plates of beans, too. Fired him for farting.

Will: I heard it was because he didn't wipe.

Sheryl: You're supposed to wipe?

Thomas: Not unless it's wet. And I heard this was real dry.

Will: Bob had some of the driest ones I ever heard. He farted like he was in the vacuum of space.

Sheryl: Wow.

Thomas: The guy slipped up. He's not the only one either.

Will: Remember Seth Harding? From accounting?

Thomas: Of course. Good guy.

Will: Yeah, a great guy. He got fired for farting at a party.

Sheryl: Boulder fired him at a party for farting?

Thomas: It was his party, too. Seth’s.

Will: He went to the bathroom to do it. He wiped. Washed his hands. Sanitizer. Everything. Still got fired for farting.

Sheryl: That is crazy.

Thomas: Boulder lost a lot of money in the market crash. Fired his investor.

Sheryl: For farting?

Thomas: No. For losing all that money. That one was justified, I guess.

2017 Oscar Picks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 20:45:00 +0000

By Jake and Glenn

Death. Disease. Pollution. Fascism. Gamers. Our societal collapse seems imminent. We are in freefall. School children are taught to cross out the first half of the famous line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” What remains? What hope do we have?

The 2017 Academy Awards!

Jake and Glenn are back with the ninth edition of our longest running feature: picking the Best Picture winner so you can skip the ceremony, instead having missionary sex with your husband and go to bed early on a work night.

2016 BEST PICTURE NOMINEES

Hidden Figures
Jake says…The biggest problem with Hidden Figures is how it reminds me of all the times I lost my toys when I was a kid. I lost them all the time. They were always in the same place, too: inside the stomach of whichever sheep was living with my family at the time. This is why I didn't like this movie. I didn't see it, either.

Glenn says… Unlike Jake, I was legally allowed to see the movie. Though I didn’t, I know it spends a lot of time dissecting what it was like to be a woman and black and an astronaut. If you’re into that, I would recommend previous Best Picture winner The Adventures of Pluto Nash instead.

Lion
Jake says…I would be “lion” if I said I didn't love this movie. It had me roaring! It is my mane pick for Oscar’s Movie of the Year this year.

Glenn says… Puns aside, finally we have a movie marketed towards the adopted! A growing demographic, we have a lot of pride at our stories finally being told on the big screen. However, the well documented biases of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences against adopted families is likely to blunt Lion’s chance at Best Picture.

Manchester by the Sea
Jake says…Manchester is not by the sea. It's by an ocean. Not even one of the good ones, either. It's by the Atlantic, the Terence Trent D’Arby of oceans. Still, a cool movie. I liked the clothes.

Glenn says… I deeply enjoyed this movie, but more deeply enjoy defending accused sexual offenders like Casey Affleck. Remember: innocent until proven guilty and even after proven, still innocent. Separate the art from the artist!

Batman V Superman
Jake says…When Superman and Batman fight the winner is the American public! When Batman punches Superman and Superman punches Batman I was like “oh hell no!” but what I meant was “oh hell yeah!” I was so excited I misspoke. And I'm eloquent as heck.

Glenn says… Having an extremely tiny dick and microcephaly, I LOVED this movie! To see these two hulking brutes punch each other so hard, wrestle so voraciously that they almost kissed...this was ecstasy for me. The climax of the movie involving a surprisingly explicit penetrative anal sex scene was enough to pull this film out of “comic book hell” and right into the Best Picture category.

Arrival
Jake says…Dumb alien shit for virgins.

Glenn says… Smart alien shit for lotharios.

Hacksaw Ridge
Jake says…More like “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan Ridge. Just kidding, this is a movie about building a house on a Ridge, which is boring. It's also 3 months long, which is too long. I have business meetings to go to for this fucking plant watering app I'm trying to get off the ground.

Glenn says… I won’t forgive Mel Gibson and I’m not sure the Academy will either. He told his wife that he hopes she gets raped by a “pack of niggers.” That’s pretty fucked up! Occasionally soapy on the homefront but cataclysmic in combat, Hacksaw Ridge is a worthy addition to the WWII canon. If it loses, it’ll be the last we see of Gibson who has promised to kill himself at the ceremony.

Suicide Squad
Jake says…If there was a real suicide squad I would join it because this movie sucked so bad I killed myself after watching it. The Joker isn't funny like he is in the Batman joke books I read as a kid.

Glenn says… Scathing reviews did not stop this comic book-style film from being nominated nor the controversy surrounding Jared Leto wearing Heath Ledger’s skin for the haunting portrayal of Bane. A huge money-maker, grossing over $15,000 its first weekend, this is the film to beat on Sunday night.

La La Land
Jake says…Everybody loves this musical about singing in LA. It's about a cisgender heterosexual white man who dreams of opening a jazz club. This movie is what happens when you elect a reality TV vulgarian to the highest office in this country. Now we have to endure four years of dipshit white people dance in IMAX 3D and we have no other recourse than to give it a fucking Oscar. The only solace we can take is that we will all be dead soon, but not soon enough.

Glenn says… I liked the songs.

OUR PICKS
Jake says… La La Land will win and we will all suffer. There's an old saying that goes “Jews run the media,” well guess what, fuckhead: white nationalists who are dumber than I am are running the whole country. We're giving mentally ill people guns, so why not give this white washed bullshit movie an Oscar. Fuck it all!

Glenn says... As a white nationalist, I have no vested interest in any of these films winning. However, if you set aside the sentimentality, the “politics” behind them or who the ZOG wants to win, and instead just rank them objectively, it’s pretty clear that your best winner will be La La Land. Until man finally realizes how to suck his own dick, Hollywood will continue to do it for us.

RIP David Bowie (One Year Anniversary)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 05:35:00 +0000

By Glenn

The last thing this rotten world needs is another David Bowie memorial with a "personal twist," but it's all I have to give. He died a year ago today.

The above four pictures are the oldest ones I can find saved on my computer (evidence below) and they raise the following three questions:

Why do I have seemingly random pictures of Bowie on my hard drive that haven't been opened in ~15 years?
Why do, on further inspection, the pictures perfectly encapsulate his four major periods of creative excellence?
Why am I still using the same computer that I was at the turn of the century?

Answer to all: David Bowie was my gateway to a new world of music.

There is no great victory in being into the music of the present era. In the late 90s for me that meant some combination of rock, alternative rock and grunge rock. I simply didn't listen to anything that was popular before "my time." While we could blame many players for this cultural deficit - my parents, my friends, Tipper Gore - the point is that my ignorance of music was holding me back. I lost an election for class president based on tired references to nu metal and killed myself in front of my English class because my favorite music video of all time was Pearl Jam's Jeremy.

My much more learned and culturally adventurous friend Bryan didn't have these problems and it was through his suggestions that I got into David Bowie. Using money I stole from my fast food job, I bought 1999's ...hours and 1972's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars on CD from Best Buy. I remember earnestly and passionately watching the Thursday's Child music video on VH1 (internet did not yet exist) and blasting Moonage Daydream from my Sony Discman on my grandma's couch. History will ultimately judge which album is better but it didn't take long for me to get hooked.

1999-2000 was not Bowie's "coolest" period but he was still cooler than me - and had a vast mythology and discography that hinted at something deeper my favorite bands of the alternative rock era. His back catalog had recently been rereleased on Virgin and I spent the next few years searching out these and rarer versions - the rarest being two RCA releases from the early 80s that sounded like complete shit but looked different and may sell for as much as $50 now on the CD black market. Later in life I randomly won an auction that included a rare version of the All Saints instrumental collection that is apparently worth hundreds of dollars. Still haven't sold it.

Alas, I am not here to brag about how many cool CDs I own. The point is for the first time in my life I was discovering that older music had just as much to offer as modern music - if not more! I started to make the connections between Beck's Mellow Gold-Odelay-Mutations-Midnite Vulture transformation and Bowie's Man Who Sold The World-Hunky Dory-Diamond Dogs-Young Americans roller coaster ride. Apparently music history can repeat itself, at least amongst devoted Scientologists.

Bowie had all the same periods all of us young men go through:

Faux folk
Weird spaceman
Sensitive poet
REALLY weird spaceman
Pale weirdo
Orwell obsessive
Soul singer
Coked out Nazi
Weird Nazi
Sell out

I devoured Bowie's 1970's output the way he devoured cocaine in the middle of the decade. Young Americans was the first soul record I owned and Station to Station was the first ten minute song I heard about this wonderful drug. I cannot count the number of times I've screamed-sung aloud to Side A of "Heroes" - including, but not limited to, the title track, which is rightly acknowledged as the 2nd best song ever written about the Berlin Wall.

At the same time I was going through the back catalog I was trying to update myself on "current" Bowie: 90s albums with mediocre songs and and extraordinary names like 1.Outside and Eart hl i ng. I followed him as far as 2002's Heathen before I decided Bowie's older stuff was good enough for me and instead began exploring his peers and predecessors. Over the next decade, I caught up with the few "good" Bowie albums I still hadn't heard but in general left him alone. He returned the favor: after 2003's Reality he basically disappeared from the music world for a decade before releasing The Next Day. I heard the singles from the album and liked them so bought the album and filed it away for later listening. Yes, he was back but still an old man making music, like Neil Young or Bob Dylan. Who rushes out to hear their current stuff?

And then, a few days after 2016's ★ was released, he fucking died. I can't say that I sat there weeping but for the first music legend death in my adult life, I understood those who did. I rushed to order Blackstar before the inevitable post-humous price gouging began on Bowie's catalog and floated through the next few days, listening to his back catalog and trying to figure out why it couldn't have been me instead of him.

David Bowie was not a perfect man nor was he a perfect musician. He released some absolute shit in his career and honestly I doubt I'll ever go back through and take the time to learn his worst albums when I still haven't heard things like Blood on the Tracks or Double Fantasy. Would I have gotten into artists like Lennon and Dylan without going through Bowie first? Probably, but because he was first I'll always feel the deepest connection to his music, his weird endeavors with the internet, his ambiguous sexuality, his wacky personas and all of the other stuff that makes someone larger than life. If you want to talk more about best saxophone solos in his catalog, just let me know.

FURTHER READING:
Ranking: Every David Bowie Album From Worst to Best

David Bowie Didn’t Know Cancer Was Terminal Until Three Months Before Death

Pushing Ahead of the Dame: David Bowie, song by song

Glenn's 2017 New Years Resolutions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 18:00:00 +0000

By Glenn

Making resolutions for the upcoming year is, like voting, something we do to assert control in our unstable and uncertain lives. Many times this is the right choice and things actually change for the better. I did not make substantive resolutions in 2016 and the year was a disaster. Compare this to a wonderful year like 2014 where I strongly resolved to stop eating candy and cookies, which led to Robin Williams finally killing himself. It's too late to consider reviewing the material of two years ago so let's assume it all went as planned and dive right into 2017.

Add fruit snacks and yogurt to my banned food list
Like anyone else battling an eating disorder (vegetarianism), I find control from and define my identity by what I put into my mouth. Over the last three years I have successfully cut cookies and candy, as your brain can conceive of it, out of my diet. But like a river finding a new path around a dike, my sweet tooth forced alternate methods of satiation. Have you ever snorted Stevia? Anyway, this dietary whack-a-mole has forced me to add fruit snacks (or essentially any "non-candy" hiding in the candy aisle) and frozen yogurt to the banned foods list.

Take two concrete steps to learn more Spanish
¿Hablas español? I don't, as evidenced by the fact I used the very casual tü format in that question and then incorrectly used an umlaut instead of an accent when trying to explain my mistake. I do however have a background in studying the language and a very real need to get myself back up to a level where I can at least buy drugs or explain why all JJ Abrams creations produce existential disappointment. Taking a class is also a great way to meet friends!

Have a Dave Matthews Band Renaissance
I could have put a different artists in this slot (as there will be multiple renaissances this year) but since this list is online I want to follow the standard online playbook: say something in the most controversial way you can and then slowly walk your audience through unpacking it afterward. In the pretend vision of my social world, getting unironically back into DMB is only a step or two below ironically re-joining ISIS. But I want to be one of those people who loses hang-ups and biases as I get older instead of the people whose world view and interests solidify like the stone monuments I never helped ISIS destroy. So this year I will become a "Davehead" and listen to more sweet ass jams.

No more solitary games
...And I don't just mean solitaire! (Though I certainly mean that.) Whether on the phone or computer, I find myself going through distinct and powerful phases of filling boredom/dread/whatever with games. I'm not officially a gamer, but at one point a few years ago I played Euchre on my phone for a few hours straight! Most recently, I regressed during a trip to visit my parents by getting back into early high school favorite Warcraft 2. This resolution wouldn't be needed if I could leave this shameful the activity there (like my kids) or relegate it only to weekends (like my other kids), but I don't have that level of self control.

Watch a non-TV movie once a week
You: "Glenn you watch movies all the time! Feels like every time I open my AtHome app, I see you on that couch with a cold beer staring at the screen with that dead look in your eyes. Why would you possibly need to make a resolution about watching MORE movies on TV?"
Me: "Hear me out. First of all, the movies don't have to be on TV - they could also be in the theatre. Second of all, the movies I'm watching on my very limited cable package are usually terrible Hallmark or Lifetime productions. I watch them because they're on. By setting this goal, I'll be forced to intentionally choose something hopefully more highbrow - and I can use my new Letterboxd app to track it! Third of all, I hope you enjoyed what I did on Tuesday night. It was for you."

Thanks for reading. Let's check in at the middle of the year to see how everything is going. Below are some things that might help you out as you plan your 2017 resolutions:

How to Make Friends Faster

7 Simple Rules for Getting Lean in 2017
Old habits die hard. Here's how to change your life in 2017
To Live Remarkably, Repeat This 1 Affirmation Every Single Day for the Rest of Your Life
What a Sensory Isolation Tank Taught Me About My Brain
Play Warcraft 2 Online

The Singularity

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 03:48:00 +0000

By Jake Merch

Nobody will argue with you when you say that the singularity is imminent. Sure, you might be standing on a milk crate on a corner downtown, using a makeshift megaphone made out of newspaper you pulled out of a trashcan to preach. And sure, to most people that might wreak of insanity. Yet, that does not make the points you're barking invalid. It just makes them louder. And it makes people avoid eye contact with you, although that is a sign of autism spectrum disorder.

The singularity-- the moment when machines become more intelligent than humans-- is coming folks. That seems impossible, right? Surely there is no indicator of human idiocy. There's not a troll running for president tricking people into voting for him through hypnotically terrible hair and hate speech lifted directly from Adolf Hitler (a notorious jerk). Clearly, we are maintaining a superior level of intelligence. The kind of smarts it takes to respond to mass pollution and the change in climate that it causes. Or at least we have the brains to deny it all because it's easier and there's so many dating competition shows to watch and blog about.

What should we do if the singularity dawns? We do what humans always do when confronted: we get racist, then violent. Racism is the heat source that boils into violence. That violence could even be throwing boiling water in the face of our enemy. Usually it's a bit more hamburgery than that, but there are no rules when it comes to violence.

I have come up with a few racist things we can call robots: clink clanks and bleep bloops. And when you see a group of clink clanks clattering down the street, you can nudge your buddy with your elbow and say, "Looks like the circuit's in town." That's just a jump off point. As the bleep bloop overlords over take humanity with their cold metal fists, we will surely get more desperate and therefore more racist. Yet, you cannot get to that level of racism until you are truly under the threat of oppression. Like how cops must feel when they see a black teen eating ice cream at an honor society meeting.

Feel free to leave a comment telling how you would be racist toward a robot.

2016 Oscar Picks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 18:00:00 +0000

By Jake and Glenn

For the 2016th and final year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will pick the winners of Best Picture, the most coveted prize in cinema (besides being backed by a Jewish financier). Let’s celebrate by self-congratulatorily celebrating OYIT’s longest running feature and pretending we’re allowed within 500 feet of a movie theater.

2015 Best Picture Nominees

Bridge of Spies

Jake says…You had me at bridge, lost me at of, and then sold me on spies. I love bridges and very rarely burn them. That's why I'm so popular!

Glenn says… Once my parents vouched for this one, I promised to never see it. No chance to win Best Picture if it can’t appeal to 30something manchildren.

Room

Jake says…I live in a room. I certainly can relate to this picture.

Glenn says… I loved this one! Unfortunately more and more these days, films about a white man holding a woman prisoner ask the question “is art imitating life or the other way around?” Though Brie Larson is a strong frontrunner for Best Actress, I’m not sure if the movie can escape the obvious parallels to the Tommy Wiseau ur-classic “The Room.”

Brooklyn

Jake says…Hey, I'm from Brooklyn over here. Just kidding, I'm from Indiana. But I still thought that this was certainly a movie. It fit all of the defined criteria. Cool film over here. Just kidding.

Glenn says… This was a wonderful romance about two uber hipsters from Williamsburg - one agnostic/spiritual and one uber Orthodox Jew. Saoirse Ronan, with her unpronounceable name, shines so bright that some of the Orthodox Jewish women consider taking off their thick black cloth to be more comfortable. I nearly wept at the ending. Definite contender.

Jem And The Holograms

Jake says…We live in an age where anybody can transition into a hologram. My brother became a hologram. Jem is truly outrageous.

Glenn says… the AVClub review of this film delivered an epic takedown of this film but not nearly as epic as the film itself. Not epic in scope, but in length: Jem clocks in at 243 minutes not counting the music video that plays after the credits or the commercials that play before the film. The Academy has never given Best Picture to a film this long and famously gave 1981’s Das Boot their first and only “Razzie” award for Worst Film.

The Revenant

Jake says…This is the only movie I have even heard of, but it's always in a way that suggests, “What the fuck does ‘revenant’ even mean?” It may be because that's literally what I hear as I take tickets at the local AMC.

Glenn says… Another anti-bear, pro-Native movie. Frankly I’m sick of having this, and other things, forced down my throat. The movie itself was fine, though it wasn’t nearly as violent as I expected and have been conditioned to think I deserve. Leo DiCaprio, that little prettyboy, will surely win his first Best Actor Oscar for this one but I don’t think the film degrades itself enough to win Best Picture.

The Cobbler

Jake says…I don't watch movies about making shoes. Suck a dick, Hollyweird.

Glenn says… If you don’t know much about Hollywood you would think Director T. McCarthy’s OTHER film this year, Spotlight, was more deserving. While Spotlight was about journalism and religious sexual abuse, the Cobber was about shoes and secular sexual abuse. Also featuring several characters from award (Grammy) winning You Shant Mess With the Zohan, it participates in the “shared universe” craze that excites low testosterone beta males.

Mad Max

Jake says…This movie being nominated really shows you how out of touch the Academy truly is. This flick came out in the 1980s! Sure, it was before we knew that Mel Gibson was a racist asshole, but that's no reason to give it an Oscar.

Glenn says… This was, of course, the best movie of the year. The entire movie was a chase scene! Haven’t seen that much chase in a film since the 1994 Charlie Sheen vehicle “The Chase.” The question is not whether Mad Max deserves the award, it’s whether Immortan Joe will allow it. That’s a reference to the movie, shitheads - and he’s the new president of the academy.

Big Short

Jake says…This should have been nominated as a Short film. Get it? The word “short” is in the title and it stars Martin Short.

Glenn says… I liked the asides in the movie that explained things to me. Will the Academy see it as an insult of their great intelligence? Yes - and that’s why it won’t win. Plus all the crypto-Jews in Hollywood will be lobbying against a movie that so needlessly condemns financial fraud.

Our Picks

Glenn says... What a great year for films about powerful women (Room, Brooklyn, Mad Max) and powerful men (The Revenant, The Cobbler, Mad Max). Since they will cancel each other out, it leaves an opening for a gender non-conforming movie like Jem and the Honorgrams to win, which it will. Sorry to Bridge of Spies.

Jake says… These old white cis male motherfuckers are gonna give a statue to Mad Max because Mel Gibson tried to cut his ex-wife’s head off because she got him too drunk. Fuck the Academy Awards.

Debate: School Shootings

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 03:03:00 +0000

By Glenn and Jake

There's a common saying that goes: "there's only two things in life that are certain: death and taxes." And while that may have passed for humor 200 years ago, today we need something that pushes more buttons. That's why I move to add a third certainty of life: school shootings. School shootings have become a common occurrence in modern America, like losing socks at the laundromat or being impotent from watching extreme porn, the kind that involves poop.

In this debate, Glenn and Jake are going to attempt to take each other to school and riddle the rhetorical hallways with verbal bullets. Are school shootings tragic or surprisingly positive? Find out here.

Glenn: School shootings are terrible! My mere participation in this debate is a debasement - it actually makes me feel like I’m living through such an attack right now. I have several reasons in support of my position but I will start with the strongest: each school shooting builds the drumbeat towards common-sense gun regulation. In the past year alone, each of these terrible shootings felt like pound-pound-pound of Keith Moon drumming towards the aforementioned dystopia. But instead of leading us towards an ecstatic climax of Roger Daltrey’s booming voice and Pete Townshend's guitar windhill, these shootings bring us closer to a reality where assault weapons won’t be accessible. Thank you.

Jake: It's funny that you mention The Who, the rock and roll band, and especially Pete Townshend. The reason this is laughable is because it plays into my first point so well: if children kill each other then Pete Townshend will have less kids to fuck and/or masturbate to nude pictures of. He will have to stick to his current cache of child pornography of children who are surely dead by now.

School is boring. Shooting guns is exciting. No wonder all the kids have stopped raising their hands and instead are raising arms.

Glenn: I agree that school shootings are exciting, but just because something is exciting doesn’t make it good. Plenty of things raise the heart rate: watching your cat get run over by a truck, opening a possible acceptance letter from an unaccredited for-profit college, having sex. But, especially regarding sex, the excitement is not worth the pain caused to you and others. Many university professors argue that school shootings are fake, that the survivors are all “crisis actors” and such. Even if they’re half right, a world where SOME people have died is not one I want to live in.

Jake: Everybody will one day die. I, for one, cannot wait for the day the Grim Reaper places HER icy hand upon my shoulder and drags me to the grave. I imagine it to be like the buried alive match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Undertaker, but with less heavy machinery and smoother.

I wish I were still school age. I would love to be riddled with bullets, errant or intentional, from a psychopath's gun. Nearly everybody agrees that mass shooters are mentally deficient, but until Donald Trump is elected president and puts another holocaust into action, we are just going to have to deal with the repercussions of living with the mentally ill. We might as well strap ourselves in and enjoy this wild ride.

Glenn: Recently I read (over several months, on the toilet) the book Columbine by Dave Cullen. It was the definitive account of the first school shooting in American history and it taught me a lot. For example, did you know that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold weren’t bullied - or at least no more than you and me in high school? Secondly, did you know that an older teen helped them get their gun? Many things went into making that school shootings, and others, a success. But the success comes at a cost: in the past 15 years children are incredibly more likely to be suspended for jokingly threatening to kill someone or expelled just for acting out while black. These are the legacies of school shootings - a legacy we need to shoot dead.

Jake: I vividly remember a time, back when I was a youth in tight pink shorts, when baseball was America's past time. Now the bats have been replaced by guns and the balls have been switched out for bullets. Or, perhaps more accurately, it's like an automatic ball pitcher at a batting cage is an automatic assault rifle and the balls are still bullets. The point being: baseball is boring as shit and school shootings are exciting. Sure, they both involve math, but you can shoot anybody who tells you about it during a school shooting.

Going to school was boring when we were kids, up until Columbine happened, then it was suspenseful because you might die. We went from living that Jim Jarmusch life to Alfred Hitchcock. And The Birds is more fun to watch than Broken Flowers.

Oscar Picks 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 19:09:00 +0000

By Glenn and Jake

It feels like just last year we successfully (and unethically) predicted the Academy Awards Best Picture winner. This has been a huge year for films and an even bigger year for movies. In 2014 we saw crazy surrealism, measured proselytizing, shooting and a boy literally grow up right before our eyes. Finally the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences listened to White America and refused to nominate any people of color for major awards unless you count Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu or twee Wes Anderson. On February 22nd, thousands of people will gather in front of their smart phones and illegally stream the 2015 Academy Awards, holding the device in one hand and a printed copy of this article in the other. Watch out for paper cuts when you scream in exaltation at our correct prediction of Best Picture winner!

2015 Best Picture Nominees

Imitation Game/Theory of Everything

Glenn says... Who can keep these movies straight? Not me, and I’m straight myself, unlike the lead characters in these films. Both are about troubled scientists who overcome a disability, based loosely on the story of Timothy McVeigh.

Jake says... Everywhere you go these days everybody seems to be talking about Game of Theory. All the nudity and dragons has America harder than a sodoku puzzle and wetter than your mom's pussy when she's watching Lonesome Dove. This is a TV show so it has no shot.

Mortdecai

Glenn says.. Mordecai (sic) is this year’s dark horse candidate. Its incredibly successful marketing campaign led to the famous unprecedented $700 million dollar opening weekend and even less precedented and less famous $800 million dollar closing weekend, all in the same month! The film had to close early because America couldn’t handle any more...decai.

Jake says... Mortdecai was a very surprising pick for the Academy. This nomination is more shocking than the time The Mountie used hid shock stick on Job Bush at the 2015 New Hampshire primaries.

Boyhood

Glenn says... Probably my favorite of the fifteen movies nominated this year. As someone who used to be a traditionally gendered boy, seeing this movie reminded me of that time in my life, down to the detailed depictions of staying up late in IRC wrestling chat rooms. Some people were taken aback because nothing explodes in the film, not even the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, but hopefully that bizarre exclusion won’t take away from the powerful anti-government message about growing up and the small moments that make our lives worth remembering.

Jake says... This prequel to Parenthood is missing the heart of the original film: Steve Martin. Getting Zachary Braff was a great casting move, but making it a musical seems like a real blunder. Boyhood needs to go through puberty.

Birdman

Glenn says... Heard it took twelve years to film...felt like twelve years to watch!

Jake says... Is he a bird or a man? He's a Birdman. Michael Chrytron has done it again and this time it's personal, because this is a biopic. Chrytron is known for being ice cold in his crime epics, but this movie will give you frostbite.

God’s Not Dead/Heaven Is For Real/Saving Christmas

Glenn says... This movie, released in three versions, challenged a lot of Christians belief in how loosely you can define what constitutes a "movie." There was a lot wrong with this film including the final fight scene between the AntiChrist (depicted by Greg Kinnear) and Hercules (depicted by Kirk Cameron) - especially baffling when you consider TV’s Hercules Kevin Sorbo was right there on set as a Key Grip! - but never underestimate the power of Christian movies amongst the liberal Hollywood elite.

Jake says... Not often does the Academy nominate three movies as one nomination, but I guess they did this time around. I'd like to look in their heads and see how they tick, you know. Just look at all of those wires and those gears turning, lubricating the bits that need it. I guess that's just the clock maker in me coming out. There might not be a god, but these movies prove that there are still quality films being churned out in Hollywood.

Selma

Glenn says... Making fun of Selma will get you virtually drawn and quartered on both tumblr and twitter, so don’t even think about it. I know when to fold my hand and it’s whenever there’s a race card in it. Pass!

Jake says... I hated when the president of the Selma fan club murdered her.

American Sniper

Glenn says... One of the two “politicized” movies up for Best Picture this year, opposition and support have fallen along traditional ideological lines. Iraqis and others of Middle Eastern descent have rallied in favor of the movie since it provides so many acting jobs for a group of people normally discriminated against in our racist society. Meanwhile the Veterans of Foreign Wars famously burned an effigy of Clint Eastwood during last year’s CPAC in protest of what they called a “disgustingly pro-Bradley Cooper film.” Controversy means $$$ but not Best Picture award.

Jake says... American Sniper? What is this movie about: legendary roast master Jeffrey Ross? Seriously though, being hired as a murderer by the government should give everyone pause and make them reevaluate the system we are participating in and making movies glorifying it is despicable. Plus, having a cartoon cat named Buzzby telling Chris Kyle to shoot brown people is in poor taste.

Planes: Fire & Rescue

Glenn says... A fantastic film with a show-stealing voice performance by Marion Cotillard as Deandra, the rescue plane. Most people will dismiss this "kids movie" out of hand, as if the things that children enjoy - sports, parties, having sex - have no value. But I thought this had a much more nuanced depiction of combat, rescue, fire and mental illness than any this year's films. The question everyone is wondering: will its overt anti-Semitism doom it before the Elders of the Academy?

Jake says... I would FIRE anybody who doesn't PLANes to see this movie and RESCUE anybody who is being sexually assaulted in front of me.

Our Picks

Glenn says... Most believe this is Boyhood's turn to win Best Picture, having failed to win during each of the previous 12 years it was nominated while in production. But there were others that dealt with important political and social subject matter. Selma captured the intensity and drama of a very important historical period and its subject matter is still relevant today. American Sniper was finally the breakthrough Iraq War movie that allowed us as a country to begin processing the complicated feelings left in its aftermath. Planes: Fire & Rescue had planes who talked. Ultimately the best picture will go to Mortdecai, who will then be promoted to #fulltimerogue. See you on the red carpet!

Jake says… For the first time in over 1200 years of film, I think the Academy is not going to award any movies a statue. It's a shame, too, because all of these movies were very funny.

Debate: Tinder

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 19:23:00 +0000

By Jake and Glenn

Tinder, like Plenty Of Fish and Silk Road before it, has revolutionized online dating. Dispensing with the well thought out religious-based personality matchmaking of sites like EHarmony or the crude religious-based sexual matchmaking of JDate, Tinder allows us to interact while simultaneously embracing both our most base and most romantic natures. People that in a previous generation would have been consigned to a sanitorium for the rest of their lives can now “swipe right” and enjoy the same thrills of despair and rejection as people without crippling social anxiety. Today Jake and Glenn return to the debate forum with a long awaited dialogue on online dating app Tinder. Please don’t “swipe left.”

Jake: After my marriage fell apart like a house of cards or, rather, like the Netflix original program House of Cards, Tinder was the first place I turned to find a date. As a non-drinker, it can be difficult to meet a person to spend time with in a romantic way. Plus, as a man who is not a rapist, I would never have sex with a drunk person unless they had given me consent while sober. This is why Phi Beta Pi revoked my membership, even after I had paid my dues and purchased 30 togas. Tinder has allowed me to swipe right into dating without having to leave the comfort of my favorite crying chair.

Glenn: I love that there’s an app that allows you to directionally swipe with your obese thumb, but I can’t support Tinder. Tinder is an app that forces men (and presumably women) to make snap judgments on other people not based on their religion or where they went to college but purely on looks. For a burn victim like me, this is a harrowing prospect, but I’m also not sure what it says about our society. A perfectly respectable site like OKCupid, which I’ve used to date several Roma women, was already effective for meeting people. You answered a few questions, gave a sperm sample, uploaded a shirtless picture and you were ready to go. It was simple, but detailed enough you could judge on personality too. With Tinder, it’s only one picture that most people will swipe away but the ugliest among us will swipe right into their hearts.

Jake: I have learned several shocking things from Tinder (JFK's involvement in the moon landing, the ending of Princess Diaries 2, and who assassinated Bruiser Brody), but the most shocking thing I have learned is that I am fairly handsome. After being with a closeted lesbian for ten years, this was a truly shocking revelation. Though, the most attractive woman I have went on a date with I met at the comedy club after she had an anxiety attack when Heywood Banks made fun of her for finding his gentle guitar comedy boring. My point is this: Tinder can boost your self esteem based purely on looks.

Glenn: I feel for people with low self-esteem. Although it’s not an issue I face, I understand the appeal of an app that makes you believe other people think you’re hot. But what about those who you swipe left for? The obese, the chronically engaged, the beef eaters? What of their self esteem? Recent statistics show that the vast majority of suicides stem from users not getting chosen on Tinder. “A small price to pay for my own happiness!” you might exclaim while roughly chewing on a delicious roast beef sandwich from Hardee’s. But most people don’t want any more blood on their hands than what they already have from participating in the meat-industrial complex.

Jake: The only roast beef I will be chewing on, sir, is the kind that sits between a lady’s legs. This type of lady is the type I will meet on Tinder. I will swipe right on the app and then swipe my tongue across her glistening pussy. All of the HPV in the world can’t slow me down. Yet, as the only writer on this site who has not contracted HPV, I do feel left out. Tinder is fun. It’s a game where you swipe people according to whether or not you would want to make love to them. Then you talk to them and ask them if they’re going to catfish you. If they say they’re not going to catfish you, you meet up with them and give them oral sex. Then neither of you ever talk to each other again. It’s the perfect system. There’s also a chance that you might get your first kiss and that would be pretty neat-o.

Glenn: I too would like to have my first kiss. For all the cunnilingus I’ve performed (and, arguably, received) I’ve never actually had that experienced so beautifully dramatized in Drew Barrymore’s hit film Never Been Kissed (1999). My debate opponent previously stated that the best looking human who agreed to a date was from real life, not Tinder. But what would she have done if she saw you wearing a tuxedo shirt and novelty eyeglasses? Swiped left, like an Arab man wiping his anus. I used to go on Hot or Not in the early 2000s and rate all the beautiful people as 1s and the ugly people as 10s. Although I was on the site because pornography didn’t exist, that righteous feeling of righting what god did wrong sustained me through a very dark time. Let that be a word of warning: the next person who swipes you right may be doing it for the wrong reasons.

10 Things You Will Remember if You Remember the 90s

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:10:00 +0000

By Jake

The 90s, the decade we reached sexual and spiritual maturity in. Whether it was by praying to a naked drawing of April O'Neal or performing fellatio on a priest during first communion, this is a universal truth of the 1990s. What are ten other things you may remember? Well, look at this:

1. That TV dinner that your mom threw at your dad when he called her selfish.

2. Macaroni and cheese. A true 90s treat.

3. Neon trenchcoats. Everybody was wearing them and we felt like we were in space.

4. Pills. Not only were we all flying high on a cocktail of barbiturates, but we all started taking those pills that made it so we didn't have to eat anymore. Thanks, Pfizer.

5. Gunk music. The sludge spouting guitars of Kirk Cobb had us enthralled and smelling truly what the Rock was cooking.

6. Those glasses. You know the ones I'm talking about.

7. Kelp. Those of us who weren't taking nutrition pills were piling our plates sky high with kelp. Yummy!

8. Being a burn victim. Not everybody remembers this, but 73% of the population does and that's enough to bait those clicks. Right, ladies?

9. Alien Ant Farm. We all loved them and still do.

10. Looking into the abyss. We all remember when the sky opened and all encompassing darkness spilled out like cut on Sasha Grey's face. There was nothing we could do but stare into it and many of us lost many family members to starvation. Thankfully, it disappeared as suddenly as it appeared. Praise Xenu.

Make Divorce Work for You!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 18:54:00 +0000

By Rishika

         Every year is a good year to get a divorce, but when your friends who are married to each other get divorced, it can put a real strain on the friend dynamic. Now, instead of one night of hanging out, it's two separate nights with each night representing the two separate people who are not married anymore.

          This is particularly distressing as a friend of both parties, because these two nights of hanging out really cut into my beauty sleep time. And since I'm still single and on the wrong side of 20, I cannot go without my beauty rest. My fertility is waning and no one wants to be with a barren gal with a face that looks like it got hit by Miley Cyrus' foot while she was swinging around on that wrecking ball.

           Which is why it is important to choose a #team, or, as the older generation calls it, "choosing sides."

   In the beginning, when things are first starting to fall apart and emotions are running high, it is important to stay neutral. As I've learned, you don't want to prematurely jump ship from a person who may prove to be a valuable companion. Hence, this article. Since divorce seems to be the thing to do these days, I've provided a guide that will hopefully prove useful to those who's social circle has been shaken by an act committed by two very selfish people who don't care about their friends.

                         1. Who has more money?
This is the big one. If chosen correctly, the moneybags half of the couple will be so grateful for your friendship that they will want to be your roommate. And with the freedom of their spending power, you can afford to live large. Like a successful rapper or a housewife with a C-level husband. Suddenly, that large, 42nd-floor downtown condo or Southern style mansion in a warmer climate is your home too.

                         2. Who can best advance my career in comedy?
Who has the most connections in Hollywood? Who has experience in the best practices for mitigating PR nightmares? What is leverage and how do I get it? If chosen correctly, HBO and Comedy Central will be fighting over you like your friends fought over custody of that priceless Ming vase that was a wedding gift from their dearly departed old neighbor, Mr. Lodge.

                         3. Who has the most attractive friends?
After all, with your fertility on the decline, you need to find a person who has already been vetted by your trusted friend. There's no time for "get-to-know-yous" and "howdy-doos." It needs to be a straightforward, "Howdy-DO IT TO ME NOW!"

          Hopefully I was able to answer your most pressing questions and made your #team choice a bit easier. Obviously, many questions are brought up during divorce and it's impossible to answer every single one of them as situations tend to vary like a family with a beautiful rainbow of multi-national adopted children.

           If your friends are getting divorced and you have more questions that weren't answered here, feel free to email me at ptwnbrwn (at) gmail (dot) com.

Comedy and Depression

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:39:00 +0000

By Jake

Ever since Robin Williams mercifully took his own life, people have been looking at the link between comedy and depression. Why are comedians so depressed? Why aren't comedians even considered human beings? Exactly how many women did serial rapist Bill Cosby drug and rape? The answer to most of these questions are unsettling, but the answer to the last is the most so.

The reason I believe a person would ever choose to go on stage with the express goal of making people laugh by telling them one of their awkwardly crafted dick or pussy jokes has to do with a mixture of narcissism and self-loathing. You don't have to hate yourself to love yourself, but you do have to hate yourself to love doing comedy. Plus, you also have to think what you have to say is worth subjecting on a hive-minded group of greasy dipshits.

Do I have contempt for the audience of comedy shows? It depends on how much they enjoy my jokes, of course. If they don't like my jokes then they are stupid, if they do like my jokes then they are smart and beautiful.

Performing doesn't take courage (or often times more crassly put, "balls," referring to a man's testicles). Performing takes a deep-seeded hatred of yourself and everything in the world, mixed with a love so strong that you are about to explode from it, and from all of the maggots you accidentally ate thinking they were Tic-Tacs. Much like believing in God, performing comedy is a sign of mental illness in itself.

When I go more than the standard three days without performing stand-up, I start going through withdrawals. It's like when I don't take my prescribed Paxil and black out, only to find myself drilling gloryholes in the Arby's bathroom. Nobody even eats at Arby's! Why would I install a gloryhole where there are no dicks to suck and fuck? Anyway, comedy is fueled by mental illness, but also can relieve some of the pressure of said affliction. I start feeling depressed when I miss out on my weekly goal of stage time (3 sets is my goal, but is hard to meet in a city where the club owner is jealous of other stages and will yell at you for doing other shows in the city limits).

Comedy is fueled by the every day pain of life. Comedians notice and feel this pain more than anybody, but react differently to it. I reacted to my divorce by writing thirty jokes about polio. Your average person would just cut themselves, and they would be right! In a way, writing jokes is my version of cutting myself. And, brothers and sisters, I am all scarred up.

Glenn's 2015 Resolutions (and 2014 reviewed)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 16:18:00 +0000

By Glenn

As you all know, I made some incredibly brave resolutions for 2014, which I announced publicly for the same reason I do anything: a profound desire to be noticed. Since I was the only person to make resolutions last year (and the only person in my peer group to take them seriously), I deserve my own New Years Resolutions article with a review of last year and a complete list of what's in store for 2015.

2014 Resolutions

Stop Checking Facebook so much
I wasn't able to do this on my own so I downloaded an app called SelfControl that helped me control my Facebook consumption along with many other disgusting urges that are an affront to Allah. This was a bad resolution because it's not quantifiable unless you use a different app called RescueTime that tracks your online time. I cannot use that app since my Salafist strain of Islam forbids it.
Verdict: Partially Completed

Switch to Paul or George
Still couldn't do this (Instant Karma is too good) but I did price out copies of the George Harrison boxed set.
Verdict: Failed

Learn Every World Capital
I neglected this until the very end, but over the last few weeks have surged like UN membership to an 88% memorization rate. Ironically those I'm having the most trouble remembering are the countries where I've spent the most time: Solomon Islands, Saint Lucia, Myanmar, et cetera. If we go by the Russian Orthodox calendar I'll have this one complete in time.
Verdict: Mostly Completed

Use Google
Couldn't do it. Still an Altavista guy and when I'm looking for something published after 1998 I use Duck Duck Go.
Verdict: Failed

Stop Eating Candy or Cookies
Without a doubt the hardest of the resolutions, this was one I'm most proud of completing. Was I tempted? Sure. But this pledge was important: it dealt with a terrible behavior that was killing me and it was the only resolution I could smugly explain repeatedly around food. It also worked because I could still eat other, lesser sweets like fruit snacks, donuts or high fat mint ice cream.
Verdict: Success

2015 Resolutions

Read 12 books or one book per month, whichever is smaller
I read ten in 2014 (not counting anything from the Discworld series) so this should be doable.

Sell my books
Notice a fucked up book pattern here? My heavy, homeless-esque usage of the library renders most of the books I do own and haven't read worthless to me, but worth anywhere from $2.49 to $10.99 to someone else, once I sell them on Half.com, the #1 site for selling your books online.

Contact my sister’s kids once a month
Part of being an uncle is living far away from your niece and nephew, but unless you want them to permanently view you as some weird version of Uncle Buck they gotta hear from you more often. That way, they'll think o]f you as some weird version of Uncle Jesse. Are there any famous uncles besides those from television and movies?

Maintain a budget on music purchases
I, like David Byrne, hold the crazy belief that people will eventually stop making music if they can't make a career from it. That's why I try to financially support artists and record labels I enjoy by buying instead of stealing music. At the same time, I have at times fallen into that consumer abyss where I attempt to spend my way out of anomie through Wilco boxed sets. This year I will be making a small ($600) monthly budget allowable to be spent on albums in whatever form gives me the most indie cred.

Try stand up comedy
Although you wouldn't know it this article, I actually enjoy humor: both consuming and producing it. Though I'm not funny enough for anyone to flippantly say to me "you should try stand up," I am funny enough to think I could do better than the many unfunny stand-up comedians I've seen. OYIT's Jake's shocking rise to the top of the Midwest Comedy Scene has also inspired me since we wrote our first joke together back in 1997 (referring to a famous celebrity as 'Princess DIE-ana'). Hopefully 2015 will be the year I step onto the stage once to tell the same jokes that made me the hit at all my parents' key parties in the mid-70s.

2015 New Years Resolutions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 16:17:00 +0000

By Staff

As you’ve probably noticed from your out of date 2014 commemorative North Korean calendar, the year has changed. With a new year comes new possibilities and new promises to be made to our lord and savior Jesus Christ. The staff here at OYIT have been down this road several times: 2010, 2011, 2011, 2012, 2012 and finally 2014. Unfortunately since the years keep coming so will our resolutions. Read below for a peek at what we pledge to do in the upcoming, final year.

Jake’s Resolutions

2014 was a real rollercoaster ride of a year for me, as I spent a huge chunk of it fulfilling my previous New Year's resolution of riding every rollercoaster in the contiguous United States. Also, my partner of ten years broke up with me because of my rollercoaster adventures. This year things are going to be a little different.

1. Ride every water slide in the contiguous United States. Wet and wild, yet nice and mild. Exactly what the doctor ordered, which is exactly why I go to a twelve year old doctor.

2. See a movie. This is the year that I find out what all the fuss is about. Comment and tell me what the first movie I ever watch should be.

3. Obey the comedy rule of threes. I need to keep it brief, yet give enough examples to flesh out my point. The experts (Richard Lewis, Jeff Foxworthy, Louie Anderson) all say that three is the funniest number. Who am I to argue with legends? Nobody. I’m just a piece of shit, obviously. So I will just do what my heroes do.

4. Never lie to strangers. I may end up married to them now that I am single, and I do not want to start off a relationship with a lie.

5. Find out if men are different from women. This is important. I do stand-up comedy and “Men are Different from Women” is the thesis of that medium.

Rishika's Resolutions

Ch-ch-ch-changes. That can sum up my 2014 in a nutshell. I overcame that speech impediment and I finally found a decent change jar. And boy! that change does add up quickly! I’d like to continue the momentum of this kind of success in 2015.

1. Save up enough money to change my boyfriend to one who buys me presents.

2. Move out of my nutshell and into a studio apartment. Time to live like an adult.
3. Save up those pennies and take a damn vacation. Thailand is nice this time of year.
4. Quit trying to save money and just get a job that pays better.

5. Ask Jake if he ever did find that rollercoaster of love and see if I can’t find a suitable partner and get married. I’m tired of blaming my life mistakes on myself. In 2015, I’m going to love myself and find a handsome partner to blame for my mistakes and unaccomplishments.

Ryan's Resolutions

Oh… I didn’t see you there… What’s up? Oh not much is new with me, just sitting here thinking about 2014, which was a pretty bad year. What do you say we resolve to make the world a little better? Here’s what I’m going to do:

1. Finally settle down and get married. I think it’s time I found someone to spend the rest of my life with, no matter how short and miserable it is. I’m slouching into my late thirties, and honestly, life isn’t really worth living, decrepit and alone with my many supercomputers. Why not share my supercomputers with someone I love and can constantly argue with? Hopefully Jan from the Toyota commercials reads this...

2. Renew my passport and maybe go somewhere cool. I’ve only been putting it off for like seven or eight years. Honestly I’m probably not going to do this.

3. Get the assholes at Panera to quit calling me “The Big Bitch Who Likes Soup.” I told them it was my name ONE TIME like four years ago and they won’t stop.

4. Gain, like, 30,000 pounds. I think this is possible.

5. Maybe go “online” and “be a dickhead” to “strangers?”

6. Get divorced. This is kind of contingent on #1, but literally everyone I know got divorced in 2014 - even people who weren’t married or hadn’t been born yet. I’d like to think it’s my fault, so I will. It’s high time I try this for myself.

7. Continue the slow, inexorable creep towards the fate that awaits all mortal beings (eating alone at Applebee’s).

8. Finally learn to read. This may be pushing it, but I can dream, right?

9. Get my teeth replaced with extremely sharp shards of glass that I can use to intimidate my many powerful enemies, such as those asshole Panera employees, my future ex-wife/-wives and/or ex-husband(s).

10. I’m going to start carrying a sword around all the time. Why not.

11. Suicide by cop.

Well, that’s it. If I’m not doing those things in the new year, I’ll be silently staring at a plain white wall while an unseen clock loudly ticks off the wasted seconds and I slowly rot from the inside. All in all, it looks like 2015 is going to be great! Let’s meet back here in a year to discuss our divorces!

One Year in Texas' Person of the Year 2014: Taylor Swift

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 00:56:00 +0000

By Jake

Every year One Year in Texas chooses one person who made the biggest impact in the calendar year via secret ballot. This year we chose Taylor Swift from a long list of people who outperformed all others. Congratulations, Taylor. You deserve the honor.

I went through a lot of personal strifes and triumphs in the year of our lord 2014. From my wife leaving me to take up wind-surfing, to performing stand-up comedy in front of Pauly Shore, this has been a year of true ups and downs. Thanks to a beautiful young songstress known to the world as Taylor (Ms. Swift if you're nasty, but I am not), I learned how to deal with all of the negativity in my life. She told me to "Shake it Off," and when a young millionaire tells you to do something you are all ears, figuratively.

There has not been a singer as charming as Taylor Swift since Lou Diamond Phillips took the role as Ritchie Valens in the feature film "La Bamba." Taylor Swift oozes a delightful awkward confidence that many performers can relate to. I can relate to it, but I am a worse dancer than Taylor, but I believe that I am a better stand-up comedienne than she. Time will tell on that one, though.

Her album 1989 came out like lightning out of Thor's hammer. Or lightning out of Emperor Palpatine's fingers. Or lightning out of the clouds. The point is this: her album is like lightning. Every song is an electrifying bolt emanating from the boombox which holds the cassette I copied from the Target Deluxe CD release of her album.

While "Shake it Off" is the best song ever recorded, it is also the second worst song on the album–the first being "Bad Blood." This is known as the Taylor Swift Paradox. It is a term I invented and will surely be used in academia in the years coming.

Let's not even mention how I cry while listening to "This Love." Please, nobody mention this.

Taylor, this is for you. You are a marvel of the modern world and you deserve this honor like I deserved to have my wife leave me. We all get what we deserve.

Surprise! I'm Divorced Now!

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 23:03:00 +0000

By Jake

A couple months ago, my wife told me that she didn't think things were working out anymore and that she wanted some space. That quickly escalated into her wanting a divorce. I was devastated at first. I cried hard for two hours. I'm doing better now, but I do still cry every time I listen to Taylor Swift's "This Love" and I am not sure if that will ever stop or if I will ever stop listening to it multiple times a day. I'm not even sure if it has anything to do with the ending of our relationship.

Where did things go wrong? I can't say for sure, but our relationship hasn't been very good since we lived in Hammond, IN. I thought our relationship had gotten a little better, but far from perfect, once we moved to Washington, IL. Then Kaleena started going to a couple's counselor without me. After a few sessions, I was invited to attend one. I go in there and this dude just reads Family Circus strips to us for an hour. He didn't even let me see them! How is that supposed to fix my marriage? If anything, it made things worse. If you're going to go about therapy that way, I at least need to see where Jeffy has been going. I'm just not that much of a visual thinker.

Then Kaleena and I moved from Washington to Peoria. This was our living situation: We moved into a house with a younger couple. Fellow comedians. Then on a random Tuesday–much like 9/11/01–the two ladies broke up with the two fellas. The same. fucking. day. So here's what I did–and y'all are going to love this–I bought a Kindle Fire so I could jack off in my bedroom while weeping. Eventually I moved my computer into my bedroom to maximize my masturbating experience. Plus, I bought a fleshlight. I always did want to fuck a flashlight and divorce is about checking things off of your bucket list.

The thing about the divorce that I find most frightening and daunting is getting back into dating. The last time I dated there weren't dating apps. This was 10 years ago. There weren't even apps! There weren't even phones! You definitely didn't have to send a picture of your dick to anyone, especially not to your date's legal guardian. I do feel like I'm ready to start dating again, though. And you know why? I'm out-of-my-mind horny.

I have started using Tinder. And I know Tinder is a taboo topic that comedians steer clear of, but I am a rule breaker–a real maverick of comedy. I have even made some dates! Writing about the dates will have to be a spin-off. The Mork and Mindy of this article's Happy Days, but hopefully this date doesn't end in suicide like More and Mindy did. What a controversial conclusion that was to a program about an alien trying to get his dick wet.

I don't drink or do drugs because I'm on anti-depressants to stave off panic attacks. I started having panic attacks after smoking some synthetic marijuana called Cloud Ten Storm. As bad as the panic attacks were, it could have been worse. I could have hit people with my car like my friend Travis did after smoking some "spice."

I think alcohol would make things a lot easier, but I don't have to worry about the "beer goggles"effect. That is when you sleep with somebody under you on the sexual caste system. Though, right after the break-up I found every woman attractive because I had sad glasses. And because of the aforementioned horniness.

After a couple months of avoiding my house and looking through sad glasses, I think things are starting to look up and I'm finding myself enjoying moments of happiness. I got some cute kisses (no tongue) from a beautiful 18 year old woman comedian and that lifted my mood and self-esteem more than my horseshit anti-depressants. It seems like nothing is going to happen with the 18 year old, but it was pretty nice and uplifting.

I have finally moved out of the house I was sharing with Kaleena for two months after we split and living with my very good friend Alix and her boyfriend. It has been better for my emotional and sexual well-being so far. I have started dating and it's pretty fun.

Letters From the Past to My Future Cat

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 23:52:00 +0000

By Bernice K. Milton

Dear, Orange You Glad I Didn't Name You Orange,

Daylight Savings Time has begun. The days are short and lethargy has descended upon me.

The slumminess of my studio dwelling is becoming more apparent with each drop in temperature degree. The drafts through the window are unavoidable and the vague smell of shit in the laundry room is a bit disconcerting, but the amount of space and light I have in the apartment...unbeatable. As they say, nothing is perfect. Especially when one is "poor." At least my living compartment is adequate in space.

The gainful employment landscape has been as harsh as the subzero windchill, but I push forth despite the oppositional gusts. I do quite enjoy my job working with the children. After all, where else can you be paid a decent wage for coloring inside the lines, building Lego, and creating an atmosphere of general merriment for sweet, innocent, yet occasionally impudent children? If only they could provide me the wages and benefits that befit a fully formed adult, I could rest a bit easier at night knowing that you would be well fed and free of feline infectious peritonitis should the disease invade your delicate body. Perhaps patience will befriend my weary dejection and one day, we shall be united.

My constitution has been a bit bothered in recent weeks. I fell ill with the infection of the sinus cavities and was prescribed an antibiotic that woke me up with a turbulent case of the runs. However, due diligence in my probiotic intake has rectified (no pun intended) the situation, and now I fear I suffer the opposite problem. Oh, dear. I'm not worried, as I will simply need to increase my fiber intake and I should be as regular as old Arthur Bigglesworth before he retired from the gumshoe factory.

Well, that is all I have to report for now. I look forward to your cuddles during my home bound cinematic experiences as well as your light and not excessively needy snuggles.

Yours lovingly,
B.K. Milton

Tracing the path of LGBT equality

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 05:42:00 +0000

By Glenn

In 2013, heterosexual US Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) came out as a supporter of same sex marriage, a shocking about face from any notable member of a political party who as recently as 2004 included "Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve" in their party platform. What caused him to drop his ball gag and Bible and pick up the shield of GLBT equality? His son came out to him. This caused two things: an ever-widening acknowledgement that conservatives are not capable of empathy beyond their immediate social network and the shocking fact there is still a "debate" over same sex marriage.

Later that year the Supreme Court Guardian Council ruled that a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional and the federal government could not deny marriage benefits to couples that had been been legally wed in a heretical state such as Hawaii or Iowa. This set off a wave of celebrations across the county, only muted by the fact that in roughly thirty-eight states you still couldn't marry your partner in a shameful, homonormative version of "traditional" weddings. Things have accelerated over the course of the last two years and now over 64% of the US population will soon live in a state where anyone - and I mean anyone - can marry. This shift in public opinion, legislation and court rulings is amazing and worth further exploration, so get into my time machine and let's revisit an earlier time in this wonderful county's rich history.

In 2003-2004, this was a different America and I don't know mean that as a code for Tea Party "I don't recognize my country anymore" bullshit. The culture war, like the Iraq war, was raging and permanent victory for conservatives was seemingly within their Darth Vader-like grasp. When I asked a grocery store co-worker why she was voting for Bush, she asked me if I was a Christian and upon hearing I wasn't smugly told me "then you wouldn't understand." Howard Dean wore the same bulletproof vest while campaigning that he had the day he signed the Vermont civil unions law. The Massachusetts Supreme Court forcibly legalized same sex marriage causing notable Bostonians Matt Damon and Ben Afflect to marry each other and begin work on a Good Will Hunting reboot starring Jaden Smith and Sean Hayes, currently stuck in developmental hell with the tenth Hellraiser movie.

It was a humiliating time to be a liberal, watching your country ascend into reactionary order. Was this like being one of those atheist Brights during our previous Great Awakenings? During the 2004 campaign, US Senate hopeful Jim DeMint said homosexuals and pregnant women should be forbidden to teach in public schools. Florida's Mel Martinez called his GOP primary opponent a "darling of homosexual extremists." Louisiana's David Vitter took his Congressional oath of office while wearing a diaper. Eleven states took the rare and trite occasion of a democratic election and voted to enshrine bigotry against gay people in their constitution. Timothy McVeigh was posthumously pardoned by the United Nations.

Things got a little better as George Bush respectfully and delightfully faded out of the presidency and Barack Obama illegally assumed office, but even he couldn't bring himself to say the words about same sex marriage that we needed to hear (though, as seen in the video below, he has had first-hand LGBT experiences).

Further, on the day Obama won California's 322 electoral votes, a majority of people also approved Proposition 8. This resolution ripped rights away from same sex couples and made closeted anti-gay activists sad, happy and in general confused. One of the few pieces of good news we got during Obama's first term was when New York State passed full marriage equality, but it didn't feel as good to celebrate since Governor and confirmed piece of shit Andrew Cuomo was the one to sign it. And there isn't a sizable gay population in New York outside of a few couples in Greenwich Village.

Looking back, this all seems like a long-ago nightmare. These days same sex marriage has majority support in polls of libertarian online communities. Jim DeMint is no longer in the Senate. States with smaller proportions of evangelicals have passed same sex marriage at the ballot box. Conservative activist Jared Loughner sits in prison and we've had openly gay sports stars in our least gay sports: basketball and football (the former being an especially sweet, remembering Larry Johnson's trailblazing transgender turn as "Grandmama"). How did we come so far?

Certainly part of this is those of us who have come out of the closet. The percentage of people who in polls say they personally know a gay person has increased astronomically in the last twenty years - much more than support for LGBT political issues. For conservatives like Rob Portman, closeted homosexuals like Lindsey Graham, open homosexuals Republicans like Ken Mehlman and obvious heterosexuals like Charlie Crist, this personal experience with an oppressed group makes the oppression seem uncouth. Most elected politicians are rich and cannot identify with the plight of the working class (though obviously progressive ones are still a million times better on the substantive issues). But being gay doesn't affect one race, class, ethnicity or religion more than another. So even these sheltered, myopic politicians are eventually put in touch with a non-heterosexual person who might at one point ask them, either directly or with a look in their eyes: why am I less than you?

Though my lizard brain didn't need to meet gay people to side with their plight, it sure didn't hurt. Since graduating high school (in the bottom 5% of my class) and leaving my 6000 "person" town I've lived all over this great country and met people who dutifully fill every stripe of the LGBTQ+ rainbow. For most of us, meeting and knowing these folks isn't a novelty anymore - it's just part of life in this rich cultural tapestry of America. Even our bigoted fathers, responsible for some vile (but mainstream) words about homosexuality, now know to keep their mouths shut on this issue, besides a few half-hearted utterances about reverse discrimination, religious freedom and other right wing buzz terms so pathetic that I refuse to use the quotation marks they desperately need to surround them.

Now here we sit here in 2014 at the twilight of our civilization. Federal appellate courts continuously bequeath rights that should have been enshrined in the Articles of Confederation, while we wait for respectable, brilliant conservative jurists like Antonin Scalia on our Special Clerical Court to end this charade once and force completely equality. We're almost at the point where we can treat people as normal no matter where they put their rotten genitals, but until conservative family organizations stop busing in Black and Hispanic Christians to protest outside courthouses, and until they stop yelling horrific things that make gay millennials cry, we'll keep fighting for complete and unmerciful LGBT supremacy.

Jake's Rejected Jokes

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 21:38:00 +0000

By Jake

A lot of my time in the last year has been spent working on jokes and doing stand-up comedy. If you would have asked me two years ago whether I would have a huge backlog of jokes that do not work on stage, I would have called you a real piece of garbage. Now, as a more humbled man, I am here to share with you a stack of jokes that just do not work. It is not necessarily because they are awful, perhaps they are confusing, too nonsensical or too controversial for Peoria's palate.

This is from the night of the last game of the World Series where Boston was playing St. Louis:

- Are y'all excited about the World Series? I'm rooting for Boston. I think it's fucked up that St. Louis has Dzhokar Tsarnaez as their starting pitcher.

- I'm not Merle Haggard, the legendary country and western singer, but I am a certified Merle Haggard substitute and can fill any of your Merle Haggard needs.

- The most relevant member of the Jackson family is Germaine.

- Everybody wants to be a rock star but most of your days in the music biz are spent in a cubicle correlating data.

- The monster truck Grave Digger never dug any graves. Big Foot didn't have feet, only tires. But the truck Swamp Thing's Mirken did have a mossy growth on its truck nuts.

- Frankie Muniz has been having mini-strokes. You hear about this? It's because he's being haunted by Dale Earnhardt's ghost and the car noises freak him out.

-The Hostess CEO claimed he briefly shut down his company because of Obamacare, but it was really because the cream drill broke down.

- Don't you wish you could eat that goop Robocop eats and not even have to worry about food?

- My dog is 142 years old in balloon animal years.

- A Chinese fire drill is what our red masters used to remove the bullet from Lincoln's head and convert it into delicious MSG.

- Have you heard about these angry birds? I bet the reason they're so angry is because of the disappearance of the middle class.

- The terrorists took over the planes and crashed them into the 9/11 buildings because the food was so bad, according to Jerry Seinfeld.

- Everybody has a few skeletons in their closet. Hey, it's 2013, skeletons, it's time to come out already.

- Global warming had to change its name to climate change after turning state's evidence on the Gotti family.

- Every now and then I like to treat myself to a high-end luxury item. Last week I purchased a catcher's mitt with Aaliyah's face etched into the leather.

Oscars Predictions 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 18:00:00 +0000

By Jake and Glenn

When one decides to get into the prediction field, a good starting place has always been The Academy Awards. William Buckley once successfully predicted the Oscars within the 90% range, and he is famous!

For the past five years, Glenn and I have taken it upon ourselves to mirror the celebrity enjoyed by the likes of William Buckley, to very little success. This year, I have a feeling, we are going to hit it out of the park. Please enjoy the longest running feature in OYIT history.

Best Picture Nominees

12 Years A Slave

Jake says...Slavery is here to stay after this movie’s surprise success. Expect to see tweens having slave parties and dressing up as slaves for Halloween. “Hollywood, you have done it again!” is what I repeatedly shouted while the credits rolled on this film epic, much to the chagrin of the elderly couple sitting two rows in front of me. Although the volume of my yelling startled them and hurt their ears, they could not help but agree with me. They even joined in briefly before exiting the theater. This is what I would call a movie, folks.

Glenn says…More liberal anti-slavery propaganda from Hollywood. It isn’t enough that 2011’s the Help taught us the “immorality” of the Jim Crow South or 1997’s Life is Beautiful warned us to the danger of allowing mugging Italian actors into our lives. Now we need another movie to mock Southerners? No thank you. If the Academy tries to award this picture they are surely just going to create another Fort Sumter, just like Lincoln did in 1860.

The Wolf of Wall Street

Jake says...This modern telling of the fairytale “Little Red Riding Hood” is set on Wall Street, which is a street in New York City. Have you heard about it? It’s really famous. This movie was well-received by many critics, especially those in the pocket of Disney like Gene Shalit.

Glenn says… Young people all over the country were horrified to bring their parents to see this movie on Christmas Day, not realizing that it contained both graphic depictions of human sexuality and capitalistic excess. If this movie wins Best Picture it will be sending absolutely the wrong message to young people and for that reason I think it will be another loss for Martin Scorsese, the biggest loser since the winner of last year’s Biggest Loser.

Movie 43

Jake says…”Movie 43” is movie number 1, in my opinion. This hilarious collection of comedy vignettes is just what the doctor ordered when I came down with a serious case of the blues. I contracted the blues after listening to too many Lightnin’ Hopkins records. Thank Jesus Christ, our lord and savior who died on the cross for our sins, that this movie was made to ease my suffering.

Glenn says… This movie is being hailed as the greatest comedy all time even though nothing in it is funny and no one laughed at a single joke. If you can explain that, you should sign onto the development team for Movie 44, due in theatres this Friday.

Her

Jake says...The controversy surrounding Spike Jonze’s latest film, “Her,” overshadows the content itself. Fucking a computer is a dream all of us have had, and some of us have actually tried. Did you know that the DVD drive is a computer’s simulated fuck orifice? This movie is anti-woman, and the feminists are outraged. I always agree with big tittied feminists.

Glenn says… I hated this one. This movie did not speak to our growing alienation at the hands of technology and also did not fill us with a terrible mixture of sadness and optimism in our never-ending search for intimacy and real human connections. Finally, I did not openly weep in the movie theatre after watching this film. Go to hell, Her!

Saving Mr Banks

Jake says…Mary Poppins is a beloved classic by many of our generation’s marks and jabronis. This movie is a dramatized version of the writing of the screenplay of Mary Poppins. Plus, there’s a lot of fun liquor drinking in this film, which I feel is just fan service for alcoholics. If this film wins best picture, then I will throw away my Academy Award.

Glenn says… I agree with Jake that this film is about the writing of Mary Poppins. I watched Mary Poppins for the first time when I was a child and then never watched it or thought about it ever again. Ergo, I am not in the target demographic for this movie so I have no right to say whether it should win Best Picture. But I will say this: if you like Tom Hanks, you will love this riveting story of Somali pirates taking Walt Disney hostage and forcing him into a cryogenic chamber.

Gravity

Jake says…This movie should be called “Gravitas” instead of whatever those nerds in Hollywood titled it. I mean, give it up big wigs, we’re not going to see your horseshit movies!

Glenn says… This was by far the best movie about space to come out last year and probably the most visually impressive movie of the Best Picture nominees. Kudos to Alfonso Cuarón for casting George Clooney and Sandra Bullock in the leading roles and a double kudos to Clooney for adapting his “Booker” character from Roseanne as a former factory foreman turned astronaut. Negative kudos to Sandra Bullock for chasing him into space in a reprise of her “All About Steve” character.

Nebraska

Jake says...They should have titled this movie Nerdbraska, because you have to be a fucking poindexter to enjoy this Dungeons and Dragons bullshit. Hey, at least geeks will have something to quote until the next Star War happens.

Glenn says… This is the kind of movie you CAN bring your parents too because there’s no sex or violence in it, every character is ugly and it’s fundamentally about old people and regret. It’s black and white and people talk about driving time. For those of you who grew up in the Midwest, this will remind you of home and for those of you who didn’t, you’ll wonder if the Midwest is really black and white or if this was another Hollywood special effect.

Grown-Ups 2

Jake says...I, of course, loved the original Grown Ups, and I was shocked that I loved the sequel even more. Adam Sandler has once again hit it right out of the fucking park--a baseball park! Kevin James is a shoe-in for Best Actor. Chris Rock and David Spade courageously reprised their role as homosexual high school sweethearts, which as much tenderness as hilarity. I am man enough to admit that I cried during this movie three times. Just a brilliant fucking movie from our greatest filmmaker.

Glenn says… This movie is why I killed my entire family and left copies of Grown Ups on DVD by their bodies.

American Hustle

Jake says...When David O’Russell is not molesting his transexual family members, he makes films. This is one of them. Jennifer Lawrence, America’s greatest living actress, teams with Bradley Cooper, America’s handsomest corpse, to tell a tale of the greatest country on Earth--America! You better hustle to see this film before it leaves theaters.

Glenn says… When David O’Russell is not yelling at Lily Tomlin, he makes audience pleasing films. Including “America’s Sweetheart” Jennifer Lawrence in the casting for the film was the way to ensure it was nominated and it worked. But will it be enough to win Best Picture? No.

OUR PICKS

Jake says...I know that this wasn’t officially nominated, but I have a good feeling that the phrase, “...And the Oscar for Best Picture goes to…” will be followed by “Planes.” “Planes” was undoubtedly the best film of the year, and the only movie to feature anthropomorphic airplanes. It was hilarious and Dane Cook starred. Just great. See it, people.

Glenn says... Last year I called for Silver Linings Playbook to win it and and I was right. This year I will call for American Hustle to win and be wrong. Instead the actual winner will be Her. After the announcement is made and zionist Pig Scarlett Johansson leaves the stage in her new virtual body, the audience will sit in stunned silence at the awards ceremony they’ve just seen, before beginning to weep at the sheer beauty and sadness of being alive in these slightly post-modern times. See you Sunday.

PAST OSCAR PICKS:

Drake For the First Time: A Song By Song Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 16:29:00 +0000

By R. Murthy

Drake: For the First Time

A Song by Song Analysis

By R. Murthy

1. Tuscan Leather – This track begins without any sort of bravado or pique in curiosity of what is to come next. “Drake” just launches into his raps and I can only picture long abandoned “Jimmy” from Degrassi Junior High. Good for him for branching out into the rap game. He has the potential to someday be a multi-talented threat like Shaquille O’Neal, but if we’re being honest, let’s face it. No one is as great as Shaquille O’Neal.

I also found it quite bold of “Drake” to rap about Family Matters and bring up Winslow right there in the first track. KANYE ALREADY DID WINSLOW, JIMMY. AND HE DID IT BETTER.

So far, I find your work to be trite and quite derivative. But we are still at track 1. Let’s see what else you have to offer.

2. Furthest Thing – Not much stood out to me during this song until about 2:54. I noticed they got that deep throat guy from Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop” to do some guest vocals. He must be a serious partier because here is again, not giving a fuck. But this guest appearance gives me good memories of warm weather and “We Can’t Stop” which strangely gives me a glimmer of hope for the rest of the album.

3. Started from the Bottom – This album is starting to pick up a little now. I’m feelin’ the groove. Getting more into it.

But, eh…kind of repetitive. Ok, repetitively catchy.

4. Wu-Tang Forever – Shout out. But its about a girl. It’s always about a girl.

Oh, dang. Fucking out of spite? Does he know my life? Tell me more, “Drake.”

5. Own it – Can’t decide if the transition between songs was smooth or unceremonious.

6. Worst Behaviour – Ok, Drake. Good job. Owning your Canadian roots by including the “u” in the title. Also, Degrassi reference! Bonus points!

305 – Drake’s got the hook up at customs. Canadian or American?

***Then I fell asleep.

New Years Resolutions 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 18:00:00 +0000

By Glenn

This website has a notorious reputation for posting New Year's Resolutions and then forgetting about them like drowned hero Caylee Anthony. The staff first posted resolutions back in 2010 (the worst year on record), followed up by Glenn and Jake in 2011 and staff/Ryan in 2012. In 2013 there was no point because the world had ended on the Aztec Apocalypse® brought to you by State Farm Insurance. But now that the world is back, so is we I! Here are my 100% actual and real New Year's Resolutions® brought to you by Circuit City.

Stop Checking Facebook so much
I've opened and closed the Facebook.com website probably 20-30 times in the hour I've been attempting to write this article. It would be more frequent but it's late at night and most of the teens I know are in bed. I could deactivate my account but then the obsessive behavior would switch to Twitter or Snapchat, which a young person recently explained to me. This is by far the most difficult resolution and that's just the way Facebook likes it.
LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESS: 5%

Stop Eating Candy and Cookies
Because I was raised by Midwesterners and have some genetic disorder, in me there is a strong inclination for junk food (similar to junk websites like Facebook). This one sounds the hardest but I've done a similar boycott in 2012 in the period leading up the Summer Olympics (unrelated) and it's hard for me to be self righteous about other people's food choices if I make bad ones myself.
LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESS: 90%

Stop Eating Old Batteries
Though it did get me on an as-of-yet-unaired episode of FXX's "My Crazy Obsession," eating batteries has otherwise produced no tangible benefits except a possible inoculation against autism. And - not to be crude on a family site - "passing" them is not a pleasant experience, especially with the horrendous anal fissures I experienced throughout 2013. 2014 will be battery-free for me!
LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESS: 98%

Switch to Paul or George
A great internet commenter once said...

I have a favorite beatle theory....you start off loving Ringo because as a child he is the one you identify with, you then either became a Paul or John fan depending on how angry you are as a teen, now then I think if you stay with Paul you remain a Paul fan and I don't know how I feel about that..if you go with John you either become entirely insufferable or you evolve into a George fan, beware anyone who's favorite Beatle is George before they are in their 20's. You can remain a george fan for the rest of your life and be perfectly fine if not a bit smug but in an Eastern philosophy sort of smug. I started off with Ringo, went to John, then George and I am now a Paul fan because I think he is the best songwriter in the band. If you stay on the Ringo stage you don't really like the Beatles, the other three all give you different paths but your path is determined when you decided that this was your favorite Beatle. A teenager who loves Paul songs exclusively is not someone whom you would like to spend time with much as a John fan in their 30's is not someone you would want to spend a lot of time with. Also note, I do not believe there is another musical group that could inspire this type of detail. Thank you.

...and I guess he's right. But I now have the Lennon boxed set and really wanted to start going through it. Does anyone have a used W*I*N*G* cassette I could borrow? Just borrow! Please comment if so.
LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESS: 30%

Learn Every World Capital
Not since battling my elementary school principle on multiplication flashcards in 3rd grade have I used what is essentially a party trick to convince myself and a few others of above average intelligence. Unfortunately due to heavy DMT/LSD usage I've forgotten many of the capitals I used to know and let's face it: I never really KNEW Africa. Since I love parties and hope one day to be shouting out answers to a high school geography club relentlessly quizzing me, it's time to finally learn them all for 2014 and forever. Even Comoros.
LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESS: 75%

Use Google
Surprisingly, I have never used Google to search for something on the internet but, privacy concerns aside, it does seem to be the best search engine. I will try it one time in 2014.
LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESS: 8%

Writing more on this website
LIKELIHOOD OF SUCCESS: 100%