It has been a time.
The past couple of months have witnessed me tripling my blogging workload at the expense of the original and still crappiest blog in the 'sphere, Secondhand Smug. Along with my close friend and mutual antagonist Kris King, I have taken up ghostwriting duties for Olde Coast, a blog for (essentially for, though it is intended to be about) Michael Warren. If you know Michael Warren at all, it's the funniest thing on the Internet. If you don't know Michael Warren, you probably think Real Ultimate Power is still the funniest thing on the Internet; this is easily corrected. If you know Michael Warren and still think Real Ultimate Power is the funniest thing on the Internet, I recommend not leaving the next burning building you happen to find yourself inside.
This has been going on for a couple of months. Additionally, I have taken a position as a writer for Bugs and Cranks, taking on the Florida Marlins. Mind you, the fire still burns brightest in me for the Cleveland Indians, but I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity. I recommend checking that out for official, relevant, content that is not sophomoric or asinine. It'll be updated several times a week.
Why did I do this...why triple a workload when I did a pathetic job of handling one blog?
I have no good answer. I have no acceptable answer. Basically, I can do what I want. Kris starts a new blog practically every week, so I figured I wouldn't harm anyone adding a bit more of my own worthlessness to an already crowded Internet. IT'S MY PARTY TOO. I think. Maybe.
This influx of blogging activity on my part as well as my friends (Close friend and mutual antagonist John Stanley ripped off of me in his inaugural entry, Kris even tried to start a blog called "The Beerzebo," a portmanteau of "beer" and "gazebo," though it only lasted one entry, so I can't even remember the URL), in addition to watching the same episode of South Park three times got me to thinking about blogging and its pointedness as well as its pointlessness.
Blogging is basically like having an asshole. Or, an opinion.
That's really all I could think of regarding the pointedness of blogging. Too many people blog, honestly, myself included. There really should be some sort of screening process to even obtain the privilege of blogging, kind of like getting one of those punch cards at Tropical Smoothie, but maybe a (little) bit harder. Yet, there isn't, and thus the blogosphere (this word is a dumb word) has become crowded with the same thoughts rehashed over and over and over. Sure, original ideas are out there, but chances are, it's on a blog you will never see because it's virtually impossible to find the URL.
Granted, it does give you the opportunity to practice becoming a better writer, but no one's really critiquing your work. Are the 9 friends that read your blog really going to offer you any constructive or, God forbid, negative criticism for the tiny corner of Internet you chiseled out for yourself, knowing that any sort of defamatory remarks might catalyze you to fall into some sort of massive state of depression? I doubt it. Well, at least the 9 friends I have that read this blog wouldn't do that, I don't think.
I hope.
By and large, blogs are pointless. I enjoy the various points of view offered by complete strangers who consider themselves authorities or connoisseurs on certain subjects, but I'm a solipsist at heart and tend to consider everyone else an uninformed asshole. Most of the time. Blogs just take up Internet space, as each new blogger attempts to manifest destiny for him or herself in the world wide wilderness. Honestly, that would be creepy if the Internet sort of...ended one day. Just up and ran out of space.
However, in the end, blogs, no matter how many we have or don't, how often we update or don't, or how many we read or don't, provide that necessary catharsis that we so desire when no one else will listen; thus, we opt to air our dirty laundry and problems out to complete strangers for every last human on the planet to read.
Thanks for sticking with the Smug. I'll try to be better.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Writer's Bloc Series: Worse in Real Life
I really dislike St. Patrick's Day for superficial and arbitrary reasons, but this dislike is so polarized I cannot even bring myself to put this dislike into words, so...welcome back for Part II of the Writer's Bloc Series. Things aren't any better with this installment.
It's taken me almost a month to crank out an acidic, hyperbolic, convoluted piece of crap entry for this worthless rag, and all I could come up with was bowling. That's it, and I'm being 100% honest: bowling.
What's worse is that there's really not much to say about bowling that hasn't been covered in Kingpin or The Big Lebowski or The League of Ordinary Gentlemen or hell, even the Disney Channel movie Alley Cats Strike! What might be even worse is that I like bowling and if given the opportunity, free time, and desire to get lung cancer from secondhand smoke by age 28, I would try to join a league to get better at bowling, in hopes of avoiding a gutterball for every eight pins I knock down. So if it's a dead horse, I enjoy it, and ultimately I'm a product of my generation by being better at Wii bowling, what's left?
Still, there is uncharted territory in the bowling alley itself. A certain mysticism about it endures, since while bowling seems to attract every American under the sun, very few of it remain within its prototypically dated tableau. Why is this?
The sound of reactive resin striking pins is typically muted by a schizophrenic playlist that sounds little more that sonic mud seeping through blown speakers. The lighting is typically an amalgamation of black lights and epilepsy-inducing colored lights, moving with reckless abandon, or a phalanx of 33-watt fluorescent lights that feel and look like nothing more that electrified sour milk. Since chances are you're not there for league night, you head to the deaf mute carnival barker at the cash register, who is scurrying about with bowling shoes in his or her hands like a frazzled cobbler. I would characterize the aforementioned person as the "manager" who seems far too busy to help anyone with anything but bowling shoes. Of course, the sideshow always has a portly general manager much more affable than the mute barker, but this fellow is far more concerned with avoiding any sort of labor possible and vanishing into a mist of cigarette smoke and nacho cheese, if nacho cheese has ever had the potential to be gaseous.
I realize that I failed to explain why the manager was a deaf mute; he or she seems positively incapable of any sort of verbal communication with any person or persons that approach the register. Somehow, the duties of bowling alley manager have been condensed down to shoe courier. Shoes, shoes, shoes. We all know the bowling alley never has shoes in your size, so let's not trot (ha) a whole stable of dead horses out here. All of this builds up to the most mysterious part of the bowling alley.
How much does a game of bowling cost, exactly? I've paid twenty-five cents, I've paid close to ten dollars. Prices are about as predictable as the lottery. I have a feeling that alley staff sit inside the break room and watch the parking lot via closed circuit television, making up prices as patrons get out of their cars. Have you ever seen prices on any sort of marquee at the bowling alley? You can sure as hell set up a party at the bowling alley or join a league, but God forbid the casual fan of bowling attempt to make his/her quarterly trip to the local lanes. Groups of friends or families are left with overused footwear and a seemingly Faustian agreement to "pay when they're done bowling." The frustration of the bad lighting, bad music, and bad service coupled with anxiousness to fling a ten pound rock at ten pins is too tempting to consider the fine print of the verbal contract.
Once you get past the veritable drawbridge-free moat around the castle that is the front desk, you run into more variables far, far out of your control. The dudes who think they're the Jesus but aren't good enough to actually compete in a league. The bikers who blow more smoke than their Harleys. The horde of children who try with all their might to push a five-pound ball down a bumper-lined lane. Someone at some point said something about not being able to change people. That's true, but you can probably get some results from heaving your rental bowling bowl in their general direction rather than at the pins.
The games themselves are enough to make a bracketologist vomit. The worst bowler can trump the best bowler any day of the week. Upsets are not uncommon, but the order of the day. I have bowled a 70 in one game and more than doubled it the next week, but I never keep track of my high score, knowing that bragging about it will cause me to look like an absolute ass. More often than not, the most modest bowler will do the best, because he or she has the least to lose. The drunkest person, however, will most likely not care about any of this, because he or she is the drunkest person there.
What is possibly the strangest part of the American sideshow called the bowling alley is that when all is said and done, if you really wanted to , you could toss your shoes on the counter and bounce. Believe me, given the arbitrary nature of game prices, I've been tempted many, many, many times. And why not? Robber barons run free everywhere else in the United States, I don't need to be bled dry in my recreation time. Upstanding citizen that I am, I choose to be bilked, and I make sure everyone else I know does as well. We all need points in Heaven.
Writer's Bloc continues the next time I write something, don't finish it, lose interest, and let it rust as a draft.
It's taken me almost a month to crank out an acidic, hyperbolic, convoluted piece of crap entry for this worthless rag, and all I could come up with was bowling. That's it, and I'm being 100% honest: bowling.
What's worse is that there's really not much to say about bowling that hasn't been covered in Kingpin or The Big Lebowski or The League of Ordinary Gentlemen or hell, even the Disney Channel movie Alley Cats Strike! What might be even worse is that I like bowling and if given the opportunity, free time, and desire to get lung cancer from secondhand smoke by age 28, I would try to join a league to get better at bowling, in hopes of avoiding a gutterball for every eight pins I knock down. So if it's a dead horse, I enjoy it, and ultimately I'm a product of my generation by being better at Wii bowling, what's left?
Still, there is uncharted territory in the bowling alley itself. A certain mysticism about it endures, since while bowling seems to attract every American under the sun, very few of it remain within its prototypically dated tableau. Why is this?
The sound of reactive resin striking pins is typically muted by a schizophrenic playlist that sounds little more that sonic mud seeping through blown speakers. The lighting is typically an amalgamation of black lights and epilepsy-inducing colored lights, moving with reckless abandon, or a phalanx of 33-watt fluorescent lights that feel and look like nothing more that electrified sour milk. Since chances are you're not there for league night, you head to the deaf mute carnival barker at the cash register, who is scurrying about with bowling shoes in his or her hands like a frazzled cobbler. I would characterize the aforementioned person as the "manager" who seems far too busy to help anyone with anything but bowling shoes. Of course, the sideshow always has a portly general manager much more affable than the mute barker, but this fellow is far more concerned with avoiding any sort of labor possible and vanishing into a mist of cigarette smoke and nacho cheese, if nacho cheese has ever had the potential to be gaseous.
I realize that I failed to explain why the manager was a deaf mute; he or she seems positively incapable of any sort of verbal communication with any person or persons that approach the register. Somehow, the duties of bowling alley manager have been condensed down to shoe courier. Shoes, shoes, shoes. We all know the bowling alley never has shoes in your size, so let's not trot (ha) a whole stable of dead horses out here. All of this builds up to the most mysterious part of the bowling alley.
How much does a game of bowling cost, exactly? I've paid twenty-five cents, I've paid close to ten dollars. Prices are about as predictable as the lottery. I have a feeling that alley staff sit inside the break room and watch the parking lot via closed circuit television, making up prices as patrons get out of their cars. Have you ever seen prices on any sort of marquee at the bowling alley? You can sure as hell set up a party at the bowling alley or join a league, but God forbid the casual fan of bowling attempt to make his/her quarterly trip to the local lanes. Groups of friends or families are left with overused footwear and a seemingly Faustian agreement to "pay when they're done bowling." The frustration of the bad lighting, bad music, and bad service coupled with anxiousness to fling a ten pound rock at ten pins is too tempting to consider the fine print of the verbal contract.
Once you get past the veritable drawbridge-free moat around the castle that is the front desk, you run into more variables far, far out of your control. The dudes who think they're the Jesus but aren't good enough to actually compete in a league. The bikers who blow more smoke than their Harleys. The horde of children who try with all their might to push a five-pound ball down a bumper-lined lane. Someone at some point said something about not being able to change people. That's true, but you can probably get some results from heaving your rental bowling bowl in their general direction rather than at the pins.
The games themselves are enough to make a bracketologist vomit. The worst bowler can trump the best bowler any day of the week. Upsets are not uncommon, but the order of the day. I have bowled a 70 in one game and more than doubled it the next week, but I never keep track of my high score, knowing that bragging about it will cause me to look like an absolute ass. More often than not, the most modest bowler will do the best, because he or she has the least to lose. The drunkest person, however, will most likely not care about any of this, because he or she is the drunkest person there.
What is possibly the strangest part of the American sideshow called the bowling alley is that when all is said and done, if you really wanted to , you could toss your shoes on the counter and bounce. Believe me, given the arbitrary nature of game prices, I've been tempted many, many, many times. And why not? Robber barons run free everywhere else in the United States, I don't need to be bled dry in my recreation time. Upstanding citizen that I am, I choose to be bilked, and I make sure everyone else I know does as well. We all need points in Heaven.
Writer's Bloc continues the next time I write something, don't finish it, lose interest, and let it rust as a draft.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Writer's Bloc Series: Beam Me Up, Put Me Down
Writer's Bloc Series Part I: It has been close to two months since I updated, and I realize that while the well is dry, I still have some dusty nuggets left over from a more creative period. These will do little else besides kill time. Chances are they are incomplete, poorly constructed, or just plain crappy. This one was supposed to be released February 20th, 2008. Enjoy?
In my lethargic attempt to provide this blog with the occasional facelift, notice the fun links on the side. If you happened to come to this end of the Internet and want the free publicity, feel free to inquire about getting added. The end.
Just kidding. You would know that though, if you had kept reading. Onward.
War of the Worlds, is a classic work of literature, but, all things considered, not that great of a film. Nothing compared to the bona fide Charlie Sheen classic The Chase anyway, which is currently clogging the cable box. However, I will abuse the plot of War of the Worlds, the film here, rather than The Chase, probably because it is impossible to base a blog on a Kristy Swanson road sex scene. If you can do it, the gauntlet has been thrown down. Prove me wrong.
The most fascinating part of War of the Worlds to me was the concept that extraterrestrials had, at some unknown point in history, burrowed under the surface of the earth, only to emerge at another unknown point in history to wreak havoc upon whatever species happened to be piddling around the planet. In H.G. Wells's case, it was not Dakota Fanning and friends, but Steven Spielberg drew the high card on that one.
I'm of the opinion that the war of the worlds is happening right now as we speak, but in much more passive terms. We see it on TV with commercials featuring Justin Long and John Hodgman (nurrrr who?). We pass by billboards and posters of silhouetted individuals dancing to music from another room (or device), back lit by a bright monochrome facade. They've been here all along, but only in the recent past have they truly begun a surge that seems unstoppable. Apple products.
Before you get excited and/or let down (excited and let down?), this is not meant to be a comparison or analysis of Apple products and non-Apple products. I have had wretched luck with PCs in the past, and my first iPod met an untimely death this past summer, despite my innumerable attempts at resuscitation. Planned obsolescence is a fact of life in the technology industry, but sometimes we don't want to believe it. The future arrives when the powers that be think it's the most marketable. Opining about the speed of the iPhone's network aside, the aliens have landed, and from a smug person, they're pretty fucking smug, America.
Aliens? I thought this was about that Kristy Swanson sex scene in The Chase?
This is the culmination of several years of trips to Apple stores and seeing the same things and receiving the same treatment.
Upon entering the polished, luminescent surroundings of the store, I am immediately enchanted by the rows of people poking, prodding, clicking, pushing, listening, and so on. It's as though they have encountered some sort of hall of wonders, of things magnificent and wondrous, that only recently were but pieces of dreams. Everyone throughout the store is simultaneously mesmerized by all things Apple. Standing amidst the organized retail chaos are the employees of the Apple store, acting as guides through the sea of products whose unifying brand prides them on being intuitive and user-friendly. In actuality, the Apple wares are so user-friendly, the Apple personnel are superfluous and really just get in the way. I see enough smug assholes when I look in the mirror, I don't need them standing around, pontificating their own "awesomeness" while getting in my way in a store.
Yet, somehow, the good people of the world have not caught up with the future and the shiny new toys Apple cranks out on an almost aggravating basis (re: iPod touch hard drive expansion), and march to the tune of Pied Piper Steve Jobs over and over and over, to test out, but seemingly never buy, any Apple product whatsoever. I wonder why this is the case, really. The iPod has been out for seven years, and not much has changed. It's not like the Prius coming out right after the Model T. You can see these developments before they happen.
.
Or, like the aliens in War of the Worlds, maybe you could not.
Writer's Bloc continues with its next installment, "Worse in Real Life," soon.
In my lethargic attempt to provide this blog with the occasional facelift, notice the fun links on the side. If you happened to come to this end of the Internet and want the free publicity, feel free to inquire about getting added. The end.
Just kidding. You would know that though, if you had kept reading. Onward.
War of the Worlds, is a classic work of literature, but, all things considered, not that great of a film. Nothing compared to the bona fide Charlie Sheen classic The Chase anyway, which is currently clogging the cable box. However, I will abuse the plot of War of the Worlds, the film here, rather than The Chase, probably because it is impossible to base a blog on a Kristy Swanson road sex scene. If you can do it, the gauntlet has been thrown down. Prove me wrong.
The most fascinating part of War of the Worlds to me was the concept that extraterrestrials had, at some unknown point in history, burrowed under the surface of the earth, only to emerge at another unknown point in history to wreak havoc upon whatever species happened to be piddling around the planet. In H.G. Wells's case, it was not Dakota Fanning and friends, but Steven Spielberg drew the high card on that one.
I'm of the opinion that the war of the worlds is happening right now as we speak, but in much more passive terms. We see it on TV with commercials featuring Justin Long and John Hodgman (nurrrr who?). We pass by billboards and posters of silhouetted individuals dancing to music from another room (or device), back lit by a bright monochrome facade. They've been here all along, but only in the recent past have they truly begun a surge that seems unstoppable. Apple products.
Before you get excited and/or let down (excited and let down?), this is not meant to be a comparison or analysis of Apple products and non-Apple products. I have had wretched luck with PCs in the past, and my first iPod met an untimely death this past summer, despite my innumerable attempts at resuscitation. Planned obsolescence is a fact of life in the technology industry, but sometimes we don't want to believe it. The future arrives when the powers that be think it's the most marketable. Opining about the speed of the iPhone's network aside, the aliens have landed, and from a smug person, they're pretty fucking smug, America.
Aliens? I thought this was about that Kristy Swanson sex scene in The Chase?
This is the culmination of several years of trips to Apple stores and seeing the same things and receiving the same treatment.
Upon entering the polished, luminescent surroundings of the store, I am immediately enchanted by the rows of people poking, prodding, clicking, pushing, listening, and so on. It's as though they have encountered some sort of hall of wonders, of things magnificent and wondrous, that only recently were but pieces of dreams. Everyone throughout the store is simultaneously mesmerized by all things Apple. Standing amidst the organized retail chaos are the employees of the Apple store, acting as guides through the sea of products whose unifying brand prides them on being intuitive and user-friendly. In actuality, the Apple wares are so user-friendly, the Apple personnel are superfluous and really just get in the way. I see enough smug assholes when I look in the mirror, I don't need them standing around, pontificating their own "awesomeness" while getting in my way in a store.
Yet, somehow, the good people of the world have not caught up with the future and the shiny new toys Apple cranks out on an almost aggravating basis (re: iPod touch hard drive expansion), and march to the tune of Pied Piper Steve Jobs over and over and over, to test out, but seemingly never buy, any Apple product whatsoever. I wonder why this is the case, really. The iPod has been out for seven years, and not much has changed. It's not like the Prius coming out right after the Model T. You can see these developments before they happen.
.
Or, like the aliens in War of the Worlds, maybe you could not.
Writer's Bloc continues with its next installment, "Worse in Real Life," soon.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Fool Me Twice
It is no secret that I have unlimited potential to be the world's biggest idiot. It is also no secret that through my history of cell phone usage (which you would know about if you were part of the faithful), I have not been a man of ringtones. Why? They're loud and embarrassing. No one ever have a universally sweet ringtone. No one. Your "Big Pimpin'" ringtone was not cool, and neither was your friend's "More Than a Feeling" ringtone, either. Seriously. It's not happening.
Why I pulled a Garden of Eden-league gaffe and decided to get ringtones in late November was really an out-of-body experience, and completely beyond my own comprehension. I suppose I was suckered into it the same way Eve was, thinking it was an unbeatable deal, only to be caught with my pants down, or not even on at all.
For this one, let's engage those familiar time travel ripples...
Back in October I picked my sister up from school to take her home for her fall break, and I noticed that practically every text message she received was a different song of some sort, and not in lame-ass MIDI jobs people acquire that were composed by mustachioed gigolos from the southwest at their day jobs, but legitimate, MP3-quality ringtones. I was, to say the least, or maybe the most, enchanted by such devilish sounds as we sped down Route 460. Perhaps it was my delirious state, induced by the endless, unchanging road ahead, but the more text messages she got, the more I considered inquiring about her means of acquisition. My mind was like that arcade game where you continually place quarters upon quarters on a continually moving precipice, in hopes of getting even more quarters. Each ringtone was another quarter, stacking upon previous quarters, bracing for the singular moment of impact.
I asked.
I was informed that a website exists, which I will not name for fear of the same fate befalling you, faithful reader, that provides any interested party with unlimited high-quality ringtones for the mere exchange of a cell phone number in order to receive a randomly generated PIN to log into the site. Simple enough. But how had my sister acquired such a dearth of ringtones without our mother becoming suspicious, or even enraged when reviewing a meteoric rise in my sister's bill, which was completely plausible, at least I believed it to be so.
I asked.
She insisted they were free, and that no parental parties were the wiser regarding her questionable activity. I let the debilitating power of the drive home enfold me and pushed the topic of conversation in another direction, putting free ringtones on the back burner for several weeks.
Engaging more time travel ripples...
Having forgotten several of the particulars behind our past conversation, I contacted my sister about the previously mentioned ringtones. You might even say...
I asked.
Informed again about the website and the required hoops, I channeled a circus menagerie and leaped through some flaming hoops, balanced a couple of balls on my nose, and tried to bite a man waving a stool at me. Then my phone vibrated. It was a PIN number, the key to the portal. I felt like Rick Moranis' Louis Tully, having just gazed upon the demon-possessed Sigourney Weaver's Dana Barrett. Goooooooozerrrrrrrrrrr.
I entered the PIN in and an Internet jukebox was at my fingertips. Naturally I wasn't about to make a dash for "Ayo Technology" or "1985," but I did initiate a few queries for some choice cuts. I don't particularly know if I want to name-check them over the Internet, for fear of backlash, fallout, or outright name-calling from any party that has the gumption to do so. That being said, I'll abstain. I did decide to pick out three different songs as potential ringtones and downloaded them to my phone with all deliberate speed. More rapid than eagles, those ringtones they came, and quite quickly I was the recipient of a triumvirate of fresh ringtones.
Unfortunately, things never really worked out with those ringtones and I. More often than not, I had to keep my phone on vibrate, and when it went off in meetings and I had forgotten to set it to stun, it was embarrassing, or when I went out and forgot to set it to stun, I could never hear it ring. You can imagine the predicaments it caused. The ringtones left as quickly as they came, in late November.
Engage those time travel ripples once again...
While visiting home for Christmas, my parents gave me a temporary admission to their gym. On the way home from it one day, I wanted to know if I had any messages on my phone.
I asked.
My sister told me I had a message from my phone from Verizon, telling me my bill was ready online, which was to be expected. I had her read it out loud to me.
How strange is it to quote President Bush here?
"Shock and awe."
She read the figure to me, and it was thirty more dollars than I expected. I was incensed and also somewhat curious. What caused this spike? Following getting locked inside the dry cleaner's, I fired up the old computer at home and sent off to discover what the dillio was all about. What is the dillio all about anyway? What is the dillio in the first place? Spell check sure doesn't like it.
It turns out I was charged ten dollars apiece for each ringtone I downloaded.
Ten dollars. Thirty dollars for those of you playing the home game. So I got shafted by the Internet, and my sister was flabbergasted that I would let myself be had in such a manner. God damn it all.
Engage those time travel ripples for the last time...
A couple months had passed since I downloaded those ringtones to my phone, but I would be haunted by such a hasty decision, in a way that I have not previously mentioned. On an irregular but frequent basis, I received text messages from five digit numbers giving me the latest...(dramatic pause or whatever)...
Hip hop news.
Don't believe me? I'll read the most recent one I received:
"Regarding the steroid allegation drama in her life, Mary J. told MTV, "I have nothing to prove to anyone. I am Mary and that's that." Word!
Yes, America. These things exist. I got multiple ones each day, and including one that basically reminded me that work was over every weekday. They were good for a few laughs, to be sure. I learned that Eminem got fat and Diddy was changing his name to Sean John, though I always knew him as Biggie's Really Crappy Shadow. I was reminded about Yung Joc's gun troubles and Lil' Wayne getting stopped in the airport for trafficking drugs. If nothing else, it made me look really popular since my phone kept blowing up like Chinese New Year day in and day out.
It was all fun and games until Verizon came calling once again with my monthly bill, and again it included a thirty dollar overage.
Damnation. I was suckered by the Internet, a mere series of tubes! This would be as good of a time as any to write the word "fuck." Right.
Shuddering, I picked up my phone and dialed Verizon. There had to been a way to end this extortion, this bilking, this out and out madness.
I asked.
I can't remember if that was before or after I almost crushed my phone in pure ecstasy because the woman on the other end spoke clear English. I felt sorry for her, really, because I kept her on the line for a ridiculous amount of time telling her my life story about these godforsaken ringtones and how I got rejected from JMU and how I ran over our exposed cable line with our lawnmower in middle school and didn't tell my mom for days and or how I never did my summer reading. She was accommodating, all in all, so I was thankful for that, and she told me she could help me end this Internet pillage-fest.
I asked.
It turns out that all I had to do was text message one word to these nefarious five-digit Soulja Boy purveyors. One word, and I'd never have to hear about Mary J. scarfing down HGH or the Shop Boyz doing well in ringtone sales or rap beefs or Snoop Dogg's kids or JUST MAKE THIS HATEFUL INTERNET ROBBERY AND TEXT MESSAGING--
One word.
Stop.
Why I pulled a Garden of Eden-league gaffe and decided to get ringtones in late November was really an out-of-body experience, and completely beyond my own comprehension. I suppose I was suckered into it the same way Eve was, thinking it was an unbeatable deal, only to be caught with my pants down, or not even on at all.
For this one, let's engage those familiar time travel ripples...
Back in October I picked my sister up from school to take her home for her fall break, and I noticed that practically every text message she received was a different song of some sort, and not in lame-ass MIDI jobs people acquire that were composed by mustachioed gigolos from the southwest at their day jobs, but legitimate, MP3-quality ringtones. I was, to say the least, or maybe the most, enchanted by such devilish sounds as we sped down Route 460. Perhaps it was my delirious state, induced by the endless, unchanging road ahead, but the more text messages she got, the more I considered inquiring about her means of acquisition. My mind was like that arcade game where you continually place quarters upon quarters on a continually moving precipice, in hopes of getting even more quarters. Each ringtone was another quarter, stacking upon previous quarters, bracing for the singular moment of impact.
I asked.
I was informed that a website exists, which I will not name for fear of the same fate befalling you, faithful reader, that provides any interested party with unlimited high-quality ringtones for the mere exchange of a cell phone number in order to receive a randomly generated PIN to log into the site. Simple enough. But how had my sister acquired such a dearth of ringtones without our mother becoming suspicious, or even enraged when reviewing a meteoric rise in my sister's bill, which was completely plausible, at least I believed it to be so.
I asked.
She insisted they were free, and that no parental parties were the wiser regarding her questionable activity. I let the debilitating power of the drive home enfold me and pushed the topic of conversation in another direction, putting free ringtones on the back burner for several weeks.
Engaging more time travel ripples...
Having forgotten several of the particulars behind our past conversation, I contacted my sister about the previously mentioned ringtones. You might even say...
I asked.
Informed again about the website and the required hoops, I channeled a circus menagerie and leaped through some flaming hoops, balanced a couple of balls on my nose, and tried to bite a man waving a stool at me. Then my phone vibrated. It was a PIN number, the key to the portal. I felt like Rick Moranis' Louis Tully, having just gazed upon the demon-possessed Sigourney Weaver's Dana Barrett. Goooooooozerrrrrrrrrrr.
I entered the PIN in and an Internet jukebox was at my fingertips. Naturally I wasn't about to make a dash for "Ayo Technology" or "1985," but I did initiate a few queries for some choice cuts. I don't particularly know if I want to name-check them over the Internet, for fear of backlash, fallout, or outright name-calling from any party that has the gumption to do so. That being said, I'll abstain. I did decide to pick out three different songs as potential ringtones and downloaded them to my phone with all deliberate speed. More rapid than eagles, those ringtones they came, and quite quickly I was the recipient of a triumvirate of fresh ringtones.
Unfortunately, things never really worked out with those ringtones and I. More often than not, I had to keep my phone on vibrate, and when it went off in meetings and I had forgotten to set it to stun, it was embarrassing, or when I went out and forgot to set it to stun, I could never hear it ring. You can imagine the predicaments it caused. The ringtones left as quickly as they came, in late November.
Engage those time travel ripples once again...
While visiting home for Christmas, my parents gave me a temporary admission to their gym. On the way home from it one day, I wanted to know if I had any messages on my phone.
I asked.
My sister told me I had a message from my phone from Verizon, telling me my bill was ready online, which was to be expected. I had her read it out loud to me.
How strange is it to quote President Bush here?
"Shock and awe."
She read the figure to me, and it was thirty more dollars than I expected. I was incensed and also somewhat curious. What caused this spike? Following getting locked inside the dry cleaner's, I fired up the old computer at home and sent off to discover what the dillio was all about. What is the dillio all about anyway? What is the dillio in the first place? Spell check sure doesn't like it.
It turns out I was charged ten dollars apiece for each ringtone I downloaded.
Ten dollars. Thirty dollars for those of you playing the home game. So I got shafted by the Internet, and my sister was flabbergasted that I would let myself be had in such a manner. God damn it all.
Engage those time travel ripples for the last time...
A couple months had passed since I downloaded those ringtones to my phone, but I would be haunted by such a hasty decision, in a way that I have not previously mentioned. On an irregular but frequent basis, I received text messages from five digit numbers giving me the latest...(dramatic pause or whatever)...
Hip hop news.
Don't believe me? I'll read the most recent one I received:
"Regarding the steroid allegation drama in her life, Mary J. told MTV, "I have nothing to prove to anyone. I am Mary and that's that." Word!
Yes, America. These things exist. I got multiple ones each day, and including one that basically reminded me that work was over every weekday. They were good for a few laughs, to be sure. I learned that Eminem got fat and Diddy was changing his name to Sean John, though I always knew him as Biggie's Really Crappy Shadow. I was reminded about Yung Joc's gun troubles and Lil' Wayne getting stopped in the airport for trafficking drugs. If nothing else, it made me look really popular since my phone kept blowing up like Chinese New Year day in and day out.
It was all fun and games until Verizon came calling once again with my monthly bill, and again it included a thirty dollar overage.
Damnation. I was suckered by the Internet, a mere series of tubes! This would be as good of a time as any to write the word "fuck." Right.
Shuddering, I picked up my phone and dialed Verizon. There had to been a way to end this extortion, this bilking, this out and out madness.
I asked.
I can't remember if that was before or after I almost crushed my phone in pure ecstasy because the woman on the other end spoke clear English. I felt sorry for her, really, because I kept her on the line for a ridiculous amount of time telling her my life story about these godforsaken ringtones and how I got rejected from JMU and how I ran over our exposed cable line with our lawnmower in middle school and didn't tell my mom for days and or how I never did my summer reading. She was accommodating, all in all, so I was thankful for that, and she told me she could help me end this Internet pillage-fest.
I asked.
It turns out that all I had to do was text message one word to these nefarious five-digit Soulja Boy purveyors. One word, and I'd never have to hear about Mary J. scarfing down HGH or the Shop Boyz doing well in ringtone sales or rap beefs or Snoop Dogg's kids or JUST MAKE THIS HATEFUL INTERNET ROBBERY AND TEXT MESSAGING--
One word.
Stop.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Modern Day Piracy
Why do people think that pirates are suddenly funny again? It's honestly nothing short of retarded (excuse me retarded people or friends/family of retarded persons if you happen to be reading this, especially retarded people, because it's sort of impressive to know you're on the Internet), this influx of pirate humor, insipid jokes in the same vein of ninja banter, which are also, coincidentally, unfunny. AMERICA. PIRATES. NINJAS. NOT FUNNY. STOP QUOTING WILL FERRELL MOVIES.
This really isn't meant to be an anti-pirate joke manifesto; I wouldn't stoop to such pedestrian fare. Oh no, I'd crawl much, much lower. You know me by now. After all, I recently used "retarded" in a pejorative manner. Give me some credit for sinking to the bottom, time after time!
While I did recently use the word "retarded" in a pejorative manner, I also recently rediscovered the magic of illegal downloading. Magic. Remember the childlike wonder we all shared downloading tracks by our favorite artists *gasp* sometimes before they were even released! Recall the frustration we felt when someone took forever to leech a song off us, especially when we saw he was using dialup! What a rube! What contempt we felt for such a backwater hick, scamming some crappy pop punk track off our hard drive! Shame and disgrace.
That was almost ten years ago, and anyone who reads this know how the story ends. Heavy metal stalwarts Metallica bitched and moaned some JNCO-clad, wallet-chain rocking thug was spreading a half-assed demo of their ass-awful track "I Disappear," before the authorities shut down Napster and denied the world community our right to pirate music as we please. That was in 2001.
Since then, the music downloading waters have been murky. We join whatever ship will take us into its crew. Kazaa and Morpheus seemed like particularly strong corsairs until they befell the same fates, and sail the seas with skeleton crews, wracked by litigation-induced scurvy. Some say the Flying Dutchmanesque Limewire silently roams the waters, but I have seen it with my own Internet browser spyglass, and it too is manned by a skeleton crew, a shell of its former self. Anyone will believe tall tales of the high seas, if there's promise of an underwater city of illegal music downloading.
For the longest time I subsisted off of a fellow seaman (laugh, I wrote it), who was basically like Tina Majorino's character in Waterworld, with the means to download music illegally in his possession, but was unable to tell me how to do it. I accepted such a fate as a barnacle on his Internet piracy efforts, and enjoyed the booty (laugh, go ahead, it's a PIRATE JOKE ASSHOLE) he acquired from his swashbuckling. This lasted for years upon years.
Recently I found the "dryland" that Kevin Costner was searching for, which is odd because previously I made an Atlantis reference to illegal music downloading. So consistently inconsistent. I will not divulge my means, because that would be asinine, but also, any individual skilled in the ways of the Internet would be able to figure out such introductory Internetting procedures. Finally, I am able to provide for myself in this unreasonable expensive world. Only the disgustingly wealthy ever hope to purchase enough recordings to really get down to quality artists and move past the crap that is pushed at us day in and day out, unless we have these music pirating resourcing at our fingertips.
Past all the aggravating pirate imagery and history lessons about peer-to-peer downloading applications, this is a flare shot into the air for the continued existence of music piracy. Without it, we'd be a little more broke than we already are, we'd be introduced to fewer new artists, and we'd lose out on yet another unifying experience as citizens of the 21st century, along with picture messaging and trying to defriend Tom on MySpace. Does this sort of rhetoric make me a modern day pirate? Maybe. Do I like that association? Sure. Strike me down as a martyr if you will, or rebuke me for stealing from others. Keep those godawful terrible pirate jokes to yourself though, because they aren't the least bit funny. Retard.
Sorry again, retarded persons, and friends and family!
This really isn't meant to be an anti-pirate joke manifesto; I wouldn't stoop to such pedestrian fare. Oh no, I'd crawl much, much lower. You know me by now. After all, I recently used "retarded" in a pejorative manner. Give me some credit for sinking to the bottom, time after time!
While I did recently use the word "retarded" in a pejorative manner, I also recently rediscovered the magic of illegal downloading. Magic. Remember the childlike wonder we all shared downloading tracks by our favorite artists *gasp* sometimes before they were even released! Recall the frustration we felt when someone took forever to leech a song off us, especially when we saw he was using dialup! What a rube! What contempt we felt for such a backwater hick, scamming some crappy pop punk track off our hard drive! Shame and disgrace.
That was almost ten years ago, and anyone who reads this know how the story ends. Heavy metal stalwarts Metallica bitched and moaned some JNCO-clad, wallet-chain rocking thug was spreading a half-assed demo of their ass-awful track "I Disappear," before the authorities shut down Napster and denied the world community our right to pirate music as we please. That was in 2001.
Since then, the music downloading waters have been murky. We join whatever ship will take us into its crew. Kazaa and Morpheus seemed like particularly strong corsairs until they befell the same fates, and sail the seas with skeleton crews, wracked by litigation-induced scurvy. Some say the Flying Dutchmanesque Limewire silently roams the waters, but I have seen it with my own Internet browser spyglass, and it too is manned by a skeleton crew, a shell of its former self. Anyone will believe tall tales of the high seas, if there's promise of an underwater city of illegal music downloading.
For the longest time I subsisted off of a fellow seaman (laugh, I wrote it), who was basically like Tina Majorino's character in Waterworld, with the means to download music illegally in his possession, but was unable to tell me how to do it. I accepted such a fate as a barnacle on his Internet piracy efforts, and enjoyed the booty (laugh, go ahead, it's a PIRATE JOKE ASSHOLE) he acquired from his swashbuckling. This lasted for years upon years.
Recently I found the "dryland" that Kevin Costner was searching for, which is odd because previously I made an Atlantis reference to illegal music downloading. So consistently inconsistent. I will not divulge my means, because that would be asinine, but also, any individual skilled in the ways of the Internet would be able to figure out such introductory Internetting procedures. Finally, I am able to provide for myself in this unreasonable expensive world. Only the disgustingly wealthy ever hope to purchase enough recordings to really get down to quality artists and move past the crap that is pushed at us day in and day out, unless we have these music pirating resourcing at our fingertips.
Past all the aggravating pirate imagery and history lessons about peer-to-peer downloading applications, this is a flare shot into the air for the continued existence of music piracy. Without it, we'd be a little more broke than we already are, we'd be introduced to fewer new artists, and we'd lose out on yet another unifying experience as citizens of the 21st century, along with picture messaging and trying to defriend Tom on MySpace. Does this sort of rhetoric make me a modern day pirate? Maybe. Do I like that association? Sure. Strike me down as a martyr if you will, or rebuke me for stealing from others. Keep those godawful terrible pirate jokes to yourself though, because they aren't the least bit funny. Retard.
Sorry again, retarded persons, and friends and family!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
A Brief History of Movie (Time) Frustration
Buying movie tickets these days is like smoking cigarettes. The longer you're alive and the more you buy them, the closer they are to ending your life. Do you remember when movie tickets were five dollars or even less than five dollars? I sure as hell do, and it wasn't exactly ten or fifteen years ago either. I don't recall the price of the first movie I saw in my first official trip to the movies (or at least the first one I thought I saw, I might have to Phone-A-Mom for that one), but it didn't cost NINE FUCKING DOLLARS AMERICA. NO BLOOD FOR HOLLYWOOD.
So no, I don't exactly recall the ticket price of 101 Dalmatians. I do, however, remember the admission price for Spider-Man, which was a cold Lincoln. That's it. Five dollars. Now, after some Wikipedia detective work...
Oh.
Oh my dear Lord.
Dear, sweet, forgiving Lord.
That was six years ago. Spider-Man premiered six years ago. I'm a fossil. Carbon dating aside, let's discuss the movies. It was either this or my 2008 Halloween costume ideas, to which I always receive the same reaction: "Well who the hell is that?"
I'll go ahead and throw it out into the arena, despite the hard truth that it will immediately date this post once the Georgia small font has been laid; the most recent film I've seen is J.J.Abrams' cocktease Cloverleaf, which I enjoyed. The only thing I didn't enjoy about it was the astronomical admission price of nine dollars. Nine dollars. Since when is a movie you can only view at a theater's pace, with complete and incredibly rude strangers, worth nine dollars? That is never worth nine dollars. It's worth four dollars at best.
These days, that's really the magic of the movies: the exponentially plummeting conditions of movie theaters and their clientèle. I added French as a language for Blogger just for that word, for those of you weaned on brie and Perrier and PBS rather than my hot dogs and Ghostbusters crowd. Not that I'm eating freedom fries or anything over here.
Who's with me?
Movies might be improving by way of technological advancement and a desire to stay fresh in spite of new ideas being harder and harder to come up with, but they sojourn forth into new creative realms, all the while theaters become dilapidated and their patrons devolve further and further into knuckle-dragging, text messaging, yelling-at-the-screen evolutionary throwbacks.
I never really noticed it until that pivotal showing of Spider-Man, the last movie I recall paying five dollars for, and the first movie experience I can truly remember astonishingly rude...no, wait...
Cast Away, which premiered almost ten years ago, had a more impolite audience that Spider-Man, and I believe it was the first movie where my experience caused me to associate the awful time I had with the quality of the film; to this day, I refuse to watch it because of the frequency of cell phones "blowin' up," in the theater, even in the days before ringtones, when all we had was "Snake" on our Nokias. People shuffling in and out like a doctor's office waiting room, yelling back and forth like the New York Stock Exchange's traders floor, as if they were reenacting Tim Allen bomb Jungle 2 Jungle, which was actually the highest-grossing PG movie of 1997. Are PG movies even made anymore? That was the singularity that ignited my contempt for the movie-going populace, and now countless conversations I've had over my lifetime with people who "just don't go to the movies anymore" seem more illuminated than they previously did, now that I've had time to reflect on them.
Spider-Man was in fact the first movie I recall attending where a theater manager requested that ticket holders "shift to the far left," because the showing had been sold out. This was actually the only time I had attended a movie with President George W. Bush, who, enjoying such high approval ratings in 2002, refused to shift to the far left. In disgust, he walked out, though later he praised director Sam Raimi's post-9/11 New York imagery when Spider-Man clings to a robust Old Glory at the top of some nondescript skyscraper. Presidential observations aside, this was the first film I experienced where my excitement for it had been so bottled up that I spent the entire film seething in contempt for those around me, who dared defile my precious childhood hero, who I had followed with moderate regularity since Amazing Spider-Man #350. All things considered, the crowd for Spider-Man had nothing on the rabble at Spider-Man 2, who left me so angry with their primate antics and inconsiderate cell phone usage that I saw a matinée showing of the movie the next day with my stepdad.
Let's rewind a couple of weeks though in 2004, to the film which I easily consider to the high watermark of complete retardation in the movie theater. If you'll indulge me, it really made the case for sterilization of certain members of the human race. That statement alone probably caused my readership to drop from 9 to 3. Anyway. The film was Van Helsing. It alone kept me from attending the closest movie theater to my college campus for two years. I drove 15 more minutes and paid more money only to avoid that trash heap of a multiplex.
Van Helsing is truthfully a black mark on Hugh Jackman's career, the lowest of the lows, a desolate article of trash that should have been left on the cutting room floor, but some idiot thought people would see it, and shame on me for doing so; however, I am not here to critique the film but those who were in attendance. First off, two gentlemen beside me, were, during the movie, discussing "man laws" and when it was acceptable to take the urinal beside another man. Another shining example of humanity was wearing what can only be describing as plastic body armor. Amongst the theater patrons, there was also this universal acceptance that it was okay to make and take phone calls, with complete ignorance toward everyone else in the theater! I considered that be much worse than the screaming at the screen that was taking place, though others might define that to be humanity's lowest point. Have we really become apes?
I left the theater in a nuclear rage, never having felt so incensed at humanity, not even after "Four more years!" or the return of American Gladiators or the refusal to release the third season of The Adventures of Pete and Pete or even, even, even the time that old man almost hit me when I was making a left hand turn on a green arrow trying to escape a tropical storm in Nags Head in 2004. It took every last cell in my body not to cause a massive accident on U.S. 1 by flipping my car and attempting to take as many lives as possible. Eyewitnesses would be inclined to validate such hyperbolic rhetoric.
It really hasn't gotten any worse since Van Helsing, but then again, it hasn't improved either. Those infamous missteps by humanity followed me throughout the years, with people texting and making and taking calls, yelling at the screen, yelling at one another, and so forth. Let's take a quick glance at some of the more stupefying instances of human behavior at the movie theaters that I have experienced:
Sunshine, 2007: This dusty nugget is taken from a trip to a Virginia Beach mall with my sister, the only theater in the area code that was playing the film. As if the rapture had taken place, the lobby and box office were empty, saved for an over-pierced blond at the front far more interested in failing an easy level Sudoku than selling me a couple of tickets. After an aggravating and deafening silence, I tried to get her attention by fitting as much of my face as possible into the cutout of the plexigrass window until she slowly reacted to me, as if she were to die if she gave me her undivided attention.
Superman Returns, 2006: Ridiculously bizarre "oohs" and "ahhs" from the audience deep-sixed this one for me, especially when the audience was astonished that Superman was weakened by Kryptonite.
Jurassic Park, 1993: Never before or since has my movie visit been interrupted by so many bathroom breaks by strangers. My seven-year-old mind was hoping that the dilophosaurus attacking a portly Wayne Knight on the screen would reverse and shoot its venomous gelatin on the "gotta go gotta go gotta go right now" crowd.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, 2001: This one actually has nothing to do with strangers. When I was in high school, a girl I was interested in told me to meet her here to see this movie, but I never found her in the theater since it was packed. I ended up sitting in the top row and had to go to the bathroom the entire time. I will always have a full bladder when I think of Harry Potter. It also, in retrospect, makes me realize how low will stoop to get a girl's attention.
Juno, 2008: A gaggle of teenagers behind me claimed every single second of this movie was "gay" or "stupid." Naturally I hoped that their parents' cars, which I'm sure they drove, exploded on the highway.
Anger Management, 2003: This movie also has nothing to do with strangers. It sucked and I wanted to see Confidence instead.
The Matrix Reloaded, 2003: I skipped school to see this movie. I've almost forgotten about heckling fanboys yelling "IT'S NOT EVEN WORTH IT!" in regards to the 30-second preview of the third movie at the end of the decade-long credits.
The sad thing is they were right.
They were so right.
I still wanted the acne on their faces to explode like C4 charges.
No Country for Old Men, 2007: Probably could've done without the "WHAT IS HE SAYING?" "whispers" made by everyone around me when anyone was talking during the whole goddamn movie.
American Gangster, 2007: Teenage girls in front of me start comparing on-screen characters to their friends. "Naw, he ain't like that!"
Finally, we can never, ever forget...
Wild Wild West, 1999: 1999 was the same year I saw The Sixth Sense and got innumerable fake butter stains on my shirt from the popcorn, and the same year I decided not to part my hair to the side, where it now sits in its current nondescript male hairstyle. Haley Joel Osment and my high school yearbook pictures would never be the same. A couple of years later, 9/11 happened, and it just so happened to be Picture Day at Western Branch High School. In a bizarre twist of fate, or at least this is how I've conditioned myself to remember it, it was announced right after the "R" last names had their pictures taken, so everyone between S-Z wasn't looking as chipper in the 2002 yearbook as they did in 2001.
ANYWAY.
This movie sucked. People totally had sex beside me when I was trying to watch it, and I was in a theater that didn't have the now-ubiquitous and fat/fornication-friendly movable armrests on the seats.
I can completely see why people don't go to the movies anymore. The allure of the cinema is completely extinguished by drooling troglodytes yammering away on cell phones, and engaging in other outright brazen displays of unacceptable behavior. Maybe Netflix is the answer. Nine dollar tickets sure aren't, especially in what is now a (SUPER TOPICAL THIS WILL BE DATED NEXT WEEK) post-Heath Ledger world. Yet I keep going back, probably because you just can't get new movies from Netflix. I don't even have Netflix, not like it really matters. So I'll keep smoking those "cigarettes," if you will. You keep reading this cigarette carton of a blog; it's just as cancer-causing as anything else.
I lied about people having sex during Wild Wild West.
I don't even think I saw it in theaters.
But I mean, it probably would've been more interesting than a paraplegic Kenneth Branagh in a locomotive wheelchair.
Should probably cut it off here.
BAILAMOS, LET THE RHYTHM TAKE YOU OVERRRRRRR BAILAMOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSS
So no, I don't exactly recall the ticket price of 101 Dalmatians. I do, however, remember the admission price for Spider-Man, which was a cold Lincoln. That's it. Five dollars. Now, after some Wikipedia detective work...
Oh.
Oh my dear Lord.
Dear, sweet, forgiving Lord.
That was six years ago. Spider-Man premiered six years ago. I'm a fossil. Carbon dating aside, let's discuss the movies. It was either this or my 2008 Halloween costume ideas, to which I always receive the same reaction: "Well who the hell is that?"
I'll go ahead and throw it out into the arena, despite the hard truth that it will immediately date this post once the Georgia small font has been laid; the most recent film I've seen is J.J.Abrams' cocktease Cloverleaf, which I enjoyed. The only thing I didn't enjoy about it was the astronomical admission price of nine dollars. Nine dollars. Since when is a movie you can only view at a theater's pace, with complete and incredibly rude strangers, worth nine dollars? That is never worth nine dollars. It's worth four dollars at best.
These days, that's really the magic of the movies: the exponentially plummeting conditions of movie theaters and their clientèle. I added French as a language for Blogger just for that word, for those of you weaned on brie and Perrier and PBS rather than my hot dogs and Ghostbusters crowd. Not that I'm eating freedom fries or anything over here.
Who's with me?
Movies might be improving by way of technological advancement and a desire to stay fresh in spite of new ideas being harder and harder to come up with, but they sojourn forth into new creative realms, all the while theaters become dilapidated and their patrons devolve further and further into knuckle-dragging, text messaging, yelling-at-the-screen evolutionary throwbacks.
I never really noticed it until that pivotal showing of Spider-Man, the last movie I recall paying five dollars for, and the first movie experience I can truly remember astonishingly rude...no, wait...
Cast Away, which premiered almost ten years ago, had a more impolite audience that Spider-Man, and I believe it was the first movie where my experience caused me to associate the awful time I had with the quality of the film; to this day, I refuse to watch it because of the frequency of cell phones "blowin' up," in the theater, even in the days before ringtones, when all we had was "Snake" on our Nokias. People shuffling in and out like a doctor's office waiting room, yelling back and forth like the New York Stock Exchange's traders floor, as if they were reenacting Tim Allen bomb Jungle 2 Jungle, which was actually the highest-grossing PG movie of 1997. Are PG movies even made anymore? That was the singularity that ignited my contempt for the movie-going populace, and now countless conversations I've had over my lifetime with people who "just don't go to the movies anymore" seem more illuminated than they previously did, now that I've had time to reflect on them.
Spider-Man was in fact the first movie I recall attending where a theater manager requested that ticket holders "shift to the far left," because the showing had been sold out. This was actually the only time I had attended a movie with President George W. Bush, who, enjoying such high approval ratings in 2002, refused to shift to the far left. In disgust, he walked out, though later he praised director Sam Raimi's post-9/11 New York imagery when Spider-Man clings to a robust Old Glory at the top of some nondescript skyscraper. Presidential observations aside, this was the first film I experienced where my excitement for it had been so bottled up that I spent the entire film seething in contempt for those around me, who dared defile my precious childhood hero, who I had followed with moderate regularity since Amazing Spider-Man #350. All things considered, the crowd for Spider-Man had nothing on the rabble at Spider-Man 2, who left me so angry with their primate antics and inconsiderate cell phone usage that I saw a matinée showing of the movie the next day with my stepdad.
Let's rewind a couple of weeks though in 2004, to the film which I easily consider to the high watermark of complete retardation in the movie theater. If you'll indulge me, it really made the case for sterilization of certain members of the human race. That statement alone probably caused my readership to drop from 9 to 3. Anyway. The film was Van Helsing. It alone kept me from attending the closest movie theater to my college campus for two years. I drove 15 more minutes and paid more money only to avoid that trash heap of a multiplex.
Van Helsing is truthfully a black mark on Hugh Jackman's career, the lowest of the lows, a desolate article of trash that should have been left on the cutting room floor, but some idiot thought people would see it, and shame on me for doing so; however, I am not here to critique the film but those who were in attendance. First off, two gentlemen beside me, were, during the movie, discussing "man laws" and when it was acceptable to take the urinal beside another man. Another shining example of humanity was wearing what can only be describing as plastic body armor. Amongst the theater patrons, there was also this universal acceptance that it was okay to make and take phone calls, with complete ignorance toward everyone else in the theater! I considered that be much worse than the screaming at the screen that was taking place, though others might define that to be humanity's lowest point. Have we really become apes?
I left the theater in a nuclear rage, never having felt so incensed at humanity, not even after "Four more years!" or the return of American Gladiators or the refusal to release the third season of The Adventures of Pete and Pete or even, even, even the time that old man almost hit me when I was making a left hand turn on a green arrow trying to escape a tropical storm in Nags Head in 2004. It took every last cell in my body not to cause a massive accident on U.S. 1 by flipping my car and attempting to take as many lives as possible. Eyewitnesses would be inclined to validate such hyperbolic rhetoric.
It really hasn't gotten any worse since Van Helsing, but then again, it hasn't improved either. Those infamous missteps by humanity followed me throughout the years, with people texting and making and taking calls, yelling at the screen, yelling at one another, and so forth. Let's take a quick glance at some of the more stupefying instances of human behavior at the movie theaters that I have experienced:
Sunshine, 2007: This dusty nugget is taken from a trip to a Virginia Beach mall with my sister, the only theater in the area code that was playing the film. As if the rapture had taken place, the lobby and box office were empty, saved for an over-pierced blond at the front far more interested in failing an easy level Sudoku than selling me a couple of tickets. After an aggravating and deafening silence, I tried to get her attention by fitting as much of my face as possible into the cutout of the plexigrass window until she slowly reacted to me, as if she were to die if she gave me her undivided attention.
Superman Returns, 2006: Ridiculously bizarre "oohs" and "ahhs" from the audience deep-sixed this one for me, especially when the audience was astonished that Superman was weakened by Kryptonite.
Jurassic Park, 1993: Never before or since has my movie visit been interrupted by so many bathroom breaks by strangers. My seven-year-old mind was hoping that the dilophosaurus attacking a portly Wayne Knight on the screen would reverse and shoot its venomous gelatin on the "gotta go gotta go gotta go right now" crowd.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, 2001: This one actually has nothing to do with strangers. When I was in high school, a girl I was interested in told me to meet her here to see this movie, but I never found her in the theater since it was packed. I ended up sitting in the top row and had to go to the bathroom the entire time. I will always have a full bladder when I think of Harry Potter. It also, in retrospect, makes me realize how low will stoop to get a girl's attention.
Juno, 2008: A gaggle of teenagers behind me claimed every single second of this movie was "gay" or "stupid." Naturally I hoped that their parents' cars, which I'm sure they drove, exploded on the highway.
Anger Management, 2003: This movie also has nothing to do with strangers. It sucked and I wanted to see Confidence instead.
The Matrix Reloaded, 2003: I skipped school to see this movie. I've almost forgotten about heckling fanboys yelling "IT'S NOT EVEN WORTH IT!" in regards to the 30-second preview of the third movie at the end of the decade-long credits.
The sad thing is they were right.
They were so right.
I still wanted the acne on their faces to explode like C4 charges.
No Country for Old Men, 2007: Probably could've done without the "WHAT IS HE SAYING?" "whispers" made by everyone around me when anyone was talking during the whole goddamn movie.
American Gangster, 2007: Teenage girls in front of me start comparing on-screen characters to their friends. "Naw, he ain't like that!"
Finally, we can never, ever forget...
Wild Wild West, 1999: 1999 was the same year I saw The Sixth Sense and got innumerable fake butter stains on my shirt from the popcorn, and the same year I decided not to part my hair to the side, where it now sits in its current nondescript male hairstyle. Haley Joel Osment and my high school yearbook pictures would never be the same. A couple of years later, 9/11 happened, and it just so happened to be Picture Day at Western Branch High School. In a bizarre twist of fate, or at least this is how I've conditioned myself to remember it, it was announced right after the "R" last names had their pictures taken, so everyone between S-Z wasn't looking as chipper in the 2002 yearbook as they did in 2001.
ANYWAY.
This movie sucked. People totally had sex beside me when I was trying to watch it, and I was in a theater that didn't have the now-ubiquitous and fat/fornication-friendly movable armrests on the seats.
I can completely see why people don't go to the movies anymore. The allure of the cinema is completely extinguished by drooling troglodytes yammering away on cell phones, and engaging in other outright brazen displays of unacceptable behavior. Maybe Netflix is the answer. Nine dollar tickets sure aren't, especially in what is now a (SUPER TOPICAL THIS WILL BE DATED NEXT WEEK) post-Heath Ledger world. Yet I keep going back, probably because you just can't get new movies from Netflix. I don't even have Netflix, not like it really matters. So I'll keep smoking those "cigarettes," if you will. You keep reading this cigarette carton of a blog; it's just as cancer-causing as anything else.
I lied about people having sex during Wild Wild West.
I don't even think I saw it in theaters.
But I mean, it probably would've been more interesting than a paraplegic Kenneth Branagh in a locomotive wheelchair.
Should probably cut it off here.
BAILAMOS, LET THE RHYTHM TAKE YOU OVERRRRRRR BAILAMOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSS
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Seven Deadly...Coupons?
Some dread going to the dentist. Others the doctor, or the mall. Maybe you're not too keen on the DMV, perhaps the mechanic, maybe the cemetery, or possibly church, if you're feeling dreadfully honest. Within all of these destinations, our failures, fears, and insecurities are illuminated as we stumble around, cringing in terror, stricken with grief, or exasperated in unquenchable frustration.
They've got nothing on the grocery store.
It always seems to rain on my way to the grocery store. It isn't as though my journey is so abnormally long that I have to drive several country miles and the hydrologic cycle has time to kick in and bring down ice knives of rain droplets down on my face. Maybe, in a sad cosmic way, the interlocking of the key of my car into the ignition signals a downpour from the heavens. I suppose it's coincidental, and I could care less about what you think about coincidences, if they exist, if they don't, what-have-you. It's the grocery store and the rain makes ominous and filled with hate and saturated plastic bags that cling to the oil-speckled asphalt, defiantly refusing to decompose.
As I search the browbeaten parking lot for a spot, other cars fight each other like carnivorous animals on the African plains over a malnourished conquest that is the closest spot to the front door. I wonder if there is a correlation between cars parked closest to the front door and most unhealthy food purchased at the grocery store, because I always see the skinny people walking from the back of the lot. Anyway, I also tend to avoid choosing spots near the cart return, since the lovely clientèle always seem to enjoy rocketing the carts as fast as possible into the others, caring not if the errant projectile even makes it close to the rusted metal confines with the other herded metal sheep. The carts careen off one another, causes scratches, dents, scrapes, and all out-destruction on nearby car bodies. It's really a wonder that the adjacent parking spots near the cart return haven't formed some bastardized auto paint palette on the asphalt, an orphaned version of the popular application on manufacturer websites where one can design one's own vehicle for purchase. Somewhere in the chaos, I park my car and take the shuttle to the front door, since it's really more practical than the hour walk I have ahead of me.
Once inside the arctic walls of the grocer, I am forced to select a model of grocery cart, since I have no manservant to carry my goods. This leaves me in a paralyzing moment of mental stasis, as I am left to decide between the aircraft carrier cart, constructed for families of twelve or more; the modified double-decker wheeled hand truck, used almost exclusively by sexually ambiguous middle-aged men with salt-and-pepper hair and earrings; and finally, the I'm-only-buying-two-things hand basket, which has the sturdiness of a booze-laced promised made shortly after last call.
I always choose the aircraft carrier because it's always the only model available, and so it goes. My trip surreptitiously begins; and the wonders and horrors of the outdoors are soon forgotten, as those within the fluorescent-lit aisles trump them and eventually slay them, one by one by one.
It begins with a bang in the produce section. Well, it might begin with a bang, but my whimper abbreviates it quickly. The produce section is the biggest can-you-top-this section of the grocery store, where patrons attempt to be healthier than thou. I never thought dudes would try to out-dude one another by the volume of vegetables they violently sling into their carts, but the world is an unpredictable place. Men don virtual suits of armor, ready to battle one another to the last link of chain mail to determine who is mightiest in the produce joust. I'm only trying to grab some grapes and perhaps some baby carrots, but apparently that's bush league around these parts. Blood is shed as I have difficulty opening the provided plastic bags and end up ripping off a couple hundred before I can hurriedly toss some apples inside. This isn't the worst part though, as I feel the steely looks of those around me, judging my simpleton tastes and unwillingness to be more experimental in my perishable shopping.
The produce section is where judgment inside the grocery store begins. Patrons evaluate one another based on what's in the shopping cart, and since the produce section takes a considerable period of time , it enables those twist-tying eggplant to give those of us looks for oranges the once-over, and immediately we are deemed non-threats and also inferior shoppers, given the lack of exotic goods within our vessels. It's like committing a capital offense in your dreams and being exiled to death row in real life. I haven't budged yet though...I endure the dagger-like eyes of the patriarchal persons in produce and snatch up my plebeian perishables, rocketing past the bakery, since by the time I make it that far, all baked goods have since endured the evening fire sale, as they sit in washed-out plastic cases, stained from human contact, collecting dust as relative antiquities.
Around the next couple aisles are an arsenal of pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils rarely visited by the store's shoppers. They seem to be barely hanging on to the series of racks that dot the aisles, in sort of childlike stance of readiness, as if they had been swinging as high as possible and were just ready to fling themselves off the swingset to get a rush of sand into their eyes. They are ignored. They stand idle and forlorn, waiting to find the warmth of a home. Envious of the nearby wine racks so lovingly caressed by the scores of people flowing in and out with the ebb and flow of time, they demand attention without saying a word. Attention they will not receive but so often.
Things become less salient after the utensils; the aisles dissolve into one another, lacking definition and identity. Shoppers also seem to have lost the vitriol they so violently possessed upon their initial passage through those sliding doors. Was that Gwyneth Paltrow that just streaked by!?!!!? Anyway, the life seems to be sapped out of everyone by the amorphous rows of foodstuffs. Canned corn here. Hamburger Helper there. Nothing sticks out, calls one to buy it, bellows for the inclusion into the cold shopping basket with the itinerant cans of soup or the corpulent brownie mix. People shuffle in and out of the aisles like zombified shells of themselves, cadaverous entities channeling the ghost of Ponce de Leon, continuing a never ending search for a soul-replenishing substance that will never end, not even with coupons clipped from the Sunday paper. This is where the endless sea of pabulum becomes crippling. Once spry, lively individuals become statuesque in front of sections of the store, debating over cereal or spice or tortilla choices for hours; the "hot girl" you saw by the bakery is now a hideous gargoyle betwixt Progresso and Campbell's soups.
Swimming through all of the madness, I understand that I am a survivor of the most treacherous and bone-chilling parts of the store, at least for now, and have been blessed with some miraculous ability to swim against the halted chronal flow that the others have so willingly succumbed to; I am the only one granted this sacred boon. I alone must make it to...the frozen foods.
Ironically, the chilly precipice of the frozen food section reawakens the shuffling undead populace into a bloodthirsty state, characterized most notably by wrath and utter contempt for both humanity and the ever-shrinking ozone layer. They stand sentry at the cryogenic sarcophagi, debating which stack of technologically-enhanced vittles to rifle though before snarling rabidly at any foolish passers-by who interrupt their fabricated and impolite state of serenity. By now I feel like Tenzig Norgay, having scaled the face of Everest in my own right but lacking all the publicity for my efforts. Surrounded by ravenous frozen food vampires, I meagerly await my turn before picking through the leftover carrion. My attempts are expedited by the gnashing of teeth from approaching shoppers, eager to sink their fangs into Lean Cuisine Swedish Meatballs.
All of the ghosts and ghouls have dissipated by the hour I reach the dairy section; in fact, all signs of life have disappeared as if the rapture had taken place, without even giving me a heads-up text message. There are those shattered individuals huddled around the milk in a Sisyphean effort to discover the gallon of milk that will not go bad for seven months. There are those caught in the eternal struggle to obtain the store's five packages of cheese slices for ten dollars, but we all know such a deal is hopeless, as those who try go mad from doing so, their maniacal laughter echoing throughout the hollow expanse of the store. Other than that, nothing remains. Smatterings of cosmetics and toiletries crowd the remaining space, like piles of bones inside the dungeon at the bottom of an unoccupied castle.
I would go into further detail regarding the animatronic actions of the cashier and bag...people...folks...lackeys maybe? However, their hollow eyes and listless robotic motions do not merit further consideration; they alone acknowledge the pain and suffering of my horrific and depressing experience, since they have witnessed the same countless journey of others before, a seemingly unending flow of customers in and out, those welcoming doors sliding in and out. It is as if they are crying out for help with each swipe of a can or box, wishing they could rescue a particularly tortured soul here and there, but realize they are doomed to do nothing else but watch the carnage day in and day out. The only reprieve they earn is the sight of one customer going quietly into the night, having survived the powerfully visceral experience and lived to tell the tale on Blogger.
"Thank you for shopping at Kroger."
They've got nothing on the grocery store.
It always seems to rain on my way to the grocery store. It isn't as though my journey is so abnormally long that I have to drive several country miles and the hydrologic cycle has time to kick in and bring down ice knives of rain droplets down on my face. Maybe, in a sad cosmic way, the interlocking of the key of my car into the ignition signals a downpour from the heavens. I suppose it's coincidental, and I could care less about what you think about coincidences, if they exist, if they don't, what-have-you. It's the grocery store and the rain makes ominous and filled with hate and saturated plastic bags that cling to the oil-speckled asphalt, defiantly refusing to decompose.
As I search the browbeaten parking lot for a spot, other cars fight each other like carnivorous animals on the African plains over a malnourished conquest that is the closest spot to the front door. I wonder if there is a correlation between cars parked closest to the front door and most unhealthy food purchased at the grocery store, because I always see the skinny people walking from the back of the lot. Anyway, I also tend to avoid choosing spots near the cart return, since the lovely clientèle always seem to enjoy rocketing the carts as fast as possible into the others, caring not if the errant projectile even makes it close to the rusted metal confines with the other herded metal sheep. The carts careen off one another, causes scratches, dents, scrapes, and all out-destruction on nearby car bodies. It's really a wonder that the adjacent parking spots near the cart return haven't formed some bastardized auto paint palette on the asphalt, an orphaned version of the popular application on manufacturer websites where one can design one's own vehicle for purchase. Somewhere in the chaos, I park my car and take the shuttle to the front door, since it's really more practical than the hour walk I have ahead of me.
Once inside the arctic walls of the grocer, I am forced to select a model of grocery cart, since I have no manservant to carry my goods. This leaves me in a paralyzing moment of mental stasis, as I am left to decide between the aircraft carrier cart, constructed for families of twelve or more; the modified double-decker wheeled hand truck, used almost exclusively by sexually ambiguous middle-aged men with salt-and-pepper hair and earrings; and finally, the I'm-only-buying-two-things hand basket, which has the sturdiness of a booze-laced promised made shortly after last call.
I always choose the aircraft carrier because it's always the only model available, and so it goes. My trip surreptitiously begins; and the wonders and horrors of the outdoors are soon forgotten, as those within the fluorescent-lit aisles trump them and eventually slay them, one by one by one.
It begins with a bang in the produce section. Well, it might begin with a bang, but my whimper abbreviates it quickly. The produce section is the biggest can-you-top-this section of the grocery store, where patrons attempt to be healthier than thou. I never thought dudes would try to out-dude one another by the volume of vegetables they violently sling into their carts, but the world is an unpredictable place. Men don virtual suits of armor, ready to battle one another to the last link of chain mail to determine who is mightiest in the produce joust. I'm only trying to grab some grapes and perhaps some baby carrots, but apparently that's bush league around these parts. Blood is shed as I have difficulty opening the provided plastic bags and end up ripping off a couple hundred before I can hurriedly toss some apples inside. This isn't the worst part though, as I feel the steely looks of those around me, judging my simpleton tastes and unwillingness to be more experimental in my perishable shopping.
The produce section is where judgment inside the grocery store begins. Patrons evaluate one another based on what's in the shopping cart, and since the produce section takes a considerable period of time , it enables those twist-tying eggplant to give those of us looks for oranges the once-over, and immediately we are deemed non-threats and also inferior shoppers, given the lack of exotic goods within our vessels. It's like committing a capital offense in your dreams and being exiled to death row in real life. I haven't budged yet though...I endure the dagger-like eyes of the patriarchal persons in produce and snatch up my plebeian perishables, rocketing past the bakery, since by the time I make it that far, all baked goods have since endured the evening fire sale, as they sit in washed-out plastic cases, stained from human contact, collecting dust as relative antiquities.
Around the next couple aisles are an arsenal of pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils rarely visited by the store's shoppers. They seem to be barely hanging on to the series of racks that dot the aisles, in sort of childlike stance of readiness, as if they had been swinging as high as possible and were just ready to fling themselves off the swingset to get a rush of sand into their eyes. They are ignored. They stand idle and forlorn, waiting to find the warmth of a home. Envious of the nearby wine racks so lovingly caressed by the scores of people flowing in and out with the ebb and flow of time, they demand attention without saying a word. Attention they will not receive but so often.
Things become less salient after the utensils; the aisles dissolve into one another, lacking definition and identity. Shoppers also seem to have lost the vitriol they so violently possessed upon their initial passage through those sliding doors. Was that Gwyneth Paltrow that just streaked by!?!!!? Anyway, the life seems to be sapped out of everyone by the amorphous rows of foodstuffs. Canned corn here. Hamburger Helper there. Nothing sticks out, calls one to buy it, bellows for the inclusion into the cold shopping basket with the itinerant cans of soup or the corpulent brownie mix. People shuffle in and out of the aisles like zombified shells of themselves, cadaverous entities channeling the ghost of Ponce de Leon, continuing a never ending search for a soul-replenishing substance that will never end, not even with coupons clipped from the Sunday paper. This is where the endless sea of pabulum becomes crippling. Once spry, lively individuals become statuesque in front of sections of the store, debating over cereal or spice or tortilla choices for hours; the "hot girl" you saw by the bakery is now a hideous gargoyle betwixt Progresso and Campbell's soups.
Swimming through all of the madness, I understand that I am a survivor of the most treacherous and bone-chilling parts of the store, at least for now, and have been blessed with some miraculous ability to swim against the halted chronal flow that the others have so willingly succumbed to; I am the only one granted this sacred boon. I alone must make it to...the frozen foods.
Ironically, the chilly precipice of the frozen food section reawakens the shuffling undead populace into a bloodthirsty state, characterized most notably by wrath and utter contempt for both humanity and the ever-shrinking ozone layer. They stand sentry at the cryogenic sarcophagi, debating which stack of technologically-enhanced vittles to rifle though before snarling rabidly at any foolish passers-by who interrupt their fabricated and impolite state of serenity. By now I feel like Tenzig Norgay, having scaled the face of Everest in my own right but lacking all the publicity for my efforts. Surrounded by ravenous frozen food vampires, I meagerly await my turn before picking through the leftover carrion. My attempts are expedited by the gnashing of teeth from approaching shoppers, eager to sink their fangs into Lean Cuisine Swedish Meatballs.
All of the ghosts and ghouls have dissipated by the hour I reach the dairy section; in fact, all signs of life have disappeared as if the rapture had taken place, without even giving me a heads-up text message. There are those shattered individuals huddled around the milk in a Sisyphean effort to discover the gallon of milk that will not go bad for seven months. There are those caught in the eternal struggle to obtain the store's five packages of cheese slices for ten dollars, but we all know such a deal is hopeless, as those who try go mad from doing so, their maniacal laughter echoing throughout the hollow expanse of the store. Other than that, nothing remains. Smatterings of cosmetics and toiletries crowd the remaining space, like piles of bones inside the dungeon at the bottom of an unoccupied castle.
I would go into further detail regarding the animatronic actions of the cashier and bag...people...folks...lackeys maybe? However, their hollow eyes and listless robotic motions do not merit further consideration; they alone acknowledge the pain and suffering of my horrific and depressing experience, since they have witnessed the same countless journey of others before, a seemingly unending flow of customers in and out, those welcoming doors sliding in and out. It is as if they are crying out for help with each swipe of a can or box, wishing they could rescue a particularly tortured soul here and there, but realize they are doomed to do nothing else but watch the carnage day in and day out. The only reprieve they earn is the sight of one customer going quietly into the night, having survived the powerfully visceral experience and lived to tell the tale on Blogger.
"Thank you for shopping at Kroger."
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