Scenes from the Bar

Date/Time: April 28, 2009 9pmish

Place: Triple Crown Pub San Diego, CA

Liz: So you wouldn't want to be buried in a Padres themed mausoleum a la the new Cubs fan mausoleum in Chicago?

Red: Uh, no. That's completely retarded. I do want to be cremated though.

Liz: I don't get the point of cremation if your not gonna scatter the ashes.

Red: Well, it's better for the environment.

Liz: I don't care about my carbon footprint when I'm dead. Besides, if you're cremated, you can't come back as a zombie.

Red: Excellent point. I may need to rethink this...

Liz: Yeah. You totally don't want to miss out on a coming-back-as-a-zombie opportunity.

And scene

[drawing from portraits as living deads]

Who You Got?

Another addition of Which Movie Sounds Worse:

Wall Street 2 - Directed by Oliver Stone, starring Michael Douglas and possibly Shia LeBeouf.

or

Drop Dead Fred - A remake starring the only-tolerable-in-FSM Russell Brand.

Well, what do you think? I really can't pick here. They both sound truly awful.

Perhaps I am Easily Amused

So, The Mole sent us a link to a website yesterday called texts from last night where presumably real people submit texts sent before/during/after their drunken escapades (another in the long list of Why Didn't We Think of That blogs). Some highlights:

(918)*: Yeah...you.wanna.hang.out.tomorrow?My.space.button.is.broken.

(510): So drunk, too bad you don't want this

(323): i don't know her name but she is cooking me brkfst then helpin me find my car.
(818): she hot?
(323): i don't wanna talk about it

(610): please tell me I'm in your upstairs bedroom. Just google mapped myself and I have no idea where I am.

(703): Its not drinking alone if you got Tiger on the Wii.

(513): I stayed in, ate a pint of Hagen daas and watched a movie about aids. Soooooooo single.

(405): Yeah, i think she was German or something.
(1-405): No dude, she's just got a speech impediment.

You can submit your own on the website. I know I've had a few weekends that could fill the entire site with hilarity. Or at least a few moderately funny posts. Okay, fine. Not funny at all. Who asked you anyway?!

*the numbers in parenthesis are the area codes from which the texts were sent

Pigging out

Dear Headache that I've had all Morning,

Please don't be a symptom of swine flu. I don't need that noise right now.

Immunally,

Liz

Headlines that make me say, "Oh dear God! Please! No!"

Band Creed Reunites for New Album

FYI, liking Creed = Total dealbreaker

Things I Don't Get: Crazy Women and the Men Who Love Them

The New York Observer ran a piece recently about 22 year-old Kari Ferrell, aka the "Hipster Grifter." Essentially, Ferrell has duped men from Salt Lake City to NYC out of thousands of dollars by being sexually aggressive and just effing insane! Her game goes something like this: Meet a Guy. Begin dating. Get Guy to pay for everything and/or cash bad checks for thousands of dollars. Tell Guy she's dying of lung cancer while continuing to smoke pot and say things like, "sometimes the cancer doesn't show up on the scans" when a doctor tells Guy she shows no signs of cancer. Act generally crazy. Threaten to commit suicide when Guy decides to break up with her. Run from Guy and the law when the shit hits the fan.

Really, other than maybe all the fraud, we've heard stories of insanity like this before. The part that really baffles are all the men she was able to con. Sure, Ferrell is relatively attractive and, from all accounts, truly charming, but what the hell?! Crazy broke, lying about cancer and threatening suicide girl can get, not one, but several men, while some really nice and only borderline crazy girls like, um, some friends of mine, can't even find one?!

Seriously, dudes, answer the question. What. The. Hell?

Random Sports Crushes

I know I’m one of about six people who cares about hockey, so I’ll keep this brief.

The Boston Bruins won their first playoff series in ten years last night, sweeping the hated Canadiens of Montreal. Yay! Now, back when I actually lived in Boston, the Bruins - mired in mediocrity - got this 18-year-old center named Patrice Bergeron, and there were all kinds of jokes about him not being able to drive and he had a big nose and it was all very, “Awww, isn’t he cute.”

Now that they’re winning, and the Bruins can finally get the time of day again in Boston, little Patrice is popping up everywhere in the local media, and Yowza! It appears he’s grown up!

Well done, sir. Well done indeed. Look and enjoy people. And try to watch a hockey game sometime, it really is a rad sport. Where else can you get this kind of thing ....

America's Finest City

Okay. Maybe it's not always paradise.

In other news, people are idiots

You know how when the weather girl says that, "There's a 20 percent chance of rain today," it means ... There is a 20 percent chance that it will rain today?



Well, a lot of people don't get that.



Dumbasses.









P.S. I want one of these.

Top 5: New TV Characters

So, I'm all about lists lately. What are you gonna do about it? Here are my favorite new TV characters (i.e. those who appear on a show that debuted in 2009 or are a new addition to a show in 2009):

1. Precious Ramotswe No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (HBO) - Jill Scott is amazing as the lead in this new HBO series, based on the novels of the same name. As Botswana's first lady detective, Precious is tough, charming and totally comfortable in her own skin. One of my new favorite shows.

2. Trevor Pierce Cupid (ABC) - Cupid originally debuted in 1998 and starred Jeremy Piven. In the 2009 reboot, Bobby Cannavale who's been on my crush radar since The Station Agent, plays the god of love, sent to earth by the gods of Olympus to make 100 true love matches. They show is cute, but Bobby makes it "must see." Even if Samantha claims he has funky spunk, I feel an obsession coming on!

3. Coach Survivor (CBS) - Survivor, in it's, like, 20th season, has seen it's fair share of whack jobs, but Coach takes the effing cake. He calls himself the "Dragon Slayer," hates women and proclaims himself the mastermind of just about everything...without ever performing well in challenges or the social game. This week, he told his tribe mates he was kidnapped by small Peruvians while kayaking down the Amazon and beaten until nearly dead before making a daring escape back down the river. I've known some story tellers in my day, but no one out does Coach. Just, fascinating.

4. Charles Miner The Office (NBC) - Things have been shaken up in the Dunder-Mifflin world and it's yielded some of the funniest episodes of the season. Idris Elba (RIP Stringer Bell!) is awesome as the anti-Micheal...he respects Dwight, thinks Jim is a slacker and makes Stanley put down his damn crossword puzzles. Basically, he's actually the World's Best Boss.

5. Adelle DeWitt Dollhouse (Fox) - Eliza Dushku be damned, I love Dollhouse. Olivia Williams is perfection as the British head of the house. She's witty and powerful and not afraid to send your ass to the attic if you step out of line.

How about you? Any new shows/characters you're loving at the moment?

Worlds Collide

I was just reading about Ben Folds' new album. On it, Ben recorded college a cappella groups performing, essentially, his greatest hits. Sounds amazing, right? It's out April 28th.

At the end of the interview, Ben, no stranger to wacky collaborations, mentions his next project will be with author Nick Hornby (if you're not familiar, check out Songbook, wherein he talks about his favorite pop songs, including Ben Folds Five's "Smoke" (and rightly deems Springsteen's "Thunder Road" the greatest song ever)). Nick will write the lyrics and Ben the music. Holy Christ, this is exciting! As a huge fan of both fellas, I already proclaim this the best album ever! I can't wait to actually hear it.

This (mostly) Just In...

ABC to Air Pushing Daisies Finale - Beginning May 30, ABC will air the final 3 episodes of GitW favorite Pushing Daisies on Saturday nights. Finally, we can see how things turn out for the pie maker and his undead love.

Oral Sex Linked Cancer - Sorry fellas. Since most of you are now HPV carrier monkeys, scientists say you can transfer the cancer causing virus to your partners in...how do I put this delicately...multiple orifices. As Miranda woulds say, "Use a condom!"

Further Proof Twitter is Lame - An new study shows Twitter can numb people's sense of morality and compassion, as it takes more time for the brain to process such emotions than an interface like Twitter allows. Sounds like a bit of a stretch, but any excuse to bag on Twitter works for me.

Harry Potter and the Ever Changing Release Date - Originally due out last fall, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince will finally open on July 15th. Get your wands ready! (I have no idea what that's meant to mean.)

It's Tax Day - I always file my taxes in, like, February so I often forget Tax Day, but if you still need to file, you might want to get on that pronto!

In which Elle Magazine fails at making me feel better

The French version of the fashion mag Elle does this thing every year where they show actresses without makeup or air brushing. I guess the point of this is to show what a "real woman" looks like, or something.

This article here goes on and on about how great it is, and how American magazines should do it too, because we need to see more "real people" on the cover of magazines, and deep down inside we're all the same, etc., etc., etc. Trouble is, all these pictures did for me is confirm my long-held suspicions that it would take an army of Clinique counter technicians to make me look half as good as these chicks look without their makeup.


As they say in France, merde.

The warm British fuzzies. Really!

Our readers tend to know a lot about both Britain and televised singing contests of any kind, so you might have already seen this, but here is some heartwarming news which involves, of all people, Simon Cowell.

This woman, Susan Boyle went on Britain's new Perform-and-be-Judged reality show, Britain's Got Talent. It's like American Idol, without the age limits, and groups and stuff can perform as well. (I think they tried an American version of this at some point).

Anyway, Susan Boyle goes out there, and she's 47 years old, kind of dumpy looking with frazzled hair and thick eyebrows, and she tells the hosts beforehand that she lives alone with her cat and has never even been kissed. Everyone is expecting her to be a delusional disaster who won't be heard from again unless she starts stalking Paula Abdul.

And everyone is wrong. She brings the house down. From the first verse of the show tune she sings (Red would know more about that than me) the audience is just floored. And then the judges tell her she's great and she cries and those of us watching the clip get all verklemmt unless we don't have souls, which maybe you don't but watch this clip to find out.

The end.

Susan Boyle on Britain Got Talent
Uploaded by dwarthy

Top 5: Signs You've Been Single a Little to Long

1. You learn one of your oldest, dearest, happilyest (totally a word) married friends is pregnant and it makes you cry...and not in a "I'm so happy for her" kinda way. More in a "Great, there's someone else I'll never see" kind of way.

2. You tell your dad and step-mom "I need to get a dog to reap the benefits of happiness and prolonged life they give" and your dad says, "You're gonna have cats. Lots of cats."

3. You put on pajamas as soon as you get home on Friday night and don't change out of them until brunch on Sunday.

4. You become so tired of saying "Not much" when people ask "What's new?" that you start telling everyone you are the scorekeeper for your company softball team like it's the most wonderful development to ever happen.

4a. You are the scorekeeper for your company softball team.

5. Your grandma tells you she considered getting you a gift certificate to E-Harmony for your birthday, but your mother told her not to. "Plus," she says, "apparently they can reject you on those sites. You'd probably get rejected."

So, you know, how was your Easter weekend?

South Park Helps Make Kanye West a Better Person

South Park is still one of the funniest shows on TV. Always insanely topical, Trey Parker and Matt Stone took on Kanye West's ginormous ego in last night's episode (Plot Summary: Jimmy writes the following joke: Do you like fish sticks? (which sounds like "fish dicks" when said aloud)(and of course everyone answers that question with a yes, because who doesn't love fish sticks?) What are you? A gay fish?! The joke spreads across America like, well, some really terrible joke, with Kanye West being the one person in the universe who doesn't get it. Thus he gets super pissed and tries to figure out why everyone is calling him a gay fish, even going so far as to kill Carlos Mencia (who claims to have created the joke) because his huge ego does not abide being called a gay fish). Well, apparently Kanye saw the episode and this is what he had to say about it on his blog:

SOUTH PARK MURDERED ME LAST NIGHT AND IT'S PRETTY FUNNY. IT HURTS MY FEELINGS BUT WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM SOUTH PARK! I ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN WORKING ON MY EGO THOUGH. HAVING THE CRAZY EGO IS PLAYED OUT AT THIS POINT IN MY LIFE AND CAREER. I USE TO USE IT TO BUILD UP MY ESTEEM WHEN NOBODY BELIEVED IN ME. NOW THAT PEOPLE DO BELIEVE AND SUPPORT MY MUSIC AND PRODUCTS THE BEST RESPONSE IS THANK YOU INSTEAD OF "I TOLD YOU SO!!!" IT'S COOL TO TALK SHIT WHEN YOU'RE RAPPING BUT NOT IN REAL LIFE. WHEN YOU MEET LITTLE WAYNE IN PERSON HE'S THE NICEST GUY FOR EXAMPLE. I JUST WANNA BE A DOPER PERSON WHICH STARTS WITH ME NOT ALWAYS TELLING PEOPLE HOW DOPE I THINK I AM. I NEED TO JUST GET PAST MYSELF. DROP THE BRAVADO AND JUST MAKE DOPE PRODUCT. EVERYTHING IS NOT THAT SERIOUS. AS LONG AS PEOPLE THINK I ACT LIKE A BITCH THIS TYPE OF SHIT WILL HAPPEN TO ME. I GOT A LONG ROAD AHEAD OF ME TO MAKE PEOPLE BELIEVE I'M NOT ACTUALLY A HUGE DOUCHE BUT I'M UP FOR THE CHALLENGE. I'M SURE THE WRITERS AT SOUTH PARK ARE REALLY NICE PEOPLE IN REAL LIFE. THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME TO DRAW MY CREW. THAT WAS PRETTY FUNNY ALSO!! I'M SURE THERE'S GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN THIS... THAT'S HOW YOU KNOW IT'S ME!

Whoa! What would we do in a world without Kanye's huge ego? Would he even be as entertaining? Or will a kinder, gentler Kanye be just what we need? I guess we shall see.

Shiny new time waster

Hey guys,

A friend of mine introduced me to this new(ish) blog, Slaughterhouse 90210, which is just delightful.

It matches pictures of television stars and characters with quotes from literature that capture their essence in insightful and often hilarious ways (see example below). Basically, it's yet another fabulous idea that Red and I should have thought of, but didn't.

Look at it instead of working. Now!!!

Love,
Liz

"I hate how I don't feel real enough unless people are watching."

- Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

This (mostly) Just In...

Rescue Me is Back - The 5th season of Denis Leary's firehouse dramadey returns tonight on FX. My friend Heather and I saw an ad for the new season before I Love You, Man last night (my thoughts on the movie: Paul Rudd makes me cry with laughter) and we both agreed we never really liked Denis Leary before Rescue Me and now we want to jump his bones. Well done, Denis.

Kumar to work in the White House - Kal Penn landed a job in the Obama administration. Liz and I both applied for jobs with Barry (nerd alert!) and this is the guy he hires?! Lame.

Pride and Predjudice and Zombies out Tomorrow - I heard rumors it could already be found in San Diego book stores and I've search and searched, to no avail. I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow like everyone else. I did however read the first 3 chapters online and all I can say is, "Best. Book. Ever."

Padres off to a Terrible Start - I know it's only one game, but no one has much hope for the Friars this season. However, rumor has it, new closer Heath Bell will walk out in save situations to the Saved by the Bell theme song, officially making him the coolest closer ever. [UPDATE - Heath's closer song is not the Saved by the Bell theme song afterall. It's something from the Halo 2 soundtrack. However, there is a mash-up with him and 300 which is amazing, so he's still the best thing ever...or on the Padres anyway.]

It's the most wonderful time of the year

It's Opening Day! For baseball fans, everything is right with the world today: The air is full of anticipation and everybody is undefeated. Anything is possible on Opening Day.

(And yes, I'm aware the season technically opened last night on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball. I choose to ignore that unless my team is involved).

A few games have already been cancelled due to weather (Snow in Chicago? Yikes!) but that's OK. Those teams get to have Opening Day tomorrow. It's like two Christmas mornings in a row!

Good luck this year to the two teams most important to this blog, the Padres and Red Sox. And to all our readers' teams (except when they're coming up against our teams, natch). May the spirit of Opening Day keep you and sustain you through the grueling 162 game schedule. It's a marathon, not a sprint, etc. etc.

This (mostly) Just In...

America has the coolest President ever - Apparently, President Obama gave the Queen of England a new iPod full of show tunes during his recent visit to England. Who gives an 87 year-old woman a new iPod? That's awesome! (On a less cheery note, Barry's also really bummed about the series finale of BSG. Join the club, sir. Join the club.)

Project Runway finally on it's way to Lifetime - Gah. I actually have to watch something on Lifetime? I don't even know what channel that is!

Footloose remake still alive - Last week, the remake looked like it was in trouble when Zac Efron left the project to avoid being pigeonholed as a "musical" guy. This seems like an unnecessary remake anyway, but I kinda liked the idea of Zac Effron in the role made famous by Kevin bacon. Oh well.

Blogger addicted to crazy chocolate concoction - Okay, you guys. Go immediately to this website and order as many Firecracker chocolate bars as you can. The delicious confection combines dark chocolate, chipotle chili, salt and pop rocks for a taste sensation just like Jem (truly outrageous, obvs). They're kinda expensive, but totally worth it. Swearsies.