God Damn It Person of the Day Follow Up - Did I just agree with Andy Roney?

 

Does anyone else think that something shady is going on with Girl Scout Cookies?  Where is all this money going to? The Girl Scouts sell approximately 200 million boxes of cookies a year, at $3-$4 a box.  That is a ton of revenue and they have a massive child labor force to whom they pay nothing.  Think about the profits!

I can't help but picture some gigantic fat lady just sitting in some corner office crushing Tag-Alongs while 9 year old Brownies wait on her hand and foot like she's Jabba the Hut.  Meanwhile, downstairs there's probably some thick lady from Bavaria just training girl scouts to be as cute as possible and sell more Samoas to feed this cash machine.  Do the girl scouts themselves see a dime of this money?  It can't be all going to these programs, after all, how much does it cost to rent out a church basement and buy some construction paper to make a diorama?  I'll bet there's some evil Boy Scout leader just waiting on the other end for his cut, out there somewhere in the woods with a Gaddafi-style luxury tent set up, carving Ferraris out of logs with 24 karat gold Swiss army knives.  If I somehow turn up dead at a pristine camp site somewhere in upstate New York, you will know I was right about this.

In searching for some further color on this cookie conspiracy I stumbled onto Andy Rooney's Girl Scout Cookie Segment from 60 minutes.  I have to say I think I agree with the old lunatic.  Sure, he's good for a couple of classic pointless Rooneyisms like, "I like peanut butter and I like cookies, but I've never liked peanut butter cookies," but the man makes some solid points.  It's almost as if his over-the-top grumpiness has actually served a purpose for once.  These cookies are mass produced by cookie corporations, bought in bulk and sold at a mark-up by the Girl Scouts, making the Scouts essentially glorified retail merchants with pigtails.  No chance they're paying taxes on this stuff either.  What ever happened to the good old days of the local bake sale?  Oh shit, that was me who just wrote that, not Andy Rooney.  God Damn It. 

PS - These girl scout cookies are just about the least healthy thing ever.  Thank you Girl Scouts for feeding America's obesity epidemic and helping increase my share of US health care costs.  Stick to sewing badges on that green sash and leave the cookies to the Keebler elves, those guys cook with straight up magic and rainbows.

God Damn It Person of The Day - Dental Hygienists

Last week I went to the dentist for a cleaning.  I happen to love the dentist, I've had one cavity in my life and I brush my teeth a lot, so I rarely find myself going into a dentist appointment with that "I really hope I don't have a cavity this time" feeling.  I love the feeling of having super clean teeth after and I always love my interaction with the dentist.  My dentist is awesome, he comes over to me at the end, cool as ice, he asks me how my life is, he takes a quick look, asks how the family is, and we all move on with our lives.  However, time and time again, I want to kill the dental hygienist.

My first issue with dental hygienists is their air of oral superiority and subtle judgmental tone.  They always have the most god damn it ultra white teeth.  We're talking like every dental procedure under the sun has been performed on their mouth.  My personal favorite is the hygienist with the "adult" braces.  Lady, you're in your 40's, you're married, you have kids, I promise whatever bit of crookedness you had for most of your life is a far better look than the ceramic braces.  There is no way that slightly straightening your teeth is worth the pain of having braces for a couple of years or constantly looking like you've eaten too much rice pudding.

Anyway, so brace face starts in on my teeth and right away she hits me with the "you have a bit of staining down here, do you drink a lot of coffee or smoke?"  What the fuck woman! I've told you a million times I don't smoke and I know drinking coffee stains teeth.  What would she have me do here?  Should I live the Mormon lifestyle?  Should I drink my coffee through a straw?  Don't judge my caffeine addiction you god damn oral saint.  Then she starts in on the excessive flossing bullshit.  I floss, I keep those little floss pick things in my desk at work, but this woman's standard of flossing is completely out of whack.  She comes across with that assuming tone and says things like "you should always take 10 minutes in the morning and night to really floss well."  Really? 10 minutes? Twice a day no matter what?  I'm 24 years old, do you see me coming home from a night of heavy boozing, making moves to pass out face down, and all of a sudden b-lining to the bathroom to floss for a full ten minutes?!  This is just an unattainable goal.  From now on, I'm just going to do what Presidents do with regards to energy and environmental issues and set ridiculous goals to be achieved 20 years after their term.  "Today, I make a pledge, to be on a 2 a day flossing regimen by 2024."

My second gripe with dental hygienists is their incessant need to force conversation while they have instruments in your mouth.  I get it, they want to interact with their patients, it's boring if it's silent yada yada yada, but frankly its ridiculous.  Stop asking me questions! I cant speak because you have your pirate hooks ripping through my teeth.  Don't stop the cleaning to hear my answer, its not important where I live in the city or how my job is or whatever meaningless banter you're trying to engage in.  Beardown, focus, clean my teeth, and we can chit chat at a time where my saliva isn't being sucked out of my mouth by "Mr. Thirsty."  

Dental Hygienists, please stop talking to me, do your job, let me get back to work, and hit my teeth more often with that water/air gun, that shit feels great. God Damn It. 

  

Ridiculous Movie Device - "I Want to Know Everything About This Guy"

Every time a top-secret Government agency is after a civilian in a movie, the evil head of the agency always demands the same information:


"I want to know everything about this guy, where he eats, where he sleeps, what the name of his kindergarten teacher was."


The agency head then proceeds to run around telling all his geeks that he needs it sooner and faster but never actually does anything himself aside from brooding in the back of the dimly lit control room.


Why do these guys always need to know such random information?  Shouldn't they focus on more relevant information like bank accounts, military records, known aliases and the like? Say I'm an "enemy of the state" and I'm trying to evade some corrupt rogue NSA contingent so I can expose their transgressions.  Is it really important that they know who my kindergarten teacher was?  Presumably they would also want to know the names of all my teachers then right?  What kind of game-breaking information do they expect to gain here?  Also, isn't this all top-secret?  Do we really want to involve some innocent grade school teacher?  Think about how many more people these guys then have to kill at the end of the movie during the "tie up all loose ends" montage.


I'll tell you who I really feel bad for.  It's the first year analyst to has to scrape up this useless information.  Where does one even start?  Do they cold call the teachers?  How does that conversation even go?


"Ms. Smith, this is Bob Johnson, I'm calling from the, uh, department of shipping and logistics, did you ever teach a student named Ralph Simmons, looks kind of like Will Smith now?"


"Why yes, I think so, if memory serves correctly he was the best finger painter I ever had"


"Thank you for the information ma'am, has he by any chance contacted you in the last 36 hours?"


"Why no, in fact the last time I saw him I—" (phone call ends)


What does Bob Johnson do now?  Does he tell his boss to be on the lookout for some quality finger painting?  Think how frustrated a guy like Johnson is.  He probably graduated top of his class at MIT or Cal-Tech and got a great job working for the CIA doing top-secret surveillance thinking he'd be operating satellites and monitoring terrorist sleeper cells. Meanwhile, here he is now, mixed up in some illegal black-ops project which he'll probably be indicted for, and he's looking through high school year books trying to get in touch with a retired math teacher.  No wonder our defense budget costs trillions every year.  We're paying CIA analysts to work up detailed top-secret Facebook profiles on innocent people.


For once, can the agency head just say "I want to know anything that can help us catch this guy."  Maybe if he allocated his resources better, the situation wouldn't be out of control in the first place.


PS - there is no way these secret control rooms look cool and sleek with awesome glass doors, nice furniture and thousands of flat screens.  Dollars are scarce in the Government, I'll bet it looks more like the post office.

God Damn It Person of the Day - New York Liberty Guard Cappie Pondexter

ESPN - New York Liberty guard Cappie Pondexter has apologized after causing an Internet uproar with comments on her Twitter account that were deemed insensitive toward victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. On Saturday, Pondexter tweeted: "What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes." She later tweeted: "u just never knw! They did pearl harbor so u can't expect anything less." Pondexter also used used the racially derogatory term "jap," when referring to someone who was offended by her comments.  "I wanna apologize to anyone I may hurt or offended during this tragic time," the tweet said. "I didn't realize that my words could be interpreted in the manner which they were. People that knw me would tell u 1st hand I'm a very spiritual person and believe that everything, even disasters happen 4 a reason and that God will shouldn't be questioned but this is a very sensitive subject at a very tragic time and I shouldn't even have given a reason for the choice of words I used.

Cappie really holds a grudge huh?  I guess after 70 years and 2 nuclear bombs she thinks we need a Tsunami to really remind the Japanese what happens when you fuck with the United States.  Cappie, I'm still pretty angry at the Germans because they "did the Holocaust," can your boy God maybe send some tornadoes to Munich or something for me? Can you ask him to go old school this time and send Locusts or Boils to Berlin?   I mean, "you can't expect anything less" right?  It has to be greater than or equal to a tsunami, that's the scale, and "God's will shouldn't be questioned."

I do have to say though she is absolutely right about the whole "God was tired of the way they treated [their] own people in their own country," thing.  If nobody is going to stop the Japanese government from providing universal health care and world-leading public transportation systems then God has no choice but to start casually sending in tidal waves and earthquakes right?  He's only missed the last two or three hundred opportunities to stop oppressive governments, he'll be damned if hes gonna mess this one up!  Hey Libya, hide ya kidz, hide ya wives, because God is tidal-waving oppressive governments up in here.


Sarcasm aside, there are few things I hate more than when religious nut-jobs use the old "everything happens for a reason" and "he makes no mistakes" as the catch-all excuse for the fallibility of their deity.  Everything happens for a reason?  Really?  I ordered a sandwich the other day and the guy behind the counter used honey mustard in lieu of regular mustard and messed up my entire sandwich balance.  It ruined my entire lunch.  Did that happen for a reason?

Hey Cappie, you're a role model to millions hundreds of young WNBA fans, how about you focus on improving your grammar skills and leave the theology to the scholars and the clergy.  God damn it those were some stupid tweets.


PS - Doesn't Cappie Pondexter look like veteran character actor Steve Harris?

God Damn It Person of the Day - Me for not responding faster to Nick Mangold

You see what happened there?  This guy @NewFunPlague beat me by a matter of minutes.  He didn't even think of an interesting response, he just responded with "dibs".  I'm reeling from defeat over here.  I was so close!  Shouldn't this decision be based on more than who sees a blinking light on their phone first?!

Do you know how awesome having Nick Mangold follow me on twitter would have been?  That's basically half a step from the sideline.  I have to believe that if I respond faster here, and get Mangold following, I'm knocking back beers with Nick, Rex and the Lombardi trophy around this time next year at the latest. 

Flash forward to March 2012 and we're drinking at a hotel bar in Hawaii. Mangold wasn't allowed to go the pro-bowl back in February since he was playing in the Superbowl so he decided to plan a nice trip with some friends and teammates.  After a couple of rounds of drinks, we head to the beach with Rex to toss around a football.  Its a loose vibe, and we're joking about the fact that we once called Mark Sanchez's jewelry "effeminate" and now we're all wearing Superbowl rings.  As we share a good laugh, Sanchez emerges from the hotel and gives Rex a noogie for making fun of him.  We're thrilled to see the Superbowl MVP in the flesh, and he and I discuss how his ex-girlfriend Jaime-Lynn Sigler lived across the street from my friend Resnik growing up, and how small of a world it is.  Things are beginning to pick up like the volleyball scene from Top Gun, only without the homo-erotic undertones and excessive flexing. 

Rex suggests we grab a few people and get a game of beach football going. "Its never too early to prepare for next season" he suggests, "and I know for damn sure that Belichek is out there preparing."  All of a sudden, as if on cue, Hansel's theme song from Zoolander begins to blare over the speakers and around the corner comes Tom Brady.  He's wearing a special edition Christian Dior-designed silk Patriots jersey with Uggs moccassins and his hair is slicked back into a headband making him look sort of like Louis Scola.  Behind him are Devin Mcourty, Logan Mankins, and Wes Welker.  "Did someone say, Bélécheque?" Brady exclaims.  He's speaking in a french accent and I surmise it must be part of his whole "euro thing."

I look to Rex and I can see he's aching for a fight.  "I said it you pansy, and I see you brought that pipsqueak Welker with you," Rex yells.  "You're looking taller than usual Wes," he says, "are those lifts in your sneakers?"  I know Rex has wanted to personally beat the crap out of Wes Welker since the whole foot thing, and there are no cameras or league commissioners in sight.  Rex is chomping at the bit, consumed by the chance to defend his wife's honor with his fists.  "Eassyyyy Rex, easy," says Mangold as he holds him back.  Sensing the rising tension, I suggest we cool it down by taking out our anger on the field like true warriors.  Welker, Makins and McCourty agree but Brady says he can't play because "he has to go to a pottery class with his wife."

"I bet Peyton would play," retorts Rex.  He's struck a chord and Brady is visibly shaken, but he perks back up and indignantly declares, "that ad-whore doesn't hold a candle to me, give me the damn ball."  A legendary game of 4 on 4 ensues.  The Jets affiliated-team composed of an All-Pro center, an All-Pro QB, an overweight coach and myself, the civilian, is installed as 3 touchdown underdogs.  But out we come, possessed with the spirit of Joe Namath and the will of a blooming flower on the Alaskan tundra.  Bodies are flying everywhere and by now a small crowd has gathered to watch this torrid seaside battle.  Its a back and forth struggle, and with time running out, we have time for one final play. 

The ball is snapped, Sanchez fades back to throw, and he releases a tight spiral towards my outstretched hands.  It looks like I'm going to be tackled just short of the end zone, and Giselle lets out a cry of joy from the sidelines.  BUT WAIT A SEC! ITS A HOOK AND LADDER TO MANGOLD! TOUCHDOWN! TOUCHDOWN!  Champagne pops, confetti flies, and Brian May plays a live instrumental version of We Are The Champions as we celebrate.  Mangold turns to me and says, "Brian, imagine if I didn't follow you on Twitter that random night in March last year."  We jump up in joy and the screen freezes then fades into a Leroy Neiman painting like at the end of Rocky 3.

Now Nick - you see what you could be missing out on here?

I was so close and I got stuffed on 4th and goal from the one. God Damn It.

God Damn It Person* of the Day - Fluorescent Lighting

 

Has anybody ever been in a situation where they were happy to see fluorescent lighting?  I'm talking about those long tube style ones with the opaque fly-filled screens over them, not the ones that light up sports stadiums.  I know its more cost effective, and I'm all for saving the environment by lowering energy use, but can we please just switch back to all soft-white bulbs?  I'll even take those new efficient LED bulbs that last for years.

Is there a single situation where one finds them self in a fluorescently lit room and feels relaxed and happy?  Has anyone ever looked good in a picture taken under fluorescent lighting?  My building ID picture makes me look like I just got picked up for soliciting prostitution from an undercover cop in the Florida panhandle.  I've found that the only time that I'm being lit by these droning tubes are in shitty situations, often accompanied by grime and second hand smoke.  To my knowledge, here are the spots that typically use fluorescent lighting from brightest to most dingy:

1.) Office buildings, dentist offices and hospitals
2.) Massive Wal-mart style stores and the DMV
3.) Bus stops and subway stations
4.) Toll booth plazas and guard booths
5.) Your friend's basement in high school where you went through your awkward stage in middle school
6.) Some crappy cabin you have to stay in on a high school "outdoorsy" team building trip
7.) Prison, the morgue or a police station
8.) Some shady gambling operation or OTB
9.) Solitary confinement in prison
10.) A room where Guantanamo detainees are tortured
11.) A room where US soldiers or CIA operatives are tortured in movies about the Middle East
12.) A room you wake up in when you're being held captive by a deranged serial killer and he plans on doing weird "medical experiments" or playing elaborate mind games
13.) A room you discover mutilated dead bodies in after some sort of ethnic cleansing

If I'm ever kidnapped and somehow I end up in a normal, well-lit room with some nice Ikea lamps and maybe even some high-hat recessed lighting I'm going to be completely thrown off.  If you wake up in the damp dirty concrete room with the dripping water noise and the blinking fluorescent lighting, at least you have some idea of what to expect and can prepare yourself. But if you wake up on a plump mattress with some nice GE 100 watt soft white bulbs you could be dealing with a sick type of mind, and without question there's going to be some weird sexual aspect forthcoming.  (side note: is it so much to ask these psychos to just grab a wrench and stop that leaking pipe? I mean just because they're deranged doesn't mean they wouldn't prefer increased water pressure and cheaper utilities right?)

Anyway, my point here is that fluorescent lights just bring about bad vibes and I think the we could improve the mood of billions by switching over to a bit softer lighting.  Bring an Al-Qaeda member to the chandelier section of Home Depot and I can almost guarantee he'll perk up and consider abandoning the struggle.  Otherwise we'll just remain slaves to the din of these neon assholes.  God Damn it.     

You Can't Possibly Be Serious - The Car Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

WSJ - Formula 1 is seen as the apogee of engineering excellence and automotive power. So it says something that in Bloodhound SSC — the car that, if all goes well, in 2013 will shatter the current land speed record.  “We are creating the ultimate car; we’re going where no-one has gone before,” said Richard Noble, the project director.  The car, which Mr. Noble says takes £10,000 a day just to keep it ticking over, will be powered by not one, but two other engines.  Bloodhound is not just about shattering records, says Mr. Noble: “The primary objective of Bloodhound is to inspire the next generation to pursue careers in science and engineering.”

There is nothing I hate more than technology and defense companies spending money on useless vanity projects.  Who the hell cares who holds the land speed record?  Honestly, short of Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and every Asian guy with a Honda civic, who the hell wants to see a super car drag race across some desert?  Have you ever watched drag racing on ESPN2 at like 2:30 on a Sunday?  Its about as enthralling as the Antiques Roadshow or watching paint dry.  I challenge anyone to find one person watching that isn't saying, "come on...explosion, come on, giant crash, COME ON, PLEASE LET THE BRAKE PARACHUTES FAIL!"  If you're all about records why not go for something cool like trying to break the record for getting to JFK at rush hour, or bring Evil Kenevil out of retirement to jump this thing over the grand canyon?  How about something with a little panache?  At least make a Nazi war criminal stand out on the track and fly past him at Mach 2 so he shits his pants or something crazy like that.  

Meaningless records aside though, the thing that bothers me the most about this super car is that these engineers are spending $16,000 a day to "inspire the next generation to pursue careers in science and engineering."  Hey Mr. Noble, here's an idea, if you want to help the next generation of scientists and engineers, give $16,000 dollars to kids who cant afford a degree in science or engineering.  Create a "useless records" scholarship at MIT.  25% of American children will soon be living in poverty and you're spending $16,000 on a god damn rocket-car?  How about using $16,000 a day to work on projects that actually matter like clean drinking water or alternative energy?  I can try to tolerate these guys spending $16,000 because they think it makes them cool, but don't sit there and pretend you're a source of inspiration to all the aspiring rocket-car builders out there.

Hey rocket-car engineers, we all know you're over-compensating here, and I think you forgot that you can't take girls out in a one-seat missile car.  Do us all a favor, leave the cutting-edge superfluous technology to Red Bull and go back to the lab you nerds.

PS - How do they not hook this car up with a cooler paint job? Throw some flames on the hood or something.

God Damn It Person Of The Day - Andy Rooney

60 Minutes is one of my favorite programs on television.  I find the stories to be awe-inspiring, hard-hitting, and most importantly, current.  After watching, I routinely feel like I'm showing up to work on Monday a little bit smarter and a little more up to speed with important world events.  However, I find that every week these feelings are almost always poisoned by Andy Rooney.

Let me preface by saying that I respect the hell out of Andy Rooney.  This guy began his career as a journalist for Stars and Stripes in World War II, was one of six correspondents who flew on the first American bombing raid over Germany, and was a daring maniac with far larger balls than I have.  When I hear those strange noises during a routine airplane takeoff, I nearly crap my pants but this guy was going up in giant propeller planes in 1942 and dodging flak and Nazi fighters with a pen and paper.  Yet, despite my respect for Mr. Forest Eyebrows over here, I maintain that his segment on 60 minutes is nothing more than the "god damn it" rantings of an aging lunatic who has no touch on the present and clings to a certain romanticism that hasn't existed since the 60's.

His segment this week was particularly ridiculous.  He starts by saying, "of all the good things in the world, books would be right near the top...I don't know who invented the printed word, but you'd have to put it ahead of some things, like the airplane, or jelly donuts."  Could you find me one person that would take the side of "jelly donuts" in a which is more important debate against the printed word?  Jelly donuts specifically! Not even just donuts!  Who even gets jelly donuts anyway these days?  The jelly donut is like the eighth or ninth pick in a dozen every time, usually picked just ahead of cinnamon-cake and "classic."  Hey Andy, the printed word has given us things like the Bible, the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, those cool Dan Brown novels about Jesus,  Penthouse forum, the Communist Manifesto and the New York Times, I think we understand its impact.  Also, is Andy Rooney seriously comparing the Airplane's mere 80 years of existence against centuries of print?  I wish he had said "it's the greatest thing since sliced bread" as that is the single most dated expression of all time.  Seriously? Sliced bread is the litmus test by which we base the impact of innovation?  I had a loaf of unsliced french bread recently and I simply ripped a piece off.  I didn't find myself cursing the gods at the lack of slicing as I would be doing without things like the automobile, the Internet, the computer, or modern medicine.

Mr. Rooney, the author of such classics as Not That You Asked and Common Nonsense, continued his segment last night by saying how his friend in publishing told him recently that E-Books are now selling more than paperbacks, but he "he doubts that."  Excuse me Andy, you doubt that? Your entire segment is on the popularity of E-Books and your simply going to brush aside the most salient of statistics?!

Week in and week out, you can count on Andy Rooney to maintain his complete loss of reality.  Its always something like "when did kids start texting, what ever happened to writing letters?" or "when did this rap music become so popular, what ever happened to American Bandstand."  A quick survey of recent segments and asides include: Mr. Rooney's bewilderment with public modern art, his confusion over the fact that an average American like himself has never heard of Lady Gaga, how he doesn't sympathize with people who lose sleep over the economy since he can always sleep, how he can't believe post offices are closing since more people are using email, and my personal favorite, how he doesn't like the term "African-American" since the word "negro" was "a good word and a perfectly strong word" to call black people.  What should we bring back next Andy? Morse Code? Jim Crow?  I would not be remotely surprised if next week Andy Rooney said "I don't understand this American Justice system, what ever happened to Hammurabi's Code?"

Just once, I want to turn on 60 Minutes and hear Andy Rooney ask a normal, topical, and insightful question rather than wondering why sports teams are named after hawks and bulls instead of sheep or cows or why we have indoor plumbing when outhouses work perfectly well.  God damn it Andy Rooney, it's 2011, the Grapes of Wrath was written 70 years ago and cross country railroads are out of style, retire or get the net already.

PS - Can someone in the CBS makeup department suggest an eyebrow trim to this guy?

Ridiculous Movie Device Special Edition - This One Scene In Star Wars

 

Let me begin by saying I stumbled upon this scene recently and thought of doing an entire RMD regarding torture scenes in movies.  I felt like the films always show the creepy torture guy walk in or all the weird instruments and then just pan back to an exterior shot of the house or room and you hear the character screaming.  However, upon further review, films like Hostel, Touristas, Saw, and any season of  "24", among others, have ample on screen torture sequences.  So I decided, despite surely coming off like a massive nerd, to narrow my RMD to this one stupid scene in Star Wars I (or IV, or whatever the first one ever made is called these days).

Here's the scene: Darth Vader has Princess Leia captive on his ship and he is demanding the location of the rebel base.  Leia, stalwart in her role of Senator and hair-style pioneer, of course refuses, and denies knowledge of her rebel affiliation.  Vader, not one to fall for tricks oft-used on the weak minded, brings in this stupid-looking floating mini-planet torture-bot.  This is where I have a problem.  It would appear that the only capability of this machine is to hold a syringe.  I guess George Lucas, in all his infinite nerd-dom, simply felt that a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, humans simply would never want to hold a syringe.  Think of the engineering and manufacturing costs involved with creating such a unique and sophisticated piece of equipment!  This kind of wanton government spending is exactly why you have a galaxy wide rebellion going!  Imagine how angry the conservatives on Coruscant must be!  First the Empire overthrows their radical Jedi theocracy and now they're draining the limited galaxy budget to create useless military technology?  What is this? Communist Russia? Has Emperor Palpetine ever heard of Thomas Jefferson and laissez-faire government?  You're committing thousands of clones to useless patrol duties in the corridors of your supposedly secure base and you can't spare one to inject Leia with the torture serum?  What exactly does the oversight committee in the Imperial senate actually do?  Vader is supposed to be brilliant and has shown his distaste for the Imperial bureaucracy on a number of occasions, surely he can't endorse this.

More importantly, why is Vader allowing this machine to torture HIS DAUGHTER!  This guy can choke people out using the force, clearly he is capable of superior and more cost-effective torture methods.  Seriously, what the fuck Vader?  How you gonna do your own daughter like this?  Show some heart out there you bionic bitch and do it yourself.

  

Ridiculous Movie Device - The Token Serial Killer / Bomber Planning Room

Today's RMD is the use of the token newspaper clipping room that the FBI always finds when they've finally found the serial killer or bomber.  This is one that has always killed me.  Now maybe in the 70's guys like the Zodiac killer we're all about the papers but come on, It's 2011, why are these guys not using a computer?!  Why do they feel the need to leave the door open to basically confirm that they are the killer should the FBI ever look inside their woodshed?  More importantly, who has the time between killing, plotting the next victim, and not getting caught to create this ridiculous art and crafts project.  I would love to see just one of these movies show the guy come home from a tough day of raping/murdering some innocent woman, and begrudgingly break out his scissors to begin clipping Newspapers.  When was the last time you made a collage?  You know how the glue stick never works and the edges of the paper always curls up?  How about all the annoying ink that comes off on your hands when you handle newsprint?  These people are unstable psychopaths, imagine how frustrated they must get having to constantly update this thing.  I just once want to see a killer flip out when he realizes he connected the red lines wrong, used permanent marker, and has to start all over again. 

These rooms also beg a lot of other questions:

Do these guys actually like arts and crafts?  The rooms are always laid out so perfectly.  Do you think the BTK killer ever took a decoupage class at the local community center in Wichita?   

When do they start?  Do they decide to use the news-clipping room before they start killing? After? Halfway through so they can keep track?  Do they go to Home Depot to get those bulletin boards to line the wall with before they begin?  Where does he get all these local newspapers to keep track of the national coverage? Do they have a thousand subscriptions?

What happens when they run out of space?  Is this thing fluid?  What happens if you start out your clipping room planning to kill like 1-2 congressman responsible for framing your father and instead you end up killing a bunch of henchman and assorted innocent people along the way?  Do you expand the room? Do you re-format?  How come the FBI never stumbles upon one of these rooms with only a quarter of a wall completed?  Its always packed to the gills.

Where do they get all this information to hang on the walls?  How are they getting all of these year book photos, grade transcripts, top secret files and all kinds of schematics and diagrams?  If you told me today to gather info on some random waitress I was planning to kill, the best I think I could do would be some grainy black and white photos of her getting in and out of her car at work.

Listen, all I'm saying is that these movie serial killers are all very smart, deliberate people.  Don't think for a second they're going to take a haphazard approach to their arts and crafts.  Filmmakers - from now on what say we just have the FBI open a hidden file on the killer's computer that has some articles saved down from the local paper and call it a scene.

You can't possibly be serious - Iran Threatens Boycott of 2012 Games due to Racist Logo

ESPN - Iran objects to the logo for the 2012 London Olympics, contending it is racist because it resembles the word "Zion" and warning of a possible boycott of the Games.  The secretary general of Iran's National Olympic Committee said Iran sent a letter to International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge. The letter claims the 2012 logo spells out "Zion," a biblical term widely recognized to refer to the city of Jerusalem.

We've all heard some batshit crazy stuff coming out of Iran under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but for me this one takes the cake.  It's complete lunacy on so many levels. 

Firstly - How can you possibly look at that Logo and see "ZION"?  When I look at this admittedly stupid looking logo, the first thing I see is 2012.  If I'm going to experiment a bit, I see "ZOI'C" if im going left to right and "ZOC'I" if im going clock-wise.  If this is some Jewish conspiracy like Iran says, and you read it read it Hebrew style from right to left you would get "OZC'I".  I guess you could vaguely make out "ZION" from these letters, but what kind of whack-job reads stacked logo letters like a god damn tic-tac-toe board.  In what language do you read down-diagonal up right-down?

Secondly - Is there anyone in the government of Iran that at least recognizes the hypocrisy of calling this racist?  They are claiming it's racist because the letters represent the desire for Jews to have a home?  Assuming I'm reading this correctly, their claim is that Jews are being racist for wanting a home, and they are not racist because they hate Jews and want Israel destroyed?  It just seems kind of, I don't know, fishy.

Thirdly - How would a logo saying "Zion" even be racist at all?  It's not lampooning a religion or race, it's not portraying stereotypes.  It's just a word.  If the logo spelled "IRAN" would that be racist to Israelis? If the New York City games logo looked like it spelled "Black", would Al Sharpton be flipping out?  I think not.

Listen, Iran, stick to what you do best, denying the holocaust, helping spread worldwide Jewish conspiracy theories to weak-minded youths, and hiding Women's breasts.  Leave the fine print analysis to the Jewish Lawyers.

God Damn It Person Of The Day - The Smug Cheering Section at the Oscars Last Night

I'll take Melissa Leo's super annoying and awkward "I can't believe I won" look and use of the word "Golly" in her speech.  I'll take the crowd cheering on Kirk Douglas through a bit that went 10 minutes too long and bordered on painful to watch when he should never have been up there in the first place.  I'll take James Franco acting like he was too cool to host the Oscars even though HE WAS HOSTING THE OSCARS.  I'll take Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law laughing about their DUI and Prostitution arrests while children were watching.  I'll even take the King's Speech guy dedicating the Best Screenplay Oscar to stutterers around the world when it would have been way cooler to have Christopher Nolan dedicate his Oscar for Inception to all the dreamers out there, including those who dream to not stutter anymore.  But what I can not take is these smug Hollywood nincompoops cheering when the Inside Job directors mentioned that nobody has been thrown in jail from the 2008 financial crisis. 

I'm not going to get into who should be thrown and jail over the financial crisis and who shouldn't be because that's not the point of this blog.  The point is that everyone in that audience is probably friends with a guy who worked at Lehman or Bear Stearns, a ton of them surely invested money with one of many complicit investment banks or hedge funds and most importantly, most of them do not know a single person who's house was foreclosed on outside of Detroit.  We're talking about the largest concentration of smugness outside of Bono's bedroom here.  Kudos to these filmmakers as a.) I'm sure that their film was great and b.) they used their 5 minutes of exposure to draw light on something they care about, but God Damn It Hollywood, could you be more predictable and hypocritical?  You have Anne Hathaway wearing like $50k worth of dresses in one night while the audience suddenly seems aghast at the excess of Wall Street.  Sure, this may be a sweeping criticism of a large group and I'm sure many of these people are quite philanthropic, but don't pretend to be a sudden activist because the cameras are on, how fake can you get?  This is the same group who probably drove SUV's to the show where they cheered on Al Gore's global warming movie.  Shut up and focus on looking beautiful.  God Damn It.   

Some Random other thoughts on the Oscars:

- Hosting the Oscars should be like hosting the Superbowl, its better in warm weather, in a vibrant city, just like the Oscars are better hosted by a well seasoned comedian.  Miami or New Orleans.....Baldwin, Billy Crystal, or Steve Martin.  Franco and Hathaway were like Jacksonville, and nobody wants to go there.

-As terrible / creepy / uncomfortable as that Kirk Douglas thing was, he's still Kirk Douglas, and I wanted to kick Timberlake in the shins when he made fun of him.  Easy Timberlake, people still remember your stellar work in "Alpha Dog" and when you lived at that fat perverted boy band guy's house when you were like 15.

-Can we be done with Céline Marie Claudette Dion?  Titanic came out in 1997 and she's been holed-up at Caesars Palace in Vegas since 2003 with her pedophile ex-manager husband avoiding all shaving and daytime speaking.  Do you know her husband was 38 when they met and she was 12?  Celine, you're from Quebec, not France and you've lived in the US for like 20 years, enough with the heavy accent already.  Lastly, If we're going to go with a washed up Vegas-performer for the live performance of the death montage song, lets at least get someone sweet like Tom Jones, Carrot Top or Dani Gans' corpse.  Dennis Hopper would puke if he knew that he was remembered on national TV by someone whose second best song was "its all coming back to me now."

-What does Helena Bonham Carter actually look like?  Does she always look like a clay-mation character from a Tim Burton movie? I get that he is her husband, and he probably digs it, but come on, you're nominated for Best Supporting Actress, take a shower before you show up.

-Loved Aaron Sorkin just plowing through the play-off music without skipping a beat, I would rather hear him talk about anything then waste another moment of my life watching James Franco roll his eyes and be "artistic".

-Great subtle lesbian moment when the two male and one female Inception sound-mixer winners thanked their "wives".

-How badly did Spielberg look like he wanted to mention Saving Private Ryan, ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Color Purple, or Munich when he was telling the nominated but won't win Best Picture candidates and how impressive of a list they will be joining?

-Lastly, the most under-appreciated man in the game is Christopher Nolan, just no love at all from the Academy for the Dark Knight or Inception (not including the technical stuff) and the guy is a perennial ace.

Ridiculous Movie Device - The Forced Real Action at the End of a Training Movie

For years I've noticed certain devices used in movies that seem to get repeated without anyone ever questioning them.  Thus, I've decided to add a new segment to the QBDL, known as Ridiculous Movie Device.

Today's RMD is the Forced Real Action at the End of a Training Movie.

Everyone loves a good war training movie.  Top Gun, Stripes, GI Jane, The Guardian, Pearl Harbor, well, nobody really liked Pearl Harbor, but you get the idea.  What is one thing all these movies have in common?  Great training sequences, followed by ridiculous contrived "real life" scenarios.  Why do the producers of these movies routinely tack on a completely ludicrous one-off half-hour scenario in order to show the cast of characters "in action".  Just end the movie at graduation and let us extrapolate their success after that awesome coming together training piece.

Top Gun may be the most absurd of all of these final half hours.  The film is an iconic 80's classic, it has great training sequences, ahead of its time action and visual effects, emotional highs, emotional lows, questionably homo-erotic volleyball scenes, cool handshakes...its all gravy for a solid hour and a half.  Sadly though, this near masterpiece almost crashes and burns when then these maniacal producers feel the need to incorporate a pre-text for World War III at the end.

Lets set the scene here - its 1986, the Cold War is very much a going concern, and a "stricken communications ship" has drifted into hostile waters.  For the sake of time lets set aside the completely fabricated concept of a "communications ship," and focus on the "drifted into hostile waters".  This ship is apparently in the Indian ocean, and there are Russian MiG's in the area.  Why are Russian MiG's randomly patrolling the Indian ocean?  It's nowhere near the USSR or any Eastern Bloc countries.  I'd MAYBE give you Chinese MiGs, but Russians? Sorry, not buying it.  Furthermore, what waters off the Indian Ocean are hostile to the US? The setting is ludicrous, but fine, lets set aside disbelief on this one and just go with it.

Given this alternate universe with Soviet-controlled waters in the Indian Ocean, and some fake US ship dead in the water drifting towards an enemy with thousands of nukes, we now find ourselves in a potentially huge international crisis.  So what would it make the most sense to do at this point if you're working at the Pentagon?  Why of course let's send our newest recruits with absolutely zero combat experience half way around the world from their school in California to engage Soviet fighter planes before they get close enough to blow up a US aircraft carrier with their exocet missiles.  Excuse me for interrupting this clearly sound logic but DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS?!?!?!  How about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident?  Where are the diplomatic channels?  Why are we trying to engage Soviet airplanes?  Why are they trying to blow up US aircraft carriers?  I mean its 1986, tensions are cooled, we have phones and computers, PICK UP THE PHONE AND CALL GORBACHEV!! Its a communications ship not a nuclear submarine.  Moreover, there are no existing well-trained fighter pilots on this aircraft carrier already?  Why are we wasting 36 hours getting the clearly spooked and not ready Maverick to this aircraft carrier when this ship is a sitting duck in enemy territory?  Where are all the former TOP GUN graduates?  WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?! Am I taking crazy pills or is this not the most poorly handled international conflict escalation since the USS Maine blew up by accident and started the Spanish American War?  And how dismissive is the token bald commander guy at the end?  "The other side is denying it happened," he says.  WHAT?! How was this near-war with fucking RUSSIA being kept under wraps!  Is anyone else concerned that Soviet airplanes are just firing missiles at US planes?  This is declaration of war from our sworn enemy!  Lets not just laugh it off and send Maverick back to the bar to sing Great Balls of Fire.

Terribly absurd scenes like this are routinely added into these great training movies and nobody even blinks to think about how big of a deal some of these things are.  The Stripes guys perform an unauthorized US incursion into Soviet Czechoslovakia with top-secret weapons in 1981! The GI Jane Seal unit just casually orders helicopter gunships into Libya!  These Hollywood producers are the dogs of war.

Get rid of this ridiculous movie device before we end up in a nuclear holocaust.

P.S. Everyone celebrating Maverick's big win at the end, GET BACK TO WORK, your at war now, act like it.  How unprofessional can you get?

God Damn it Person of the Day - The Guy In First Class Who's Really Settled In

Whenever I board an airplane and head towards the back to find my seat in low class, I'm always amazed at how settled in the passengers in first class have managed to become in the mere 10 minutes they've been on the plane.  How do they do it?

I'm always sitting in or around the 3rd to last row, so I'm usually in the first group to board after the high-rollers, orthodox jews (always have like 5 kids and 3 strollers), and "old" people who get that bullshit pre-boarding.  (side note:  the "old" person pre-boarding is complete malarkey, just because you're on the other side of 60 doesn't make it that hard to board a plane especially given how fit these 60 year-olds are these days. They already get cheap movie tickets and those sweet Sopranos-style sweat suits you get to wear in those over 55 only sex communities in Florida, they can wait until zone 2 is called to board).

Anyway, so I'm doing that awkward sideways walk down the aisle so I can push my carry on with my knee and not smack people in the face with my backpack, and there are these judgmental assholes sitting there sipping orange juice and reading the newspaper with their shoes off.  They're just lounging around with no cares in the world, and making absolutely zero eye contact with the heathens heading back towards Steerage.  They're propped up in their double wide thrones and probably looking for a honey moon couple to invoke their right of primae noctis on.

It routinely takes me a solid ten to fifteen minutes on a plane before I settle in.  I have to make sure I've optimized my leg room by snaking more than my allotted amount of overhead bin space, done a quick terrorist sweep, checked my nearest exits in case of a never going to happen water landing, and read the airline magazine to check the movie so I can decide what my next three hours look like before committing to a book or magazine.  Yet, I get on the plane and there is some guy in a crisp suit and tie with a full work spread, reading notes and building models on his Sony Viao laptop with wireless internet.  We get it bro, you work hard, you can afford first class, why dont you sit back, wait until take off, eat your overrated airplane food and stop being such a douche.  God Damn It.

Guy I want to meet - Bundangbear

So I like hippie music.  Screw it, everyone's a hater.  The jams are too long, you have to be on drugs to like the music, the people are weird and smell, nobody wears shoes, you got hit in the eye with a glowstick once, I get the criticisms.  Most of this stuff is valid.  But let me tell you one thing: you will never find people like Bundangbear here at a Miley Cyrus concert or paying $275 on stub-hub to see Lil Wayne at the Wachovia Center in Philly. 

I stumbled onto Bundangbear while casually listening to music on YouTube, and let me tell you, this guy altered the course of my week.  Hes like a hairy Buddah without the wisdom, emitting the same good vibes from his fantastic belly.  Having been to a number of hippie concerts I can tell you that a pure hippie like this guy just doesn't come around anymore.  Most modern day hippies are weird, useless people with borderline personalities.  They contribute nothing to society, and give the God Damn It vibe that us normal hippie sympathizers have to constantly fight against.  However, Bundangbear breaks that mold. 

Upon further research, he teaches English to Koreans over the internet, he travels, and he goes to parking lots to spread happiness and check out scenes for his over 3,000 YouTube followers.  I challenge anyone not to smile when Bundangbear sing-shouts "Bundangbear! Its me, its really me."  People take themselves too seriously, and Bundangbear is just out there taking it all in.  Hats off to you Bundangbear, you joyful cave creature you. 

I want to meet this guy and ask him what he does the other 9 months of the year when jam bands aren't on their summer tours.  I have $20 on "Plays Dungeons and Dragons"  (-110)