I'm taking some time off ...

I think I'm going to take a week or so off from writing the blog. I just need a break, yo. I'll still be social networking and such on Facebook and Twitter, so you can talk to me there if you miss me too much. Or comment on any posts. I usually respond, unless I can't think of anything (most common), or I forget (also quite common), or I think your comment is incredibly stupid and I don't want to encourage you by responding (but that's hardly ever the case. But it is sometimes.).

In the meantime, here are links to my top ten most-viewed posts, if you want to do some catching up or just relive the glory of the posts that don't suck:

1. The Current State of Baby Names: A post in which I rant about people giving their kids stupid-ass names in the interest of being "unique."

2. The Big Bang Theory Isn't Funny: A post from before I started censoring f-bombs, in which I rant about how much that stupid show sucks.

3. A Plot Review of Top Gun: A post in which I make fun of every young boy's favorite movie.

4. Movies I Haven't Seen: Gremlins: A post in which I drive the movie Gremlins off a cliff.

5. What is the Big Deal About Downton Abbey?: A post in which I try -- and mostly fail -- to understand why everyone is so bloody obsessed with that show. 

6. How to Fast-Forward the Gun Control Debate: A comic to fast-forward any gun control debate right to the fun part where you call each other idiots.

7. The One with the Pictures of the Big-Headed Babies: There's other stuff in this post too, but let's face it -- we're here for the baby that looks like Mr. Magoo.

8. Angry Eyebrows: One of my personal favorites! A post in which I draw angry eyebrows onto beloved cartoon characters and make them look terrifying/insane.

9. Dear Men: No, I am not pregnant. Sincerely, Women: A post in which I overflow with rage at the rudeness and presumption of people who constantly ask women if they're pregnant.

10. Movies I Haven't Seen: Harry Potter: Taking a wild stab at the plot of the entire Harry Potter series, based on the fact that I have seen 1.2 of the movies and absorbed nothing.


I'll be back with more posts in about a week. Unless I check myself into rehab for "exhaustion" when it's totally obvious to everyone that I just have a drug problem.

At least, I will as soon as I figure out how to turn my duck tour whistle into a "quack pipe." 

COME ON GUYS, THAT'S HILARIOUS.

Terrible Movie Reviews: The Rock

I knew I was going to love The Rock from the moment I saw the DVD cover. Why? Because it stars two of my most favorite dramatic actors of all time: Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery. What's not to like about that?! Extra points to Sean Connery, who is dolled up like a lunatic with long hair and shaggy beard for a good portion of the movie.

"The Rock" is about the San Francisco prison island of Alcatraz, aka the prison that is impossible to escape from. But as it turns out ... IT ISN'T IMPOSSIBLE AT ALL. Because one person has successfully escaped. And that person is Sean Connery.

... a very, very insane-looking Sean Connery.

The movie starts with the introduction of the villains: a group of US Marines led by Ed Harris, with extremely confused motives and even more confused methods. These Marines -- you know, the Marine Corps: Semper Fi, leave no man behind, death before dishonor, vow to protect America and her citizens from harm -- are mad at the government for something or other so they take a bunch of (American) tourists hostage and then hijack some deadly VX rockets and threaten to fire them into San Francisco and kill a bunch of (American) civilians if their demands are not met. Because the Marines would totally do that and this movie is not at all propaganda.

Pictured: a dude who would totally kidnap and indiscriminately murder a bunch of American citizens, because America sucks.

Oh, by the way, the tourists they've taken hostage? They were taking a tour ... of ALCATRAZ!

I'm serious, bro!

Obviously, the FBI does the only reasonable thing, which is to recruit Sean Connery to help them because as the only man to have escaped from Alcatraz, he is also the only man who can sneak in a team in to stop Ed Harris and the evil Marine Corps from killing innocent Americans. Apparently, Alcatraz was built upon a network of tunnels that no one has ever bothered to map, and Connery is the only guy who knows the way.

Totally understandable.

After some brief shenanigans (including a high-speed car chase through San Francisco, because ?????), Connery agrees to help them sneak onto The Rock. And guess who has to go with them to defuse the rockets? FBI chemical weapons specialist NICOLAS CAGE (who is totally believable* as a super-genius scientist guy).

*totally believable? more like UNBELIEVABLY BELIEVABLE!

Cage is pretty worried about the whole mission, seeing as how he has no combat experience and is just a lowly lab scientist. He and Connery form a cute odd couple partnership that is both totally effective and also good for a few yucks.

Look, I don't mean to criticize, but I'm just saying that maybe a little slapstick comedy with the vials of VX gas shattering all over the place could have made the movie better. Especially if they killed both of these characters. You know, like the scene in Borat where he keeps falling and knocking over all that Confederate memorabilia?? Just something to keep in mind for the sequel.

Connery successfully sneaks the team into Alcatraz, at which point he announces in his trademark hillbilly Scottish accent like a mouthful of caramel, "Welcome to The Rock." Jesse likes to say this in a pretty spot-on Connery impersonation at just about every opportunity.

I'll take "the rapist" for 400.

Then, I don't know, I guess Nic Cage defuses the bombs or something and all those dastardly Marines are killed. I think one of the rockets fires but they screw up the trajectory so it just lands harmlessly in San Francisco bay. I don't remember anything after filthy hobo Sean Connery says "Welcome to The Rock," because that was the only part worth remembering. 

I mean honestly, what are we supposed to make of a movie where the US Marine Corps are the villains and a Scottish bum and Nic Cage are the heroes? Of course, my revulsion has never once stopped me from turning this movie on if I see it on TV. Jesse and I even watched it in our hotel room one night during our honeymoon, because f**k it, The Rock is on.

We could have been splashing around the swim-up bar.

I'm so ashamed.

Facebook pictures you should think twice before posting

Sometimes you're scanning through your Facebook news feed and come across a picture that either upsets you, irritates you, or just seems like an enormous waste of time. I do not like these types of pictures. They must stop.

Here are three categories of annoying Facebook pictures that I wish I didn't have to look at anymore:

1

Food

This one has been covered and covered and covered by just about every angry comic blogger that ever was alive, and yet people still do it.

YOU GUYS. STOP.

First off, I can tell you with 99.99% certainty that the picture you post doesn't look anywhere near as appetizing as the actual meal may have looked. Most of these pictures look more like a vomited-up dinner than a not-yet-consumed dinner. If you want people to get jealous and feel hungry based on how delicious your meal is (and everyone wants to do that sometimes -- lord knows I have frequently tried to make enemies based on my tasty culinary delights), USE YOUR WORDS. Describe how good it smells and how it's cooked to perfection and how the cheese has melted just so. If you just upload a picture of your weird saggy lasagna with a couple spears of limp asparagus next to it, I think "gross" and happily go back to eating my Hamburger Helper, which looks suspiciously much better than whatever supposedly gourmet crap you're eating.

Here are a few examples of what I found by googling "food instagram." Tell me if any one of these makes you even slightly hungry:

Gross.

Gross.

Terrible.

Are you kidding me?

Exceptions: If you've got a really impressive spread of food -- like a party buffet that either looks really awesome or is impressive for sheer quantity -- then by all means, document that shit. If you've baked some sort of cake or equivalently attractive confection and you think you did a particularly good job decorating it (or maybe a notably poor job), go ahead and document it. Or if you've made the food into something hilarious or awesome (like if you arranged your mashed potatoes into a peenor), then please, please let me see.

Ha!

2

Your kids with food smeared all over their faces

I will tread as carefully as I can on this one, because it seems like just about every mother does this at some point or another. And if you have, don't worry: I still like you, and hopefully after this section, you will still like me too. If I accomplish nothing else with this but to prevent MYSELF from ever uploading these kinds of pictures in the future, then I will consider this a success.

Dear Moms: after changing thousands of diapers and seeing liquids you didn't know existed spew forth from your child and get crusted between the chains of your favorite necklace, you've become desensitized to gross. It happens. So please, please believe me when I say this: pictures of your kid with food smeared all over his face are DISGUSTING. They're gross. They're not funny. They turn my stomach.

I'm not even going to include an example shot, because that's how much they turn my stomach.

It's not just that spaghetti sauce caked into eyebrows is gross (but it is). It's also kind of ... pathetic and sad, I guess. Like that video of David Hasselhoff rolling around on the ground too drunk to eat a hamburger properly, there's just something pitiful about a person who isn't able to feed themselves -- no matter their age. I don't laugh at that sad old guy with a giant mustard stain on his shirt -- I pity him. And I feel the same sort of grossed-out pity when I see that your kid managed to get as much applesauce into his ear canals as into his mouth. It makes me think that your kid is stupid. I'm just being honest here, really: that is the subconscious feeling I get from seeing these pictures.

Sigh.

It also doesn't help that almost any type of food that can be smeared on a person's face resembles a bodily fluid that absolutely should NOT be near the innocent face of a child. Just think about THAT next time you're tempted to share that shot of your kid with dark brown pudding or bright red marinara sauce or, god forbid, gloppy white cream of wheat all over himself. If you think it's funny, take the picture. Send it to your mom, and maybe to a couple of other mom-friends. But don't put it on Facebook.

Exceptions: if your kid has one dollop of frosting on his nose or a single Cheerio glued to her forehead, go for it. That achieves the sort of funny that I think you were going for the whole time, but without making me throw up something that looks like the pictures in part 1.

THIS. This is cute. This does not make me sad.

3

Pictures of you doing something boring ... that are actually just pictures of your boobs

Oh, ladies-who-love-their-boobs. You are so cute. You thought you had us fooled, didn't you, with that selfie of you unloading the dishwasher? Maybe you can fool the boys on your news feed with these ones, but you're not going to get away with it while I'm around.

I'm talking about pictures that masquerade as shots of you cuddling your cat or pretending to drink whiskey straight from the bottle or doing any other number of inane things ... but you're standing in this odd way in a low cut shirt that makes it totally obvious you're just posing a cleavage shot.

I'm built like an athlete (read: if I inhale deeply, I can almost fill my A-cup), so it is physically impossible for me to do this. But that doesn't mean I didn't try to back in my younger years. And so I know all the tricks. And they make me laugh. 

Okay, I thought about this one some more, and this is actually the only one on the list that you don't have to stop doing. In fact, I kind of love it -- please continue, but come up with more and more creative ways to make the cleavage shot look accidental. 

Please, please, let's all do this now. I'll go first with a nice stuffed-bra shot (no seriously, I put on two bras and filled them with socks). Guys, you can join too. Just remember the low-cut top and lovely fake breasts:

Just doing some laundry, because obviously me sorting whites and darks is a Facebook-worthy shot.

 Oh look, someone gave me a Shakespeare book! Let me just hold it in such a way that my upper arms are forcing my boobs together and up.

Also, I tried to do duck face and it was such an abysmal failure that I replaced it with this actual duck.

Take your own "oops, are those my boobs?!" pictures and post them on my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/PatentsPatented ... or email them to me at patentspatented@gmail.com and I'll add them to this post (I can put a clown over your face if you'd prefer, or even a duck), or send them to me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/patentspatented.

YAY FUN GAME.


Oh yeah, and ... yeah, no more food pics, kay?

Friday Poundings: "growmentum" --> homicide

Welcome to another Friday, and another round of random thoughts and complaints!

First up ...
-- I was reading this article on Reuters and the advertisement that took up the entire rest of the page was for some financial firm called CIT. Both the top banner ad and the left-side banner ad both contained definitions for the word "growmentum," some stupid corporate buzzword that these idiots apparently made up that combines growth with momentum.

As soon as I saw this word emblazoned on the page, I immediately got this strong urge to commit homicide. I HATE stupid made-up corporate buzzwords. I would rather watch a thousand videos of dolphins doing the Harlem Shake (ooooooomg do you think there are any videos of dolphins doing the Harlem Shake??!) than look for one more second at this insulting, infuriating, TERRIBLE EXCUSE FOR A WORD.

Growmentum.

Oh god, every time I leave the office to go to the bathroom or get some water, I come back and see it and it makes me mad all over again.

This is the guy who came up with that horseshit.

F*** you, CIT Corporate Finance. I hope you go out of business and everyone who works there gets a drug problem. And also syphilis.

-- My high school ten year reunion is coming up this summer, and when I saw the event on Facebook and read through the wall posts and comments, I realized that I don't remember anyone/anything about high school. My graduating class was under 400 people, and I'm sure that at the time I was at least AWARE of everyone by name. But looking at these people commenting about how excited they are, I was like "who the hell are you? You didn't go to my high school. I don't remember you at all." I would even pull up their profile pictures, and then look at other profile pictures to maybe get a better angle, and still, nope, nothing. No recollection. Without using Facebook to cheat, I could probably have named maybe ten people that I went to high school with. (this is just what happens when you go to college across the country and then stay there for ten years)

I thought this was weird, though, so I spent some time thinking really hard and trying to call up a few more high school memories. The first and only memory that came to me was this: one day, we were in the girls' locker room getting changed for gym class. I would have been about 17 at the time. This one girl, whose name I can't remember, was talking about ass cellulite and said something like "yeah, I don't really worry about a little cellulite on my ass. I mean, all women have it. ALL women." And I looked at her with unbridled disgust and announced that "I don't!" To me, her statement was the equivalent of saying "ALL women have hairy asses, so there's no point in shaving mine" or "oh please, EVERYONE diarrheas their pants in front of their in-laws at least ONCE in their life!"  What? No they don't. That is madness. Anyway, my look of horror and disgust totally took the wind out of her sails and likely gave her self esteem issues that she didn't have before, and looking back on this whole thing, I feel pretty bad about it.

Pictured: How to make friends with women.

You guys, seriously, that is the only thing that happened in high school that I could remember off the top of my head.

So what the hell does that say about me???

I don't think I'll be attending my reunion, though.

I think it's for the best. I wasn't very nice back then. I had a great ass, though.

Those Harlem Shake videos are hilarious and I don't care who disagrees

I don't really follow memes. I just don't. I watched the actual Gangnam Style video exactly one time, giggled a little, and then never watched it or any of the myriad parody videos again.

(dear Mom: a "meme" is something -- either a picture, phrase, video, etc. -- that suddenly gets really popular on the internet so everyone makes their own version of it, trying to be the funniest person around. For example, I used a meme just the other day in my discussion of Downton Abbey: the black lady that says "ain't nobody got time fo that." My version of the meme was, of course, not very funny)

Except I obviously have plenty of time for that. Soooo .... yeah.

This weekend, I was perusing my Twitter feed and kept seeing references to this thing called the "Harlem Shake." I deduced, using my incredible powers of deduction, that the Harlem Shake was some sort of dance, and that it had gone viral for some reason, clogging up the internet with amateur videos of people attempting their own versions of it.

(dear Mom: when something "goes viral," that means everyone with an internet connection has sent links to it to everyone they know, because they find it so hilarious that they feel all their friends, neighbors and acquaintances must see it as well. And those people agree that it is hilarious, so they send it to everyone THEY know, until soon enough, everyone in the world knows about it)

Like this f***ing cat, apparently.

I had to know more.

So I did what any too-old-to-know-about-a-meme-but-still-young-enough-to-not-have-to-ask-their-children-about-it person would do: I googled it and read about it on knowyourmeme.com. I watched a few of the videos of different people attempting it.

And I laughed.

And I laughed.

And I laughed.

Dudes, I don't care what you think -- that shit is funny.

For those who are old/out of the loop like me, here is what these Harlem Shake videos are all about, and why they are so awesome:

1. A group of very sedate and uninteresting people sits/stands around doing nothing. Perhaps they are working in an office, or eating their lunch, or standing in formation (obviously, members of the military have put together some fine examples of the Harlem Shake)

2. One person, wearing a ridiculous mask of some sort, begins to dance badly. Everyone else completely ignores this person, continuing to go about their business. I am already laughing at this point, because one white guy in a horse mask dancing alone and badly is funny on every level. The person is dancing to the "Harlem Shake" song, which is how this whole trend got its name. (there is also a dance called the Harlem Shake, but that is not at all what the masked white-boys are doing. They are doing the white-boy dance, which is like the macarena only with no choreography and also worse somehow).

3. At the 15-second mark, the music pauses for the briefest of instants, the beat drops, and the video cuts to the exact same angle, but now all the people who were working/eating lunch/standing at attention have been replaced by ABSOLUTE IDIOCY. The scene has turned into a dance party -- the kind of dance party I wish I could be invited to. Everyone is dressed in ridiculous outfits and is holding ridiculous props. They are doing the weirdest, wackiest, and worst dance moves imaginable. 

This goes on for another fifteen seconds, and then it all ends as incomprehensibly as it started.

And I cannot stop laughing.

Now I shall illustrate this a bit better, with screenshots from some of my favorite Harlem Shake videos:

First, the video that started it all (watch it here):

He also stares at the camera while he does it, which is somehow even funnier. Like he's looking into your soul and shouting "hey, watch me punch this giraffe in the face! Try to look away!"

Starting a meme is cool and all, but obviously others are going to take the idea to even further extremes, which will manage to be even funnier. For instance, the costumes have gotten wilder ... and sometimes, the sheer number of people involved is just magical. Like this version here:

It starts with a wizard riding in on a scooter, because duh. He then begins to dance, as usual:

Then, we hit the fifteen second mark ...

HOW ARE THERE SO MANY PEOPLE HERE AND POWER RANGERS WTF I DON'T EVEN.

Sometimes the cast gets more ridiculous, like this lovely Army one from somewhere in the world (watch it here):

And then the beat drops, and ...

Please watch this one. I can't even point out all the things that are hysterical in this video. You've got a guy in a blue man suit. You've got two guys buttoned into one shirt. You've got guys in sleeping bags flopping around on the ground. On the right, one guy FALLS OUT A WINDOW while another guy smashes his head into the building over and over again. It is beautiful and utterly bewildering. I have watched it at least ten times and I just ... I can't ...


But this isn't even the best one. The best one that I've seen is this one here, put on by those beautiful bastards of the UGA swim and dive team:

Because who doesn't often sit around at the bottom of a pool ignoring a guy in a Storm Trooper mask gyrating on a table?

IT IS A GIANT UNDERWATER DANCE PARTY WITH LIKE A THOUSAND PEOPLE AND ONE GUY IS IN A BAG AND WHAT THE F*** IS GOING ON HERE IN THIS BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL MESS?!?!?!




Ah jeez. Memes. Sometimes, they're worth it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to watch some more Harlem Shake videos. And if you know of any other particularly great ones that you think I might enjoy, please link them in the comments. I'm not over this one yet. I am still laughing.

Terrible Movie Reviews: RoboCop

The other day, Jesse emerged from the bathroom and haughtily informed me that "they" (as in, those idiots that run Hollywood) are remaking RoboCop. Naturally, Jesse was upset about this -- just another symptom of the total lack of creativity that reigns supreme in moviemaking these days, he said, where they'd rather just remake old movies and slap on sequels to existing franchises than actually come up with anything new and original.

Haha, just kidding -- he was only partially pissed off about the lack of creativity. Most of his anger came from the fact that the original RoboCop was such a work of art that there's no way they could remake it and have it not turn out an abject failure. I kind of agree that the remake won't be any good, but not for the same reasons. I think it'll suck because if you've got shit to work with, there's no way to cook it up so it ain't shit anymore. You can make it shit stew or shit soup or shit souffle, but it's still going to taste awful.

Here's why RoboCop is shit:

RoboCop takes place in a vaguely-more-awful-than-reality Detroit, Michigan, sometime in the future when the city is about to plunge into terrible bankrupt anarchy (finally, a movie that accurately predicted the future!). An evil corporation (of course) has decided to fix everything by taking over the police force and using robots to stop crime or something. Plan A is to use some giant expensive robot thing to arrest criminals, and the corporate execs show off this fancy new invention during a board meeting.

You're NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE what happens next, though ...

Unfortunately, in a total surprise move, they didn't really have all the kinks worked out so the robot goes on a shooting rampage, destroying the board room, terrifying everyone, and KILLING AN UNTOLD NUMBER OF INNOCENT PEOPLE.

SOMEBODY'S GOT A CASE OF THE MONDAYS, AMIRITE??

Right?!?! I mean, what were they doing standing there? It's like they WANTED to get shot. And the company is not liable for employee suicide, thankyouverymuch.

You're sitting on a goldmine here, Jones. Those idiot employees momentarily sidetracked your project with their boardroom suicide (which is the story we're going with now). Someone has to pay for this.

Undeterred, and apparently facing absolutely no consequences for this first catastrophic failure, the evil corporation goes back to the drawing board and comes up with an awesome Plan B: making a RoboCop that is half man, half machine (and don't think indiscriminate murder means Plan A is out the window -- it's not. It will be back later).

First, they'll need a volunteer to be the half-man part of the RoboCop. And by "volunteer," obviously I mean a guy who gives no consent and has a family that advocates for him about as well as the families of the guys who got murdered by the original robot. Playing the role of "guy who gives no consent and has a shitty family" is new-to-the-area cop Alex Murphy. Murphy gets killed by some bad guys, so the evil corporation steals his body and turns him into the RoboCop.

ROBOCOP!!!!!

RoboCop is pretty good at stopping crime, and by that I mean that he is single-handedly able to stop pretty much all the crime in the city. Everything is going swimmingly until the SURPRISE TWIST where we find out that the utterly evil corporation is actually in cahoots with the evil gang of bad guys that originally killed Murphy!

And then we find out the EVEN SURPRISIER SURPRISE TWIST which is that RoboCop has been programmed not to arrest any executives of the evil corporation!

This leaves RoboCop unable to arrest the bad guy who runs the evil corporation, while at the same time, the original robot that killed all those people at the beginning of the movie is now somehow fixed and is being used to try and kill RoboCop. Oh, and all the bad guys in the gang that killed Murphy have been randomly released from prison and provided with powerful weapons, because ... wait, what the f**k?? 

So then a bunch of other shit happens and the situation gets resolved with the baddest bad guy falling out a window for some reason.

I bet his family didn't even get a settlement.

They really ought to put some psychologists on staff to do something about all these suicides.

Things I suck at -- Volume 2: Mini golf

I'm not allowed to play miniature golf. Don't ever invite me along on such an excursion. If you do, you will definitely regret it. I am not joking about this. I'M NOT ALLOWED TO PLAY MINI GOLF.

You see, mini golf is inherently infuriating. It's made to be. You have a tiny little golf club and you have to hit a ball through a series of ridiculous and impossible obstacles, where one wrong move or miscalculation can send you right back to the starting tee -- or worse, your ball can fly off the course entirely.

So why am I banned from playing mini golf? Simple: because the game is so frustrating, I rage out and become violent 100% of the times that I try to play.

Here's how it goes:

1

I warn everyone that I tend to have a serious rage problem during mini golf, but they do not listen

They never take my warnings seriously, however, and insist that it will be fine and we'll all have a great time.

2

I do really well on the first hole

This is known as "the calm before the storm."

3

I don't do as well on the second hole, but I'm still feeling good about myself from my preliminary success

I know this sounds like a positive attitude. DO NOT BE FOOLED.

4

By the third or fourth hole, things have really started to go wrong

The language also gets progressively more colorful as the failures pile up.

5

By the fifth hole, some gentle ribbing results in new-asshole-tearing of the highest degree

DON'T TEASE ME WHEN I AM IN FULL-ON MINI GOLF RAGE.

6

By the eighth hole, gentle ribbing results in homicidal violence

7

By the ninth hole, I have rage-quit the game

The beer does nothing to soothe my rage, however.

8

By the next day, gentle ribbing results in ...

YOU GUYS I'M NOT KIDDING. DON'T EVER INVITE ME TO PLAY MINI GOLF.

FOR YOUR OWN SAKE.

I'M A MONSTER.