Sunday, November 15, 2009

One-upsmanship!







I think I hyped up this joke too much this morning and everyone hated it. Still, it's my best American currency joke yet.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Like it, Love it, GOTTA HAVE IT!

So after the weekend, and about a thousand Windows 7 Release Party and Aziz Ansari's "Randy" references, I'm having a hard time deciding what I actually like with a genuine amount of admiration.



I love Randy. I know it's supposed to be ironic - I get what he's doing - but Aziz Ansari himself has testified that for the Randy character to work, the jokes have to be real, they have to have structure. So am I wrong for genuinely laughing at his absurd shit?

Also I think Randy would listen to this, and I can't tell if mash-ups should only be enjoyed in an ironic way. I don't think I can genuinely like anything anymore.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Disturbing Basement DVD Realizations

So the dvd player in my basement doesn't get that much use, though I usually watch my crappy sci-fi movies on it, or if I'm drinking at home and I need to hide. So when I decided to fire it up today it started at the scene I last left it off at.

That scene was Patricia Arquette stripping at gunpoint for Robert Loggia's character in Lost Highway. I need to stop watching Lynch on my family dvd player.

Thank god this dvd player gets no use. My family would assume I'm really into watching porn with Robert Loggia.

Monday, October 19, 2009

The Adventures of Child-Man

Giving up WoW for the foreseeable future.

Not giving up cartoons.



Yes, that's a cartoon John Hodgman who will show up sometime this season. Super excited.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Overwhelmed

So instead of hijacking this blog for the summer, and replacing the fun videos and short blurbs we post on here with three page reviews of shitty science fiction, I've moved the reviews to a new blog entitled A Space Travesty

Check it out there. A review of "Queen of the Amazons" is now up.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

The Excellent SciFi of Today



Need a train buddy to go see this one. You in O'Brain? Now I really have a craving to see Sam Rockwell yelling "GO BACK TO BED, CHINA!"

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Monday, June 8, 2009

The Crappy SciFi of Today


Debbie Gibson! Lorenzo Lamas! A mega shark and a giant octopus. Amazing.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

50 Movie Pack: SciFi Classics: Part I - The Incredible Petrified World

While picking up Wrath of Khan to satiate my incredible jonesing for Star Trek at Best Buy, I espied a box set of DVDs, entitled 50 Movie Pack: SciFi Classics. Touting such unheard of classics as They Came From Beyond Space, Kong Island, and Laser Mission, I immediately grabbed for the 15 dollars it was selling for and ran to the register. The first film is The Incredible Petrified World, starring John Carradine. Coincidentally, his son David Carradine passed away by apparent hanging in Thailand today, so of course there was no more a topical film to start this journey through 50 awful films. I will be giving a synopsis of each film, along with my opinion and amount of alcohol needed to endure the rigors of cinematic waste. The Incredible Petrified World is hardly incredible, and only the acting could be described as petrified. But I’m already getting ahead of myself.

The movie begins with stock film of a sand shark attacking an octopus, plankton chilling out, and fish gone wild, while a voiceover narrator informs us that oceanographers are intrigued by the Phantom Layer of the world’s oceans, which possibly contains millions of octopi. I am immediately craving murder by octopus. The blind deep sea predators are then described, along with the coelecanthe. I don’t need to learn about fish! Give me murders! The narrator informs us that we will invade the black wilderness of the ocean. MAJOR TWIST: The narrator was simply part of a film that some investor was showing off to bow-tied ocean aficionados. While eating fish sticks and tiny hot dogs they discuss a newly invented diving bell, which will allow for more boring ocean films to be made. We learn that there are actually two bells, the original, developed by Carradine’s Professor Wyman, and another built by the investor, Mr. Matheny, whose lead engineer is none other than Jim Wyman, Carradine’s brother. Carradine is at this moment preparing to launch his bell!

On his ship, a whole bunch of hubbub is going on about his new diving bell. The captain goes and informs “Lady Reporter” to come check out the launch. Too bad Professor Wyman is too big of a pussy to go down in his own diving bell, so he has assigned Craig and Paul, two of his oceanography students, to take it down, along with two still-unnamed ladies who so far are only referred to by gender. The descent begins! The bell reaches a depth of 1700 feet when the lights stop working. A cable slipped! Communication with the surface has ceased. Men wearing suits look upset. The newspaper reporters jump on Carradine like murderous octopi.

The occupants of the diving bell are shown alive, marooned at the bottom of the ocean with only 100 cubic feet of oxygen keeping them alive. Paul and Craig discuss their predicament and discuss their doomed lives. Paul doesn’t expect to see any new sea creatures – WHAT! There is still light from outside the bell, even though they have descended far beyond light’s penetration. Quickly they don their scuba gear. And somehow, even though the pressure should destroy the intrepid explorers, they have survived the escape from the diving bell. The other bell, built by the mustachioed connoisseurs of ocean film hors deourves, is mentioned, and I assume that an insane rescue will be mounted for Craig and Paul, though they have discovered for themselves a subterranean cave. Craig and Paul return to the bell for shoes and spears, obvious necessities when under the ocean. The two men begin to spear fish, while above the surface John Carradine drinks coffee. A sonar watcher informs the good professor that he witnessed masses swimming about, and he is certain they are men, because as a sonar watcher, he just knows a fish from a man!

At this point I need beer. They enjoy their fish and hit the hay. Nothing like a good night’s sleep to explore some plaster sets in the morning. They set off, and around a corner they discover an iguana! THE HUMANITY! They actually just sidestep the slithering beast and continue to find a pool of fresh water. Oh this is just what I want to see in theaters in the 1950s. Don’t fight any lizards, but please do find fountains and drinking water! This is amazing! The women begin to get catty. I learn their names. Lauri wishes they could help each other out, but finally, the brunt of ‘50s sci-fi misogyny becomes apparent and Dale, that Lady Reporter, tells her companion that there is nothing to help, “not as long as they have two men around.” At this point they realize they have come upon a dead end, which they have been led to by the now infallible Craig. While waiting for Paul to deliver crawfish, they hear screaming, and follow his yelps to find him kneeling before a human skeleton! Dale screams, and they see Santa Claus! A bearded cave creature appears, and Paul tells them not to worry. “So he’s a weirdo! Who else would come down here?” The wide-eyed beardo just stares back at them until they climb up to him. The bearded man tells them that he came with Skeletor whose name was Maurice, informs them that there is no way out, and that the air they are breathing is merely an outgassing of a nearby subterranean volcano. He takes them to his home, which consists of an old log (perhaps the only incredibly petrified object in the whole film) and a whole lot of fish bones. He tells them to rest.

Apparently the weirdo’s story doesn’t mesh with Paul’s quick perception, and he tells daddy-o Craig that they should keep their eye on him. Dale even begins to doubt her ever-present misogyny when she surmises that the old man might not be all there. Craig drops the bomb on Lauri by telling her he loves her. All they need is each other, and the sappy moment seems like it would never end, until, what would we see, but old beardo staring them down, his eyes like clams; his teeth like chiclets. On the surface, Professor Wyman visits the movie-loving engineer, Mr. Matheny, who has given up on the second bell. Wyman suggests to the man that he would like to use the second bell and take a dive himself. He discovered (probably on a drunken binge) that the bell didn’t fail “at the weakest link, but the strongest.” In possibly the worst/best montage I have ever witnessed, Wyman and his brother, who had been working on the second bell all along, break into the lab and start putting together cogs, wheels and gears. They drink coffee, they check alignments, and soon, they pat each other on the back.

Back in the caves the weirdo checks out Lauri while she fills a conch shell with water. Now that Dale knows about Craig’s relationship with Lauri, she’s pissed! No longer the center of attention, Dale tells Lauri that they better listen to her, or things aren’t going to be pretty. Lauri mans up and tells that bitch off. Beardo merely watches. The men are currently getting the last of the gear from the bell, while Wyman’s ship resides above them. Paul gets the bends and Craig drags him through the water to the other bell, now resting right next to the old bell. Wyman has found them! Wyman’s brother enters the bell with Craig and Paul, and is very excited. Beardo is excited too, and finds Dale alone, suggesting to her that they should kill the others and be together alone, JUST LIKE HE KILLED HIS FORMER COMPANION, MAURICE. Dale flips out and starts screaming when the volcano erupts. Beardo begins to chase Lauri and Dale through the caves, only to die to a cave-in. Then they find a passed out Craig back at the entrance to the caves, who wakes up and takes them back to the second, dual Wyman-engineered, bell. Dale apologizes to Lauri, and together they drink from a Thermos filled with love. Back on the ship, they thank Matheny, and Craig and Lauri have a weird moment, when a crewman mentions how happy they must be to be on the surface where they have room to breathe. Craig intones that he never really thought about how important it is, “having enough room to breathe.” I like to imagine that a sequel of this film would revolve around their failed marriage where Craig yells at Lauri for cooking too much red meat, and not letting him go to his regular poker game with Paul and Professor Wyman.

The film ends as the ship sets sail, and after three beers, I am mildly upset by how little excitement this film provides. Not one fish attack! Not one murder by Beardo! However, there was plenty of misogyny, which is a requirement for any film I enjoy made before 1960. I leave you with the full quote from Lauri and Dale’s catty beginnings, long before their thermos-based friendship. I hope the next film in this set provides more entertainment, and perhaps, more fish murder.

Dale Marshall: [to Lauri] You just listen to me, Miss Innocent. There's nothing friendly between two females. There never was. There never will be.
Lauri Talbott: Sorry you feel that way. I was hoping we could help each other.
Dale Marshall: You don't need help - neither do I. Not as long as we have two men around us.


Rating: 2 diving bells out of 5.

Monday, June 1, 2009

You're Just Not A War-time Consigliere-wolf

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON trailer


Watching this trailer while The Godfather plays in the background is an eye-opening experience. When will teen vampire movies finally reach the cinematic achievement of the most important gangster film ever made?

"It's a vampiric message: Edward Cullen swims with the fishes"

"You can ACT LIKE A WEREWOLF!"

"What are you?"
"A war-time consigliere."
"How long have you been a war-time consigliere?"
"A while."

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Unfinished Drafts

Looking through possible entries to edit, I realize I start many and never finish. I apologize for all the great things you're missing out on. I mean, they could be really great. At least my whiteboard covered in "To Dont's" and crazy ideas would imply that they could be great.

I finished the third season of The Wire tonight with Os. The season seemed to lurch and halt at times, but I think it was a creative decision that followed McNulty's same path of reconciling the absoluteness of his quest to put one man behind bars and the eventual emptiness he feels when bullets take that away from him.

Those same thematic bullets keep me from finishing blog entries, to putting life shit in order, to picking up healthy hobbies now neglected. Actually I can't even say that, because I don't put eggs in any baskets, let alone all of them in one. A friend of mine once told me that I just let things fall in my lap. I guess that's true, and I guess that's why I feel just as empty as McNulty about it.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Why have I not seen this video sooner? This makes me want to be in quarantine with the other teachers who have the piggy flew. Actually, they're not on an island, but the other jerks who have a week-and-a-half off, probably are lounging and  listening to Debarge.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Jeff Probst's Doppleganger

Taking the name Ed Probst, I begin an endeavor into a home/work version of Survivor

Concept: An internet version of Survivor consisting of a Google group and a chain e-mail to 10 contestants. Every week a challenge will be put forth and the winner gets immunity from getting voted out of the Google group. These challenges may be electronic or physical or any random thing that pops into my head. The chain e-mail is for updates and for the contestants to trash talk each other while at work. Eventually contestants will begin to e-mail each other privately and form alliances and secret vendettas.

In practice: So far, so good. The first week's challenge was to create a visual creation of an ultimate survivor, including a chart listing attributes and skills. Inspired by the discovery of Darwinius massilae, a possible missing link in the fossil record. Other challenges may follow down a theme that is yet unknown to contestants, and in a beguiling manner, to myself.

One of the entries for the challenge:

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

True Evolution vs. Makin' Money

A guy with a Jesus Fish adornment on his car cut me off the other day. I always wondered about the Jesus Fish and what kind of "witnessing" the bearers of said mark are attempting to accomplish. Seeing a Jesus Fish on some jerks car is about as likely to get me to give my life to Christ as a Vote for Jimmy Buffet bumper sticker is going to coerce me into changing my decision at the polls.

This weekend began a family debate with no end concerning Honus Wagner's contribution to the sport of baseball. He is unequivocally considered to be the best short stop of all time, by baseball writers whose grandparents never even saw the guy play. His numbers are daunting and it is strange that no player has eclipsed his milestones for over 100 years.

The status of the man had me wondering about the state of evolution and where we as a species are headed. Psychoactive drugs have led New Agers to believe that 95% of children exhibit this aura. The credulous feelings I encounter when thinking about such a situation overwhelm my rationale. Are we pursuing science in an effort to gain insight to truth, or do we use what little we know to puff ourselves up as being greater than the random place we fill on our little planet?

Will science ever be as well understood among a majority of people as the religion and fiction with which we preoccupy most of our time?

Saturday, May 2, 2009

George Takei: Hero

Kirk: Yes, at night the temperature drops to 120 degrees below zero.

Sulu: That's nippy.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Abhorrent Sexual Fantasies, Pt. 1

Yeoman, I'm in love.


Looking for women interested in donning federation standard issue.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Falling Down On Corners

Had such a long and good weekend, from acapella birthday songs to drunken washers and eating doritos while watching friends get in melee scuffles. My bones ache right now, and I'm barely making it through these episodes of The Wire, but I will persevere.

Taking the chemistry Praxis next weekend and I'm really nervous, but hopefully it works out in the end. I need to get some application stuff done for a teaching program I'm looking at but I forget how to write about myself in a positive way.

Omar Don't Scare

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Catching the Big Fish

Lately I've been having a hard time distinguishing between my subconscious feats and my lucid ones. I think it's due to an overactive imagination coupled with a feeling of dread for all things real. I even take myself out of moments lately that have the crippling effect of this reality. Other people's discussions about their lives and reconciling the world they live in are a far cry from the nagging doubt I have about my abilities to thrive and exist in the same realm.

David Lynch prescribes transcendental meditation as the cure-all for these doubts, and as a gateway to the ultimate goal of "catching the big fish" - that moment wherein dream can actually become reality. I've never been one for mysticism beyond the occasional religious event, but maybe it's time I start thinking about a way to cope in a place full of confusing predicaments. For now, I think I'll begin a dream journal as some way to keep reminded of my own shortcomings and possible solutions to these terrifying events.

Unfortunately I remain a child - a returned piece of scrap from a pile of mail at home informed me of my sad state; it was a list of a perfected end-game team of Pokemon.

Keep dreaming.

Monday, March 23, 2009



What I would like to receive for my next birthday.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

For LOST Fans Only (semi-spoilers)

My brother; merchant marine, part-time philosopher, and The View-watcher, has cracked the whole steaming goose egg that is the mystery of LOST, which he detailed to me via text: (posted verbatim)

Andrew: Dude that kid that claire had on the island is jack when he was young. And ben is jacks brother cuz if you watch the episode back in season two when jack is young you see that little boy ben is waving to him with his mom
Me: You are full of it.
Andrew: No its true then marty takes jennifer home and drops her on that swinging bench
Me: how did ben get off the island as a boy?
Andrew: good question iguado. That submarine that blew up used to time travel when it hit eighty eight miles an hour
Me: Jin taught charlotte korean when she was a little girl i bet.
Andrew: Jin was drivin one of the police cars that was chasing hurley in the first episode of season four
Andrew: And suns father is that dude in those videos when he was younger
Me: So in your own words, what is really going on. Whats the whole point?
Andrew: I dont know...Land Before Time meets Happy Days

There you have it. All of LOST condensed to an easily accessible thought. Of course, Andrew once told me that LOST was like Dawson's Creek meets The X-Files meets Baywatch, so there's still a lot of mystery to mull over here.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

David Kriss Kross

Gosh, gosh, gosh. I love, love, love David Cross. Even though he's not a big stand-up fan, I still love both of his cds.

He did an interview for NY Post, where he said he has no idea what's happening with the Arrested Development. And then he had this to say:

What's next for you?

Thanks to a little something called contractual obligation, I'm heading to Los Angeles to do the sequel . . . I'm sorry, did I say sequel? I meant squeak-quel . . . to "Alvin and the Chipmunks," which I was not interested in at all until I heard they were calling it a "squeak-quel." Then I said, "f - - - ing sign me up." But yeah, that is a contractual obligation that I can't get out of, so I will be doing that.


Too bad I'm going to be in Azia when Year One comes out. Also, I'm digging the biblical mullet Paul Rudd is sporting. 1980s = BC?


 

Monday, February 2, 2009

Things That Prove I'm Average Joe America Part I...

Used the Taco Bell store locator to figure out where I can satiate my current crunchwrap fix. I feel like this would be a cause of depression for me, if I wasn't wavering on the fact that maybe I did this because I'm already depressed.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Disko

This video makes me want to be more into disco.

Also, if you happen to look up the name Fan Death on wikipedia, you'll find out that it is an urban legend in South Korea. Could this be a sign that a fan may cause me to suffocate or die o hypothermia? Ruh-roh.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Monday, January 5, 2009

Photoshopping some of my faves!

Apologies for no photoshopped masterpieces recently.

In celebration of the holidays, here are some of Hub City Brotel's favorite people. Actually, they're definitely some of my faves.

As ESW puts it best, Mark Harmon is a D-list version of Bill Paxton, who's a B-list version of Dennis Quaid. Of course, this photo was taken in 1987, when Mark Harmon (then only a B-list version of Dennis Quaid), interviewed famed karaoke idol, William Hung. William Hung performed "She Bangs" on that episode.

 [Note to self: For those planning my funeral, I request Hung's version of "She Bangs" to be played during the procession].



No joke, John Candy = probably best comedian ever? Clint Howard = best cameo actor ever? Coincidentally, Clint Howard also loves eating Cameo cookies.