So, here we are. Monday. Ugh.
Still, to brighten up your morning (hopefully), we do have some new stuff--there's a new Second Opinion (on people who cuddle too much), the Generic Video Game Quest String, and as always, a new Daily Fluff.
And if you haven't already seen it, I'm about 9-6 so far in my Uninformed Football Picks, and there's a fun Fluff 5 about poor Costco decisions.
So Ashley Simpson and Pete Wentz now have a brand new baby boy, whom they have named . . . wait for it . . . Bronx Mowgli Wentz. Yes, just let it wash over you for a moment. Bronx . . . Mowgli . . . Wentz.
Is it the worst celebrity name of all time? Hardly. As craptacular as it may be, I don't think it really can compare to the wonders of Audio Science, Kal-El, or Heavenly Haraani Tiger Lily. But it definitely has promise. I'm going to just assume that Mowgli is some expression of an extreme love for Kipling. Bronx is a puzzler though. What possesses people to name their children after the boroughs of New York? What qualities does the Bronx have that you really want to evoke through your child's name? We've already had to watch the explosion of Brooklyn as a name, and now its Bronx? I wonder if Manhattan will be next. (I can hear it now: "Ooooo. It's so cuuuuute. And we can call her 'Hattie' for short.") Please people. Get ahold of yourself with the crazy location names.
Though I have to admit that with no justification at all, I kinda like the way that Zuma Rossdale rolls off the tongue.
So we're now being bombarded with ads for Rosie O'Donnell's new primetime variety show. I have 2 primary and visceral responses to these promos:
1.) A variety show? Are you kidding me? Did I just accidentally trip and fall into a time machine? Who on earth wants to watch a variety show? Anything showing at 8pm is guaranteed to be watered-down "family friendly" fare, so the whole thing sounds a lot like an Oscars telecast without the nice dresses.
2.) If you must have a variety show, shouldn't you make some effort to get a host that doesn't cause mass sterility? Or at least one with something approaching charm? Yes, once upon a time, Rosie O'Donnell appeared cheerful and nice and had a (with hindsight, incredibly disturbing) public crush on Tom Cruise. But she has long since transformed into angry militant scowling Rosie. And now she's slinking around my TV screen in the least convincing feather boa and shiny dress of all time. I've never seen a feather boa that looked so much like it wanted to strangle its owner and run away.
Last night's episode continued the saccharine assault of the Jim/Pam romance, but I'm starting to get used to it. On the bright side, Ryan's climb to ever-more-impressive heights of jerkness was pretty funny. The thing I like about his character is that it vaguely nags at you as being exactly like someone you've worked with (or gone to school with), but you can't pin down who it was. His break-up with Kelly was pitch-perfect: "You don't want me to resent you, do you? Let's be adults about this. Let's have sex one last time and if you have any extra money, that would be awesome." (mostly paraphrasing)
It continues to be a bit mystifying as to why Michael hates Toby so, so much. Sure, there's the fact that Toby is usually the one to put a stop to Michael's culturally insensitive disasters. But it seems to go deeper than that. Like Toby is the Lex Luthor to Michael's Superman, the Joker to his Batman, the Rosie O'Donnell to his Donald Trump. Though I have to admit that, as awful as it was for Michael to try to frame Toby for drugs, it was hard not to see Michael's point of view about Toby's reaction: "You think I just framed you and you're worried about the taxpayers? Jesus!" (Again, probably not an exact quote, but you get the point.)
The "She's a man, baby," pic of Eliot Spitzer's mistress forces me to wonder about why on earth some people are widely considered hot. I'm not going to accept any subjectiveness about taste here. I agree that this can be a factor in your personal attraction to someone, but looks are objective. People who try to tell you that Brad Pitt or Halle Berry just aren't good looking are deeply in denial or trying to impress you with their offbeat taste. Of course, they're objectively good looking--they may not be your type, but don't tell me that you'd shoot down Halle Berry if she came on to you. (I'll admit the, "but she's crazy," personality component starts to come in to play here a bit, but let's not get sidetracked. She's an incredibly good-looking human being, and that's objective fact.)
But what interests me more than people claiming that beautiful people aren't beautiful are the less-than-beautiful people that people go crazy about. I'm not thinking here of ordinary people in your life--that's a totally different dynamic. I'm thinking here of . . . well . . . people like incredibly annoying pop musician Fergie.
 I've known guys who would put Fergie in their Top 5 Hottest Women on Earth cheat list. That's what I don't get. She's not royally ugly, and she has a good body. But this is a fantasy girl. There's no way on earth that your average guy is going to get this girl. So why are you wasting fantasy slot on her? There are easily a dozen actresses, models, or musicians who are objectively better looking. And I'm not even going to mention how she peed herself at that concert. (Oops, guess I did anyway.) I know it's not her talent. (Yeah, "ooh, the flossy, flossy," is pure poetry.) It makes no damned sense at all. A lot of these guys have fantasy football teams, and you don't see them picking Kyle Orton over Tom Brady or Peyton Manning just because he seems more approachable. So why on earth do they downgrade on their sexual fantasy team?
I believe that, as a nation, we really need to do something about the quality of political mistresses in our scandals. I mean, look at this (apparently rare, non-topless) picture of the girlfriend-turned-wife of French President Sarkozy:
And here is a picture of Ashley Dupre, mistress/call girl for former Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer. (And this is a "flattering" shot.)
I'm not even going to bring up Lewinsky or Paula Jones. What the hell America? We can do better than this! C'mon, say it with me: Yes We Can!
Today I came across a neat, I suppose, little website which contains an ‘Imagination Generator’.
http://www.creativity-portal.com/prompts/imagination.prompt.html
It’s a button you can press that will prompt suggestions for you to write about. The following are the actual queries I generated, so I decided to use the first six of these for a blog today, answering them to the somewhat best of my feeble ability.
1. What do you desire?
Answer: I desire, at the moment, alcohol. I’d kill for a drink, sitting here in my office, staring at wallpaper that needs changed from the wild days of the 80’s. I also desire to watch midget sex, but that’s brought on from too much caffeine I think.
2. Does honesty pay?
Answer: Depends. Honesty mixed with wives/girlfriends rarely if ever works. The key to a good and healthy relationship depends upon your ability to master the ‘White Lie’. If you are a heterosexual male who has been in a relationship for more than six months, then you already know this, and are well on your way to acquiring the Black Belt of accepted lying. It just never works being honest with your spouse, unless it regards money, lying is simply an open game. Honesty also does not work at your job position. How on earth does a guy like me make nearly fifty thousand a year without a college education, and can find time to write blogs and surf the net all day without having a seriously good lying skill? The only time honesty pays is when an old woman drops her purse full of money and you kindly pick it up and return it to her, because, even though it’s okay to lie to your spouse or your boss, it’s never cool to just be a dick in general.
3. When I’m angry…
Answer: I stare out in space a lot, pout like a six year old, (Kool-Aid stained lips and all) and fold my arms like the whiny little bitch that I am when pissed.
4. Do you do anything to help the needy?
Answer: Yes, see this blog.
5. Would you work for someone who stresses you out even though the money is good?
Answer: Absolutely, stress from bosses, no matter how shitty, can not undue the pure joy of seeing your bank account swell.
6. Describe the perfect summer day. What would you do on that day?
Answer: Wake up, eat magic mushrooms, go to the biggest water park I can drive to without being pulled over for swerving while staring at imaginary giraffes attacking my car.
Ok, I realize that I might not have been 100% fair in criticizing my friend who loved Labyrinth in the last post. After all, I think almost everyone has at least a few movies they really like despite the fact that they're not exactly quality entertainment. I'm not thinking here of Adam Sandler movies (actually, I am, but not all of them), so much as movies that are cheesy or bad or silly even for the cheesy, bad, or silly genre that they belong to. (So, under this definition, I think that Tommy Boy wouldn't qualify as a bad movie you like, but Beverly Hills Ninja would.) Maybe the best standard for judging if a movie falls into this category is if you're a little embarrassed to admit how much you like it. So, in the spirit of fair play and such, here are a few of my favorite bad movies:
Big Trouble in Little China - I know this has minor cult movie associations, which ought to relieve the embarrassment a bit, but that's totally offset by the fact that if I find this movie on cable TV in the middle of a Saturday, I will sit and watch the whole darned thing, regardless of the fact that I've probably already seen it a dozen times.
Mannequin - Honestly, this movie is so embarrasingly awful that I hesitated to own up to it. If you don't recall it, it's an '80s romance starring Andrew McCarthy as a guy who falls in love with a mannequin who can come to life played by Kim Cattrall. The plot involved Cattrall being an Ancient Egyptian princess who appealed to the gods to escape an arranged marriage and McCarthy's talent for creating innovative department store window displays. Really, there's no excuse for me liking this, not even the Hollywood Montrose character.
Summer School - With Mark Harmon and Cheers-era Kirstie Alley. Incredibly predictable combination of the goof-off does good formula combined with the unconventional teacher shtick. And I still get a huge kick out of it.
Incidentally, nothing is more irritating than someone who puts something like Gone With the Wind or The Terminator on a list of bad movies that they like. First, those aren't bad movies. Second, don't pretend that you're really embarrassed to own up to them. Third, you're not going to fool anyone into thinking that you're so sophisticated that any time that you spend watching movies instead of reading Chaucer in the original Middle English is slumming for you.
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