Today, I figured I'd poke a little fun at some of the most insanely zealous rock fans out there. Man, do Rush fans love their Toronto Trio. NEIL PERT RULES!!!!! The thing is, the rest of the world who isn't a die hard Rush fan, is unable to tolerate them for much more than a few seconds. There is very little middle ground with these guys.
Actually, the title of this post is misleading. I could only come up with 1,742 why our mulletted Canadian friends are crap. But really, there is only one that matters. Two words: Tom Sawyer.
That synth / techno / disco opening shakes my bones like a dentist drill. Not a fan.
I would also like to mention that I can't stand Giddy Lee's (or however the hell you spell it) voice. But the fact is, I do love the music of Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Smashing Pumpkins all of which feature unconventional vocals. Any fan of Tom Waits can't rip Gitty's singing too badly.
Now, if you happen to be of the ilk that loves this overproduced, overrated staple of bland Classic Rock radio (along with Styx, Foreigner, Kansas and the like), relax. No reason to get all butt hurt. There's tons of music that I love, that I'm sure you hate. If your passion for the drumming of Neil Pert has led to multiple fist fights after a few too many Labatt Blues, I respect that. Whatever blows your hair back. Just know that the band you love sucks.
Okay, this is a little bit of bait and switch. I'm actually not talking about the Oscars. Although that title certainly does apply to Spicoli. No, the public self indulgence I plan to highlight today is my own, in this particular post.
It turns out my latest diatribe about how Geico ads suck was my 100th blog entry since I started doing this crap some six months ago. If I had realized it was number one hundred, I would have commemorated the occasion with a better post. Se La Vie.
I know it's not a very impressive accomplishment. But I'm taking a cue from every great sitcom that has been hard up for material and I'm slapping together a clip show. Considering we were treated to the Oscars last night, I figured another masturbatorial celebration in which a self indulgent creative entity basks in the underwhelming glory of their own creation seemed appropriate. Tis the season to kiss your own ass. But I guarantee this will be more enjoyable than Benjamin Button.
A few of my favorite posts to date: - An Open Letter to Spain's Basketball Team. This is especially relevant with the NBA season rolling at full speed. My hatred of Pau Gasol only grows and grows.
- Ladies, This Needs To End. This one has cost me. I have alienated a fair amount of girls with my candor on stupid looking boots. This is something that a rapidly aging, single fella like myself cannot really afford to do. But I figure I alienate them anyway, at least this time it's for a good reason. (By the way, I don't know why but for some reason the font is really screwed up in some of these older posts. Blogger can really be a pain in the balls.)
- Sometimes It's Really Hard Being a BYU Fan. I hesitate to mention this only because it dredges up the humiliating, miserable disaster that was last year's College Football season. When you consider Utah's unbelievable run, all I can do is stew in my own shameful jealousy. It should have been my team that punched Alabama and the BCS in the face. But it wasn't. Damn it. Now I'm all depressed.
- The Twilight Post. First I rip on Ugg Boots and then I tear down Twilight. It's a shock that I sleep alone every night. I think I was pretty nice in this one actually. I made fun of the asinine storyline but I also acknowledged a predisposition to indulge in cultural mediocrity myself. So I saw no reason to mock the ladies that love this crap. Also, just about every girl I've talked to about Twilight is happy to admit that it isn't good on any level and that they are a little embarrassed at how much it resonates with them.
I actually bought the first book and started reading it. I read it on the cruise my family went on over the Holidays. As is the custom of most Carnival customers, I sat on a deck chair with the other pasty, fat people and read a horrible, horrible book. Now, I'm no literature snob. In fact, I'm barely literate but I know terrible writing when I see it. I guess it's a pretty big warning sign when the author doesn't even know how to spell her own name.
I really was embarrassed to be seen reading it, so I tore the cover off it to hide my shame. I got about a hundred pages into it. After the author referenced Edward's "cold and perfect face" for the three hundredth time, I gave up. There is little use in reading a book you hate, just to be ironic.
-Five Girly Songs I Like. I did a total of ten posts where I highlighted five songs from bands that I love. They never really got a very big reaction. I guess I needed to live out my "journalist for Rolling Stone"fantasy. Since I've done the last one (I think it was Jimi), the website I used to embed the songs has ceased to work, so those posts are now pretty much broken.
The fact is, very few people give a crap about why it is that I love the music that I love. It's okay. My feelings aren't that hurt. It's a little arrogant to assume that people would care. But this particular post had a different angle. It was based on guilty pleasures and self deprecation instead of over eager, gushing snobbery. I'm still going to do some music based entries, but they won't be ones like "5 Songs by The Who" (as great as they are). Instead random things like "5 Best Whistle Solos" or "5 Horrible Covers of Great Songs". I'm looking at you Puff Daddy.
My most popular post:
In N Out is Incredibly Average. If I had it to over again, I would have entitled that entry "Those are good burgers, Walter. - Shut the f*ck up, Donnie." Opportunity lost. This popularity (in both comments and hits) surprised me, since I didn't think it was that amazing. Who knew hamburgers were such a passionate issue?
One post I thought was pretty darn good and nobody seemed to give a crap about:
Frank Caliendo Sucks. I actually know a couple of people that like his comedy, so I expected a little bit of backlash but I got nothing (no comments, low hits). This actually has a pretty funny story about it.
In November, my cousin's wife had a baby. I went to the hospital to visit them and my cousin told me about this funny little occurrence. Over the past couple of years, he has told several of his friends and his wife's friends the cat story. That damn story has really stuck to me. I'm not complaining. If I didn't enjoy telling it, I wouldn't recite verbatim over and over. So when my cousin found out that I had posted it, he blasted an email with my blog link to many of these people who had heard the story from him.
The entry that happened to be right above the Cat Story was another post entitled "Frank Caliendo Still Sucks." in which I revisit my gripe with Fatty MaGoo and his unfunny impressions. Well it turns out that my cousin's wife is best friends with a girl named Michelle. Michelle's last name? Caliendo. Yeah, she's married to Frank Caliendo. And my cousin innocently sent her an email with the link to my crappy blog with an article on the top of the page about how some schlub thinks that her nationally recognizable husband is a hack.
Folks, it's a good chance Frank has read all about how I think he sucks.
On thing I've learned over the months:
I don't need to hyperlink every friggin' reference I bring up.Wow! I sure did like the hyperlink tool in the early days. For some reason, I thought it added a little depth but it was really just irritating. Take this entry about how the X games suck. There are fifteen links in the first two paragraphs. What the hell? The thing is, people stop clicking them after like the third one. And it's kind of a pain in the ass to find all the pictures. I mean, in the opening sentence I mention the x games and include a link to the logo. Pointless. Also, most of the links are dead within a few days anyway. I like to think I have learned my lesson. The only links I have now are worth clicking on.
Well that's it. This post has effectively been the DVD commentary on a movie that wasn't that good to begin with. Of course at my current rate of posting, it will take about nine years until I write another hundred posts. So odds are good we won't have to do another one of these retrospective look backs for quite a while. Enjoy.
And not for the horrible Caveman ads. They've been beaten into the ground and haven't been close to funny in three years. But they aren't as bad as their new ones.
Geico has a new ad campaign that features a stack of money with googly eyes meant to represent the money you should be saving with their services. They then play Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me". It's just awful. I mean it is insultingly awful. Look, I understand that advertising pays for the free TV I watch on a daily basis. But it seems to me that if I was shelling out millions of dollars on advertising that I would want to avoid pissing off my potential customers.
Listen Geico, in addition to this asinine commercial, you also have the appalling caveman crap and the talking lizard. You can't have three different, unassociated ad campaigns going at the same time, especially when two of those three are terrible! You can't! It's against the rules. I will grant you that the talking lizard is kind of cute. Throw an English on any kind of animated, talking animal and you've got me hooked. Especially a monkey. Nothing is more entertaining than an English accented talking monkey. But this only serves to illustrate just how low my standard of entertainment is. Talking monkey. That's all you need to amuse me. But you fail to meet even this minimal threshold with your crappy caveman bullshit and the googly eyed wad of cash. Damn it!
The thing that irritates me about this is the pure laziness of it all. Was there really a marketing meeting in the corporate offices at Geico when some black framed glasses wearing, soul patch having, tight sweater wearing advertising douchebag revealed the long anticipated campaign of googly eyed money and the company president shouted, "Brilliant!"? I some how doubt that ever happened. I would imagine any sensible person in this imaginary meeting would have asked, "Why would the money follow them around and look at them? If the money has eyes, wouldn't it need feet as well? Really, what is the point of this crap? Is this the best you could come up with? Honestly it's more confusing and irritating than clever and entertaining. How much are we paying you to throw this garbage together?"
But the answer to any of these concerns is the following: "It doesn't matter. As long as we buy up tons of ad space and have something that is memorable, than we get our name out there and that's all that matters." And therein lies the problem. Their objective isn't to entertain their audience. It is to annoy them. They are actively trying to piss me off. I may hate the commercial, but at least I remembered it. And my ranting and raving only plays into their game, which only pisses me off more.
But you know what Geico? Go to hell. Go to hell for taking the cheap way out. Go to hell for insulting and antagonizing me. You want to antagonize me? Antagonize me, mother f*cker! Get in the ring mother f*cker and I'll kick your bitchy little ass. PUNK! (GNR Rules.) Go to hell for manipulating me into hating you just so I would recognize your brand. And most of all, go to hell for failing to entertain me. There is a reason I tune in to NBA basketball, Lost, 24 and other shows yous sponsor and it isn't to consider which auto insurance to buy. So if you want there to be a part of my brain that thinks fondly of your service when I do make that decision, you should try your best to please me during your very expensive prime time exposure. Dance, monkey! Dance!
Also, I have heard from many people that your coverage totally sucks. So you can go to hell for that too.
Update: I just thought of another separate ad campaign they have out. The ones where the celebrities explain customer's experiences with crappy Geico. These are actually pretty funny. Which makes the googly eyed money stack that much more inexcusable. Damn it Geico, you know how to entertain me, but you defiantly refuse to. Seriously, go to hell.
A few days ago I was rifling through some old posts on the blog and came across a new comment on a previous entry. A few months ago I shared an amusing self deprecating anecdote that featured my own failure and humiliation. It seems to be somewhat of a theme. You can read the whole thing here. In short, I got a job at Costco and tried to pick up on a chick while working there and I, or rather the contents of my cart, scared her away for good. No hard feelings. It really was funny.
While recounting the events that lead up to me getting a job at Costco that summer, I threw in a random jab at Vector Marketing and their CutCo Knife bullshit. Here is the extent of my CutCo rip:
I was home from college for the summer and I needed a job. Always a sucky spot to be in. It’s hard enough to get a job, much less one that will only last for three months. I have sat through my share of scams being advertised in the want ads as “12 dollars an hour! No commission! No door to door sales!” You know what, Vector Marketing? You can take your CutCo Knifes and blow it out your lying ass.
Someone I don’t know, calling herself Jill took it upon herself to stand up for Vector Marketing by posting the following comment two months after the original post:
Pretty funny post. Anyway, Vector Marketing would have been a way better choice, especially because you had taken some/a marketing classes. On one hand you would not have bumped into Nicole, on the other, she wouldn't think you were a freak.
Now it was a complimentary comment that was in no way mean spirited. Although that link she sent is pretty amusing. I think it’s a little strange that Vector has people trolling the internet looking for critical comments on crappy blogs to defend their good name. Apparently there is a lot of anti Vector commentary, since they have gone through the trouble to publish that fancy petition Jill provided. By the way, nothing adds to your professional credibility like a petition whose opening sentence is “Vector Marketing is an awesome company!” That sounds like a High School pep rally, not a respectable response to criticism.
The civil tone of her comment was refreshing since anonymous blog comments can get pretty nasty. I recognize that by publishing my thoughts on the interweb, I am inviting people to disagree with me. If you are going to voluntarily publish details of your life, you need to have some reasonably thick skin. I’m looking at you Paige. (Another story for another day.) So I don’t want to launch a spiteful retort to Jill’s comment because I like Jill and thinks she's a nice person. But I am going to relay my experience that led to my skeptical attitude toward our friends at Vector. Of course this experience happened several years ago, so I can't vouch a hundred percent for authenticity of the details. But any reader of this blog knows to take anything I say with a grain of salt. (An expression, I've never understood.)
Picture it. Provo, 2001. (I've been watching a lot of Golden Girls recently) I had just got out of a Winter Semester at BYU. Provo is a terrible place to try and find any kind of summer work. There is a huge student population and they're all looking for some kind of income and hopefully something they can put on a resume. There are several companies that recognize this ambition (desperation) and they lure gullible (greedy) students into leveraging (exploiting) their networking skills (Missionary experience) into aggressively selling some kind of product that no one really wants.
Here’s the part where I could go off now on a screaming, mouth foaming diatribe about pest control and security systems sales jobs that are the moral equivalent of Catholic Church’s selling of indulgences hundreds of years ago. Sure it’s indefensibly wrong, but you can make a lot of money. My buddy Spencer loves to rant about this, so I’ll just link you to a few blog entries where he takes them to task much better than I could. Here’s one. Here’s another. Seriously, they are worth reading. Especially the second one.
So back to summer of '01. I started combing the want ads for summer work, ever aware of the exploitative nature of my job environment. I came across an ad that said something along these lines, “Vector Marketing: Twelve dollars an hour, no commission, no door to door sales.” Most hourly jobs were running between seven and eight dollars an hour. This seemed like a good lead however the ad said absolutely nothing about what it is I would be doing. Not even a two word description. This was a red flag. They weren’t saving money on their ad space. No, this was definitely a company that had something to hide. But it was worth checking out. So I called them up, figuring a five minute conversation would get the complete story.
“Hi, I was calling about your ad in the paper.”
“Great, it so happens that we are having an ‘Opportunity Meeting’ today at 2:00. (What luck!) Bring a notepad and our regional supervisor (or whatever bullshit title they made up) will give you the information you need.”
“I just have a few ques- "
“Our regional supervisor will answer any questions.”
“Could you just tell me what the job entails?”
“Come on in and we’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
“Couldn’t you just spend thirty seconds over the phone and give me a two sentence answer to that simple question?”
“It really is a lot easier if you just attend our opportunity meeting, today at 2:00.”
“But it does pay twelve dollars an hour.”
“Yes.”
“No door to door sales, no commission?”
“Yes.”
“Are there sales involved?”
“Again sir, it would be easier to let the opportunity meeting cover all your questions.”
It really was kind of a fun game. Trying to trick the nice girl who answers the phone (it could have been Jill) into telling you the forbidden information of what the hell this mystery job entails. It was summer, I was unemployed and bored so I took the bait. My buddy Gregg and I went to their crappy meeting and oh man, it was entertaining.
This incredible opportunity of a lifetime meeting was being held in an empty office with stained carpets next to a bowling alley. There was a beat up white board and some cheap folding chairs arranged in a semi circle. These weren’t even the nice folding chairs you borrow from the ward. They were the thin ones painted brown with one short leg making it rock back and forth. The kind that are always incredibly cold to sit on and made an amazing amount of noise when you folded them up. There were about twenty or so people (marks) sitting on said chairs who were also drawn by the promise of a relatively high wage. Some were wearing what were clearly their Mission suits, some were sporting the “I’m an Accounting Major boner that hangs out at the TannerBuilding all day” business casual look of a blue dress shirt and no tie. Gregg and I strolled in twenty minutes late wearing shorts and t shirts.
The head douche, who I imagine was the mythic regional supervisor (we missed his introduction which I’m sure included a detailed resume) was prattling on about some Steven Covey horse shit and pumping up the gullible (again, read greedy) among us into some fanciful dreams of easy money.
The head douche was a pretty interesting guy. He wasn’t much older than me, but he struck me as the kind of guy that really really wanted to an AP on his Mission. The kind of guy who carried around a brief case at Zone Conference and was completely shameless and unapologetic about his ass kissing and back stabbing. He’s the guy that would get off by busting you down for singing a Led Zeppelin song while trackting and would talk shit about you to the Mission President. The kind of guy who realized at about 20 months in that he never will be AP and then spent the rest of his time sleeping in, going to movies, ripping the actual AP’s and jacking off. And this particular douche was wearing a double breasted suit that he kept buttoned up the whole time. His smile was relentless and desperate. Genuine enthusiasm cannot come from someone who is fundamentally phony. Sorry pal, you could be offering me the job of a lifetime, but you have no credibility with me.
We sat there for some time waiting to have our simple question answered, only to be met with more warmed over Tony Robbins “90% of success is just showing up” kind of bullcrap. It was interesting to watch the crowd. The more intelligent among us saw this for the bait and switch that it was. But there were a few who were eating it up. They were eagerly answering questions and sharing past successes (almost always having to do with their Missions), trying very hard to impress the head douche. And how do you impress a douche? You out douche him.
After an hour, we still had not heard one word as to what the hell this job entailed. We heard all about Vector’s financial success. Strange that such amazing success translates into holding your recruitment meetings in an empty, bowling alley adjacent building with some pretty obvious water leakage. We heard all about the financial success that comes from setting ambitious goals. We heard all about a few case studies of college students that started at Vector and were now titans of industry and heads of state all over the world. But my original question of what the hell do we actually do to earn twelve dollars an hour had yet to be addressed. It was then that the head douche asked this question: “Who knows what the word ‘ergonomic’ means?”
One of the more vocal marks looking to impress the head douche shot his hand up, so excited that he knew the answer: “It means something that was designed to synergize with the human body.”
Impressive the way he was able to both use a Covey approved buzz word and make the answer sound creepier than it needed to. The head douche was pleased. He then opened a flat box on the stained folding table in front of him to reveal a complete set of CutCo brand knives.
“The ergonomic design of CutCo brand knife handles is its premier feature. This is Vector Marketing’s competitive advantage over its competition.”
I remember thinking, “Is he really going to sell us knives? Oh my crap! He’s really going to do it.”
He then launched into a steak knife infomercial with all the subtly and grace of a horny high school kid trying to cop a feel. It was forced and awkward. He actually cut a soda can and then followed that demonstration of brute strength up by slicing a tomato razor thin. Dude, at least be original. You should try to avoid being a living, breathing parody of yourself. What was he expecting our reaction to be?
“Holy crap! He cut a penny in half with those scissors! And they’re ergonomic?! I must own them! And I must sell them to everyone I know! It will be the easiest thing ever! There’s no way on earth I would end up alienating every friendship I have by trying to obligate every one I know into buying something they don’t really want. No, it will be a natural experience. One that will in no way portray me as an oily charlatan when I pressure my Aunt and Uncle to replace something they already have five of at our next family reunion. It can’t miss! Good thing I took the initiative and showed up at this fantastic opportunity meeting! 90% of my success is already achieved!”
After the entire knife shpeel, he then finally got around to describing the career opportunity that lay before us. We, as Vector Marketing reps, would be responsible for setting up sales presentations in people’s homes. Would we keep track of our hours on a time sheet and be compensated at twelve dollars an hour for doing so? No. We would be paid twelve dollars for every sales presentation, which usually take about an hour. Slightly different than twelve dollars an hour. Of course, that is after our initial deposit of a couple hundred dollars for our set of display knives. We then are paid a commission on any sales that are closed.
“But the newspaper ad said ‘No Commission.’” I said to the head douche.
“But you are paid that twelve dollars as a base and any added sales is gravy!”
“But there is no flat rate of work. We are paid only on the number of presentations not the amount of total activity. That’s a commission.”
“Not technically.”
And how are we to find people to present our wares to, you ask?
“How many of you have family and friends that would be interested in this incredible product? I know the girls at my sister’s Relief Society Enrichment night would love an opportunity to see what a quality set of cutlery is capable of. And if you don’t have any family in the area, door to door sales are amazingly effective. And hey, we’ve all knocked doors before on the 'Mish'. It’s not that bad.”
“Didn’t the ad specifically say, ‘No door to door sales’?”
“Well, door to door sales are not required but they can provide some fantastic opportunities. But you know what? Let’s all start out by writing down five people that you know that would be interested in this presentation right now. That’s sixty bucks you have on your paper. And that’s assuming you don’t make a sale and we all know you will nail it. Heck, depending on the sale, those five people could cover you initial deposit!”
At this point, my buddy Gregg nudged me and showed me his meeting’s worth of notes he had been doodling:
(This of course is a recreation I whipped up on Paint. By the way, the guy isn't Asian, his eyes are closed. I figured if I ever licked a set of balls, I would probably close my eyes while I did it.)
I laughed very loudly and unapologetically. It made the head douche a little uncomfortable. We then stood up and walked out while he was in mid sentence.
Seven and a half years later, I now find myself as a sales professional. A real salesman that consults with real businesses by selling them actual solutions to actual problems. Slightly different from selling penny cutting scissors door to door. And let me tell you something, this kind of garbage gives us legitimate sales reps a bad name. People smell this greasy bull crap a mile away and they resent the hell out of it. It insults and manipulates them. If CutCo Knives are so wonderful (and they very likely could be) then sell them at Bed Bath and Beyond. That way, when a customer needs a knife, they could go to the store and buy what they need, when they need it. I promise you that no one in the history of time has ever said to themselves, "Man, I need a good fillet knife but I just don't want to go to the store and buy it. If only a stranger would knock on my door, unannounced and uninvited and aggressively sell me a deceptively priced knife. Oh well. Guess I'll just get in my car and buy it the way I buy every single other thing in my life."
I don’t know what it is about us Mormons that makes us such easy prey for this kind of crap. I really wish I knew. What irritates me the most about it all is the way they shamelessly try to parlay the skills and confidence we developed on our Missions into the most hackneyed of sales jobs. It's shameful the way they often exploit the organizations of the church like Priesthood Quorums, Relief Society and Home Teaching assignments and turn them into a sales pipeline. There’s something deeply wrong with that. It’s not quite the same thing as the money changers that Christ threw out of the Temple but it’s along the same lines. Now before I go overboard with my indignation, I don't think it is nearly as bad as APX Security Systems reps lying to the elderly about crime rates to scare them into buying a crappy product. But I do think that this whole wheeling and dealing, Glenn Gary Glenn Ross culture cheapens the church and its members.
By the way, you gotta love the way I get all sanctimonious and righteous at the end of an entry that included several swear words, references to “jacking off” and “copping a feel” as well as crudely drawn balls. Such is the complicated paradox that is me.
I have discovered something that will revolutionize your world. Be it at work or school or at an airport or any number of other locations, we all have the daily necessity of taking care of some business in a public restroom. Now a king is not a king on any other thrown than his own. Which means that what should be a relaxing, pleasant experience can often be full of anxiety and embarrassment due to the lack of privacy those damn stalls are known for. But my friends, I have devised a strategy that will revolutionize this experience and restore it as the liberating release it should be.
A quick disclaimer: there has been plenty of crass humor in this blog but I'm pretty sure I have completely avoided any reference to the bathroom. (It's entirely possible that last line is bullcrap.) This has not been an accident. I'm no prude but I almost always find poo jokes to be just plain gross. Not funny gross. Gross. But this discovery needs to be shared. And if it is done at the expense of my better judgment, so be it.
Now there is no shortage of things you should avoid while having a sit down appointment with your friend John. A few examples include: Yodeling. Sure, you may have great acoustics, but it's poor etiquette and just irritating for those around you. Eating a Baby Ruth. This leads to some pretty obvious sensorial confusion. Talking on a cell phone. This is a lose lose situation for everyone involved, both of the people on that call and anyone else in that bathroom. Have you ever heard someone complain that they dropped their cell phone in the toilet? The untold part of that story is that they had to reached their bare hand into the toilet to fish out their phone. Now depending on the timing of that drop, I would only give 50/50 odds that the water was clear. The moral of the story? Keep your phone in your pocket.
But what could this world changing discovery be? Like most great innovations the answer is quite simple; find yourself a good song on the old Ipod and crank it. I know, it's not extraordinarily original. But the advantages of this cannot be understated.
It is important that you decide on the song before you enter the bathroom. This jump starts the musical sensation and prevents any indecisiveness further into the process. By playing a really good song on high volume, you not only cancel out any noise (made by either you or the fat guy in the stall next to you) you replace that noise with an escapist experience that let's your mind float away. This releases you from any hesitation that you may have previously felt. You are liberated, oblivious to your surroundings and completely free to to properly express yourself.
You know how blind people have really good hearing? By losing one sense, the others compensate and are heightened, right? Well the opposite is also true. By focusing on the sense of hearing in such an overwhelming way, all the other senses are dialed down. This means that by rocking out to Guns N Roses while on the can, your sense of smell will be inhibited enough that any odor (again either coming from you or the fat guy next door) will lose a great deal of its offensiveness. Thus allowing you to enjoy your time spent.
It is also important to continue listening until you are out of the bathroom all together, so that the full impact of your surroundings is not realized, ruining the illusion of privacy you have created. Also, by keeping that Ipod in the pocket until after hand washing you prevent any cross contamination. No one needs is a pooey Ipod.
Seriously, give this a try. Apple needs to start including this in their marketing. However, one word of caution: fellas, don't get too into your music. While employing this strategy at the airport a few weeks ago, I was rocking out to some Neil Diamond. That's right. Neil Diamond. The single greatest creative genius of this or any other generation. And as I was bobbing my head to Cracklin' Rosie (how hell can't you?) I realized that I was aggressively tapping my foot to the unapologetic bliss of his music. What can I say? Neil makes me sing like a guitar humming. But the last thing you ever want to do is accidentally (or on purpose) solicit gay sex in an airport bathroom (or any bathroom). "Honestly Officer, I was just jamming to Neil! Well, that didn't sound very good either. But I'm innocent, I tell ya!"
"Tell me where the device is. . . . TELL ME WHERE THE DEVICE IS!"
The truth cannot hide from the concentrated intensity of Kieffer.
So after a year or so off the air, 24 has made its triumphant return to TV. For all intents and purposes however, 24 hasn't been on TV for two years since the last season totally sucked. I only watched the first couple of episodes. When the tyrannical genius that was the architect of all the terrorism in the world (you can tell he's bad because he talks into a blue tooth headset) turned out to be Jack Bauer's brother, the show crossed the line into that ridiculous comic book level of villainy and it lost any connection to reality.
But 24 loses a little bit of its impact every year. The first season was just about the best piece of television my fat ass has ever seen. It was new, intense and Kim wasn't irritating as all hell, yet. But, it suffers from the Die Hard syndrome. In an effort to recreate the magic of the original, they just tell the same story every time. Sure the second Die Hard was a way cool movie. Any movie where John McClain kills a guy by stabbing him in the eye with an ice cycle is alright with me. But there's just no way all this crap would happen to the same guy twice. Much less three or four times. It relies too heavily on coincidence especially when they have to find ways to bring in all the secondary characters. His wife was on the same plane as the asshole reporter? Bullcrap. That's just lazy storytelling.
Likewise in 24, they felt the need bring Kim back every year for no good reason. She's kinda hot but not hot enough to compensate for her annoyingness. Is annoyingness a word? I don't care, I'm going with it. When they decided to stick her into CTU in the third season and have her date Jack's partner, I just about lost interest. But I stayed with it. I even stayed on when they made the President the ultimate villain. You remember the guy that conveniently looked like Nixon and was married to the lady from Designing Women? Not the leader or the fat one or the lesbian. The boring one. You know. But when the blue tooth sporting Dr Romano from ER turned out to be the Cain to Jack's Abel, I finally jumped ship. However, after a few years I'm back on board.
Is this the seventh season now? It's been on for a while either way and as a result the formula is pretty predictable. Of course there's a leak in the FBI. But you also new that it wasn't the one suspicious looking, greasy haired dick. It would be too obvious. He was just worried about his wife. But with that red herring out of the way, the question remains. Who is the leak? My money is on Janine Garafolo. We all know she hates America.
And was it really a shock when they revealed that elements in the White House were on the bad guy's payroll? When they cast the warden from the Shawshank Redemption as the President's Carl Rovian aide, you new he was going to be a backstabber. They haven't come out and said that he's a mole. But they will. I'm waiting for the president's pussy husband to call him "obtuse" and then get sent to the hole for a month.
Also, I'm glad they have completed the world tour in blood thirsty villains. They began it all with Dennis Hopper as the Eastern European (Yugoslavia or something) warlord. Since then, they have had the following as their villains; those wacky Arabs (actually it was a stupid white girl working in league with Islamic terrorists), South American drug cartels (always fertile ground to pick your villain from), Arabs again (but I'm going to include India on this since Kumar played one of the parts), the Chinese government (that was before the Olympics displayed China for the transparent people's paradise that it is), corrupt and powerful Americans (gotta sprinkle in a little self loathing to justify vilifying everyone else) and now we have genocidal Africans. Have they left anyone out? I'm a little surprised Germany has survived this long without hatching a plot against Jack Bauer. They are the most convenient villains of all. Well, that's season eight right there.
In honor of the glorious return of Jack Bauer I now post an episode from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia that contains one reference to him in 22 minutes. I don't care, it's a funny show. Although fair warning: the opening scene contains a smiling, masturbating bum. Yeah. Not the most high brow entertainment you'll see today. But Charlie dressed like Serpico always cracks me up.
When you take it upon yourself to sporadically document your own random thoughts for the world to enjoy, it can be a little unsettling to go back reread your creation. I have gone back and reread a number of my entries from the last few months and I'm a little troubled. Now, I don't regret a single entry, nor am I embarrassed by their content. I am, however, a little unsettled by the subject matter.
After about a hundred entries or so, let me sum it all up for you; Classic Rock is good, Coen Brother movies are good, Sarah Jessica Parker is ugly, the Lakers are evil, 31 year old celibate Mormons are horny and all hipsters need go to hell and die. That's pretty much the jist of my self indulgent opus. Notice how I have yet to elaborate on literature (Twilight excluded) or Art or Science. Instead I have chosen to wallow in the cultural mediocrity that I somehow find satisfying. Or at least convenient and comfortable. And I'm not apologizing for it.
So let me continue on with my celebration of pudgy consumerism by comparing a fast food chain to a TV show. Brilliant.
So a week ago a bunch of friends and I were driving home from our Vegas New Year's celebration. Nothing says "Happy New Years" quite like standing in street vomit outside of a fake Eiffel Tower. By the way, The Belagio can kiss my ball sack. What the hell? You can't turn on your fountain at New Year? Seriously, why the hell don't they just have the fountain running all the time? Making me wait around for a half hour for the water show and then nothing! Nothing at all! I want to see dancing, shooting water choreographed to smooth rhythms of Lionel Ritchie, damn it! I don't think I'm asking for too much.
I'm sure Vegas is a lot more fun you get loaded up drunk and bang a hooker, but we abstained. We were the vegetarians at the Bar B Que. Instead we got hugs from random drunk guys by doing the frat boy yell. You know the one. "YEEEAAHHH! WOOOOOOOO!!" It's like a duck call. Shout it out and backward baseball hat wearing, soul patch having sweet bro's just flock and embrace you. I liked it. But I'm the needy type.
Like every New Year's, it was fun, but underwhelming. But it was better than going to some lame ass house party in Salt Lake and watching Ryan Seacrest recap this year's cultural landmarks. I'll take my street vomit, thank you very much.
Anyway, we pulled over in St George on the way home to gas up and thought we would stop by the new In N Out for lunch. (seven paragraphs in, I'm finally getting around to the title) Before we got there, we decided on some Japanese food instead. After eating, we drove by the In N Out to get back on the freeway.
Sweet merciful crap!
There was a line of at least thirty cars wrapped around that building. Look, I get that this is the first franchise in Utah and generally, we Utahns aspire to be as cool as Californians. And we only really know how to express our coolness by consuming the same crap Californians consume. But folks, can we get a grip? (Word's spell check doesn't recognize "Utahn" as a word but it does recognize "Californian". Am I a little thin skinned to be pissed off by that?)
It's a good burger but it isn't crack. In fact I can think of several burgers that are better than In N Out. Del Taco for example. That's right. I said it. The bottom feeder of fast food chains beats the mighty In N Out at their signature menu item. And by "signature" I mean one of the three things they bother to sell. They're too cool to sell anything else. Burgers, fries, shakes. You want something else? Then, f*ck off!
But average burgers isn't where it ends. Their shakes suck and their fries are kinda cardboard like. McDonalds has better fries. McDonalds! The living breathing incarnation of low quality food beats the hell out of In N Out in the most important of fast food staples. I know, In N Out makes them from fresh potatoes. Who gives a crap? Since when was the quality of a potato decided by it's freshness? In fact the potato's ability to last forever and still taste good is the whole idea behind the potato. Without that defining characteristic, it is entirely possible that Ireland and Idaho would cease to exist. They would both just disappear. Of course that isn't true. Take away the potato and Ireland still has freshly scented soap. And Idaho still has meth. I kid! Idaho is a lovely place.
I would compare In N Out to The Sopranos (as promised). Both are very good but both suffered from their ridiculous level of hype. I like the Sopranos. But it isn't any more compelling than The Wire or Deadwood or Dexter or Six Feet Under. In fact, I like every one of those shows more than the stupid Sopranos. Likewise, I'd take an Apollo Pastrami Burger over a Double Double any day. And Five Guys kicks the crap out of In N Out.
So there you go. Another entry in which I pay way too much attention on something that doesn't really matter. Enjoy!
