The Greatest Movie Ever

Before discussing the greatest movie ever, let's reflect on the state of movies today. In the old days people watched movies to see a story, but with today's sensationalist media people want thrills. The success of a top-budget film today is directly proportional to the number of explosions and the volume of fake blood spilled. Of course, moviemakers still include thinly-veiled attempts at storytelling just to keep the critics complacent, but the success of the Matrix sequels and the new Star Wars movies reveals that maybe even that is becoming unnecessary.

Seeing the trend, perhaps it's time to take the next step and do away with those silly "plots" altogether. The Greatest Movie Ever is simply one long, mindless fight scene. No confusing flashbacks of troubled childhoods, no fake British accents, and certainly no love scenes ruined by bad acting. It only includes things people actually want to see: destruction, violence, killing, death, dying, and loss of life. Not even an angsty teen trashing property and eating babies. It has a really awesome-sounding title, like Fahrenheit Fatality, or $uP4r El1m1n4t3, or Bleeding Blade Slam Impact Blast. Let’s go with the last one for now.

Bleeding Blade Slam Impact Blast stars a stereotypical tough-guy protagonist with some random gritty Germanic name like Diefül. The umlaut (dot thing) is essential. Diefül wears a monocle, an oversized trench coat, torn jeans, and the shoes of whatever brand pays us the most money. From within his trench coat he draws a vast assortment of weapons with little regard for practicality or physics. His weapons of choice include a pair of pistols, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, an ice pick, a chainsaw, a sharpened crucifix, and a brick.

The movie begins with Diefül standing in some barren post-apocalyptic landscape littered with the smoking wreckages of postmodern war machines and the charred bones of whales and llamas. A stiff breeze causes Diefül's trench coat and long hair to flap around and look really cool as an ominous chorus chants in Latin. Then following a bombastic hit from the orchestra, ninjas, robots, zombies, aliens, giant insects, and every other conceivable stereotypical antagonistic horde begin to drop from the sky all around Diefül. Mayhem ensues for two whole hours.

The movie ends with a climatic battle with a nameless arch-villain. Both he and Diefül draw lightsabers laser blades beam scimitars non-copyrighted energy-based bladelike weapons and engage in a fight that ends in their mutual deaths. And then the planet explodes.

Awesome, no?

Ask Kevin!

As a selfless philanthropist as well as an absolute authority on everything there is to know (and a few things that aren't to know), I will regularly share with you a few specks of knowledge from the boundless reserve of my intellect. You may submit questions about anything in the comments section of this post, and I will answer them regularly. Obviously, this idea is completely and totally original. Our first question comes from Eric:

If the sky's blue is a refraction from the ocean and water is clear, where does the blue come from? -Eric

The blue is actually caused by the bending of light in the atmosphere. Light from the sun contains the full spectrum of light, but a gas in the upper atmosphere called Cobalt Thorium G released by the Soviet Union during the Cold War in an attempt to wipe out all non-communistic life on Earth reflects most wavelengths of sunlight back into space except for blue light and ultraviolet death rays that cause cancer. Before the Cold War the sky was actually white. The Soviet Union denied responsibility for turning the sky blue and formed a secret international communist cabal to covertly edit all photographs, paintings, and texts from before the incident. It appears that they succeeded.

There was no cancer before the incident either. It just comes to prove that, besides a certain individual, the Russians are to blame for nearly everything that is wrong with the world. Damn ruskies. God bless America!

Three Tips: How to Write a Classic Novel

Having read enough “classic” novels for school to make my brain do anatomically impossible things, I am of course an absolute authority on them (as I am for everything). Here are a few tips should you desire to compose a classic novel and join the ranks of literature’s great minds.

Tip 1: Overstate everything. The more words you have, the more likely it is that some pompous scholar will find an unintentional metaphor or symbol in your novel, enhancing your image as a talented writer. Let’s take a look at how Charles Dickens did it.

WRONG: My name is Pip.

RIGHT: My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

Tip 2: Make it depressing. Do you think people are really going to read your novel if it contains normal people living happy lives? No!

WRONG: Jimmy was an ordinary kid who lived a carefree life with his parents and his dog Skip.

RIGHT: Jimmy was a crippled manic-depressive transvestite with three eyes and a paralyzed left pinky. He lived in an abandoned Nazi gas chamber with his obsessive-compulsive stepfather who worked as a back-alley neurosurgeon during the day and mugged drunks at night to feed his helium addiction. Jimmy’s mother died in a freak lawn mower accident when he was just a baby.

Tip 3: Make it elaborately surreal and scientifically impossible. Many people read books to escape from reality, and your novel should do exactly that.

WRONG: Mr. Wazoo had a minor heart attack and survived. When he woke in the hospital he had a new appreciation for life.

RIGHT: As Mr. Wazoo walked by the railing, a sudden gust of wind swept him off the bridge and onto the passing train below, where the impact of his fall ruptured a fuel line and dosed him with flaming kerosene. Right at that moment an airliner crashed into the train, causing it to derail and plow through a crowded interstate highway. When he woke in the hospital he had a new appreciation for life.

And that, my friends, is how you write a novel that will stand the test of time.

Hey Panasonic, Fire Your Ad Guy

(Click to enlarge) Take a look at this pop-up ad and try to figure out what demographic they're trying to market this to. Hey ladies, if you buy our product, you can be like that hot chick wearing a mini-skirt and football shoulder pads. And it doesnt just come in four colors, it comes in four hot colors.

The Steak to End All Steaks

I've noticed, with my unparalleled powers of observation, that (I am the only sane and intelligent person in the entire world, but that's another story. As I was saying,) restaurants these days go to incredible lengths to come up with "signature" and "house special" dishes that are supposed to distinguish them from other restaurants as unique and classy. As much as I love it when a restaurant serves me their house special, USDA-select, 7oz. cut of top filet mignon, fresh-cut and trimmed, marinated in soy sauce, sesame, fresh garlic, asian spices and ginger and then slowly and craftfully char-grilled over a dead-tree fire while being glazed with their signature homemade sesame teriyaki seppuku sauce and topped with sautéed fresh New York-style acid trip mushrooms and bleu anthrax cheese crumbles, I wouldn't mind a plain old steak either.

One thing I admire about ethnic restaurants (REAL ethnic restaurants - not the Americanized nonsense) is that they occupy the other end of the spectrum, often neglecting to offer any description of their dishes at all beyond the titles. In Chinese restaurants I sometimes see "Seafood Mystery" on the menu, or the even more enigmatic "Double Happiness." It keeps me guessing. Once at a Korean restaurant I found on the menu - literally - a dish titled "???" with no other descriptives. Now that's what I call bold restaurant entrepeneurship. If I were Donald Trump, I would hire the owner of that restaurant without question. But I wonder if anyone actually orders the ???. I mean, how would you even tell the waiter you want it? "I'd like to try the question marks, please. Extra crispy."

The government beams these thoughts into my head from its mind control towers to distract me from questioning its policies. Well actually Nader thought it up, but he doesn't count.

God Bless... Everyone?

Why exactly must God bless America, anyway? Did we win a bid for a 10-year exclusive publishing right to His blessing? Has God ever on an off-chance blessed Canada by accident? It is awfully close to America, and I wouldn't blame Him for the mistake. In fact, given Canada's relative peacefulness and environmental friendliness, I would wager that Canada deserves to be blessed more than we do. Being an omnipotent being, I'm sure it's well within God's power to bless everyone instead of just us.

But what exactly does His blessing do, anyway? It doesn't seem to help me much when I sneeze. In fact, more often than not I just go right on sneezing after somebody invokes God's blessing upon me. Maybe I'm allergic to it. Or perhaps His blessing is like an antibiotic and becomes less effective over time, especially when overused. Considering how often we bless each other and America, I can imagine that most strains of bacteria and virii have become resistent to it.

Americans do seem to have an unhealthy obsession with blessing their country. Perhaps the FDA should do a study to see if it's addictive. Let's compare a marijuana user to a patriot. (Click to enlarge, or don't - I understand)












Once your eyes stop burning you may note that they do appear quite similar. Perhaps we're on to something here. Maybe in another decade or two we'll see Blessoderm patches to help people fight their addictions.

Maybe we ask God to bless us as compensation for our employment as world police. Without us to free other nations, the dictators, Communists, and filthy heathens would rule the world! That, and we're just so much better than the rest of the world. I mean, we gave birth to the nuclear bomb, Wal-Mart, plastic surgery, and MTV - all things that have benefitted the entire world. I'm sure it says in the Bible somewhere that if it weren't for America the world wouldn't exist. God bless America.

Give Hitler A Ride

I found this Picture of the Week (top, click to enlarge) in a history book under the "World War II Propaganda" section. The government encouraged citizens to conserve fuel so it could be used for the war effort. I couldn't help but imagine this situation still applying today, so behold my modernized version (bottom, click to enlarge). God bless... nevermind.

Press CTRL + C to Make Your Computer Explode

At the library today I picked up this amazing and informative -if somewhat dated- book written in 1981 about how to care for your computer. 1981, back when if you used a computer, you were a computer operator.

Here's an excerpt from the section titled "Dangerous Keys" on page 107:

"When using the CRT, one essential recommendation applies: don't hit keys that might cause great damage, such as wiping out a file. Typically, the most dangerous keys are the "control" keys. Control keys are generally special keys, but may also refer to the simulaneous striking of the CTRL key together with another key. Sometimes, hitting the wrong control key can result in catastrophic damage, such as wiping out a program or file. In such cases, the "control" key should be clearly labeled in order to avoid inadvertent use."

Once again, "don't hit keys that might cause great damage." Wow. This cartoon (click to enlarge) was thoughtfully provided to illustrate the point. Zounds.

Those Damned Liberals Stole My Girlfriend

Are you tired of meeting people who don't agree with you? I sure know that I am. Especially when it comes to the opposite sex. I mean, political affiliations are so much more important than silly little things like personality, interests, and intellect when it comes to finding a date. Now that I've found this, I can finally stop wrapping my head in cellophane before entering a crowd of strangers. (Click to enlarge)

I came across this the other day when I stumbled on some random guy's blog. At first I thought it was joke but -much to my horror- I found that it was quite real. I browsed around the site and couldn't help but to notice the carefully balanced combinations of race and gender in each "sample" picture (seen to right). The people in the pictures are also young, attractive, and well dressed. Now I don't mean to stereotype my conservative friends here, but for a dating website that uses hatred of liberalism as its primary marketting ploy, the pictures seem just slightly unrealistic. So in the interest of science, I went to the "newest photos" page that contains actual, non-staged photos submitted by users. I took note of the twelve photos there and found the following:

Of the twelve people pictured...

• One was a woman, ten were men, and one was an American flag.
  
• One of the seven men who were not wearing hats did not have a receding hairline.
• Two were posing with firearms in hand.
• One was holding up anti-liberal picket signs.
• Four were overweight.
• One was not caucasian.
  
• One appeared to be younger than 30.
• Two were smiling.

Again, I mean no offense to my conservative friends. I'm simply reporting what I saw. For science. God bless America.

How Not To Be A Sociopath

I hope you're having a wonderful(ly terrible) Doom and Gloomday. I interrupt the usual cancer-related bad news to instead bring you the breathtakingly inspirational story of John Ausonius, the Laser Man, which Nader was kind enough to point out to me but too lazy to write about himself. This Swedish serial killer (how often do you hear that?) may not seem like anything out of the ordinary (for a serial killer) at first, excepting that he's Swedish, but take note of his track record when it comes to, well, killing people. He shot thirteen victims, four of them in the head and many of them multiple times in the chest, and only managed to kill ONE. He does not deserve the title of serial killer. Serial injurer? No. Serial failure.

Our serial killers are clearly superior to their European counterparts. God bless America.

Picture of the Week III: Return of the Picture

This one is a real doozy. Glen(da) is pictured at the center, with Satan to his left and what appears to be Richard Nixon to his right. "He loved women so much he dared to dress like one!" Gee whiz. If you didn't guess, this movie was made in the 1950's, back when this sort of thing was an interesting plot twist. (Click to enlarge)

Is It That Day Already?

I woke up this morning to heavy rain and fog, and turned on the TV to see that part of California in a state of emergency. I thought today could only be Doom and Gloomday, and I was correct. For those of you just joining us, Doom and Gloomday was once called Monday, but that name is obsolete. This lovely Doom and Gloomday, note that deodorant may cause cancer.

Those who shaved at least three times a week and applied deodorant at least twice a week were almost 15 years younger when diagnosed than women who did neither

Well, it looks like the French are far ahead of us on this one.

Have a Mediocre New Year!

I'd wish you a happy new year, but stastically speaking, that's highly improbable. Heck, even mediocre is a stretch, but I'm feeling generous. Let us take a moment to reflect on this past year, this two thousand and fifth year of the Common Era.

The Year in Review: 2005 at a Glance

• Stuff blew up.
• Hurricane. The Big One.
• People blew stuff up.
• Earthquake. The Big One.
• People blew other people up.
• Tsunami. The Big One.
• People got blown up and died.
• Flu pandemic brewing. The Big One.
• People got blown up and lived.
• Iran wants weapons. The Big One.
• Stuff blew up.

And the Rolling Stones still aren't dead yet.

Picture of the Week, Take Two

I would come up with some long, elaborate political anecdote about how this is a microcosm of the state of our country, but that requires effort that I'm not ready to exert at this festive hour. (Click to enlarge)