Fancy

"You know how L'il Wayne came up with saying 'no homo' when you do [gay] stuff like that?" said the man at the gym a couple days ago. "Well, my whole life is no homo."

All I Do Is Kill Nazis Of You The Whole Night Thru

Oscar weekend is here, and there are those who believe that Inglorious Basterds is likely to become your 2009 Best Picture recipient. I don't think that this will happen, but I fervently hope that it does.

Basterds was my second-favorite movie of 2009 (after this masterpiece). Here's my third grade book report version of why:

I thought Inglorious Basterds was a good movie because it was really fun and awesome. The main themes were revenge and Nazis. The main Nazi was really scary and the actor playing him was really good. The plot did not make a lot of sense sometimes but that was okay because it was very hilarious and I had a great time at the movies.

Listen, everyone: that is the only appropriate reaction to have after seeing Inglorious Basterds. It defies any trenchant analysis and is pure entertainment. It is an utter mess of a movie, which is quite common, but also a completely and purely entertaining mess in which a famous director follows his various unique obsessions down their respective rabbit holes for no real reason at all and is hugely successful, which is not as common.

To be honest, though, the movie could have been an absolute pile and I would still be rooting for it to win the Oscar, if only to demonstrate that the movie industry is so narrow-minded and bankrupt of all original thought that they will literally hand out an award to anything with a Nazi in it. Hell, they gave one out last year to Kate Winslet for jackbooting up after she and Ricky Gervais mocked the very concept mercilessly.

So at this year's Oscar party, tell your friends to root for the coronation of ludicrousness, and remind them that The Hurt Locker didn't have even one single Mexican standoff.

Secret Grilled Cheese Party

Like it or not, Being a Man in the 21st Century means living in paralyzing fear of being emasculated in any and every situation. It should be accepted as fact that if you are a heterosexual male between the ages of oh let's say 18 and 35, day-to-day life is a constant process of shoring up your defenses against threats to your power, virility, and unassailable dudeitude.

That being said, the ad snippet that I'm about to foist upon you made me drop my Axe can mid-spray and pause 300 right at the good part:



Is nothing sacred? Now I'm halfway between a mincing fairy and a cringe-inducing manchild if I order a grilled cheese sandwich?

The people at Hardee's (Carl's Jr. on the west coast) have obviously never been in any sort of dire financial situation. They can't even fathom the enormous bite that six 24 DVD sets and a full tank of gas for an all-black Hemi V8 Dodge Charger can take out of a Man's budget. Thus, they clearly do not realize that when dining out, a delicious and cost-effective grilled cheese is often the best option.

That being said, I can't fault Hardee's for their incredibly simple solution to the problem of having your identity called into question by a sandwich. To wit: PUT A BURGER IN THE MIDDLE OF IT

Raquetball, Tennis, Pool, Whatever

Forgot to mention Wooooo threw my wigged out letter up onto their blog a few weeks back. There's a link in there you can follow back to this blog, which you can use as a jumping-off point to go back to the Wooooo post, then back to this blog again.

Get well soon Guru

Cakes In The Home

Crash Course In Science!

Day of the Dead (Malls)

What is it that's so addictive about Labelscar and its attendant Flickr page, and by extension the drive to track down and document dead malls across the nation/world for the public record?

Going beyond a retail history, socioeconomic, or even an architectural standpoint, there is something charged and visceral about viewing and obsessively cataolguing these rotting cathedrals slashed across our landscape. The "living time capsule" aspect is surely a huge part of it. "What transpired in this place ten, fifteen, twenty years ago?" we ask ourselves. "Who tried on clothes under these light fixtures, amidst this stucco and wood paneling? Who cried during their smoke break on this loading dock, now overgrown with weeds? What Sophoclean dramas played themselves out in this food court?"

For this blogger, though, the most enthralling aspect of the dead mall sites is the way in which they reveal and obsessively elaborate on hideous emptiness. An abandoned mall suggests something more than a mere ghost town. A bright, loud, exapansive enclosure catered entirely to the needs and desires of the American human being that has been cast aside and left to decay is both pitiable and frightening. "Please enter us," these malls said before they were shuttered. "We can give you so much, we want only to help and serve you, we can make you happy"; shadows of echoes from the past, now, that are sucked into a yawning void.

Outrage!

It's an old cliche that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I regret to report that after much soul-searching, I can find nothing in myself but disgust and indignation at the usurpation of my nom d'URL by the dream pop band "Beach House."

I understand that, as artists, Beach House probably find the fact that they must put any effort into labeling the utmost expression of their very souls to be unnecessary and superfluous, even perverse; the name of the band itself attests to this fact. But to appropriate the name of their favorite blog without so much as a word of notice to its creator is really beyond the pale. While I'm glad that you enjoy reading this site, guy and girl from Beach House, I must express my disappointment that you could not even acknowledge me in the Thank Yous section of your album's liner notes.

In short: :(