Like a billion other suckers, I made a commercial to help advertise the most ubiquitous condiment on earth.
Hmm… looking at it now, I have a feeling this entry may not even get in. But please, watch and enjoy. And rate it 5 stars as often as you can. Thanks, fifteen readers!
When I was first admitted, I didn’t know what to make of the place. It all felt a little odd to me, but I was committed by now. Where else was I going to go?
A girl sits rocking back and forth in the corner. One of the people who worked here was trying to coax a disoriented man up off the floor. Another older man lies on his back, trying to swing his legs over his body in a very peculiar way — he does this maybe 20 times before he stands up, quite normally, as though it never happened. I know the staff is there to keep the inmates from hurting themselves, and sure it’s better they’re here than out on the streets, but you can still see the hollow look in their eyes. When not being coralled by the staff, or daydreaming in their own worlds, the committed mill about, looking with vacant stares, but still careful to avoid eye contact.
I suppose I’m still adjusting to life at the insane asylum athletic club.
Destined to become the Hampster Dance/all your base/such-and-such ate my balls/Swatch internet time/Star Wars Kid/O RLY?/Numa Numa/Chuck Norris/Lazy Sunday/Dick in a Box/LOLcats/Drama Prairie Dog of its day, here’s my requisite 2 cents on the iPhone phenomenon.
It shouldn’t be long until I get my own! After all, here’s me first in line at the Apple store in Century City…
…what do you mean the line starts around the corner? What do you mean there are 400 people in line already??
After looking at that long and tiresome list of internet memes, I can’t help but feel a little sad that I can recall all of them from memory, but can’t remember how to find the area of a triangle. Now just let me re-cut this post as a horror movie/romantic comedy trailer and I think we’re all set.
As a bachelor on the go, I don’t have a lot of time for book learnin’. So I’m grateful that spammers have taken it upon themselves to forward me the classics of contemporary literature. Today, Vicki Rosenberg (a.k.a. wandelas_21@hotmail.com) decided to send me a few excerpts from Tony Burgess’s classic novel A Clockwork Orange.
fat stinking billygoat Billyboy in poison. How art thou, thou globby
bottlesometimes to slooshy what some of these starry decreps had to say about
lifegoing "Oh oh oh." I said, smiling very wide and droogie: "Well, if it isn'tmore
than ten, she creeching away but with her platties still on. Billyboyyarbles, you
eunuch jelly, thou." And then we started.number for an auto, and six being the
outside limit for gang-size. Sometimes Of the four of us Dim, as usual, came out
the worst in point of looks,singing. The song went:losing his guard and
letting in old Dim with his chain snaking It was round by the Municipal
Power Plant that we came across Billyboysomething was orbiting within, or like some
very rude interrupting sort of athat came out of his filthy old rot. Then we went on
our way.go of this boo-hooing little ptitsa, there being plenty more where she came
So we cracked into him lovely, grinning all over our litsos, but hegangs
would gang up so as to make like malenky armies for big night-war, butsort of a
world is it at all? Men on the moon and men spinning round theshut up singing
and started to creech: "Go on, do me in, you bastardthat came out of his
filthy old rot. Then we went on our way.veshch I could never stand was that. I could
never stand to see a moodge allthat came out of his filthy old rot. Then we went on
our way.number for an auto, and six being the outside limit for gang-size.
Sometimessomething that made me want to sick just to viddy his fat grinning
litso,still went on singing. Then we tripped him so he laid down flat and heavy
Can’t wait to find out how it ends! Please, continue to send me unsolicited emails in the future. Hopefully I’ll get the rest of Thoreau’s Walden in the next missive from my good pal “Heightened libido“.
(Also, anybody know where I can score some cheap Valium?)
Sometimes it’s important to stop and smell the nicotine.
Fitting with my Emergency 411 series, there’s a warning label generator website just for making your own official-looking warning labels. I mean, who hasn’t needed this:
The Goons over at Something Awful have already put it to good(?) use, so check out their labels here, before they get reposted on Ebaum’s World or something.
Who says I didn’t do anything worthwhile in school? As a downright spectacular internet programmer, I had to get a start somewhere and — though this isn’t it — this is a project for my Programming in Computing class that always brings a smile to my face. I figured if that Spice Girls thing didn’t work out, Melanie Chisholm could always become an atomic wholesaler. I mean that’s what Girl Power was all about, right?
Click the image above for the best website 1998 has to offer!
It’s that time of year again, when the streets are awash in drunkard piss and the change in life turns all cellulose gum-based dairy products green. Why it’s almost St. Patrick’s Day!
What better time than to get one of McDonald’s signature Shamrock Shakes? Whoa, slow down there big fella! You’ve gotta find one first.
I was still feeling the sting from the last March 17th, when on that most holy of seasonal dessert days, all three of the McDonalds’ shake machines in the Hollywood area were out of order, so this year I endeavored with the oft-mentioned Todd to beat the holiday rush and get a Shamrock Shake a few days early. What we soon discovered was that our quest would be as challenging as it was insipid. In McDonald’s after McDonald’s, the responses we got from their employees was one that would not pass even the most rudimentary Turing test:
Me: “Excuse me, when is the Shamrock Shake going to be available?”
Meatbag: “err…chocolate, strawberry, vanilla?”
And in some cases, this was from the manager. The response couldn’t have been any more useless if they had answered, “Tell me more about Shamrock Shake?”
So a few days later, we hit the McDonald’s off Sunset & Vine. With St. Paddy’s day but a week away …if not now, when?
Alright, so that was a bust, too. How does the leading fast food chain, pioneer of the seasonal dessert, fall so far behind? We stormed out of that McDonald’s, empty-handed. Sure, Todd wanted to go back for actual food, but I wanted to send the McDonald’s franchise a message.
“Don’t give them the satisfaction.” I spat.
Instead, we settle on the next best approximation of food: Jack in the Box. Wouldn’t it be funny if they had Shamrock Shakes there?
It appears someone at the Jack in the Box corporate headquarters, perhaps even Jack himself, saw a gap in the McDonalds armor and decided to throw their hat into the seasonal shake ring. Because when we got in line, for a limited time: Andes Mint fucking Shake. And it can only be there to compete with the — currently in absentia — Shamrock Shake. I mean, who releases a mint shake in March?
This isn’t the first time the franchise out of San Diego was there to “shake” up the seasonal drink market. Jack has sparred with McDonald’s before, most notably with their rival Egg Nog shakes and their currently unmatched (though not necessarily delicious) Pumpkin Pie shake. I can only wait for a Valentine’s day shake that tastes like chalk candy hearts or a Fourth of July shake that tastes like a sparkler or something.
Sure, by now my thirst for mint ice cream was sated, but what of my esoteric thirst for closure? I had still not found a bona-fide Shamrock Shake. In my hometown of the land that time forgot, there is a McDonald’s that in its history skidded a little bit off the beaten path of corporate monoculture. I’m not saying it’s the restaurant where you could order say, a Mogwai, or a monkey’s paw, but along with such heretofore unimaginable desserts as Dippin’ Dots and Brownie Sundaes, I would be surprised if they didn’t have at least one under a heat lamp.
I saunter up to the register and place my Sphinx’s riddle of a drink order, receiving the usual blank stare. That’s when I notice something. Scrutinizing the menu for any sign of a green milkshake, I see wedged into a corner of their Shakes menu the words Try Egg Nog. I do.
“Okay… can I get an Egg Nog shake?” After all, Christmas is only nine months away.
She checks the register.
“¿Small, medium, large?”
Dammit, she called my bluff. Note to self: come back in the winter and try my luck ‘o the Irish then.
When I was at UCLA, probably the most significant thing I did was partake in a student-run television show some friends and I aired on campus TV. Sad, I know. Well, several years down the road, those of us left have endeavored to capture lightning in a bottle a second time, and the result is called Weak Nights:
I have to say that, much to my chagrin, my user profile on the site is a family tree that does not branch. Instead of making videos, I’ve been spending my time programming the site you’re waiting to look at in that new browser tab. So go there, click around and see the totally amazing videos my friends have produced. And if you’re going to comment-spam, just remember the person who made it all possible.
Ha! You like that? See what I did there? The website is called rotten and Patton Oswalt gave an interview with them. I thought it was worth posting just so I can keep some of his advice handy:
I do wish people were able to evaluate comedy beyond simply the crowd reaction, beyond the people going, “Woooooooo!” and be able to tell when the hooting and hollering is coming from someone pandering, and saying something everyone already agrees with, as opposed to a comedian getting that reaction from saying something startling, and original, and unexpected.
This is why the articles in the Rotten Library continue to be some of the most enjoyable, insightful things I read anymore. I won’t delve into the various and sordid articles among the Rotten Library arcana, because part of the fun is finding out just what their mystery writers chose to cover. But to their credit, where else can you go to find articles on gnosticism, Krakatowa, D.B. Cooper, and the occasional cherubish, comic book-obsessed comedian?
