Listen. If you support Barack Obama for President of the United States, there’s only one thing for you to do. Go to your polling place and vote. Do not look at the numbers. Do not pay attention to the people in the magic talking box. Show up on November 4th [...]
This week, I started a new column at 411 Mania. 411 is your one-stop shop for all the pop culture you could ever need (except the pop culture you need from MINE).
For my first trick, I shall attempt to go year by year, starting in 1975, and talk about the movies that I think are the best, performing two full rotations in mid air, over men and horses, hoops and garters, lastly, through a hogshead of real fire, landing in this half-filled glass of water.
Their son was traveling in Vancouver in July and used his AirCard to access the Internet around 21 times. Turns out Vancouver is technically in some foreign country called “Ca-na-da,” which means all those charges were international charges. When the bill came, it was 200 pages long and weighed in at a back breaking $19,370.
The family is trying to get AT&T to give them a break because they didn’t warn them when the bill topped $1,000, since no family can reasonably be expected to know and understand its own phone plan or monitor its own spending. Barring a favorable resolution with the phone conglomerate, the Terrys will likely become fugitives, living off the land, roaming the earth like Kain from Kung Fu, but in a station wagon. Unless they have to sell it to pay that phone bill.
Here’s a dude with his priorities in order. Someone has to keep these sandwich-making bastards in line. When Reginald Peterson went into his local Jacksonville Subway to order sandwiches and they were presented to him without the mustard and mayonnaise, he fought back. He called 911. “I’m not going sit and pay 12 dollars for 10 dollar sandwiches and not get what I paid for,” he told concerned law enforcement officials.
When the jerks at Subway locked him out of the store, Peterson fought back. He called 911 again — this time to report that he was outside, but his sandwiches were inside. “As I’m on the phone with you, the employee came here and locked the freaking door, and they got both of the sandwiches they did not made right inside the store,” Peterson said, as the 911 operator typed up his complaint on her imaginary typewriter.
And when the lazy, donut-eating, fat cops didn’t come fast enough, Peterson fought back. He called 911 yet again. He’d been waiting long enough; those sandwiches weren’t getting any saucier, and he wasn’t getting any closer to them.
Finally, the police showed up. They tried to explain to the sandwich-loving citizen that 911 is hardly ever the right way to solve sauce-related disputes. Peterson was eventually arrested on one count of criminal assholism.
Auto-asphyxiation, hangovers, and Zelda. You need to watch this.
“Ah, yes, the magical, delicious heart cookie. You deserve it, after committing murder.”
The biggest reason I always push people to buy print copies of podcast novels, apart from the fact that I want them to read damn fine novels, is the love of being in on the ground floor, of watching something blow up that I knew about from jump street. From J.C. Hutchins to Scott Sigler to Mur Lafferty to Matthew Wayne Selznick, I get to point at the book on my shelf and I’ve got a story about how I knew about it when hardly anybody else did, and how I had a little role in telling people about it.
Know what’s even cooler? Getting to do that for my actual friends. Kat Duarte, whose alter ego writes bad-ass book reviews with yours truly over at Static Multimedia, is releasing her first novel tomorrow, and if you don’t buy a copy, you’ll succumb to male-pattern baldness and you’ll never get that promotion at work. It’s got hot chicks, werewolves, vampires, and coffee — what the hell more could you ask for?
This site has been around since February, but getting a book published is always a good time to talk something up again. Garfield Minus Garfield removes Garfield from Garfield comics. The result, in creator Dan Walsh’s words, is “an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life.”
Not only is this inspired and awesome, but it’s coming soon to a book shelf near you. Ballantine Books will be releasing a collection of Garfield Minus Garfield strips along with Garfield’s 30th Anniversary book this October. Jim Davis, Garfield’s creator, seems to dig the project — in fact, he says Walsh made him slap his head a few times when he realized he could have left a panel out for a funnier joke. Imagine how hard he’ll slap himself if he ever finds out there are funnier things than lasagna.
Want to be hip and/or with it? Need the latest in pop culture, rumors, reviews, and geeky awesomeness? Want to see a portrait of Tori Amos made out of LEGOs?
Perry Family Game Night was delayed this week due to work schedules beyond our control, but what it lacked in promptness, it made up for in complete domination.
The humiliation I predicted last week was dished out, but not the way I expected. This was Kathy’s week to choose, and she moved us off the kitchen table and on to the GameCube for a night of Mario Kart: Double Dash. Tiny Dancer wrecked us. We raced 12 times; kid won 8. Kathy and I traded second place finishes fairly evenly, but the night certainly belonged to Tiny Dancer.
After leaving tire tracks and grease stains all over her parents, Tiny Dancer wasn’t finished, at least with me. She dragged me into Mario Kart’s battle modes for more beatings. After several spirited bouts of Shine Sprite tag and Bob-omb lobbing, she dropped me 7-5.
Still, Little League rules apply, so everyone got ice cream whether they won or not. Tiny Dancer gets to pick the game next week, which can only mean worse things for me. And think how things will go for me in two weeks when she turns seven.
In 1986, Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore wrote the greatest comic of all time. It was called Watchmen, it was 12 issues long, and it was mind-blowing. Before I read it, I thought X-Men was edgy and gritty (in my defense, I was 10). But here was a team who were neurotic, pathological, angry, ruthless, and real in a way I had never considered possible.
So I am over the moon excited about next year’s Watchmen movie. I’m counting down right along with the clock on the site, and I’ve watched the trailer about 20 times already.
Somewhere, there is a use for a man with an equal love of science fiction, caffeine, and early 19th-century American literature. When that use is found, I will probably be playing video games, and I will miss out.
Dave on September 26th, 2008
This week, I started a new column at 411 Mania. 411 is your one-stop shop for all the pop culture you could ever need (except the pop culture you need from MINE).
When the jerks at Subway locked him out of the store, Peterson fought back. He called 911 again — this time to report that he was outside, but his sandwiches were inside. “As I’m on the phone with you, the employee came here and locked the freaking door, and they got both of the sandwiches they did not made right inside the store,” Peterson said, as the 911 operator typed up his complaint on her imaginary typewriter.
