I saw Love, Actually for the first time a few years ago, under the guidance/compulsion of my then-girlfriend-now-wife. I didn’t dislike the movie so much as I found it enjoyable (if somewhat creepy) and, ultimately, rather forgettable.
I therefore found myself agreeing with Mary Elizabeth Williams’ assessment of the film: Continue reading
This is why teddy bears are awesome:
Big GIF = slow loading
(h/t pokoshoko on Imgur)
I couldn’t find the video this comes from, but I found an animated short about a teddy bear who fights monsters, and a short about a boy with a monster under his bed (based on perhaps the scariest two-sentence short story ever.) (Videos are embedded below.) Continue reading
Check out this video of Irish people taste-testing American junk food:
It’s rather entertaining, but I especially like one pair’s take on Tootsie Rolls: “looks like poo,” and tastes like “not fudge.”
In fairness, here are Americans trying out some Irish snacks (note the momentary concern over the source of the blood sausage):
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo apparently enjoyed some ChiPs reruns on Thanksgiving:
Spending part of my Thanksgiving watching @ErikEstrada & CHiPs on ME TV. Makes me reflect on 21 good years with CHP! pic.twitter.com/MPboANg81y
— Chief Art Acevedo (@ArtAcevedo) November 27, 2014
Then this happened:
@ArtAcevedo hey partner happy thanksgiving to you and yours ..
— ERIK ESTRADA (@ErikEstrada) November 27, 2014
@ErikEstrada thanks brother. Hope all is good with you.
— Chief Art Acevedo (@ArtAcevedo) November 27, 2014
@ArtAcevedo @ErikEstrada I'll bet they based his character on you…
— Allison Blazek (@owlblazek) November 27, 2014
@owlblazek @ErikEstrada I was 13 when he started.
— Chief Art Acevedo (@ArtAcevedo) November 27, 2014
I’m glad to see Austin remains entertaining, if not always as weird as it used to be. I hope everyone had a good holiday, in whatever way they opted to spend it.
UPDATE (11/28/2014): This is somewhat related, and came up in conversation:
You’ve probably already seen Adult Swim’s “Too Many Cooks” informercial (whatever that means), but in case you haven’t, it’s worth eleven minutes of your time. Stop asking questions and watch it:
The overwrought ’80s sitcom intro was ripe for surreal parody, when you think about it, but you probably never did before because why would you? Somewhere along the line, between the still-lengthy intro to Friends, the abbreviated intros to shows like Scrubs (did you know that’s actually an entire song?), and the just-get-in-with-it show openings of today, I mostly forgot that goofy sitcom intros ever existed (except for the songs—I’ll never forget classics like Diff’rent Strokes and their like). Only HBO shows (and their imitators) seem to have extended intros anymore, and except maybe for Game of Thrones—which you need to watch for any changes to the map—I suspect most people fast-forward through them.
Anyway, this seems like an important moment in our cultural history that we will have forgotten about by next week, so enjoy it while you can.
Also, I learned about “Too Many Cooks” thanks to this GIF on Imgur, which seems to capture the most truly WTF moment: Continue reading
Nature can be a real asshole. This video is not for the squeamish:
I’m pretty sure this type of wasp partly inspired the birth cycle of the creatures in the Alien movies. Nature takes it farther, though, in terms of being horrifying, albeit with a certain sense of karma. The narrator notes: “One of the greatest dangers the larvae will face is being themselves impregnated by other species of parasitic wasp.”
Then there’s this: Continue reading
– On the plus side, she’s sure to sell the movie rights: A woman in Spain may be having marital problems, but I’m sure her story will make a profitable—if not actually good—movie.
Some nine months ago, a bride-to-be had sex with a dwarf stripper after a bachelorette party, and this week she introduced a new member of the family to her husband who is likely not the father. Or so the newborn infant’s attributes would suggest.
Inside a hospital in Valencia, Spain, the mother confessed to her tryst with the stripper when doctors recognized the newborn possessed traits related to dwarfism.
Actually, George R.R. Martin may have already thought of a somewhat similar storyline…
This isn’t the storyline I had in mind. It’s just awesome.
– Not quite to Phase 3 yet: The FDA is saying that caffeine-infused underpants probably won’t help you lose weight (h/t Ragen). Continue reading
You know what? I’ve never even seen Frozen, and yet I’m really tired of this song. Don’t get me wrong—it’s a phenomenal song, and it absolutely deserved an Oscar. It just seems like it is everywhere.
Since it won’t leave my head, I might as well give praise where it’s due, to this kid and her brilliant, poop-based parody:
I just learned that this morning was the first Saturday morning in at least fifty years with no cartoons on broadcast television. While I don’t think I have personally spent much time watching regularly-scheduled animated programming on Saturday mornings since we all wondered if the Smurfs had any sort of copyright claim against the Snorks, I can’t help but feel wistful that an era is ending.
I also can’t help but realize that I actually remember the PSAs that ran during commercial breaks better than the cartoons—this is almost certainly due to repetition, since I would’ve seen the “hanker for a hunk of cheese guy” way more often than any one episode of The Herculoids or Turbo Teen. (Okay, seriously, how f—d up was the basic concept of Turbo Teen? What happens if one of the headlights gets smashed? Does he lose an eye???) Anyway, since I don’t seem to have anything else to do this morning—I’m certainly not going to be watching any cartoons!!!—here are a few old memories for my fellow Gen-Xers who maybe thought the nostalgia segments of Reality Bites were ahead of their time.
Of course, we have the “hunk of cheese” guy:
I don’t know if anyone remembers the singing bean and grain of rice: Continue reading
– Do I, uh, lick the frosting first?: Even if it’s a hoax, the story of the mom who made vagina cookies for her kid’s second-grade class, then got mad when the teacher wouldn’t let the kids have them, is comedy gold.
– “We seem to be experiencing turbulence due to—DEAR SWEET BABY JESUS!!!”: If you thought singing Dolly Parton/Whitney Houston incessantly was a f****d up reason for an emergency plane landing, I present to you the flight that had to land in Omaha, en route from Boston to L.A., because of a “frenzied, masturbating passenger.” Mind you, it wasn’t just that he was masturbating openly. He also allegedly tried to open one of the exit doors mid-flight. Which would you choose as the lede?
– With great power comes great…….damage claims: A woman’s $250 million lawsuit against Disney claims that the company stole her life story to make the movie Frozen. Continue reading