I want some damn credit.

I was just reading Tim's blog today, specifically this post when I came upon the following passage.

I was really honored to be chosed to play in the CIF show with MadTV's Frank Caeti*...

[other crap omitted]

*Super nice guy.

I've already expounded on the hilarious results of Tim's education at the hands of the public school system in the comments of his post. So if you'd like to make fun of his Jed Clamp-onics, that's the place to do it.

But what really struck me was the "super nice guy" portion. Let me tell you, I'm sick and tired of every time somebody meets some damned celebrity (even minor celebrity) they go on and on about what a "nice guy" they are. Well of course they're nice guys. You're lavishing them with attention, deference, and respect. Treat any asshole on the street like that, and suddenly, OH MY GOD! he'll seem like a really nice guy too.

I'll give you that without a certain amount of decency, they wouldn't have gotten as far as they did (we're back to talking about celebrities here). So naturally, they know how to shake a few hands and squeeze a few asses on the down-low, but this does not account for the lavish praise people heap upon them. All these sons of bitches have to do to get the "nice guy" status is not punch you in the face and break your camera.

I make a point of taking pictures of myself with your camera, often even without your asking me to, and I've never punched (most of) you in the face.

All I'm saying is that all you assholes should make a point of what a nice guy I am. Preferably in writing.

That is all.

Editors note: I later realized I didn't make it clear that I wasn't really talking about Tim in this post, but the experience of meeting celebrities in general. Usually by people more interested in the idea of their fame than the talents (if any) that brought them there. Except the part about "chosed" that was about him.

...NEXT!

To be fair, they practically named the movie Don't Waste Your Time, but regardless I went and saw Next with Jakey today. I was braver than I was wise. From the trailer* I knew a number of things.

1. Nicolas Cage is in a position to wipe out the horror that was Ghost Rider by creating something even worse, effectively eclipsing his last catastrophe.
   
2. Julianne Moore is hard-up for cash and it pisses her off. This comes through in her performance.
   
3. There is a stylist in Hollywood propagating the Tom Hanks "DaVinci Code" hairstyle. This person is probably the anti-Christ.
   

The movie, if it deserves the title, starts with Nicolas Cage working as a magician. Why in God's name a guy trying to lay low would seek a job as public as a magician is a question for another blog post. He gets on stage and begins his act, as stilted and wooden as a poorly programmed robot making an awkward stab at humanity. Basically, he plays Nicolas Cage.

This lasts all of five minutes until (inexplicably) the FBI tries to grab him to fight French terrorists who (inexplicably) want to detonate a nuclear bomb**. He chooses to run, but before he can manage it he has to meet and woo Jessica Biel who (inexplicably) changes her footwear three times for the same outfit over a course of four hours.

Next was passably decent (in a National Treasure make-fun-of-every-scene kind of way) until the ending, which I shall now ruin for you. As it turns out at the end when he fails to prevent the nuclear bomb from detonating, it's all been an elaborate vision of what may happen.

This is bullshit. I'd rather a movie do something interesting (like blow up eight million people because our hero chose to save the girl) than pull a Dallas. The only saving grace of the movie was that it was a movie in which Jessica Biel was not only terrible, but actually flaunted her crippling lack of acting ability. I figure one more of these, she's got to do nudity just to stay in the game.

Here's hoping.

* If you watched the trailer, and didn't laugh when Jessica needlessly said "You can see things before they happen" you are no longer my friend.
** Seriously, they never explain why they want to blow this bomb. Not even a little exposition. Not even a simple "finally the American Pig-Dogs will pay for calling them 'freedom fries'" line.

Oh, about that.

I realized that I, quite rudely, mentioned a blog that I write for without linking to it below. And upon further reflection, realized that I hadn't mentioned it on this blog at all. It's a joint blog between Myself, Nessa, Tim, Rob, and Jake. Originally I was keeping it a secret and waiting until it found it's "voice" or perhaps until we had a backlog of decent content. So... look for that sometime in the next few months.

In the meantime I have a post up that is both hilarious and informative. You'd do well to check it out.

Really Cool People... us.

Even the URL is cool and exclusionary. How can anyone resist?

- Scott

Slaughterhouse top Five bottom Five

That's probably what Vonnegut was referring to in his title. I mean, you could ask him, but you'd have to be unstuck in time. And that's probably worse than taking me at my word (depending on whom you ask).

Anyway I had a real post for The Wonder Blog, but I then promised a fellow guild member that I would post on my other blog today. So instead, I'll take care of this little bit of housekeeping.

Top Five of the Week:

1.) Sixty things worth shortening you life for. Because I have an unhealthy love for unhealthy loves.

2.) An accurate recording of how I play video games. It's funny because it's painfully, painfully true. (Question: just what the hell kind of accent is that?)

3.) Good news! The devil made the VT shootings happen. Now we can all relax and stop all that worrying thinking that accompanies tragedies. Note: on the top five only because it made me laugh so hard.

4.) Oklahoma declares watermelon state vegetable. To-may-to/re-tard-o.

5.) Oh no! Somebody set us up the bomb! And the shame here is that the network still exists.

Bottom Five:

1.) This copying asshole. Didn't I do this weeks ago? Then, just afterwards, a Boing-Boing mention and a Digg article? What did the internet just find out because I mentioned it? The StealthSwitch has existed for at least two years. What the hell internet?

2.) New Electronic Talking Battleship Big Brother. Now with riboflavin!

3.) The collected works of the VT Shooter. I in no way make light of the act itself. It was a terrible, vile thing to do and my condolences go out to all those affected. But I think we all need to look at the silver lining here; he can't write any more of these horribly bad one act plays. Seriously.

4.) Remember Galactus? The giant planet eating alien from Fantastic Four comics? Yeah, now he's a cloud. Lame.

5.) Hot Fuzz getting screwed out of theaters. Damn it, a good movie only gets seen on DVD but shit like Are We Done Yet? gets 300,000 screens?

Crush of the... Past?

Since entering corporate America, I've had little time to do the things I enjoy. Including developing new and intriguing crushes of the week. Fortunately I have what some would call a vault, and what the less couth might refer to as a "spank bank," of old crushes. But just because they're old, don't think they've gone bad. Most of these are still girls I still harbor crush-esque feeling towards, and one of these is the subject of today's post.

*doodley-do underwater music and a gradual fade to the wavy lines*

Crush of the Past:

The year was 2001. Disappointingly no Space Odyssey occurred, but I was a sophomore in high school and I had other things on my mind. Things like women. Frustratingly, the women on my mind were either fictitious (damn you, Rory Gilmore), married (damn you, Senora Wood*), or simply unattainable (damn you, my then-developing irresistible charm). Some have argued that all of these women were unattainable. These people are jealous of my now-fully-operational irresistible charm**.

But the girl in question fell in to the last category. Her name was... wait, I'm breaking with tradition. Might as well do this properly.

Her name: Laurel Shaffer.

Why she is (or was) crush worthy: A band called The Hippos once sang "Something in the way she never looks my way / I'm in love, I'm in lo-oh-ove." This was pretty much the case. As you might have noticed, I tend to attract a lot of attention. And not only for being so good looking. I'm also frequently at the center of lots of people laughing. With me or at me, either way they're entertained. She was never one of these people. And that intrigued me. She was aloof to the point of ignoring me, but it never came off snotty; it only made me try harder***. I think that was the quality I liked best.

Oh, she was also pretty hot. That factored in as well.

Bonus Material?: I often embed some YouTube link of the crush doing something adorable. There is no such material to offer in this case. She's currently working as an actress, she was even in a Clearasil ad that I'm sure you've seen, but there's not jack-all-squat out there for me to post. Hence, I'm forced to construct her visage by collaging. Here goes:

After several hours of fierce Photoshopping, this is the final product.

Basically I discovered an equation for Laurel rather than being able to accurately reproduce her. The hair, eyes, and head shape of Fiona Apple + the soft expression of Amanda Seyfried - any implication of ridiculously full lips = A rough approximation of this week's Crush o' the Past.

If anyone has a better effort, he is welcome to submit it.

* Senora, if you still read my blog, I'm mostly joking. Though a guy could do much worse.
** It became much easier once I found that watch with +8 Charisma.
*** I did finally get her to laugh when I was auditioning for improv teams. At which point I could have died happily.

Spaced Out.

I don't know about you, but I've never felt more stoned than after a haircut. This isn't really saying anything because it's more or less been clinically proven that I can't get stoned. But I can imagine what it would be like and the afterglow of a haircut fits all the criteria.

• Lack of focus (started this post at 3:30... the next bullet was completed at 5:14).
  
• Content, sleepy feeling.
  
• Half-open eyes.
  
• Disjointed sense of time.
  
• Hungry (munchies).
  

It's great. The process starts sometime about 3-5 minutes into the haircut (around the shampooing). I think this is why every person who has ever cut my hair is placeable on a range from somewhat stupid to makes-rabid-Larry-the-Cable-Guy-fans-seem-intellectual; they talk to stoned people all day. They've got to be getting dumber if only by osmosis.

Now I'll grant you that I go to a lady. I say I go to "a lady" because I'm very manly and it's just not appropriate to say I go to a "hairdresser," or even a "stylist." Bullshit. I go to a lady. And because of this I can't be sure that at a barbershop the entire experience isn't much more straightforward. But at His Excellency* I'm surrounded with beauty school graduates that have very strong opinions on everything... everything readily graspable by the core audience of the FOX network.

But like... dude... where was I going?

Oh yeah. I had questions. Are all hair ladies this way, or just the ones I've ran into? Furthermore, is there a manlier solution to having such glorious hairstyles? Finally, how is it that I'm above the influence against my will?

* This post brought to you by His Exellency: Where the Customer is King!**
** This slogan made up by Scott: which did not amuse the employee's thereof.

Grindhouse Review or A Tale of Two Shitties

It was the best of films, it was the worst of films, it was a movie of action, it was an artless bore...

This weekend (on Easter day actually) I went to see the combined works of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. The double feature, collectively dubbed Grindhouse, was supposed to showcase two shortish films (Planet Terror and Death Proof) from two of my favorite directors interspersed with fake trailers. As far as that goes, it succeeded.

But in more practical terms it gave us two examples of shitty, B-movies that should have both been immaculately good, fastidiously planned, A-list versions of B-movies. They should play up all the things we love about seeing a so-bad-it's-good movie in a crappy theater, and none of the things that we endure grudgingly. Unfortunately only Planet Terror manages to use missing reels, scratched film, and overexposed negatives to their fullest potential. And Death Proof... well... let's save that for later.

Planet Terror was certainly worth the price of my admission. It was probably even worth the 14 bucks I spent on popcorn and orange soda. And it may have been worth the 15 year old gang-bangers wandering in around halfway through, sitting down, talking loudly, then deciding to go try to score some weed and leaving. Rodriguez packed more action movie one-liners into the script than I would have expected it could handle, but it always works, and it's always funny. There's just something ridiculously satisfying about plot twists involving the hero being forced to escape zombies on a pocket bike. Not to mention the fact that those selfsame zombies tear Fergie apart in her first five minutes of screen time. Turns out, she really wasn't really as Fergilicious as adverstised.

Wonder Blog rating for Planet Terror: 9.4/10

Then come the second trailers between showings, all of which were better than Death Proof.

Wonder Blog rating for The Trailers (which deserve their own post... damn they were brilliant): 10/10

And then... slowly, came Death Proof. After roughly an hour and a half of zombies, explosions, and chicks with prosthetic legs made out of (working) machine guns we're treated to this stinky cinematic suppository. It starts out somewhat promising, with a replacement title screen for the (obviously) lost real one. But then we're subject to the most boring, painful, meaningless chick flick girl-talk for what felt like longer than the first movie.

And the fetishism! My god! After the fifth or sixth long, lingering shot of some girl's feet I turned to my cohorts and asked 'I forgot, did Tarantino direct this one?' I mean, I fully support his doing whatever turns him on, but let's move along with the movie, alright?

A few spoilers follow from this point so just skip to the ranking if you'd like to avoid them. But the girls we meet at the start of the movie are so painful to watch that I literally applauded their deaths. I could not have been happier when Kurt Russel drove his car over the face of one of the most annoying of their number. After he dispatches the first long winded, annoying car-load of women, he manages to find a second. These girls are perhaps even more annoying and I was greatly looking forward to their deaths. Unfortunately that's not how the movie went. I won't ruin the ending, but I will say it was weak, and that I'd really liked for them all to have died painfully, if for no other reason than that it's not really suspense if nothing bad actually happens.

Wonder Blog rating: 4.5/10

Overall I'd recommend seeing it. But if you have to duck out early, don't feel too bad about missing Death Proof. I'm seeing Grindhouse again this weekend and I doubt I'll stay for it. (Though Rosario Dawson looked lovely in it. So did Mary Elizabeth Winstead for that matter *rwrr*.)

Of course, you're welcome to agree with me. Feel free to do so below.

- Scott

Brood Wars

I'm not one to rest on my laurels. No. If anything I'd describe myself as lounging on them, with the occasional loaf thrown in for good measure. But what is it... almost the second week of April? And even though today's post has nothing to do with working, driving to work, or not working (except for the fact that I'm posting it from work maybe...) I feel it's time to move on.

Here's the issue that's been bothering me lately. I'm a terrible brooder. Really, I suck at it. Not in the creating offspring sense (though that would also be perfectly fine for a few years), but in the "I'm so misunderstood/No, I just can't let anyone inside/So unapproachable" sense. It's a very valuable "leave me the hell alone" skill.

I have to admit that while I often remark on how remarkably good looking I am, this is all just a facade of white noise to mask my utter inadequacy in the area of brooding. I hear you already, "But Scott, it's true; you are good looking!" Well, of course it is. But I play it up even more so I don't have to think how completely and utterly attractive I am to people I often don't wish to speak to.

For example, I found myself attempting to do some serious brooding at my local Megalo-Mart this morning. Despite my thousand yard stare, my furrowed brow, and my intimidating physique, I was interrupted by no less than three people while waiting on my car's oil change.

The first was a middle aged lady asked if the seat next to me was taken and proceeded to make fumbling attempts at chit-chat*. The second was another middle aged woman, obviously from out of town asking me if I knew where Canton**, the local Chinese restaurant, is. And finally, and most ridiculously, I was approached by the Croc-clad fag-hag of a gay, goth kid in Cowtown, IL. She informed me that her 15-year-old, overweight, homosexual version of John Constantine thought I was cute while he shyly waved.

Damn it people, I know I'm cute. I think we've established that. But just how the hell do you expect me to get in any "being unapproachable" practice in if you keep coming up to me? I even had my iPod in and sunglasses on, which is cruise-control for cashed-out.

So I implore you, good readers, lend me your secrets of the art of brooding. And if you're a female and feel that brooding is too manly, give me your pouting tips. It's basically the same thing, with a slightly different vibe. Hopefully next time I'll be so imposing no one will talk to me and I won't have to go take a nap in the Lawn and Garden section.

- Scott

* Which is annoying because, I'm like... just this guy, you know? You don't have to be nervous around me and you do not have to talk to me.

** She was also informed to ask for Jayne when she got there, and to perhaps order the Hero of Canton Platter. (Seriously. She probably did this, to the confusion of all involved.)