February 2012
10 posts
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If the classic children’s book Everyone Poops has taught me anything, it is that everyone poops; even Jamie Lee Curtis. Some are more irregular than others, like Jamie Lee Curtis.
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temple of the dog
Someone needs to commission a spinoff based around the hounds of Downton Abbey and it needs to be animated à la Capital Critters.
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deepest bluest
Big Miracle
I kept waiting for a school of ravenous, badly drawn CGI sharks to show up. It never happened.
ninja rap
Female Iranian ninjas. What can’t they do?
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lopsided
Some great characters roamed the hallways of my high school, but the girl with one leg was the most memorable. Even though God dealt her a shitty hand by not allowing her a limb below her femur, she still radiated an upbeat and joyful personality as she limped around campus on her peg leg. I could never remember her real name, but I lovingly nicknamed her The Buccaneer and always envisioned a...
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embrace the chaos
Super Bowl Sunday:
We used to revel in the streets, haunt hipster bars before we even knew they were hipster bars, pool our money together to buy dollar pitchers of shitty tasting draft beer, steal plates of appetizers off other tables, bump chests with total strangers, share fuzzy memories of Janet Jackson’s nipple, watch a group of Northeastern students flip over some yuppie’s...
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hoodoo voodoo
Some years back, my friend was cruising down the vitamin aisle at the local druggist’s shop and a bottle of Ginkgo Biloba was staring her down. The label had some promising claims printed right on the side, like “Enhance Your Memory and Prevent Memory Loss!” She grabbed a few bottles and skipped all the way home to share with the household.
Later that night, the lot of us...
January 2012
8 posts
3 tags
two-face
After careful consideration, I have reached a conclusion that my tenure at the John W. Rogers Middle School were arguably the worst years of my life. The hierarchical social structure of junior high was so damaging to my underdeveloped soul, that it created a monster within me that I have spent years trying to put to rest. While most of my classmates were experiencing the brave new world of...
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up on melancholy hill
Honestly, the real reason I have been watching Downton Abbey is for the rare glimpses of Isis, the blonde labrador; who is often seen chasing after the stray ping pong balls that have been terrorizing Downton ever since those rowdy, convalescing hooligans arrived.
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symphony of destruction
A business major watches Transformers: Dark of the Moon and wonders who is going to pay for the clean up after the Decepticons seized and destroyed the city of Chicago. Thousands of relief workers are sure to get sick after inhaling toxic dust and handling other hazardous debris, such as asbestos, lead, and mercury. The price of proper protective equipment is not cheap and just think of the...
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like mike
Did it grow back okay? Actually, the regrowth process was really s—-y — itchy, uncomfortable. I have a newfound appreciation for women, between the waxing, self-tanning, the constant gym time; I have a whole new profound respect for women and what they go through.
- Matt Bomer, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
So this guy, Matt Bomer, lands a role in Steven Soderbergh’s...
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on the 6
From July 2002 through January 2004, the entire world was captivated by the romance of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Perhaps it was to help us forget about the world crumbling around us; like 9/11, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the presidency of George W. Bush, and the cancellation of Futurama. Anyway, in the summer of 2003, on a cloudy and drizzly, but still humid late-July day, my pantheon of...
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cash rules everything around me
Whenever I see one of those published lists of the most stressful jobs in America, I skim through them to see if Suze Orman’s assistant charted anywhere on there. I envision this person running all over town for her on miscellaneous errands then being demonized by the dark lord for spending $5.25 on a venti caramel macchiato from Starbucks. At day’s end, this poor soul will go home...
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the ruling class
In my high school, if a class you really wanted to take was filled or you were just too lazy to pass in the course registration forms, you found yourself stuck in Intro to Home Economics. The course itself was an easy A, but the curriculum hadn’t been updated for several decades, which was great if you aspired to be a 50s homemaker. The teenage girls of the 90s that often took this class were of...
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you've got the love
I am often overcome with this unsettling emotion whenever a movie or television program from over ten years ago is playing and it features a canine actor. I assume that it is highly plausible the dog acting onscreen has passed away. These somber thoughts immediately pull me from the story and I become a volatile mess. I could watch The Dark Knight on an endless loop and not even wince at the...
blankest year
Tomorrow morning, when I am still the same person, there will be no clean slate; just breakfast specials. Scrambled eggs for this grump here.. and keep the coffee coming, darling.
December 2011
20 posts
2 tags
let's take a ride
There was a time in my life when I viewed Justin Timberlake as being one of the most threatening human beings alive. It was more than being subjected to his bland, manufactured pop music, or knowing he was getting blow-jobs from Britney Spears; both I could get over. Instead, it was the awareness of that strange hold he had over my female companions. I viewed him as this contagion that was causing...
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roasting on an open fire
Last year, I reminisced about the Dunn family Christmas in 1995. Well, now it’s 1996, and the saga continues. My voice grew a little deeper and the teenage angst was at its apex:
I shuffled down the stairs, pissed off that I had to wake up this early for unwrapping gifts - Christmas is fucking gay. I walked across the sea of gifts that littered my living room floor and collapsed onto the...
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lisztomania
As another year circles the drain, I brace myself for that week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve when all the highly opinionated folks with internet access publish their pretentious lists of the year’s best. Well, I’m no different. Best Album: The Kills, “Blood Pressures” The Kills have spent the last few years on my radar, but 2011 solidified them a spot in the “Best Rock Duos” wing of the...
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el mañana
It’s late Sunday afternoon. A familiar feeling begins to grow over me - that one where I realize the weekend will soon abruptly end. Tomorrow, there will be rats racing, keyboards clacking, and break-room coffee aromas. I close my eyes and think of that long dead cat dangling from a tree branch. Hang in there, baby.
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pony up
Reviews are in for Steven Spielberg’s War Horse. They say it’s an emotionally wrenching tale about a boy and his horse set against the backdrop of World War I.
I say, that horse better talk or else I’m walking out of the theater. I’ll even give the film bonus points if it’s voiced by Gilbert Gottfried.
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half awake in a fake empire
“The projects were a boon for the Bulger family. Jim Bulger was fifty-two, and jobs for a one armed man weren’t easy to come by.”
- Howie Carr, on the Old Harbor Housing Projects of South Boston, which is best known as the neighborhood where Whitey Bulger grew up.
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survey says
I have this habit of hoarding television series on my DVR for months. I imagine no other human being would ever sit down to watch an eight hour marathon of Family Feud in one sitting, but I consider my quirk akin to that of a squirrel storing nuts for the harsh winter months. It is inevitable that I will get sick one day and the unfailingly suave Steve Harvey will be the chicken soup that warms...
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at least it was here
I can’t think of a better way to spend my day off than with a marathon of NBC’s Community. I always felt a personal connection to the series because it always reminded me of my own foray at a junior college. It was nearly ten years ago that I first stepped foot onto my alma mater (can I call it that if I never even graduated). I was fresh off the high school assembly line, which I often...
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everlasting everything
“A man who orders up murder like you and I order coffee.”
With the curtain falling on the second season of Boardwalk Empire, Sunday nights are going to be lonely, at least for a while. No more Steve Buscemi standing behind those suits that make him look like a ten year old at a wedding, no more mother fucking, overdone Irish accents, or wild dogs running off with Richard Harrow’s tin...
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i'm a realist
This past Thanksgiving, while shoving hoards of mashed potatoes down my gullet, my mother interrupted the annual festive binge to announce that she had recently created a profile on Facebook. To start, I simply asked her, “Why?” Then proceeded to tell her in a long-winded rant that Facebook was nothing but a vapid world of dick-skinned human beings. Her blank, expressionless eyes...
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burning of the midnight lamp
The television spots for New Year’s Eve have been haunting me for days now. From what I’ve seen, the only way to a remotely interesting narrative would be for Katherine Heigl to reprise the role of the teenager from My Father the Hero. If you thought it was borderline questionable watching a teenage girl pretending to romance her father in 1994, imagine those hijinks recreated 17 years...
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mind eraser, no chaser
It was a mixed crowd, composed of mostly strangers. One of the men there raised his glass and prepared us for a group toast, “To our mid-20s!” he shouted aloud. I glanced the room and all I witnessed were smiling faces. In the split second before the toast, I broke the silence, “But I just turned 30!” A look of horror quickly fell over my new friend’s face. However, he quickly rebutted,...
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beyond the sea
December 7th, 1982. Huntsville, Texas.
Time to unplug the electric chair. On this day, Charles Brooks, Jr., became the first human soul to receive a lethal injection as a form of capital punishment. Brooks received an intravenous of sodium pentathol, which is often used as a “truth serum” in lower doses. Years later, execution authorities would adopt an injection procedure that...
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hitchin' a ride
The 53-year-old actor [Alec Baldwin] joins a growing list of celebs who have been kicked off flights this year, including Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong and Green Card’s Gerard Depardieu.
- Games Blog - Yahoo! Games
And now, over 50,000 web browsers just set sail for the Internet Movie Database. Oh yeah, Green Card! The 1990 film that has not been referenced since, well, 1990.
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mother, may i sleep with danger?
Nucky Thompson may have footed the bill for Jimmy Darmody; but let’s face it, Jimmy never really fit in with the other Princeton boys. They were born and bred with their futures outlined for them by their elders. Conversely, Jimmy was raised by his teenage mother with the help of her showgirl friends. His interpretation of the John Webster play they were studying in class that day was...
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setting fire to sleeping giants
December 4th, 1928. St Paul, Minnesota:
“Dapper” Dan Hogan, a saloon keeper and mob boss, became the first known human being to be killed as a result of a car bomb. At approximately 11:30am, Hogan hopped behind the wheel of his Paige coupe and a bomb hidden beneath the floorboards exploded when he started the car’s ignition. The blast nearly tore off his right leg and he was...
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the man who would speak true
The frozen pizza reviews by Leonard from NBC’s Community are reminiscent of any food-related critique I have ever made. Whenever it comes to food, especially pizza, it’s always simple; like, “the cheese is good.” Often times I won’t even use words. I’ve been asked how an entrée was by a food server and just nodded my head in the yes position. To paraphrase the...
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so far from your weapon
The discovery of a 1.8 ton World War II era bomb in the German city of Koblenz has caused officials to call for the evacuation of around 45,000 residents — nearly half of the city’s total population of 106,000 — while emergency crews work to defuse the British aerial mine.
The mandatory evacuation, which includes two hospitals, seven elderly care homes and a local prison,...
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shrinking universe
The thing about early American UFO sightings is that the technology always seemed to be just slightly ahead of what humans were almost capable of. For example, the airship sightings of 1896. Hundreds of eyewitnesses claimed to have seen a slow moving airship floating across northern California skies on a November night in 1896. Eyewitnesses described the ship as being cigar shaped, over 150 feet...
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we share the same skies
November 30, 1954. Sylacauga, Alabama:
Ann Elizabeth Hodges entered the history books as being the first documented case of a human being that has been struck by a meteorite. The 8.5 pound meteorite crashed through her roof, bounced off a radio, and landed on her hip. She only suffered minor bruises, but her case has managed to instill an irrational fear of falling skies that is sure to leave...
November 2011
25 posts
4 tags
every planet we reach is dead
“Yeah, I’m going to space. What are you gonna be doing? Stuck on fucking Earth watching The Real McCoys, that’s what.”
- Ham the Astrochimp, 1961 (Envision a Garfield-like thought bubble on this one).
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the world may never know
I think what’s interesting about her, as opposed to other women in the show is that she’s the only woman that isn’t looking to gain power through the man she’s with, she’s looking for her version of power just through herself. It would’ve been nice to see what that would’ve been. She was the one that had the potential of being a really modern woman.
- Aleksa Palladino, on playing Angela...
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intertiatic e.s.p.
I’ve always upheld this strange appreciation for the “over there” episodes of Fringe. I mean, within the context of their reality lies another universe with identically the same people running around but dealing with the consequences of alternate choices. In our own reality, I like to think that floating out there somewhere in the stardust is another Earth and another me; a version of myself...
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i fought the law
“Just because you’ve recently discovered Law & Order: UK does not mean you’re British… Or a cop, or a lawyer.”
- Everyone I will come in contact with over the next 6 days.
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hybird moments
The thing about The Walking Dead is that at any given moment, the drama unfolding onscreen can be interrupted by an unplanned zombie attack. For example, when Andrea grabbed Shane’s cock and prepped him for road head; I kept waiting for a walker to emerge from the backseat and devour them both.
If only…
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okay, i believe you but my tommy gun don't
It was a real emotional moment for me when I discovered there were only three episodes left of Boardwalk Empire this season. Also, they gave the little girl polio! “Is she going to die like daddy?” asks Mrs. Schroeder’s son, whose name escapes me at the moment. The children on the series have mostly been background characters, but I’m left wondering if the Schroeder girl...
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here we come to a turning of the season
I’ve always found the music of The Decemberists reminiscent of my ninth grade literature class. When I hear the lyrics of Colin Meloy, I am reminded of my Miss Havisham-like teacher hunched over her desk by the weight of her heavy pearl necklace and reading snippets of literary classics aloud to a class of uninterested teenagers. Occasionally, the sound of her frail voice would resonate some...
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a beatiful mine
Somewhere he had heard a joke: “It isn’t the fall that hurts, it’s the sudden stop.” Clever, that. It isn’t the fall …
How did it feel? It must be a strange sensation, falling like that. Fifty floors. Did one have time to think … time to regret? Hadn’t some doctor said they die while still in the air? How did he find that out? Well, if he ever...
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i'll stick around
One of my innumerable childhood heroes rolled into my hometown last night and brought some friends with him. The Foo Fighters played to a what I am told was a sold out show at the Boston Garden (I refuse to call it by any other name; despite what corporate entity’s name may be hanging on the front door). While I wasn’t too crazy about the setlist, which mostly included the songs you...