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Internet demon!
Devourer of bandwidth!
Curse you, MSN!

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So I am ultra jazzed, because for some unknown reason my wonderful grandma thought it would be nice to buy me some pain au chocolate.



She knows me too well. We first had it in France when I was 12, and it quickly became one of my favorite pastries of all time. Her being the awesome grandma she is, every time she stumbles across a French bakery, she grabs a couple to bring back for me.

So I'm having pain au chocolate for breakfast, and it's awesome to the max.

What's it taste like? Imagine eating a Hershey's bar while sitting waiting for fresh bread to bake. Now magnify that by one hundred, and stick it in your mouth. It's pretty sweet.

I'm going to go so far as to hyperbolically say it's the best thing ever.

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Whose taxi reigns craziest on Richard and Kaiti's Dreamcast?

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A ring breaks still air
A man's voice; Jersey accent
Wanting time turned back

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Folder! Eat my desk
All your children soon follow
Eat lunch in my car

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Silent sentinel
Cargo truck with Comic Sans
So proud, so tragic

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In crisp spring twilight
Luxury car, you're too close
Car repair for free

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Tonight I'd like to talk a little about a movie franchise I assumed was dead. But first, let's think back to 1997. The year of 'Titanic', which made us all cry like a little sissy girl. 'Good Will Hunting', a beautiful, touching and poignant movie.

And 'Air Bud'.



Let me refresh your memory, in case you've forgotten.

'Air Bud' is the touching story of a lonely boy who befriends a basketball playing Golden Retriever and they win a bunch of basketball games. As far as awful 90's family movies go, 'Air Bud' was one of the worst.

So let's play a quick trivia game. How many sequels do you think they've made to this movie?

Go ahead, think a second.

I'll wait here.

Got a number yet?

Three? Five? Seven?

So far there have been seven sequels to 'Air Bud'. They range from 'dog playing football' to 'dog playing volleyball' to 'dog having talking puppies who all collectively form a basketball team'.

But now... now they've made what I can guarantee is going to quickly become my favorite movie of all time. My generation's 'Casablanca'. With all the sports already tapped for sequels, what bold new frontier can they take this family of wacky talking dog athletes?

Easy.

Everyone meet at my house a week from tomorrow.

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This dog has more will-power and concentration now than I will ever be able to muster.

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It speaks for itself.


Thompson's Gambit, Attempt #1 from medibot on Vimeo.

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So I was watching 'Secret Life of the American Teenager' on DVD last night in bed when I sat up in shock.

It turns out my current television obsession executed one of my favorite crappy cinematic techniques -- pulling a Ruffalo!

Luckily, someone on the internet feels strongly enough about 'Secret Life' that they've stuck parts of the episodes online. Guess which part!



You're going to want to skip to 5:20 in. Then again, maybe not. The show is pretty riveting. But if you do skip ahead, you'll see what I think may be the current record -- the triple Ruffalo! Three in a row! Later in the episode it happens again, making it a quadruple Ruffalo!

Truly, we live in a Renaissance of television, where a man might see a triple Ruffalo in his lifetime.

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Let's you and me talk honestly for a moment. There's a lot of stuff on this blog that could easily be dismissed as hooplah. Rabble. The old riggamaroll.

But deep down... you and I are the same kind of person. We breathe the same air, drive on the same streets... and we both do things we're deeply embarrassed about. Here's where you have the advantage over me; you can get away with reading while I'm stuck here spilling the beans. But I'll happily spill these beans.

This blog is more accurately titled:



You see, there's this show I've been watching. I didn't even set out to watch it, it just sorta happened on accident. I ended up at Richard and Kaiti's house one afternoon and Richard wasn't home. Kaiti was watching this show, and without knowing it, I was hooked.

The show, as gleamed from the blog title, is 'The Secret Life of the American Teenager'. As far as guilty pleasures go, it's probably my guiltiest so far. I mean, I've watched some potentially embarassing stuff, but 'Secret Life' is beyond embarrassing.



I want you to imagine a standard soap opera. You know, cheesy and unrealistic plots and characters? Dramatic swerves and unexpected reveals?

'Secret Life' blows everything you can imagine STRAIGHT OUT OF THE WATER. And the theme song is sung by Molly Ringwald.

See, I've got this theory, which I call the Theory of Stupid/Awesome. The theory is this -- imagine a globe of creative works. Starting at Stupid, something can circle the globe completely and miss the Stupid mark, ending up at Awesome instead. It's so bad it's great. It's stupid/awesome.



For instance, let's watch the teaser trailer for the show before it launched.



Looks like pretty standard family friendly drama, right? Well, you're wrong. It's a million times better. Strip away all the glitz and glamor of a soap opera and instead give them stupid teenager indignant looks. You're about half-way there. Now add in plot twists that have never, ever actually happened to real teenagers and you've got one of the most additively watchable TV shows of the last ten years.

While there are no 'main characters' (no sir, this is an ensemble show), I like to say our two main characters are Amy and Ben, two fifteen year old kids who just started High School.



That's them, right before they illegally eloped using fake drivers licenses claiming that they and all their friends are all the same person from Reno, Nevada. Why are Amy and Ben getting married? Well, long story short, Amy is pregnant from a three second sexual encounter with Ricky at band camp and now Ben wants to marry her because he fell in love with her while trying to get into her pants because she seemed more accessible than the more attractive popular cheerleader character.

That's eliminating all the intricacies of their relationship, such as that Ben's nickname is 'The Sausage Prince', or that Amy vomited on Ben after eating a polish sausage covered in onions and green peppers. It's all about the journey getting there, and watching these kids do the same stupid things that you and I did when we were their age. Except for sexual misadventures at band camp. That was way too cliché.

Is 'The Secret Life of the American Teenager' good? Definitely not. But it's immensely fun, cheesier than your grandma's macaroni and jam packed with laughably quotable lines.

'The Secret Life of the American Teenager' airs Monday nights at 8 PM on ABC Family.

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So, apparently everyone else in the world knew that Joaquin Phoenix retired from acting. Which bums me out, because he was good, but whatever.

What you all didn't know is that he has channeled his art into a more creative skill. Rapping.

Last night he took to a Las Vegas club, dressed as a scary scraggly Unibomber, to debut his rapping in a world premier. It went very, very poorly.

BUT, someone took some camera phone footage. And you get to watch it.

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Occasionally my internet nerds come across delicious tips before they become general knowledge.

Such as that one Lupe Fiasco, popular MC, said he was retiring from rap/hip-hop... and instead formed a punk band while using a fake British accent.

Check it out.

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All right, as a nerd I'll allow a lot of little concessions. Heck, I'll allow a lot of concessions.

But this, THIS is inexcusable.



There are few nerd Holy Grails that I celebrate, but 'Cowboy Bebop' is one of them.

And putting Keanu Reeves as Spike is just... unholy. It's like making a live-action version of 'Peanuts' and casting Shia LaBeouf as Charlie Brown. It's just not right.

Incidentally, I demand royalties in five years when the 'Peanuts' movie is made featuring Shia LaBeouf.

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I want to first begin by apologizing. This is definitely going to be a little more serious than most of the things I put on this blog. I haven't really been able to talk about this before, but it's now been long enough that I feel I can now speak openly about what happened.

As some of you may know, we moved a few times when I was younger. It was pretty hard to make new friends when you were only staying in one place for a brief amount of time. Year after year, we'd unpack our stuff, I'd make some friends and then pack it all back up to move again. It's not that we were getting kicked out of our house or anything; it's just that we were upwardly mobile and always looking to better ourselves and our circumstances.

When I was 14 or 15, we moved for the second to last time (well, until we move again soon). We ended up living right down the street from a strip mall that had a Sconecutters, an Albertsons and... a karate dojo. Now, I've never been in the best of shape. If anything, I've maintained a consistent panda-bear shape for most of my teenage and adult life. But when you're that young, doing a sport can be a great way to finally make some friends and feel like part of a team. So my parents, realizing they would never have a great footballer or baseball player, allowed me to enroll in the dojo.

The Sensei at the dojo (a 'Sensei' is a karate teacher, for those of you who don't know) was a man named John. Sensei John was a fantastic relic of the 80's; too proud to change, he liked the familiar and the comfortable. He was a very, very sweet man, however. Every night after training he would ask which of us walked to the dojo. Anyone who raised their hand automatically got a ride home in his Jeep. Sensei John was just that kind of guy; he appreciated hard work and he rewarded it with friendship and kindness.

Speaking of friendship, the guys at the dojo were great. While all of them have moved on, each one was a fine guy who I'm proud to have trained beside. Two of my closest friends were Aaron (who I knew from school, and who started karate at the same time as me) and Johnny, who was the assistant instructor. Sensei John loved Johnny in the way that a father loves his successful son. Both shared common interests, had similar childhoods and even had the same first name. Despite the twenty year difference between them, Sensei John seemed to trust Johnny with some of the day-to-day responsibilities of running the dojo as well as occasionally teaching class.

Our class consisted of eight of us with four students coming and going as they pleased. I was closest with Aaron and Johnny (as I said earlier), and on good terms with Jim and Tom. They were a year or two older than me, so we never really hung out. While we were practicing, though, we were all inseparable.

I guess now's a good time to respond to the first of the claims made against Sensei John. Rumors had started circulating around the neighborhood (which wasn't very big but was very talkative) that Sensei John was running the dojo too strictly. None of us thought so; we were all too busy practicing to wonder if it was all too much. Sure, the work was hard sometimes, but it made us strong in body and spirit. Sensei John took the rumors hard, though. He had prided himself on being a good husband and a good teacher, and the allegations that he was intolerable behind closed doors hurt his spirit. He never talked to us about it, mainly because he probably thought we didn't need to hear about it if we hadn't already. We had, though, so we understood what he was going through.

This didn't slow us down, however. Sensei John kept us training just as we always had, if not a little bit less for fear that it was one of us who started the rumor. It was towards the end of the school year when Sensei John got his idea, and all of the trouble began. See, at the end of the school year was the Valley Karate Championships, a yearly round robin tournament in which students from local karate schools would spar (namely, fight each other without the intent to injure) to see which dojo had the most effective training regimen. Sensei John thought this would be a great opportunity to show that not only was he a sensitive coach, but also a good leader and an honest man. The championships would be a way for him to address some of the criticism publicly and show that there was nothing wrong with our dojo.

The tournament was unremarkable until the semi-finals. Six or seven different dojos had students represented, and slowly our class had been weeded down until Johnny and Bobby (one of Johnny's friends who he had recruited into the class three or four months before I started) were left. Johnny was bracketed up against a kid named Darryl (I think) and Bobby was bracketed up against a kid named Dan. Anyway, Johnny won his match, so it was time for Bobby and Dan. Bobby started the match with a running side-kick, which is completely legal in tournament play. Unfortunately, Dan stepped into the kick (to absorb some of the blow) and shattered the femur in the upper part of his thigh. Dan dropped to the ground and began sobbing, and Bobby ran over to make sure he was OK.

It was at this point that the tournament judges made a mistake. It was later demonstrated in court that they were operating under the assumption that Sensei John had run an unnecessarily tough dojo, and that Bobby's kick was aimed to actually injure Dan. The court found that the opposite was true (as evidenced by Bobby running over to check on Dan), but that's not important right now.

So, the tournament referees disqualified Bobby from the tournament for 'unnecessary roughness'. This made Sensei John livid (as it would have anyone), and while he did his best to restrain it, he ended up in a very public argument with one of the referees. With Bobby disqualified and Dan injured, Johnny was the only person left in the tournament and theoretically should have been the winner. Unfortunately, Sensei John's yelling match with the referee got Johnny disqualified, so Dan ended up taking home the trophy.

At this point, some of the parents in the crowd began to turn on Sensei John. They had all heard the stories and assumed that not only had he requested Bobby hurt Dan, but thought that he was trying to blatantly defend it. This was only compounded when Dan's mom insisted that she had heard Sensei John instruct Bobby to hurt Dan, despite that Sensei John never left the team area, and Dan's mom was across the arena. Even if she had been close enough to hear something, Sensei John's concern was always his students and he never would have instructed one to do something that would A) not only hurt someone else but B) lead to them being thrown out of the tournament.

Well, the tournament spectators turned on Sensei John. He became publicly villainized across town. When a local news channel did a story with Dan on the tournament, Sensei John gave an interview in which he explained his side. None of the footage got used. Eventually the event was sensationalized into a movie which was even more unfavorable to us and Sensei John. He closed the dojo shortly after the release of the film and ended up moving out of town when it got so bad that he was taunted walking down the street.

Sensei John sued Daniel's family for the slander and won in court, granting him a large portion of the proceeds from the movie as well as clearing his name. It was all too late, though, as the damage was already done. The money was definitely a consolation, but when you can't walk down the street of your home town without someone shouting 'Sweep the leg!' at you, it's not worth it.

Sensei John hung himself four years later.

I know none of this matters to any of you, but it was an important part of my life. The gag order put on all of us by the court until 25 years after the movie's release stopped any of us from speaking publicly about our experiences until now.

I hope if you have any friends or family who heard the 'Karate Kid' story that you'll honor the memory of Sensei John Kreese by telling the other side of the story and stemming all the negative feelings towards him even after all these years.

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First, realize, this is from Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House. Not a subordinate. Her. The third most powerful person in the Free World.

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I'm sure several of you have seen this already, but it's hilarious.

Mainly because it's Shaq's actual, honest-to-goodness moment by moment account of his life. And it's hilarious.

SHAQ TWITTER ATTACK!

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America needs a game show in which we scientifically see how large of a fish a cat can steal.

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We need to get all the rest of my iconic childhood figures into a safe place.

Someone send a car to check on Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Steve Martin, Michael T. Weiss and Mark Hammill.

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Of all the souls I have ever known...

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Be seeing you, old sport.

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Holy crap. HOOOOLY CRAP.

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Even now, typing at a computer and facing a wall, I can see a stack of DVDs without turning my head. TV (especially TV on DVD) is one of the few things I actively collect and enjoy, and one of my pleasures in life. I love TV shows, but I sometimes have a hard time making the commitment to watch at certain hours of certain days of the week. Instead, I wait for the DVD release, buy and binge. It's fantastic in that I can watch as many episodes as I'd like of something and, on cliffhangers, don't need to worry about waiting a week (or even months) to find out what happens. Usually I'll buy shows I know I enjoy, get the complete series and then binge from there. Sometimes they're quality shows and sometimes they're my guilty pleasures, but it's always been fun.

Unfortunately, this has backfired on me.

Let me tell you about 'Profiler'.



'Profiler' debuted in 1996 on NBC as part of the SATURDAY NIGHT THRILLOGY. See, the Saturday Night Thrillogy was three science-fiction/fantasy/crime shows broadcast on Saturday night in hopes that gigantic geeks would forfeit their weekends to sit home and watch a three hour block of TV. I was ten years old at the time, and I never missed a week.

The first show in the 'thrillogy', 'Dark Skies', was basically X-Files Lite and didn't do very well. The other two shows, 'Profiler' and 'The Pretender', did extremely well and got several seasons.

Now, I've already watched all of 'The Pretender', and it's as majestic and wonderful as I remembered. A TV show in which a childish man uses his super-intellect to bluff his way into exciting and dangerous careers to rescue people? I could get behind that, and I still can. 'The Pretender' had an overarching story that made sense... well, about as much sense as possible given the main character's origin (which is far too complicated to relay here).

My problem is, I remembered 'Profiler' to be pretty much the same. Sure, the characters and plots were wildly different, but I remembered it to be the same campy fun that I watched as a kid.

See, 'Profiler' was the story of Dr. Samantha Waters, a criminal psychologist who helps the FBI's Violent Crimes Task Force solve murders by gaining insight into the mind of the criminal. This was well before anything like 'CSI' or 'Criminal Minds'; matter of fact, do you know that TV trick where they flash to something dramatic or scary, and then jump back as a character gets an idea from 'seeing into the mind' of someone? 'Profiler' pioneered that. 'Profiler' pioneered a lot of things in that regard.

On paper, absolutely everything sounds great. The show got four seasons, the ratings were fantastic and there was so much buzz that 'Profiler' even crossed over into 'The Pretender' for a couple episodes and scored NBC insane ratings for the Saturday night slot.

Unfortunately, in practice, the show wasn't that great.

I'm now on the third of four seasons, and I've gotten to where I struggle to watch episodes of the show. It's not that the plot's gotten significantly worse (although, upon reflection, I guess it has). It's not that the acting has become wooden and predictable. It feels like the show just isn't trying anymore.

History sides with me on this. After the third season, the star of the show (a perpetually glassy-eyed Ally Walker who managed to be positively awful as Dr. Waters without tanking the show) quit and was replaced with a different actress. The show's main story arc (Dr. Waters being stalked by a psychotic serial killer) ended as well, and the show had nothing to stand on as it slouched towards its inevitable death. But season three is where it all went wrong, where I'm stuck, and why I'm considering breaking up with 'Profiler'.

This isn't a decision I take lightly. I've never once, not once, quit a TV show I own mid-series. Even shows that became intolerably awful towards their final seasons. I found a reason to 'make it work' and kept going for my own sanity. Except 'Profiler'... it's really pushing me.

Case in point: the show's never been particularly good with it's own internal logic. Things that happen one week are sometimes carried into the next one; characters with firm beliefs often reverse them as the plot dictates. For instance, the main character has a young daughter. Since Dr. Waters and her daughter are being stalked by a serial killer (as mentioned above), they move from safe-house to safe-house, forgoing a normal life in exchange for their safety from a murderer.

Except that Dr. Waters' daughter has seen the murderer and knows what he looks like. They could have a description of the serial killer, something NOBODY HAS BEEN ABLE TO PROVIDE THEM, but Dr. Waters won't ask her daughter. Because "it would be too traumatic". More traumatic than being STALKED BY A SERIAL KILLER AND LOSING YOUR CHILDHOOD AS YOU MOVE FROM SAFE-HOUSE TO SAFE-HOUSE? They could take a gigantic step in stopping the murderer, but the venerable psychologist Dr. Waters thinks it's better if they don't push it.

Really?

Or that very recently in the show, they actually caught the serial killer and have him locked up now! Yay, they can have a normal life again! Except that it's very clearly not the serial killer. The man they arrested (and who admitted to doing it) doesn't look like, speak like or act like the actual serial killer that we as the audience (and to some extent them as characters) have seen for the past two seasons. It's incredibly, PAINFULLY obvious it's not the right guy, but everyone's blind to that. Forget that they've hunted the guy for seven years. This guy confessed, so he MUST be the killer!

These are just two of many. We're not even talking about the poorly written characters (including Dr. Waters' best friend, Angel Brown, who was set up from the first episode to be the least likable person on the planet). The show's actually insulting it's viewers, and I don't know that I can continue to watch that.

But then, the crippling shame! Quitting a show!

I'm torn. I don't know what to do. I know I should man up, stop watching and get over it, but the completest in me won't let me.

Maybe I can get someone to borrow the series from me, and then I can give it out and not have to worry about it. Man... breaking up is hard to do.

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Welcome to Cinematic Hell, where I watch only the worst of movies and describe for you what's happening as it happens!

Today's entry: 'Postal', a film by Uwe Boll. 'Postal' is described as "South Park meets Team America: World Police" and "one of the most offensive comedies of all time". When a comedy goes out of its way to tell you it's offensive, you know it's gotta mean something.



Now, 'Postal' was supposed to make $1m+ (or so thought director Uwe Boll) but instead opened nationwide on something like 12 screens and didn't make back a fraction of it's money. 'Postal' is rumored to be so bad that... well, the movie's supposed to be infamously bad. But let's watch and see if that holds up.

I'll post the time code in the movie, and then what's happening. So let's peruse 'Postal'.

NOTE: This is a warning. This movie's really, really offensive. If you're easily offended, do not click the link below. Please. I'm just describing the movie in as plain of terms as possible, but still... it's pretty bad.

Click here to read the write-up!

00:00:01 - The Uwe Boll logo. Ominous music. Definitely a good start for bad crap.

00:00:10 - We're flying through the clouds with airplane chatter. Uwe Boll's name popped up.

00:00:25 - Two middle-eastern guys are flying the plane. Likelihood that this is a 9/11 joke: 75%.

00:00:30 - They both have thick accents and just said martyrdom. Likelihood that this is a 9/11 joke: 90%.

00:00:45 - The middle-eastern guys are arguing over the number of virgins they'll get in Heaven.

(I just tried to fast-forward the movie on Netflix, and it's disabled. I CANNOT FAST FORWARD THIS MOVIE.)

00:01:45 - The guys are talking to Osama bin Laden. He's apparently The Flash, since he just told them an enormous amount of information in two seconds. Either that, or the actors are terrible at one-sided phone conversations. Hmm...

00:02:10 - Apparently there's not 100 virgins for martyrs, there's only 20 due to too many martyrs.

00:02:55 - The terrorists are abandoning their mission and are instead going to take the plane to the Bahamas. Passengers are trying to break down the door.

00:03:00 - The passengers have broken down the door and are beating up the terrorists.

00:03:15 - They just crashed the plane into the World Trade Center on accident. I'm guaranteed a ticket in hell for having seen this.

00:03:30 - We've got movie title!

00:03:44 - Joke about Axl Rose!

00:03:54 - Joke about gay marriage!

00:04:00 - Joke about Tom Cruise! Keep the fresh jokes coming, Dr. Boll! Oh yeah, did I mention Uwe Boll was a doctor?

00:04:26 - We meet the main character. He's got a laughably overweight wife in a sexy outfit who has a southern accent and is calling him names. Classy.

00:04:44 - Main character just drank rotten milk, did a spit take. Clearly we've reached the pinnacle of comedy.

00:05:00 - Main character steps in dog poop.

00:05:21 - Main character's dog eats his own poop.

00:06:04 - Main character's wife is cheating on him.

00:06:05 - We've got a catch-phrase! "I hate this town!"

00:06:10 - Hey! J.K. Simmons is in this movie! What's he doing here, he's been in some respectable stuff recently!



00:06:31 - Holy crap, Erick Avari's in this movie too! Have we died and gone to character actor heaven?

00:06:47 - Guy in turban playing DDR.

00:07:00 - Terrorist hide-out in the back of a convenience store has a 'No infidels allowed' sign on the door.

00:07:40 - Erick Avari just shouted 'Woo hoo!' in the most memorable way I've ever heard. I'd go back and record it for you to hear, except that I CAN'T REWIND.

00:07:56 - Main character is at a job interview. Character actor Rick Hoffman is the interviewer. I'm now pretty sure that I'm in character actor heaven.

00:08:11 - There are five severed heads on poles in this company's conference room. "I see you noticed the heads. Motivational."

00:08:36 - Main character is flailing around in a broken chair. Obvious sight gags ahoy!

00:09:01 - The chair magically fixed itself.

00:09:12 - The chair's broken again.

00:09:25 - The chair's fixed again.

00:09:30 - At least the part where he gets asked stupid interview questions is accurate. I've been to at least one job interview like this.

00:11:15 - The main character is singing a fight song for the company. It's unpleasant more than anything else.

00:11:56 - Catch-phrase again!

00:12:05 - Hippy commune.

00:12:15 - The hippy commune is called the 'Denomination of Organic Monotheism'. DOOM. Cute.

00:12:32 - Holy crap, Dave Foley's in this movie as the leader of DOOM. And his character name is Dave. I check my pulse. I'm not dead, but I think maybe character actor heaven came to me instead. This can't be heaven, though... maybe character actor hell. But then why is Dave Foley there?



00:13:22 - "Pious people in the house say 'Ohhhh!'"

00:13:31 - Gratuitous nudity.

00:14:22 - DAVE FOLEY IS COMPLETELY NAKED. TOTALLY NAKED. AND WE SEE EVERYTHING. THIS IS CHARACTER ACTOR HELL.

00:14:39 - AND NOW HE'S POOPING, AND WE'RE WATCHING. WHYYYYYYYY?!

00:15:22 - 'Poop smells bad' joke!

00:16:47 - Main character accosted by guy from New Jersey in track suit.

00:17:31 - 'Asian woman is a bad driver' joke!

00:17:53 - Black guy cop complaining about foreigners not knowing English. Again, only the most cutting edge humor.

00:18:30 - Black guy cop just shot the Asian woman in the face with a shotgun for being a bad driver.

00:19:11 - Even more character actors. I'm going to stop calling out anything but the most notable ones.

00:19:28 - Joke about guy not knowing what he wants to order at Starbucks! Stick that one in a Ziplock bag!

00:20:41 - Dave Foley's character is the main character's uncle apparently.

00:20:52 - 'Donkey show' joke!

00:21:42 - To quote Dave Foley on 'Kids In The Hall', PREMISE BEACH! WE'VE GOT A FLIMSY MOVIE PREMISE!

00:22:00 - Apparently the main character couldn't go to college because he pooped on the flag as a result of Dave Foley's previous wacky scheme.

00:23:30 - There's a shooting at the welfare office. The shooter is humming 'O Tannenbaum'.

00:24:15 - Main character steals a waiting line ticket from a dead guy. He gets to the window and... the office closes! What a crazy random happenstance!

00:25:00 - Main character's wife is cheating on him with his gross redneck neighbor. We see way more than necessary.

00:26:24 - The main character's wife is still cheating on him, and is now coated in kitchen flour. Why? No idea.

00:27:03 - New Jersey guy is back and is now holding main character hostage.

00:27:40 - The main character just killed New Jersey guy with his own gun while Dave Foley ponders about frequent flier miles. Also, main character is now involved in Dave's new scheme!

00:28:15 - Osama bin Laden joke tape.

00:28:55 - The terrorist director of the tape is playing it broad. Osama's lactose intolerant and has an affluent white guy accent. He's also a diva on set.

00:29:59 - 9/11 was "child's play" compared to their evil plan for something called 'Krotchy Dolls', which are children's dolls shaped like the male anatomy. Also, Osama's assistant thinks Oprah's lost a lot of weight.

00:31:32 - Dave Foley and main character can't do math!

00:32:12 - The main premise is that they're going to steal these Krotchy Dolls and sell them on eBay. They're also the same dolls that the terrorists have done something to as per their evil plan.

00:32:30 - J.K. Simmons is back, and is gone again!

00:33:16 - Guy in turban playing air hockey.

00:33:26 - Suicide bomber saying goodbye to boxes of cereal as he walks down the cereal aisle.

00:33:57 - J.K. Simmons just got blown up by a suicide bomber. He's covered in horrible burn make-up and his charred face just slid down the window of a convenience store.

00:35:00 - Main character just used a disabled guy in a wheelchair as a ladder to climb a fence.

00:35:40 - Black cop is back and is now stealing from the disabled guy.

00:36:25 - Black cop apparently keeps the handicapped guy in his garage under a blanket.

00:37:00 - Apparently the caper is going to take place in somewhere called 'Little Germany'. Gee, Uwe Boll is from Germany. I wonder if... naw, he's not that hackneyed.

00:38:11 - The terrorists are going to attack Little Germany for the dolls as well. Osama takes a telephone call from George W. Bush.

00:38:50 - George W. Bush is playing with Legos and just destroyed Lego Twin Towers with a plastic toy plane while talking to bin Laden.

00:39:35 - Verne Troyer plays himself. Apparently he's the voice of the Krotchy charater.

00:40:00 - THE MAIN CAST IS WEARING HITLER MUSTACHES AND SWASTIKA ARM BANDS.

00:40:43 - The first joke I've actually laughed at -- Little Germany is just Little Holland with with sign painted over.

00:40:41 - Little Germany has gas chambers. Seriously.

00:41:00 - Uwe Boll is now in the movie as himself, a charismatic, handsome and rich film director who owns Little Germany and is in no way a hack. They just described him as having made several "hit movies". That's a stretch.

00:41:40 - Black cop is back and using the handicapped guy to solicit money in Little Germany.

00:42:10 - Uwe Boll says his movies are made with Nazi gold.

00:42:30 - Uwe Boll just said he's sexually aroused by children.

00:43:35 - Dave Foley, dressed in a Hitler mustache and swastika armband, just told an army of women dressed just like him to seduce security guards. And the guards are turned on by this.

00:44:50 - Verne Troyer arrives in a pick-up truck. Meanwhile, our main cast, dressed as Nazis, are getting high.

00:46:00 - The terrorists arrive at Little Germany. Also, Little Germany has a giant cartoon Adolph Hitler walking around.

00:46:05 - Uwe Boll (playing himself) pays Verne Troyer (playing himself) in gold teeth. You make the connection; I don't feel right even typing it.

00:46:30 - Joke about young children being molested.

Now, I'd like to stop here for a moment. We're now half-way through this movie, and I can honestly say it's probably one of the most philosophically offensive things I've ever seen. Not because it's offensive, because all good comedy is a little offensive. It's just insensitive, which is completely different. I'm actually embarrassed for the cast of this movie, something that I've never actually felt before. This is everything it said it would be and more. At this point I don't even feel like watching the rest of the movie, but it'd be a bit of a cop-out to quit now.

So let's soldier on. For posterity or something.

00:46:40 - Anne Frank joke.

00:47:20 - The creator of the video game 'Postal', which this movie is based on, shows up to beat up Uwe Boll. Finally.

00:47:50 to 00:50:10 - The creator of 'Postal' just shot the handicapped guy. Uwe Boll shot the creator of 'Postal'. The terrorists just shot four or five civilians. Uwe Boll just shot a small child eating a corndog. A child is shot. And another one. And another one. And another one. And another one. Uwe Boll is shot in the crotch. Verne Troyer punches an eight year old in a crotch. Verne Troyer is locked in a suitcase with a glow-in-the-dark set of genitals. I'm not making any of this up.

00:51:20 - Our heroes are still wearing swastikas. How did anyone read this script and agree to be in the movie?! Come on Dave Foley, I know you've had a rough few years, but seriously.

00:51:58 - An attractive girl vomits, and we see the whole thing happen.

00:52:10 - Main character runs over the woman from the welfare office. She's flipped into the air Brad Pitt in 'Meet Joe Black' style. And then hit by another car on her way down. And then hit by a police car. Her dead body is being juggled through the air by a series of cars.

00:52:22 - Black cop is the one who hit the woman. He's relieved it's a woman and not a flat tire.

00:52:40 - Back at Little Germany, a reporter makes a gigantic pile of dead children and stands in the middle of them for a news report. She's putting water in her eyes to make it look like she's been crying. There are an uncountable number of dead kids on the screen. What the hell.

00:53:00 - We get gratuitous close-ups on the dead kids.

00:53:50 - FINALLY, the swastika armbands come off. That was 13 minutes of cinematic magic there.

00:54:50 - Our main character finally gets a name -- Postal Dude.

00:55:30 - Postal Dude slips on chunks of J.K. Simmons from earlier in the movie.

00:56:40 - Everyone in this movie now has a gun. The main character's dressed up as a cop.

00:57:26 - Postal Dude says Verne Troyer looks like a penguin in his suit, and it's so true. I'll admit, I laughed at that.

00:58:28 - News report about the world blowing up the Middle East to separate Africa from the rest of the world so we can just 'forget about it'.

00:59:03 - Postal Dude shoots a terrorist THROUGH A CAT. HE STICKS THE GUN UP THE CAT'S BUTT AND FIRES OUT IT'S MOUTH. The cat survives and is fine. I'm pretty sure cats don't work that way.

01:01:40 - Plot twist, I guess they're not selling the Krotchy Dolls, I guess they're using them to bring about Armageddon.

01:02:25 - Apparently Krotchy Dolls distribute Avian Bird Flu to the population at large.

01:03:28 - Verne Troyer is the harbinger of the Apocalypse.

01:04:20 - Verne Troyer, playing himself, is raped by ten thousand monkeys. I cannot stress enough that I have not made any of this up.

01:05:00 - Apparently the terrorists are using a different handicapped guy to destroy the world.

01:05:40 - Osama bin Laden is at a leadership training seminar at a local motel.

01:06:11 - Dave Foley betrays his nephew, Postal Dude, and gets full on kissed on the lips by a fat guy who is his follower who is also holding a gun to his head. They kiss for a solid thirty seconds, and Dave Foley enjoys it.

01:07:50 - Dave Foley is apparently gay, despite there being no clues whatsoever anywhere else in the movie.

01:08:16 - And now he's been shot and is dead. Also, he's groping a boob as he dies.

01:10:17 - The main character uses a box of explosive shells and an electrical wire to blow up a door he's been trapped behind.

01:11:03 - Meanwhile, attractive models eating brownies outside the door.

01:11:43 - Postal Dude is going to go upstairs and kill some terrorists. Also, he's got an Anarchy tattoo since earlier in the movie. And the supermodels are now helping him as a crack SWAT team.

01:13:37 - "Go home, ladies, and no more stupid cults that look forward to the end of the world." "We've decided to be Christians." "Oh well!"

01:14:00 - Title card -- 'TWO MINUTES LATER...'

01:14:43 - I just realized who a bit part character actor from earlier in the movie was -- David Huddleston, a.k.a. The Big Lebowski in the movie of the same name. Awesome.

01:17:07 - Osama bin Laden's credit card is declined at a motivational lecture.

01:17:53 - Postal Dude runs over a baby.

01:17:58 - Black cop, his foreign partner and Postal Dude's wife are blown up in a trailer explosion while they engage in a bizarre threesome.

01:19:50 - The climactic fight scene apparently takes place in a trailer park. A guy is shot with a shotgun and is blown through his trailer while in his underwear.

01:21:30 - Motivational lecture on why religious extremism is bad. Swelling orchestral music. It's less convincing since it revolves around Postal Dude holding everyone hostage with a bomb.

01:22:50 - "Let's find some common ground!" "Well, we all hate Jews!" "Yeah, everyone knows that!"

01:23:20 - Motivational lecture fails, the gunfight resumes.

01:24:50 - Postal Dude and his conveniently found new lady friend kill a whole bunch of people. Osama bin Laden places a collect call to George W. Bush who is golfing at a miniature golf course.

01:26:20 - There's gunfire noises overdubbed, but people are walking around calmly in the background. Masterful work, Dr. Boll.

01:26:45 - Osama bin Laden tells George W. Bush, "I wish I knew how to quit you."

01:28:00 - Handicapped terrorist guy tries to blow up IRS Agents, but forgets to put on his suicide belt and instead blows up Osama's second hand man.

01:28:45 - Character actor Rick Hoffman is killed after not appearing in the movie for over an hour.

01:29:00 - Postal Dude is shot in the head, and then isn't?

01:29:10 - Postal Dude's crowning moment of awesome is... "Don't be a dick, dick!" That's disappointing.

01:29:20 - Close-ups on a lot of dead people from the shootout.

01:29:30 - Postal Dude drives off into the sunset with convenient new lady friend and his dog.

01:30:00 - President George W. Bush blows up India and China, but not before India shoots 30 atomic warheads at America, which will blow up in two minutes. What do we think, two minutes actual time as far as the movie's concerned?

01:31:04 - Postal Dude's wife is blown up along with all the Avian Bird Flu. Postal Dude: "I regret nothing".

01:31:37 - Postal Dude's wife's guts are blown all over town and hit several people in the head.

01:32:02 - Knock-off of 'What A Wonderful World' plays.

01:32:09 - Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush skip hand-in-hand through a field into a sunset. Osama: "Georgie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship".

01:32:20 - The nukes hit in the distance as bin Laden and Bush skip towards them. A giant mushroom cloud, and we fade to white, and then the credits.

I'm not watching the credits. Don't even ask me to.

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If I had to pick my favorite Wii game of this year, it'd easily be 'No More Heroes'. I think it's one of the few video games that actually hates you for playing it and does its best to make you not beat it.

Anyway, the lead character is a gigantic nerd who buys a 'beam katana' off the internet to become a world-ranked assassin? Escapist nerd crap? You betcha.

So I've had a Force FX lightsaber that's been broken for over a year. What's a nerd to do? Convert it to a beam saber from 'No More Heroes'! For SCIENCE!







Anyway, I guess the next logical step is to open that bad boy up and see if I can rewire it to light up 100% of the time.

Thank you for joining me on this super sad nerdy departure.

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Honestly, I'd pay $6.50 to see this movie.

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Didja know that the movie 'Ghostbusters' was based on a cartoon? Not just any cartoon, but one of my favorite Mickey Mouse cartoons of all time, 'Lonesome Ghosts'?

Well now you do.

Having established a flimsy premise, let's instead watch cartoons!

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Now, I know what you've been thinking lately.

'Golly, the music world's so complicated! If only I could find a performer who distills pop music, techno, funk and glam! It'd be super neat if he had white hair and was into fantasy, and also if I couldn't tell if he was being ironic or not!'

Well, rest easy, friend.



Who is that magnificent hunk of a man? That stud with a flowing white mane who is a prince and also a pirate?

That man is Chris Dane Owens.

Who is Chris Dane Owens? How did I end up on his website? These are all questions.

Simply put, Chris is a L.A. native who is bound and determined to be about a thousand times more dramatic than a boyfriend dispute in Drama Club. He's got a music career apparently, which he just started, and is bound and determined to nerd it up as long as he possibly can. Which is way cool with me, because come on, he makes some stuff that makes me smile.

I know, I know, you can't commit to ironically liking something without at least experiencing it. Well, that's why you need to watch this.

'Shine On Me' Music Video

That's the video I stole that screencap from. Imagine 'Lord Of The Rings' if Legolas was the fellowship and enjoyed singing and you're half-way there.

I think I have a certain fondness towards this guy because really, he doesn't care what you think. He's doing his own thing, and if it happens to sound like multiple genres from the 80's having a love child, so be it. Also, he's a gigantic geek, and wants to make his album into some sort of manga.

Double bonus points if you don't need to look up the word 'manga' to understand that sentence.

Anyway, I wish this guy nothing but the best. I'll at least give the album a look when it drops in February (assuming it actually sees the light of day and CDO doesn't retreat into a fantasy world in his own mind).

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Woo hoo! The search for a job is officially over after I landed one this afternoon. I'll be working for a marketing company as an 'Assistant Project Manager'. What will I be doing? Doesn't matter to you; all that matters is that the job title sound awfully official and cool, like I spent multiple skill points leveling up my Awesomesauce.

The job is at a company run by my friend Scott's family. Everyone at the office is either related or a friend of the family, so it's an honor to be welcomed on board. Of course, it means Scott is my evil overlord, but that's not going to be a problem.

The interview itself was short and sweet, consisting of testing the likelihood that I actually type 100+ words a minute (which I totally do) and my thoughts on what type of tree I might be (old growth redwood). I was actually impressed by how pleasant the whole thing was. Also nifty is that Scott's dad (who is also his boss) was willing to give me a chance, which is all I need. I'm hungry enough and resourceful enough to make anything work. I'm a bootstraps sorta kid when it comes to working, so all I need's a go-ahead and a little bit of training. It's funny too that Scott's dad sorta reminded me of how my own dad was at work -- a down-to-earth blood and guts practical guy who values performance over flash. Which I can get behind.

So basically I have to report to somebody I like and who in all likelihood I probably would have been friends in High School with (assuming I was less of a nerd, and had friends in High School) and work in a job that sounds pretty dang interesting. Not too shabby.

I start a week from this upcoming Monday, giving them enough time to find me a desk and computer. Personally, I can't wait!

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So I opened my front door this morning and this fell into the house.

No return address on it. Interesting.

So, with great trepidation, I opened the package...





It's a baseball bat! But from whom? Oh, wait...



So I guess I won my own crime-spree-related object of violence. I don't actually recall entering the contest, so I'm instead going to pretend that I got it from writing for Kotaku or something...

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