TDNCY

I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but I’ve been reading Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books off and on.  Now, this is ok, because I counteract this ridiculously feminine act by doing things that are EXTRA manly, like drinking bad beer, or lifting weights or making crude comments about females.  This is how I justify reading these books.

Besides the writing being deplorable [I mean, it's REALLY, REALLY bad.  Think Goosebumps meets a third grader's romance novel.  And I'm probably not being fair to Goosebumps.  Apologies, R.L Stine.], the themes and characters in book offer NOTHING in terms of quality lessons to the youth of the world. Bella, our mopey, melodramatic protagonist does NOTHING but sit around and complain about being a teenager and how she can’t do anything without the man in her life, a vampire named Edward [whose actions probably constitute "stalking" in 45 states].  Forget the fact that she knows nothing about him [but OMG HE GLITTERZ!!!].  No, she loves him a lot passionately irrevocably [Cool! Stephanie Meyer found the "thesaurus" key in Word!]  So she sits around and waits for him to save the day.  ALL THE TIME.  This is a girl that almost dies WALKING DOWN HER ICY DRIVEWAY.  Don’t worry, young girls and leaders of tomorrow!  Whenever you find yourself in harm’s way, just sit around and complain!  No doubt, some glittery undead hunk will come save you!

Bella probably set the women’s movement back 50 years with her pathetic actions.  Great job, you daft bitch.  I will punch you in the face if you ever come out of that book and become real.  You SUCK, in every essence of the word.

But this got me thinking.  What other lessons has pop culture tried to teach us that are just plain WRONG?  That the movie totally missed on?

1. “Shrek” – This is the obvious choice to me when I first started thinking about this. Why?  Because Fiona is a babe.  I mean, come on.  Check her out. THIS CHICK ROCKS.  And yet, at the end of the movie, she chooses to end up an ogre.  AN OGRE!  WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER? This bugs the hell out of me.  It is basically telling a young, impressionable group of children that it is not just ok, but A GOOD CHOICE, to be ugly.  If there is one thing I have  learned in my 27 years of life, it is that IT IS NOT OK TO BE UGLY.  EVER.  I shudder when I think of all the cute little kids that are bashing their heads into cement so that they can choose to be ugly like Fiona.  Don’t do it, little kids!  Stay cute!  “Shrek” really missed this one.  The obvious ending was to have Fiona say “Shrek, we can be BFF. And little king man, leave me alone. I’m going to go find a Mark-like fictional cartoon character to be with.”  Everyone wins in this case and it teaches kids that you can be totally hot and end up with a good single guy like me, not an ugly ogre who lives in a God-forsaken swamp with an annoying talking donkey as a best friend.

2. “The Lion King” – Timon and Pumbaa have it right.  When life gives you lemons, you can make lemonade.  And if life gives you a big pile of coal, just bail dude.  HAKUNA MATATA, yo!  No worries!  Simba runs away to live the life! He lives in a beautiful jungle and lays around doing nothing.  He’s on a permanent vacation!  It’s the best! As Joel Hahn would tell you, “JUST LIVING THE DREAM, SON!”  And yet, some dumb baboon comes and convinces him he has to come back, risk his life and try to save his old home.  Well, I call bull.  If life gets difficult, you should run away and never return.  Scar gave GREAT advice!  And Simba followed it!  And Timon and Pumbaa furthered Simba’s emotional development…only to have it crushed by some ridiculous, misplaced sense of destiny thanks to some babbling baboon who is a freakin’ lunatic.  Destiny doesn’t exist.  Hedonism does.  Slack off and love it should have been the message here.  Instead, you have all these impressionable youth thinking it is ok to risk your life for something that has no direct influence on you anymore.  Disney really dropped the ball on this one.  All hail, Timon and Pumbaa!  Two characters Disney actually got right.

3. “Mulan” – So what exactly is the lesson here?  That it is ok to cross-dress and deceive people?  Not at all!  Can you imagine all of the poor little Chinese girls growing up thinking they can hang with the entire Hun army?!  YOU CAN’T, KIDS!  If you think you can individually take down an entire swarm of pissed off, angry Huns by simply dressing up like a boy and running the other way when everyone is retreating you will end up dead, NOT a hero!  What kind of role model is Mulan?  She lies, deceives, betrays her family and makes embarrassingly awful decisions.  But that’s ok, so long as you can have some stone-turned-real dragon that sounds like that annoying donkey from “Shrek” to help your lucky ass out.  And you think after all that, your superior is going to want to marry you?  He’ll be so embarrassed about everything he would probably just honor kill himself.  NOTHING IN THIS MOVIE WILL HAPPEN IF YOU TRY TO DO THESE THINGS.  Disney drops the ball again.  Bah!

This dude was one HELL of a lucky cricket.  I’ll tell you that much.

4. “Avatar” – So all I got out of this movie was that it is cool to be a furry.  Was that your message, James Cameron?  That it is ok to be a furry?  BECAUSE IT IS NEVER OK TO BE A FURRY.  What’s next?  Are we going to have some epic about a human straight up marrying a cat?  Who cares, as long as there are some explosives with a great score in the background.  Oh!  And make it in 3D.  And make some cool creatures that spin around in circles and create a beautiful glow.  By the end of the movie, people will completely forget that the main point of your billion dollar movie is that being a furry is really cool.  I look forward to reading about all of the impressionable youth who try to marry their dog in the next decade.

5. “High School Musical” – Oh, you poor kids in elementary school who think that high school is girls that look like Vanessa Hudgens, boys that look like Zac Efron and everyone sings in the hallway together.  How disappointed you will be when you finally get there.  I can’t wait until some freshman breaks into a musical number on his first day of high school.  Your ass is getting shoved in a locker, kid.  Maybe just a swirlee if you’re lucky.  But either way, you’re getting pounded.

All high school kids look like this!  And they all jump in unison all the time!  Yeah, high school, yeah!

Discuss amongst yourselves…more later this week…

In 2003, a few of my Purdue buddies went to Madison to watch Purdue play the University of Wisconsin. Purdue, in an unbelievable game, ended up beating top 10 Wisconsin, 26-23. It was unreal. That night, we danced on the streets in Madison, singing the Purdue fight song, flirting with cute girls. My one friend Dustin, at one point in the night, turned to me and said “I feel so bad for my future wife…because I will never love her as much as I love Purdue football.” All I could muster was “I don’t think I’ll ever tell her either.”

That was close to six years ago.

Today, as I pulled out of a Dunkin’ Donuts in downtown Boston, with my large, hazelnut coffee [with milk and sugar, of course] and my old fashioned donut, I was in a great mood. I took a bite of the donut, I took a sip of the coffee. And the donut melted in my mouth. It was heaven. And that’s when I remembered Dustin, and his line, and my thought. And I realized, at that point, I would love a Dunkin’ Donuts old fashioned donut with the coffee more than I will love my future wife. If my wife ever made me choose between her and the number 1 from Dunkin’ Donuts, she’d better have her bags packed and ready to go.

And so I started thinking…what are some other things that I will love more than my wife?

I ended up with this list.

SPORTS RELATED
-Drew Brees’ right arm, along with Seth Morales’ hands. Any Purdue fan could tell you why, but in case you don’t know, here.
-Purdue basketball under Matt Painter. And the best is yet to come, folks.
-Curt Schilling’s bloody sock. Curt was bloody brilliant.

FOOD RELATED
-Dunkin Donuts number 1, with a hazelnut coffee and an old fashioned donut. [previously stated]
-Any type of food from Panda Express.
-A Reese’s Penut Butter Cup blizzard from Dairy Queen.

OTHER
-Anything related to LucasArt’s Monkey Island series. I feel kinda weird that I am going to love a cartoon male character that is a terrible pirate more than I will love my future wife. Alas, such is life.

-Anything Harry Potter related. Just incredible. Incredible. There aren’t words.
-uhhh…who didn’t see this one coming.

I’m sure there’s more. Maybe we can discuss this and figure out some new ones.

I just hope my future wife doesn’t see this.

The irony of what I’m about to post boggles the mind.

I have spent hours today reading about the Kimmel occupation that took place at NYU earlier this week. I have immersed myself in it, completely baffled at the sheer stupidity of what I witnessed. At this time, please watch the youtube video provided.

There are numerous decent articles about the situation, but this one is the best. Why were they doing this? Well, you can see their demands here.

I refuse to believe that this is not some incredibly awesome viral marketing campaign for macbooks. I simply refuse to believe that this is real.

If this was a South Park episode, I would hail it as the funniest thing I had ever seen, boldly proclaiming it wittier and more intelligent that any humorous act ever. Honestly, Trey Parker and Matt Stone could not come up with anything funnier or more absurd than this. The person holding the camera, Alex Lotorto, could not be any more annoying or ill informed about what he’s trying to do. He boldly proclaims at the beginning of the video “You can not come in here! This is a student’s free space!” Try to wrap your head around that.

I’m just getting warmed up. Some of these are gems that you actually laugh out loud to. Did anyone get the idea that Alex wanted a consensus practice? Whatever that is?

-”Excuse me, brutality here.” Alex states, as an authority figure walks into the room. Um, brutality? To that poor desk? DON’T HURT THE DESK IT DOESN’T LIKE THAT.
-”We have the right to not cooperate with you.” Hahahahahahhahah.
-Alex mutters, at one point, that they “probably drink corporate water”. Hell yeah! Stick it to the man and their corporate water! As if this wasn’t stupid enough, they then start showing their macbooks and macbook chargers. Ohahahhahahahh. Don’t miss the one girl calling home on her cell phone, saying YOU HAVE TO CALL ME BACK! like this is the last thing she might ever get to say to her family.
-”We are trying to reach a consensus! We are trying to reach a consensus! We will do it without you.” hahahghaghahahhahahahha

I think the best part about all of this is that Alex, the cameraman, doesn’t even go to NYU. He goes to some stupid college that I’ve never heard of. Most of these kids have been expelled, per some news article I can’t find anymore, and I say THANK YOU NYU. I hope these kids spend years working at a 7-11 to pay off their student loans. Wait. This is NYU, these kid’s parents were putting them through school. The more you read about this story, the more hilarious and absurd it is. It’s eerily reminiscent of Alice falling into the rabbit hole, the characters and the twists and turns of events becoming even less believable than the one before it.

I’m running out of ways to express my disbelief. I’ll end saying that videos like this really make me lose hope in humanity. I pray to God these kids never enter the real world. It would break them in half without blinking an eye.

This is so badass. Let’s be honest. How many of us have wanted to do this at one time or another?

You stay classy, Philadelphia. Sorry John.

It’s always gunny in Philadelphia

Since Brian’s new hat came out, John won’t shut up about his new hat.

It really makes him happy. He wears it almost everywhere.

Sometimes his friends get jealous that he has such a great hat. John takes care of this issue quickly to avoid further confrontation with his loved ones.

They make great Christmas presents.

Aunt Gail couldn’t be happier. Three cheers for John and his new hat!

Panera is seriously, the greatest thing that I think I’ve come to know in 26 years on Earth.  Here’s ten reasons why.

1) Every girl that works at a Panera has to be beautiful.  I can’t think of a time that I walked into a Panera and did not find most of the girls that work there beautiful.  They smile a lot.  I’ve borderline fallen in love with girls that work in Paneras in:

West Lafayette, Indiana.

San Diego, California.

Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Belmont, Massachusetts.

McLean, Virginia.

Gainesville, Florida.

That’s just a rough estimate.

2) The coffee at Panera is good.  And there are free refills.  And they reward you if you keep getting coffee with more free coffee.

3) Free internet.  Unlimited free internet.  I’ve probably spent months of my life sitting at Panera in front of the free internet with good coffee.

4) The overall feel of the area.  And the bakery.  The bakery is awesome.  Everything is awesome.

5) Hot girls are drawn to Panera, usually wearing sweatpants and tank tops.  Sorority functions are seemingly overflowing on Sunday afternoons at Panera.

10)  Everything in life is awesome when I am at Panera I can’t stop smiling because Panera is the best!!!!!!!!11!!!111!11~!~!~1

Posted from Panera in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Oh, just wow.

Shaquille O’Neal has been providing fans and reporters with hilarious tidbits for years.  And now you have an endless supply of them, just a click away.  What can I say?  Life is good.

If you’re too lazy to watch the full 50 seconds, catch the sneeze motion at :23 and the eyebrow dances at :46

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aunt gail ftw. [click to enlarge.]