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…

I was waiting for my pickup at the Tampa Int’l Airport on Sunday following an academic conference when I realized that there are really a lot of smart people in the world. But, while I waited longer and longer at the airport, I realized, there are some situations that have a tendency to subtract 100 IQ points from these masses of smart people.
Here is a short list of things that I’ve realized that make Smart People Stupid.

#1) Baggage Claim – My bag is on a circular conveyor belt. If I miss it, I HAVE to trample 4 children, 2 grandparents, 3 dogs, and a professional boxer to grab it. MY BAG WILL NOT COME  BACK AROUND. What you don’t know is that there is an incinerator at the end of the conveyor and if you don’t grab your bag at first pass, it will be burned. Evidently smart people know this and act accordingly.

#2) Connecting a computer to an external display – Any kind of display: an LCD, a bigger monitor, etc. I’ve seen more people screw this up before, during, and after very academic presentations than I can count on 10 hands.

#3) Parallel parking – There is absolutely no reason why a smart person should not be able to parallel park. It’s very simple geometry. You put the rear end in, you follow with the front. Really, it’s just that easy.  Actually, I think I could say this about any part of driving.  Smart people suck at driving.

#4) Queuing to Board an Airplane and Deplaning – Okay smart people… you fly a lot.  People need you in places other than where you live. They need you because you’re smart.  Just so you know, for future reference, There’s a seat # on your boarding pass.  This is in reference to where you’re going to sit on the plane.  The nice lady is going to tell you what rows are boarding when over the loudspeaker. All you have to do is match that # to the range of numbers that she reads off.  Really simple. See!  Oh, and when it comes to getting off the plane, don’t be an asshole and try to run ahead of everyone else.  The door is closed. You’re not going ANYWHERE.

#5) Common Sense – Smart people suck at common sense.  I believe that this is where the term irony originated.  I can ask Professor Smith how to find the limit of the space time continuum and the true arithmetic center of a blackhole, but can this man change his oil? How about build a home? Yea, probably not.  The world needs ditch diggers too.

#6) Saving money/finanaces – There are more MDs with crappy credit than any other group of people I’ve ever seen.  Why does being smart make you fiscally irresponsible? Is it becuase you understand what you’re missing and spend irresponsibly? I don’t get it.  Crappy credit, it’s not just for dumb people anymore.

I’m sure there’s a lot of them here that I’m missing and I’ll add more as I think of them.

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.

Wordle is neat project that takes a bunch of text or a link and finds common words and creates “word clouds” out of them.  Give it a go.  Here is mine.

That’s right.  You just got Rick Roll’d by a picture!

CNN appears to be quite enamored with new United States President Obama

I’ll let you be the judge

EDIT-Ok, it occurs to me that this might not be the most SFW picture on the net, so i’ll let you decide for yourself. With new window goodness

Click it up, bitches

While i’m at it – this IS the most SFW pic on the net:

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

I actually saw this live on Thanksgiving day.  I saw his name during the list of guests and I was gluded to the tv until this amazing performance:

My parents had no idea why my sister and I were laughing so hard, and telling them it was an interwebs fad didn’t help much.  Bravo Rick Astley.  Bravo indeed.

Alright time’s up let’s do this, “LEEEEEROOOOOOOOY JJJJJJEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNKINS!”

UK dumbass kicked off of jury after using Facebook to ask friends if they thought the defendants were guilty (new window)