Urinal Tales

When I stand before the urinal, I’ll hear a loud sniff directly behind me. I’ll be startled and disgusted for a second until I realize it’s the motion-activated mechanical air freshener bolted to the wall. One of these days, some allergy-suffering assassin is going to get the drop on me because I was lulled into a false sense of security.

Internet Browsing Club - February 2012

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Television Roundup - Winter 2012

Television shows I’m currently making time to view, in order from most consistently enjoyable to less so, bearing in mind that God don’t make no junk but TV networks do, but I don’t watch no junk unless it happens to be what Kim wants to watch while I occupy myself online:


Archer
This shouldn’t be a surprise, since it’s written by the same guy who created Sealab 2021, and I own all those DVDs.


Parks & Recreation
Aside from its general hilariousness, it’s got even more going for it. You can count on some physical comedy from Chris Pratt, and the show almost always puts you in a happy mood.


Happy Endings
Very snappy dialogue, an no shortage of puns, unique abbreviations, and fun phrases. I think of Damon Wayans saying, “Daddy likes a deep tuck” every time I don an undershirt.


Delocated
The most recent episode centered on potato skins. A full half-hour of television. Absurd without being aggressively absurd, a la Tim & Eric.


30 Rock
Still strong.


Chopped (via DVR)
You can fly through a recorded episode in 35 minutes, skipping over the inter-chef and judge chit-chat that makes it unwatchable live. If the producers would stop forcing the contestants to constantly mention their personal “hook” -- my mother died, I’m trying to win for her, etc etc -- I’d have no complaints. Well, except maybe the dessert round, give those guys 10 additional minutes so they can BAKE, yo! French toast ain’t no goddamned dessert!!


Top Chef
We should probably DVR this as well, but it’s a Wednesday night tradition.


An Idiot Abroad
Makes you feel good about your limited vacations.


SNL
At its worst, still funnier than 90% of television.


The Office
At its worst, still funnier than 89% of television.


The Soup
Inessential, but a breezy way to spend 30 minutes.


The Walking Dead
I suppose it’s a good sign that there’s only one show I watch to mock, and I suppose it’s higher quality trash than reality shows on Bravo or TLC. So, good for me?


Conan (via DVR)
Daily Show (first 10 or 20 minutes)
CBS This Morning 
The usual schedule is record Conan, watch the Daily Show’s first segment or two before bed, then wake up and see what Charlie Rose is talking about. Charlie Motherfucking Rose is in the house! CBS is in serious danger of airing a news program in the morning, with no chuckling between annoying weathermen and softball-question-lobbing anchors. If I don’t care to hear the latest news, I watch Conan’s previous night’s monologue while eating cereal.



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Television greivances, in no particular order:


Arby’s spokesman that sings “It’s Good Mood Fooooooood!”
Soaring higher on my list of Most Punchable Humans. Also, no it isn’t. There’s a reason why The Simpsons coined the phrase, “I’m so hungry I could eat at Arby’s.”


The Bud Light Platinum advertising campaign
Would someone inform the idiots at Anheiser-Busch that the people who drink Bud Light DON’T GIVE A SHIT HOW THEIR BEER TASTES?! You won the light domestic beer battle. That’s not a compliment, but it seems to be a fact. Anyway, you can stop innovating. Just keep pumping out the same old swill and your loyal customers will drink it.


The low-rent cable ads, especially during Comedy Central programming
Dipped strawberries? Just the type product that is best ordered via telephone. Sexytime phone chat lines? In this digital age, I don’t understand how could those still be in business, let alone profitable. Catheters? Yikes. I’ll stick with the strawberries.


The guys Zooey shares an apartment with on “New Girl”
I find them all unlikeable.

The Walking Dumb - Season 2 Resumes

dn:

Seven episodes of season 2 have aired, and the final 6 begin this Sunday. Everybody spent all of season 2 looking for the missing little girl Sophia, and it turns out she was a zombie locked in barn on the farm they were staying at the whole time. That old trope. The Asian Dale and the farmer’s daughter are in love. Shane and Andrea are in LUST. Grime’s wife is pregnant. The farmer wants the group to leave. Grimes doesn’t want to leave. WHAT? WILL? HAPPEN? NEXT???


floyd:
Over/under on number of zombies we see this season? 10? How many Carl Faces? 10?

(via Videogum, home of the world's greatest Walking Dead commentary)

dn:

Hmm. I’ll guess they will kill one or two per episode until the finale, when 4 will be killed. I guess I’m taking the over.

What are you hoping will happen in these next 6? We have really only seen zombie problems for them. I’d like to see other apocalypse issues arise, like lack of food, supplies, and bad weather. I hope that winter will come and it will get all Valley Forge on them, even though they’re in a relatively warm Georgia climate. Wikipedia tells me that Atlanta experiences the low 30’s during winter months, so that would be bad enough to get the group out of stupid tents and into some real shelter.


floyd:
I think I'll split it into two categories: A. What I would like to see happen, and B. What I think will happen

A. I'd like for Sad, Useless Mom, Andrea, T-Dogg, Asian guy, Rick's wife and Carl to be immediately killed off by a rogue pack of zombies. This should take about five minutes or so. Then Hershel freaks out and tries to kill the survivors. Shane gets crazy-eyed and kills Hershel with a saw or something, then cries or something over dead Andrea and Rick's wife, then tries to rape Farm Girl, who blows his brains out or something. (Also, anybody not named died in the initial zombie attack.)

So now we're left with Rick, Old Guy, Farm Girl and I think that's it.

Then in the second episode, the farmhouse is swarmed by zombies and kill Rick, Old Guy and Farm Girl. Fade to black, roll credits.

B. The episode will start with some kind of stupid flashback that won't be referenced again. The first 40 minutes or so of the first episode will be people anguishing over Sophia and other dead zombies. Carl will ask where Sophia went, and Rick and wife will tell him she went to live on a different farm or something. The last ten minutes, Hershel will get angry and try to make everybody else leave the farm. Rick will say they have to find something somewhere else, probably another military base or something like that. Supplies are still abundant. There will no live zombies in this episode, except for maybe in the flashback.

dn:

Here’s what I think will happen in the 6 episodes:

1. Hershel will argue with Grimes and company for 40 minutes, then decide to let them stay. He will order the fattest calf to be slaughtered, open his cellar’s finest wines and canned vegetables, and host a huge feast. Everyone has a nice time at the special dinner. After Hershel finishes the post-meal prayer, red lights on the ceiling start to flash, and a robotic female voice comes over the house PA: “Self destruct sequence initiated. 3 minutes remaining.” For the next 15 minutes (because of how goddamn slow this show is) everyone will freak out. Shane will try to rape somebody so he can “go out in style”. Everyone except Hershel and his family, who he has chained to a radiator, will escape the house JUST RIGHT AS it blows up, and they’ll do that cool jump while it explodes at their backs.

2. Zombies have been attracted by the explosion setting off another one of the farm’s secrets: another secret barn filled with homemade fireworks. Old guy in the fisherman’s hat makes a joke to the Asian guy about fireworks. Two zombies are killed as the group makes a getaway. For the final 50 minutes, Asian guy ruminates on his lost love. Shane tries to rape him.

3. The first 10 minutes are a flashback of Shane’s high school conquests. CUT TO: Shane was just daydreaming. The next 50 minutes are Shane wandering the fields of rural Georgia scavenging for a deer to eat and/or rape.

4. We finally see T-Dogg in this episode. He’s getting a glass of water before going to sleep. Then he goes to sleep. The group continues to move in a certain direction, having lame conversations along the way.

5. The group arrives at somewhere and things don’t go smoothly! At the very end, there’s hope!

6. The hope evaporates. Grime’s wife has a very graphic miscarriage, but they are able to use the dead fetus to distract the zombies and escape from whatever bad situation they were in. They posthumously name the heroic baby “Shane”, for no good reason. Grimes talks about moving on to another location where there just MIGHT be safety for everyone. Shane says no. They argue for 45 minutes and the group decides to split in two. Each pile into two different vehicles, but when they turn the keys neither will start. Shane looks right at the camera and says “OH BROTHER!” and Grimes wryly smiles like “THAT’S MURPHY’S LAW FOR YA” and Carl throws up and cries.

2011 Recap - Music

A NOTE TO ALL MY DEDICATED AND INTERESTED READERS:

I normally have a year-in-review regarding lyrics -- best rhyme, best simile and metaphor, other examples -- but all I only noted three measly songs in 2011. Yikes! So if you have some lyrics from 2011 you want to talk about, let me know! Then we can combine everyone's thoughts and talk about them!

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Here are the 2011 albums I purchased, in order from most enjoyed to most I realize it's acclaimed and technically sound but it still pretty much puts me to sleep except for that super weird jazz freak out at the end of "The Shrine / An Argument" but I still like 'em okay.

Quite Good

Okkervil River - I am Very Far
Black Keys - El Camino

Pretty Good

Peter Bjorn & John - Gimme Some
Dodos - No Color
We Were Promised Jetpacks - In the Pit of the Stomach
Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

A Few Good Songs on There

Telekinesis - Twelve Desperate Straight Lines
Mates of State - Mountaintops
Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues



Stuff I bought in 2011 that wasn't released in 2011, in no particular order because it was all quite good:

Frightened Rabbit - Winter of Mixed Drinks
Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History
Kathryn Calder - Are You My Mother?
M Ward - End of Amnesia