A Resolution - RTOTD #870

Day 870

As we approach the new year, let's all promise to make a group resolution this year. Instead of everyone making their own resolution that we promptly ignore about eating less fatty foods or quitting smoking or no more office drinking on Tuesdays or whatever, let's make a group resolution.

And I have the perfect one:

We whole-heartedly resolve to entirely ignore any celebrities with no discernible talent, who are famous for being famous or for being the children of famous people who only got anywhere because of who their parents were, or anything of the sort. We promise to ignore their television shows, be disaffected by their advertising presence, and otherwise save our money when presented with the opportunity to buy any product they are affiliated with in the hopes that it makes them all go away. We will not allow brand-building for no reason.

Because I'm still perfect otherwise.

This Is Not Wonderful - RTOTD #869

Day 869

21st Century Hollywood is out of ideas. I mean, we all know this. When's the last time we saw them make a GOOD original movie that wasn't obviously derivative of another movie or book. A new story that wasn't just an excuse for Roland Emmerich to blow up New York City or Washington, DC? Seriously... the guy makes nothing but disaster porn. Go check IMDB. But an actual original movie that's not complete schlock or looks like it was filmed in somebody's back yard on a Go Pro? Good luck finding one.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Hollywood's lack of imagination has given us the Superhero genre and Marvel movies making enough money to finance a revolution in a small island nation every few months. Though it did also give us the Twilight series. So it's obviously give-and-take.

But Hollywood has done some good work with sequels and remakes and adaptations of works of fiction over the years. So the premise that it needs to be an original story to be a good movie isn't right.

However, there's some rumor about a sequel to It's A Wonderful Life.

Honestly... I just kinda don't have anything funny to say about that other than it being an absolutely atrocious idea.

But since this might actually eventually maybe sorta happen, we should get ourselves ready for sequels to random classic movies. We've already seen the remake-of-a-classic-movie thing crash and burn. Because I guess Hollywood thought that if you could remake cult or just random movies from back in the day and turn them into franchises (I'm looking at you, Ocean's 9723498234 movies) then taking a classic movie and remaking it should be a license to print money. Obviously the rather atrocious Psycho remake from the 90's or 00's or whenever that was disproved that.

But now they're apparently thinking about just making sequels to them. Hell, Star Wars VII is coming out in like 2 years. And continuing the story from Jedi. So it's not entirely unheard of.

So in that vein, let's think of some awesome ideas for sequels to classic movies:

I'm going to go with A Christmas Story II. In this story, the kid from the first one is an adult and has his own kids. And an eye patch like Nick Fury. Except he has become a militia member and has his BB gun framed. And his kid wants a machine gun. And instead of a slide in the mall, there's a death chamber. And a 45 minute scene where his kid gets his ass cheeks stuck to the pole while having flashbacks to some trauma with his one-eyed dad. Or something fucking dumb like that. And there's a nuke somewhere. Because we can't not make it an action comedy. Because ticket sales.

*EDIT* - HOLD THE FUCK ON!!!! THERE WAS ALREADY A SEQUEL TO A CHRISTMAS STORY? HOW DID I NOT FUCKING KNOW THIS??????

Fine... call it a Christmas Story: The Next Generation. Or something. Fuck it. I give up on life.

Here You Go - RTOTD #868.1

Day 868.1

Here's a picture of a bear in a Lamborghini.

Because you probably didn't even know this happened.

So to follow that up, here's an ode to bears and their strange fascination with cars.

 

 

 

Scalpel - RTOT #868

Day 868

I generally don't like most people. I know this is a shocking revelation to you, right? Yeah. Sure. So when I do like someone, I generally consider them a friend. Or at bare minimum, someone that I don't actively dislike and they become part of the white noise in the background of my life. We all have these people. We just often don't think of them like that because it seems insulting, but really... that's all that they really are. They're the buffer zone between the people we like and everyone else. And for that reason, they're the white noise.

And when an of those relationships reach its inevitable expiration date, I simply cut it off with a scalpel, not entirely unlike a gangrenous limb. I cut it off. I move on. I give very little thought to it again with only a handful of exceptions and I generally feel little to no sense of loss. Maybe it's a personality disorder. Maybe it's a coping mechanism. Maybe I'm just too distracted or disaffected  or cynical to care about any sense of loss when it comes to interpersonal relationships, but I'm gonna go ahead and guess that that's probably a sign of said personality disorder. That's probably that whole sociopathy thing coming back out again.

But in the end, I harbor no ill will towards the limbs that I amputate. I look at them not unlike a rock on a beach. It's there. It doesn't matter to me. And I keep walking.

So when I see people that feel compelled to get angry at the rock or the dead limb that has already been amputated and is rotting away in a dumpster or something somewhere, I don't entirely understand it. Will yelling at it or talking too much about it make that limb somehow come back to life and reattach itself? Will that rock turn into something that matters with enough quiet sniping or venom or whispered comments? Will it even care?

Frankly, I just don't understand why relationships end and then somehow continue as something else more negative. Is it Newton's Law of Relationships instead of Motion or something where it has to require an opposite emotion when it's ended? I mean... I generally hate human beings as a whole, but I don't make that kind of effort to be a venomous jackwagon towards everyone unless there's a necessity.

Or unless I'll get some form of amusement out of it. But then again, I'm a dick. Not everyone is willing to admit that they're a sociopathic prick like me.

And yes, admitting it absolves me of any guilt or responsibility for anything I do or say in the past, present and future.

I was probably going somewhere with this, but I kinda stopped caring. Maybe that was the point though... things end & giving more time to it seems pointless.

Merry Marvel Movie-going Experience - RTOTD #867

Day 867

So I've gotta just make a public service announcement here. I'll get to it in a moment but I gotta explain why first.

So I saw Thor twice over the past weekend. Once on Friday night and once on Monday night (so I guess maybe it wasn't twice over the weekend but fucking whatever. Close enough) and in both cases, the theater was packed. The audience loved it. They laughed, they gasped, they cheered for Stan Lee's obligatory cameo. All-in-all, a typical Merry Marvel Movie-going Experience.

But when the credits hit, almost 1/3 of the theater got up and made their way to the exits. Most of them made it out the doors before being stopped. The mid-credits scene hit. A number of them stopped, as if having a moment of clarity for an Alzheimer's patient and thinking "oh yeah, Marvel does this, don't they?" and standing in the runway exit or at the bottom of the stairs, they stood and watched. And when it ended, they continued to make their way out.

I was flabbergasted. Yes, I just used that word in a non-ironic way. But these people just left. I could only shake my head.

A few noticed that other people still hadn't even made an attempt to move. They looked at us and paused and sat back down. They were having an epiphany. They conversed and waited but as the credit screen scrolled past the soundtrack credits and the thank-you to Technicolor for existing or whatever that shit is at the end, they looked up and then it happened. The post-credits scene. Because Marvel ALWAYS HAS A POST-CREDITS SCENE!

This was a movie that was filled with people that have most likely seen most or all of the previous Marvel movies. The new Thor movie is essentially the 3rd movie in a Thor trilogy with Thor and Avengers making up the other 2. So by now, the Marvel formula is pretty obvious to most of us. But for some reason, people still don't get it. And here's where we get to the public service announcement:

To everyone that ever goes to see a Marvel movie:  Look for the fattest bearded white guy you can see and don't get up until he does. Likely one with glasses and/or a comic book t-shirt on. They know when the movie is actually over. Trust them. Let them guide you. I know this is racist and probably fat-ist or whatever. And definitely a case of profiling. But guess what? The fat bearded white guy that looks like he hasn't ever gotten laid and is probably a geek knows when the comic book movie is over and when there's more to come still.

So just trust them. Do you really have anywhere else you REALLY need to be anyway?

Childish Things. - RTOTD #866

Day 866

Today I want you to stop and remember your childhood. For at least today, I want you to stop putting away those childish things and start taking them back out to remember what made them special. What made them define us. And reimagine them for ourselves for our adulthood.

And maybe, just maybe... remember some of the joy we had that has been sucked out of our lives with age and responsibility and adulthood.

And never, ever, ever trust someone that doesn't tear up a little bit when remembering the joy of the first time they ever read Calvin and Hobbes.

Because even if they didn't grow up as we did, they did grow up. Eventually. And I bet they didn't let life drag them down. So don't let it drag you either.

Welcome Back - RTOTD #865

Day 865

Welcome back... welcome back, welcome back, wel-commme baaacckkkk

Sorry. I got the "Welcome Back, Kotter" theme song in my head. Or maybe it was a Ma$e song from back in the day. I don't remember. I think the one sampled the other for their track. Fucking time-traveling 70's tv show producers. Still stealing from the black guy, even if you stole it from him 40 years in the future. Assholes.

But so getting back to my point... the original porn goddess is returning. Jenna Jameson is going back to porn. No joke.

Why, you ask? Why does ANY porn girl go back to porn? She's broke as fuck again. Staying in LA after retiring and whatever the fuck she was taking that made her so obviously trashed on a morning show a few weeks ago probably costs a lot of money. And even being a millionaire doesn't last forever when you stick it all up your nose or in your arm or down your throat. So they go back to what they know. Fucking for money on camera. Hell, she's been away from it so long now and hasn't done a dude on camera in so long that she's almost a virgin again. But well... hahaha... yea no.

So welcome back, Jenna. I don't know who really wants to watch you fuck on camera anymore, but I'm sure someone does. Don't go broke this time. I don't think your body can handle the extra surgeries at this point and nobody is gonna want to see you try to do another comeback 10 years from now if you don't make all the bank you need this time around.

Soooo... wanna take bets on who hires her and how much she ends up getting? I got money that says she's gotta put out twice the product per year to make even close to what she was making before. And fuck dudes on camera again cause she had some rule about that for a while or something.

The Circle Of Life - RTOTD #864

Day 864

Today is Monday. Try not to shoot anyone today. You need those bullets for when the neighbor kids keep coming onto your lawn on the weekends. You don't want them trampling over your overgrown grass or disrupting the leaves. The environmentalists wouldn't like that very much at all.

So remember, when you open fire, you're doing it for Mother Earth and the natural circle of life.

Farewell, Blue & Gold - RTOTD #863

Day 863

Turns out my Blockbuster story from last week had great timing. The company announced yesterday that they were closing their remaining 300-ish stores around the country.

Man, this is just the next step as media stores all die.

First it was the record stores in the 90's and early 00's. Places that were dedicated record shops? They didn't last. The places that managed to transition from the record to the cassette to the cd didn't realize that the end-result of that evolution of music delivery was going to be the one that didn't include them. Digital. Big box stores like Best Buy that used media as loss-leaders to sell you a tv or a stereo were the first step. Napster and shit really put a beating on the record store even when 56k and DSL were the high-end of data delivery. The iPod and iTunes put another nail into them. Amazon and other non-traditional options for physical media really hurt them. And once we were all putting thousands of songs on our phones instead of needing to carry a 2nd device for music? That's when it was just a matter of shoveling the dirt back into the grave. It was dead.

And in a lot of ways? That's really quite sad. Obscure music becomes harder to find when you aren't thumbing through a row of import albums or checking out labels and release charts. Or in my case, checking the stuff out as I stocked the shelves in highschool. That kinda always made it easier. And as a consumer now? Finding "that guy" at the record store that knew every new album out and would recommend you this new thing that nobody else has heard about (like I spent most of late 99 and early 2000 doing with MUSE) and it would be killer? That guy doesn't exist anymore. You can't get that from iTunes. They don't have a "the record store guy" app or whatever to recommend shit. They just have their typical label shills that pay for ad space.

It was only a matter of time before it happened to movies. No, streaming hasn't yet reached the quality or market availability yet to truly be a viable alternative. There's far too many portions of the country that are missing the infrastructure and data speed yet to really replace dvds and blurays with streaming entirely. And while Redbox is great, it just doesn't replace a Blockbuster or whatever for old movies. A Redbox has no selection at all if the movie isn't under 2 months old. And adding games to them now just gives it less space for movies.

Good luck if you wanna watch Star Wars tonight and don't own it. Redbox doesn't have it. Netflix will give it to you in 3 days, but that's not tonight. None of the streaming services have it (amazon, Netflix, etc) and the only way you can buy it online is in the "all of the movies" bundle on iTunes and the like. At least before, if you wanted to watch Star Wars or Indiana Jones, you could head out the trusty Blockbuster and rent it.

So I guess those of you that want to rent it can pirate it and delete it. And those of you that live in the sticks and it'll take 4 days to download it from a torrent site? I guess you can make a trip to Walmart and buy it. But that kinda defeats the purpose of "renting it for $3 for 3 nights" thing. But that's about it for your choices.

So RIP Blockbuster. Your lack of a porn section and constant need to impulse sell candy and DirecTV will not be missed, but your ability allow us to watch some random 80's comedy or bad Wesley Snipes 90's action movie at our leisure will certainly be. Farewell, original blue & gold signage that BestBuy kinda stole. You will maybe sorta be missed. But you could always just make your not-Redbox machines at Sheetz like 3x the size and give us all of that selection again. We won't complain.

Yet another step down the road to a virtual-media only future where nothing is manufactured and all media is consumed and stored digitally. But if you people fuck with bookstores & comic book stores and make them disappear too, I'm going to start hunting people down. Books and comics are still infinitely better when consumed in physical format. I can sacrifice a tiny bit of audio or video quality to never have to wipe down another CD or DVD or get up to change discs. But if you think I'm going to live with not being able to file my comics in long boxes ore look at my bookshelf and hold and smell and see a real book with real pages and ink on them, well you've got another thing coming, fuckers!

DING - RTOTD #862

Day 862

I had a fucked up experience last night.

So many of you have been to my house. You all notice the stuff that makes you stop and look at it like a dog does when you're trying to explain particle physics. Or like well... most people when you're trying to explain particle physics. The doorbell in the bathroom. The weird nooks and crannies in all the built-ins. The laundry chute or the dark room. The hidden room or anything else.

So when I say it was a strange experience... it really was.

I had already gone to bed before ArtemisFallen or the girl got home last night, but hadn't yet fallen asleep. I was watching something on Netflix mindlessly and hoping to pass out when Regs heard her mom get home. And well, she wanted out of my bedroom because her mom was home. Because MOM WAS HOME!

She was excited.

So I let her out and went downstairs to get a glass of water before going back to bed when, just as I was about to open my bedroom door, I heard the strangest thing. A doorbell. But a doorbell that wasn't MY doorbell. I had to be hearing things because why the fuck was a doorbell that isn't my doorbell ringing in my house. That just doesn't work like that.

I took the few steps back down and caught ArtemisFallen also looking around with the same expression of confusion on her face that I had.

Me: "Did you just hear..."

ArtemisFallen: ".. A doorbell?"

Me: "that wasn't our doorbell"

ArtemisFallen: "I know. What the fuck was that?"

Me: "I have no idea. What the shit was that?"

She was already down the stairs checking the front door before I even got the rest of the way down from my bedroom. She checked the front. I went to the back. It was pitch black. I checked the lock and then flipped on the back porch light. I glanced around and saw nothing. She was checking the side porch as well, although we don't even have a doorbell over there. But hey? We have a doorbell in the bathroom that doesn't do anything. Maybe we have a bell that rings without a doorbell? Makes about as much sense.

I thought for a moment and remembered the doorbell in the garage. But the garage door was closed. I even checked with ArtemisFallen since she had just gotten in and parked in the car port next to it. The door had been down.

I checked the garage bell and, pressing it, it did nothing as well. Though I might have maybe picked up an empty wine bottle to smash someone in the head if there was someone in my garage before I went down to check the bell there. But only maybe. I won't admit to anything.

And that was it. There was nobody at any of the doors. The sound didn't match any of the doorbells that we do have. And the other 2 doorbells don't work in the bathroom and garage.

So seriously... what the fuck? We've joked that the doorbell in the bathroom probably rings a bell in someone else's house. Maybe other people have doorbells that ring in mine? Because random dinging noises in my house are fucking bullshit, yo!