Numchuck Skills

Did you know that you aren't allowed to brink nunchakus on a tour of the White House. You might be thinking, "Well, of course not. A turtle or guy like Michelangelo (the turtle, not the guy) could do some serious damage with nunchakus!"

You'd be right, and that's why the rule is in place. And this isn't weird. What's weird is that there is actaully a sign with a silhouette of nunchakus with a red line through it, specifying for the literate and illiterate alike that you aren't allowed to bring your Japanese fighting sticks along while visiting the State Dining Room.

Nunchakus are really amazing. They were the weapon of choice of the coolest ninja turtle, they received shout-outs in the best movie of 2004, "Napolean Dynamite" and they provide countless hilarious instances of dudes crushing their nads on film. Truly, they are Japan's finest export. That, I guess, and Sega Genesis.

I say Sega Genesis because my parents never bought me a Super Nintendo and I never bought myself a Playstation or X-Box. I know those other new fangled contraptions are better, but they didn't have "Altered Beast."

"Altered Beast" was the signature game for Sega before "Sonic the Hedgehog" came along. It was the story of a guy (or two guys, if you played in two player mode) that walked around killing zombies and blobs and stuff and eating magic floating eggs in a quest to save his (or "their" in two player mode) girlfriend. Every time he ate an egg he got way stronger. On the third egg, the guy would turn into the beast du jour and you'd pretty much be invincible and you'd win the game if you got that far.

The altered beasts were, in this order: wolf, dragon, bear, tiger, golden wolf. The weird thing was, the dragon was by far the best. It could fly, had a really cool shield and could breath some sort of lightning/stick out of its mouth. By the end of level two, the game was pretty much all downhill. In fact, you went from the super-cool dragon to the worst character in the game, the boring-ass bear. I wonder, sometimes, who the ad-wizards were who came up with the idea to put the dragon second and the bear third. Why not just flash a message after level two saying, "Hey bro, the fun part's over. Go play outside or make yourself a sando or something"?

You know, the bear blew bubbles that turned things into ice. How stupid is that?

Don't get me wrong, though. Bears are still cool. My favorite bear of all time was Teddy Ruxpin. He was a magic half-bear, half-walkman that told you about all of his adventures with his giant caterpillar friend, Grubby.

On second thought, Teddy Ruxpin was a dick.

He apparently went on like a hundred awesome quests and stuff before he was caught by Playskool and put in that box. When I was a kid, my biggest quest was crapping my pants and trying to fix it before my mom found out. Teddy just sat there all day, telling you how much better his life was compared to yours. All day... preaching.

But he wasn't so great. He didn't even have nunchakus. Michelangelo had nunchakus, plus he lived in the real world and had adventures that I could relate to.

Here's what's bullshit: Teddy Ruxpin is way more likely to be able to meet the president than Michelangelo. Even though we all agree that what Mike has done for New York was way more valuable to US domestic security than Teddy's prancing around the land of Grundo, there is no way Michelangelo is getting in that White House with those nunchakus.

...and I wouldn't want to be the guy to ask a giant ninja turtle to please observe the "no nunchakus" sign.

Dog Fight

Who reigns supreme in the world of lovable canine corporate mascots? This question has haunted me for years.

Now, you may be thinking, McGruff, the crime dog, would obviously be the answer. After all, he carries a gun and is assumedly trained to use it. You'd be wrong though, because I said "lovable" and McGruff is about as loveable as Stacey Corosi from Saved By the Bell, the Malibu Sands Years.

The battle comes down to two great candidates: the Slush Puppie and the Hush Puppy. Everyone know that both are extremely lovable but, more importantly, their names rhyme. When you can make the title of a fight rhyme, it goes down in history (e.g. the Ali vs. Foreman '74, a.k.a. "The Rumble in the Jungle" and Ali vs. Frazier '75, a.k.a. "The Thrilla in Manila").

This battle would be epic. It would finally quench that eternally burning fire--the fire that glows brighter every time someone realizes the intense cuteness of both the Puppie and the Puppy. Which corporate whore dog is most unabashedly adorable?

Well, let's find out.

In the left corner, weighing in at 34 Lbs. 3 oz., hailing from the Slush Puppie Frozen Drink Division of the Dr. Pepper/Seven Up Corporation of Plano, Texas; he's been known as the "Stone Cold Canine" and the "Texan Chilly Dog;" the cuddliest varmit this side of the Pacos...

SLUSH PUPPIE!!!

In the right corner, weighing in at 62 Lbs. 5 oz., hailing from the Hush Puppy Footwear Division of the Wolverine World Wide Corporation of Rockford Michigan; they call him the "Casual Wear Cuddle Bear" and the "Slip-On Slobberpuss;" the dog the puts the "oof" in "woof"...

HUSH PUPPY!!!

So, who would win the fight? Let's weigh the different attributes of the contenders. Clearly, as a basset hound, the Hush Puppy has the weight advantage, but the speed advantage goes to the sparky mutt from Texas. Likewise, the toughness advantage lies with Slush Puppie whose heart pumps not warm blood but a delicious icy fluid that keeps his core body temperature close to freezing. Hush Puppy, though, has been the more successful corporate mascot, winning the recognizability contest and success in the marketplace contest.

The fight would indeed be a close one. Both contenders would get into the ring and duke it out in a violent display of cuddly lovability. Unfortunately, what they didn't expect was the blast from the past, the greatest puppy-dog corporate mascot and dog-related children's toy of all time, the Pound Puppy!

Pound Puppies hail from the Tonka Division of Hasbro, Inc. Straight out of Corporate HQ in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the Pound Puppies play for keeps. You thought they stopped making them in 1988, but, in fact, they've been around up through 1996 and are in development for a come-back.

Pound Puppies stick together and, as pack animals, can triple and quadruple the cuteness of a single mascot without even coming out from behind that big heart. They were born on the streets and grew up in cruel pounds; they're as tough as nails and as soft and huggable as Koosh balls.

The element of surprise would overwhelm the Slush Puppie and Hush Puppy. The sheer number of Pound Puppies would do them in. After the dust had settled, the Pound Puppies would walk away victorious, trailing bloody paw prints behind.

Then, inevitably, someone in the crowd would say, "What the hell just happened? I paid $29.95 for this?" Everyone woud leave in a huff, totally confused as to why they bought tickets to such an obsure event. At least, they would carry some piece of mind, knowing, kind of, who the cutest corporate puppy mascot truly was.



Wait... what the hell was that about?

Ryan Cabrera: Rock Superstar

I thought that Ryan Cabrera was a one-trick pony after his mega-hit, "On the Way Down." Boy howdy, was I wrong.

After seeing the video for his newest hit, "True," I realized that this guy had a whole lot more to offer. His artistic merit is so transcending that it resonates in the very titles of his songs. Here's a list of my favs from his album, "Take It All Away":

"Shame on Me"
"Take It All Away"
"Let's Take Our Time"
"Exit to Exit"
"I Know What It Feels Like"

...and my all-time favorite, "40 Kinds of Sadness."

Song titles like these tickle me in a way that I don't get tickled enough.

First of all, the depth of emotion required to feel forty different types of sadness is amazing. I've got like three: lonely-sad, pain-sad, and hungry-sad. Right now, I'm hugnry-sad. Assuming that Ryan is still without his lady (yeah, right!) he is over 13 times sadder than I am when I'm sitting alone on a Friday night with a broken arm and an empty fridge. That's about as sad as I ever get, and this dude is still way, way sadder.

I guess that's why he's the superstar.

Speaking of reasons why Ryan Cabrera is a rock 'n' Roll legend in the making, check out these lyrics from the song in question:

"I feel 40 kinds of sadness when you're gone
I feel the same thing always happens when you're gone"

Did you catch that? He rhymes "gone" with "gone." Not only that, he establishes--TWICE!--that he feels forty kinds of sadness every single time that this girl leaves. Oh Jesus, I pray that he is talking about Ashlee Simpson because I too feel as sad as can be when any song but "Pieces of Me" is playing.

Fun factoid: Ryan Cabrera has a song called "Take It All Away" and Ashlee Simpson has a song called, "Giving It All Away." I'll let you figure out what "It" really is.

Speaking of "It" in a different context, "It" is what Ryan Cabrera has. It's what he's got. He's got IT. It's that extra something that makes a shiny Ferrari shine shinier than a shiny Buick. It's that lil' something-something that makes a rainbow look like a rain-I-don't-think-so. Compared to Ryan, natural phenomena look pallid and tawdry.

If Ryan Cabrera is a one-trick pony, then that "trick" is being the most versatile and salient superstar or our age, all ages heretofore and yet to come, as well as all the other ages of other people that I can't even handle thinking about.

Think about that... if you can.

Blog of the Lost Blog

I'm dedicating this blog to the memory of another blog.

Did you ever start doing something online and then you got an IM from someone that had a link to someone's really stupid personal homepage and when you clicked on that link, you lost all the stuff you were doing? And then maybe you thought it happened for a reason like because you were laughing at someone? And then you realized that God is probably laughing at you right now for losing all the stuff you were doing so you figured laughing at people is okay?

Anyway, that happened to me today and the real victims are my loyal readers (hi Wendy and Rylee) that are going to miss out on a funny blog based mostly on bean bag chairs.

Damn that was a good blog.

So, the new blog is this blog and it's a very good replacement blog. Why? Because it's about something that's been bothering me of late. By late I mean like five minutes ago.

Why does mistrust "breed?" Did you ever notice how a bad relationship breeds mistrust or it breeds suspicion or it breeds disaster? A good relationship doesn't breed contrary sentiments. This, I find bothersome because negativity seems to have an oligopoly on breeding with animal husbandry. Right? I figure hate breeds and dogs breed; everything else is standing still with their belts on.

Dog shows, by the way, are the new poker tournaments. Mark my words, people are going to going crazy for dog shows the way they are going crazy for late night poker, celebrity poker, world series of poker and all that other garbage. The reason is simple: poking stuff rules and dog shows are full of old dudes poking at dogs of all stripes.

Poking is our most primal instinct that isn't directly tied into our survival. Think about it; we eat, sleep, drink and mate. These are our basest instincts without which we would die. Poking comes next in the heirarchy. If you see something you're not familiar with, you poke it with your finger. If you see something that's really suspect, you poke it with a stick. To get someone's attention, to piss someone off, to share in a laugh and to alert someone to something of interest, what's the proper course of action?

You guessed it. Poking stuff makes the world go 'round. Not love, not breeding, not music. Poking. And bean bag chairs, too. But I guess the ship has sailed on my chance to develop that one.

But dammit, they're comfy.

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Doubt!

I've noticed a trend in my short time on myspace. That trend is this: lots of dudes post shirtless pictures of themselves. That's a great idea and I totally back it. There might be no better way to identify someone as a screaming douche than the shirtless photo.

Another good one is the black and white shirtless picture. It's better than a picture of a guy with a sign around his neck that says, "I suck as a person." It's honest, you know. There are no surprises when interacting with a shirtless picture dude; it's going to be heinous and you know that going in. But with the black and white shirtless picture dude, there's a subtext of being not just heinous, but introspectively heinous. Shirtless dude lifts weights all the time; black and white shirtless dude lifts weights, but he does it while listening to Lao Tse on tape or something. He may or may not

Now, I don't want to be judgemental, but I am, so we're at an impasse if you disagree. But if you do, you probably aren't wearing a shirt right now.

I guess people do it to get chicks. That makes sense, I suppose. But are hot babes really surfing myspace all the time, comparing the abs of dude upon dude, searching for that Ryan Reynolds in the rough? Probably. At least, that's got to be the hope, right?

By the way, Ryan Reynolds is commonly known as the "Van Wilder" guy and very seldom as the "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place" guy , and that's a shame. TGGPP--as I like to call it--was a heck of a show. I don't remember any of the specifics except that I thought the Girl was almost as hot as Ryan Reynolds and that I always finished watching the show with a twinkle in my eye and song in my heart.

So now Ryan is in Blade Trinity (which is pretty much what you expect) and he's getting married to Alanis Morisette. I think he forgot how psycho she was in "You Oughta Know." Do you remember that? She was all pissed because some dude took her necklace or something and he's all, "I don't have it" and she's all "Cause the love that you gave that we made wasn't able to make it enough for you to be open wide..." and he's like, "Whoa, girl! Here's your necklace."

I think men look silly in jewelry. That is, unless you're wearing some sweet bling bling in a shirtless black and white photo on myspace. Then you look rad.

Ohio vs. North Carolina (Round 2)

So, they both win.

Ohio is where the Wright brothers were born and where they planned and created the plane. They went to Kitty Hawk for optimal weather conditions.

So, "aviation" was "born" in Ohio, making it the "Birthplace of Aviation" but the "first" powered "flight" was in North Carolina, making it "First in Flight."

It seems that due to clever wording and an actual Congressional vote on the matter, both states make correct claims.

Next week: I challenge New Mexico's claim to be the "Land of Enchantment" and give North Dakota crap for being the "Peace Garden State." What the hell is that anyway? Isn't New Jersey already the "Garden State?" That would be like if Nevada changed its name from the "Silver State" (clearly inferior to California's "Golden State") to the "Way Sweeter Golden State."

Hey, North Dakota state legislature, fuck you!

Oh, and South Dakota, you're not off the hook either. The "Mount Rushmore State?" Way to put all your eggs into one basket, dude.

Ohio vs. North Carolina

Today I saw a license plate from Ohio. In addition to the numbers and letters and word "Ohio" that you might expect on an Ohio license plate, it said "Birthplace of Aviation."

What the hell does that mean? The first flight occurred in Kitty Hawk, NC piloted by those lovable bros Orville and Wilbur. North Carolina also touts the slogan "First in Flight" to drive that point home.

So the question must be asked, what is Ohio talking about? Isn't aviation tantamount to flying? Did the first jet take flight in Ohio? Is the aviation industry centered in Ohio? What's going on?

And who settles this? The answer has gotta be Sugar Ray's own Mark McGrath. Flying was never so important to anyone. He, literally, just wanted to fly and he wrote a whole song about it, made a new version of the song with an unintelligible reggae dude yelling in the background and made like a billion dollars doing it.

I think he'd side with Ohio though. I never thought he was too bright. Let's be honest; look at the lyrics:

"All around the world statues crumble for me
Who knows how long I've loved you.
Everywhere I go people stop and they say
Twenty-five years old, my mother God rest her soul.
I just want to fly."

What?!

No one has ever come over to me and told me my age. Apparently, everyone's doing this to Mark. Everyone. That's a lot of people. Also, this tends to remind him of his dead mother. Oh, and he likes flying.

Brilliant.

By the way, why did Sugar Ray stop making music? Weren't they really popular? Wasn't Mark McGrath really handsome? What happened there? Do you think Sugar Ray Leonard could win a fight against the whole band of Sugar Ray?

There's only one person who can settle this... Voltron. Why? Because he's a giant robot made up of smaller robots. That's just awesome. I doubt that there is anything robots made of smaller robots can't do.

Also, Voltron could fly.