The "Frasier" Reboot/Relaunch/Revival/Resurgence/Regurgitation/Resurrection/Revamp/Return

I'm gonna let you in on little secret that I feel has been out there for quite a while and some of you probably had assumptions about, if you were paying attention. Now I'm sure there might be some of you who are a bit shocked by this but I'm doing this because times have changed and what might have been a bit taboo when I was a teenager, has become a lot more socially acceptable now.
If this concerns you, I just ask that you understand and try to see past the label but...here we go.

The Comics Conundrum: Max Overacts

It was in April of 2014 at the Calgary Expo on the last day of the show for that year. I found myself walking towards the back of the hall where there were some food vendors when I noticed a table with a particularly eye-catching picture on the table.

I'll be honest, I use this line quite a bit to make myself sound clever...

The two characters were Max (left) and his best friend Klaus (right), stars of the webcomic, Max Overacts. I briefly chatted with the creator of the series, Caanan Grall and decided to purchase the first volume of the comic. The one picture had made me laugh and figured the book might give me a few chuckles.

Butch

I got a phone call from my dad Sunday morning. It was business as usual (What did you do last night? Who did you do it with?) until he hit me with some pretty sad news.

"The kitty cat passed away last night."

I can only recall my dad calling our family cat, Butch, once and that was in a moment of frustration when he ran out of the house late at night.
The news of his death caught me by surprise because that cat had plenty of close calls in his life and was always knocking on death's door but that was due to his own general stupidity.

We got Butch in the year 2001, around the time of my younger sister's birthday. She picked him out and helped bring him home. I don't remember much about him at that time except he sneezed quite a bit. My dad wasn't impressed with the name Butch; he has this thing about giving animals names that men his age have: Dennis, Louie, Amil and Lyle (He likes that name for Aaron and Katelynn's dog). But Butch he was and it seemed to suit him as a name.

"Meow."

The first problem we had with him was that he was always trying to escape outside the house. And when we first got him he was fast. You'd open the door and he would bolt before you even knew what was happening. Of course we always caught him (We figured out his usual route and blocked off a part of the fence he liked to climb through) but it took a lot of coaxing and sometimes vanilla ice cream or watermelon.

Yeah, Butch liked watermelon. It was strange because we just fed it to him as a bit of a joke but he really liked it. From that moment on whenever he smelt my mom cutting it up he would move towards the counter and stretch his long body and legs to try and grab any bit of it he could. If that didn't work he would give my mom's leg a massage and quickly get a quick slice.

He also ate most of a banana once. My neighbor's grandson fed it to him and we watched as he licked/chewed on it for quite a while. Yet for some reason he wasn't a big fan of peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Whenever he came by and smelt one he would try and bury it.

"Where the watermelon be at?"

Butch was probably the most spoiled cat that didn't belong to a rich family. My younger sister got him into this stupid pattern that whenever he came back inside (We kept him on a harness attached to a leash) he would get a treat. However as time went on, Butch would get his treat and then beg to go outside again only to want to come back in a few minutes later. He wasn't as dumb as we thought.
Also every morning he would get a special breakfast from my mom. She would mix up a little bit of wet cat food with hot water and he thought this was the greatest meal ever. He would sit by the kettle while the water boiled and lick that shit up the the point where he was moving the bowl just with his tongue.
He got this every morning but on the few occasions my mom slept in, he would do his best to get her out of bed. If nuzzling her face didn't work, jumping onto my dad's dresser and knocking over all his medicine bottles would do the trick.

But as much as he liked to eat, he also liked to play. I don't know who started it but whenever I was going up the stairs from the basement, Butch would chase me and swat at my ankles. It's probably not wise to speak ill of the dead, but I think the little kitty bastard was trying to kill me. He knew I was the cute one and that if I was out of the picture, then he'd be the cute one.
So in retaliation I would rough him up a little bit. Have him try and out wrestle my hand and then chase him around the house like I was going to kill him. That cat could run but when he made a leaping jump off the stairs you could hear the impact all throughout the house.

He had a little lamb that he liked to play with. It was about half his size and he fucked it up. Ripped one of it's eyes out and tore some of it's skin. But he also liked to play with other animals. My neighbour's had a bunny rabbit named Blossom and if Butch saw him he went crazy. He'd meow and meow, trying to get the rabbit's attention but Blossom couldn't care less. Every once in a while he would come up to the fence and Butch would just give him a tap on the head, trying to get a reaction. Blossom would just blink and hop away. And I'm pretty sure Butch studied that hop and taught himself how to do it.
He also tried to get the attention of their cat too but Tigger couldn't care less about Butch. Granted I saw Butch give him a tap on the face and Tigger let out a big hiss like he was ready to replace the U in Butch with an I.

"Stop teasing me about my harness, Tigger!"

After I moved out my parents started to let Butch go out on his own, no harness, with the idea that he knew where home was and he knew that he got fed there. There had been some scary nights when he was out for a while but he always came back. Some time last year I was talking to my dad on the phone when all of a sudden he stops the conversation to scream, "Oh, Puss, you're favouring your right paw."
Dad hated the name Butch and would usually call him Puss, Pusser, Puss-Puss and Shithead.
After the injury, they kept him back on the harness for a while. He would like to go out at night and come back in just before going to bed. My dad said that in the last little while that he was sleeping a lot for a cat. It's his idea that Butch knew his time was short.

I like to think that too. I know it sounds stupid but maybe he thought he had a bit more time and decided to go outside for one last little adventure. He was found not too far from our backdoor and he hadn't been gone long because he was still warm. I get the feeling he probably wanted to make it to my parent's bedroom and sleep on his special towel at the end of the bed on my mom's side...but it was too late.

I haven't shed a tear over his passing but that doesn't mean I'm not sad. I'm going to miss not hearing him meow at late hours looking for someone to play with; watching him chase his own tail like a stupid dog or watching him get excited when he sits by the window and chirps at birds he hopes to eat. I'll miss hearing him meow and purr at the same time whenever he gets his special breakfast and those little massages he would give out at the oddest times.

However one thing I won't miss about him was his warped sense of humour in thinking that taking a massive dump on brand new sheets for my bed was a riot. Hadn't even gotten a chance to sleep in them and he's already defiled them with his stench. It was so bad my dad had my sister handle the sheets.

But there were plenty of more good times than bad with Butch and those are the times I'll remember best. I miss my kitty and I always will.

Butch Schweitzer: 2001-December 17, 2011

Cinemassacre's Monster Madness

If you've been on the Internet, chances are you've heard of James Rolfe, also known as the Angry Video Game Nerd. While I'm not the biggest fan of toilet humour, Rolfe seems to have this ability to make shitting on a bad video game hilarious to me. I can't explain it but something about taking a massive dump on the Nightmare on Elm Street video game always leaves me in stitches.

Every day for the month of October, Rolfe goes through the history of horror films and reviews one movie (On rare occasions will he review two in one day) starting with the oldest films he can find and working his way up to the modern era. Every year has it's own theme and this year he's been going over sequels. If you're a film buff, like movies or movie reviews, check out Cinemassacre's Monster Madness.

Yeah, nothing really funny in this post but I really admire Rolfe's work and think that good work deserves a shameless plug. Not that I'm gonna drive up his hit count or anything...

Bringing Real Life to Sesame Street

Like a lot of kids, I watched Sesame Street when I was a little kid. By the time you're about four years old you've outgrown it but still, it's one of the first TV shows that you watch. And you can probably remember most of the characters: Big Bird, Snuffy, Grover, Elmo and of course Ernie and Bert.

Now, before I get into this whole controversy about the petition to get them married, let me just say that this never occurred to me until I was about 12. That was when Jerry Falwell was railing against the Teletubby known as Tinky Winky, insisting that he was a homosexual character. I remember a comedian suggesting that if Falwell go after any characters that were supposedly gay, he should go after Bert and Ernie.

Can you tell me how to get the hell out of this neighbourhood?

And yeah, everyone's joked about this but in all seriousness, come on, do you really think this stupid petition is going to work? They're fucking muppets, they don't have a sexual orientation. But I've seen things from the other side and thought, "Why should we stop with gay marriage for Bert and Ernie? Shouldn't this show cover other hot topic issues that younger audiences might care about?" I thought so and that's why I wrote a letter to Childrens Television Workshop, detailing some very interesting storylines which I'm sure views will enjoy.

1. Immigration-Maria and Luis decide to go on a cross country road trip but encounter some trouble when they enter the state of Arizona. It turns out that Luis has been living in the country illegally and now faces deportation! The residents of Sesame Street rally to try and get a good lawyer as well as teach children outside of North America how to keep a low profile while waiting for your fake green card to arrive in the mail.

Naturally I don't think this would work in real life because, I mean, come on, Sesame Street teaching kids to break the law? You're more likely to find an episode of Barney where he teaches those kids how to roll a joint.

This would attract the 18-39 demographic that always eludes them...

2. Hoarding-After black mold nearly kills him, Oscar the Grouch is confronted by the residents of Sesame Street about his lifestyle. It is revealed that Oscar has abandonment issues and fears losing everything of value which is why he holds onto everything...even if it really has no value. It is also revealed that Oscar hasn't bathed since the Truman administration.

This will be a great chance for Sesame Street to do a crossover with A&E's Hoarders. Plus, it'll teach children at an early age that no matter how bad you think your own life is, there's always someone on TV you can point to and say, "Holy shit, that dude's messed up!"

3. Narcissism-Elmo gets his ass kicked by people who are sick and tired of his dumb 'Tickle-Me' ass always speaking in the third person. He is encouraged to get well but also told that it will probably happen again unless he doesn't change his ways.

I don't care if I sound like a total asshole when I call for the beating and near death of a "beloved" television character. Would you want your kid to grow up always referring to themselves in the third person? No, it's annoying and you'd kick their ass if they weren't your kid. And if you say you wouldn't then you need your ass kicked.

Someone has to stop him...

4. Addiction-Everyone knows that Big Bird's best friend is Mr. Snuffeupagus, also commonly referred to as "Snuffy". But it is revealed that the nickname comes not from a shortening of his last name, but due to his addiction to cocaine. Snuffy is caught by Big Bird doing three lines of cocaine, each line a metre long. He insists that he can quit anytime but decides to go to rehab after nearly ODing outside Mr. Hooper's store.

This would be a great episode to show kids that it's OK to ask for help when you've really fucked up. And it would also show that if you care enough about your friends, you'll do anything you can to help them. Plus it would include special guest star Charlie Sheen as himself.

The way this guy spoke, you knew he was on something illegal

5. Facing Facts-I'm not sure about the rest of you, but sometimes when I was a little kid, I wasn't sure if Big Bird was a guy or just a really butchy female bird. Now it's obvious that he's a boy but since we're trying to cater to all audiences, why not just have Big Bird admit that he's a hermaphrodite?

Why not? Come on, everyone knows this one is true. You can have Big Bird admit that he's a hermaphrodite and have special guest star Lady Gaga do the same thing. That and have someone beat her up for her narcissism as well.

Oh you've gotta be kidding me. And I thought Paris Hilton was desperate for attention

Calgary Expo 2011

After missing the Calgary Expo last year due to my bosses being complete assholes and changing my schedule at the last minute, I was determined to make it this year. While I do count myself as a big nerd, I wasn't about to dress up for several reasons:

A) I do not own a costume or Starfleet uniform

B) I really don't want the attention.

However I did want to show that I was a part of the community and thus wore my Green Lantern t-shirt, despite the fact that I don't care at all about Green Lantern and find his weakness to be laughable at best.

So off I went, on the C-Train after arriving home at work and failing to get in a quick cat-nap. As I rode, I saw that I couldn't see anyone cos-playing but quite a lot of people with weekend passes. And since I wasn't too familiar with where I was going, I just decided that I would follow someone and do my best not to look like a tourist in a city I've lived in for almost two years.

Entering the convention reminded me of that scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where Bowman reaches the monolith and says, "My god, it's full of stars" and is then exposed to a screensaver (Can you explain to me what I'm watching in that movie?). However instead of stars, it was just nerds. And yet it was so awesome. I was overwhelmed by the numbers and I was expecting a lot of people to show. This is what happens when you say that Star Trek is better than Star Wars out loud

I knew that there was a lot of stuff to see but at the same time I was just so overwhelmed by the people I saw. On my left I saw Robocop looking through comic books from the fifties while a guy in a Superman costume handled a boa constrictor. On my right, a ninja from the Villiage Hidden in the Leaves shopped shuriken (Throwing stars). It was like I had travelled into a modern day version of the Mos Eisley Spaceport. Every life form from pop-culture converged on that large area and were all cool with each other. Even though I was tired from being up all night before, I suddenly got a surge of energy that would carry me through the day.

One of the first booths I wanted to check out was for Blind Ferret Entertainment, a Montreal based group which produces the webcomics Least I Could Do, Looking for Group and Gutters. I don't read Looking for Group but the other two I keep up to date with. While LICD may not be for everyone (You'll be offended eventually and most likely laugh at the same time in the back of your mind), I find it enjoyable and decided to pick up a volume of their work.

Now you might be saying, "Uh, Schweitzer-Man, you can read every strip online...for free!" True, but I like that the book came with creator commentary on the strips. And besides, I get a free reusable bag out of the deal, so we all win. Plus I got it autographed by writer Ryan Sohmer and artist Lar DeSouza.
Least I Could Do is about a narcissist who uses his charm, humour and vivid imagination as much as possible to enjoy life. Why are you all looking at me like that?

Now of course the big deal about this convention was the the one and only, two time Emmy winner, Golden Globe winner and of course, the man who put the "star" in Star Trek, William Shatner was going to be there. And if Shatner is going to be there, then there's going to be a massive lineup for his autograph. And if Shatner is giving autographs...then you're going to be paying a lot. I think I heard that it was $40 for just a picture with him and $75 if I wanted an autograph.

Considering that the man is still able to get work these days, I have to wonder why I should have to pay for his signature? Now, if the money is going to a good cause (Which I like to think), then I'm pretty cool with it. However I heard from someone that Shatner wasn't really interacting with people; that he was just signing the photos and moving on. Now should I ever get rich and famous (Support this cause by giving me lots of money!), one thing I'll do if I'm ever at a convention, is not only sign what you want my autograph on, but also take a few seconds to talk to you. "Hey, how's it going? Enjoying your day? Favourite episode is...?"
The reason these people got where they are is due to the fans.

This was the closest I got to getting a picture of William Shatner

However after hours of wandering around, I saw there were lineups to get photos and autographs from voice actors. I was initially going to get one from Vic Mingnona but didn't at the last minute mainly because I can only think of one anime he'd been in and that was Full Metal Panic.

However, I did see one voice actor's name and instantly knew that even if I had to face a thousand Klingons, I would get Maurice LaMarche's autograph for my dad. Back in the mid-90's, there were awesome cartoons on at the time. Animaniacs being one as well as it's spin-off show, Pinky and the Brain. Now my dad's pretty old school about animation. If it doesn't involve anything that includes the voices of Mel Blanc then he honestly couldn't give a shit. You could show him the lastest English dubbed anime from Japan but he would much rather watch Foghorn Leghorn smack that dumb dog on the ass with a stick. My dad could probably look at this picture all day and laugh

However, he loved to watch Pinky and the Brain. He would listen to the Brain insult people, things, Pinky and would laugh his ass off. One of his favourite moments is when Brain super-imposes a picture of himself on a horse with Pinky's head and says, "Here I am atop the beast of ignorance." So when I saw that Maurice LaMarche was not only going to be signing autographs and posing for autographs for free, I instantly got in line and waited forty-five minutes.

It was worth it because I had some interesting conversations with other fans as well as heard some gay guy lisping about how he didn't know anything about Pinky and the Brain.

"Oh, isn't that the show where there's like a grumpy mouse and a happy mouse?" he mused.

I would have smacked the stupid out of him right then and then however I was getting closer to Maurice.

"I'm not sure if this will be safe for Slimer," he said as Egon from The Real Ghostbusters. As I got closer and closer, I started to feel a bit nervous. Granted I wasn't meeting Shatner but this was the next best thing.

Maurice shook my hand, smiled and couldn't have been nicer, even breaking out the voice of The Brain to say a word to my father. If you want to check it out, just follow this link. Part of me wishes I had said a little more to him but I didn't want to sound like some blabbering fanboy. However, if there's anything I regret not saying, it's that my younger sister used the song Brainstem to study in her nursing program."Hello, I'm Maurice LaMarche and I'm awesome. YES!!!"

I thought about getting into the line for Rob Paulsen (He did the voice of Pinky and a lot of other characters) but that was three times as long and I was lucky to get to the front of mine early. No, I would have to wait another time. One thing I also regret missing was a panel Maurice, Rob and Jess Harnell (The voice of Wakko) took place in. Apparently they took turns doing William Shatner impressions and did other things too. I have no idea if anyone asked Rob to recite Yakko's World but I've seen video of him doing it before and that would have been cool to see.

I kept wandering around with no clear goal in mind. As the final hour approached, I got near the autograph section again and saw that there was a very short lineup to get an autograph from Jonathan Frakes, who played Commander Riker on Star Trek: The Next Genearation and also hosted Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, which was sort of like a modern day Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This I couldn't pass up, especially since in the third grade, I wrote a brief explination to a magazine, explaining why Riker was my favourite character. Looking back at that letter, I can say that it's poorly written and I only picked Riker because all the characters were my favourite. But it still got published anyway.

Regretfully, I wasn't allowed to film my encounter with Frakes but he was nice, shook my hand, signed my picture and thanked me for coming out. I didn't mind shilling out $20 for that. By that point, fatigue was beginning to set in. I could write a whole other paragraph or five about my adventures with Calgary transit, however I expect you're pretty tired from reading this already. All in all, it was a great time, I'll be going back in 2012 and getting a weekend pass.Probably my favourite picture I took that day. I don't know why but it feels like a perfect representation of this convention

When Star Wars Doesn't Make Sense Part II

I know that with lists like these it seems that I really enjoy tearing into George Lucas' work. I don't...except for the stuff made after Return of the Jedi. OK, I'm lying if I say that I hate the prequel trilogy. I don't but at the same time I think there are a lot of things that could be improved upon it. However everything that can be said has alraedy been done by people who do much better work than me.

But I'm not here to take another stab at the bizzare elections of other planets or Hayden Christansen. Instead most of the stuff I cover is from the original trilogy. And with that said, let's begin.

...Jar-Jar Binks never existed

1) Stormtroopers are Precise?-In A New Hope, upon finding the sandcrawler that sold him R2-D2 and C-3PO destroyed, Luke Skywalker assumed it was done by the sand people (AKA: Tusken Raiders-are they Italian?). However Obi-Wan Kenobi points out that this is not the case due to the Bantha tracks in the sand. He then moves Luke closer and shows him the blast marks.

Obi-Wan: "And these blast points-too accurate for sand people. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise."

Remember that last sentence because the next time we see Stormtroopers trying to shoot something, their target is the unsuspecting (and momentarily stationary) Han Solo just as he is about do leave Mos Eisley. There are about five or six Stormtroopers shooting and not one of them come close to hitting Han. In fact, I can think of only a few instances where a stormtrooper has managed to hit his target and trust me, there aren't a lot.

"Please, God, just let me hit something!"

2) Who Needs Sight to Land?-In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke goes to the planet Dagobah to train with Yoda. He moves to bring his ship down but is quickly blinded by all the fog. R2-D2 is beeping like crazy because he thinks he's riding shotgun with Billy Joel and Luke tries to calm him down.

Luke: "All the scopes are down; I can't see a thing! Just hang on, I'm going to start the landing cycle."

I know Luke is supposed to be a good pilot but to land a ship without seeing? Holy shit, the terrorists in Die Hard 2 would have been royally screwed if Luke was flying one of those planes. Maybe the Force was with him but given how he lands, I'd say it was dumb luck. Or destiny. That word is always crawling it's way into Star Wars scripts.

Another successful landing

3) How did Vader Know Luke Would Come?-OK, we know in Empire that Han, Leia, Chewie and 3PO are captured by the Empire at Cloud City to lure Luke Skywalker into a trap. There's just one problem: How do they know that he'll come?

I'm not kidding, it's never explained how Vader knows that Luke is aware his friends are in danger. I mean, for all Vader knows, Luke is partying with the rebels after they escaped from Hoth. He doesn't know Luke is training with Yoda. I mean, did they make an announcement over intergalactic communications?

And suppose Luke didn't go to Dagobah?

What if Luke said, "Ah, screw going to Dagobah. I'm gonna go to Sullest where the beaches are fine and the bitches are finer!"

That means he wouldn't have developed his Force abilities, wouldn't have sensed his friends being tortured and wouldn't have gone to Cloud City. Vader would have been like that kid who's still waiting for his deadbeat dad to return from the corner store even though he left five years ago.

"Look, he'll show up any minute, I know it."

4) Obi-Wan's Interference-Since Luke did go to Dagobah, he used the Force and has to leave to save his friends despite Yoda insisting that he stay and complete his training. However Luke feels he must go because Han, Leia and Chewie are his BFFs.

All of a sudden Obi-Wan appears all sparkly and ghost-like to appeal to Luke. However he and Yoda cannot get through to young Skywalker. They know he's not ready to face Vader but Luke feels he must if it can save his friends. Desperate, Obi-Wan tries just one more time.

Obi-Wan: "If you choose to face Vader you will do it alone. I cannot interfere."

Suppose Obi-Wan could interfere...what the hell would he do? I mean, he's dead! I know he can appear all sparkly and glowy but he's a ghost. He's not going to do much good if he can't move anything on this plane of reality. The worst he could do is try to scare the shit out of Vader but I doubt that would work. That or as Luke and Vader are fighting he could just keep saying, "Hey, cut it out! Stop that, I mean it!!! Hey stop it, someone's going to get hurt!!! I mean it, I'm going to get very upset soon."

"BOO!"

Victoria Jackson: Hating Glee For All The Wrong Reasons

Does anyone else hear that theme from "The Omen" when looking at this picture?

I don't watch a lot of television and the shows that I do watch are viewed on my laptop screen before I go to sleep. One of the few shows that I watch on a regular basis is Glee. Yeah, yeah, laugh your ass off at it, I don't care. Surprise, surprise, but I was a theatre geek in high school and could act my ass off. It's fair to say that I was a pretty good actor. A pity I couldn't dance otherwise I might be in a totally different situation than I am now but...

Anyway, on the show there's a character named Kurt Hummel who is openly out, which you would kind of expect in a show about theatre geeks who love to sing and dance. Anyway, he's at this private school which is all boys (Doing my best not to make any jokes) and falls in love with another gay guy and in the latest episode to air, they both accepted their feelings towards one another and kissed. And a million fanfic writers watched their wildest dreams come true.

Does anyone else think he looks like a white Wilmer Valderrama?

So they kissed and out of nowhere and obscurity, Victoria Jackson from Saturday Night Live, way before my time, goes on CNN after making some rather mean comments about gays and the show itself.

I really don't want to get into a debate about religion. I have no problem if someone is Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu (Don't get too eager Jar-Jarvis) or atheist for that matter so long as they don't try to shove their beliefs down my throat when I don't want them. I come from a moderately religious family. I've been baptized, did my first communion and my confirmation and yet I'm still not guaranteed entrance to the kingdom of Heaven. I believe there's a God, and I believe if you're a good person when you die, you get into heaven. That goes for the gays, too.

 

Anyway, I watched the interview and after my ears stopped bleeding due to Jackson's dog-whistle voice, I realized that she was hating the show for all the wrong reasons. She shouldn't hate Glee because it has gay characters who kiss (I find it funny how she justifies herself by saying she has gay friends. Not for long, dummy.); she should hate it because this season sucks balls.

Well...not all of it sucks

For some reason, the writers have decided this season to make all the characters either unlikeable or just plain stupid. Everyone seems to be cheating on their boyfriend/girlfriend with someone else. I mean, if you're a guy and your so-called 'best friend' gets one girlfriend pregnant and makes out with your next one cause she's pissy again, wouldn't you have strangled that guy with your shoelaces? Or shanked him in the cafeteria? Hmm, maybe I shouldn't watch Oz right after watching Glee.

That and there doesn't seem to be any real character growth. Now I'm probably going to get some Glee fan who says, "Heyyy!!! That's not truuu!! Rachel broke up with Finn!!! That's growth!!!" No it's not. It's just something that happens to her. She's still the same selfish, diva bitch whom I'm surprised no one has punched yet. She reminds me of a girl I acted with once and thankfully it was only once, always demanding the spotlight and being a stage Nazi. How often do we see Rachel getting upset because she can't get a solo or something else that doesn't put her in the spotlight thus justifies her acting like a bitch the entire episode and getting a solo at the end to show she's sad.

Apparently the truth hurts...

It applies to all the characters. It looked like they were really going to make Sue change her ways from Season 1 at the beginning of this season but then she went back to her old ways about two episodes in with her trying to destroy the Glee club like a really shitty Batman villain from the sixties. But it worked in Batman because the show was a giant spoof/parody and it knew it. Glee is becoming a parody of itself and seems to think it's being fresh and original just because they seem to do a themed episode each week (Lady Gaga, Madonna, Rocky Horror).

Also, this one is just a personal preference, but the singing is too perfect. Take the Christmas episode, A Very Glee Christmas. Our first glimpse of the New Directions group shows them decorating the room for the holiday and they're singing...kinda what you expect on a musical show. I'm going to take a quick break to tell you about a friend of mine. She is a music teacher and very good one at that as is her husband. And as good as they are, I think they would even struggle to recall the lyrics from the soundtrack of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Seriously, it's not that the glee kids suck at singing the song, but it's just all so perfect. I mean, I know they're supposed to be good but...that good? Come on, I could go up to any choir in the country, ask them, "Sing me a song from an almost fifty year old stop-motion animated Christmas special and have the exact same rhythm and timing as the original", and they wouldn't be able to do it. I mean, it'd be funny if they screwed up the lyrics once in a while or just as they're about to start singing have someone raise their hand and say, "Sorry, I don't know that one."

"What makes you think I know the lyrics?"

That whole Christmas episode bothered me in general because the writers decided that they would take one character and turn her from a cute airhead to full blown retarded. I'm talking about the cheerleader Brittany. I know it's a Christmas episode, but did they really need to say that she still believed in Santa Claus and that she believed that he could get her paralyzed boyfriend, Artie, to walk? I mean, she's making Sue Sylvester's assistant, Becky, a girl with Down Syndrome, look like George S. Patton.

And what's worse is that at the end of the episode she gets her wish! Artie gets these leg braces or something that help him walk just a little bit which were bought (Anonymously) by the school football coach, Bieste, a character who has been underused in my opinion. So wait, if you're a high school football coach, you can afford experimental medical technology so that a person who gets lost in a revolving door can have a good Christmas? Huh, so I guess all those teachers who bitch about being underpaid are just greedy misers.

Hey look, everyone, Artie got a Deus Ex Machina for Christmas!

Oh and what also blows is that they decide to have Rachel sing Last Christmas, a Christmas song so terrible that I have put it on my enemies list.

Another issue I have with the show is that it doesn't know what it wants to say. It's a cast full of diverse characters: Asians, blacks, gays, paralyzed, athletic, fat, neurotic and at the end of each episode they want to drill it into you that it's OK to be original and not a stereotype. You don't need to have blond hair, big boobs and whore yourself out there to be talented. That's a great message.

They don't do themselves any favours though when they decide to pose for pictures and basically pretend that they lollipop they're sucking on is a human penis. I mean, they try to give you that standard, "It's who you are on the inside that counts" message. But in reality, the message they send is this, "It's who you are on the inside that counts...until you land on a hit TV show. Then you can get those implants you desperately need!"

For a show that promotes diversity, it's funny that they had only enough room for the good looking white people...

There are a lot of other points that I could make about this show but I have only so much energy. The show isn't terrible by any means and though there are some people who would disagree strongly with that statement, I still watch it in the hopes that it will get better because it can be. In closing, I say this to Victoria Jackson: Judge lest ye be judged; let she who is without sin, throw the first rock. And if you're upset that there's nothing for your kids to watch because Hollywood is pro-gay, then turn on Bugs Bunny. My Opa loves that stuff and Bugs Bunny never does anything gay.

Nope, nothing queer going on here...

Vegas Vacation: Coles Notes Edition

Normally, I could bombard you with a recap of my trip to Las Vegas with a summary so detailed that Tom Clancy would find it longwinded but instead, I'll just go in point form:

• Walking in -30 weather with howling wind is a bitch.
  
  
• Getting to the gate for the flight was one long maze of lines, scans, questions and bullshit that seem so easy to get around that it's a miracle there aren't more terrorist attacks in North America.
  
  
• Aaron's friend Oleg is a nice guy despite living in Edmonton. He and Aaron met on the internet and at this point, I'll allow you to make your own To Catch a Predator joke.
  
  
• Aaron claims he wants to get back into boxing which shocked the hell out of me. I plan to sell him my heavybag for five times what it's worth.
  
  
• Flights can suck ass when you wait an hour on the runway for them to de-ice the plane. Seriously, a whole hour just waiting. A word of advice to any people who want to fly out when it's really cold: Pre-drink.
  
  Flight 547 to Las Vegas is now boozing
  
  
• Nearly suffered heatstroke once we landed in Vegas.
  
  
• Our hotel was right across from Caesar's Palace. Sadly, it was not as extravagant. Did have a better buffet though.
  
  Breakfast of champions
  
  
• Heavy drinking was one of the activities we lined up for ourselves however it was probably a bad idea to eat only two hot dogs before downing drink after drink after drink.
  
  
• I can understand people visiting Las Vegas but for the life of me I can't understand how anyone can live there.
  
  
• Four Loco is an alright drink for the first few sips but after that it's like punch at a high-school dance that someone spiked way too much.
  
  No es bueno
  
  
• We didn't stay up all night partying unlike the people below us however I'm very certain that when it was all done they played 'That's All Folks' from Bugs Bunny.
  
  
• We spent our first night looking for a strip club but when that didn't work we tried looking for the buffet in our hotel which was even more pathetic considering we kept walking past the stairway.
  
  
• It was probably a good thing though since we were so wasted that we would have been thrown out.
  
  
• Aaron came up with the good idea of going to The Gun Store so we can shoot stuff. It sounded like a good idea so we went.
  
  Special discounts for children and psychopaths
  
  
• You know how in the movies someone who has never fired a gun before will pick one up and turn into Clint Eastwood. Yeah, that's a load of shit.
  
  
• I was having a hard time deciding which gun to shoot however I ended up picking the Baretta, just like Robert Blake.
  
  
• There were many targets to choose from and I decided to go with a zombie clown. Aaron took the zombie soldier (Headshots were a must) and Oleg took one that had two bad guys on it. The taller guy was pointing a gun and screaming and the guy in front of him looked like that midget from Fantasy Island.
  
  "What did I ever do to you, Oleg?"
  
  
• The people who work at The Gun Shop were packing heat at all times. Aaron even saw on the website that if you didn't drop the gun when they told you to, that they would shoot you.
  
  
• Apparently Katelynn doesn't like guns. The Gun Store employee deemed her a 'hippie'.
  
  
• Aaron probably did the best out of the three of us. I was only lucky to manage one headshot on my Zombie Clown. However, truth be told, I had to hold back lest my identity as a former assassin be uncovered.
  
  
• After shooting our loads (So to speak) we went back to the hotel for a bit and then decided to do more sightseeing. I mentioned how Mandalay Bay had a boxing museum that I was interested in checking out. And since we could get buzzed along the way, off we went.
  
  
• As I mentioned earlier, just because it looks close doesn't mean that it really is. We walked, drank, drank, walked, stopped to drink, stopped to pee and then drink some more before walking a lot more.
  
  
• I felt kinda bad for Aaron and Oleg because they're not boxing dorks like I was and yet here we were, busting our asses just to get to Mandalay Bay for a museum. At one point I told them that they could go back to the hotel and rest (And drink some more) but they insisted we stick together.
  
  
• If I didn't wear the camera strap around my neck, Aaron would owe me a new camera. He decided it would be funny to poke my ribs while I tried to focus in on a shot. Naturally had the camera been damaged, I would have had to kill him but thankfully, this was not the case.
  
  Aaron caused me to take this...
  
  ...when I was going for this.
  

• The Mandalay Bay fight museum was...smaller than I had expected. And naturally, I almost got us kicked out within ten seconds of entering because I didn't notice the 'No Cameras' sign.
  

• I don't see the harm in me taking a picture of De la Hoya's trunks he wore against Vargas but if those are the rules...
  
  
• Was a bit disapointed that most of the stuff was actually up for sale. I mean, yeah in hindsight it might be cool to own some small part of boxing history. But to have it for sale in a museum? Just didn't sit right with me.
  
  
• Surprised they didn't have any Manny Pacquiao shirts for sale for $10. I would bought one and started wearing it right then and there.
  
  
• From there it was more walking but this time back to the hotel. Thankfully there were trams that could take us from hotel to hotel but sometimes it felt like we were doing the same amount of walking.
  
  
• You'd think we would have been tired after all this walking but once we rested our feet back at the hotel, we decided we would head to one of the strip clubs we couldn't find before. And since we had free passes, we'd be kinda dumb to not use them.
  
  
• "Little Darlings" sounds like a strip club that features midgets. Oddly enough, one guy did offer us passes to Larry Flynt's strip club which features naked midget mud wrestling. Pass.
  
  Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three.
  
  
• We weren't even in the club for two minutes and already Oleg was being felt up. Sadly it was by security after he kept setting off the metal detector.
  
  
• We were greatly disapointed that the strip club didn't even serve alcohol. Instead they offered us soft drinks. Cause everyone knows nothing goes better with a lap dance than Mountain Dew.
  
  
• There was one dancer named Pink who I swear had the upper body of a twelve year old boy. However she made up for her lack of boobies by...humping somebody's baseball hat. I'm not kidding. The guy didn't look to happy about it either.
  

• If you want to read more about what happened at the strip club, pick up this month's issue of Penthouse.
  
  
• I was enjoying the scene but for some reason, when receiving a lap dance, I wanted to burst out and sing, "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts".
  
  
• I don't understand why guys think they have to buy souveniers for their girlfriends. Seriously, they'll get over it. Besides, do you think they'll be envious of the crabs you picked up from that stripper and how there wasn't any left for her?
  
  
• Every time I said, "That's my last beer," I was being handed another one. And I drank it.
  
  
• Yes there is footage of me shotgunning a beer. Yes, Aaron and Oleg are full of crap when they say I only did about 1/4 of it, it was more like 3/4 (I would know, I was the one drinking). And yes, I did throw up for over a minute. OK, it wasn't like a minute long puke or anything. Think of it like puking in segments.
  And no, I will not upload it.
  
  
• After the first one Oleg asked, "Did you throw up?" despite being the one holding the camera and pointing it right at me.
  
  
• Even though they were laughing at my expense and I told them, "I fucking hate you guys", I still had a smile on my face.
  
  All the beers I drank
  
  
• Halfway through my barf Aaron told me to finish my beer however I had already put the can down and chances are that I puked on that as well as the balcony.
  
  
• It was funny that immediately after throwing up everything I had eaten up to that point, the next thing I wanted to do was get back to the buffet.
  
  
• I suck at gambling
  
  
• Last day was kind of bittersweet. It was a nice vacation but like all good ones it felt too short and we knew that we were leaving nice warm weather to go back to hell frozen over.
  
  
• If I ever go back to Vegas, I think it will have to be the weekend of a big fight.
  
  
• Viva Las Vegas

The Asshat Commonly Known As Prince

You know, as people get older, they start to make mistakes a lot easier. Take my beloved Opa for a second. Sure he has views that prevent anyone in my family from running for office for about fifty years and he could probably write an entire encyclopedia on Seinfeld and the works of Bugs Bunny, yet occasionally he'll be fixing something and injure himself to the point where Mad TV's Paul Timberman would wince in pain.

However, all the amputations, loss of blood and bee stings can't compare to the sheer buffoonery that is the existance of Prince Frederic Prinz von Anhalt or as I like to call him, Prince Frederic Prinz von Asshat.

Ah, we were just talking about you

First, let's just make something clear: He's not a real Prince. He was adopted as an adult by the daughter in law of a German emperor and has publically admitted that the title doesn't mean jack.

For those of you, Asshat is the husband of former actress/socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor. You've probably never heard of her or seen any of her movies. In fact the closest you ever got to seeing her in a movie was watching her sister Eva Gabor voice the character of Bianca in The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under.

Behold, the face that launched a thousand furries

So yeah, since it's not fifty years ago and her name isn't in the news anymore, Prince Asshat has decided that the best way to remind us that she's alive is to keep up to his namesake and to the most assinine things you can imagine. So let's just look over some of the more memorable aspects of Prince Asshat's exposure in the media.

1. "Call the Maury Show, I know I'm the father!": Remember back in 2007 when Anna Nicole Smith died and people where shocked that a gold-digging, bloated, alcoholic, drug abusing, no talent, Marilyn Monroe wannabe, died of an accidental overdose and decided that they would cover her funeral like she had actually contributed something to society?
(Well, to be fair, if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't have Stephanie Weir's hilarious portrayal of her on Mad TV)

Well, off course with Anna Nicole Smith being dead, there was great speculation about who the father of her daughter was. While my name was often tossed into the mix, one of the many who came forward claiming to be the father was Prince Frederic. Yeah, here's the thing, Anna Nicole Smith only nailed old men who had lots of money to leave her when they died two hours after marrying her. What's even more laughable is that he said that this affair went on for over ten years. Yeah, right, I'm sure you just kept telling her, "The cheque's in the mail."

Why is it people who dress up like the Joker always seem to die of an accidental overdose?

2. "They may have stolen my clothes, but they didn't steal my pride!!! I gave that away years ago...": Since the Anna Nicole story didn't get him his own reality show which he was probably secretly hoping for, later that year, his Royal Dumbness found himself in a most unusual situation. It seemed that while sitting in his Rolls-Royce, he was approached by three beautiful women who wanted to take pictures with.

Hoping that they would later die of an accidental OD, Asshat obliged, knowing that a picture might be used as evidence that he fathered one or all of their children. However, as soon as he opened the door he was robbed at gunpoint, stripped naked and bound him handcuffs. Despite no handcuffs being found at the scene of the crime, the assailants were never found.


OK, not even those freaks who pretended their kid was in the runaway balloon were this desperate for a reality series. No handcuffs were found, and yet despite taking all your stuff (clothes, ID, wallet), they just happened to leave behind your cellphone? You make these robbers out to be cunning and manipulative and the next second they're as stupid as you are. Try harder next time, or claim you're in a runaway balloon.

"Hello, ladies."

3. "Let's run for Governor like it's 2003!": Remember back in 2003 how California was having a recall election and everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Gary Coleman to porn star Mary Carey ran for the position of Governor.

Well yeah, seven years after everyone stopped caring, Prince Asshat (I'm not going to stop calling him that) decided he would throw his own hat into the mix. His reasons were running were simple enough: There had been an Irish-American, Armenian-American and Austrian-American running the joint, so why not a German-American?

Buddy, why not just say the following: "This state has been governed by people who aren't celebrities, people who were celebrities, so why not someone who would sell their nutsack to the devil to be a celebrity?"
Oh he also added that California had the best beaches, oranges (Talk to Florida, dude), wine and (I'm not kidding) pot.

Sadly he had to drop out of the race due to his wife's ailing health. He may be an asshat but at least he's not a doucebag who would exploit her illnes to get sympathy votes.

4. "Get me my medicine. It's right next to the rat poison.": This happened just recently and to be honest, I nearly pissed myself when I read the story. A few days ago, hoping that the ghost of Christmas yet to come would finally reward him with a reality show, he accidently glued his eye shut.

Now, as I said earlier, when we get older, we make mistakes a lot easier but why in the name of god would you keep nail glue right next to your eye drops. Also, why in the hell wouldn't you look at what you're grabbing? What makes this even more stupid is the fact that he admitted that Zsa Zsa doesn't even use the nail glue anymore.

SO WHY DO YOU STILL HAVE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, ASSHAT!?

So yeah, in short, Prince Asshat is a danger to himself and most likely others and would be best kept under 24 hour guard in a room with padded walls and shock treatments every twelve hours. My only hope is that my own grandparents can age with grace and dignity and not one day accidentally brush their teeth with a jackhammer.

"There's nothing wrong with eating rotten fruit!"

The Best Christmas Specials Never!!!

I haven't been posting as much and that pisses me off because it means that once again, the only way I can get motivated to write is when my dad gets a letter to the editor published in the newspaper. This time my dad basically says that life should be like Grand Theft Auto and if he sees a man on a bicycle, he should have the right to run him over...and then back up and do it again.

Or something like that. Truth is I couldn't really pay too much attention to the letter since the sound of my blood boiling, due to being outdone by a man who has so much trouble operating the computer that I think the only piece of technology he is safe around is his electric toothbrush, was quite distracting.

Here we see my father on an everyday afternoon drive

Randy Quaid Hoping to Outlive Career

It's easy to get hooked into conspiracies. Back in high school I was convinced that there had been one to kill JFK. These days, I'm not too sure about it but then again it's been a long time since I've looked at any of the material. One conspiracy theory I don't (notice the emphasis) believe in is that 9/11 was orchestrated by Bush so that he could invade Iraq.

I always found several problems with this theory:
1) So every other day of the year, Bush is some idiot who couldn't find America on a map but in the days before 9/11, he was planning this masterpiece of terrorism and deception that would make Dr. Doom weep with envy?

2) Why wouldn't he just put FAKE WMD's in Iraq that way if they didn't find any (Which is what happened), they could just plant one and say, "Hey look what we found! Justification!"

He's jealous because he had the exact same plan...except he was going to do it on September 12th

Anyway, I'm getting off track with what I really wanted to talk about. Recently there's been a lot of news about actor Randy Quaid and his wife fleeing to Canada because of legal trouble. Yeah, yeah, I must be bored if all I can write about in three weeks is Randy F'n Quaid.

For those of you who don't know, Randy Quaid is an American character actor. He worked for just one year on Saturday Night Live and appeared as Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoon Vacation movies. The fact that the man could tolerate working with Chevy Chase so many times is a testament to his willpower.

Well it seems that lately he and his wife have been getting into some legal trouble. They were arrested last year for defrauding an innkeeper and faced charges of living in a house without permission.

OK, fraud is a hard charge to beat but living in a house without permission? Shit, I've been doing that for the past 11 months and M'Lord and M'Lady still haven't made any legal action to have me removed. You got to know how to sweet-talk people, Randy. It helps if you give them lemonade mixed with ecstasy; it worked for me.

I've been told that ecstasy really brings out the lemon flavour

The Quaids were supposed to appear in court but instead the couple decided to flee to Canada. Oh, dear. Looks like Randy and his wife took the lemonade themselves; now they think that it's the late 1960's and that the court is actually Vietnam.

Well less than ten days ago the couple were arrested in Vancouver for violation of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Apparently the couple are seeking refugee status because they fear that their lives are in danger. They cite the deaths of celebrity friends like David Carradine and Heath Ledger as evidence of a Hollywood Whacker who is targeting them.

Several problems with this Randy. First off, David Carradine died of autoerotic asphyxiation (Say that five times fast), something that two of his ex-wives confirmed was something that he practiced.

Second, you're Randy f'n Quaid. Name me two movies you've been in over the past five years and we'll see. Now granted, Carradine's death came after Kill Bill came out but he still had name recognition and was still acting. Heath Ledger died just after finishing The Dark Knight and was reported to have trouble sleeping which is why he was on medication.

And also, what does this Hollywood Hit-team gain from your death? Oh no, we won't get to see some shitty National Lampoon direct to DVD movie that you might have a ten minute cameo in?

Smile why don't ya?