let it out and let it in

Random thoughts from the Mind Despotic:

• Recently I've noticed an alarming new trend on the interwebs that I call Red Syndrome.  Simply put, people suffering from Red Syndrome labor under the terribly misguided idea that the word 'ridiculous' is, in fact, spelled 'rediculous.'  Have you seen this?  I don't remember noticing it before as widespread, but now that I've recognized it I see it everywhere.  It's driving me more than a little crazy.  I blame Bono and his damn (red) campaign.

• Indisputable proof that Paul McCartney is more talented than Fergie.  Excerpt from "Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie: "And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket."  Excerpt from "Hey Jude" by the Beatles: "Well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder."  You don't get named a knight of the realm without knowing to avoid the singular they!  Your move, Fergie.

• (The following post is about the 2010 FIFA World Cup.  For the full experience, open this page in a new window before reading.)  For any of you readers out there following the World Cup that are also fans of bad teen movies from the nineties, I'm sure you noticed the obvious parallels between the French national team and the West Canaan Coyotes from Varsity Blues.  Both had hard-nosed coaches the team couldn't stand.  In both cases, the coach and the star player got into a dramatic fight during halftime.  And finally, both teams ultimately refused to play for their coaches.  So way to go, France.  You're a knockoff of a bad movie starring this guy.  One thing I've got to give the movie, however, is it features one of the greatest quotes of all time.

• Things I can no longer take seriously thanks to Arrested Development: ice cream sandwiches, "The Final Countdown" by Europe, combination analyst/therapists or 'analrapists,' chicken impersonations, nevernudes, puppets named Franklin, Carl Weathers, Legoland, prosthetic hands, the word 'hermano,' ether, club sauce, and airport stair cars.

From the virtual desk of Ivan Zissou

dictated but not read
cth

everyone loves a slinky

From the virtual desk of Ivan Zissou

dictated but not read
cth

are you there blog? it's me margaret

Welcome to a special late night edition of the Life Despotic.  It's time to slip into that comfy robe, settle into your favorite armchair, and let the Captain take you to a world of brooding vampires and brash werewolves.  I'm kidding.  Can you imagine?  In fact, I'll just go ahead and declare right now that even if Cedric Diggory himself offers me an exclusive interview, the Life Despotic will never feature Twilight.  Instead, this post is dedicated to a more worthwhile pursuit: late night television.

Tonight, due to combination of insomnia, sunburn, and severe lack of tryptophan-rich Thanksgiving turkey in my apartment, I've temporarily given up my pursuit of sleep in favor of my good friend Samsung.  As you are no doubt aware, late night programming makes for some of the best television viewing one can find.  Tonight, my own Sophie's choice was between an episode of Kourtney & Khloé Take Miami on E! in which the titular Khloé Kardashian burns her lady parts during a bikini wax-gone-bad and an episode of MANswers on SpikeTV in which the Epicurean show producers seek out the answer to that eternal question of how far one can throw a dwarf.  I picked MANswers, which I want to say was the high road, but I have no confidence in that claim.  Your call, readers.  FULL DISCLOSURE: All right, fine.  My decision wasn't guided by any sense of moral decency; I had already seen that episode of K & K.  Just remember that this is a judgment-free zone.

Right, so: MANswers.  If you're not familiar with the show, you've obviously made better choices in life than I.  It really is quite odious.  How odious, you say?  Consider the questions contained in tonight's episode:

• "How many brewskies can a guy drink before he drops dead?"

• "He looks like a drug dealer; how can a guy find out if he's really a narc?"

• "Banging chicks is great!  But what if they're all gone?  What kind of animal is most like a woman?"

• And, of course: "How far can you toss a dwarf?"

I wish so many things, readers.  I wish I were kidding.  I wish I could watch television at 2:18 in the morning without being confronted with the moral ramifications of zoophilia.  Mostly, I wish I had just turned off the TV and gone to sleep.  But before we get to the inevitable answers, let's hear a quick word from our sponsors.

COMMERCIAL BREAK: The only thing better than late night TV is late night TV advertising.  Except for those annoying Girls Gone Wild videos.  Are they still making those things?  Because they're still advertising them.  You could tell me they're still using the commercial they made in 2001 and I would totally believe you.  Anyways, tonight's best commercial was an interview with Super Bowl-winning super coach Jimmy Johnson.  Now, this guy is a football legend.  He's one of only two coaches to win both an NCAA national championship and a Super Bowl (and he won two).  So what's he hocking now?  His own grill?  A clothing line maybe?  Wrong.  He's the new spokesman for Extenze, the drug for all-natural male enhancement.  Seriously.  I mean, I totally get it from the Extenze marketing team's point of view.  The guy's name is Johnson, for chrissakes.  But what are you doing, Jimmy?  How did it come to this?  Are you that hard up for money?  Okay, admittedly, I could have used better phrasing in that last question, but my point is, you could have just called, Jimmy.  I would've lent you a few bucks.

(Insert joke as to the possibility that a given object may or may not be in his pocket here.)

Okay, and now I've just seen a promo for a show called Half-Pint Brawlers that apparently features a cast of little people.  That's it, I'm done.  I disgust myself.  But since I promised you answers, here they are in no particular order.  See if you can match them to the right question: recently grown beard and dark sunglasses; 18; 12'9"; a dugong.  That's right, a friggin' dugong.

I need a shower.

From the virtual cesspool of Ivan Zissou

dictated but not read
cth

i vant to suck your blud

That's right, people: two posts, one day.  Summer of George.  This should be a short one (right!) as I simply need to express my disgust at the ignorance and arrogance displayed in a CNN video I just watched.  First, let me assure you that I don't make a habit of watching CNN videos, but I set the Chet News Network as my homepage and thus it caught my eye (by the way, anyone who gets that reference without the use of google wins a chicken dinner courtesy of Ivan Zissou).

The video headline in question queried, "Do men with accents have edge in dating?"  A worthy question, no doubt.  My first thought was, "Well, naturally they mean non-General American accents, as everyone speaks with an accent.  I'm sure they were just saving space in the headline and will mention it at some point in this four-minute long video."  You can see where this is going.  In truth, the video featured no such disclaimer, and thus registered fairly high on the unintentional comedy scale with gems like this one: "I think that an accent can take an average guy and push him to that super-hot level."  And then, of course, there was the near perfect irony of a woman with the thickest New York accent you'll ever hear ruminating on how attractive she finds men with accents.

Am I picking nits?  Sure.  Am I simply jealous because my thick Russian accent renders me virtually unintelligible when I go speed dating?  Probably.  All I'm saying is, if I'm a reporter for one of the world's largest news organizations, I'm probably going to want to put in a one-sentence distinction to prove I'm not a complete moron and understand the real definition of the word "accent."

BONUS PARAGRAPH: For those of you who want to emulate the Captain, please review this page and do literally the opposite of everything it says.  Just for the good of the order, Russians do not pronounce 'w' like 'v,' they do not pronounce 'th' like 'z,' and they certainly don't pronounce 'h' like a Spanish 'j.'  Well, okay, maybe Yakov Smirnoff does.  But I want you to aim higher, dear readers!  And you're going to need to if you want to get those dates.

From the virtual desk of Ivan Zissou

dictated but not read

cth

haaaaave you met ted?

There are few things more annoying than Hollywood types like those snarky prigs over at Entertainment Weekly constantly harping about great television shows that no one's watching.  In this post, we're going to find out if it's any less annoying when the person saying it is an odious megalomaniac internet nobody with a pathetic blog of a soapbox (Namely: me).

ASIDE: Now, some of you may find it odious that I tell you what to watch and what to think all the time.  In addition to the standard Life Despotic response, I would remind you that this is not the Life Democratic.  I don't know, maybe one day UNICEF will get into the blogging business, but until that day, you're stuck with me.  NOTE TO SELF: The Life Democratic would make for a good April Fool's Day site makeover.

Back to the main point, the show in question today is How I Met Your Mother.  Now I know what you're thinking, but hear me out.  I've been watching the show for a good three seasons now, and while I think it's one of the funniest shows on (network) television, I've yet to meet one other person who watches it.  So why should you?  Well, let me tell you.  And yeah, I know, the title sucks.

REASON ONE: Running jokes.  If it's one thing that separates a great comedy from a mediocre one, it's the ability to deftly handle recurrent jokes that reward regular viewers and only get funnier over time.  There's a reason why Arrested Development is widely considered one of the best comedies of all time and also had more running jokes per minute than any other show in history, and it's name ain't coincidence.  HIMYM does this better than any other show I've seen on television right now.

REASON TWO: Neil Patrick Harris.  That's right, folks, he of the tiny stethoscope has created Barney Stinson, possibly the best sitcom character since AD's own G.O.B. Bluth.  Also, for those of you who read that as 'gob' as in 'gobstopper,' shame on you!  Check thyself before thou wreck thyself and click here immediately.  (I know that's only the third season, but it's better than nothing, and the Captain has heard rumors of less-than-ethical ways of accessing the first two seasons via that magic box called the internet.)  Where was I?  Right, Barney Stinson.  While the likable Ted Mosby is the show's main character, it's Barney that steals it.  He is the consummate ladies man.  He once put on the greatest worst one man show in the history of great bad one man shows.  And most importantly, he appreciates the importance of a good suit.

SIDE NOTE: There is one aspect of the show that's a little weird.  The premise of the show, as indicated by its title, is that the main character Ted is telling his kids about how he met their mother twenty-three years earlier.  What's weird about it though, is that the guy doing the voiceover (Future Ted) is Bob Saget.  The credit for this goes to Peter Griffin from Family Guy, who totally nailed the commentary: "I've only seen that show once but I gotta tell ya, what's really weird to me is, why is the voice of the guy from the future, Bob Saget?  I mean, the guy on the show...he's already an adult.  Ya know, so it's not like he's gonna grow in to Bob Saget. Doesn't make sense."

REASON THREE: You know, when I started writing this post I had a reason three, but then I started watching Barney Stinson highlights on Youtube and lost my train of thought.  Basically, if you watched those clips and your interest wasn't piqued, I don't think anything more I could say would convince you.  Call me lowbrow, but I think the Slap Bet gag is hilarious.  So you kids can keep your loud music and your Dan Fogelberg records, and I'll await with baited breath the day that Slapsgiving once again rolls around.

Until that day comes, I'll leave you with the awesomeness of Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel spontaneously singing "Confrontation" from Les Miserables on daytime television:



From the virtual desk of Ivan Zissou

dictated but not read
cth