Eddie Bauer Leather Belt

HOW TO MAKE AN GENUINE EDDIE BAUER LEATHER BELT:
1. Get a cow.
2. Feed it nothing but fish for several months.
3. Set it on fire.
4. Cut a 38" strip off the charred animal (40" if it's right after Christmas) and tie it around your waist.
5. Slump lower in your chair as the people around you wrinkle their noses.
6. Smile! You just saved $50!
7. Nod your head to the Eurotrash beat of Ace of Base.

RATING: 10% right now, but the belt is currently frozen in a sealed bag full of baking soda, and I have high hopes.

(Image from exc.images-amazon.com.)

GLP's Westminster

Certain tobaccos impart distinct flavours to their respective blends. Virginia is toasty, grassy or lemony; burley is nutty and often sprayed with fruity essences; "oriental" or "turkish" tobaccos vary considerably, but often taste floral, citrous, or leathery; perique is piquant, and tastes like stewed fruit, salsa and chrome; latakia--the most distinctive "condiment" tobacco of all--smells like road tar, burning camel shit and funeral incense, and tastes like it smells, except saltier.

Westminster is a full-bodied English blend comprised of virginias, orientals and Cyprian latakia. Compared to the rarer Syrian latakia, which has a smoky transparency and a hint of overripe pomegranate, the Cyprian leaf has a darker, almost opaque quality and a slight mustiness. I think I prefer the Cyprian, although the fullness of either can be off-putting. The virginias taste like toast. The orientals taste like a petting zoo full of goats and llamas. It smokes very cool, and the flavour is consistent throughout the bowl, although I usually end up tossing the last 1/4 (bad for the pipe, I know, but it tastes like wet ass). Overall, Westminster has more balls and nicotine than Esoterica Tobacciana's Penzance, another notorious Cyprian heavy hitter. If it's cased (i.e. flavoured) at all, I can't tell.

Some people (English people, I imagine) can smoke an English blend all day long. I like one once in a while, on a cloudy, chilly day when I'm feeling nostalgic and/or a little sad. Don't ever smoke Westminster indoors with other people around unless you like making lifelong enemies. In fact, you probably shouldn't even smoke it while you're on the phone.

RATING: a bittersweet 80%--Don't smoke latakia, kids, unless you really want to smell death.

(Image from smokingpipes.com. Also, that petting zoo is in Houston *cough cough*.)

Ultimates Vol. 2: Homeland Security

Mark Millar's run on The Ultimates, Marvel's updated Ultimate Universe version of the Avengers, was great. You have to get past the fact that every member of the team is an asshole and acts like they would have belonged in the Bush administration (past tense finally). For instance, this version is famous for a scene in which Captain America, after being asked to surrender by the alien big bad, says "Surrender? You think this letter on my head stands for France?" Also, they get the Hulk to attack aliens by telling him they all said he was gay. The only thing that really gives these moments a sort of pass is that I think (?) Millar is being ironic, although every book he does is like this. Anyway, the action is terrific, and the book is a very fast read thanks to Brian Hitch's exorbitant use of splash panels.

RATING: 85%

Robertson Screw and Screwdriver

The Robertson screwdriver has a square head, so it's easy to use one-handed and the screw heads almost never strip. You can also leave the screwdriver sitting in the screw and go to get a plate of poutine and it'll still be there when you get back. Unfortunately, the one thing Canadians do better than designing great products is making awful business decisions (anyone remember the Avro Arrow? Probably not), so almost no one uses these things outside of Canada, preferring the Phillips screw or other such pičovina. Well, don't bother asking us for help when you're drowning in money, America, because we'll just laugh and throw a bunch of trees, water and cheap natural gas at you.

RATING: 91%

(Image from wikimedia.org.)

Bride Wars

Since we're in the cinematic graveyard portion of the year, I went to see Bride Wars. Surprise: it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be! From what I could tell, Bride Wars is the story of two lifelong friends who go to the same wedding planner. Once the wedding planner realizes that they are actually in love with each other and that their mens are just identical-looking props (my friend called them bad copies of Matt Damon), she books their weddings on the same day. She claims it was all a mix-up, but she's the best wedding planner in the world and she knows how to spot those closeted in-love lezes and gently coax them out of the closet. When both girls are too shy to take the initiative to suggest that, instead of two separate weddings, they just marry each other in one massive ceremony, feelings get hurt and suddenly they're not going for jogs together anymore. Kate Hudson stress-eats and Annie Hathaway reverts to her days as pole-dancing, sexually-confused college girl. Finally, when Anne sees how hot Kate looks in her wedding dress, she can take it no longer: she jumps on Kate and the two lay panting in the church aisle. The only thing missing is a post-coital cigarette. Anne finally dumps her man and then, in a big fuck-you to Proposition 8, these two women miraculously knock each other up. And you thought it was just another chick flick!

RATING: 56%

(Photo courtesy of awesome site I just discovered, dorothysurrenders.blogspot.com)

Vanishing Point

#34 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

As far as racing movies from the 70s go, Vanishing Point may be the weirdest and also best. The movie follows this driver, Kowalski, who has to drive a Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in basically a day and a half. So he starts going full speed, cops follow him, car chases, etc. What sets this movie apart from the rest is that it is full of all these bizarre mystical elements that are supposed to be representative of American culture, including a snake handler in the desert who helps him fix his car, a Radio DJ who turns him into a rebel celebrity, and a lot of flashbacks demonstrating the ways in which death has followed Kowalski his whole life. It's a great movie with a lot of great car chases, even if the snake handler gets eaten by some stupid hole in the ground (Spoilers).

RATING: 91%

The Thin Red Line

#35 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line is visually stunning in every way, imaging that from a Terrence Malick film. I've always liked it better that Saving Private Ryan, because while although Ryan does do a good job of demonstrating the horror of wartime violence, it seems somewhat in love with the graphic detail of it, like Sam Peckinpah's Wild Bunch. Malick's film is also considerably less hokey, and deals with a small group of soldier's personal thoughts while caught up in the larger grisly mechanics of war. Somebody once made the argument to me that this film is irresponsible because the soldiers are demonstrating doubts about being involved in the only inarguable war, World War II, but I think that argument is bunk because this film demonstrates the actual realistic thoughts that individuals would have in this situation, not the jingoistic infallible patriotism of so many other WWII movies. Anyway, it's amazing so check it out.

RATING: 91%

The Original Star Wars Trilogy

#36 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

Well, duh I guess. We can all acknowledge that the prequel trilogy is pretty bad, from any point of view. Politics, trade disputes, whining, Jar Jar, almost no humor or any other emotion, senate disagreements, kid Boba Fett, UGH. But the original trilogy is still amazing because it never takes itself seriously, and also has the voice of Han Solo winking at the audience about how ridiculous a movie about laser swords and furry monkeys flying space ships is. They're still great fun even if Boba Fett gets eaten by some stupid hole in the ground (Spoilers).

RATING: 93%

The Black Adder

It's easy to say that Rowan Atkinson is a comic genius, but that's because he is. Sure, sure, Mr. Bean was way too popular, but who else even tries to do silent physical comedy these days? But before all that, he created and starred in a series called The Black Adder for the BBC. The first series focused on the character Edmund, played by Atkinson, who is second in line to become king of England at the end of the 15th century. He is an unlikeable, self centered, conniving twat, and the show is hilarious. I guess I like Red Dwarf better, but that's just because there's space and robots (bias).

RATING: 82%

Universe X Vol. 1

Universe X is the sequel to the pretty good alternate-future-of-the-marvel-universe book Earth X. I wish they had just stopped with Earth X though. This one is fine I guess but it's way too dense, and the novelty of seeing alternate designs of characters we love has worn off. I guess if you really love the Marvel Universe and all its history you might as well buy it, but fair warning this is only half the story and it's $25.

RATING: 62%

Radishes

Radishes are ok vegetables, but I think they get lost in the avalanche of all the better root vegetables out there. They don't have much versatility, and are pretty much best raw, but a radish is a tasty thing to eat in a salad or chopped up beside a sandwich. If you tell people you like radishes they'll probably look at you like you're a murderbot (robot designed specifically for murdering). Don't worry though, radishes are totally worth it.

RATING: 70%

The jump-in-the-air profile photo

There is a phenomenon that has taken root and has grown, swiftly as a malicious tumor, on social networking sites. I did a quick scan of my friends on Facebook, and before I'd even gotten through the B's, I found three people who each had a profile picture of either themselves or them and a group of their friends jumping up, paused in mid-air by the snap of a digicam. "Lookit us!" these assholes seem to proclaim, "we're flying!" I get it. It's a neat trick made possible by shutter speeds that our 1000-speed rolls of Kodak could never accomplish. It's a neat visual. But once it's done, it's done. If you can jump, and you have a camera, you can capture one of these images. So some people have tried to think of variations on the tired theme. Freeze-jumps in exotic locales have become popular. Freeze-jump on a beach in the Bahamas. Freeze-jump on a drawbridge in merry old England. Guess what? It all looks the same. People who post freeze-jump profile pictures are the same people who list "Lolita" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" as their favorite books and "All About My Mother" as their favorite movie. Gimme an L! Gimme an A! Gimme an M-E! What does that spell?

RATING: 19%

Peanut Butter

Man, fuck all that government FDA bullshit! I don't give a good God damn about some fucking salmonella garbage, so the only way you're prying my peanut butter away from me is from my cold dead hands. The government's always talking shit like "don't eat tomatoes," or "don't eat green onions," or "don't eat puppies," but I say they are forgetting a little old thing called the First Amendment that guaranteed us Freedom of Eats. Everybody always gets scared about sickness, but I myself am scared of a nation in which I can't eat a peanut butter and jam sandwich in peace. So chew on that 44th president, your first task is to stop fucking with deliciousness.

RATING: 89%

Frost/Nixon

I'm not in my 40's, I wasn't around during Watergate, and Nixon was dead by the time I was 12. That having been said, I thought that this was a pretty cool movie, and that Frank Langella pulled off one of the more remarkable film characters I've seen in a while. He played Nixon with gravitas, power, and sympathy...and he shook his jowls and fired off peace signs like you wouldn't believe.

As a whole, I liked the movie's cast a lot - it's hard to go wrong with Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt in the supporting roles, and Michael Sheen was fun to watch as super-optimist David Frost. And even though there weren't any explosions, car chases, or super-heroes, I got really worked up at the points in the movie where you're supposed to get worked up...which is kind of the idea behind dramas like this, I think. Anyways, it was great, and I'm looking forward to the sequel, "Frost/Nixon 2: Laser Swordfight".

RATING: 91% (which means that its better than Burn After Reading, but worse than Orange Juice)

(image courtesy of wikipedia, dude)

Lube-flavoured lube

Lube-flavoured lube tastes kind of like coconut and kind of like nothing, and kind of like orifice. It's not as fancy as ID or Jiffy lube, but it's free if you steal it from the hospital while you wait 3 hours for socialized health care to provide you with a physician for 5 minutes. Grab a handful of cotton balls too--you'll need 'em where you're going.

RATING: 75%

(Image from conceptsinconfidence.com.)

The Lookout

Who would ever have thought that the kid from 3rd Rock would turn out to be such a great actor? Weird- not many child stars have it in them. Despite the fact that the poster to the left looks like it was made for a generic late 90s action movie, The Lookout is a pretty great, quiet thriller. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a guy in his 20s who caused a deadly car accident in high school, and his resulting head injury prevents him from performing a lot of everyday tasks or interacting with people without sometimes blurting out totally inappropriate phrases like "I think about fucking you all the time." So naturally some bank robbers decide to take advantage of him and his job as a bank janitor, and thrillingness ensues. It's more of a character piece, and like I said JGL holds the whole thing together with his performance. Jeff Daniels is also good as his blind roommate the end.

RATING: 79%

Continental Airways

THE GOOD:
-No emergency water landing
-Free bowl of cornflakes and carton of cream o' land 2% milk
-Cheap
-It's in the past now

THE BAD:
-Mean, surly flight attendants (I think one of them said, "Get your seat up, cracker")
-Breakfast banana rotten in the middle
-Had to sit through most of City of Ember with no sound
-Frightened, shrieking infant 3 rows up simultaneously heartbreaking, irritating

THE UGLY:
-Fellow passengers all from New Jersey, all obese, all clad in sweater vests and pleated pants
-Adjacent passenger sneezed and coughed without covering mouth, used Blackberry during takeoff and landing despite being asked not to
-Tail seat in very last row, downwind of airplane lavatories

RATING: Continental Airways 60%
Jersey's intestinal health 10%
City of Ember: Bill Murray, are you fucking kidding me%

(Picture from securitykarma.com)

The Whitey Album by Ciccone Youth

Ok, Ciccone Youth is really Sonic Youth, you guys figured it out. The Whitey Album was Sonic Youth's first real pure experimental album. It has a lot of songs that have no words, one that has no music and just words, one that has no music or words, and a lot of other weird covers and samples of 80s songs that I hardly believe would have been legal after Grand Upright Music, Ltd. v. Warner Bros. Records, Inc. The album accurately reflects the 80s: misdirected excess that occasionally results in accidental genius. I can't recommend this album to you, but here are some tracks and if you like them then I guess you can buy the album, although there are at least a dozen other SY records you should pick up first.

RATING: 59%

Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan is the only Great Lake with none of its' borders touching Canada. Coincidentally it has the nicest beaches of any of the Great Lakes. I'm not implying anything, but put 2 and 2 together, and I bet you'll get 4. There's a lot of fish, like salmon, in Lake Michigan so if you're a fisherman you'll probably get off on it. These days whenever I think about Lake Michigan (rarely) I usually think of Saul Bellow.

RATING: 67%

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

#98 on Chris' Bottom 100 Movie List

$33.8 million? Jesus wept.

RATING: 1%

Appaloosa

Two buddies (Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen) move into a lawless town run by some outlaw and his gang. Some whore (Renee Zellweger) strolls into town and gets on Ed Harris. But being a good law man don't make for a good husband, so she tries to get up on Ed Harris' pal Viggo. Viggo is a good buddy and he's like "Fuck, I can't do this to ol' Ed" (even though, surprise, he is attracted to her also). I hate to digress, but there is nothing appealing about Renee Zellweger. Anyway, there's some pretty realistic shootouts and people getting shot so you'll probably like that too. Check it out, it's a generic story, but a pretty good movie.

RATING: 78%

Coq au vin

Coq au vin is chicken stewed in red wine with a bunch of other stuff like onions, carrots, mushrooms and pork belly. It's delicious but kind of expensive to make. Also, it's really rich so try not to wash it down with Jager shots on your birthday or you might feel kind of sick. Don't refer to sex during menstruation as "coq au vin" because that's gross and besides, it's a sin to touch a menstruating woman.

RATING: 90%

(Image from http://2.bp.blogspot.com.)

$1 Amazing Cocaine Flavored Doom

COMBINATION!

RATING: 22%

(photo courtesy of trains)

$1 Gingerbread House

The biggest sign that something is seriously fucked with America is that you can't eat gingerbread houses. Give me a break! This is what we do to laugh in the face of the poor and starving countries out there, make delicious looking confectionery dwellings to wave in the face of children and then say eating is forbidden? That's total bullshit. It also probably didn't help that the house was bought for a dollar two and a half weeks after Christmas, but if it was new I would have liked to eat it, thank you very much.

RATING: 23%

Amazing Spider-Man: Round Robin: The Sidekick's Revenge

Spider-man! Punisher! Darkhawk! Moon Knight! Nova! Night Thrasher! Early 90s! Garbage!

RATING: 17%

ID Flavored Lubes

Some people view lube as a purely functional item, and to that I say, that's too bad, because there are lubes out there that are made to taste like all sorts of fruit and tropical Tiki beverages. I know we're in a recession and all, but can you really come up with an excuse not to have a sampler pack of ten different flavored lubes? Our parents could only dream of a time when lube came in flavors like Wild Cherry, Passion Fruit, Watermelon, and Bubblegum; it's a sin for these lubes to exist and for us to spit in the face of product evolution by not using them. Flavored lube is a great introductory item for your goodie drawer; if you produce a huge purple dong on the first date, your date might scream and run (unless you mention the dong specifically on your Cragislist ad, in which case, kudos to you for your foresight). If you take out some Pina Colada flavored lube, though, who's going to be offended? The picture to the right makes it look like a chapstick. And apparently ID has evolved itself to include a pump top -- genius. Just brilliant. It's time everyone learned what the girls and gays have known for a long, long, time.

(Photo courtesy of cheaplubes.com. Yes, that's a real site. Thank me later.)

RATING: 91% (deductions for the glycerin, which may or may not be a problem)

Cocaine

Cocaine is responsible for Escape from L.A., "Chair Model", The Tommyknockers and the Columbian necktie. When the cops came to my school they told us it's really expensive and only kind of fun. Plus, it's super addictive and if you get caught with it you go to jail for like forever so don't do drugs, kids.

RATING: How the fuck should I know%

(Image from http://popularwitch.files.wordpress.com.)

Doom Patrol: The Painting That Ate Paris

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Grant Morrison is a great writer/psychopath. A good idea for comic book companies is to let Grant Morrison write comics, because he comes up with some great shit, but to never ever let him anywhere near mainstream continuity (Final Crisis). Doom Patrol is Morrison's playground, and probably the best place he could showcase his talents. In this volume, the Doom Patrol, a bizarre set of reject heroes, goes up against the Brotherhood Of Dada, who have obtained a painting capable of swallowing cities. Richard Case gets a great chance to demonstrate his artistic prowess as our heroes navigate the painting's various art movements, and later gets to make up all kinds of bizarre creatures when AntiGod is destroying the world. It's a lot of fun and probably the weirdest book to ever feature a love tryst between a giant superintelligent French gorilla and a disembodied brain.

RATING: 91%

Camaros

The reason we all love and admire Camaro drivers is because they serve as totems for our own pasts: we fondly remember the days when we too were as fast as the wind, six-cylinders roaring and rock-hard erections bulging from our acid wash jeans. (I’m assuming no female has ever owned or operated a Camaro.) Also, the Camaro transcends regional differences: simply change out the music genre blasting at a vulgar level from the tape deck. Lynyrd Skynyrd in the South and honky-tonk in Texas. Grunge out West and whatever bullshit music they listen to up North. Jazz, I’m guessing. Your cousin Anthony probably drove a Camaro before he went to prison.

Rating: 95%*

*There is a slight chance I accidentally reviewed Firebirds and not Camaros. If this is true then I say FUCK CAMAROS FIREBIRDS KICK ASS!

(Image from www.thirdgen.org. This review written by Viking Andrew.)

Smash by The Offspring

This was one of the first CDs I ever owned, but then I inexplicably sold it. Maybe it was because it was so damned popular, and I was under the impression at the time that if something is popular that means it is bad, which is totally not true (all the time). Well, I got it on Amazon the other day for like ninety cents, and it's a pretty good album as I'm sure you all remember. The lyrical content is laughable, but Jesus, what do you want, Leonard Cohen? Listening to this album after more than ten years makes me realize how much of my own shitty high school poetry/songwriting was inspired by lines like

"Superpowers flex their wings
hold the world on puppet strings
egos will feed
while citizens bleed"

Gross!

RATING: 68%

Senorita (EP) by Superdrag

Senorita is (chronologically) the second "important" Superdrag EP (behind The Fabulous 8-Track Sound of Superdrag). Five tracks, and, to be honest, the only one that matters at all is the first song and title track, which is a great song. The rest of the EP feels a little more like filler...generally speaking, all of the tracks run a little formulaic, and Nothing Good Is Real, well, was better as an album track, when it grows up a little. But while (the song) Senorita is total classic good John Davis songcraft the EP loses points on both quality and quantity.

On an aside, I really wish I could figure out how to add the tilde-n on this blog thing. Technology sux.

RATING: 48% (which is better than Arkansas, but worse than pizza)