Mustaches

I was like so far behind on the faux-hawk I had to move it to the side a little so I could do my own thing. But the mustache movement is starting fellows (and sure, ladies) so you better get on the wagon now before it's too late. A few weeks ago I saw a friend who had a dope looking mustache and I just knew I had to get me one of them. These little guys are catching on and all the bad connotations will soon fade away, so find the style that suits you best now while the gettin' is good. Shrug those laughs at the office off because you'll soon be the envy of every guy at the next indie show.

RATING: 83%

Saint Arnold

When I'm in a particularly good mood at the bar I put away my honky tonk champagne and order a delicious St. Arnold's beer (it's a micro man...sophisticated). It's a pretty good beer that's made locally and isn't pasteurized. I'm not sure that means anything, but it's different than what other people are doing and that seems to be the way to market yourself among the cool guys. A lot of time I get crap from people who say "you need to try this steamer beer from the West coast" or "this hipster beer from New York". Well, I support these guys because they're awesome and I've got some good memories of going to the tastings and sleeping the rest of Saturday away. So if you're lucky enough to get some then drink your Elissa IPA and you'll live to be like 200. I promise. Get ready for the new Divine Reserve coming out next month too.

RATING: 80%

Naps

Naps are a kind of mini sleep that you can do in the day or night or whenever you feel like it because we live in a free world. When the sun is still out is the best time to take them because then you feel like it's a special kind of treat like a cookie you get once in a while. If your name is me, though, then you probably eat cookies all the time and also take naps all the time, but that's because they're fucking great. One bad thing about a nap is you don't get things done like cleaning, applying for jobs, etc. In conclusion hooray for America and naps. If you are visiting this site from a non-free part of the world, start a revolution in the name of naps please and also me.

RATING: 86%

JetBlue

JetBlue is an airline that is kind of good because you get unlimited snacks and drinks (non-alcoholic), free XM radio, and 56 channels of Direct TV. Also they have a lot of leg room. They are bad because they might cancel your flight if a little old thunderstorm happens (like they did to us last week), or they might delay your flight three and a half fucking hours for no goddamn reason at all (like they did to us last night). Additionally, their own terminal at JFK in New York is like somebody's shed they built one summer, and you have to take a bus from the real terminal to get to it. Well, I liked the television part.

RATING: 67%

EEVIAC Operational Index and Reference Guide, Including Other Modern Computational Devices by Man Or Astroman?

Hey, it's a lot of surf music with voice samples from old 50s sci-fi movies, what more do you want from a Man Or Astroman? album? Maybe I should subtract points for its long ass title though. Well, if you like The Ventures and rockabilly and sci-fi then you can probably figure out the rest genius.

RATING: 70%

Whole Foods

I'll just get right to it and say that I think Whole Foods sucks. I mean it really really blows. Maybe I'm not hip enough to get it, but I do know how much contempt I have for the whole experience (pun intended, of course). I think I was talking to Glenn a few weeks ago about Whole Foods when he informed me how environmentally unfriendly the company's practices are to Mother Earth/Jesus. So, I decided to do a little hard-hitting investigative research and after like 50 seconds of rigorous searching I found a great article from Slate. Well I guess I like that they pay their workers a lot, but then again I don't work there bagging groceries so whatever.

RATING: 25%

Strange, Not Spam E-mails

Every once in a while I get an e-mail that has a subject line such as, "Her grudge against Paula had been revived, and her very tones betrayed that it grew stronger with every word she spoke which had any reference to the girl", and I have to open the e-mail because I'm dumb enough to risk whatever the consequences out of curiosity (and I enjoy a good story). I particularly enjoy the end of said story. The following is the body of that very e-mail:

Perhaps it was chiefly with a diplomatic design to linger and ingratiate himself that Deronda patted the boys head, saying "What is your name, sir?"

"Jacob Alexander Cohen", said the small man, with much ease and distinctness.

"You are not named after your father, then."

"No, after my grandfather, he sells knives and razors and scissors my grandfather does", said Jacob, wishing to impress the stranger with that high connection. He gave me this knife.

Oh, well it's not as funny as the first time I read it.

RATING: 29%

The Olympics

When I say the "Olympics" I'm actually referring to the "Summer Olympics", and that's because it's the original Olympics, buddy. People just felt bad for those people who live in the yonder reaches of the Earth and decided that they have egos too, so they created ridiculous things like skiing and um, curling. Yay! Well, I'll be honest and admit I've come to love hockey, but that's not enough to redeem that abomination of an event they call the "Winter Olympics". It's not like the IOC really cares where those are held. Either way it's a fun time where I get addicted to watching sports for 2 weeks and cheer on my country. Plus, I get really emotional during this time period, which is either normal or some kind of repressed childhood desire for athletic competition I'm not dealing with.

RATING: 90% (if summer only) 73% (if including winter)

Invisibility Cloak

Sometimes when I'm checking up on my daily Yahoo! news I find a really awesome article like the one today about scientists ability to create an invisibility cloak. This is both awesome and worrisome. It's cool because you can run around and listen to all the terrible things people say about you behind your back. Of course, maybe you don't want to hear that people think you look like a mouse, bird or other species of animal. Also, people could sneak up on you and into your house while you live your life and watch you sing in the shower or while you're cooking which is pretty embarrassing. Overall, an invisibility cloak would be totally awesome, but kind of morally troublesome at the same time.

RATING: 55%

Piccola Venezia in Astoria, Queens

I've been eating a lot of food while on vacay here in NYC (vacation from my no job?), but my girlfriend was adamant that we go to this Italian restaurant in Astoria that she claims is the best Italian restaurant she's eaten at anywhere, including Italy. I was like "whatevs," Italian food in Houston and everywhere else I've ever lived is fine, so I was sure this would be just fine, too. Turns out that it was pretty effing (fucking for those who don't get the lingo) amazing. I had the osso buco, a veal shank with the bone cut open revealing delicious marrow for which I got a nice little fork. They jokingly gave me a knife for the veal, but it pretty much leapt from the bone into my mouth. The waiters were also super nice and even gave us a free cannoli. So next time you're in New York and feel like venturing out to a burrough that's not Manhattan or Brooklyn, this is place you should go, and no I don't feel guilty about the veal because it was awesome.

RATING: 92%

Grammar

Them shits is stupid. First I dont like all sort of rulings everywhere saying Do This and Do That Too second I think we all think about words and such and then forget about the real things, Jesus, troops, Gods America. Look here dudos this isn't froofy froof england or something and who do I look like Shakespeare. Finally why can't we see, that spending so much time on words and there order are tearing us apart. Their is a fine balance, two on whether or not were being to critical or if they're is good in all this talky talk. So in conclusion grammar has it's fine points but I for one hate it and think its stupid.


RATING, 43%

Buildings

Sometimes you can perhaps go in a building, which can be a good thing if it is way hot outside, and sometimes a cop or a pretend cop can say "Hey, don't go in here you're not authorized!" Most of us live in buildings, and some of us might live in a cool city with lots of tall buildings. Sometimes maybe a building burns or falls down, to which I say "Yo, building, shape up or ship out! Your job is to stay standing and hold people!" Mainly though tall buildings are cool to look at and admire even if everybody knows you're a tourist and says "Fuck you buddy, this is NewYork," but they say it in one of those movie accents.

RATING: 88%

Clowns

Keeping in line with dishing our phobias onto R3 instead of our therapists, I thought I'd review one of the most terrifying "things" in the world. Clowns. Do you remember that clown dream sequence on "Pee Wee's Big Adventure"? Even if I momentarily remove myself of my fear I don't see how they're even slightly amusing. I'm pretty sure my fear of clowns stems from an overexposure to them as a child by my mother. Aren't parents great? We get to blame everything we're afraid of in our lives on them. This is why I don't want kids. I can't be responsible for that.

RATING: 4%

Boston's Subway System

Now that I actually live in the city of Boston proper, I've spent a bunch of time on the subway (heretofore called "The T", because that's what people call it here), and I think it's a pretty good subway system. It's pretty clean, it runs pretty quickly (even though the train at my stop has TONS of little stops), and I haven't seen a whole lot of crazy people on it yet.

I'm not sure how expensive subway tickets are in other big cities, but any ride on the T here is about two dollars, slightly less with the aforementioned ubiquitous CharlieCard. That seems like a lot to me, but hey, it's better than giving the money to BIG OIL (which is so big it gets capitalized).

Also, the T isn't terribly complicated (New York, Tokyo...I'm looking at you) and consists of five lines, one of which is split into four more lines, and each of the five major lines is color-coded, which is good for both kindergardeners and myself.

RATING: 80%

(image courtesy of freefoto.com)

Sleeping the Day Away

Sleeping all day immediately after sleeping all night totally rocks. Sleeping all day and remembering to get up for lunch is just decadent. Shame? I don't know the meaning of the word.


RATING: 97%, God bless my wife.

(Image from farm4.static.flickr.com.)

The Vocative Case

Thankfully, we don't have to worry too much about the vocative case in English, because our nouns don't change depending on what prepositional jigger they're paired up with. It's still there, though, even if we can't see it, and one thing we have to remember to do is use commas to set off any noun that we're addressing directly. This can be a person, as in the following example:

"I really think you should read more prose, Glenn, because H.P. Lovecraft's 'The Whisperer in Darkness' isn't a fucking poem."

Or it can be an object:

"How do you feel about being sat on by that morbidly obese woman, chair?"

Or a pair of abstractions:

"You're a painted whore, Justice, and you, Truth, are a metaphysical chimera."

You should also use commas to set off the construction you x when you're calling someone a name:

"You keyed my car, you piece of shit."

In old school English (which, if it's recognizable at all, is probably Early Modern English), like in the King James Bible, the vocative case is sometimes marked with an O, as in the following sentence:

"O God, thank you for creating Pan's Labyrinth, the best movie ever."

(This is not to be confused with the interjection "Oh!" as in, "Oh! Pan's Labyrinth was such a good movie that my balls are still tingling!")

In some other languages, like Czech, for example, it's a little more complicated, because the ending of the noun changes as well. My friend's name is Ondra, but I have to change it to Ondro in the following sentence:

"You're still my friend, Ondro, even though you slept with my girlfriend after you both got drunk at Skleněná Louka that time."

Some people lament the abuse of commas. Well, I say, "Don't forget--neglect is abuse too!"

RATINGS: Vocative case: Mandatory%
Smug, shit-eating editorial we: 2%, but using one all the time just seems so gutless.

(Image from realtorwives.blogspot.com.)

Klonopin (Clonazepam)

Hey, did I ever tell you guys the story of how I'm scared of flying? If the answer is no, then why don't you ever pay attention to me, I routinely tell strangers this the first time I meet them! Well, how I deal with that is I take a little old happy pill called Klonopin and then instead of thinking "Ohh, I'm scared! I know I am going to die let me out of here!" I just think "Wow, what a pretty day! If the plane starts spiralling down from 37000 feet I bet it will be a really pretty view. More snacks please!" There's probably side effects like basically I slept my whole first day of vacation here away, but come on gramps, if you don't try it you're totally square.

RATING: 86%

Flying

Flying is a way to get far away places like New York for cheaper and quicker than driving. I guess it makes logical sense, but some losers (me) are terrified of flying so then it doesn't seem like such a great option. Like, look, what kind of science guy says all this Bernoulli magic is going to keep working, anyway? Also, you gotta take off your shoes to go through security which is totally lame, but at least you get unlimited snacks and if you can find a way to deal with it then maybe it will be ok. Teleporters please!

RATING:54%

Winning 3rd Place

Winning 3rd place can feel great. At least you won something. But it's obviously not as great to the rest of society as winning 2nd or 1st place. In the Olympics 3rd place will win you a medal made of copper and tin and that's not too bad, because although it's highly unfashionable it's better than nothing. But 2nd place means you win a medal made of silver and that seems like a pretty large gap in quality for just scoring .5 points less than the team ahead of you. I think 1st place kind of sucks because I don't look good in gold (unless it's white gold, but then again that's really just like silver so save your money) and it's a pretty soft metal anyway so you'd probably scratch it. If you win 3rd place at least you're not trying to show off, especially if your team has only played one game of trivia together. Of course, none of this is relevant if winning 3rd place gets you a pint glass and bottle opener/keychain, but at least you've got your pride.

RATING: 75%

Watchmen

After watching the Watchmen movie trailer about 200 times, I got kinda tired of it and figured I'd go back and read Alan Moore's graphic novel again. A lot of people say it's overrated, but then again, a lot of people (especially white people) are inbred. Watchmen is a 20th Century classic, and there are lots of pictures, so Glenn can read it.

RATING: 92%


(Image from www.ebooknetworking.com)

Daytime TV

I'm probably being a bit unfair since I don't have cable and almost every local channel has been broadcasting the news for the past 24 hours (and it's only 10:30), but today's TV lineup is already getting to me. First, I got to catch some guy named Steve Wilkos yell at a bunch of trashy people about bad parenting and setting better examples for their kids (a bit ironic if you've seen the show). Jerry Springer has gone so far to the absurd it's not even funny or entertaining anymore. I've seen commercials about how I can get a loan fast, telephone service on the cheap, and that I'm such a loser for not going back to school. Are there any good game shows on during the day?

RATING: 28%

Packing Early (to go on a trip!)

Only a good idea when you don't live in a potential disaster zone and a "tropical storm" isn't headed towards you for the specific purpose of cancelling your flight. Oh, the wrinkles! The wrinkles!

RATING: 11%

Swan Lake by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Swan Lake is a ballet by Tchaikovsky that I guarantee you've heard some of before. It's also the most beautiful piece of music ever written in history. It's got a lot of short upbeat dance numbers, but then the leitmotif of the swan comes back and it's sombre and depressingly beautiful. Whenever somebody asks who my favorite composer is, I always try to say somebody more obscure like Khachaturian or Corigliano, but I'll tell you guys a secret - the true answer is Tchaikovsky.

RATING: 100%

Packing (to go on a trip!)

Everyone complains when it comes time to pack before going on a trip: so tedious! I usually wait until the last minute and then start chucking way more than I will ever need on my trip into one of my cheap, battered suitcases. But I believe even I think that packing to go on a trip is secretly fun. "Ugh, I'm packing," you complain to your friend Cindy-Sue, while all the while your subtext says, "I'm getting the hell out of here! Have fun checking my mail, loser." You are one place now and in a few days you will be in a new place and shaking up your daily routine in that place. If you find yourself going back to a place where you could easily reinstall your old daily routine (i.e. back home to sleep in your childhood bed and watch teen dramas on The N all day), then I suggest packing a buddy as well. Then you can spend less time worrying whether Paige has HIV and more time snapping photos of your buddy in front of various landmarks. Stay tuned for next month, when I'll review Packing (to move!). Spoiler: not as much fun.

RATING: 68%

Friends Dying Young

They're not your family, your lover, your ex-lover, and sometimes you haven't really even talked to them for years and years. But they're better than acquaintances, more real than Princess Diana, and even more real, though perhaps less tragic, than a body exploded in Baghdad; they were your friends and they died for whatever reason people die in America. And there was that time in your life where you grew and became a little bit more your self and your friend was there to at least witness, if not shape, the path of your life. Here's to the life of our friends.

Rating: AmyMak%

Non-Sequiturs

Jetsons rip-off or original/creative series?

RATING: 29%

Babies

Babies are loud stupid fart factories. They can't even talk! How stupid is that? Also they like to crap everywhere. Nice work, I can teach a dog not to do that, you supposed pinnacle of evolution. Also everybody is always like "Oh, how cute!" or "So adorable!" but really babies aren't cute. They look like if you told a dumb idiot five year old to make a clay sculpture of a human then whoops! All shriveled and the proportions are way off. You get an F-, you dumb five year old, and now you're in remedial classes forever, with all the dumb babies who like to cry all the time and then giggle like they know something. You know who else wears diapers, stupid? Monkeys in comedy shows, that's who.

RATING: 11%

30 Rock

I wish I could say something funny, but it would pale in comparison to the humor and genius of this show. It's no "Arrested Development" but it's the best comedy series since. Too bad it gets really bad ratings, but then again most people are dumb and would prefer to watch "Ugly Betty" instead. If you haven't done yourself the favor you can still watch them online for free. So...check it out.

RATING: 90%

Being Shy

Being shy is good if you don't like people. But the ironic thing is, most shy people like people too much, and not themselves enough or at least not equal to how much they like the other person, hence the feeling of powerlessness and social retardation perhaps. Being shy is cute though sometimes, as witnessed by the picture, but it's wasted a lot of my time.

Rating: Getoveryourself%

500

500 is a number that is ok I guess. If you get paid $500 for a poem that's good, and once upon a time there was a $500 bill with William McKinley on it, but if you got fined $500 for littering that would blow. When you have a blog and you get to post #500, some people might care and notice, and other times you might just have a small cache of regular readers, seven or eight of whom are posters on the blog, but that's ok because at least you're trying. The prime factors of 500 are 5X5X5X2X2. 500 years ago some boring old timey shit was probably going on, who am I historian Stephen Ambrose or something? All in all 500 is a good number but not as good as 1000.

PS - Uncanny X-Men #500 just came out last week and that took them 45 years, so we are beating the X-Men guys.

RATING: 500%

The X-Files: I Want To Believe

I really wanted to believe this was going to be a good movie (punchline!), but it actually really sucked. It was like watching an extended episode of the show, and while that isn't necessarily too bad the movie didn't live up to the low expectations I had going into it. Sure, the dynamics between Mulder and Scully were there (they were pretty good but pretty played out), and the plot was incredibly disappointing even for an episode. I guess after 10 years people were (and should've been) expecting a lot more for what I hope is now the last incarnation of this series. Also, what idiot decided to release this film a week after The Dark Knight? I don't know how that all works, but it seems like a pretty stupid move. I could have seen Batman again, but oh well.

RATING: 37%