Category Archives: humor

humor, nerd

Scary Vice President

I was poking around http://www.totallylookslike.com when I stumbled upon a comparison of John C. Calhoun and Sam the Eagle (spot-on).  I remember being a little bit afraid of Sam the Eagle.  If I had had as much exposure to the visage of John C. Calhoun, Sam would have been a welcome fright.

"You're shitting me, right?"

Yikes, right?!  Look at that mug!  And the neckbeard, lol!

The 7th Vice President of the United States, this guy didn’t stop at horrifying people with is face.  He supported slavery, famously calling it a “positive good.”  He was known by supporters as the “cast-iron man” because of his staunch defense of his political stances.  Like how slavery was natural because every society has a ruling elite which reaps the benefits of said elitism due to the back-breaking labor of the lower castes.  It’s natural.

"WTF is that?!"

Apparently he died ten years before the start of the Civil War, so he didn’t get to see all those slaves freed.  Can you imagine if he did?  How could he possibly look any more displeased?

In my first art history class back in high school, my teacher (Mrs. Hill, so awesome!) told us about the advent of the camera, and how it essentially put portrait painters out of work.  Our teacher told us a story about how, around this time, some snooty queen asked her court portrait painter why she shouldn’t fire him and hire a photographer instead.  The painter apparently responded, “Your Highness, the camera cannot lie.”  Awesome answer.

Bearing this truth in mind, why the fuck didn’t the artist of this portrait do a little more to make VP Calhoun look like an intelligent, respectable government official instead of a wild-man who was dressed up like a gentleman for a day as a joke?  Answer: John C. Calhoun was so out of his mind enthused about slavery, even a formal portrait artist couldn’t gloss over all the crazy in those eyes.  There must have been some surprising shit off camera to entice VP Calhoun to make a face like that.

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goodness, humor

The Ring

I used to love horror movies.  They made me laugh.  Watching a scary movie was like riding a roller coaster; thrilling and pointless with no side effects.

But things have changed.  I have changed.  Horror movies scare the shit out of me now.  I don’t mind a good mystery, some tension, etc., but people getting sliced into pieces?  Saw I-VI and in 3D?  Yikes, wtf, who pays $15 to watch innocent people kill each other or get tortured to death one by one?  But I guess that falls under the category of slasher flick.  I digress.

omfg so scary

The first DVD I ever bought was The Ring, which is generally accepted as one of the scariest movies of all time.  It’s based on a Japanese horror film of the same name (this was the movie that really showed America that the Japanese knew how to scare the shit out of people).  I just looked at the poster and got chills (“before you die, you see THE RING”  eek!).  It was the reinvention of the “scary kid” aspect of horror films.

I had just started my freshman year at college.  I don’t know who I saw this movie with, it couldn’t have been my roommates, they were jerks.  But whoever I did see it with were jerks too because after the movie, they left me alone in the middle of the night, in my dorm to sit alone on the couch, stare at our tiny tv, and wait for something horrible to happen to me.  I tried to go to bed, but in a time of CRT monitors, the glare of the city lights bounced off my selfish, Single Child Roommate’s screen, taunting me.  It sat there, patiently watching me for over an hour before said roommate came home.  I bounded out of bed and sprinted outside to join her in the living room while she watched tv at 2am.  I had early class in the morning.  I was exhausted.  But I was also honestly afraid for my life.  I asked her if she was going to bed soon (I couldn’t go back in there alone).  She shot me a look, and kept watching Sex and the City (or whatever bullshit she was into that semester).  I sat at the end of the couch nodding off while my tiny, judgmental roommate did her best to simultaneously ignore me and act annoyed.

one way in, one way out

I should probably mention that in the weeks before the movie came out, some genius (and I mean that) at Dreamworks came up with the idea of making copies of the tape that kills people in the movie, and leaving them on campus.  Just around.  I found one in the hall of my dorm, just sitting on the floor.  I walked by it twice before I picked it up.  There were no markings or writing on it.  I noted how little film there was, and thought, “there’s no fucking way this is the Ring tape.”  Naturally, I brought it into my apartment and announced to whomever was around, “Hey guys, I found this on the floor outside… I think it’s the Ring tape.”  The room was silent, until someone said, “Wait, what?  That really scary movie thing that kills you in seven days?”  More silence.

Naturally we watched it, and collectively lost our shit before, during, and especially after.  We all waited with bated breath for a phone to ring.  Nothing happened.  We panicked anyway.  What should we do?  The only way to figure out how not to die was to watch the movie, but it didn’t come out for another two weeks, and by then we would all be dead!

We took the tape and put it back in the hallway.  It was gone within a day.  I’ve never seen it again.

SPOILER:

In the Japanese version of the film, the solution the mother comes up with for keeping her son from dying, is showing the film to someone else.  Right, good, of course, same as the American version.  But unlike in the American version, in which it’s left to the audience to guess who she shows it to (I think it’s the audience itself!), it’s revealed that the Japanese mother chooses to show the movie to her own father.  Her own father.  Harsh, right?

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anime, goodness, humor

Old manga blog!

Turns out I’ve already posted the other blogs I wrote for the comics website on this, my very own blog as well.  All but this one about manga, which is hilarious and was totally topical in May of 2010 when I first wrote it.

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If you don’t read manga, I don’t blame you.  But here’s one reason why you might want to check it out (or do any other number of crazy things): a pretty lady.

ABORT ABORT ABORT

There’s been a small fuss raised over a mangaka (Japanese comic book artist) recently.  Mostly because she’s cute.  And because she’s a she (those of you calling “Screenshot or it didn’t happen!” can see evidence of said cuteness here).  Which is a big deal because when people think of manga, they picture something like Wing Bird (see horrifying cover art at right).  Then when you tell them it’s not all nudity and violence, they call you a liar and an otaku freak, and the horribly scarring pointing and laughing ensues.

Here’s an example of a conversation I’ve had with an average, non-manga reader (let’s just call him Some Jerk):

SJ– [nose crinkle] Man-guh?
Me– Yeah, it’s like comics, but they’re little books, and they’re black and white.  And they’re Japanese.
SJ– Oh, Japanese?  Like hentai?  Eew, tentacle penis monster!
Me– No no, that’s not what manga is!
SJ– Yeah it is, I saw that one Parasyte once, gross.
Me– Here, lemme show you something different… Um… here, Fruits Basket, that’s like the opposite of Parasyte.
SJ– [pause] WTF is wrong with their eyes?
Me– Nothing.  What do you mean?
SJ– They’re huge.  And where are their mouths?
Me– Um… I dunno, actually.
SJ– [blank stare]  Dude.  Yikes.

i like how the lady watching this man's face come apart barely reacts

Not all manga is good, I’ll admit that, and it’s not for everyone.  But if you read comics, your brain is already prepped for this stuff, and it’s unlike any American comic you’ve ever read.  The characters are expressive and often hilarious.  I’ve never been so shocked at what’s after the next page turn.  Once, I got so scared at what was on the next page that I burst out laughing, shut the book, and had to go watch the Food Channel for a while.

So I challenge our readers to do something stupid in the name of a pretty girl who authors some manga of her own.  Pick up a copy of Mail or The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.  They’re some of the more popular manga out there right now, and as comic readers, you’re ready.  It’s time to branch out, kids.  Be brave.  Be stupid.  Do it for the girl.

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badness, goodness, humor, martial arts

When nerds collide

Remember when I got asked to blog for a website about comics?  Turns out they didn’t exactly, how do you say… have their shit together.  I would submit a blog, and weeks later, it still wouldn’t be on the website.  This happened a few times before I stopped submitting ideas.  I gave them a blog after they sent me to ComiCon; it’s still not up, and I’ve given up on expecting anything of mine to ever go on their website again.  So sad.  I was really excited about that, and the people were cool.  In fact, they were extremely warm and seemed almost as excited as I was to join the team.  It’s too bad it didn’t work out.  But I lived the dream, for a short time.  And I’m happy about that.

I was also on one of their radio shows.  I don’t come across as too noobish, and I’m happy about that.  All they really do is ask me about the KickAss [comic] contest, and martial arts in general.  Overall, I’m pretty happy with the result.  I’m only in the first fifteen minutes of the cast, which is perfect.  I don’t think I could stand hearing more of myself than that at a time.  I had only been awake for about twenty minutes at the time, so I sound a little husky (Lauren Bacall, woot!).

hey look, it's me and Diminutive Roommate

I just found the email I sent to my friends announcing the publication of my first blog.  *sigh*  Memories.  I was so fucking excited.  Everyone was so supportive.  And that post was pretty good!  So I’ve decided to publish the blogs that were (and were not) published on the comics website here.  Get ready for a quick injection of a whole lotta nerd-speak.

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goodness, humor, work

Old work goodness

I was looking through a folder called “Me from work,” meaning the stuff I had saved on my old work computer that I removed promptly before leaving.  There’s an image folder.  It’s full of hilarious wierdness.

Old Work Goodness Number 1: The Beavers

looks like someone needs a good ass-kicking

WTF is this?  I mean, aside from clearly being a Japanese ripoff of The Beatles.  This album cover made me laugh out loud.

Time for some research.

The initial search (cleverly done: “beavers”) yielded nothing but pictures of beavers, and an informative Wikipedia article which described beavers as “large, semi-aquatic rodents.”  Not the kindest set of adjectives and nouns to string together to describe an animal that can build its own home in a single night.  Be cool, Wikipedia.  Beavers are pretty great.

Second search: “beaver music”  A Swedish group came up.  I listened to one of their songs all the way through; all three minutes and forty two seconds.  Specifically, I watched the music video, which consisted of stock footage of someone typing on a typewriter, a silhouette of a happy couple in front of a sunset, and shitty home footage of some horses running in slow-motion on a beach, for fuck sake.  I should have stopped fifteen seconds in.  Here’s a sample of their lyrics:

Hesitation in a place pristine / Revelations of a space unseen / Knowing you from the inside out / That’s the only way to let you out / And that’s all that I care about.

Yikes.

Third search: “the beavers japan”  Apparently there’s a clothing store called Beaver in Japan that resembles a very abstract hairy va-jay-jay.  Just squint.  See?  Eew.

the Jimi Hendrix era of album covers

Fourth search: “the beavers music japan”  Jackpot!  Someone wrote a quick bio of one of the band members, Hideki Ishima on a website called Golden Best Japan.  Before The Beavers, this guy was a member of such ridiculously named bands as: Jarows, The Outlaws, and Spiderduction before some genius at the record label told them to change it to something “cuter.”  According to this website, they only released one album with five singles.  Here are a couple of them!

Kiminaki Sekai (The World Without You), the moody, wail-y version of something that sounds like Love Potion #9.

Why Baby Why, a poppy hit in which the band shouts ‘why baby why’ and ‘I love you’ amid much more comfortable Japanese verses, and some screeching that actually sounds pretty cool.

The author of  thought the following sentence made sense: “The Beavers were known as “Japan’s Yardbirds” so it’s not suprising that they covered “I’m a Man” and “Over, Under, Sideways, Down” on this album.”  Uh, right… thanks for the insight.

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goodness, humor, life

El vino

So… I dunno if you’ve ever heard of this stuff.  It’s called wine.  It’s this thing where people take grapes, and do stuff to them, then they squish ’em, then more shit happens to them, then BOOM, fuckin’ wine.  It’s delicious by the way.

Waaaaay back when, I traveled alone to Romania to meet up with a group of random students to do volunteer work and explore the country.  We spent the first two weeks in a city called Arad.  Lots of dirt roads, gypsies, wandering dogs, and other shit to make young Americans feel unsafe.  Plus we were there to spend time with “derelict youth” or something.  Most of us were around 19 or so, so naturally, we got drunk as often as possible.

nectar

Everything was über cheap, so we threw our U.S. dollars around like that shit was weighing us down.  I found this little liquor shop in town.  The owner flirted with me and the other girl I was with (he said something like, “you ladies are so tan, I wonder if your skin is light under your clothes” or some shit with his best broken English and child molester smiley-wink.  What an asshat).  Anyway, he sold really fuckin’ cheap wine that turned out to taste like sugar-infused liquid gold.  I shared my bottle the first night.  The second night, everyone showed up to hang out with their own bottles.  What a bunch of lushes.  It’s a fond memory.  There was a guy there, he was… 17 I think, named Adi.  What a cutie.  He was my first adult white boy crush.  He was so sweet.  I should hit him up.

Right, so it took me forever to figure out what the fuck that stuff was (I was clever enough to NOT bring the label home with me).  But I found it (or something just like it), dammit, and it is delicious.  In fact, time for a refill.  No I’m not fucking kidding.

So anyway, I finally found this stuff.  It’s called an Ausbrüch, which is usually apparently white, but this one is red red red.  The only real drawback is that it’s salty or something, so if I drink a bunch of it, I have to wake up twice in the middle of the night to chug a whole cup of water.  Huh.

UPDATE: February 25th, 9:46pm (my timestamp is screwed up, it’s not the 26th yet)

Holy shit!  I just found Adi on facebook!  Sent a request with a message like, hey you probably don’t remember me, we held hands and drank wine and I told you to stop smoking and stuff.  kthxbai!  For the record, I am not optimistic about this reunion.  He probably remembers me as the boorish American chick who harassed him for two weeks straight.  Ugh.  My first drunken facebook contact might turn out to crush me entirely.

UPDATE: February 26th, 4:09pm

Adi’s my facebook friend!  So random!  No contact, it’s just weird to see his face again.  Craaaaaazy.

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badness, humor, life, manfolk

Hate on the pretty

Why do I want to punch every handsome man in his handsome face?
I’m not a huge fan of good-looking people in general, but when a certain kind of handsome man enters the room, I want to throw coffee all over his tailored sweater, and break his perfect nose.  But why?  Do all handsome men look like douche bags by default?  Why do I hate them so fast?  I have a few theories, and they all include broad, sweeping generalities, so be ready to sprinkle asterisks (with “most of the time” attached) all over the following:

1. Good looking people are more likely to be jerks.

christian bale can run his mouth like a pro

Handsome people are treated slightly better during simple interactions with strangers than average-looking or ugly people.  As a result, they become used to this treatment, and come to expect it.  For this reason, their sense of entitlement makes pretty people automatically intolerable (even though they’ve been trained to feel this way by others, and it’s not their fault).  People who expect attention seek it out when they don’t get it.  They’re not content to be wall flowers; they must be heard and watched, and do what they must to achieve the attention they crave.  Their tolerance for not being the center of attention at some point during every interaction is laughably low, and for this, I hate them.

2. Good looking people are better looking than me, and always will be.
I can’t stress enough how annoying it is when I’m feeling unusually pretty, and a beautiful woman walks in and suddenly I feel totally inadequate.  It just sucks out loud.  But what’s even worse than not feeling pretty anymore is that the whole time, I’m fully aware of how dumb it is that I feel this way.  Have I gotten uglier since she came around?  Of course not, but I’m less attractive by comparison, so I might as well have.  It doesn’t make sense, but my brain can’t get around it; this woman’s face has conquered my brain and she doesn’t even know it.  Fuck.  And cosmetic surgery is for morons with issues, so this effect is guaranteed to happen again in the future.  It’s a depressing, shallow thought from which I should be able to logically free myself.  No dice.

3. Good looking people are vapid.

don't encourage her, cow

Clearly this isn’t true for every handsome person on the planet, but I’m making sweeping generalizations, so who cares. Pretty people are like pretty paintings: fun to look at, but lacking in depth and long-term return.  With no need to do anything other than smile and laugh to get a positive reaction, deep interactions are unnecessary for pretty people.  They don’t have to try hard to seem interesting, so they don’t.  Think: If you wanted to have a fascinating conversation with someone, who do you think would be more likely to be able to provide one; a handsome person, or an average-looking person?  Perhaps more importantly: which is less likely to complain about how fat they feel after eating half their meal?

4. Good looking people get credit for being good looking.
This is by far the most ridiculous issue I have with handsome people.  I recognize that no one approaches a pretty face and says, “Wow, you’re so pretty, good job!”  But some small function of my brain recognizes being handsome as a benefit on the same level as other accomplishments (the kind people work at).  So who should get credit for a person’s good looks?  I want to say the parents for passing on their genes, but they’re not responsible for having said genes either.  So we’re left with natural selection, and chance.  The handsome people didn’t have anything to do with it, so when they’re paid to be models or shitty actors, or whatever, it makes me pop my best “are you shitting me?” face.  Stop rewarding people for shit they didn’t do.

So let’s review: Pretty people are jerks, they make me feel like shit, they bore me to tears, and they get rewarded for doing nothing.  This all seems like solid evidence for my previously unnamed, knee-jerk hatred for the handsome.

Now that we’ve established that I’m a shallow person who hates pretty people, I have a confession to make: All my friends are handsome and beautiful.  All of them.  I don’t have a single ugly or average-looking friend.  They’re also intelligent, funny, thoughtful, selfless people who work hard, and are not rewarded for their looks with modeling contracts or acting gigs.

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to my friends, and especially Boyfriend, the handsomest guy I know.

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humor, life

The quiet death of good penmanship

I have thoughts that make me feel very, very old.  Today, I had a really devastating one:

Good penmanship is rapidly becoming obsolete, and that’s kind of a shame.

I was not taught handsome penmanship.  I was taught how to write, and if it was remotely legible, I got a passing grade.  I barely passed.  I remember one assignment where my words were so scrunched together that I put lines between them for clarity.  My teacher was not impressed by my consideration.

Here’s what I was taught:

adequate at best

Here’s what I wish I had been taught:

fucking brutal

How awesome would it be to be able to create something beautiful while writing something simple like a note to myself, or a quick letter to someone on a memo in the office?  It’s like being a word artist.  I’m working on sketching pictures of animals right now (so far I’ve adequately completed a fox and an otter) because being able to accurately draw whatever you want is an amazing ability that I don’t currently possess.  So I’m working on it.  But I wonder if I should be working on my penmanship too…

NO, of course not.  That would be pointless.  I will never hand-write as much as I type.  But it makes me sad that when I write, it’s bound to be a little scrawly and ugly.  I want to make pretty words look pretty.  I want to make ugly words look ironically pretty.  Haha, that would be hilarious; writing some cuss-filled, horrifyingly detailed medical report in perfect cursive.  New goal!

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humor, life

Fun with numbers

I discovered while walking to the car today that my grasp of the English language is, at times, tenuous at best.

i don't get it

I overheard a snippet of a conversation: “…by a twenty-year-old…” and I thought “huh, that kinda makes the number 20 an adjective.”

INITIATE LOGICAL INSANITY SPIRAL

But wait, 20 is describing how something is, not what something is (as in How old are you? 20).  Describing how is an adverb’s job (how did you do on that test?  I did well).  Describing what is an adjective’s job (What color is that?  Blue, old man!).  So what does that make 20 in this case?

Whenever I’m having trouble distinguishing adjectives from adverbs, I stick the color blue in the sentence to see if it makes sense.

How old are you?  I’m blue years old.

Ok so that doesn’t really work.  How about this:

How old are you?  I’m many years old.

The answer makes sense, even though it doesn’t answer the question.  So that makes many, and therefore any word you could logically stick in that position, an adjective, right?  Right.  Let’s do another example:

I have blue crayons.

I have many crayons.

I have 20 crayons.

They’re all adjectives!  Hurrah!  So why does the question How old lead to an adjective for an answer?

How old is really asking Please describe the number of years this person has been alive.  People are nouns, and adjectives describe nouns.  But wait!  That’s not really what we’re being asked to describe.  Look again:

Please describe the number of years…

How can years be described?  With numbers, yes, but with adjectives too, like difficult (adjective), blurry (adjective), and fucking (adverb) awesome (adjective).

But we’ve specifically been asked to describe the number of years.  The only way to answer that is with a number.  Answer: The number of years is twenty.  Wait a second, this makes twenty look like a noun!  Let’s use math to figure this out:

x = y

The number is twenty.

number = twenty

If number is a noun, twenty must be too.  So even though it sounds like twenty is describing the number, all it’s really doing is acting as an alternative for the concept of the number of years someone has been alive, which is a noun.

Mystery solved!

Note: I think about this kind of thing all the time, especially walking to or from my car, or while driving.  Anything that requires less than 80% of my attention automatically receives only 25% of my attention, while the other 75% works at figuring out whether numbers can be adjectives.  This is my life.

UPDATE: I just looked up twenty in the Oxford English Dictionary online.  Holy shit.  I love dictionaries, but holy shit.

this gentleman from the OED agrees... i win.

It sounds like they reach just about the same conclusion I reach, which is that twenty stands in the place of a noun, thereby allowing it to take on the properties of a noun.  Which of course means…

I WIN!!  TIME TO JUMP IN SOME PUDDLES!!  PET ALL THE CUTE DOGS!!  EVERYBODY JUMP IN THE POOL WITH YOUR CLOTHES ON!!  I WIN!!

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