Bug Zapper

   Check this out.  They're actually using laser beams now to kill mosquitos.  Forget the bug zapper you hang up in the back yard, forget "Off."  Now you can set up a laser fortress surrounding your patio.  If the mosquitos don't give the correct password (which they can't because, I mean come on, mosquitos can't talk)... BLAMMO.
   This might be the coolest invention I've ever seen.

Schmolympics
   We're only a few days into the olympics, but already there's been  some great falls, some sweet rides, and a few surprises.  But as I sit here and watch a dude fall on his ass wearing a pink sweater (men's figure skating), I'm a little saddened, and I can't help but think that these olympics, while interesting, could certainly be better.  "But how?" you might ask... well lucky for you I'm an awesome kinda guy.  Here are just a few of the new or modified events I think would really breathe some new excitement into the Winter Olympics:
   Snow Dodge Ball: Have you seen that Coke commercial for the olympics where a piece of snow knocks the coke bottle out of the dudes hand and he starts world war 3: the snowball version?  Well why not make an event out of that?  Country Vs. Country in a snowball fight to the finish, with each country putting their strongest throwers forward.  Can you imagine MLB players launching iced-up snowballs into some French people?  That would be more fun to watch than curling.
   Explosive Curling: Speaking of curling, it's by far the most ridiculous event of the Winter Olympics.  This is the one where you see those guys running brooms across the ice really fast while this weird-shaped stone thing slides into position.  It's like a glorified version of shuffleboard, which isn't fun even to play (unless you're old or drunk), much less to watch.  So how do you make it more exciting?  Turn the stone thing into a BOMB.  Instead of scoring points depending on where you land it, you only have certain "safe zones" where the bomb disarms.  If you don't get it into the safe zone... well, this sport would have a high turnover.
   Biathalon Battle: The biathalon is easily one of the most demanding events of the winter olympics.  You've got these guys (and gals) cross-country skiing their asses off, and the only time they get to stop is to try to shoot these tiny targets with a sniper rifle.  While I do appreciate the fact that they get to shoot, I think this sport would be much more exciting if they were shooting at each other.  Think about it.  They wouldn't have to use live ammo, they could use taser bullets, so if you get hit, you're going to be down for the count at least for a little while.  Instead of having set positions to shoot, each person can stop whenever he or she wants.  The problem is, you only get 3 shots, and if you miss too bad.  So you've got to make it count.  I can imagine the end of these races would get pretty intense... but that's what really matters right?
   Downhill of Death: I hate to mess with the downhill, which is already one of the best sports in the Winter Olympics (especially this year... that jump at the end was insane!), but I think you can even improve this event.  Imagine the downhill, a little longer, and at strategic points along the track are competitors (say the skiiers who went beforehand) with giant snow-cannons trying to blow up the current downhill skiier!  So not only do you have the course to contend with, you could also receive a face full of slying snow at any given moment!  Awesome!  This might be overkill, but if the snow cannon thing wasn't good enough, you could also include trap doors, like if you ski over a certain spot the ground drops out and you fall.
   I could go on and on with this.  Why not add a ramp at the end of the luge/bobsled/skeleton run that launches the rider into powder?  Why not include Polar Bear Wrestling?  Even giving the ski jumpers small chutes or flaps (like flying squirrels) and having them steer through flaming hoops would be fun to watch (especially the mistakes).  So what do you think?  Any great event ideas?  Anyone even reading these anymore?  Leave a comment will ya?

Thanks for Flying
   I love America.  Only in America will a fatass who gets kicked off a plane for being too fat make headlines for a longer period of time than the latest changes to a healthcare plan that could affect us all.  What's that?  You missed "Clerks" director Kevin Smith being kicked off an airplane because he's too fat?  That's a shame, especially considering that it's more likely than not just a ploy for attention.  My favorite comment so far has been someone saying that Kevin Smith "tweets every time he shits."  Bravo, sir, you've highlighted the major downfall of humanity right now.  What's worse though, that he tweets, or that you know about it?  Hey Kevin Smith, how about instead of tweeting about your lardy ass, you try to make a movie that can live up to your first (and lowest-budget) effort?  That'd be nice.
   But I digress.  The point here is that I love America.  Why do I love America?  Hamburgers.  Chicks in Bikinis.  And the fact that we will change any number of things to accomidate your fat. Lazy. Ass.  Case in point, and once again I have to thank the CBS Early Show for coming up with an even dumber way of covering an already stupid story: when confronted with people getting kicked off airplanes for being too fat, do we suggest those people lose some weight?  No.  Do we suggest that they find an alternate way of traveling instead of sweating all over the plane and getting their rolls on other passengers?  Nope.  Instead, our greatest media minds question the airline industry, posing the very thoughtful and important question: are airplane seats too small?
   Now, I don't fly a whole helluva lot, but when I do, it's usually on those tiny Southwest 737s.  Their tight and packed full of people, kind of like a sardine can, but the seats are definitely large enough to fit me.  The bigger planes have even bigger seats, I know because I flew on a 757 once and it was glorious.  I think my favorite part about this is the way the Early Show folks did it.  They actually pulled some airplane seats into their studio, and put Harry Smith and Dave Price on either side of a large, unhappy woman, who I guess is claiming that there's no way airplane seats are big enough.
   Forget the fact that you're obscenely overweight.  Forget the fact that you have bigger problems than flying (such as your health).  The lovely american spirit says "why in the hell should I alter my life, why should I try to get in shape when you won't make your seats big enough to fit my fatass?  This is america dammit!
   You wanna know why the rest of the world hates us?  This is why.  Instead of parking and walking into the grocery store, we'll sit in our cars waiting for a front spot to open up.  By the time we finally park, we would have been in the store and on our merry way.  We get furious if we have to wait in the drive-thru lane for our $1 hamburger for more than 5 minutes.  That's a $1 hamburger, you can buy 10 of them if you want, and just a few thousand miles away people are killing each other over loaves of bread.  And, we eat and gorge and sit on our asses until we're so fat we can hardly move (Wall-E style), but then we expect everyone to accomidate us!
   Well I say enough.  Fat people, stop bitching and get off your asses.  Maybe it's good that you were kicked off the plane.  Walking would do you some good.  It's time for americans to take stock in what we have, and how lucky we are.  Even other top-of-the-world countries like China and England don't have anything compared to the conveniences we have.  And yet we want... no, we expect more.  I think it's time for a new ammendment to the constitution.  It's short, to the point, and very timely.  "NO FATTIES."

Medication of the Week
   Do your bones hurt?  Do you suffer from fibro... fibra... some kind of problem you can't spell or pronounce?  Well then, Lyrica MUST be for you!  The spot is painful.  Painful to watch (Ba-zing!)  This lady takes Lyrica, which allows her to do things like walk through a building, walk through a park, and get a cup of coffee.  Honestly how do they come up with the storylines for these?  Is it a bunch of ad-geeks sitting around a dark table with a brainstorming pad in front of them and ideas scribbled and scrawled all over it?  What could she do?  Go to the store?  No, too boring.  Feed some ducks?  Save that for the depression commercial.  Wait!  Wait I got it!  Buy... a cup... of COFFEE.  Genius!  It has nothing to do with the medication or the disease it treats... but brilliant!  Actually it is brilliant because it associates something you're addicted to (coffee) with a pill they want you to take.  So now when you think about coffee, maybe you'll think about Lyrica.
   Side effects looks like they mostly include swelling.  No big deal, right?  Oh, except that you might also not be able to breathe after taking it.  That's alright though, then you can just take some nasonex or something, for which the side effects are probably sore bones.  But that's why you take Lyrica.  What a lovely cycle of permanent medication you've now gotten yourself into!  Brilliant again!  Oh, and be sure whatever you do, for the love of all things holy do NOT operate heavy machinery until you know what Lyrica will do to you.  First off, if your bones hurt, I doubt operating heavy machinery is really your thing.  Second, what side effect could Lyrica possibly have that would screw with, say, a wrecking ball operator?  Does it give you an uncontrollable urge to knock down a building?  If so this is the most awesome medication ever.
   Don't take Lyrica.  It's a scam.  I guarantee you Lyrica is only the beginning.  Next thing you know you'll be on several other medications to treat those side effects, and to treat the side effects of the secondary meds... once you open this door, there's no turning back.  If your bones really do hurt, and if you don't operate heavy machinery, then the least you could do would be to use a generic instead.  Don't give any money to Lyrica, maybe then they won't be able to pay the overpriced budgets of terrible commercials like these.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High
   The year is 1982.  The school is Ridgemont High.  The stoner is none other than the great Sean Penn.  It's senior year for some, freshman year for others, and all of them work in the food court at the local mall.  Fast Times follows the lives of several youngsters just trying to figure themselves out in this crazy, crazy, 80s world.
   Originally I wasn't going to review this movie, but I realized about a quarter of the way into it that I've never actually seen this entire movie end-to-end.  I guess I'd seen the beginning or middle parts here and there, and just pieced together the rest in my head.  Really Fast Times at Ridgemont High is exactly what it tries to be: a ridiculous high school graduation movie, a lot like the "American Pie" of the early 80s.
   My favorite part of this movie is Sean Penn.  I know he was young and willing to take any role offered to him, but you have to appreciate the wonderful irony that now a man who absolutely refuses a role unless it has some sort of social or political significance, at one point played a giant pothead who's most involved lines involved words like "gnarly."  Other than that outstanding little tidbit, this movie is pretty standard fare.  80s music, 80s clothing, 80s bikinis.  The main chick wasn't hot at all, but man her friend sure was.  Horny teens trying to get with each other, an After-School-Special pregnancy, you name it it's in there.
   So, should you watch it?  I guess you probably already have.  Everyone's seen this movie, right?  Well, if not, then you probably don't need to waste your time.  Unless you're a stoner or you grew up in California or you really really hate Sean Penn and want another reason to laugh at how ridiculous he is, there's really not a whole lot to see here.

Noises Off
   A play director storms out of the broadway theatre of his immensely successful play, worried sick that his cast is going to screw it up.  This perfectly sets the stage for a series of flashbacks, illustrating what the cast and crew had to go through to get to where they are now.  The flashbacks start with the first rehearsals, and then follow the trials and tribulations that the cast goes through on and offstage, falling in love, breaking up, hating each other, loving eachother, and just generally being confused.
   When I was a kid, my brothers and I made a clubhouse out of the toolshed add-on to the back of our garage.  My dad kept all his tools in the garage, except for the really dangerous stuff (like gasoline buckets and whatnot), so really this shed was a giant, non-ventilated wasps nest... but it was home.  We had some lawn chairs we'd scavenged from neighbors' trash heaps... we had a secret trap door that led to the garage (for escaping if needed), and we had a movie poster for "Noises Off," which was really risque at the time because it had Nicollete Sheridan in her underwear.  We had no idea what the movie was about or really that it was even a movie.
   Then the other day I was sitting here and I thought "wait a minute, I have Netflix now.  I'm renting that damn movie."  So I did.  And... it was not very entertaining at all.  A young Nicollette Sheridan does indeed strip down to her undees (several times), and it has some big names in it (John Ritter, Christopher Reeve, Michael Cain to name a few)... but the overall effect of this movie is just kind of bleh.  Don't get me wrong, from a technical standpoint, it's brilliant.  Really it's a series of one-take shots, shot much like you would shoot a play, with a TON of very meticulous choreography piecing everything together.  The timing here is really impeccable, I can't imagine the hell they went through to get it to work.  But they did, and it was seamless.
   However, what I (and who knows, maybe you) appreciate about this movie, is not what the layman will appreciate.  For every bit of impressive choreography, there was a lot of frustration, over-acting, and just general boredom.  This is definitely not a movie to rent or even watch... I pretty much knew that coming in, but I needed it to get some closure.  The tool shed was ripped down years ago, but that movie poster had stuck with me until just a couple nights ago.  Now I can rest in peace knowing that yep, it was pretty bad after all.

   Alright, so I would have had this earlier today for you, but some nutbag decided to catch his house on fire, and then fly his airplane into the friggin' IRS building in Austin.  What a psycho.  Later homies...