Facebook Makes Me Sad, Still

Seriously, why do I use this stupid thing? Oh right, to make obnoxious comments on other people's statuses, and to occasionally try to get other people to laugh from my witty observations about the minutiae of everyday life.

Last time things got way out of control, but there's just so much to hate about other people that I couldn't reel it in. In order to try to keep this edition to a more moderate length, I'll be using the sweet bulletpoint feature. Spellcheck tells me that "bulletpoint" is actually two words, but Spellcheck and I aren't on speaking terms right now because Spellcheck is a lazy sack of monkey turds. This will be addressed shortly.

• Apostrophes are not just a fancy keyboard feature. Give them a try! But be judicious in their use. For example, "Looking at new car's!!!" is not an appropriate apostrophe use, mostly because apostrophes aren't for pluralization. They're for contractions and possession. And to make it hard to decide between "its" and "it's."
• Your and you're are different words with different meanings that are not interchangeable. Same goes for the there, their and they're triplets. Oh, and to and too. I am leaving out two because if you screw up the word form of the number 2 with actual words, you might actually be the dumbest person on the planet. I get physically ill reading anything where these are mixed up. So knock it off.
• Last time, I addressed hiding people from the News Feed. After that, I had a change of heart because that seemed mean. Now, if someone pollutes my Feed with a bunch of misspelled nonsense, I just defriend them. It feels more humane.
• What's up with this new photo foolishness? It's weird, and I don't like change.
• Stop putting the lyrics from Taylor Swift followed by "tswift <3" as your status. Also, stop putting the chorus to "Fuckin' Perfect" by Pink. Nobody's perfect. And even when people say someone's perfect to them, there's really always something they'd change. Partly because it's impossible to be perfect, and partly because people are never satisfied with what they have. Like me with Facebook.
• Spellcheck your stupid posts, and reread them before posting. I understand that the letters on the keyboard are all near each other, but it makes it seem like you shouldn't leave the house without a helmet when you write things like "out wiyh my best friens!!"

Spellcheck should be required everywhere that text is entered. Granted, it won't fix typos that generate new, incorrect words, but at least it's a start. I think if you try to post something with misspellings, a notice should pop up that says "You're about to look stupid in front of a bunch of people. Continue?" And then if you click yes, a boxing glove on a spring hits you in the face.

On the plus side, a fun thing to do is to go back a couple years on a friend's wall to comment on things with a similar date. For example, find a highly commented news post from March 2009 and make a comment. I guarantee hilarity, confusion or both will follow. For added fun, start clicking "Like" on everything to really mess with them.

Damn it, Facebook, one of these days you're going to lose me. Then you'll only have 642,499,999* users left. Keep it up, jerks.

-Jon

* This figure is from the end of February. It's probably well out of date by now.

Tom Brady's Hair Smells Like Shame

That title doesn't make any sense unless you're one of those people whose senses overlap. Synesthesia? I think that's what it's called. Anyway, I am of course referring to those photos of Tom Brady looking ridiculously gay. No, not the ones with male genitalia in or around his mouth. The ones where he's on vacation and decided that he wants to look like a 13 year old girl. This one.

Bahahaha take a look at your beloved golden boy quarterback now you faacckin homos. Now, while most people look at the photo and say, "Faggot" and be done with it, here at Mmmm, opinions we're all about taking a deeper look at things. Investigative journalism is where we hang our hat. Take a better look at the photo and you'll realize two things:

1.) Tom Brady's face is roughly 65% forehead.

2.) Tom Brady and I have the same hairline. That's not a good thing. For either of us.

I know. SHOCKING! The beloved heartthrob Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. didn't grow his hair out because Gisele wanted him to, he did it because he doesn't want you to know his hair is receding from his vastly overrated face. I always knew that "Oh Gisele wants him to grow it long" was a crock of shit. Even if she is worth $50 million more than him. It's true. I went to celebritynetworth.com and looked it up. FACT. Tom Brady is losing his hair and how else could he nail down those lucrative sponsorships like Uggs if he didn't have his deceptive flowing locks?

You know what else pisses me off about Tom Brady? No one mentions that he's a scumbag. Through extensive use of wikipedia and the always factual reporting of People magazine, I was able to come up with this timeline.

December 2006: Tom Brady and Bridget Moynahan end their relationship.
January 2007: It's reported that Tom and Gisele began dating before Christmas of 2006. Hmmm, very interesting.
August 2007: Bridget gives birth to Tom Brady's first kid. That's weird. If you do some quick math, you'll see that Tom Brady knocked up Bridget Moynahan just weeks before she broke up with him and before the calendar turns over he's dating a Brazilian supermodel. Wow, what a classy fellow. Everyone is so quick to judge Antonio "Baby Mama Drama" Cromartie but we just sweep Tom Brady's indiscretions under the rug. The rug he'll soon have to wear because he's lost all of his hair. And that's how you bring it full circle.

I'm rambling so I'll bring this very poorly written post to a close with this: I realize most of our audience are Patriot fans so they probably won't care for this post. But Chris will like it. And that's good enough for me.

-Slick

Reply vs Reply All

Here at Mmmm, opinions, we try to be as helpful as possible without actually doing work. Today I'm here to improve your email abilities!

Have you ever gotten an email that actually requires a response? I know it's hard to believe, but occasionally one will slip in between the requests from Nigerian princes and the offers for free Viagra. You might have noticed that you have two options: "Reply" and "Reply All." Guess what! They aren't the same thing.

In case you are a moron, let's quickly go over the difference between the two. Clicking "Reply" will send a response only to the original sender of the email. In general, this is what you want to do, as there is a 96% chance that nobody else in the world gives a flying crap about what you have to say. Clicking "Reply All," on the other hand, will send a response email to the original sender and everyone else who got the original email. This is probably most likely to be used in a business context, or when trying to organize a group activity through email. And let's face it, that second one almost never succeeds.

Still confused? Well, your borderline mental handicap aside, maybe a story will help.

This story is completely hypothetical, of course. The imaginary email will be in italics.

Hey all,

Looking for 2 people to help run a cross-country meet on Smarch 3rd. Let me know if you're available.

Sincerely,

Joe Coachguy

Now, which response do you think is appropriate? If you chose "Reply," congratulations! You aren't a moron. If you chose "Reply All," you're probably one of the fools that officiates a sport with me and annoys me on an annual basis. Guess what! Myself, and probably everyone else who officiates, doesn't care that you are available on that date. And we don't need your stupid emails clogging up our inboxes. I, for one, have important stuff to do. Like helping Nigerian princes get their money out of their war-torn homelands.

Man, I am waiting on like 12 of those guys. What is taking them so long?

-Jon

Dammit Celtics

What kind of trade deadline shenanigans was Danny Ainge trying to pull? Is there a shortage of chairs for the bench and they needed to cut the roster? Is Jermaine O'Neal someone that you really have faith in as the guy who's going to carry the team in the playoffs? Who's going to fill the role of goofy white guy now that Scal's replacement Luke "The Duke" Harangody* is also gone? Are you tired of the rhetorical questions yet?

In case you still don't know what's going on, the Celtics had a yard sale at the trading deadline, sending away Kendrick Perkins, Nate Robinson, Semih Erden, Luke Harangody and Marquis Daniels + cash to various destinations in exchange for Jeff Green, Nenad Krstic, a 2nd round pick in 2013 and another 2nd round pick in 2017. And then promptly got the shit kicked out of them in Denver, going the last 6 minutes or so of the game without scoring a point.

I can understand trading Semih and Luke, as Semih is a rookie and probably doesn't fit in long-term in Boston, and Luke is just a goofy guy. Maybe trading Marquis makes sense since he bruised his spinal cord and may never really be the same player. That's a pretty crappy thing to do to a guy, but the NBA's a business and being nice isn't really in the game plan. And I suppose Robinson's season so far has been pretty sub-par, but at least he's fun to watch.

But Perkins? The only guy on the team that's willing to bang bodies with the other big guys in the league? That seems like a terrible idea. I am seriously frightened about what Dwight Howard is going to do to the Celtics next time the Magic are in town. And it's not like Perkins was unhappy in Boston, or unpopular with the team. The rest of the players loved that guy. Did you see how upset Garnett and Pierce were? Not to mention the fact that any real Celtics fan is convinced that Game 7 last June is definitely a win for the C's if Perk hadn't wrecked his knee.

And they traded him away!

Danny Ainge might have just lost all the goodwill he earned when he got Garnett and Allen to come to Boston. Ass hat.

I wouldn't even mind seeing the Thunder win the championship now as long as A) it's not against the Celtics, B) they beat the Lakers on the way there, and C) Perkins is a major part of it.

As for the Celtics? The next couple of months may end up being very painful to watch. Thanks a lot, Danny boy.

-Jon

* Actual nickname may vary. Slash not exist.

The Coolest People in America

The following is a list of the coolest people in America, as decided by me.

Miguel Cabrera

Reason why he is cool: This photo, which was taken after getting caught drunk driving. Also, the guy continued to drink scotch, IN HIS CAR, while being questioned by the cops.

Officer: Were you drunk driving?

Cabrera: (drinks scotch) Yup.

He was drinking scotch, too! It wasn't like he was drinking some shit like Miller Lite, even though it's got grooves. It was scotch!

Coolness Rating: Flying Snowman cool

Chris Brown

Reason why he is cool: He hit Rihanna, and someone needed to knock her off her pedestal. This girl told me the other day that she liked Rihanna because she is such a strong, independent woman. Yeah, with lyrics like, "take it, take it, baby, baby" and "Want you to take it like a thief in the night," I had to agree. I can't wait to have a daughter someday refer to her vag as an object and desire to be raped. Plus, Rihanna has herpes.

Coolness Rating: François with a mustache cool

Chris "The Birdman" Andersen

Reason why he is cool: He got suspended from the NBA for like 2 years for doing so many drugs. Guys in the NBA rape a woman every 4 hours and don't get suspended, which means this guy must have done a LOT of drugs. Take a look at him. He obviously hasn't stopped doing them either.

Coolness Rating: Damn it Jon, get the hint and start making more Snowman comics.

-Pat the Intern

Go Fuck Yourself: Watson

Welcome back to the long discontinued series, Go Fuck Yourself. As you are probably aware, this week on Jeopardy IBM pitted their superdouche computer Watson against the two greatest Jeopardy champions of all time. OF ALL TIME. IBM wanted to see if they could create a computer that could analyze the "subtle nuances of language" that make Jeopardy "so gosh darn challenging." Alright, you got me. That second quote was me. But the first one is real. And after watching the results, everybody is going to be like, "Yay, Watson beat Ken and Brad. OMG!!! IBM is so awesome." But I watched the entire match today and the first round on Monday so I feel safe in saying that IBM, while doing something pretty incredible in creating a computer that can compete on Jeopardy, didn't really create a computer that can compete on Jeopardy. And here's why:

Every time we have dinner at my mom's she makes us watch Jeopardy at 7:30. So I watch a fair amount of said program. Usually they have some sort of category like "Before and After" or some sort of pun category that's more about how fast you can think rather than a straight know the answer type of category. You know what I'm talking about. Like "Drop a letter from this word for a douchey asshole blogger and you get a nickname for Richard." So the question would be, "What is prick." Those kind of categories. But with Watson they didn't have any of this stuff. It was almost exclusively straightforward trivia bullshit. Well no fucking shit a computer is better and faster than humans at trivia. Does that really shock anyone? Oh wow, computers are really fast. Even my piece of shit laptop can get 1.65 million results for "Asian midget golden shower bukakke" in .29 seconds . . . you know, like hypothetically if I were to perform such a search . . .

Right, where was I? So they tailor-made a set of questions that fit Watson's answering abilities. That would be like if I was playing two conservative Christian missionaries and they had an entire category, "Made-up Swears." Surprise, surprise: Slick swept the category. I'm impressed with Watson, but not that impressed.

Especially because Watson is a cheating motherfucker. How come when the final Jeopardy category is "U.S. Cities" and he gets it wrong, oh look, he only wagered $700. But then the category is "19th Century Novelists" and well gosh darnit, he got it right and wagered $17,000. Fuck that. That's the old serbian jew double bluff and you're not going to fool me with it. But you might say, "Yeah but Ken was a lot closer in the second game so the computer was just risking enough to beat Ken's best score." Well, I thought about that. If the computer was that smart, then it would be smart enough to know that it just had to risk enough to beat Ken's best 2 day score, and therefore, wouldn't have risked very much because the only way he could have lost was by risking that much money in the second game. Plus, it's a fucking computer. The concept of winning the 2 day match should have been given a higher precedent than winning a lot of money. What's he going to do with $75,000 that he couldn't do by winning only $55,000? Fuck Watson, he obviously cheated.

So now that you've heard my witty and well thought out criticisms, I can make fun of other people's retarded ones. Today I was listening to Rock 102: Springfield's Classic Rock and Bax of the possibly famous (?) Bax and O'Brien said that Watson was stupid because he repeated a wrong answer that another player had already given. No shit. He's a fucking computer. He can't listen to other people's answers. Maybe if you paid attention and realized that he receives the questions electronically, then you would know that he doesn't get audio clues. And normally I like Bax because he's a big fat loudmouth, just like me. But in this case, he just looks stupid and ignorant. Unlike myself who is always articulate and well-informed.

Finally, completely unrelated to Watson: Anyone that drives a Cadillac Escalade EXT just has to be the worst human being imaginable. "Hey everybody, look at me. I drive a retarded looking $60,000 pickup truck. I like showing that I have a lot of money but I also enjoy being able to haul lumber. NOW I CAN DO BOTH!!" I can't imagine a car brand that has less to do with the functional nature of a pickup than Cadillac. That would be like if Ferrari put out a line of lawnmowers. But not riding mowers. Not even electric lawnmowers. The old fashioned push mowers. My uncle used to use one to mow his lawn in Maine. It always made me smile.

So go fuck yourself Watson and Cadillac Escalade EXT owners.

-Slick

P.S. All three times I typed the word Cadillac, for some reason I put "Cadillace" before having to correct myself. I have no idea why I did this, but I thought you might be interested in knowing that I may be retarded.

I Don't Get It

With new developments in technology, television networks are always trying to develop the next gimmick to watch sports. 3D televisions allow you to see the game in a whole new way . . . I guess. I don't know. I already have to put on glasses to watch tv because I'm irrational and refuse to get contacts, so I don't know how much I'd want to put on another pair of glasses. It just seems weird to me. But I digress. Then you have NBC (I think, it might be ESPN) telling me I can watch Sunday Night Football from 12 different angles over at NBC.com but none of those angles are shot from the perspective of the left guard's crotch. That's the view I really want. But I'd really just like to watch a game without 45 minutes of commercials. Yes it's delightful to have a touchdown-commercial-kickoff-commercial-first down sequence but I'm not sure that 11 seconds of gameplay was too much. But I continue to digress as this post as nothing to do with 3D technology or football.

I was watching the Kansas-Kansas State game last night and ESPN had two "coaches boxes" in the bottom left corner so that I could watch Bill Self and Frank Martin coaching the game I'm currently watching. So essentially I'm watching both coaches watching the same game. Now admittedly, Frank Martin is fun to watch because he's absolutely nuts. Like eyes bulging, intense stare down insane. Oh look, they called a foul on Kansas. Bill Self looks angry. Frank Martin . . . nope still looks insane. At what point in an ESPN meeting at their underground lair in Bristol was someone like, "People have asked for, nay demanded, cameras focused on the coaches at all times." I can't imagine it works for coaches that aren't certifiable. Like if I had to watch Coach K it would send me into a murderous rage having to watch that little rat faced prick whine and bitch that Kyle Singler isn't getting enough respect from the referees.

I don't know. Maybe it's just me but I don't see the appeal of watching coaches. I just don't get it.

-Slick

I Hate People

I am sure that my misanthropic tendencies are widely known, so maybe this can become a regular feature. Or not. I am more of a fan of coming up with new ideas than I am of continuing them due to what I can only assume is a short attention span. What was I talking about?

Oh right. People suck. Especially this next guy/girl.

For some reason, I was reading about the weather on WWLP, and for some other reason I must have had some sort of aneurysm and decided to read the comments. Side note - why does everything have a "Comments" section? Obviously this site needs them because I like making snarky comments and would appreciate them from our reader, but I am not sure a weather story on WWLP.com needs them. Side note concluded. There was one particular comment there that not only made me sad because it was so poorly written, but also because I think the person writing it might be one of the dumbest people I've ever encountered.

At any rate, I think it's time to verbally lacerate this person. Or whatever the written equivalent of verbal is. The original text is in the different font. And has less swearing.

I would rather see the snow banks, I wash my car 3 or 4 times a week and hate to get it all dirty and wet again after I wash it.

First off, that first comma should be a period. A semi-colon might be ok, except that the second sentence isn't really related to the first. Way to write, jerkoff. Secondly, who in their right mind washes their car that often? I don't even wash myself that frequently.

My next door neighbors car is all rusted out because of all the salt on the road.

Try "neighbor's." Come on! Every keyboard has apostrophes. Give them a try.

I went down to store the other day and had to rewash it because of another car hit a big puddle and it was sand and salty.

This sentence gives me a headache. I assume that "store" is a car wash. And if you want your car to be clean for the entire winter, you have two choices. Keep it in the garage until spring, or cover it in some sort of car coat. This is New England; we get snow.

Hope it stays down in temp for a few more months like 10 or 12 degrees.

If the temperature stays in the teens until May, I will absolutely lose my mind. You'll see me wandering the streets wearing 3 coats, swearing at snowbanks and throwing snowballs at passersby. Or I'll be hibernating in my room with flannel sheets.

I keep my house at 84 degrees and my garage stays at 76 to keep my car warm.

Holy shit! That's too hot even for Kathryn, and she wraps up in blankets during the summer! And the garage is 76°!! This guy is obviously having an affair with his car. At this point, I am starting to think this is some asshole making shit up.

Oil has only costed me about $9,700.00 so far this winter so its not too bad here. I do heat my indoor swimming pool to so we can swim everyday. Maybe I should sign up for fuel assitance this year.

Let's ignore the fact that "costed" isn't even supposed to be a word. Do you see that dollar amount? What the fuck?!? That's more than I've spent on heating in the 5 years since I've moved out. Obviously this guy heats his pool, since that's completely relevant. And I swear to God, if they give out fuel "assitance" (which is probably like assistance, except for assholes) to jackoffs who keep their house at the same temperature as the Brazilian rainforest, I'm starting a riot. Let me know beforehand, and I'll loot you something nice.

I need to keep my money in the bank to make interest and not spending it all on oil and electric. Electric cost here is around 1,100.00 a month, guess thats not that bad.

Step 1 for saving money: turn the fucking heat down. And holy shit again, $1100 a month on electric? Does this guy wake up every morning and turn on every light and appliance in his house? That's almost a full year's electricity bill where I come from. Again, this is a brain-hemorrhage-inducing pair of sentences with a nonsense first sentence, another comma splice and another missing apostrophe.

Wilbraham is a tough place to live in because of the high taxes and things.

Yes, unlike other places in Massachusetts which are tax-free. Maybe you could save some of your oil and electricity money and use it to move to an easier place to live. Like downtown Springfield.

Got to go now as I have to fly to California tonight with my better half to have a nice supper and homemade chocolate pudding. Let it snow more and no rain. :)

What the fuck is going on in this sentence? He's flying to California for dinner? Man, I think it's a big deal when I go all the way to Northampton, and this guy's flying across the damn country. With his better half no less. Which, if you've forgotten, is his car that has probably been washed twice today. I like that he ends things with a smiley face, because I'm picturing this guy as a smiling jackass, batting at the keyboard with his hands and going, "Derrrrrrr!!?!?" any time letters appear on the screen.

Well, that was fun. If you really want to spice things up, try reading just his part all at once. But make sure you've taken some aspirin or something first, because there's a good chance that it will cause a blood clot or heart attack. Don't say I didn't warn you.

-Jon

So You Want to Be a Guinea Pig?

This actually isn't an opinion post, although I should have written one about Mission: Impossible 3. Maybe I'll do that later. Or tomorrow. Jeez, have some patience.

My goal this year is to develop my own recipes for meatballs, risotto and cheesecake. Separately of course. That would make one really weird combined dinner/dessert if they were all together. I don't want to call this a "resolution," because that way I won't have to feel bad if I fail. Besides, if you want resolutions, you can go read about beer. Or form your own resolutions and get off my case.

These probably sound like pretty random foods, but there's always a method to my madness. First off, everyone needs a good meatball recipe. Once you've had some quality homemade meatballs, that store-bought crap is only good enough for meatball grinders. And I can't be sitting around here waiting for other people to make meatballs for me. It's time to seize the day!

Next, I had risotto with my meal at Sadie and John's rehearsal dinner and then again at dinner the other night, and both times it was probably better than the main part of the meal. Both had some gorgonzola cheese, and the latter also had spinach and artichoke. That definitely seems like the kind of thing I could handle, and would offer another side dish to my repertoire, which is slightly thin at the present.

Finally, cheesecake is a fantastic dessert but absurdly expensive at restaurants, almost prohibitively so. So if i could make my own, maybe I could charge exorbitant prices and not have to get a real job! Or at least have some sweet cheesecake to enjoy. Either way really.

So where do you come in? Someone's gotta eat all this stuff when I whip it up or else I'll end up being like 350 lbs and needing a walker to get around. But then you have to tell me how to improve on the food. Hey, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

And no, I don't want your recipe. Or your cousin's. Or your aunt's. Or your grandmother's that's been passed down for 4 generations. Then it wouldn't be mine, now would it? Quit trying to steal my thunder, you insensitive clod.

-Jon

This Week in Lyrical Genius Volume III

Does anyone actually think these are funny? I don't know. I don't give a shit. Sorry about the delay, I've just been super busy lately. Katy Perry was on "How I Met Your Mother" on Monday so I figured I would make fun of her this week. As I'm sure you all know, Katy Perry rose to fame with her smash hit, "I Kissed a Girl." And if I remember correctly, I think she liked it. And since then it's just been nonsensical jibberish after nonsensical jibberish. Except for "Hot n cold." That song is my jam. But man, those boobs could sell anything. This week we have "Firework" which I can only assume will be as bad as Bruno Mars and Ke$ha. Not coincidentally, all three artists appear on Pandora's "Really Crappy Pop Music" channel . . . probably.

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag

Uhhhhhhh yeah, only always.

Drifting through the wind

Oh, well then nevermind.

Wanting to start again

I don't get it. I'm supposed to feel like a plastic bag. What am I supposed to want to start again? Holding more groceries?

Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
Like a house of cards
One blow from caving in

I don't know what that feeling is supposed to feel like. I think this song may be directed at fat teenage girls. "That Katy Perry with her incredible body and huge tits, she really understands the pain I'm going through."

Do you ever feel already buried deep
Six feet under scream
But no one seems to hear a thing

I'm not really getting these metaphors. Plastic bag, house of cards, a . . . zombie, maybe? But really I feel like a firework and I'm not sure she understands that.

Do you know that there's still a chance for you
Cause there's a spark in you
You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine

Now everybody sing, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Oh this little light of mine . . ."

Just own the night

You've gotta go out there and be the best damned woman of the night you can possibly be.

Like the Fourth of July
Cause baby you're a firework

What? She does know I feel like a firework? GAAAAAH SHE TOTALLY GETS ME! THIS SONG MAKES PERFECT SENSE NOW!!!!!!!

C'mon let your colors burst

What the fuck does that mean?

Make 'em go, "Oh, oh, oh"

Wait, hold on. Burst . . . "Oh, oh oh." Now get it. It's about sex. I think Katy Perry wants to see your "Oh, oh, oh" face.

You're going to leave them falling down-own-own

That makes sense if you're talking about sex (which clearly she isn't) but what does that have to do with fireworks? Who sees fireworks and is like, "Holy shit, this is too intense. I gotta sit down." This is the problem with today's music. Just throw a bunch of words together. Who gives a shit if they rhyme or make any sense. Throw a hot beat on that and we got a top 10 single. Fucking kids.

You don't have to feel, like a waste of space
You're original, cannot be replaced

If you feel like a waste of space, then you probably are. This is more of that, "Everybody's special" crap which is why kids are becoming a bunch of pussies.

If you only knew, what the future holds

Then it would be boring because you already know what happens. What? Bruce Willis is already dead the entire time in the Sixth Sense? FUCK! Now, I don't need to watch it.

/makes timely Sixth Sense jokes.

After a hurricane, comes a rainbow

Yeah, but is it a double rainbow? Then I'm not going to bother looking.

Maybe your reason why all the doors are closed
So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road

Your life is going to be nothing but kittens and rainbows and everything's going to be perfect. Puke.

-Slick

NBA Fans are. . .

obviously morons.

Yao Ming was voted as the starter for the Western Conference All-Star team. Yes, the Yao Ming for the Houston Rockets who played in a grand total of 5 games this year before getting hurt. The Yao Ming whose stats for the year are 51 points, 27 rebounds, 8 blocks and 4 assists. Total. That guy was elected to the All-Star team. As a starter. That's a major kick in the junk to every other starting center in the Western Conference. Granted, he's 15 of 16 from the free throw line. Apparently you just can't put a high enough value on that kind of performance.

Not elected to the All-Star team? Kevin Love, who in one game this year had 31 rebounds, which would be more than Yao's season total. He's also averaging 21.4 points per game, which more than doubles Yao's measly 10.2. Maybe Love's problem is that he's listed as a power forward and has to go for votes against guy's like Pau Gasol, Dirk Nowitzki and Blake Griffin. And also that the Western Conference isn't starting a power forward, which is just strange.

Also a moron is the guy who wrote an article about the All-Star team snubs and mentioned Joakim Noah. Now, I'm obviously biased against Noah because he's not on the Celtics and looks ridiculous, but I'm a reasonable person so I'll listen to the argument for his place on the squad. Until the guy supporting him (who is a writer for ESPN and not some random schmo) ends his blurb with the following sentence.

Thanks to injury, he has played just 24 games, and a lot of Chicago's best ball has come with Noah in funky street clothes.

So the team is playing great, and possibly better, without him, but he's an All-Star? Not buying it.

And sorry, NBA fans, you had your chance and you blew it. The All-Star game shouldn't be a popularity contest. It's not a high school election.

*UPDATE* - David Stern, the NBA commissioner, obviously reads this blog. It was just announced in the last couple hours that Yao's spot will be filled by Kevin Love since obviously Yao won't actually be attending due to injury. Thanks for reading, Dave!

-Jon

This Week in Lyrical Genius Volume II

Chris' "friend" Lindsay wants me to make fun of Ke$ha's "We Are Who We Are" and who am I to deny such a request? So, let's take a closer look at what is sure to be just an awful, awful combination of words.

Hot and dangerous
If you're one of us then roll with us

Already this song begins with a lie because if you've ever seen Ke$ha you know that she is nowhere near anything you could call hot. She looks like a thirteen year old boy. I was going to make a being attracted to 13 year old boys joke, but I don't want to get arrested. So . . . moving on . . .

'Cause we make the hipsters fall in love

I assume all you have to do to get a hipster to fall in love with you is to stop washing, well pretty much everything.

When we get our hotpants on enough

Oh yeah, and hotpants. Hipsters love their hotpants.

And yes, of course we does

Who wrote this song? The Family Guy manatees?

We're running this town just like a club

Oh, so then it will cost $15 to get in, $5 for a bud light and won't be very fun. Plus it will probably be filled with a bunch of Persian people. Fucking Persian people.

And no, you don't wanna mess with us

You are correct. I don't want to mess with a tranny in hotpants. Not again.

Got Jesus on my neck-uh-lace

I'm not going to claim to know very much about Jesus, but I can guarantee that he did not die in order to save people like Ke$ha.

Got that glitter on my eyes

Nothing screams "classy lady" like body glitter. No wait, that's not right. Oh yeah, nothing screams "dirty hooker infested with STD's" like body glitter. Honest mistake.

Stockings ripped all up the side

"Yeah, I had the stockings on. But how is a guy supposed to know I'm willing to fuck him out back on a dumpster if I don't cut them up the side?"

Looking sick and sexy-fied
So let's go-oo-h-oh, LET'S GO!

Tonight we're going har-har-har-har-har-hard

I'm a pussy and even I don't consider anything she's said to be hard.

Just like the world is our-our-our-our-our-ours
We're tearing it apar-par-par-par-par-part
You know we're superstars.
We are who we are.

This is stupid but I'm saving my hate for verse 2.

DJ turn it up
It's about damn time to live it up

Oh? What we've just been doing? That was child's play. NOW IT'S TIME TO LIVE!

I'm so sick of being so serious
It's making my brain delirious

Yes, god forbid you put three minutes into writing a song so it doesn't sound like complete crap.

I'm just talking truth

Did you think I was lying? No, honestly we are this hardcore. We hang out with hippies and wear hotpants and all sorts of stuff society doesn't want us to do.

Telling you about the shit we do

Ke$ha: Alright, so this one time we were out behind Old Man Jenkins' barn just wallowing in the mud with the pigs. You know, getting really, really dirty. And I was like, "Hey, should I take a shower before we go out?" And my friend was like, "Nah, just put on some stockings but rip them up the sides." SO THAT'S WHAT I DID! ARE YOUR FRIENDS THIS HARDCORE? I DIDN'T THINK SO.

We're sellin' our clothes, sleepin' in cars

Totally taking my welfare money to the hairdresser. Mama's got to get her hair did.

Dressin' it down, hittin' on dudes . . . hard.

But keep it real for a second, is there any other way to do it?

I can't believe people like this song. I can't believe somebody wrote this song and was like, "Yup, that's a winner." Going into this post if you were like, "Hey Bill could these lyrics be any stupider than Bruno Mars?" I would have been like, "That's impossible." Yet, here we are. At least Bruno's had a point, I think? I don't know. The worse part about writing these posts is that now I know all the words and can't get them out of my head. Excuse me while I go kill myself.

-Slick

Random Depressing Things

Apparently part of getting older is finding out that everything that was/is awesome is going to somehow let you down. For instance:

• Mick Jagger is 67 years old.
• Topanga is clearly on steroids.
• Teen Mom is a popular TV show.
• Jersey Shore is a popular TV show.
• V stayed on the air and Flashforward got canceled.
• I will never invent a time machine. Or I will invent one, but I'll turn into a huge douchebag and not use it to go back in time and give it to me now. Come on, future Jon, I need some sweet time traveling so that I can make the financial moves necessary to allow you the capital to produce the time machine later!

That is actually only a very small part of a brainful of sadness, but Slick has to verbally dissect some pop garbage tomorrow and he didn't want to have back to back lyrical posts. Or maybe he did. I only caught a short part of the conversation.

-Jon

This Week in Lyrical Genius Volume I

Ah, yes. A new year, a new post. And like most great ideas, I stole this one from someone else. Every week I'm going to check out the Billboard Top 100 and pick a song with shitty lyrics to make fun of. It shouldn't be too hard. Actual lyrics will be in bold. Opinions/commentary in normal font. This week in lyrical genius we have young cokehead Bruno Mars' offering "Grenade." Now initially, I thought this song was about fat chicks. Even after hearing it 10 times I thought it was about fat chicks and that's because I didn't actually listen to the lyrics. However, it clearly isn't about BBW, but I think it would have been a much better song had he gone in that direction. Nevertheless, let's see what Mr. Mars had to say:

Easy come, easy go
That's just how you live, oh

Slut.

Take, take, take it all,
But you never give.

Yup. Definitely a slut.

Should have known you was trouble from the first kiss,

I don't understand. This girl appears to have 0 redeeming qualities and apparently is also a bad kisser, but he's going to go on and list a bunch of absurd crap he would be willing to do for her. I don't know how to make the whipped sound via typing. Make the sound in your head. It should sound like, "wha-chiii" if that makes any sense at all. It probably doesn't. Either way, this guy sounds like a real bitch.

Had your eyes were open, why were they open?

Wait, that's not the way you're supposed to do it? I thought you were supposed to open your eyes as wide as possible so the other person can look into your soul. God dammit.

Gave you all I had and you tossed it in the trash
Yeah you tossed it in the trash you did

Gotta be honest, this girl is starting to grow on me. Seems like a real people pleaser.

To give me all your love is all I ever asked

That's not a completely unreasonable request when you look at the list of things he had considered asking for:
1. All of her love
2. A yacht
3. Cuba
4. Mount Fuji
5. Just some of her love

Personally, I would have gone with number 5. Either that or number 3.

Cause, what you don't understand is

Econometrics? That shit is hard.

That I'd catch a grenade for ya

That seems a little unnecessary. I think most girls would be happy with flowers or something that showed you cared.

Throw my hand on a blade for ya

I wouldn't do that. I almost cut my fingers off at work one time. It really hurts.

I'd jump in front of a train for ya

I would do this. It says nothing about whether or not the train is moving.

You know I'd do anything for ya

As long as it involves some sort of high risk scenario.

Girl: Hey Bruno, could you go and pick up some milk?
Bruno: No.
Girl: You have battle 12 ninjas to get there.
Bruno: Well why didn't you say so? Of course I'll do it. All that I require is all of your love.
Girl: That seems unreasonable.

Oh, oh
I would go through all of this pain

Why? Because dating a girl isn't painful enough? ZIIIINNNNNGGGG

Take a bullet straight through my brain

The only surefire way of killing a zombie according to "The Walking Dead." Really good show.

Yes, I would die for ya baby;
But you won't do the same

Oh boo hoo. This girl won't give up her life for you. "Why won't you die for me? I WOULD TOTALLY DIE FOR YOU TO SHOW YOU HOW MUCH I CARE!"

Verse 2: No, no, no, no

This might take a minute. He's still trying to make up his mind.

Black, black, black and blue; beat me til I'm numb.

Domestic abuse? I'm sure there's two sides to that story.

Tell the devil I said, "Hey," when you get back to where you're from

Is there anything more attractive than a demon from the underworld. If I had a nickel, right?

Mad woman, bad woman
That's just what you are, (yeah)

At first I thought this girl was an awful person, but I don't know, he seems a little overdramatic. I'm sure she's quite pleasant when you get to know her.

You'll smile in my face then rip the breaks out my car

WILDCARD BITCHES!

At this point the chorus repeats about her leaving his love in a landfill. Then there's a third verse but it's more of him whining how this girl didn't love him as much as he loved her. It might have something to do with the fact that he's super intense. The worst part about this song is now girls everywhere are going to expect men to jump in front of trains for them and do all sorts of ridiculous crap. Just you wait. When a girl wants to take you to an active mine field for a first date you'll believe me.

-Slick

Inception is. . .

really not that confusing, and a highly entertaining movie.

Disclaimer - as this post discusses movies, there will probably be spoilers. Even for movies that aren't Inception, because I write in a sort of rambling way and you never know where the conversation will head.

We watched Inception on Christmas Eve since it's obviously an appropriate Christmas-themed movie, so this post has been brewing in my brain for a while now. I remember when the previews for it came out like a billion months ago, I had 2 main thoughts: "Holy crap, that world is flipping upside down!" and "That's a lot of crumbling buildings on the beach there." It turns out that it wasn't really a beach, but oh well. Other than that, I had literally no idea what the plot of the movie was going to be.

Cut to the movie's actual release, and it seems that apparently no one else had any idea what was going on either. Really?

Because I am a cheap and lazy person (a dreadful combination for movie viewing), I rarely/never see movies in the theater. But a lot of other people must have gone to see this one since it's made like $800 million dollars. And nearly everyone had the same reaction, which was "WTF?!??!!!??!?"

Um, did these people actually watch the movie?

The short version of the plot is that Leonardo DiCaprio and his crew go into people's brains through their dreams and steal valuable information. Except that one time they try to hijack a super-powerful Asian businessman, and he doesn't take too kindly to it when he catches them. He decides that they can either do a job for him, or, presumably, be thrown off the top of a really high building. So Leo's crew teams up with Juno to do a super-complicated 3-tier dream raid. And as expected, things do not go as planned which leads to the movie's main plot. No big deal.

The mind-screw at the end is that you don't know how things really turned out. The last scene can be interpreted in a positive way (he gets back to his family, hooray!) or a negative way (he's stuck forever!!). Sort of like Minority Report or Total Recall. You can take those films at face value for the saccharine, happily-ever-after ending, or you can assume neither main character ever really wakes up and the entire thing is in their respective heads. Whoa. And I'm sure the internet is full of anonymous message boards with people formulating barely coherent, poorly written arguments on both sides for all three of these movies.

Regardless, the ending is the only thing in the movie that isn't clear-cut. But confusing? I don't really see it. Maybe you have to see the movie a bunch of times before your brain stops working and gets confused. But after one viewing, I am pretty sure I've got it.

As for movie quality, I'll be the first person to let you know that I don't have what it takes to be a movie critic. First of all, I don't see nearly enough movies. More importantly, the only thing I care about is whether or not the movie was entertaining. And somehow, that does not entirely coincide with whether or not the movie was "good." For example, movies can be utterly stupid, yet still be entertaining (see True Lies, Gone In 60 Seconds, The Rock, ok really any action movie with Nicolas Cage except Ghost Rider, the Ocean's # movies, etc). Are any of those movies great films? Probably not. Will I watch any one of them every time they're on cable? Probably. And in the oppostie direction, they can be incredibly well-reviewed or popular, but still suck donkey balls (see Girl, Interrupted, Titanic or anything that has Dane Cook in it).

But now I'm getting sidetracked.

Inception was a very entertaining movie. It had all sorts of explosions, a car chase, shootouts, a zero-gravity fistfight (which might violate everything about physics) and an ambiguous ending that could be interpreted in at least 2 ways depending on how pessimistic a person you are. And it was a wicked cool concept. Being able to screw with people's dreams would be an absolutely awful thing in the real world, but as a movie it's awesome.

Is it a movie that I'd watch again? Maybe. It was great, but it was also really long and all the crazy stuff that was surprising and fun the first time around might be played out during a second viewing. Sort of like seeing The Sixth Sense a second time. But the first viewing is super entertaining, even if you have to watch it on a TV that refuses to play DVDs and Blu-Rays at a normal volume and the people in your family who aren't watching the movie refuse to stop making a racket in the background. With all that working against it, Inception was still fantastic, so you should go watch it. And if you're confused afterwards, let me know so I can make fun of you.

Seriously, they stole the whole idea for Inception from Scrooge McDuck. How complicated can it really be?

-Jon