I knew it would be good! I knew it! Some people hated it. However, A lot of other, smarter people raved about it. I for one am raving about it. Here’s the thing, I’m sort of tired of logically defining every aspect of life. What am I, a scientist? Don’t get me wrong, me and logic are like peas and carrots, but peas also have another cooler friend called mashed potatoes, and mashed potatoes represent feelings and emotions. Sometimes I discard logic for feelings, and that’s what I’m doing with Inception.
Hey everyone, remember The Gimcrack Miscellany? It’s my blog. You’re on it now, and you’re reading an article. Remember those days? I can’t quit you, TGM! Good old blogging… it is always there to bring me a hot cup of tea when I’m feeling down, and talk to me while I fall asleep.
I have talked before about how it feels like we live in the future because of all the awesome things we have, no? Maybe that’s one of my 27 drafts that are waiting to be finished. In any case – cell phones, man. How in the heck can we talk to whoever we want with no delay? Also – flat panel TVs, dude. Do you realize we are seeing a crystal clear, insanely bright, fifty-five inch wide, high resolution image on an apparatus that is less than an inch thick? That’s a far cry from the overhead projectors we had in school. Oh and – the Internet. Think about that one. You can carry around a sleek little netbook and have access to EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD from almost ANY PUBLIC PLACE.
I have said that to say this: you’d think that in a world with iPhones, organic LED TVs, and Internet everywhere, everything else would follow suit and get better and faster. You’d be wrong. I’m about to point out something in the following sentences that you’ve never consciously noticed, but has been driving you crazy. Sort of like when someone finally turns off a device that has been making a bunch of background noise all along and you suddenly realize how annoying it was once they turn it off.
There are a lot of differences between professional football, basketball, and baseball. We know that football is the best out of the three, and even though basketball sucks, there is no question that it is a distant runner up. That leaves baseball as the odd man out. I have been pondering why baseball sucks so bad. Just look at the outfield stands during baseball home run highlights. I challenge you to find a clip where the stands are actually full. Usually, there aren’t even any fans in those stands. In fact, take a look at the following informative maps which show the distribution of baseball, basketball, and football fans in America:
I have been asked a few times why I hate Nickelback so much. Well, hopefully after writing this blog post I can answer that question in the future by giving the person the URL to this article. Thanks, past self. You’re welcome, future self.
I was in the car today and forgot my iPod, so I had to listen to the radio. I came upon a gem of a song. And by “gem” I mean “turd” and by “song” I mean “homeless man”. It’s called “If Today Was Your Last Day” by Nickelback, and it is one of the worst songs I have ever heard. In fact, the only worse songs I’ve heard have been other Nickelback songs, like the one where he says something about looking at a photograph and he’s asking what the hell was on his friend Jimmy’s head or something like that. I hope you never have to hear it.
Certain things stand the test of time. To name a few: The Beatles, Seinfeld, original Star Wars, and hhhhwhiskey. The question I want to ask, right here, right now, is hhhhwhy? Why do some things stand the test of time no matter how widespread they become, yet other things get real old, real quick? I think it is because of the quality of the product. The more time, energy, and skill that goes into producing something, the longer it will stick around (duh). But what is a concrete sign that something was made with a higher skill level?
The answer is discretion. Too much of anything is not a good thing, and it usually ends up ruining a product. If you put too much of any one ingredient in a recipe, you ruin the recipe. Refer to the previous examples I gave, and you will see that they definitely follow this important guideline because they have been built with intentional discretion. Everyone loves Newman from Seinfeld, but he actually plays a very minor role. This is because the creators wanted you to get excited when you finally did see him, which made people want to watch the show. In a sense, it makes the show sort of feel fresh and always new.
Seriously, moviegoers?! You liked Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen?
There are two explanations for the way I feel about the downward-sloping overall quality of movies over the past few years. 1) I am getting older and my taste has become more refined, or 2) greed has ruined the movie industry by encouraging quantity over quality. Seeing as how my favorite cuisine is Taco Bell, I own a Nick Lachey album, and prefer Miller Lite when it comes to beers, the first explanation has to be impossible.
So, it’s greed. Greedy movie studio executives (is that redundant?) are buying up film rights to old cartoon franchises faster than Grand Theft Auto fanboys were buying San Andreas before it was pulled from the shelves in 2005. However, placing the blame for terrible movies on film execs is like blaming GM for the decline of domestic automobiles. Film execs represent a corporation, which exists solely to make money. They will do whatever they can get away with to cause consumers (which in the case of GM includes the government) to spend money on their product. While it is because of filmmakers that films are terrible, it is not their fault. The blame should be placed on the American consumer. You. It is your fault.
Remember that broad who Kissed A Girl? Also remember that girl from The Happening? Well if you haven’t figured it out by now, they look exactly alike. And I’m the first one who pointed it out.
Click this post to play a little game where I’ve included a picture of each person and labeled them A and B. Your job is to figure out which is which. This is a new type of game semantic that I’ve created which you have probably never seen before, so if you get confused just read the comments.
It is sad that this post is the reason my blog has had so many visits over the last year. Whoa whoa, hold on there. I didn’t say I regret writing it.
The tallest structure ever built is complete. The Burj Dubai has been under construction since 2004, located in Dubai, UAE (that’s in the Middle East if you don’t know). It is one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen, in one of the most beautiful cities (structurally) I’ve ever seen. It is 2,684 feet tall with 160 floors, and it’s GIGANTIC. The record for tallest skyskraper in the world has been broken several times recently, but the Burj Dubai not only broke the record, it broke the record for how much a record was broken by. To give you an idea of how tall this building is, let me show you some images and compare it with other supertall buildings.
Did you know a gaggle only refers to geese on the ground? In the air they’re referred to as a skein. I don’t know why I told you that. Maybe you should Twitter it you twidiot1. I don’t always have time to Berate a movie after I’ve seen it because I have a job and a wife and there’s beer to be drunk and I’m too busy retweeting about Conan episodes that make fun of Twitter. J/k, what is a retweet? Is it something? Because I think I’ve heard of it. So I’ve decided that I still want to have a record of my reaction to movies I’ve seen even if I don’t have the time to write a full Berating, and in doing so I have made up my second new word of this blog post: Briefratings2. And you’re about to get a gaggle of them and agree with everything I write as usual. (I’ll do whatever I have to do to get you to comment on TGM).
District 9 is one of those rare gems where the cast is made up of entirely unknowns, directed by an unknown, and set in an unknown place (there’s a city in South Africa with buildings? is South Africa like a country or something? more ignorant questions). That’s why it’s such a good movie. It’s like Star Wars IV or Cloverfield or Napoleon Dynamite. I guess what I’m saying is it can only go down from here. So let’s all enjoy this movie while we still can. Everyone go out and see this movie and support directors that make special effects who are not Micheal Bay. Do it for the children.
This is today’s Penny Arcade comic strip. It is probably one of my favorite PA’s of all time. So simple. So Poignant.
There should be another panel with Rorschach from Watchmen stalking Batman stalking the Splinter Cell guy stalking the goon, and then even one more panel after that with Chuck Norris stalking Rorschach. Whoa.
Update – [...]
Twitter is a black hole. It is a singularity event. And it has been scientifically proven. I realize the image I made doesn’t make sense because the Twitter bird should be the actual black hole, not being sucked into it. So? Why don’t you go tweet about it.
This study done by Pear Analytics shows that most Twitter Tweets are meaningless and have no pass-along value. In fact, 40.5% of Tweets are classified as “Pointless Babble”, which is what I hate most about Twitter. “I just woke up and it’s raining outside.” Well whoopty-freaking-do. Tweeting something like that means only one of two things (ashasbeendiscussedquitefrequentlyatTGMbefore – lol): 1) you have no real friends to tell, or 2) your ego is so big that you think people actually care.
So how is Twitter a black hole? You’re about to find out.
Thursday, September 10th, at 8:30PM the Titans and Steelers will open the 2009 NFL season. I have embedded a convenient countdown timer for your benefit. Except I couldn’t put in a time so it’s counting down to midnight of September 9th. Close enough.
Around this time every year I usually do a blog post to get us hyped up for football season. For the 2007 season I posted an awesome Nike commercial that gets you hyped up no matter what. For the 2008 season I posted a funny Jim Mora commercial that will make you laugh as well as get you hyped up no matter what. Sometimes I even do it mid-year, like in December 2007 when I hit you with a post with awesome NFL photos which is guaranteed to make you wish you played in the NFL and also get you hyped up no matter what.
This year I have been inspired by the sound of music. I have obtained samples of all the various NFL themes. You will be surprised at how many of these you know, and how you didn’t realize they were actually different songs. Even if you’re a girl, or are not a football fan, or both, I guarantee you will recognize 90% of these themes. You won’t know how, but you’ll recognize them, I promise.
I know a girl who is probably going to read this and probably going to get upset with me because she is probably the #1 fan of Twilight ever. You know who you are. Look on the bright side, you got mentioned on TGM! You are now in the company of Katy Perry, Micheal Bay, Bill Bellichick, and Twitter. Except the difference is I hate all of them and I love you like a sister. Man, all I had to do was come up with this simple simple simple idea and I could have been on the front page of Digg today:
Chad Johnson or Ocho-Cinco or Blond-Fauxhawk wants to Tweet during NFL games. Apparently he has run out of things to distract him from actually playing good football: changing his name, dogging his teammates, doing dances in the end-zone, sporting a blond mohawk, pouring popcorn into his mouth through his helmet on the sidelines (or was that T.O?), etc. I think he should focus on scoring more than 4 measly touchdowns this season. Chad Johnson my friend you have just been burned by the eternal flame of TGM.
Isn’t it crazy how many people have died recently? I’m talking about famous people, who are worth at least 10 regular people. The recent events remind me of not one but two separate topics I have previously written about in this blog. The first is obviously Reference Burst Theory where celebrities die in threes, because within two days Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Micheal Jackson died (some would say there was a second wave with Billy Mays, Karl Maldon, and Steve McNair). But the second topic is what I would call your attention to now, and that’s the idea of people becoming proverbial saints upon death, which I touched on in my award-winning blog post entitled “Alive One Minute, Saint The Next” written in November 2007. Seriously, Everyone On Earth?! This Micheal Jackson stuff is getting ridiculous. That’s the end of this article so there’s no reason to click the title, sorry.
Michael Bay is a 15 year old boy trapped in a man’s body (and in the ’90s). He gets older, his movies stay the same age. I don’t know why I keep seeing his movies. I guess it is because when I was 15 I saw The Rock and it rocked (sorry) my 15-year-old little brain that desired nothing but violence/sex/wreckage/fast cars and had no time for character development, real-life situations, or dialogue. At the risk of sounding pretentious, Revenge of the Fallen is for one of two groups: A) 15 year old boys (or anyone with the mental capacity of a 15 year old boy), and B) people who are willing to forgo their dignity to publicly oggle over Megan Fox and Isabel Lucas for 2 hours (actually this is just another way of describing group A).
If you refer to the image I have conveniently included above, you will see a snapshot of exactly what this movie is: Shia is intense and scared, Megan is slightly less intense and scared and her breasts are half exposed, and they are surrounded by wreckage and GM cars. If that is what you want out of life then GO SEE THIS MOVIE RIGHT NOW WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR! Also when you’re done seeing Transformers rent the movie Idiocracy and tell me if you “get it” or not. You won’t.
