Happy New Year from ZFS!!!

A Panoply Of Meat

I've been in Texas for three days now and, in that time, I've managed to eat at least a little bit of the flesh from every creature that currently exists, every creature that has EVER existed, and last night I'm pretty sure I ate some unicorn.

So much meat thrust by the fistful into my greasy, gnashing maw... my veins run thick with beef fat, my sweat smells like grill seasoning, I've started pooping out whole pork chops...

MEAT! MEAT! MEAT!

A brief and incomplete rundown of all the meats I've eaten...

NOTE: Keep in mind, this is only a partial list; were I to name every kind of meat I've eaten in the last three days, I'd be typing until New Years and that is unacceptable. There is more meat to eat and I can't be kept from it for long.

-Bacon (obviously)
-Bacon & Egg Quiche
-Sausage
-Summer sausage
-Sausage stuffed mushroom caps
-Beef tenderloin
-Beef brisket
-Steak (which I recognize is also beef)
-Salami
-Sliced turkey
-Seared ahi tuna (it's sort of like meat in the sense that something had to die before I could consume it)
-A kaleidoscopic array of jerky
-Ham... glorious ham...
-A deer that I stalked through the woods and, after dragging it down by the neck, consumed whole under a full moon.
-The buttocks of a dead soccer player after a plane crash
-The rest of the dead soccer player
-A Yeti that crossed me
-Much too much squirrel meat (also, various "critters")
-A quart of goat's blood
-A gryphon
-Braaaaaains... BRAAAAAAAINS....

I'm sorry, I would love to stay and chat with you further, however a whole ox has just come out of our (very large and ox-shaped) oven and I must lay that magnificent bastard low. Take care, kiddos! Eat more meat!!!

Crazy early in the morning... barely slept last night... heading for the airport in 45mins to begin what promises to be a looooong day of travel and festivities... merry fucking Christmas...

NOTE: Is it too early to start drinking? How about if it's eggnog? And by "eggnog," I mean, "Everclear?"

Also...

Please Buy This Album

You're new holiday tradition has arrived! That's right, everyone's favorite blogger has recorded an album of Christmas tunes just in time for the holiday season! "But, C-dog isn't a singer? I heard him once at karaoke and he sounded like a moose dying from emphysema caught in the gears of an industrial soup-canning machine." Well, yes... it's true, C-dog hasn't been professionally trained as a song-stylist, nor can he play any instruments, technically carry a tune, or even remain upright long enough to mumble into a microphone. However, the story goes that a few weeks ago, C-dog broke into a recording studio on the outskirts of town, looking for... his words... "a place to shit in peace." What he found instead was a room filled with expensive audio equipment and, tragically, a refrigerator well-stocked for the following day's recording studio holiday party.

After consuming most of the alcohol, and after turning on the audio equipment (by smacking it with an empty rum bottle until all the lights lit up), he stumbled into the studio and magic was born!!!

When the technicians found him the next morning, he was passed out inside a large amp that he'd hollowed out for warmth. As they began to call the cops, they noticed that... in the dead of night... an album had been recorded. Could this diseased homeless man (they thought C-dog was a diseased homeless man) possibly have created an album so perfect, it was like some sort of Christmas miracle???

No. However, the Kings County district court has ordered the album's release anyway, hoping to dupe enough people into purchasing it with all proceeds going directly to the recording studio in an effort to offset the cost of the C-dog inflicted damage. So, please, won't you buy a little slice of C-dog's festive love and warmth? In the spirit of the season, perhaps, won't you open your wallet? Because, seriously, the legal fees are killing him over here!

TRACK LIST

"O Christmas Tree (What The Fuck Are You Looking At?)"

"Silent Fart"

"Deck The Halls With... Oh Shit, I Threw Up All Over the Halls"

"Who Wants To Kill And Cook Rudolph?"

"Fruitcake? I Wanted A Miata!!!"

"My Cellmate Likes To Cuddle On Christmas"

"Angels We Have Heard Get High"

"I Swear, Officer, She Told Me She Was An Elf"

"That's Not A Yule Log..."

"Dreidel, Dreidel, or, Throwing A Bone To The Jews"

"Mrs. Claus Needs A Boob Job"

"Carol Of The Bells" (actually just C-dog sobbing)

"A Methadone Clinic Christmas"

"Daddy Was A Pantsless Santa"

"Jingle Bells 2: Freddy's Revenge"

Happy Holidays From ZFS!

A lot of people are going to be travelling today and tomorrow, heading home for Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever pagan holiday you celebrate in a wild, hedonistic rush of egg nog-sloshing orgies and ritualistic murders out in the badlands past the edge of town. So, since most everyone will be drifting away from their computers (and, thus, my blog), I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and wish everyone a Happy Holidays now, before you're completely consumed with the minutia of familial festivities/hiding the bodies of all those hitchhikers.

So, yeah... Happy Holidays! Hope everyone has as good a time as possible in this current economic climate. I know things aren't going to be particularly holly-jolly for most folk this year; that's not necessarily your problem, but it should serve as a reminder to appreciate what you've got. In other words, don't be a dick about presents, wait until AFTER Christmas Day to tell the folks about your involvement in a heroin bust, and... for fuck's sake... just be nice to everybody. We're all stressed, we're all unhappy to varying degrees, life generally has found new and exciting ways to suck the souls right out of us... my point is, we're all in this together. Each and every one of us. So suck it up, bitches. Have a happy holidays. Or die trying.

Now... bit of programming info... Girlfriend and I are flying into Texas on Christmas Day and we're staying through New Years. No doubt there will be some posting on ZFS!, but it will be pretty light from now until 2009. When we get back to New York, however, it will be business as usual (such as it is).

Guess that's it. Safe travels, everybody, and again... seriously... happy holidays. Let's do our best to not let the brief time we spend with our families devolve into hurled invective, threats of violence, and cars set on fire as drunken revenge for wrongs real or imagined. Unless that's ACTUALLY part of your particular holiday's festivities. Then by all means.

Anyway, take care, kiddos!!!

-CLINT

A Message To The Happy Tourists Enjoying The Snow In New York City

A family from Fort Lauderdale, Florida attempt to build a snowman for the first time in Central Park during a snowstorm in New York December 19, 2008. (via Reuters)

Hey guys... having fun, there? Enjoying a magical Winter moment in our fair city of New York, are you? Ah... that's nice. And I see you're from Florida. Not a lot of snow down there, am I right? Ha! You crazy kids... it's fun to go on vacation, especially to an exciting place such as this. There's so much going on! Everyone is rushing around, going to Broadway shows and eating at Planet Hollywood! Exciting! The Big Apple! If you can make snowmen here, you can make snowmen ANYWHERE!!! Get it! It's just like the song, but winter-y!!!

Look... I'm happy for you, really. But I really think you should be aware of something as you're prancing about in the snow, creating memories that will last a lifetime before going to catch a matinee of Grease. Pay attention, okay? Just for a second. Yes, and then I'll tell you which way to the Empire State Building (although, not for nothing, it IS the tallest, most recognizable building in the city... you could kinda just... you know... look for that).

Here's the thing: The snow you think is so magical and photogenic... it fucking sucks. I mean, sure, it's pretty for about five minutes when it first starts to fall... I'm not made of stone; I recognize the beauty inherent in nature. HOWEVER, that shit gets old real quick. Especially when you're trying to get to a bar in the East Village and the whole of Cooper Square is a freezing swamp of deep, Abyss-like slush puddles and OF COURSE you step right in one up to your ankle and then you have to wear a wet, slimy, frostbite-inducing sock for the rest of the night. Nothing more miserable than that... nothing. It makes all your friends seem annoying and the drinks you drink taste like cat pee. The world turns ashen and grey; your soul curdles and rots.

Wet socks... man. They are the dark, hateful underbelly of your joyful, family-bonding-in-Central-Park, good time, Fort Lauderdale family, and I hope you take a second to fucking reflect on that.

Oh, and, a bunch of homeless people probably froze to death over the weekend because they passed out in an open area after drinking too much lighter fluid and/or shooting up the nasty skag you get on the Lower East Side out the back of a warehouse from a guy with a lot of homemade tattoos and a severe limp. So yeah... you're basically celebrating an agent of death, if you don't count the liver-destroying accelerants and the hard street drugs.

Anyway, have fun at the Empire State Building!

Quality Meats - Podcast #1 (Part 2)

Hey kids...

Here's the second, drunker half of the previously posted episode of our new podcast, Quality Meats. Once again, it's streaming over at East Village Idiot and, once again, I urge you to listen to it with an open heart, an open mind, and maybe you should take your top off, too. For added sexiness.

Anyway... Click Here For The Magic

The Worst Soda In The World

My curious nature and driving need to always be thrifty with my soda purchases has fucked me over, big time. But... c'mon... how could you NOT buy something called "Champagne Kola?" Particularly since the word "Kola" is misspelled in a zany fashion! Zany word play, in my experience, always equals a quality soda experience.

NOTE: C-dog knows that's technically how you spell the word "kola," in relation to the actual kola nuts from the rainforest that were once used to make soft drinks. He chooses to ignore this fact, so please don't bother pointing it out.

And their usage of the word "champagne;" that's just icing on the cake! I think champagne is fantastic, particularly if your friends have just gotten hitched or the world has made it through another year without blowing up (and... side note... I've often been called "The Champagne of the Blogosphere") So why shouldn't we take the high falutin concept of schmancy bubbly booze and apply it to our non-alcoholic beverages? It's genius idea wrapped in a blanket of joy (which was sewn by the Baby Jesus as an arts n' crafts project in Heaven's summer camp)!!!

So, anyway, I saw the Champagne Kola at the store last night and, rather than my usual el cheap-o grape soda, I bought it. $1.99 for three liters of a bargain mystery substance is just too exciting for me to pass up.

I brought it home, I chilled it in the fridge, and then I poured myself a big, honkin', hopeful cup of it's amber-colored awesomeness...

Except... it WASN'T awesomeness. It was whatever the OPPOSITE of awesomeness is. Barfsomeness, I guess. Oh god, kids... Champagne Kola is the worst soda in the world.

Let me see if I can describe to you the taste...

Okay, I think Champagne Kola might have started it's life as some form of cheap, bastardized cream soda. There's definitely that taste to it, but only faintly... a fart on the wind during a Springtime picnic. But it's origins hardly matter, as it appears that someone at the White Rose crap factory decided it would be a hilarious practical joke to dump an entire bottle of your grandmother's perfume into the Champagne Kola mixing vat. We're talking a strong and robust taste of flowers here, mixed with the sharp tang of a chemical I can't quite place... oven cleaner, perhaps. I'm not joking... this soda literally tastes like old-lady perfume. I've never experienced anything like it.

My question is... why? Why make a drink that tastes like that? To what end would it's creation serve? And what kind of sick fuck would actually, willingly drink a whole bottle of this stuff?

I mean, besides me, of course. Shit... it cost me two bucks. Like hell I'm letting it go to waste. Believe me when I say that I plan on mixing it wish just SO much booze. Because... as I hope I've made abundantly clear... this is some nasty stuff. Don't ever buy it, not even to use it on your enemies in a bid to quench your never ending lust for revenge.

No one deserves White Rose Champagne Kola... no one.

Snarky Cards & Super Alisa!

Every once in a while, I'll get solicited by strangers asking me to use the mighty, sensual power of ZFS! to help them hawk their wares. Usually I turn them down, as the people who contact me tend to be selling things of an unsavory nature... masks made of human faces, sculptures carved from poo, sweatshirts with swirly puff-paint designs and glitter, etc. I don't want my name, or the name of this blog, connected with offensive things like that; I *so* don't need another lawsuit (heads up... it's illegal to sell uranium out of your apartment, even if it's really just chunks of tinfoil in Ziploc bags).

However, sometimes... rarely, but sometimes... the solicitor happens to be selling something that's ACTUALLY awesome. Something that I think you, my unfairly handsome readers, might enjoy purchasing for your very own.

Kids, today is that sometimes.

I give you... Snarky Cards!!! Basically, they're delightfully obscene, hand-painted greeting cards and they are hilarious. They're created by a girl from Portland who goes by the name Super Alisa (that's her blog, there) and you should buy lots of them because THIS, my little lambs, is the kind of artsy-crafty endeavors we should all support.

To whet your appetite (and, perhaps, your pants), here's a few examples of the many, many varieties currently available. And remember... shop Snarky Cards for all your greeting card needs!

NOTE: I'm C-dog and I approved this message

2ND NOTE: NSFW-ish

Top Chef: New York - Episode 6

Previously on Top Chef...

Palate testing! Judge Gail's cleavage! Something Crappy! No more funny beards!

OPENING REMARKS

-This show is usually pretty awful with the constant, crammed-down-your-throat product placement, but... hoo boy... tonight they crossed a line. At the opening of the show, Contestant Hosea gets to call his sister to check up on their father who, it turns out, was diagnosed with cancer a week before the Top Chef competition began. All during said phone call... while, in voiceover, Hosea is telling us about how hard it is to be away from his family at a time like this... we're getting nothing but long, loving shots of the T-Mobile Sidekick logo on the back of the phone he's using. And we're talking fucking LURID shots... the camera lingers on the logo for an uncomfortable amount of time. If it were porn, it would be full-on penetration, no rubber. Way to use a guy's dying father to hawk cellphones, Top Chef. You stay classy.

THE SHOW

Let me say right off the bat that the whole "Martha Stewart" thing was WAY over-played. Bitch only showed up for the Quickfire! I mean, okay, she's Martha Stewart and probably has better things to do than hang around a fading reality show all day, but still. It was pretty clear she was just there to plug her book. I get it... it makes me want to fart on her, just a little bit, but I get it.

Anyhoo...

THE QUICKFIRE CHALLENGE

After everyone calms down about Martha walking among them (I guess to chef's she's like a Connecticut WASP rock star or something), the contestants learn that they have to cook a "one-pot wonder" holiday meal; i.e. cook something to serve over the holidays that only uses one pot to cook everything.

Oh... right... sorry, forgot to mention: It's Christmas. I mean, obviously it's Christmas for us in the hear and now, but it's ALSO Christmas for the contestants, even though they shot this over the Summer. Seriously, these kids should all win Emmys for their constant and consistent portrayal of people "in the holiday spirit." Needless to say, I rolled my eyes a million times at the constant invocation of faux holiday spirit, but whatevs... we covered all this during their pseudo-Thanksgiving episode.

So, the Quickfire Challenge: One-Pot Wonders. Chefs.... COOK!!! A bunch of stuff is made, all in one pot as per the rules. I was half-expecting someone to be stupid and use multiple pots, if not a standing charcoal grill and a panini press, because there's usually one knucklehead in the group that can't follow directions but... nope. Everyone pretty much towed the line. A paella is made, (which looked delicious), there are a bunch of hurried stews, and some polenta (from the Italian Stallion) that was ass-y, among others.

Martha hands forth her judgement: The losers are Fabio, because his polenta is grey (and ass-y, as mentioned), Eugene, because he used corn starch in his Korean-inspired soup, and Jeff, for making potato risotto, which is a thing that doesn't even exist.

The winners are Hosea, for his paella, Jamie, for something with scallops (and managing to not be a total bitch to Martha Stewart, probably because she knew Martha's been to prison and would shank her), and Ariane, who apparently just used her last wish because she is crowned the eventual winner; no going home for her... at least not this episode. That, for those of you keeping score at home, is three challenges won for her in the last three episodes. Hooray for moms everywhere, I guess.

Then things get weird...

To introduce the Elimination Challenge, we have... the Harlem Gospel Choir! And they're singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas!" Huh? Exactly. It's lovely music, don't get me wrong, but it's CLEARLY the manifestation of a producer going, "Holy shit, we don't have anything New York-y in this episode!"

THE ELIMINATION CHALLENGE

And once again, we're back to the show being Top Caterer. This time, it's for a big AIDS charity benefit and... here's the twist... the contestants have to each create an hors d'oeuvre that relates to one of the days in the aforementioned song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

WHAT. EVER. You can tell from the onset that all the chefs are soooo over this kind of bullshit, and frankly, so am I. Look, I get that they have to keep things gimmicky and whatever to hook people in but... c'mon... this is just stupid. And everyone on the SHOW knows it's stupid. Let me put it to you this way: The whole concept of tying the dish to one of the days from the song DOESN'T EVEN COME UP DURING THE POST-EVENT JUDGEMENT!!! It clearly was regarded as an inessential part of the challenge, which begs the question... why even bother if you're just going to ignore it?

Anyway, for the record, here's what the contestants came up with...

Twelve drummers drumming - Stefan - some sort of deconstructed chicken pot pie (using the drumsticks... drumming... GET IT?!?!)

Eleven pipers piping - Hosea - a smoked pork loin thingy (use smoke with a pipe... piping... GET IT?!?!)

Ten lords a-leaping - Jeff - seared Greek cheese with a beet salad (he was using different cheese from a bunch of different islands and, thus, "leaping" from island to island... GET IT?!?!)

Nine ladies dancing - Fabio - Crab cakes (because crabs have legs and legs are what you use for dancing... GET IT?!?!)

Eight maids a-milking - Hillbilly Deluxe - Big wad of a bleu cheese with a tiny snippet of steak (because you get cheese from milk... GET IT?!?!)

Seven swans a-swimming - Jamie - A raw scallop in vichyssoise (the scallop is "swimming" in the soup... swimming... GET IT?!?!)

Six geese a-laying - Ariane - Deviled eggs six ways (because the geese are laying eggs... GET IT?!?!)

Five golden rings - Eugene - Some sort of ceviche in a spoon served with a pineapple ring (which is golden... and a ring... like in the song... GET IT?!?!)

Four calling birds - Not chosen, as there's only eleven contestants... way to fuck up the theme, guys.

Three French hens - Leah - Guinea hen with some squash goop (because it's a hen, though I think she might have mistaken Italian for French... GET IT?!?! ETHNIC SLUR!!!)

Two turtle doves - Carla - Chicken with mushroom caps (because the cap of the mushroom looks like a turtle's back.... GET IT... er... actually... HUH?!?!)

And a partridge in a pear tree - Rhadika - Duck with a pear chutney (because... well, actually this one is pretty straight forward!!!)

God, that was exhausting to write out. I can only imagine it was as painful for you to read. Glad we're suffering together... I really think it's bringing us closer. Can I borrow some money?

Anyway, they do all their prep work and leave off for the night, intending to return in the AM to wrap everything up and get it ready for the event. However... TRAGEDY STRIKES!!! When the contestants arrive back at the kitchen, it's discovered that someone (my guess: a drama-craving producer) has left one of the refrigerator doors ajar. The food therein... spoiled and teeming with gut-destroying bacteria. Into the garbage it goes! Rhadika and Hosea are the two hit hardest by this unfortunate mishap, however... and this is why I remain a Top Chef fan season after season... the other cooks in the kitchen all pitch in to help them remake their dishes with the food on hand.

Seriously... I can't think of another reality show where the other contestants would actually go out of their way to help one another, and I can think of... just off the top of my head... three separate instances over the last few years where it's happened. It's just nice to see a reality show where people have the capacity to be decent human beings to each other on occasion. Even if it's not out of the kindness of their hearts... to paraphrase Stefan, "I helped them because, if I'm going to win, I want to win it fair." Hey man, good sportsmanship is admirable too.

Anyway, they get it together and head off to the big, schmancy event.

There's a bunch of people in pretty dresses and sharp-looking suits, Natasha Richardson... who's the sexy older lady married to Liam Neeson... is introduced as the guest judge, Jeff and Hosea get all flirty with the ladies, and some other stuff happens that's too boring to write up.

What's important is that, basically, all the food... to varying degrees... sucks. Even the dishes that are noted as being the best of the evening are merely good, not great (for the record, Hosea, Rhadika, Stefan, and Jeff were deemed the least sucky). Hosea ultimately wins and, as he should, makes a point of saying that his dish was a group effort because everyone pitched in to help him overcome Fridgegate and he loves everyone and so on and so on. It's nice and people hug.

The losers of the night...

Jamie... her scallops in soup were lukewarm and slimy.

Eugene... his ceviche was crazy sweet; a fact which he refused to acknowledge.

Hillbilly Deluxe... her dish was basically just a piece of bleu cheese.

The Judges debate the three losing dishes for a minute, but the conversation swings back around to the fact that, really, ALL the food that night was pretty lousy. Colicchio decides to go have a talk with the the remaining contestants/kick them all in the ass for making the show boring as shit this season (that part is unspoken, but implied).

He reads them the riot act, specifically calling out Ariane for being a lame-o deviled egg maker, and strongly suggests that they all get their acts together, immediately. Then he tells them that... in the spirit of this Christmas-themed episode shot in August... and because they all pitched in to help others like good little campers... NO ONE IS GOING HOME THIS EPISODE!!!

It's a goddamned fake-Christmas miracle!!!

Next week on Top Chef...

No limitations! A new regular judge! Who looks like Colicchio's fey younger brother!

The Twenty Things I Most Enjoyed This Year: An All-Encompassing Mega-List

Ah, the end of the year... a time for reflection, a time for drinking champagne until you puke into someone's decorative umbrella stand, a time for... above all else... ranking all the things you enjoyed over the past 365 days in order to best reflect your personality without having to actually put forth the effort of connecting to another human being on a deep, emotional level. If, per Nick Hornby, we are what we like, then the end of the year is THE prime time to take stock of who exactly we think we are and... once everything has been appropriately quantified and numerically ordered... present it to the world in the hopes that someone else will like the things we like and, thus, like us too.

Gotta love the shallowness of humanity.

Anyway... so I've made my list (I am not above shallowness). However, it's a little different than some of the others floating around the interweb... See, thing is, I'd love to write a Top Ten Movies list and Ten Best Albums list and so on and so forth... I, like a lot of late-20's American males, get off on that sort of thing. However, my consumption of movies, of albums, of books , TV shows... well... it just isn't that great or prolific or whatever you want to call it. And what I do consume, half of it isn't even FROM this year! Being uninformed makes for poor list-making, sadly. But that's okay... I've developed a loophole:

My big, hairy, fancypants End of the Year list will consist NOT of the things I enjoyed most that bore a release date of 2008! NO!!! It will simply be the things I enjoyed the most... period; the twenty things from all the mediums that, for lack of a better phrase, melted my butter during the last twelve months. I am a trailblazer.

So, without further adieu, I give you C-dog's 2008...

THE TWENTY THINGS I MOST ENJOYED THIS YEAR

20. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia - All credit goes to Ex-Cubicle-Mate Andrew for turning me on to this gloriously nasty, retardedly funny show. Never has meanness been so entertaining.

19. ”The Millionaire” by Dr. Hook- My favorite song of the year, hands down, and it was recorded in 1975. It tells the tune of a regular slob loser who's totally whatever except for the fact that he's... you know... ridiculously wealthy. It think we can all relate, or at least we wish we could.

18. Cloverfield - Yes, this did come out in 2008; January 18th, to be exact, so it only barely counts. But a ridiculously early release date doesn't change the fact that this was easily one of the best, most inventive genre pics on screen this year. Let me put it to you this way: I only saw it once, on the day after it opened, and I'm STILL thinking about it now. I think that says everything there is to say.

17. In The Heights original cast recording - The only reason this hip-hop, Latin-flavored musical isn't higher on my list is because... sadly... I haven't technically seen it (yet). I have, however, listened to the soundtrack so many times that I could fill in for any of the leads (females included) if they come down with the flu.

16. The Office (US) - This one is sort of a cheat, as I've been watching The Office for the past two years. HOWEVER, during my time of unemployment, this show has taken on a whole new life for me. Through the magic of Netflix Instant, I've been able to rewatch the entire series from the beginning... and rewatch it again... and again... Some might say that I've latched on to a show that's, nominally at least, about working because I myself am currently not, however, were that actually the case... well, that would just be sad. So let's just say that I've been obsessively viewing The Office because it's a brilliant comedy with a flawless cast who are all my friends now in the workplace in my brain. We get up to shenanigans.

15. Half-Life 2 - I'm not much of a gamer, per se, but I do have an insatiable bloodlust that must be quenched every so often and damned if Half-Life 2 isn't just the Gatorade to get the job done. Lots of weapons (including a nifty gravity gun), difficult but not impossible AI, and... of course... zombies. What more could you ask for in a game? Okay, boobies, but that's all it's missing.

14. The stand-up of Mike Birbiglia - Deeply funny, but not caustic or mean; listening to Mike Birbiglia do stand-up is like having your best friend tell you stories in a manner that causes you to hork beer out your nose. He's got an Off-Broadway show right now, so he's not really touring, but his DVD What I Should Have Said Was Nothing is available for your renting pleasure.

13. Rock of Ages - You know what sounds ass-y on paper? A campy musical where all the songs are 80's hair-metal tunes by the likes of Journey and Warrant and Poison. But you know what totally kicks ass and melts faces and leaves you walking out the theater feeling uplifted and awesome in actual application? The same.

12. Let The Right One In - A seamless blend of coming-of-age teen melodrama and an icy, vampire thriller, Let The Right One In makes that OTHER teens-as-bloodsuckers movie look like a pile of Hot Topic-approved diarrhea.

11. Weeds - Over the summer, Girlfriend and I burned through the DVDs of two excellent pay-cable shows in their entirety; this was the first one. Hilarious, sharp-witted and surprisingly moving, I intend to follow the Botwin clan to wherever their crazy drug-dealing lives may lead. A special nod to Justin Kirk; as the main character's n'er-do-well brother in law, he is putting forth one of the best televised comedic performances of the last ten years. The fact that he hasn't been showered with praise and awards and isn't headlining major Hollywood movies is travesty.

10. ”Re-Arrange Us” by Mates of State - This album got really bad reviews when it was first released... and... yet... it seems to be popping up on a lot of Best Of lists for something so supposedly awful. Just goes to show you that insanely catchy power-pop will not be denied, even if the critics don't at first think it's "cool."

9. Roger the Alien - The most drop-dead funny animated character since Homer Simpson. American Dad! is kind of hit or miss (more hits than misses these days, but still), but anytime Roger is on screen... I'm a-laughin'. Turns out a Paul Lynde impression and multiple costume changes is the recipe for comedy gold.

8. Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog - Joss Whedon, generally, can do no wrong. Add to that the one-two punch of Neil Patrick Harris and Nathon Fillion, a bunch of Broadway-ready musical numbers, and a shockingly bleak ending and you've got cold, hard proof that the internet is the new horizon for must-see entertainment. In twenty years, when everything is produced via the web, we will look back at the release of Dr. Horrible as the singular moment that changed the way we consume our media.

7. The sci-fi novels of Jonathan Lethem - Mainly "As She Climbed Across The Table," but also his short story collection "The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye." Hands down, the most inventive, crazy-go-nuts books I've read in a long-ass time. It's shit you read that makes you feel humble because there is NO WAY you could have ever thought of the stuff he comes up with.

6. ”Alligator” and “Boxer” by The National - If Leonard Cohen was 28 and in a Brooklyn-based indie rock band, it would sound almost like... but not quite as good as... The National. The songs they produce are, quite simply, transformative. If you're looking for a soundtrack to a broken-hearted cross country drive, look no further than these two end-to-end stellar albums.

5. Frost/Nixon - The televised political interview presented spectacularly as a life-or-death duel. The filmmaking itself is top-notch, but the movie shines pretty much exclusively due to it's lead performances; Michael Sheen as Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon are both at the top of their game and a true pleasure to watch.

4. Mad Men - Holy shit, how excellent is this show? I've only seen the first season at this point, but it basically knocked me on my ass from the first scene onward. Cannot wait until season two is released on DVD; am considering inventing time travel to help speed things along. Also, where has Hollywood been hiding Jon Hamm?

3. Six Feet Under - This would be the OTHER pay-cable show Girlfriend and I burned through. And... wow. It's hard to put into words how much this show affected me. I'm not going to say it's perfect... season four, in particular, is a little shaky... but by the end of the series, if you're not curled up in a ball in a puddle of your own tears, then you are a fucking robot. Six Feet Under hits consistently and thoroughly with the power and force of an atom bomb.

2. The Dark Knight - A superhero movie that reminds one more of The Departed than of anything from the DC archives, The Dark Knight did nothing less than reinvent the summer blockbuster and, almost as an afterthought, blow all our minds clean out of our heads. A flawless movie from every angle, PLUS it contains Heath Ledger's Joker... as iconic a villain as our times will ever produce.

1. ”Stay Positive” by The Hold Steady - This earns the number one spot for one reason... when I'm eighty and living in a nursing home, I will STILL be listening to this album. An instant classic about nothing loftier than boozing and partying and sleeping around, "Stay Positive" manages to remind you of how much fun you've had in your life AND keep you focused on how much there is out there to live for. It's a laid-back epic masterpiece and, seriously, my favorite thing of 2008.

Ways To Beat Your Depression

The economy is in the toilet. You've more than likely been laid off... and right before Christmas, no less. The heady excitement of Obama's Presidential victory has worn off and we've now realized just how much work we, as collective people, have to do to right our country's metaphorical ship. It's Winter and, thus, gross outside. Another entertainment-industry strike is looming right around the corner. The cashier at 7-11 called you "ma'am," which is distressing enough if you're an age-conscious woman, but is downright unsettling if you're a guy. (maybe you should lay off the make-up... just sayin')

Things, generally, suck out loud. So it's perfectly understandable if you're currently crippled with depression. Hell, I'm the most happy-go-lucky person I know and even I can barely will myself out of bed in the morning; frankly, I wouldn't even bother if I had some sort of chamber pot (or even a dented, rusty bucket).

So, to that end, let's discuss some things we can all do to perk ourselves up a little bit... we're nearing that special time of year, after all, where we gather with family to eat ourselves stupid and exchange presents and drink so much of Uncle Hank's "special" egg nog that we go blind until New Years (the secret ingredient: shoe polish). It would be a bummer to spend the holidays all crushing sorrow bummed out and scary, alone-in-a-darkened-room drunk.

Let's think happy thoughts! Let's get ready for the most magical time of the year! Let's perk the fuck up, motherfuckers!!!

Ways To Beat Your Depression, or "I'm smiling so much, it's beginning to freak out the cat!!!"

-Look at yourself in the mirror and say positive, life-affirming things. If you're sickened by the very sight of the fat, old person your youthful, hopeful self turned into, tape a picture of George Clooney to your mirror. Say positive, life-affirming things to George Clooney.

-Find a TV show you like... one that's got an extended run, preferably, for variety's sake... and watch it constantly. Try to never stop watching it. Repurpose the rent money towards the complete series on DVD. Pretend the characters are your friends. Your best friends. You know what show works really well for this? Friends. Also... Law & Order, because you and your best friends get to solve mysteries!!!

-Never underestimate the dulcet rush of shoplifting. You get lots of new things that don't cost you a penny, PLUS you've added a dash of danger and excitement into your life! The downside is, of course, being humiliated by a mall cop outside of Spencer's Gifts because you weren't quick enough in getting that black light poster down your pants, but hey... you have to take risks in order to live, man. Besides, it's a SWEET black light poster.

-Learn to cook! Or at least learn to microwave better.

-Order some Xanax online from Mexico. Throw half the bottle in a blender with a handle of gin, some pineapple juice, a fistful of strawberries, one whole banana, and the rest of the bottle of Xanax. Blend until smooth and creamy. It's called "The Fruity Psychiatrist" and three glasses a day will keep you pleasantly happy and full of love until your internal organs shut down and you die from sepsis. But what a way to go!!!

-Drown yourself in ice cream. Literally. But make sure you finish the job... no one likes to explain to the ER doctor why they've got half a pint of Chunky Monkey lodged in their nasal passages.

-Ever thought about voodoo? Couldn't hurt. The worst that could happen is you feel silly having bought so many whole chickens and containers of goats blood and maybe you get candle wax in the carpet (ceremonial voodoo candles are notoriously drippy). BUT... what if it works? Then you've got stick-pin effigies of your boss to torture and you've got an army of voodoo zombies to do your bidding; i.e. crush your enemies and bring you McDonald's cheeseburgers. Score! Oh, be warned, though... you might accidentally awaken dark forces from another dimension that will tear asunder the fabric of reality and wreak bloody havoc on our world. If that happens, just tell the cops you thought you were making a pleasing, Caribbean stew.

-Get dressed to the nines... new clothes, your hair just right, a nice splash of cologne or perfume... before you head down to the unemployment office to pick up your check. Let them think you found under-the-table work as a fancy hooker; it will make you feel amazing and they can't prove shit!!!

-Track down your high school sweetheart through Facebook. Write them a long email detailing exactly how wonderful your life would be had they not dumped you. Sign it, "Soon To Be Dead By My Own Hand." If they call you, try to cry hard enough to earn some pity sex. If they DON'T call you, send them a piece of flair that shows a sad looking kitten with the caption, "I'm Sowwy." Then try to have them arrested for selling heroin to toddlers. Either way, you can consider it a moral victory.

-Go to karaoke with your friends, but be that one guy or gal who's real serious about it and demands that everyone listen and then gets all emotional while belting out "Eternal Flame" by The Bangles. Your friends will hate you, but that's a small price to pay for ruining their good time. Fuck them for having fun. You're depressed and everyone else should be too!!!

Quality Meats - Podcast #1

Update: Quality Meats is now streaming over at EVI; clicky-clicky the link below for all the podcast-y goodness sans downloading

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Ooookay, the podcast is up! Or at least it's available for download... we're still working out the kinks of getting the thing actually embedded into our blogs (so you can stream it directly into your ears), and by "we" I mean "Chris over at East Village Idiot." If it were up to me, the entire podcast would consist of a single photograph of the three of us screaming into a computer with accompanying text describing how hilarious we were being at the time the picture was taken.

Anyway, here's me, Chris, and Mike with the first edition of...

Quality Meats

NOTE: Keep in mind, this is our first go at the whole podcast concept. We think it turned out pretty well, all things considered, however helpful criticism is always appreciated (even though it makes me cry hot tears of rage). Hope ya like it!!!

Programming Notice

Update: We've recorded the podcast and it went well. Or, rather, we had a lot of fun recording it... it wasn't just awkward silences punctuated by long, mournful farts, as I'd secretly feared it would be. In truth, it was a rollicking good time and hopefully that will translate over into listening enjoyment. Fingers crossed, kiddos!!!

Oh, and we've decided to name the podcast... "Quality Meats."

Because we are and it is.

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Just wanted to let you kids know that I'm starting a new project today with Chris over at East Village Idiot... specifically a podcast. We're going to be talking about all aspects of pop culture for your general amusement but... as a bonus... we'll also be drinking heavily. Hopefully it will prove interesting and, when it goes live over on EVI (this is his baby), I'll make sure to post a link here so you can all listen to it and learn from it and we can grow together as one united community of people with internet connections a lot of time to kill.

This podcast should be, at it's best, an insightful and hilarious look at the cultural ephemera of today and how it helps to shape our worldview in these troubled times.

At worst, I'll drink too much liquor with a funnel and throw up on the computer and Chris will punch me in the face. (if that happens, we'll take pictures)

Either way... you don't want to miss it!

NOTE: Details, including the start date as well as a tentative schedule, to follow.

2ND NOTE: Aren't you excited about FINALLY hearing my voice??? Do I sound like Lou Rawls or Tiny Tim (the ukulele player who married Miss Vicki on Carson, not the Dickensian cripple)? Tune in to see!

I Am Weakness

Okay, so you remember the other day when I made a big hairy deal about how I was giving up beer and beer was the devil and, hey beer, FUCK YOU, etc.? Right... well, I really stuck to my guns. Not a drop of beer passed these supple, pouting lips and I felt healthier, wiser, less bloated and headache-y, and not as prone to taking swings at deli proprietors that disallow my purchase of ten Snickers bars because they don't want to be culpable when my heart seizes up from sugar shock... I felt good, kids! And refreshingly felony-free.

But then, as is so often the case with me, my willpower began to crumble. Slowly at first... I'd find myself taking long, lingering strolls through the grocery store beer isle... not to fill my cart with sudsy goodness, perish the thought, but just to... you know... visit some old friends, make sure everyone was doing okay.

And then, while watching TV, I'd find myself quietly weeping during Bud Light commercials. Ads for Guinness made me suicidal with grief. Watching football became a roller coaster of emotions and I was put on round-the-clock observation. I was forced to give up my belt and my shoelaces.

It was a grim scene and it only promised to get grimmer...

Finally, last night, with a mournful wail and a thunderous roar heard all the way over in New Jersey, my willpower crashed to the dirty, shameful ground. I bought beer... a six pack of Yuengling Black & Tan longnecks... and, oh weeping Jesus, they were magnificent bastards of light and mercy! So rich, so tasty... so... sexy...?



Oh baby, that's what I like. I mean, c'mon... HOW am I supposed to resist that? All pin-up gams on the bottom and a top that's nothing but malty wonderment frosty cold and right there begging to be drunk. Not a man alive can say no to the sexy, sexiness of beer. And those that can are all dead inside.

I am weakness, yes. But that's okay. For I am only human.

Next week... C-dog tries to give up Cheez-Its! People are gonna fucking die!!!

Top Chef: New York - Episode 5

Previously on Top Chef...

Breakfast bites! A heartbreaking challenge of staggering shark-jumping! Kathy Lee Gifford spits! Mom wins! The anonymous Latino loses!

OPENING REMARKS

-I'm going to once again attempt to keep this as brief as humanly possible. The fact that I'm dead tired and the tiniest bit hungover will, I'm sure, help to keep the word count down. (my brain wants to pack it's knives and go) Update: I was sadly unable to keep this post short. Fail.

-Hillbilly Deluxe (Melissa) wears, through most of the episode, a too-large, green, trucker hat turned backwards and cocked at a jaunty angle. Every time she was on camera, it was like I was getting misted in the eyeballs with bleach. There are unfortunate fashion choices and then there are fashion choices that should get you thrown in jail. Just sayin'.

-I would seriously rather have my balls pan-friend and served to hungry party guests with a light dipping sauce than watch one of those The Housewives of... shows that Bravo keeps trying to shove down our throat. If I wanted to watch old whores argue, I'd go hang out at Port Authority after midnight.

THE SHOW

After last week's harrowing dip into the murky, Emeril-fouled pool of celebrity chefdom, I was quite frankly fucking scared about the direction Top Chef was headed this season. That challenge, as I said, was bullshit times a zillion; a pandering offense to all the die-hards that have watched this show primarily for it's integrity lo these many seasons. Turning on the TV tonight, I was a little nervous as to what we were going to see...

Fortunately, my old-lady worrying was all for naught. Tonight's episode was MUCH better... not that that was a high bar to clear or anything, but still. It wasn't a definitive episode... no new ground was broken... but it at least felt like an episode of Top Chef. It was once again the show we know and love. We'll just go ahead and consider last week a fluke and never speak of it again, m'kay?

Now... on to tonight.

Starting off, there's a whole bunch of choppily edited bits thrown together to convey a single message... everyone thinks Stefan (the Swedish Chef) is an asshole, horrible bully, raper of babies, taunter of the retarded, etc. Bravo has officially bestowed upon him The Villain Edit, meaning they're trying their hardest to make him look like this season's bad guy. Except... I don't know... maybe it's just me, but he actually doesn't seem all that evil. A little terse, maybe... he's definitely a bit of a know-it-all... and, of course, he's European, which in the rules of TV means he's just awful (unless he's charmingly European like Italian stallion Fabio). But evil? The villain? Nope... sorry. The other contestants don't like him because he's CLEARLY better than they are and Bravo is using their panicky, snide comments to create his nefariousness out of whole cloth.

Not that this is surprising... Bravo does this with one contestant every year... but that doesn't make it any less annoying. Particularly in this case, where it's even less justified than normal.

THE QUICKFIRE CHALLENGE

I actually really dug the QC this week; it's a twist on a Top Chef staple, the palate-checking, name-that-ingredient-by-taste-alone competition, and it went down like this:

The chefs paired off and were placed, two at a time, in front of a pan full of sauce. They're given fifteen seconds to taste said sauce, then... Name That Tune-style... they had to declare how many ingredients they could name. The winner of a coin toss got to declare first; "I can name five ingredients." The other person could call their bluff ("okay, name five ingredients) OR they could raise them, ("I can name six ingredients"). If the person tasked with naming ingredients was able to do so correctly, they won. If not, the other person won. The winner moved on to the next round, the loser... well, didn't.

So they did this for three rounds... the sauces, for those of you keeping score at home, were a shrimp and lobster bouillabaisse, a Thai green curry, and, for the final round, a Mexican mole sauce. The contestants in the final round... the three with the golden palates.... were Crazypants Carla (who kept doing this weird, throat-vibration thing every time she tasted the sauces; it was creepy), Stefan (boo! hiss!), and Hosea (who's still on the show, apparently). Carla knocked herself out of the challenge on the first try by claiming that the mole had peanut butter in it... I guess her crazy is only containable for two rounds... so that left Stefan and Hosea to battle it out. They trade ingredients for a minute but, ultimately, in a surprise move, Hosea wins out, vanquishing Grendal back to his swampy cave. Thus, Hosea has immunity.

THE ELIMINATION CHALLENGE

The big challenge this week is to create dishes for judge Gail Simmons's bridal shower.

A word about judge Gail: Babe.

And, if I may be a rank, sexist pig for a moment... lovely cleavage from her this week. Bravo, it should have it's own show.

Now, because this is Top Chef, we can't have the contestants just cook food without their being a slightly douchey, arbitrary rule to trip everyone up. This week, it's a doozy... since Gail is getting married, the contestants are divided up by the Knife Block of Choosing into teams of three, each team representing one quarter of the phrase, "Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue."

What? Exactly. Let's break it down.

Team Old

Hosea, Stefan, and Hunky Jeff

They decide to do a "trio of heirloom tomatoes," because heirloom tomatoes are non-hybrid fruits, meaning they're directly related to the generations of tomatoes before them and, thus, old. Or something. It seemed to make sense to everyone and, honestly, I can't think of any other way they could have gone with the concept of old food. Were it me, I'd have just served them rotten meat in protest of the dumbass "twist, " but then again I'm not that creative.

Anyway, they end up with a spicy gazpacho (yum), a tomato terrine (which looked like a bruise), and a tomato sorbet (which sounds gross but was apparently fantastic).

Team New

Carla, Eugene, Daniel

Otherwise known as Team Crashing, Burning Disaster. They decided to do a "new" kind of sushi; a roll that was completely cooked, consisting of tempura shrimp and steak with a peach-miso BBQ sauce. That, in and of itself, sounds like a bit of a mess and probably would have lost them the competition anyway, HOWEVER, they decided they didn't want to take any chances... Team New wanted to make sure they seriously fucked themselves over. So, almost at the last minute, they decided to make the dish a roll-your-own-sushi experiment in interactive dining and boneheadedness. The cherry on the sundae? After presenting the plate of ingredients to the party, they... um... kinda sorta forgot to mention the point of the dish. So the guests at the bridal shower essentially just had a plate of random, unconnected ingredients to paw at. Which might have been okay, had all of said ingredients not sucked out loud.

We'll get back to these jokers in a minute.

Team Borrowed

Radhika, Jamie (the ACTUAL villain of this season), and Ariane

They're tenuous adherence to the "borrowed" theme is them... sorry for the quotes abuse... "borrowing" their dishes from Radhika's culture; i.e. they're making Indian food. Once again, Radhika complains that the judges are only going to think she can cook Indian food; seeing as how she's cooked Indian food for every challenge thus far, I'm not sure exactly why it's only an issue with her sometimes. I guess she just wanted more camera time this week.

Anyhoo, they make a lamb dish with pureed carrots (blech) and some other crap. I'm not familiar enough with Indian food to tell you what it was, exactly, but... other than the baby food-looking carrots... it looked tasty enough. Oh, and during the cooking process, there was some drama with the lamb possibly not being cooked right; Ariane was in charge of said protein and Jamie, because she's a bitch, bitched at her about it not being done correctly. This is important later.

Team Blue

Leah, Fabio, Hillbilly Deluxe and her stupid hat

Haha, surprise bitches! There are no blue foods! Any food you THINK is blue... blueberries, blue corn tortillas... are actually purple. Anyway, enjoy the challenge!!!

They end up going with a Chilean sea bass (because it's from the ocean, which is blue) and some sort of green vegetable paired with yellow corn (because green + yellow = blue in the light spectrum, which I thought was clever). The plate itself looked like the very definition of bland... very grey and beige... and, apparently, it didn't taste much better.

So, all the teams serve their courses... Gail's bridal party consists of a bunch of women all trying to out make-up each other... Colicchio is forced to sample his dishes in the kitchen because BOYS AREN'T ALLOWED AT BRIDAL SHOWERS or something, which was funny because we got lots of shots of him hunched over a low table, sadly eating by himself all lonely-like. I don't know, I found it amusing.

Anyway... judgement.

Team Old and Team Borrowed were the favorites. Jamie makes a big deal about how she wants this win so bad and she deserves it and blah, blah, hateful. The winner ends up being her teammate, Ariane, for her lamb... that's two in a row for Mom... and her winning leads to the evening's most priceless quote...

From Jamie, who is just awful: "I can't believe I lost... because everyone on my team agreed that I should have been the winner." Did they, Jamie? DID THEY? I'm sorry, you made baby food carrots with a pre-made spice mix in them. Why, exactly, should you have taken home the gold??? Funny... I don't remember seeing the other two members of your team wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth at an unfeeling God when your "rightful victory" was bestowed upon another...

Ugh, whatever... she needs to go. Or get hit by a bus. I don't care which.

The losers...

Team New, because their dish was a complete and utter train wreck.

Team Blue, because of the blandness and there were some mushiness issues as well.

The person getting sent home, though, was CLEARLY going to be someone from Team New... they were just so fucked, it was unreal. All three get called on the carpet for putting out such a pile o' poo, but in the end, it's the roll-your-own concept's mastermind... and I use that word loosely... Daniel, our representative from Strong Island, NY, who gets the axe.

His silly beard will not be missed.

Next week on Top Chef...

MARTHA STEWART IS COMING!!! Oh, and it's "Christmas!" Sigh...

Spain: A Country Of Poo Freaks

It's exactly what you think it is. Here, allow me to quote for you verbatim Yahoo's caption for the above photo:

Ceramic figurines called 'caganers' of US President-elect Barack Obama are seen at the Santa Llucia Fair, on December 2, in Barcelona. Statuettes of well-known people defecating are a strong Christmas tradition in Catalonia, dating back to the 18th century.

Fucking WHAT? Why??? Why would statues of well-known people taking a dump be ANY kind of tradition, much less one for the Christmas holidays? I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy base, scatological humor as much as the next immature, drunk guy but... I don't know... bringing ceramics into it just seems a little out-of-bounds. Not that I'm necessarily opposed to people going the extra mile for their poop humor... anything for a laugh, I guess... still, though... WOW.

The thing I can't figure out is whether or not these statues are supposed to be a compliment towards the one being depicted. Kind of like how we "roast" our celebrities, but instead of telling off-color jokes at their expense, they're demonstrating via handicrafts what it would look like if said celebrity had to pop a squat in public. Oh, or how about this... maybe these are intended to remind everyone that celebrities, even though they're famous and leaders and so forth, are still humans, just like the rest us. That makes sense, I guess. Sort of, anyway. Not really the way I, personally, would go about it, but then again I don't have access to a kiln.

I dunno... anyway, I guess we all learned something new about Spain this morning: Get famous enough and they'll commission an artist to craft an image of you dropping brown just in time for the holidays.

Goddamn, this world is a weird place sometimes.

Aliens: A Pictorial

Classic Aliens



If you're hanging out at an old catfish pond, sipping corn liquor and listening to a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band tape on a beat-to-shit 8-track player from your daddy's trailer, and you just HAPPEN to get abducted by aliens... more than likely, it's going to be these bug-eyed bastards. Starting with author Whitley Strieber's supposedly true account of his own alien abduction (a novel that will cause even the most hardened, true-blue science fiction fanatic to scream "bullshit!" at the top of his lungs until his throat is red and raw) and continuing through just about every real-life close encounter made up by lonely people desperately craving attention and/or experiencing a profound psychotic break, the aliens what took them have looked very much like the ones pictures above. They're like the little black dress of the alien world... they never go out of style. They're not particularly scary though... I mean, I suppose if a whole bunch of them had you strapped face-down to a gurney and were slowly advancing towards you with a long piece of medical equipment from beyond the stars that was unquestionably about to go up your butt... okay, sure... THAT might be pretty terrifying, but still. The threat of anal rape... and ONLY the threat of anal rape... is not a good reason to fear an alien species; really, it just makes them exactly like frat guys.

Nope, sorry, if you're really wanting us to cower in our basements crying in a puddle of our own urine, you're going to have to try to eat our faces off, or at LEAST have a go at enslaving all of humanity. Otherwise you're just a bunch of pasty butt-freaks and we can see those in the East Village any day of the week.

How I would kill this kind of alien, if I had to fight one: I'd distract him with my sexy, sexy man-ass by wearing one of my many pairs of buttless chaps, then, while he was standing there all "Homina, homina, homia" (or whatever it is in their alien tongue), I'd hit him with a cinder block. They may have crazy-go-nuts space technology or whatever, but NOTHING stops a cinder block to the head. Bonus for me: Their heads are huge! Easy target!!!

Scary Aliens



Ah, NOW we're talking. These are exactly the sort of high-quality, frozen-with-terror, poop-running-down-your-leg aliens that we, as Earthlings, need to watch out for. Did you see the movies? Dudes don't mess around with sissy probes and gentle beams of light that lift you from your bed. They grab you by the neck and crack into your skull with TWO sets of jaws like a starving man eating a Granny Smith apple. Shit, even the babies can fuck you up! All bursting out of your chest like "SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKERS!!!"

Man, just thinking about having to deal with these guys someday makes me want to crawl under the covers with a bottle of Everclear and drink and drink until I entirely forget about the prospect that movies might be real. I mean, I know they're not... I know it... but what if Ridley Scott and Co. just happened to get it right? What if these bastards are really out there... all claws and teeth and weirdo balloon-shaped heads... heading this way right now in their H. R. Geiger-designed spaceships because they heard Earth was basically just like a huge buffet with an ecosystem? What are we going to do? Does anyone know how to get in touch with Sigourney Weaver???

How I would kill this kind of alien, if I had to fight one: I wouldn't, obviously. Sure, I'd try to sneak up on it with a cinder block and... you never know... I might land a few blows. But then what? These things are basically stronger and more fortified than the stuff they use to make panic rooms. It would just shrug it off, turn around, take a good look at me, and walk away. I wouldn't have killed it, no, but I would survive the encounter. They may be unstoppable killing machines, but they're still health-conscious and eating a fat ass like me just wouldn't be good for their cholesterol.

Total Wussbag Aliens



Puh-leeze. What is the fucking point of being an alien if all you're going to do is play dress-up with Drew Barrymore and eat whichever candy paid the most to be prominently featured and bring frogs back to life and teach kids about "heartlights." Gag. You're basically a shaved Care Bear at that point, so you might as well pack it in and go fiddle with your Speak N' Spell for the rest of your useless existence.

True Story: As a kid, by the random luck having both childhood insomnia and HBO, I managed to see the original Alien movie BEFORE ever seeing Spielberg's E.T. So when I finally got around to seeing that little wrinkly wimp run away from the government and die because he didn't have love (or whatever), I was furious because I couldn't figure out why E.T. didn't just EAT the fucking army guys and be done with it. I had thought all aliens were badasses. Oh, how naive was I...

Some aliens are just pussies. Flower carrying pussies that hide in tool sheds and just want to be friends. LAME to Pluto and back.

How I would kill this kind of alien, if I had to fight one: EASY. I'd get down on my knees and be all, "E.T., you wanna hug?" And he'd scuttle over all trusting and we'd wrap each other in a big bear hug and we'd really connect on a deep level as two interstellar species uniting our distant worlds in a gesture of ultimate trust and friendship. And THAT'S when I'd brain him with the cinder block!

"Hilarious" Aliens



Ugh. I'm sorry... I know they were just going for cheap laughs here, as well as looking for a vehicle to harness Robin Williams's unique brand of comedic bullshittery... but c'mon. What are aliens going to think when the broadcasts of Mork and Mindy finally reach their ships light years from now? They'll be fucking OFFENDED!!! "Wait... wait... we understand how chairs work! We would never try to bag Pam Dawber!" Mork and Mindy are to aliens what Amos and Andy were to black people; unbelievably hurtful stereotypes that only reinforce negativity and will probably get us killed because no one... alien or not... likes to be mocked by a sweaty maniac in a tight-fitting jumpsuit.

Aliens will be all like, "Fine, we were coming down here to bring you the secrets of the Universe and show you some really fun dance steps, but no... NOOOOO... if that's how you think of us, then fuck you guys. Death rays on kill, bitches." Fucking Mork, getting us all killed, I swear to God...

How I would kill this kind of alien, if I had to fight one: Pour a bag of cocaine on a cinder block... watch him bash his brains out trying to hoover up every last flake.

Wise, Elderly Aliens

Look, I love Yoda. Who doesn't? But, as a representative of the vast population of our galaxy's aliens, he was just okay. I mean, sure, he knew a bunch of shit and... once the technology advanced on our part... he could wield a mean lightsaber. But also, he lived in a swamp, talked funny, and dressed like a homeless person. Not exactly the picture of class. And yeah, nerds, before you begin breathlessly drafting your emails, I know why he was there in the first place. I've seen the movies a billion times, so don't start with me. I'm just saying that, when it comes to aliens, I don't want to have to deal with a visual aesthetic that combines lizard-like muppets with the guy who asks me for spare change every morning on my way to get coffee. That is just not awesome, particularly since he's all peace and love and doesn't eat people. If he ate people, I could let it slide.

I mean, I'm not saying Yoda had to wear a suit and tie... I'm just saying he could have at least gotten an efficiency apartment on Cloud City or something, maybe done a little shopping at Old Navy. I guess there's nothing we can do about the bad syntax, but that's alright... the whole "do or do not, there is no try" thing was part of his charm.

How I would kill this kind of alien, if I had to fight one: Punting him clear across Dagobah would probably be the easiest thing to do, but... I don't know... killing an alien without a cinder block just doesn't seem right. So let's just say that I dropped a cinder block on his head while he was rifling through my droid for food.

Pitching My Upcoming Autobiography

To All Potential Publishers For My Autobiography-

Greetings! So glad you found me in my little corner of the blogosphere. I assume you've come to ZFS! to offer me a large canvas sack with a dollar sign on it filled to the brim with freshly minted hundred dollar bills in exchange for the rights to publish my life story. Trust me, you WON'T be disappointed!!!

NOTE: If you came here looking for cheap Cialis and/or bulk shipments of horse tranquilizers due to an ad I placed in the back of Hustler, I'm sorry. I'm out of stock until the steamer from the Philippines docks again. Keep checking Hustler for updates! Also, Ladies Home Journal.

Now, Publisher-type peoples, you're probably wondering, "Just who IS this devilishly handsome young writer with the mysterious (I'm sure) past and the sort of lips you just want to chew on like a Rottweiler with a piece of rawhide?" Well, let me give you a brief rundown of my spectacular life; a life that you'll no doubt agree will really move hardback copies and top all the bestseller lists in the country, provided you... ya know... do your part (bribe the New York Times with an oil barrel of fine champagne and a years supply of monocle wax). So, without further adieu...

MY PULITZER PRIZE-WORTHY LIFE: A SYNOPSIS

I was born into a large Irish family, one of thirty-eight children. We were so fucking poor. We ate shoes and famine potatoes and our dad beat us because he was Irish. He was also a drunk. And he always took the best shoes to eat for himself. One day, in a fit of rage, I killed him with an heirloom that had been in our family for generations (note: it turns out to be the DaVinci Code; KA-CHING!!!).

After killing my father, I went on the lam... gambling and graphically (but not so graphically that we can't get on The View) whoring my way around the United States until one day I ended up winning a ticket that allowed me a spot on the Titanic! Wait... did the Titanic leave from the US and sail towards Britain, or the other way around? It started in England, right? That's what I meant. I was in England because... oh, right! I had fought in World War I, which I think was before the Titanic sailed. Yeah, I was a war hero... saving lives, fighting the Nazis (note: I know that Nazis were only around in WWII but I'm pretty sure most Americans won't make that connection, besides... Nazis sell; KA-CHING!!!), and using my magnetic personality to woo my way into the beds of all the famous, fine ladies of the day (Clara Bow, Dorothy Parker, Reese Witherspoon).

Anyway, so the Titanic sank! They told me it was supposed to be the strongest ship in the world, but they hadn't counted on one thing... Hitler's Robot! That's what really sank the Titanic. I should know; I fought the damned thing. Unsuccessfully, of course, but that's okay... every autobiography needs a little adversity for it's hero (me) to overcome. Hitler's Robot... it was my nemesis (and it looked like a human, so in the movie version of my autobiography it can be played by Russell Crowe OR Will Smith; I'll leave it race-neutral so we can keep our options open).

So I finally made it to America! But there were Indians!!! They were savage beasts, provided it's not too un-PC to portray them as such. If it is, then they were gentle and taught me how to grow maize.

I worked the hard land, just barely getting by on my 32K a year salary earned as a data processing clerk for a mid-level advertising firm. It was there that I met the love of my life, Britney Spears. (note: If Miley Cyrus is of age by the time this goes to print, we'll use her; Britney's name may help our overall sales, but I don't want people thinking I have chlamydia). We had a whirlwind romance, marked by an abundance of steamy, classy "love-making" scenes that will make this such a big hit with the Tyra crowd. But then... tragedy! She left me for a teenage vampire!!! Noooooo, crushing, dramatic sorrow!!! My one, true love ran off with a hunky, high school-aged vampire who will really draw in the tween readers... what an unexpectedly profitable twist! (note: KA-CHING!!!) Fortunately, I can always lean on my best friend, who is a young, British wizard... um... I guess I haven't mentioned him yet... well, I met him in England, before the Titanic, before the war, when I was attending a school for wizards. We had tons of CRAZY adventures that will teach kids lessons about sharing and why it's important to floss, making this book the perfect gift for parents to give to their children (provided they're okay with all the raunchy descriptions of sex acts).

The point is, after losing my one true love to a gorgeous, mass-marketable vampire who will really help broaden our target audience, I became President. My running mate? Hitler's Robot. I rehabilitated him (using the DaVinci Code) and we fought Hitler together in a thrilling climax that will shock and astound the readers. Also, we arrested terrorism.

The story ends with me and Barack Obama holding a dance contest for charity. We hug and he forgives me for MS Painting myself onto his book cover so we didn't have to pay a graphic artist. The world is healed by my goodness and grace.

But wait... on the last page... the teenage vampire comes back, angry that he got the clap from Britney Spears, looking for revenge and to set up our sequel!!! It's available for pre-order on Amazon.com!!!

THE END...?

And the best part of this whole story? Every single word of it is COMPLETELY true! (note: I will NOT go on Oprah!).

So, my best Publisher-type friends... who wants to make just a shitload of money? The bidding starts at a cool one sack of hundred dollar bills. I will also accept a cardboard box full of hundred dollar bills. C'mon, folks... don't be shy... let's sell ME to THEM and make our millions!!! And if this synopsis hasn't completely sold you, well then, maybe I can interest you in a shipment of boner pills? They're completely legal, provided you're not a cop. YOU HAVE TO TELL ME IF YOU'RE A COP!!!