Well, crap.

Found this while poking around the Intarwebs. Guess I wasn't so original after all:

Really wishing I understood Japanese

Thanks to Siftin' superfan and pal Dorf, I have encountered yet another awesome Japanese program. And because I'm all kinds of magnanimous, here are a few samples.







And from the "That's how you get pink eye" department:

It's not what you think...

It's not often you'll find me posting a picture of a girl playing with herself at work, but here you go:



OK, it's my pal Karyne rocking out with her Guitar Hero shirt, but that's probably as racy as it gets here.

Huzzah!

Just a brief shout-out to my little brother, who is now proud papa to a baby boy. Way to go, Scrote!

In honor of the momentous occasion, here is one of my favorite kid-related videos, which my wife tells me is old, but that's OK, because it's funny, dammit.

Things they don't tell you in broadcast journalism classes...

There is a chance, however slim, that you will be called to report a story that involves repeated use of the words "Jesus, wieners, and poopie."



Wiener poopie sounds like failures in the Wienerschnitzel test kitchen if you ask me.

Another brick in the wall...

Who doesn't like Tetris? People who suck at it, that's who.

My wife and I, back in the days of spare time before children, used to wage Tetris war till the wee hours of the night, cursing at each other complimenting on each other's skills. Sometimes a little Tetris makes your day better.

With that in mind, here's a variety of Tetrisness:

Japanese Tetris comedy sketch

I wish I spoke Japanese, but even with the language barrier, I found myself chuckling at this clip, especially toward the end.


Human Tetris

I think when they get a big enough auditorium, they'll do Doom.


Marching band Tetris

Sure, there are other video games in there, but there is Tetris. So there.


Human Tetris II

I love Japanese TV. How else would you see something like this?



And because bikinis make everything better:



Clearly, they've missed the opportunity to rename that game more appropriately given its participants...

God bless the Japanese again. This has nothing to do with Tetris, but you gotta love a country that has a game show with this as its goal:

Here's something I never thought I'd say...

Check out this cool Tesla video:




(via Kotaku)

Here's a handy tip

Because sometimes it seems that no one knows.

In this great Hall of Justice...

This is still one of my favorite toys. I've got one waiting for Brody should he be interested in superhero stuff. The Hall of Justice is just the coolest. I remember waiting and waiting when the second or third wave of Super Powers figures came out, and I saw the Tower of Darkness, which was basically a Hall of Justice for Darkseid and the bad guys.

The reason we could never find it was that it was shelved. I wouldn't see it in person for years, when someone had a prototype on display at a comic convention. That was also when I was *this* close to a Cyborg figure--the only one in the whole collection that I never found.

At some point, I'll probably babble more about these toys in depth. But for now, check out this rad commercial:

You have died of dysentery...

It appears that I caught something while playing Oregon Trail on Facebook today, so in lieu of an actual post, I give you another LOLRamona:

What can I say, I'm easily amused...

I am a sucker for funny pictures. I've been known to laugh myself to tears over some, which in retrospect, really weren't that funny.

Here is an assortment of pictures I came across recently that made me chuckle:

Could've been worse, I guess

What song was No. 1 the day you were born?

On the U.S. chart: "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet," Bachman-Turner Overdrive


On the U.K. chart: "Everything I Own," Ken Boothe:


On the Australian chart: "The Night Chicago Died," Paper Lace:



Do you have better songs? Worse? Share your misery in the comments.

Unless you were born on April 4, 1964, in which case the top 5 songs were all by the Beatles, and I don't want to hear about it.

Not for the kids...

I usually try to stay PG-13 around here, and I'm not quite sure if this makes that rating. Nonetheless, I laughed my ass off, so I figured I'd share.

Also, I saw this at the awesome blog List of the Day, which has a cornucopia of hilarity, so go check it out.

I really don't have much more to say about this, except watch:

Enter here for what?

You'll often find Brody in his Lightning McQueen garage tent that he got for Christmas. He loves it; it is quite cool. But looking at it today, something caught my eye.



Looks like someone forgot to run spell check...

The Force is strong with this one

Last month, I thought I'd start a Christmas tradition by watching The Star Wars Holiday Special with my son.

So I put it on, with Brody sitting next to me. He sat patiently and watched the opening credits, and the extended Chewbacca's family scene that has nearly no dialogue.

But just after the painful cooking show segment with Harvey Korman, Brody stood up, looked at me, and said (a touch patronizingly), "Dad, I think that's enough."

And he went to go play with his trains.

Oh well.

Hot Nuts?

Catchy little ditty, ain't it?

From the beating a dead horse department...

My pal Karyne (who has red hair, so I tease her and call her Ginger) and I got on the subject of the "Don't tase me, bro!" guy. Here's a nifty remix of the pertinent part, set to a snappy beat:



Somehow, it evolved into a contest to see who could come up with as many lame parodies as possible.

It started clever enough. For us, anyway. I asked her if at some point, she'd go to Walgreen's for a candy run. She said maybe, and I replied with "Don't tease me."

Ginger: don't tease me, bro

Jeff: I want to draw of a picture of a Klingon on his knees with his hands up, while Kirk and Spock are aiming their phasers at him. "Don't phase me, bro!"

Ginger: heh

Jeff: or a college freshman: "Don't haze me, bro!"

Ginger: or a cinnamon bun: don't glaze me, bro

Jeff: i've seen that with a donut

Jeff: Someone who works for a nonprofit: Don't pays me, bro!

Ginger: or a building: don't raize me, bro

Jeff: a flower

Jeff: don't vase me, bro

I should point out that this was over the course of the day--we were actually working as well. Honest.

Then at one point, it got goofy.

Jeff: Broken video game sign: Don't plays me, bro!

Ginger: jewelry: don't appraise me, bro

Jeff: Jennifer Grey: Don't Swayze me, bro! **artistic license**

Ginger: king kong: don't fay wrays me, bro

Jeff: Ballerina: don't plies me, bro!

Jeff: Crowd to cheerleader: Don't "Ready, OKs" me, bro!

Ginger: mom to teenager: don't "anyways" me, bro

Jeff: Joint to stoner: Don't blaze me, bro!

Ginger: agent to bruce willis: don't yippee-ki-yays me, bro

Jeff: Miss Piggy to Kermit: Don't yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaays me, bro

Jeff: Dumb Donald to Fat Albert: Don't "Hey, hey, heys" me, bro!

Then somehow I managed to get all kinds of historical:

Jeff: Samuel Tilden: Don't Rutherford B. Hayes me, bro!

That's funnier if you look up Rutherford Hayes on Wikipedia or something.

Not much, but we passed funny long ago, didn't we?

After that, we got punchy.

Jeff: Edith to Archie Bunker: Don't "Those Were the Days" me, bro

Jeff: Kitten in cardboard box before being dumped in the middle of nowhere: Don't strays me, bro!

Jeff: HMS Titanic to engineers: Don't raise me, bro!

Jeff: Critic to Sandra Bullock: Don't "28 Days" me, bro

Ginger: metropolis to superman: don't up, up, and aways me, bro

How much sadder could we get?

Well, by the time I tried "Environmentalist to McDonald's in the late 1980s:
Don't Styrofoam trays me, bro!" we knew that we had officially stomped the life out of this particular meme.

Oh, except for the neat LOLcat I submitted to I Can Has Cheezburger?:


moar funny pictures

Click on it and vote the hell out of it, and I might make the main page. I should get something out of wasting this much brain power.

Guitar Hero side-effects

I've played a bunch of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and I've noticed a few things.

1) That weird vertigoey feeling you get when you've been playing for a while (say, a week or two, straight) and you look away from the screen. Everything seems to be moving away from you--almost like going into a wormhole or something.

2) Self-consciousness about rocking too hard. Sure, you want to do well, but at what point do you cross the line from keeping up with the notes to Pete Townshend windmills at the end of your song?

3) That brief feeling of apprehension you get when you hear a song from the game out in the real world. For just a second, your hands tense up, trying to make sure your fingers are in the right place.

Or maybe it's just me.

My commute...and welcome to it

This is what I hear in my head when I drive to BART every morning:

LOLRamona, part 2

That Sounds Familiar!

Today's entries into That Sounds Familiar are two songs that occupy a permanent spot in my brain's song rotation.

They don't really sound alike but for the same chord progression. So just to be weird, I like to sing the chorus of the older song during the chorus of the newer song.

And my wife already knows I'm a big, big freak, so I don't have to worry about looking weird when I do it.

First song: "Atlantis," by Donovan


My parents had this album, and they played it a lot when I was a kid. I liked the song fine enough, but the talking at the beginning bored me to tears. I already knew what happened to Atlantis. I read Aquaman, didn't I?

Donovan already got points with me for naming dropping Superman and Green Lantern in one of his other songs, so I sat through the talking.

Second song: Damn Good Times, by They Might Be Giants



I love They Might Be Giants. Love. Thanks to Here Come the ABCs, my son loves them, too. I can't wait for Here Come The 123s, which comes out next month.

I stumbled on to this when I was putzing around on the guitar trying to pick out the chords. Once I had the chord progression, I thought it sounded familiar. I started playing it slowly, and then I had it.

I should also mention that there is a really cool book by Tim English, called "Sounds Like Teen Spirit." Since this is a subject that I've been interested in for a long time, I was happy to get it for Christmas. If you like this kind of thing, I recommend you pick it up; it's a great read.

It also limits what I will cover with this feature, but that's OK; Tim is more thorough and informative.

Signs that I'm online way too much

When I spied the bag of Stacey's Pita Chips on the counter, I read the cholesterol listing on the bag as "Oh my God! Cholesterol" instead of zero milligrams.

And when I realized my error, I wanted to hit Ctrl-Z.

Hopeless, I tell you.

Counting down the hours...

I'm getting ready to check out Skidoo at long last. Being a Harry Nilsson fan, I've already listened to the soundtrack, and now I'll get to see how the songs fit in with the movie.

And special thanks to Mark Evanier for putting out the word about this being on Turner Classic Movies and making the swell banner above.

Tonight at 2 a.m. Set those Tivos, kids. If you see only one movie in which Jackie Gleason trips out on LSD, make it this one.

O is for 'Oh, hell no!'

Sometimes you can just smell quality when perusing movie titles, especially if you have synesthesia. Take the latest winner in the Bad Movies From A to Z sweepstakes: Over 18...and Ready. This review may not be suitable for all audiences. The movie is suitable for no one...

Also at this point, I'd like to mention the scarcity of movie titles that begin with "O."

The movie in a nutshell: Girl goes to Hollywood to be an actress and starts from the absolute bottom. I think that's what happens in the movie, too, for that matter.

The story: Honestly, it doesn't start off too bad. It's a travelogue of sorts, showing you what Hollywood looked like back in the day, which, judging from the marquees we see (Paper Lion, Camelot, Barbarella) I'm going to guess late 1968, early 1969. This was supposedly released in August 1969.

I should mention that despite that film date, the movie is in black and white, which to someone of my generation, still makes me think it should be a lot older.

At any rate, after 2 minutes of Hollywood, we get our title card, and a splendid one at that.


Barney Merritt, hip mogul at Nu-Art Continental Pictures, bemoans the lack of starlets for his newest project. And given that he refers to them as "broads," one gets the impression that he's not working on one of those Merchant Ivory pictures.

His secretary, Lyn Stevens, aside from having a bra so pointy that it's an occupational hazard, also has a desk setup that would send any workplace ergo evaluator into conniption fits. Her typewriter is in front of her, sure, but her phone is off to the left of that, so when she answers it, she reaches across with her right hand to speak into the receiver while reading from the script surreptitiously placed in front of her.

Clearly, her mind is on other things than ergonomic safety. In fact, she wants to be in Barney's next picture, even though, as he points out, he makes exploitation films.

No problem, says she. She came to Hollywood to be an actress. You've gotta start somewhere, right?

Right?

Later, Barney complains to his wife, Billie, about the casting situation. His wife, you can tell, is married to an important Hollywood type because she wears an ascot and smokes with a cigarette holder. Tres cool. But before he gets too into the conversation (like after two sentences), he realizes that darnit, he left his briefcase at work. On a Friday evening, no less.

Oh noes!

Billie suggests that he call Lyn. At home. You know, rather than just get off his lazy ass and drive back to work and get it himself. That's why they have help, I suppose.

He calls, and wouldn't you just know it? She's in the tub when the phone rings. Ain't that always the way? Oh well. Lyn, as we find out, is a very thorough bather. I don't think they missed an angle from which to show her scrubbing something.

When Barney explains that he needs his briefcase before going back to work Monday (maybe it has the soul of Marsellus Wallace or something), Lyn's 5K brain hatches a plan.

On Saturday morning, Lyn goes to a photographer to get some nude shots taken of her. That way, she reasons, she can show that she has the parts for the part. I hope Barney likes what she looks like, because she can't do a natural line reading to save her life. Even in post-production looping.

Let's talk briefly about pacing, shall we? No, not like the kind you're apt to do while this is on your TV. In the crap movies I've seen, nudity is often used to keep the viewers' attention. Intro, boobs, story, story, scare, story, boobs, etc.

So why do we need to see her complete nude photo shoot only minutes after we saw her bathe? I realize it's the next day and all, but damn. Even better, the skeevy photographer decides to take an alternate form of payment for the rush developing job. Maybe it's just me, but photography aside, if this is how you accept payment, I wouldn't make a big point of how fast you can get done.

Bow-chicka-bow-bow.

On the plus side, he's fully clothed while he makes out with her, and there's an arty cut to an acoustic guitar (no G string joke here, folks) before anything too graphic.

Sunday morning rolls around, and Lyn dutifully brings Barney's briefcase. Lyn meets Barney's wife, Billie, who talks to her about the movie Barney is working on. Billie doesn't beat around the bush.

"You have a very nice body, my dear," she says.

Skeeeeeevy....

"Do you think you can act?" she asks.

"Oh, I know I can," Lyn replies. "And you don't have to be the best actress in these kinds of movies." True. A very meta moment for a late-60s movie, don't you think?

Billie helpfully mentions that she's going out of town for a few days. Even more, dinner's already done -- Billie says that since she's leaving, Lyn should stay. Right. Uh-huh. That could happen. In the bedroom, Billie asks Barney if he's going to use Lyn for the movie. She says he should see the pictures of Lyn in his briefcase.

"Au naturel," Billie says.

"You're kidding. In the nude?"

This brilliant deductive reasoning, no doubt, is why this cat is a studio head, even if it is a crap studio.


Billie demands that he use Lyn. In the movie as well, I presume, but I may be overthinking this. Barney acts all butthurt about his wife's demands. Yes, it's a stone-cold bitch when your wife demands that you use your giant-racked secretary in your next flesh feast and have her over for dinner as well and forces you to look at naked pictures of her.

It appears to be a case of Barney protesting too much, because once Billie's out of the picture, he decides to butter Lyn up to appear in his film.

OMG.

"How do you think all the other dames make it in this business? On their backs, of course." -- Barney, on why Lyn should bone him.

She has to think about it. See, darling Lyn has some standards. Sure, she got nudie pics taken of herself and then stuck them in her boss' briefcase, but still, she's not that easy. You know, I don't think they covered this kind of scenario in those videos you have to watch at work during sexual harassment training.

Ah, romance. With the precision skill of a surgeon (who is not only blind drunk on moonshine but also had both arms fall asleep), Barney undresses her, and I'd imagine that an inflatable doll would have a more lifelike countenance. I'd have to ask my brother to be sure (rimshot).

Seriously. It's like watching boobs on a plank of wood. But less realistic.

Lyn gets, um, more employment questions, and sure enough, there are openings to be filled. She gets the position.

But oh, snap! She hauls ass out of there while Barney's asleep. This bird has flown, Norwegian Wood.

On Monday morning, Gary the skeevy photographer asks Lyn on a date to celebrate her impending stardom, to which she agrees.

And next, without the benefit of transitions or segues, Barney goes over the ins and outs (so to speak) of exploitation film shooting.

Meanwhile, poolside at Chez Merritt, Billie and Martha the Maid swim in the nude and soak up some rays. I don't know what they're paying Martha, but it can't possibly be enough to be rubbing suntan lotion on Billie.

But wait, wasn't Billie supposed to be gone for a few days? Yep. But she came back early, which really frosts Barney's cheese wheel.

"You just can't wait to get your hands on her," Barney says upon her early return.

Cut to Lyn and Gary out on their date. They're parked out on some kind of lovers' lane. She says they can't go further in their relationship. It's too complicated.

"Uh-huh," Gary says, and the camera pans away as they play some tonsil hockey.

Some time later (see, the scenes are just shown in order without any great effort at establishing date and time. There's no tomorrow or yesterday, it's just next. Next. Next.), Lyn visits the Merritts. Billie looks a bit eager and tells Martha the Maid to take care of their guest. In most of the other movies I've reviewed, that would mean that Lyn is about to meet an untimely end. But in this flick, well, you do the math.

Lyn takes a second as soon as she's in her guest room to break a date with Gary, and as you can imagine, he's not happy.

The next day, Billie and Lyn are on the beach. Billie, who looks as though she's seen the sun a lot, helpfully slathers Lyn with sunblock, paying special attention to her chesticles. Don't want those babies getting burned, do we? Then all of a sudden, it's a girl-on-girl From Here to Eternity homage.

Back on the ranch, Martha the Maid brings Barney breakfast in bed. Main course: Martha.

Again, she can't possibly be paid enough. For reasons unknown, she bolts out of bed and dives into the pool. By the time I looked up from my notebook again, they were back in bed performing the rejected video for "Ebony and Ivory."

Finally, the first day of shooting arrives. Huzzah. Lyn's character is tied to a pole, stripped, and whipped. Maybe it's a movie about Joan of Arc or something. The shots seems to follow a formula: show up, get naked, repeat.

Now that I think about it, Billie reminds me a little of Mrs. Roper from Three's Company. So if you ever fantasized about the Ropers getting it on, this movie was made for you. Forty-seven minutes in and I finally realize that Barney and Billie are both supposed to be horny and middle-aged. Barney just looks like he had a mishap with some white shoe polish and guyliner.

Next (see what I mean?), Gary reveals his love for Lyn. And then, because he's Mr. Effing Smooth, he says, essentially, all the other chicks Barney employs end up in the sack with him -- how about you?

And while we're reeling from that lost scene from Love Story, Barney says shortly after to Lyn that he only stays with Billie because of her money. Once his movies have made the fortune they obviously will, he can kick her to the curb. Ah, young love.

Jilted Gary tries calling Lyn at home to no avail because she's once again staying with the Merritts. She also has to take another bath. And in case we forgot what that experience is like, we get to see it again. In the same order. She is obviously a creature of routine.

Oddly, the Merritts seem to have the exact same tub as Lyn's. Or they just reused the bath footage, thinking that the viewer would be so distracted by nakedosity that he wouldn't notice.

No number of baths are going to make me feel less dirty for sitting through this crapfest. Not even with a full box of Mr. Bubble.

And because Lyn hadn't been naked onscreen with Martha the Maid yet, Martha rubs moisturizer on Lyn after her bath. Who says you can't get good help these days?

At this point, I notice that the film is nearing the end of its supposed running time, and it's nowhere near a logical chain of events for an ending. I think the filmmakers noticed this too, as things start to move quicker. Or to be more precise, even more disjointedly.

Billie, Barney, Martha the Maid and Lyn hang out on the back porch, either watching footage from Barney's movie or having flashbacks.

Afterward, they share a joint before Billie and the nude-except-for-her-apron (sure, why not?) Martha the Maid head back down to the beach. While they're out, Barney decides that he wants to do the bow-chicka-bow-bow with Lyn, who, showing at least a few synapses firing, says no.

Gary arrives at Chez Merritt and sneaks into the house. He stumbles upon the pot remnants and hears Lyn telling Barney to leave her alone. Gary busts in, punches Barney, flees, and drives away in his car, leaving Lyn to chase after her Prince Charming.

While she drives after him, she thinks about all the things that have happened to her in the period of time the movie covered, which is a dandy excuse for reusing yet more footage. The cuts get more and more rapid, presumably as her state of mind gets more and more erratic.

Finally, it's all too much for her, and she plows into a tree and dies. But at least she has the presence of mind to die with one boob hanging out. Rest in peace, classy lady...

Afterthoughts: Well, that sucked.

I'm not going back to check -- one viewing was more than enough -- but I believe this is the first movie wherein pube continuity was a problem. In her first bath scene, she's like Kojak, has a fro on the beach with Mrs. Roper, and then is clean-shaven again a day or so later when she bathes again. Either they did indeed reuse the bath footage from the beginning of the movie, or Lyn has the world's fastest growing hair.

Oh. Um, I hope you weren't eating when you started reading this.

This movie has it all: plotless plot that makes The Bikini Carwash Company seem plausible, inane dialogue, feeble acting, and boobies, boobies, boobies.

All with a running time of 66 minutes, part of which is repeated footage. You can watch this film thanks to the wonderful folks at Something Weird Video, without whom these kinds of films, as bad as they are, would be lost forever. Over 18 and Ready is the back-end of a double bill DVD with Alley Tramp, which sadly, I did not have the intestinal fortitude to attempt to watch following this travesty.

As always, the Something Weird disc offers a host of extras, making it well worth your time if you have a lot of it to kill.

Dumb Things I've Done (10 in an occasional series)

In junior high school, I was doing dishes (under duress, as usual), and since the batteries to my Walkman had run out again, I was humming to pass the time while my fingers got progressively prunier. After zoning out, I found myself humming a tune that, upon reflection, I couldn't quite place. Where the hell had I heard it? Finally, it came to me. It was from this commercial:



Why that stuck in my head, I can't tell you.

Yes, it's so last year...

Get in on the ground floor with what I'm sure will be the coolest thing going in 2008: The LOLRamona:

So long, 2007...

What a year.

Got a new job, got an addition to the family, served on a jury for the first time, and I got a lot closer to figuring out why I am the way I am.

Yep, 2007 wasn't dull. Here's to a pleasantly eventful 2008.

Cheers!

The season of giving...

Because it's stuck in my head, allow me to share it with you. Cheers!



This brings up a few interesting questions:

Is a hobo-humpin' slobo babe considered "hobosexual"?

OMG, did she lick that guy's armpit?

What the hell is slobo?

Did the video need at least 166 separate cuts?

Why don't more videos have cute girls and trampolines?

Is trampoline a synonym for a short girl who looks kinda slutty?

Why are you still reading this?

Turkey Television actually existed

My friend Karyne and I talk about You Can't Do That on Television on a fairly regular basis.

Yes, to the point that our conversations begin with:

"Hey, Alanis..."

"Yes, Alasdair?"

But I managed to find a neat clip while poking around on YouTube as I often do. It's from the less-remembered Turkey Television, which often followed YCDTOTV.



And because now you're thinking of it, here's a clip from YCDTOTV:

Gift ideas

You know, now that the holidays are almost here, you might be looking for the perfect gift to give. Now say you can't quite afford Amazon's new e-book reader, the Kindle:



Not to fear. You can, instead, buy some sweet Siftin' merch from my store. And even if you don't have a need for an undergarment with my face on it, there are also neat-o T-shirts to have, too.



You know you want one.

That sounds familiar...

A new feature here at Siftin' is That Sounds Familiar, in which I pair up two songs that sound a little similar, whether it's the whole song, or just pieces.

First up, two songs that you probably have on a mix CD: "Top of the World" by the Carpenters, and "Pass the Dutchie" by Musical Youth.

In this case, it's the beginning of the verse of both songs. There's not much similar in the rest of the song, but I hear this in my head:

"Such a feeling coming over me (How does it feel when you got no food?)"






And that's how this works. Some will be shockingly similar, and some, I suspect, will only sound the same to me.

Rhythm is gonna get you whether you like it or not

I was watching "We Are the 80s" on VH1 Classic this morning while my son dutifully played with his Thomas the Tank Engine trains (unleaded, thank you).

A video by Miami Sound Machine came on:



Brody stopped what he was doing, walked over to me, and asked in all seriousness, "Dad, what is that horrible noise?"

So yeah, I guess I don't have to worry about getting him Gloria Estefan's greatest hits for Christmas.

And that's a gift for both of us.

But since this is a season of giving, here's the video for Miami Sound Machine's "Bad Boy," featuring the understudies for the cast of "Cats," and introduced by Ted Danson and Howie Mandel. Yeah, don't blame me if you get nightmares.

They've got what I'm looking for

Old Bay Area TV stations came up in conversation yesterday, and it got me thinking of the promos TV 20 used to do that featured various pets from people in the area.

As luck would have it, I found the best one on YouTube:

From the "Who gives a crap" department...

At least now I have proof that I wasn't hallucinating it. Back in the early to mid-80s, it seemed like everyone wanted to capitalize on NBC's TV Bloopers and Practical Jokes, so there were specials every now and then, and of course, the shameless imitation.

On ABC, I think it was (I could look to be sure, but I'm lazy), to compete with Dick Clark and Ed McMahon, they paired Steve Lawrence (8-year-old me: Who?) with Don Rickles (8-year-old me: Oh, that CPO Sharkey guy who calls everyone a hockey puck). And if that team-up wasn't magical enough, there was the name: Foul-Ups, Bleeps and Blunders.

Note the way it flows off the tongue.

If memory serves, the two shows even competed in the same time slot for a while. I'd check out the ersatz Dick and Ed during the terminally long practical joke bits, which were rarely if ever funny.

I don't know if the show even lasted a whole season, but it is for some reason locked indelibly in my memory.

And now (at least temporarily), I can inflict it upon you, loyal reader. The clip is a little bit of Star Trek blooperness, brought by the Shat himself.



And while on the subject of inflicting, here's a clip I found from the Steve Allen-hosted Life's Most Embarrassing Moments, which I think was a special, also on ABC. And wouldn't you know it, it's the one clip that I will never be able to get rid of.

Nanowrimo progress

Well, it seems unlikely that I'll make the goal by the end of the month, but for the first time, I'm writing regularly on the story--every day on BART. Even better, I'm not tired of the story yet. That's probably because I don't know how it ends.

But I'm not going to worry about how many words I need to write a day; I'm just focusing on the fact that I'm actually writing.

The story, in case you want to know if you should start saving money to buy it, is about two brothers, neither of whom are particularly happy. One brother is stuck in the past; everything reminds him of something from back in the day. The other brother is stuck in the present; a present he thought would be different, and worse, a future looming that he doesn't want any part of.

They end up going on a road trip to various points around (and just outside) the state.

Here's a brief sample from one of the many flashbacks our narrator has:

When we were in junior high school, we went camping with our parents a few times every summer. They belonged to one of those membership campground things, so it was pretty easy to find somewhere to go, even in the summer when everyone wanted to go camping.

Harbor and I had grown up sharing a tent, and we constantly pestered our parents to kick in for an extra tent so we could sleep separately. This was because Harbor, in addition to being a sleep-farter, was such a heavy breather when he slept that we often woke up first thing in the morning to a miniature rainstorm inside the tent. The condensation built up all night, and in the morning, it just started falling. Not as steady as rain, but intermittent enough to keep you from falling back asleep.

Plus, I don’t know what he did, but his shoes smelled like rotten ass. His feet alone were no bed of roses, either, but his shoes were so foul that we couldn't leave them anywhere near our tents, lest our noses be assaulted by his foot funk.

On the upside, it kept animals away.

Not so with the mosquitoes. That was the other weird thing; despite sharing a tent, Harbor woke up practically poxy with mosquito bites. I would have maybe two or three. My parents joked that I must have been too bitter for the mosquitoes to like. Harbor thought this was hysterically funny despite the fact that he spent the better part of his day--when not forging new trails through the wilderness or finding the perfect rock to skip across the water--scratching like a flea-ridden dog.

So if you end up seeing my book someday, now you can say your read part of it before it was a best-seller and adapted for the big screen. (Ha.)

Updates, updates, updates...

Okay, so Halloween went off without a hitch. Brody dressed up as Bob the Builder and pillaged the neighborhood, securing regulation-size candy (in this case, a bag of peanut M&Ms) for two years in a row.

Even better, Brody still doesn't like candy, so more for me, Jen, and my co-workers. He did pretty good about not going in people's houses, and he got to go trick-or-treating with his cousin, so he was happy about that.

And speaking of candy, I may as well update the whole "Jeff is too lazy to buy new clothes, so he's trying to lose weight" thing. Well, as of this morning, I've lost 15 pounds without the aid of amputation, laxatives or cholera.

The irony is that I'm going to have to buy clothes anyway because my pants are too big in the waist, even with my belt. Oh well. It's been pretty easy to stick with my modified diet because it's all just a matter of math. If I eat something "bad," I make up for it later without just skipping the meal entirely.

I'm sure I could still be more selective in what provides the calories I consume, but I have to take it a little at a time.

The next entrant into the great Bad Movies from A to Z sweepstakes should be arriving courtesy of Netflix any day now. I won't say anything about it except that there's a really good chance you haven't seen it. Or if you have, you'd probably deny it.

And one more thing consuming what little spare time I've got is Guitar Hero III, which was a birthday present from my awesome wife (it's not till tomorrow, but she wanted me to have a chance to play it over the weekend). I LOVE this game. And I also love that I will have a chance to kick my friend Karyne's ass at it next time we have a video game night.

Instead of disappearing behind sunglasses, earphones and a thick book on the morning BART commute, I am embarking on that little exercise in futility I like to call NaNoWriMo. During National Novel Writing Month, I am endeavoring to complete a 50,000-word novel.

I know, you're probably thinking, "Lots of luck, skinhead; didn't you fail at this for the last two years running?"

True. And there's a good chance I won't make it again this year, especially now that I've got a baby (and Guitar Hero III) around. But as long as I get a seat on the train, I've got a good 30 to 45 minutes of writing each way. I'm up to about 3,800 words so far, and I kinda like the story, so even if I don't finish it by the end of the month, I would like to see how it all turns out.

God knows blog updates aren't consuming much of my time these days...

It's almost time...

Getting ready to take out the younguns for trick-or-treating. I'm curious to see how Brody does this year. Last year, he got a regulation-size candy bar, and I'm wondering if he'll make it two years in a row. We'll see...

Mark your calendars, kids

The always-cool Mark Evanier has brought it to my attention that not only does the new year bring another round of resolutions to break, but it also brings a chance to see the sadly not-on-DVD "Skidoo," an Otto Preminger movie with Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon, Mickey Rooney, Groucho Marx and a host of others.

A genuinely odd movie from the 1960s, you really have to see it to believe it. My favorite part (and honestly, the only part I don't fast-forward through) is where Harry Nilsson sings the end credits, down to key grip, costumer, and the whole bit.

Do give it a shot, won't you?

Bad Movies From A to Z: Night Train to Terror

The Bad Movies series returns with a vengeance as we take a leak look at the 1985 classic, Night Train to Terror. God help us all.

The movie in a nutshell: God and Satan are on a train, claiming souls of people involved in three different stories.

The story: A poor helpless schmuck endures one of the crappiest movies he's ever seen. Oh wait. That's my story.

The movie consists of three hopelessly truncated movies, edited apparently at random, all wrapped by a cheesy God vs. Satan conversation that appears to take place in Ten Forward on the Enterprise.

Now keep in mind, this is ostensibly a horror movie, so after the title flashes and we see the titular train and hear a scream in the background, we are exposed to the first of many horrors:


a butt-rock band.

Holy crap on a plate, this is so 1985.

Now, as I said, God and Satan are sitting across from each other on the train. As it is nighttime, there are stars visible out the window. But for some reason, most of them are stationary, save for a few that streak by, making it look like they're traveling at warp speed.

The view out the window changes, and our first story begins. A bride and groom are speeding for some reason, and they get in an accident.

Harry Billings, the husband, ends up in a sanitarium. His wife is apparently dead. In short order, he's in for electroshock therapy. In another room, there's a naked lady strapped to a table. No explanation given. Just an excuse to show boobies.

Meanwhile, Richard Moll is some creepy guy named Otto (I think).

Billings is drugged and sent to a bar, where he pretends to drink shots and flirts with the blonde bartender. Seconds later, she's the next naked lady on a table.

As we find out, the sanitarium in which Billings is incarcerated is operating some kind of body parts ring. They abduct pretty women and strip them for parts.

There's other stuff going on, but this is edited together to shoddily that it's hard to figure out what the hell is happening, especially if you're looking down every few seconds to jot down notes. Basically all you need to know: lots of blood and gore, lots of boobage, and one beheading of a guy who will later be on Night Court.

Then we're back to God and Satan, arguing over who gets the souls involved in the story. I'm getting ready to take notes on the next story to unfold, but before that starts, it's the cheesy band again. Why they are aboard this train (which, Satan notes, will crash in an hour), I have no idea. Maybe because they only have one song that they keep playing over and over.

Our next story involves a pretty brunette named Gretta Connors, who supplements her budding music career by selling popcorn from a tray at the carnival. Note that she doesn't work at a popcorn booth--she just has a tray of nine or so boxes of popcorn. Some creepy guy walk up to her and says "Little girl, where have you been all my life?"

Instead of racking him in the nards, she just tells him the price of the popcorn. He stuffs money down the front of her top (CLASSY), and he ends up (we are told) leading her into a life of porn and degradation. We learn this through narration rather than actual storytelling, which is how we learn about anything that might move the plot along in the slightest.

Meanwhile, college graduate and medical student (uh-huh) Glenn Marshall has dropped by his old frat house to grab a beer. The fact they're showing a porno flick is just a coincidence, I'm sure. He probably also reads Playboy for the articles.

Glenn falls in love with Gretta much the way all young people fall in love: he sees her being raped by what appears to be a fur trapper in the porno he and his buddies are watching. Call me a softy, but damn if that doesn't bring a tear to my eye.

Somehow he tracks her down, and in the span of three seconds, they hook up. I think, anyway. I swear to God, I just blinked. Gotta love pacing in truncated movies. Now while they could have used some of the brief running time to add some story elements, they instead fill time with establishing shots of Glenn and Gretta at the carnival, riding various attractions.

Now this pisses off her sugar daddy, George Youngmeyer, the lech who got her into the porn biz. He decides that Glenn needs to be taken out. Any other unsavory type would just shoot him outright or have someone do it for him, but instead, he uses a ridiculously byzantine method that isn't even guaranteed to kill him.

That's right; he brings in Death Club. You'd think rule one of Death Club would be to not talk about Death Club, but when you need to bump a guy off without looking suspicious, I guess you gotta go with what you've got.

The members of the Death Club have faced death and beaten it, so their thrill is to keep tempting death. They do this by participating in variations of Russian roulette.

The first one we see involves the dreaded beast, the Mongolian buttworm death beetle (complete with visible wire) that will sting and kill someone at random. Ah, but to give everyone a sporting chance, they leave a window open. The beetle, which resembles a Play-Doh turd with wings, takes flight.

Who will it be?

No one in the room. Instead, it goes outside and stings some random guy who is boning some equally random chick. His face (or an unreasonable papier mache facsimile thereof) swells, and his eye explodes, sending a gout of blood all over his girlfriend's face.

Bummer.

Let's see what's going on back inside the--oh, what the hell? Oh boy.

The next "death game" involves a "computer" that will randomly electrocute one of the players. This whole time, Gretta is dressed like a dude, and for no apparent reason. Even stranger, it appears that Glenn wants nothing to do with her. This will change in about five minutes with no explanation.

The computer, which reminds me of a cross of H.E.R.B.I.E., Simon, and a pocketful of dumb, whirs as everyone prepares for their possible impending death. Who gets it?

The one black guy. As his headband begins to smolder, he says, "Mr. Marshall, excuse me while I smoke."

OMGWTFBBQ!?

Then he is electrocuted to the point that he appears to melt. That's gotta hurt.

Gretta, now looking all girly again, has had enough from Youngmeyer; after telling him off, she says that she and Glenn are to get married the next day. Ookaaaayy....

Alas, a group of bikers attacks them at night while they sleep. Glenn kung-fus as many as he can (putting that med school training to work, right?), but they throw a net over him (!), and both Glenn and Gretta are bound and delivered to Youngmeyer and the Death Club.

Now by this point, you really wonder why Youngmeyer bothers with this elaborate charade. His goons bring Glenn and Gretta at gunpoint. If he has goons with guns, why not just, you know, cap his ass?

In any event, in this room, there's a wrecking ball on a rope, which will swing pendulum-style near a saw blade. Gradually, the rope bearing the ball will be cut. Everyone gets in sleeping bags below it, waiting to see who gets the big squish.

Glenn and Gretta, of course, are not doing this by choice. Is this going to be the thing that gets Glenn out of the way? No. The ball lands on some lady's face. I could make a joke here, but that would be more clever than this movie by at least half. Check it out:


At least we get to see the happy couple finally facing off against Youngmeyer for the last time, right?

Negatory.

We cut back to God and Satan, and the train conductor is asked to finish the story. Greta and Glenn live happily ever after, we are told.

What?!

What the crap? They just ended the story right there, and then--oh, sweet raisin danish. It's the band, singing the same frickin song. Again.

You know, not to be overly douchey or anything, but maybe if they'd dispensed with the shite music, they could've included some actual story that might have, you know, made any of this slightly more coherent.

No, instead, we must endure white people dancing so soullessly that it makes Molly Ringwald's dancing in The Breakfast Club look like freak dancing by comparison. You know, the last time I saw a white guy breakdancing was at a party I went to after fifth-grade graduation. They busted out the cardboard; I begged off, citing a war injury.

Come to think of it, that was 1985. Go figure.

Thankfully, this train wreck (literally) is almost at an end. Just one more story to go: The case of Claire Hansen. We are told she is about to begin a living nightmare that, from the looks of it, apparently involves a barefoot orchestra playing for a bunch of Nazis. Some commander comes in and says that their quota hasn't been met, so he machine-guns the orchestra. Claire wakes up with a start, as does her husband, Charles (also played by Richard Moll, who is billed in this as Charles Moll).

The Nazi commander from Claire's dream is not only alive and well in the present, but he has not aged at all. Some old guy is trying to hunt him down, so he asks for help from Cameron Mitchell, who plays a cop, and, oh my God, this is horrible. The old guy dies at the hands of some demonic creature that may or not be the guy he's looking for--I kinda stopped taking notes by this point. Mr. Olivier, the evil creepy guy, seems to be an immortal who has been an evil bastard for hundreds of years.

Charles Hansen is some philosopher who has written a book called "God is Dead." Cameron Mitchell (his character wasn't identified as far as I could tell) eventually realizes how evil and creepy the guy is, and a bunch of stuff happens, including some crap claymation in which Hansen is crucified on a clay cross, and it ends with Olivier walking away unscathed.

Now, it's almost time. We see the night train zooming along the track--in daylight--as it hurtles toward its date with destiny. There's a crap explosion with what appears to be stock footage from something. The butt-rock band dies, thankfully, but God and Satan are untouched in their car. They divvy up the souls of those people seen in the movies, and the train rolls along a track to the stars.

The End.

Afterthoughts: To be fair, this movie appears to be made of three movies chopped down to about 20-25 minutes each. While it's damn near impossible to follow what's going on because they're so drastically edited, I'd be willing to watch these individually in their full-length incarnations; it's possible that they'd make more sense. They'd still not be great movies, but they could be entertaining.

As it is, it feels like I'm watching overlong, hastily cobbled together movie trailers, put together by people who never saw the movies. To their credit, they managed to keep a lot of blood and nudity; in the pre-Internet days when this would have been found on the shelves at the local mom-and-pop video stores, a horrible movie could be redeemed by buckets of blood and flashes of skin. To preteen horror buffs too young to buy Playboy, it was one of the only places you could see nudity--or as we called it, nudititty.

However, in this era, when you can see boobs at the click of a mouse, it's just meh.

I got this movie as part of the Drive-In Movie Classics 50-DVD pack I bought a while back, and it says on the package that this stars Keenan Wynn. I don't know exactly what they were smoking, but I didn't see him in here at all. The only person who looked remotely like Wynn was God, and according to the credits, he was played by "Himself." Satan, by the way, was played by Lu Sifer.

Pause for laughs.

/crickets chirping

Another part of the problem with this movie was the muddiness of the print, but you know, when you figure I paid maybe 50 cents for each movie, I really can't complain too much.

Should you end up watching this somehow, it would probably seem better if accompanied by a bottle of Night Train.

Maybe.

Probably not.

With apologies to Howard, Howard, and Fine...

This issue: Man boobs no more!

I know what you're thinking. More me would mean more wonderfulness to love, right?

Alas, in actuality, it just means man boobs and a bunch of shirts that don't fit me anymore. Which is a stone-cold drag, because I've got a lot of shirts that I'd love to wear.

Plus I don't really like shopping for clothes very much. But still, where else are you going to find a shirt that says, in Cooper Black, mind you, "Don't mess with my Stumpy"? Exactly.

And given that my daughter is growing by leaps and bounds every day, it's not going to be too much longer before I have to chase after her and her brother.

So now I'm trying to watch what I eat. Not just watching it go from my hand into my mouth, either. This sucks, because by watching my caloric intake, I have to avoid high-calorie foods (unless those 2 Oreo Cakesters are the only thing I eat all day) and I have to use math.

I'm even doing a teeny-tiny bit of exercise. Yeah, I could join a gym, but if I wanted to spend money on something I wouldn't use in a million years, I'd buy "Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot" on DVD. So to start slowly, my friend and I are walking during our lunch break, which, given my normal propensity for activity, is almost like participating in a dodecathlon.

On stilts.

In addition to getting a whole wardrobe out of storage, I guess it'll be nice to be a little healthier, too. Assuming I don't get struck by lightning. We'll see how far I get with this.

But I am learning things. Much to my amazement, Quaker Rice Snacks are actually quite tasty. I'd always imagined they tasted like Styrofoam ass (not that I'm a connoisseur of that particular dish myself, but you know what I mean), but I was wrong. They're actually good. Not as good as say, Oreo Cakesters or a Three Musketeers bar, or a pint of Ben and Jerry's S'mores ice cream, or --

Crap. Now I'm hungry again.

Assuming I don't totally blow off this diet after it pisses me off and I eat packet after packet of cinnamon roll icing, I'll post my progress. If I fall off the wagon, you can expect a few YouTube clips and no mention of a diet ever again.

Commuter's lament

It's not every day you get the chance to leave work early because you got all your stuff done.

It's also not very often that BART experiences electrical problems that force people to deboard the train and wait for a half-hour or so.

So what do you suppose the odds are of both of those things happening on the same day to the same guy?

Pretty damn good, it turns out.

So what's on TV, yo? Part III

I screwed up by not highlighting it before I took the picture, but look up at channel 266. Looks like joint programming from HGTV and CBS.

Seriously, there's got to be a better way to abbreviate these shows.

She gets it from her mom.

This is the first posed picture of Ramona with me, and wouldn't you know it, she's flipping the bird. She's half South Jersey Italian, so I'm not surprised by her lack of inhibition when it comes to speaking her mind.

This should be interesting when she starts talking...

Obligatory cute 4-year-old story

Yesterday when I picked up my 4-year-old from daycare, he looked toward the street.

"Eight sides," he said.

"What has eight sides?" I asked.

"The stop sign," he replied in a tone that suggested I wasn't keeping up with the conversation.

"That's right. Do you remember what shape has eight sides?"

He was quiet for a moment as he tried to remember. Then his eyes brightened as he finally remembered.

"A octopus!"