Twitter: A Look Back

Tonight we are here to honor a very special and distinguished guest.  Ladies and gentleman I present to you my often neglected Twitter account.  Like most of the other social media, I have grown bored of "tweeting".  There are many reasons for this, but I think it's mostly because it's called "tweeting".  Tonight I'd like to take a look back at the Twitter account that most of you didn't even know existed (and probably for good reason) by sharing some of my favorite "tweets" with you. 

 Is it me or does Tango and Cash get better everytime you watch it?

 Someday there will be world peace. Until then, we'll have to settle for tacos.

Is there anyone out there who would be even a little surprised if we found out Nicki Minaj was made entirely of cake frosting?

I don't usually do this but you should follow @Metamucil that dude is hilarious.

My dental hygienist was concerned that my gums were bleeding. You just poked it with sharp metal, that just means I'm not a robot.

I love cats, my favorite color is brown, and I never learned to count. #20ThingsAboutMe

I just watched The Avengers and SPOILER ALERT, the milk in the back of your fridge just expired.

At this point I'd like to interject that I said these were my favorite "tweets".  I never made any promises about them being funny or interesting.  Now back to the "tweets" (ugh).

I'm thinking of opening a second Twitter account just for all of my tweets about ham.

Hey Jessie J, I don't like the Katy Perry I have now. What makes you think I want another one?

They say the greatest gift you can give is the sound of a child's laughter. Cash is also a good gift.

If I ever win the lottery I'm going to have Jason Statham on call to roundhouse people that cross me.

Pizza rolls, if you really think the words "family size" are going to stop me from eating a whole bag of you, you don't know me at all.

If I had a show on The Food Network I'd just crack open pistachios for 30 minutes straight.

I think I'm going to eat all the Easter candy I bought for my kids and next week just tell them the Easter bunny is an asshole.

Did I mention that THE Scott Grimes is following me on Twitter?

The Leprechaun marathon on SyFy makes sense for St. Patty's. The Die Hard marathon on AMC not so much.

I wish Snooki would stop jerking us around and announce that she's running for president.

I really hope the FCC does us all a solid at the SuperBowl halftime show and uses those black censor bars on Madonna's gross arms.

I sleep better at night knowing that somewhere out there, Danny Glover is watching over us.

The best part of my weekend is the fact that I rarely bump into Sarah Jessica Parker.

Sometimes I daydream about being a NASCAR driver. Then I come back to earth when I remember my SAT scores were nowhere near high enough.

You know who really grinds my gears? People who do dumb stuff for Klondike Bars. They sell them in every store geniuses!

That probably isn't all of my favorite "tweets", but I really don't feel like looking at Twitter anymore right now.  Maybe if more than 6 people read this blog I will dig up some more.  Until then, I think this leaves you with a pretty clear picture at how ridiculous my sense of humor is.   

Infrequently Asked Questions

A very popular thing for someone with a site to do is to answer questions from readers.  For the duration of this site I have had a total of zero questions submitted.  There are a few possible explanations for this.  Maybe I am so thorough in my writing that all of your questions are already answered.  Maybe everyone is too shy to ask me questions.  This is totally understandable, but I'm just a dude, I put my pants on one leg at a time.  Whatever the reason, I have no real questions to answer so I will make up my own.  Don't worry, these will be hard-hitting questions, no softballs.

Where do you come up with ideas for your writing?
To be totally honest, I don't come up with the ideas.  If you read closely you will see that each of my blogs is an episode of the electrifying courtroom drama Franklin and Bash transcribed verbatim.  So as long as the good folks at TNT keep cranking them out, I will always have stuff to write about.

Whose side will you take in the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes split?
Oh, what a very topical question.  Divorce is a very delicate issue and only Tom and Katie know all the details about what did and didn't happen in their marriage.  On the other hand, Minority Report was a very cool movie and I liked it alot.  So I think I will have to be on Team Cruise for this one.

Does THE Scott Grimes really follow you on Twitter?
Yes, yes he does.

How come there are so many large gaps between your blogs?
I have a Netflix queue with over 30 DVD's in it.  Those movies aren't going to watch themselves.  That coupled with my cross country trekking to follow the McRib doesn't always leave me with loads of spare time to write about 80's movies that four people even remember.

If a train leaves San Diego at 8am and travels at a constant speed of 56 kilometers per hour then why did The Sopranos have such a dumb finale?

There was no real way to top the "Johnny Cakes" storyline.  Everyone just stopped trying after that, finale included.

You never discuss real things like politics in your blog.  Why is that?
What the hell is a politics?

Do you ever plan on writing a book?
For as many people who would actually be interested in buying and reading a book that I wrote, it might just be easier to visit them at their homes and shout the material at them. So no, probably not.

If you had a signature fragrance what would it be called and what would it smell like?
I would call my fragrance Pirate's Desire.  It would smell like ham.

Who would you say is the target audience of your blog?
That's an easy one.  My target audience is one person: Clarence Jenkins who lives at 785 Oakmore Lane in Topeka, Kansas.  I will keep on writing until I get the approval from him that I desperately crave.

That seems a little creepy.
That's not really a question.

If you were on death row what would you choose for your last meal?
Golden Corral all you can eat buffet.  That way my meal would never end and I would never get executed.  LOOPHOLE!  Of course one might argue that eating Golden Corral for the rest of your life would be way worse than execution.

Are any of your answers to these questions actually true?
No, except for the Scott Grimes one.

Well I hope this shed a little light on all the things that you were never actually curious about in the first place.  My main goal was to confuse you so that there would be some real questions for me to answer in a future blog.  Until then, I have to watch me some Franklin and Bash.

School's Out For Summer Countdown Spectacular

Well here we are at the end of another school year.  It's that wonderful time of year when Alice Cooper can enjoy some sweet, albeit brief, relevance.  In honor of school's end, I am counting down the top 10 movie teachers of all time.  So sit back and don't take notes because this will not be on the final exam.

10 - The teacher/stripper from Varsity Blues - Most of you think you know why this teacher made my list, but you're wrong.  Maybe a teacher/stripper was a fantasy for some of you, but the female teachers at my school had an average age of 73 (so yeah, it was a fantasy for me too).  They say the true judge of character is the company you keep and her co-stars were James Van Der Beek and Scott Caan, so...yeah.

9 - Professor Jennings from Animal House - This pot smoking college professor who had inappropriate relationships with students was portrayed by Donald Sutherland.  It shouldn't even be necessary to go on, but I will for those a little slower on the uptake.  Donald Sutherland played Ronald in the movie Backdraft so everything else that he does is by default - awesome.

8 - Mrs. Tingle from Teaching Mrs. Tingle - Helen Mirren tied to a chair in her bedroom wasn't the most traditional of classroom settings, but she was still able to teach valuable lessons, in life.  I actually think kidnapping a teacher would be a more realistic fantasy than the teacher/stripper one from above.  It would be a logistical nightmare though because what would you feed a teacher?  I have no idea what they eat. 

7 - Mr. Escalante from Stand and Deliver - It's like the old saying goes:  Give Lou Diamond Phillips a fish and he will eat for a day.  Teach Lou Diamond Phillips to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. 

6 - Mr. Kotter from Welcome Back, Kotter -  Mr. Kotter and Mr. Escalante faced similar challenges but the advantage goes to Mr. Kotter.  The Sweathogs were a much rougher crew than any inner city gang from Los Angeles.  You disagree?  Ok, let Vinnie Barbarino tell you, "Up your nose with a rubber hose" and then you look me in the eye and tell me that's better than getting slashed across the back with a box cutter.  Yeah, that's what I thought.

5 - Yoda from every Star Wars movie - This may stretch the limits a little, but technically he was a teacher.  He taught Jedi for hundreds of years so he was definitely tenured.  Also, I really like to strengthen all of my lists by having Yoda on them.

4 - The teacher from Van Halen's Hot for Teacher video - That lady had to be in the same room as David Lee Roth for an extended period of time.  Don't you think she deserves a little something for that?

3 - Mr. Shoop from Summer School - Mark Harmon wore a Hawaiian shirt and there was a dog named WonderMutt that wore sunglasses.  Pretty much everything about Mr. Shoop was awesome.

2 - Mr. Strickland from the Back to the Future movies - Let's get this out of the way before I get bombarded with hate emails.  I know he was a principal and not a teacher, but he was associated with a institution of learning and that qualifies him in my book.  I really liked his no-nonsense style and that he called people slackers.  I feel that slacker is a very underrated put down. 

1 - Any teacher from any movie or television show that wasn't Robin Williams in Dead Poet's Society - Mr. Keating from Dead Poet's Society was ok at first, but became exhausting.  So the number one spot on the list goes to pretty much everyone else.

So there is the list, I hope you liked it.  Enjoy your summer vacations.  Even though for adults, summer vacation just means going to work like every other day except it's hot.

My Heroes

Everybody needs a role model.  In every person's life people come along that influence us and shape the way we live our lives.  Today I would like to share some of my heroes with you.  Some of them are real and some are fictional characters.  Ok, most of them are fictional characters which explains a lot.

This first person on my list of heroes is Turbo from the movie Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.  Turbo was brilliantly portrayed by Michael "Boogaloo Shrimp" Chambers.  Turbo had a great sense of style and some seriously sweet moves.  One only needs to see the scene with Turbo and the broom to understand why he is my hero.

Next up on the list is Drunk Kanye West.  Because of his music, Kanye would almost make my list on his own.  His true greatness comes out when he collaborates with Hennessy at awards shows and disaster relief telethons.  Drunk Kanye has no mouth filter and speaks his mind.  I don't agree with everything Drunk Kanye has to say, but it is always way more interesting than anything Sober Kanye says.

Yoda.  Do I really need to explain this one?  I didn't think so.

No list of heroes would be complete without Ninja Death Squads From 80's Action Movies.  This isn't one person, but an unsung group that deserves some recognition.  The Ninja Death Squad is a group that ridiculously outnumbers their intended target but loses anyways.  The are highly trained, but whoever they fight seems to be more highly trained.  What I love about this group is their can-do attitude.  They know that Charles Bronson or whoever if going to beat them, but they do it anyways.

Speaking of Charles Bronson, next on my list is another group of heroic people.  These are the Not Believable For A Second Action Stars.  This collection of (mostly geriatric) people include: Charles Bronson, Edward "The Equalizer" Woodward, Entrapment-Era Sean Connery, and my favorite, Pat Morita.  You would expect these guys to hand out Werther's Originals, but instead they handed out ass-whippings.  You have to respect that (and their stuntmen).

I feel like I should put at least one real person on this list so I will go with Scott Grimes.  I really don't even know where to start with the awesomeness that is Scott Grimes.  He overcame the nearly insurmountable odds of being ginger and managed to carve himself quite an impressive niche in Hollywood.  He was the star of Critters 2 and Mystery, Alaska, two of the greatest films of all time.  Somewhere in his busy acting schedule he has time to do voicework on Seth MacFarlane's 4th most popular show, American Dad!.  Also he follows me on Twitter, the sign of a true champion.

This list is by no means complete.  There are many other people (real and fake) that I look up to.  Maybe this tribute will inspire you to add some of mine to your list.  Probably not, but maybe. 

In The End There Can Be Only One Tree Hill

The year was 2003.  Those were much simpler times.  The world's tweens had not yet been ravaged by the horrible Bieber fever epidemic.  Love triangles involving vampires, werewolves, and I guess that girl is a zombie only existed in books (which had pages back then if you can believe that).  And once a week, the world put aside their differences and gathered to watch a little show called "One Tree Hill".

On Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 The CW is giving us one last chance to spend some time with that rag-tag group of kids from a little town called Tree Hill.  I always liked to think that was where they got the title of the show, but really it's anyone's guess.  When the series finale was announced it raised one serious question from deep inside me.  "One Tree Hill" is still a thing???  I was positive they ended that show at least five or six years ago.  The show's mysterious longevity baffled me.  It has been on the air as long as "Seinfeld" was.  I'll let that settle in for a second. 

We can eliminate great acting, captivating storylines, and loyal viewership as reasons for the shows long run right off the bat.  I have come up with a few alternative, but very plausible reasons this show has been the cockroach of teen dramas.

1) The Prank Theory - "One Tree Hill" would not be the first time that the entire world has conspired to play a large scale prank on me.  The prank theory is also the only plausible explanation for the popularity of Florence + The Machine.  I don't think it is completely unrealistic that everyone got together and kept the show on the air to see if I would keep watching.  Well world, the jokes on you, I have never watched a single episode.  All the info about the show I am getting from Wikipedia and a creepy 49 year old man that hangs out at the local Dairy Queen.

2) Espionage Communication - I think that it is a safe bet that a large portion of the world thought this show was gone at least as long as I have.  Maybe in the last few years, the CIA has been using the show to send vital information to covert operatives all over the world.  If any of these communications were intercepted by a civilian they would remain a secret because if someone tried to spill the beans they would have to admit that they watched the show.

3) The Chad Factor -  I'm just going to come right out and say it.  Chad Michael Murray is a national treasure.  If you have a way, like a television show, to showcase him and his gift to the world, you will do everything in your power to keep it around forever.  The giant hole in this theory is that Mr. Michael Murray left the show a few years ago.  My only thought is that they kept the show around just in case his acting career needed a couch to crash on when he was in town.

4) Inept Programming Executives - This is by far the most realistic of all my theories.  Season two was the only time in the series' run that the show cracked the coveted "Top 120".  And this was back when there was only between 75 and 100 channels to watch.  There was likely some very horrible FOX programming that was kicking this show's ass every week back then and they still kept it around.  Even now, in the reality television age, this show is probably always losing to a reality show about people who make lug nuts for a living.

Whatever the real reason this show lasted as long as it has will forever remain a mystery.  If I knew anything about the actual plot of the show I guess I could recommend some sort of gesture to show how much you appreciated it.  All I ask is that we let the show die with some dignity.  Please don't do one of those things where the fans mail an acorn or a colostomy bag to The CW in hopes they will bring it back.  Just let it go.  Trust me, Chad Michael Murray would have wanted it this way.

An Open Letter To Paranormal Activity 3

Dear Paranormal Activity 3,

I'd like to start off by saying that I really enjoyed the 1st two installments of your franchise.  Paranormal Activity was delightfully chilling and a nice change of pace from the other horror movies at the time (we both know I'm talking about Saw's 3 through 17).  I had my doubts about Paranormal Activity 2, but I watched it and for the most part, my doubts were laid to rest.

Those things being said, you probably noticed my absence during your theatrical run.  I'll come clean and admit that yes, I was avoiding you intentionally.  It's hard to determine whether or not you would have still lost out to Puss in Boots at the box office had I come to support you.  Regardless of my feelings about you, nobody deserves that.  You're probably wondering why it has taken me this long to write to you.  With your DVD release coming soon, there were some things that you needed to know.

I understand that you are angry with me, but please give me a chance to explain.  It's not you, it's me.  I'm sure you are a very adequate film, I've read reviews that said so.  The thing that you have to understand is that I've been hurt in the past by horror franchise sequels.  Even though a lot of time has past, the pain I feel because of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is still with me.  I'm not quite sure any amount of time can heal that hurt.  I mentioned the Saw films earlier.  Every year I met a new one, and I was more disappointed each time.

I think I can trace this cycle of hurt back to three of my first loves: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.  I loved these movies very much and was repaid with the betrayal of the ridiculous and seemingly endless parade of sequels.  When I watched Freddy vs. Jason, I died a little on the inside.  Then there were the remakes.  I just don't know if I will ever be able to forgive the remakes.  They cut me very deep and that wound will probably never heal.

After reading this letter, you may or may not still be mad at me.  I'm ok with it if you are still mad.  I just wanted a chance to explain myself.  Maybe there is a chance that when you do come out of DVD I will be able to watch you.  But because of my trust issues with horror film sequels, you'll understand if I use a free Redbox rental to do it.  Maybe one day I will resolve my issues and I'll buy you as part of a Blu-Ray box set.  Until that day, I think it's best for both of us if we each just go our separate ways.

Warmest Regards,
Jason

P.S.  They announced Paranormal Activity 4.  Do the right thing.  If not for me, do it for yourself.

Profiles In Cinematic Greatness: Masters Of The Universe

Boys and girls, today we will be talking about the 1987 film, "Masters of the Universe".  This was the live action movie version of the cartoon, "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe".  If you happened to be a 10 year old boy in 1987 (which I was) this was the must see movie of the year.  The "Academy" decided that "The Last Emperor" was the best film of 1987, but we've rarely been on the same page when it comes to movies.

In this film, He-Man and some of his friends have to travel across the universe to Earth.  There they have to battle evil foes and local law enforcement.  As an added challenge they must also stay clear of the razor sharp chin of a then 37 year old Courtney Cox.  All of your favorites made an appearance in the film.  There was "Gwildor", "Saurod", "Blade", "Karg", and "Carl the Janitor".  I remember that they introduced so many new characters there was a special line of action figures just for the movie.  Buying new toys and spending $3.50 for a movie ticket (a hefty sum back in those days) ensured that every cent of a kids allowance was spent on He-Man related items.

The best part of this movie was casting Dolph Lundgen as "He-Man".  Dolph is a tall, blonde, muscular dude.  It seemed like he was genetically engineered just to play this role.  I bet it's the same laboratory they used to create Katherine Heigl with the one purpose of making horrible movies.  Lundgren was perfect in his portrayal.  He was handy enough with a sword and luckily the dialogue didn't require any heavy lifting.  The one change the movie made to "He-Man" was changing his hairstyle.  In the cartoon he sported a "Dorothy Hamill".  For the movie they updated his do to a more contemporary "feathered mullet".

The movie would not have been complete without "Skeletor".  Frank Langella went pretty big in his portrayal of the villain.  They went low-tech for his costume, which confused me.  I understand that special effects make-up has come a long way since the late 80's.  What I don't understand is why they used what looked like wet toilet paper for his skeleton face.  The mask was so bad I expected the "Scooby Doo" gang to show up and reveal that is was "Old Man Jenkins" all along.  Later in the film they covered "Skeletor" with golden adornments.  I'm thinking they could have cut the elaborate golden headdress budget a little and made his face not look like a dried up bowl of Cream of Wheat.

Earlier I did make fun of all the new characters, but they did include many of the classics.  With the glaring omission of "Skunkor" they managed to squeeze in all of the main goodies and baddies from the cartoon.  In what was probably one of the best decisions about the whole movie, they pretended "Orko" never happened.  He was the magical whatever he was supposed to be from the cartoons.  I think he was equally annoying to the die hard fan and casual watcher.  I'm assuming that with having Courtney Cox in the movie they didn't need another little annoying character.

As far as cartoon, action figure tie-in related movies go, this was a pretty solid film.  It had all the things that a growing 10 year old boy needed.  Here we are 25 years later (yeah I know), and while the movie doesn't dazzle me the way it did back then, it's a nice little escape back to the times when you wore footy pajamas and got up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons.