...is a scary thing. Here's the Keeper's Court, where people put in a "claim" on something from Passions. It can be a thing ("Maggie is the Keeper of Timmy's Martimmies"), or feelings ("Anette is the Keeper of Ivy's Obsession For Sam"), or whatever ("Theresa is the Keeper of Hank's Cuteness").
Have fun staring into the abyss!
"You're so novel; what a good idea." -Nada Surf, "Popular"
Why are the British so accepting of novelty songs? American Top 40 has the same boring songs on it week after week (e.g. "Mesmerize" by Ja Rule and Ashanti; "Holidae In" by Chingy, Snoop, and some other guys, since nobody seems to be able to sing an entire song solo anymore; and anything by Jessica Simpson).
What we really need are lighthearted novelty songs that break us out of this monotony. Why can't Americans latch on to mindless novelty songs the way British people do? Perhaps it's because we're incapable of introspection. Novelty songs are essentially spoofs of stupid pop songs, and most Americans refuse to admit that songs like Hillary Duff's "So Yesterday" are the work of Satan. (They say the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was writing bad pop songs for Hillary Duff.)
Anyway, here is James' and my list of the Top 5 Novelty Songs.
#5 - The Ketchup Song. This song has apparently spawned the "new dance craze". It's sung by Las Ketchup, three Spanish sisters who's first album was called "Hijas del Tomate," or Daughters of the Tomato for you non-Spanish speakers.
Strangely enough, these girls now apparently own Europe because this stupid song was so successful. Go figure.
#4 - The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun. This was Julie Brown's amusing (and only) hit from the mid-'80s before she hit it big on MTV. (No, not Downtown Julie Brown. Regular Julie Brown. The white one.)
It's clearly designed to cash in on the whole "Valley Girl" craze of the time, but is still funny in a dark way:
Debbie didn't listen to what the cop said
She aimed and fired and now the math teacher's dead
It's really sad, but kind of a relief
I mean, we had this big test coming up next week
That's novelty-rific.
#3 - The Chipmunk Song. In the genre of both animal-themed and Christmas-themed novelty songs, this one is clearly tops in cuteness and charm. Thus, I can forgive it for spawning the whole "Alvin and the Chipmunks" thing, even though I'll never be able to get their version of "Bette Davis Eyes" out of my head. Creeeeeepy.
#2 - Touch My Bum. I discovered this song on Top of the Pops, a British countdown video/concert show. It's sung by the Cheeky Girls, which is funny in and of itself.
You really have to hear it for yourself, I don't think I can do it justice just by relating a few lyrics. (Hint: the words "touch my bum" figure into things. A lot.)
#1 - David Duchovny. Bree Sharp performed this hysterical stalker song dedicated to the nigh-emotionless X-Files actor.
It's not just good musically, but good comedy as well. The best part is when she yells, "I'm gonna kill Scully!" That cracks me up every time.
So that's the list! And now, Andrew drunkendly posts his vehement disagreement with our list, and calls us stupid. In 3, 2, 1...
I realize that the furdell.com target audience is probably not full of avid soap opera watchers, but I get so much joy out of watching Passions that I feel the need to share it with all of you. So here are some reasons why it?s worth watching, despite (because of?) the bad writing, worse acting, and low-even-for-a-soap production value.
1. With a couple of exceptions, almost everyone on this show is: a) evil in a way that makes George W. Bush look like he actually is compassionate; b) completely batshit crazy; and/or c) blessed with magical powers.
2. Apparently, these magical powers include the ability to freeze your cousin in an enormous block of ice, which by the way makes blood gush from your head, hide her away in a cave, and produce from thin air an evil clone of said cousin, all for the purposes of getting the cousin?s boyfriend for yourself.
3. There used to be a talking doll named Timmy. He would be in doll form whenever anyone except the witch who made him (named Tabitha, of course) was around, and then he would come to life a la Mannequin and make his special drink, ?Martimmies.? Unfortunately, the actor who played him passed away recently, which isn?t at all funny. What is funny, however, is that the doll made a Christmas wish to the blue fairy that he would become a real boy. And he did. Become a real boy. It was awesome.
4. Death periodically comes by to bargain with people to save themselves, their babies, their lovers, whatever. He?s blue. Not midnight blue, smurf blue.
5. There?s also a chimp. Her name?s Precious, and she?s a geriatric nurse. That?s right, the monkey is a nurse.
If you?re intrigued by all this, and how could you not be (there?s Death! he?s blue! he makes flirty small talk with Tabitha!), look forward later to a recounting of my favorite Passions moments! Be excited, most of them demonstrate true evil genius.
Long time Andrew-followers have already heard me complain about the proliferation of movies in which nerdy people robot-dance and movies featuring Smashmouth songs. Well, look alive, because it's time for...
The Third Thing All Filmmakers Should Avoid
Pay attention, filmmakers. If you ever find yourself making a sexy teen comedy -- and there's no shame in it, I assure you -- do not include the scene in which we learn the names of all the cliques. Just excise it from the screenplay.
Oh, you know the scene I'm talking about. Here, I'll be more specific: veteran student walks new student through outdoor common area of high school, pointing out similarly-dressed groups and explaining each group's clever name.
and you know, then there's one or two groups tacked on the end for comedic value, like...
VETERAN STUDENT
You mean the Pirates? Those eyepatches are just for show, you know. Those guys can see fine.
Are you listenening, Hollywood? It's not funny anymore. We didn't like it in 10 Reasons Julia Stiles Must Die and we won't like it in Like Heathers But Less Dark.
NOTE: I have a rotten memory for these things, and it's not the kind of thing you can google -- so if anyone has in mind a movie that has this scene, please post a comment about it. Also don't forget I'm always looking to add to my Smashmouth and Robot Dance lists and I welcome your contributions.
Welcome to Iron Chef!*
Today's ingredient is...
(*Translated from the Japanese. -Stan)
?The fact is there are a lot of insects in the food we eat already. There are certain regulations set by the USDA about how many beetles you can have per pound of flour,? Jadin says.
That doesn't make this OK, you crazy bitch! This is eating insects directly! Stop trying to feed me bugs! No! NOOO! AHHHHHHHHHH!
(This has been a re-enactment of what it might be like if someone tried to feed me cicadas. Remember, "Friends don't let friends serve those friends some bugs for eating." And that's one to grow on.)
Yes, it's fruit made to look like sushi:
So creative, so delicious. If only Orange the restaurant was closer than Wrigleyville in Chicago.
Here's a 15MB video clip of a local newswoman who, while playfully cheating at a grape-stomping contest...well, I don't want to give it away. Suffice it to say you will feel this woman's pain when you hear her speak in tongues.
You might have noticed that all your wealthy, overweight, gambling-addicted friends have disappeared. That's right, it's World Series of Poker time, and it will be for the next month or so, so take your time getting to Vegas. Somehow it's even still hosted by Binion's Horseshoe Casino, which had closed down recently, presumably because it insisted on staying old school. That may have been more than enough links just then, but let's throw in Ted Binion's grisly murder in case you're bored.
If you've been swept up in the sudden popularity surge of poker over the last year, you're probably aware that the title of World Poker Champion goes to he (or she? no, pretty much always he) who wins the $10000 No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em tournament. They may as well be playing the World Series of Yahtzee. No-limit hold 'em is so unpredictable, and has so many insane swings, that you end up with amateur schlubs getting the title of World's Best Poker Player, and that's just dumb. I'd much rather play against last year's winner Chris Moneymaker than a more consistent player, like Sam Farha (last year's #2) or Phil Ivey (hilariously always referred to as the Tiger Woods of poker -- not because he's the best, but because he's black).
So, what game should we use to judge the top poker player? I'm inclined to agree with David Sklansky, that a variety of games should determine the winner. There are so many different types of poker -- why focus solely on Hold 'Em? What of the stud games, Binions? Or, dare I say it, the draws? Shouldn't a poker champion be a master of all these forms?
Poor Billy. "Uptown Girl" came on the radio, he started sobbing because Christie broke up with him -- he's still upset about it 10 years later. Then he got all teary-eyed and couldn't see the road. At least, in my personal crusade against him, that's the story we're going with, because suddenly:
Well! I guess you could say that...
[searching brain for appropriate mean-spirited Billy Joel song-title reference...]
[still searching...]
he's... "Moving Out..." of... up to the hospital? No, that's terrible. No... um...
[looks through discography...]
YIKES! Um, I'm now too scared to continue. Goodbye.
Gotta love it when this story makes CNN.com's front page:
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- A couple on a low-carb diet were kicked out of a buffet restaurant after the manager said they'd eaten too much roast beef.Sui Amaama, who along with his wife have been on the Atkins Diet for two weeks, was asked to leave after he went up to the buffet at the Chuck-A-Rama in suburban Taylorsville for his 12th slice of roast beef.
"It's so embarrassing actually," said Isabelle Leota, Amaama's wife. "We went in to have dinner, we were under the impression Chuck-A-Rama was an all-you-can-eat establishment."
Not so, said Jack Johanson, the restaurant chain's district manager.
"We've never claimed to be an all-you-can-eat establishment," said Johanson. "Our understanding is a buffet is just a style of eating."
The general manager who was carving the meat Tuesday became concerned about having enough for other patrons and asked Amaama to stop, Johanson said.
Offended, the couple asked for a refund. The manager refused and called police when they would not leave.
The couple said they have eaten at Chuck-A-Rama's $8.99 buffet at least twice a week, but did not plan to return.
So, of course,
Seriously, CNN. Is this really newsworthy enough for the front page? Would you like to maybe do a story on my haircut from the other day?
I think you would.
Well, apparently the King of Pop has been indicted for all the whole little-boy-sex thing. After a cursory examination of the internet I am prepared to declare myself the only person in the world who thinks he's probably not guilty.
Or, perhaps more probably, a lot of people don't particularly think he's guilty, but can't resist an easy joke at the expense of a complete weirdo. Just in case I'm right about that, I hereby promise not to make any joke in this post that refers by name to an MJ song or album. That's my pledge to you: the reader.
Putting aside for the moment that fact that we're all afraid of what Jackson has become, when you think about it, isn't he just regressing? After all, he was a child star, and VH1 tells me this means he probably didn't have a "normal" childhood. So he obsesses over his button nose to the point of destroying it; he names his ranch Neverland (umm, don't click on that); and hangs out almost exclusively with little kids. Come on people, it's a cry for help. Michael Jackson is telling you to stop making him write song about centipedes and just let him pretend to be 12. And as Dan Savage tells us this week, just because you want to be a small child does not mean you want to fondle a small child.
Think about it in terms of probability. Which of the following scenarios is more likely?
1.) Extremely wealthy celebrity invites cancer-stricken bald 12-year-old boy into his home -- along with several other cancer-stricken baldies -- in order to ply him with wine and hustle him for a handjob.
OR
2.) Extremely wealthy celebrity, in an attempt to reclaim his own childhood, makes himself vulnerable to people who realize both that he is extremely wealthy and that he is so bizarre that everyone pretty much assumes he's a child molester anyway.
Personally, if I was richer than God and into little boys, they wouldn't be bald and I wouldn't get caught. Furthermore, if I was richer than god and merely eccentric, I'd give cancer-kids as much goddamned wine as they asked for. I'd probably have a bottle myself, too. Depressing bastards.
I'm glad my brother brought up the subject of completely retarded lists made up by cable entertainment channels, because I've been meaning to broach the subject of E!'s 101 Reasons the 90s Ruled.
Those of you who remembered the 90s probably remember that, right up until about '99, it sucked hardcore. Rock music pretty much died for good, with grunge as its death rattle; everybody rushed out to see Best Pictures Titanic and Forrest Gump and motherfucking Saving Private Ryan; and speculators bought stacks of comic books, without particular regard for their quality, paving the way for the Spider-Man Clone Saga -- the absolute most boring and convoluted storyline in all of Spidey's history, and believe me, I'm in a position to know.
The long and the short of it is, we all hated the 90s -- except my bastard roommate Matt. For some reason Matt insists that the 90s were awesome. Matt is clearly mistaken, as can be easily demonstrated by a sample of reasons E! believed the 90s to have ruled.
Look, I can't convey how ridiculous the idea of 90s nostalgia is on my own. Just take a look at the full list, and hope beyond hope that people never REALLY get nostalgic for the 90s.
Because VH-1 needs more five-hour-long list-based specials now that "Top 500 Most Embarrassing Moments in Polka" and "I Love 4.3 Seconds Ago" have run their respective courses, the cable network has teamed up with Blender: The Magazine for Gen-X Kitchen Appliances to come up with, purportedly, the "Worst 50 Songs Ever".
Naturally, they didn't try all that hard. "We Built This City" by Starship is #1, which, admittedly, is a horrible song... but is it the worst ever? "Everybody Wang Chung Tonight" is #3 on their list, which is really a shame; that's one of those songs that was probably written in five minutes that actually holds up well over time. "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice at #5 is bad, but he himself had a much worse song than that.
Well, I'm no Mo Rocca, thank God, but my extensive collection of American Top 40s with Casey Kasem certainly makes me something of an authority on terrible songs that were at least somewhat popular at one time, but really shouldn't have been. Thus, I feel the need to present to the world... James' list of the Five Really Worst Songs Ever.
How much would you pay to see newspaper comic strip creators kick the crap out of each other?
Wait, don't answer yet.
What if one was Aaron McGruder, creator of the militant and cynical Boondocks...
...and the other was Bil Keane, creator of the saccharine kiddie strip Family Circus?
"I don't go to the cartoonist conventions," McGruder said. "I went once, to the Reuben Awards"?the Oscars of cartooning?"and I didn't feel very welcome. I felt a palpable sense of resentment. Bil Keane was the m.c., and he opened doing more than one joke that was clearly aimed at me. It was raw?just some fucked-up shit. O.K., and yet, if I get out of my chair right now and beat the shit out of you, then I'm the bad guy?"
Fellow Americans, this fight must happen. And it must be televised.
If we can show Who Wants To Marry A Dwarf? on primetime network TV, then, by God, there must be room for a McGruder-Keane fight, if only on pay-per-view.
"Who's kicking your ass, punk? NOT ME!"
Not realizing I had a niche audience, I haven't bothered to post an explanation of this site's changes.
Until now.
You see, my old website, though wonderful in every way conceivable, had its flaws. Drawing stuff was time consuming; I ran out of good ideas a long time ago; and I stopped caring. Plus, I swear only about 3 people were reading it anyway. For real.
In this site's new, much-better format, I get to occasionally post ideas without having to come up with visuals that often have nothing to do with what I'm talking about. Furthermore, there's two other contributors, which makes my total lack of inspiration and originality much less crippling.
Who are these contributors, you ask? Well, there's me. You knew that. Right. Then there's my brother James. Last but blondest is Kimberly, wife of James, making her weblog debut.
Sure, there are other Furdells out there, but we're the main three. That's why Google proclaims us Number One. Put that in your pipe, Phyllis!!! SIT IN YOUR TOWER!!!
For those of you who found my illustrated blog project a refreshing change from the humdrum text-heavy blogosphere: SCREW YOU!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! That's what you get for supporting me, losers.
5) The Borgata casino in Atlantic City is pretty cool. More like a glitzy Vegas casino than those other gross, crowded Boardwalk ones. Plus, the table minimums were fairly reasonable for AC... $10 blackjack when I walked in at 3 p.m. on a Friday, and it didn't go up to $15 until about 6 p.m. I was worried it would be all quarters all the time.
4) $2 upper-level tickets at Shea Stadium are the way to go. I'm a big fan. (Only in NYC: the seven-year-old kid next to me yelling, "Right fielder, you suck!")
3) Why would you intentionally walk Randall Simon, who's hitting about .115 and is 0-2 with a GDP, to load the bases and get to Craig Wilson, who's hitting .396 and already has a home run? Predictably, it didn't work out so well. Silly, silly Mets.
2) Driving in New York is actually not as terrifying as people make it out to be. Granted, everything you know about traffic laws is wrong and should be ignored, and it's pretty much every man for himself as far as merging and changing lanes goes. But it's kind of fun gunning it in order to outrun a bus to the intersection, and then cursing out the pedestrians who took too long crossing the street.
1) About Red Sonja...
Exactly what good is that armor supposed to do? Do chain mail bra and panties adequately offer the protection today's heroine needs in the cutthroat fantasy world of sword and sorcery? I say thee nay. But somehow I was able to look past that and enjoy the back issues I picked up at the flea market anyway.
I would like to thank my friend Susana Banana Rodriguez Etc Etc* for providing me with a workable, if publically available sangria recipe, after continued begging that some have called violently desperate. I would also like to award myself the "Most Gratuitous Links in a Sentence" Award. Awesome!
*Don't click on this. It's Livejournal. It's like a community that you really, really don't want to have any part of.
Mario Party really has it in for me. I?m not sure if it?s just our Mario Party, or if it?s all Mario Parties, but I?m definitely sensing some hostility. I have played as Player 1, and I have played as Player 2. I have played as Toad, and as Yoshi. It doesn?t matter. Always with the hate. What did I ever do to you, Mario Party? Granted, I proclaimed (loudly and frequently) that version 3 was inferior to version 2, and I spurned your fourth version altogether. But through our ups and downs, I always loved you! So why does someone always have to land on Tweester when I?m about to reach the star? And why, even if James has twice as much coin as I have, and more stars than the rest of us combined, do the CPU players always choose me to duel, or to steal stuff from? At least when I get my ass kicked at Kart I know it?s because I lack the basic motor skills needed to keep from steering my little kart into the water (or the lava, or the giant chasm). But this, it?s just mean.
And for some reason, I just keep coming back for more.
I don?t like change. So when I turn on TBS and see a Braves lineup consisting of guys named Wise, Thomson, and Estrada, it makes me uneasy. This unease tends to manifest itself with shouting. ?Who? WHO? Where the hell did that guy come from, and WHERE?S JAVY?? Obviously I didn?t pay enough attention during the offseason. (The only downside to no longer being a daily subscriber to that bastion of crappy journalism, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)
I will admit it. Some change is alright. I wasn?t unhappy to see Ryan Klesko leave, even though it means I no longer get to laugh myself silly watching him fall down at the plate while whiffing a home run cut. Tootle-oo, Tom Glavine, and don?t let the door hit your inflated ego on the way out. Hello, feisty Rafael Furcal and tasty Marcus Giles! But why did Maddux have to go?
Sigh. There is now just one player left from when I first became a Braves fan in 1991, and that's John Smoltz. His is the only bobble-head to earn a place atop our TV amongst our collection of plush baseball mascots. (Right now Mr. Met seems to be eyeing him in a way that clearly says, ?mmm, tasty snack.?) Thanks, John, for sticking around and continuing to impress. But the truth is, I still miss my Rafael Belliard.
Apparently, the first Google result for the word "jew" is a poorly-designed (aren't they all) antisemitic site called Jew Watch. According to Snopes, Jew Watch has topped the list since 2001, but this hilariously misguided online petition is relatively new.
Somehow, the petitioner got it in his head that if he collected 50,000 names online, Google would remove Jew Watch from its results page. This, in spite of the fact that Google never manually adjusts search results, since doing so would damage the search engine's integrity; and more fundamentally in spite of the fact that online petitions never ever amount to anything.
Now, personally, I'm pretty sure impressionable children aren't rushing to their web browsers, typing in "jew," and clicking "I'm feeling lucky." Even if they did, Jew Watch is an incomprehensible jumble of links in teensy font. I stared at it for several minutes and, though I do seem to be filled with slightly more hate, I don't feel like I'm directing it at any group in particular.
Proving that not everybody who believes in this cause is fundamentally retarded, some folk have been googlebombing a much-more-helpful definition of Jew to the top of the list. It's a shaky battle, with Jew Watch currently on top, but who knows. Personally I'm much more perturbed by the content of MartinLutherKing.org, which I discovered through Jew Watch. The site design is dangerously legible, and its innocent-looking presentation and domain name are really creepy.
What's the bright side of all this? Well, with more than 80,000 signers, there's plenty of hilarious messages on the petition website! This is going to be even more fun than that "Rename 'The Two Towers' To Something Less Offensive" petition from a couple of years ago. Follow me on a journey to Stupid.
Looks like I'll be in the neighborhood of beautiful Atlantic City this weekend.
Folks, if you're going to play blackjack, please do it responsibly. By bringing a cheat sheet with you if necessary. I get so sad when I see people hitting 15 against a 4, or something else ridiculous. At least give yourself a chance to win by playing good basic strategery.
So, I saw Gigli last night. Yeah, yeah, I know. Get off my back, okay? It was my roommate's Netflick. It was between that and The Towering Inferno, which turns out to be eight hours long.
Oh, I guess you expect me to write some kind of snarky review, huh? Well, prepare yourself for disappointment. The only thing less creative than Gigli is people who write snarky reviews of Gigli. And as a person who neither made nor criticized Gigli, I declare myself Better Than You. Live with it, LOSER.
So apparently the "president" thought what he had to say was SO DAMNED IMPORTANT that he needed to preempt a new episode of 24. FOX, being as it is an organization bent on my destruction, decided to reschedule 24...for the same timeslot as Alias on another network.
If you're anything like me (and you should be), you've already stabbed yourself in frustration. Stop stabbing, friend; I have created, free of charge, an artist's rendition of exactly what was going to happen in that episode. Sure, it's not the same as the real thing -- but it's shorter. You gotta give me that.
Q: You've looked back before 9-11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9-11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have learned from it?BUSH: I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it.
John, I'm sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could've done it better this way or that way. You know, I just -- I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn't yet.
It sounds even worse with the 10-second pauses between sentences. Like a third-grader giving a book report without having read the book.
I'm glad the old Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter is coming to DVD, but I'm also disappointed that it's the relatively boring first season. Here, I'll summarize the entire first season for you:
- Wonder Woman the action figure flies an invisible plastic plane.
- Wonder Woman battles a person in a Nazi gorilla suit.
- Boring episode set in Mexico.
- Boring episode set in Texas.
- Ted Striker from Airplane! makes googly eyes at Debra Winger.
- Dick Van Patten hosts a beauty pageant, and basically spends the entire fucking episode looking at the contestants' cleavage. (Can't wait to see the deleted scenes from that one.)
And that's pretty much it. I probably just saved you $35.
You owe me $35.
But. I will. Totally get the second season. That's when the series shifts from WWII to present-day 1977. You will believe a Lite Brite can talk.
Nay... you must believe.
