THE OFFICIAL RNC DRINKING GAME!!!

It's Back to School night, which means that I am home alone while my parents talk to my new teachers. So I'm doing my best to have fun before I get grounded. I'm watching The Losers, blogging, and waiting for How I Met Your Mother to come back on TV.

But while I was surfing the channels, I found the Republican National Convention on channel nine. And boy oh boy, how bad can it get... I think they may have intentionally hired the worst public speakers in the country on purpose.

And so, in the interest of keeping politics scintillating, I have devised the OFFICIAL 2012 RNC DRINKING GAME!!!

• Every time John McCain says 'My friends', drink.

• Every time a former opponent of Mitt Romney fakes a painful, forced smile, drink.

• Whenever a former governor declares that Romney will be a great president, drink.

• Whenever someone says 'The next President of these United States', drink.

• Whenever someone says 'The next Vice-President of these United States', drink twice.

• Every time someone says 'You didn't build that', drink.

• Every time Newt Gingrich says 'My fellow Americans', drink.

• Every time one of Romney's sons speaks a different language, drink twice.

• Whenever Chris Christie looks at Paul Ryan jealously, down your drink.

• Whenever someone refers to George W. Bush as a 'great' president, down your drink.

• Whenever someone mentions the name Herman Cain, down your drink.

• And the most coveted rule of the RNC drinking game... Whenever someone criticizes Ronald Reagan, drink the whole bottle.

Anyway... that's the best I could do on a short notice. Expect one for the DNC sometime soon, and feel free to add on rules as you see fit.

Bye!

News of the Weird

Hey, does it bother anyone else that 'The Los Angeles Angels' translates directly to 'The The Angels Angels'? That's gonna keep me up at night. And while we're at it, I recommend switching Iceland and Greenland. Really, someone's gotta fix that.

But this minor pet peeve of mine isn't what I'm here to tell you about today. No, I have something that is actually... pretty sad. Take a look at this painting: It's a wall mural in Spain that was in dire need of restoration. Unfortunately, the church hired... shall we say... the wrong person.

Now, I'm not a religious person, but I am an artist. And this is just f***ing pathetic. Every time I look at it, I feel sick to my stomach. If I get cancer in 20 years, it's because of this. You have to wonder about the woman who painted this. Where is she? In hiding? It's horrific. Oh, my God... I'm dying. Or maybe she's just a baboon who merely painted her own savior, Monkey-Jesus.

This is just putting salt on the wound for the Catholic Church, which has had an ongoing stream of pedophile scandals for over a year now. Again, I'm not religious, but even I wouldn't be surprised if the painter gets struck by lightning in a week or so.

Bye!

The High School Experience

This is the first blog post I will ever write at a different school than White Hill. As you may or may not know, I have officially become a Freshman at Drake High, meaning that I am once again the armpit of school hierarchy. Fortunately, seeing as I am 6'2", it's the Juniors that will be looking up to ME, not the other way around.

The teacher peeps are okay (I guess), seeing as none of them meet any of my criteria for SIGNS THAT YOUR HIGH SCHOOL WILL SUCK. Which brings me to the main topic of my first post-middle school blog post:

---SIGNS THAT YOUR FRESHMAN YEAR IS GOING TO STINK---

A Manifesto

• The English teacher's parrot constantly yells 'Awk! Stop beating me! Awk!'

• The wood shop teacher has a prosthetic limb.

• Your guidance counselor interrupts your first meeting with a call from his mother-- and there's a lot of swearing.

• You catch the security guard taking a nap behind the cafeteria.

• The music teacher plays online solitaire the whole class.

• A crew from National Geographic is videotaping a new life form that has mutated in the school's pool.

• You can't get near the trashcans, seeing as the raccoons are particularly aggressive.

• Your World History teacher is comatose.

• Your core teacher has a hand puppet that he refers to as 'Mister Hat'.

• All the school's garden is growing is one weird-looking cabbage.

• The History teacher goes into great detail about the Nazis bombing Pearl Harbor.

• You can hear Barry Manilow blasting from the principal's office from across the campus.

• PE isn't so much Physical Education as it is yoga with skin grafts.

• Your teacher introduces himself (along with all his multiple personalities, including Tanya the double-D pole dancer, Osama bin Laden, and Bob Dole).

Anyway, seeing as they have met my incredibly low standards, I have to give the teachers this year at least a fighting chance. Which is a much bigger consideration than some I've had in the past.

Bye!

One Idiot to Rule Them All

Phew... I have just completed watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time in five years. I am still exhausted. The damn things are three hours long each. It's unbelievable. How do they get away with this? God damn... One does not simply watch all three LOTR films.

But even I can't milk an entire blog post out of that semi-interesting story, so I'll have to resort to the last bastion of reporting: Actual News. In POLITICS today, we have an incredible s***storm: Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri said today that abortions in cases of rape were "rare" and went on to insinuate that a woman could control pregnancy "If she really wanted to". Understandably, this set off a chain reaction of partisan explosiveness seen before only in the last half-hour of 'Return of the King'. GOD DAMN IT!!! I CAN'T GET THOSE MOVIES OUT OF MY HEAD!!! AAAARGH...

Okay, I'm done. Anyway, the resulting uproar was (for once) totally legitimate, and surprisingly bipartisan. It's not often that Republicans will turn against each other for being TOO crazy, but I guess exceptions have to be made. Besides, the guy basically said that most cases of rape aren't actually 'rape', and have some sort of consensus to them.

So, LET THE DISTANCING BEGIN!!! Every able-minded Republican out there (and there are more of them than you may think) has been declaring Akin's remarks "indefensible" and "outrageous". Most surprising, however, would have to be Scott Walker's declaration that Akin should forfeit the race. Perhaps he thinks that further gaffes could only hurt the Republican party and Mitt Romney. I bet the GOP wishes they could cast Akin's painfully idiotic comment into the fires of Mount Doom, thereby unmaking it... F***!!! AAARRGH!!! I CAN'T DO THIS!!!

Those movies really leave a mark on you. Jesus. Anyway, should Akin step aside? NO! I want more of this crap!!! If you think ONE gaffe is enough, it's nowhere near the mounds of s*** the GOP has been spurting out these days! The more screw-ups, the better. And besides, it's not like he could win anyway. The race is all but guaranteed for the Democrats now. It's almost as if some unstoppable force is standing in Akin's way, shouting "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!"

God damn it. I need to go to bed.

Bye!

Do I LOOK Like a Druggie?

I have had the weirdest week of my life (okay, THIRD weirdest), and it's all because of today. Long story short, I witnessed a car accident, thwarted a robbery, got mistaken for a drug dealer, found $20, and almost got someone killed.

I should explain. The first incident happened two days ago, when I was helping move furniture out of my great-aunt's house (she passed away). Anyway, I was assigned to security, meaning I guarded the truck full of furniture while it was moved down four flights of stairs. So, I was wearing my Navy Seals shirt and Ray-bans and trying to look like no one should mess with me when a white truck pulled into the parking lot. The two guys in the truck were looking at the furniture, so I naturally pretended to reach into my jacket for a gun. They looked surprised, and drove away. Now, I'm not sure if that actually qualifies as thwarting a robbery, but it's sure as hell close enough.

When we took the stuff over to the Salvation Army, we hadn't been there for more than two minutes when we heard the screech of rubber in the tunnel we had just exited, and a massive crash. Police cars and fire trucks started pouring into the street, and people were just running around panicking. It was like a scene from The Dark Knight, where The Joker bombs something and people start screaming, and blah blah blah.

And so today I was walking around downtown San Anselmo with my friend Calvin when we ran into Walter, who is a friend of a friend, so we hung out for a while. While we sat on a park bench drinking iced coffee, we started talking about how the Olympics would be more interesting if the Japanese athletes committed seppuku if they didn't place on the medal stand. While we discussed this, a shady-looking guy with baggy jeans and a white hoodie ran by. Walter looked at him as he ran off, turned to us, and said "That guy's a drug dealer".

So we started talking about it, and came to the conclusion that he might actually be the runner; the guy who plays the neutral party between the buyer and the dealer. And so when he walked back the way he came, we knew we were right.

But that's not all. He turned to us and said, almost incomprehensibly, "You guys got any tree?" I looked at Calvin, and he gave me a look that said it all. We didn't know what the HELL was going on. And so I turned to the guy and said "No, not on me, man. You must have mistaken us for someone else." And he stared at us for a second, then asked "So, you don't have any fern?" And I said "No, I'm sorry".

And when he started to walk off, Walter began giggling in his high-pitched voice that should belong to a six-year-old girl. And the guy turned back and got in Walter's face. He began yelling "Hey, you got some kinda PROBLEM? You LAUGHIN' AT ME, BRO?" And so I had to intervene. I said "No, man, he's just laughing about something we were talking about earlier". And Calvin said "Yeah, we were talking about how it would be cool if the Japanese athletes committed seppuku if they didn't get a medal". And the guy looked at us for a second, then said "That'd be cool". And he just walked off.

I might have saved Walter from getting stabbed. I don't know. Oh, and I found $20 just LYING on the ground, so I had a good day.

Even by my standards.

Bye!

Romney-Ryan 2012: "The Pasty Ticket"

Mitt Romney has officially announced his running mate, declaring this morning that 42-year-old Wisconsin senator PAUL RYAN will be his VP nominee. Now, I can't prove this, but for the past week, I have been telling everyone that Romney was going to pick Ryan. It's f***ing uncanny.

Now, the unusual thing about this is that while the VP is usually supposed to balance the ticket (by being of a different race, gender, or heritage than the President), Ryan does absolutely dick. He is a White Obnoxious Republican Male (WORM), and does nothing to appeal to voters any more than Romney already does. The only difference between the two is their religion, which hasn't factored nearly as much in the political climate as it usually would. In fact, Obama got more flak for 'Being a secret Muslim' than Romney does for actually being a Mormon. You would think the Christian Right would be gnawing at his heels by now.

LOOK AT THIS GUY!!! He looks like an expressionless CHINA DOLL!!! Oh God, look away, he's staring into my SOUL!!! everlasting light

Anyway, that's that. I'm looking forward to the Biden-Ryan debates. Ryan does have one thing over him, though-- correct me if I'm wrong, but he's never needed hair plugs.

Bye!

The Campaign

In a summer of disappointing comedies (Ted, The Dictator, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World), we really needed a hit. And we have found it in the form of The Campaign, a fantastic new comedy from Zach Galifanakis and Will Ferrell.

The best part of The Campaign is the overall feeling of "Why did no one think of this before?" The premise is perfect, the casting is great, and it has virtually no flaws--- although it has a little too much slapstick and not enough satire. Will plays Cam Brady, a four-term congressman up for reelection. With no opponents, he will win just by being on the ballot-- Enter Zach Galifanakis as Marty Huggins, a simple (to say the least) southerner with a bad wardrobe and a lisp.

You would think Ferrell would smoke him easily, but due to a few incidents involving baby punching, the campaign is closely tied. I won't give any spoilers, but the resulting hilarity, is so plausible it's scary. All the writers did was take the usual mudslinging and amp it up a little. You could certainly see any of these events playing out in an everyday North Carolina election.

As the campaign heats up, the rhetoric get ludicrous. Marty forces Cam to recite the lord's prayer onstage, and Cam tries to make a porno with Marty's wife. The film's biggest asset, however, may be that we never learn which is the Republican and which is the Democrat-- although it is somewhat obvious just by looking at them.

So, flaws?... um... Well, like I said, there was a little too much slapstick. Cam gets bitten by a snake and shot in the leg, and Marty generally gets slapped around a lot. But overall, it's a very solid film. And it boasts one of the best endings of any movie this summer, although I won't spoil it for you. Final score? 8/10 stars.

Bye!

Chik-fil-a sez n0 gay MArrij!!!

I haven't really been on top of blogging recently, mostly due to my new iPod, my new TV, and my new screen-induced brain aneurysm. Which means I've missed out on a lot of news stories the past few weeks. And s*** has been going DOWN!!!

About a month ago, the Oreo corporation released a photo of a rainbow-colored Oreo cookie, supposedly in support of gay marriage. The resulting uproar pissed everyone off equally in some way until everyone gave up and went home. Unfortunately, the issue wasn't laid to rest.

A week ago, the Chick-fil-a corporation's CEO stated that he was anti-gay marriage. Now, this guy's on thin ice with me as it is-- the man runs a company that makes poorly disguised grease-lard byproducts and passes them off for chicken. Even it's name caters to a lower class of human being. But this has really fried me.

Aah, the south: Where being fat is genetic but being gay is a 'lifestyle choice'. Well, I say this isn't over by a LONG SHOT!!! We need to get EVERY major corporation to pick a side!!! In fact, I believe I have a chart with me right now:

CORPORATE POSITIONS ON GAY RIGHTS:

A STUDY

Johnson & Johnson----- It depends... how long have Johnson and Johnson been living together...?

Chrysler----- Normally would be anti-gay, but was recently acquired by open-minded Italians. Bottom line: What does Silvio think?

Dairy Queen----- Not gonna touch this one.

Playboy----- Really? Did you have to ask?

Apple----- Oreo got smashed for their rainbow Oreo, but have you seen Apple's original logo? Come on.

Lego----- Hard to tell, seeing as their action figures are of indeterminate gender.

Pilsbury----- Again, unknown. But I'm thinking anti, seeing as the Doughboy is too out-of-shape to be gay.

Quaker----- WAAAY too religious. Definitely anti.

Disney----- It's Mickey and MINNIE, not Mickey and Vinnie.

Budweiser----- Their CEO's statement was too unintelligible to call either way.

Nike----- "I believe that every human being has the right to freedom, liberty, and marriage. Except for our workers. Them we could take or leave". -Michael Jordan.

GO BACK TO YOUR HOMES!!! THE JORDAN HAS SPOKEN!!!

Anyway, that's as close as I can come to figuring it out. If any other corporation has an opinion they'd like to voice, please let me know.

Bye!

Brace Yourselves II

As you may remember from my Feb 4, 2011 post Brace Yourselves, I've had braces for about a year and a half. But that all changed on Thursday, when I got those little f**kers off. I got to keep them, so now I need to figure out what to do with them. My mom says I should turn them into jewelry. I said I should take them into the backyard and beat them with a hammer, then put the video on YouTube as a warning to orthodontists everywhere. So, let's agree to disagree.

You have no idea how awesome this feels. It's like God descending from Heaven and giving you ten billion dollars. It's like windsurfing and parasailing at the same time. It's like driving a Lamborghini while being sprayed with champagne. I can actually feel my goddamn teeth. It's amazing.

This has been a very successful summer. I finally obtained an iPod, my Dad gave in to the 21st century and bought a flat panel TV, and now... this. I am ecstatic. And hell, it could have been worse-- I could have ended up with headgear. Gag.

Anyway, school's gonna be back soon and I'll be going into Drake High. For the first time in history, I will be writing this blog while at a different school. I started it while at White Hill Middle School, and now... not so much. The saddest thing is that White Hill is now being demolished for renovation, meaning that I'll soon forget what it looked like. I don't know why everyone says that Middle School is the worst invention of all time. It worked out just fine for me. And so I dedicate this post to White Hill. It will be missed.

Dual Review: Spider-Man and Total Recall

I've seen two movies in the past week or so, but I never got around to reviewing one of them, so I just waited for today so I could write a DUAL REVIEW!!! I'll need to shorten my usual review length by a bit, but it's okay, seeing as neither movie deserved the seven dollars I paid for them.

First off, I saw The Amazing Spider-Man two weeks ago but didn't find it important enough to review immediately, and I forgot about it. Which should tell you all you need to know. It failed on so many levels, not only with a boring subplot and breathtakingly bad CGI, but a painful feeling of uselessness through the whole thing. It just seemed so freaking unnecessary. I get the idea, if Marvel wants to include Spider-Man in The Avengers 2, they need to re-boot him. But then why no Nick Fury cameo? Grrr...

Fortunately, it's made worthwhile only by a few good performances, namely Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben. If I have to tell you any more about that character, then that's just pathetic.

Final score for The Amazing Spider-Man? 5/10 stars. It was slow, painful, and even the final battle scene seemed kind of drawn-out. However, the movie DID stay mostly canonical, the best example of which was where he made his OWN web shooters instead of... oh, God, I'm a nerd.

And then we have Total Recall. I never saw the original film with Arnold Schwartznegger, but I'm sure it was good, filled with good action and one-liners. But it seems to have been lost a little in this remake, which holds water for a while, but ultimately eats itself with bland performances and that vampire girl from Underworld. Graham Vert

Colin Farrell may be the only good-to-mediocre part of the film, mainly because he does a very convincing 'Confused Stare'. The effects are fantastic, though, and while the story is ludicrous, it's hard not to get caught up in it. Final score: 4/10 stars.

Usually I see movies that I KNOW I will like, which is why my reviews usually fall into the 7-10 star range. But I only saw these two because I wanted to go eat popcorn in an air-conditioned theater for two hours. And what do you know: They're both equally forgettable.

Bye!

THE OLYMPIANS!!!

The Olympics are off to an... unusual start. The opening ceremonies were, in my opinion, kind of crappy, but it was good to see the Queen skydive with the worst James Bond yet. And it's not over, just wait for Skyfall in December.

Anyway, the damn British couldn't think of anything about their country more interesting than their health care system. Really? That's kind of rubbing it in our noses. Uncool, guys. Uncool.

And the events themselves aren't being particularly kind to anyone. Michael Phelps has not only failed to place on the medal stand a couple of times, but he's been beaten again and again by his American rival, Ryan Lochte. China had an incredibly poor showing in the gymnastics routine, which I find odd. Usually, the Chinese government removes organs from its gymnasts in order to make them lighter. You know, just a kidney or so.

But the biggest failure came today, when the Badminton teams of China, South Korea, and Indonesia purposely threw the matches in order to face easier teams in the coming rounds. Now, this is a hair-raising event to all of us, I'm sure, and it brings with it an important question:

They have BADMINTON in the OLYMPICS?

Seriously, what the hell? If you're going to put Badminton in there, you really need Nerf Gun Target Practice, Bottle Cap Flicking, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

I am quite adept at the exquisite art of Bottle Cap Flicking.

Nonetheless, despite a few hang-ups, the London Olympics seem to be doing OK... at least until Mitt Romney showed up to cheer on Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. He also voiced some concerns as to the security of the Olympics, to which Prime Minister David Cameron responded "F*** you". I'm paraphrasing, of course, but you get the idea.

Romney is, of course, famous for saving the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, or as I like to call them, 'The Olympics that Time Forgot'. In his press conference, Cameron stated "It's much harder to hold the Olympics in a bustling city of over seven million than in the middle of nowhere".

BUUUUUUUUURN!!!!

Bye!