Not Another Hurricane

My blogging routine has been somewhat sparse as of late, but I have a valid excuse-- my school is absolutely hectic. There's a new project every week, and I can barely begin to keep up. And it doesn't help that my group members, although funny, are often absolutely incapable of buckling down and working. In my new group, one guy spent a whole 90-minute period drawing penises on Microsoft Paint while I built our whole website. And in the last project we did (a report on a country that was chosen for us at random), it was no better. We had to keep a journal that was written from first-person, and described what daily life would be like in our country (Afghanistan), written from the point of view of a Kabul native. Here's a few choice selections from my group member's journal entries. Now, bear in mind: These were written very crudely, so any translation errors are not my fault. But I think I've pretty much conveyed the message (if any) behind them. Take a look:

• "There is to many suicide bomers in afghanistan we need to cleanse the entire country of these horrid taliban theyh ave to stop attakking us and let us build a better country for the people so we can finally have peace in tuis country and stop being the playground of war"
• "This is very good in my eyes the more womans rights the better and more womens rights expand the closer we are coming to becoming a country of peace"
• "this is ecxiting to me we are going to get the things we need for football i feel this is empowering as to say there football leader was proud to be in afghanistan in my country im going to go play right now"

Great stuff. Powerful and emotional. And before you say "Hey, this is mean, he may have a mental disability," three things: Firstly, although he is absolutely insane, he is no vegetable. Secondly, I didn't mention his name. And thirdly, he told me to put these on my blog (which he reads). So I'd like to take this chance to give a big shout-out to my former group member, just in case he reads this! Sir! You are the philosopher king! So many questions remain unanswered, o wise one! Such as... why did you not capitalize Afghanistan? What is the meaning of the word "ecxiting?" Why is there no punctuation at the end of your sentences to signify the conclusion of a phrase? Oh, I'm sure that scholars will debate this for ages!

Wow, this went on way too long. But I really needed to vent about this... and it's also pretty hilarious. Seriously, I could eat a bucket of Scrabble tiles and crap out a sentence more coherent than these. 

But in other news, there's a hurricane that just hit the Philippines (it took me way too long to figure out how to spell that correctly), and here's a big news flash for everyone: THIRD-WORLD COUNTRIES ARE REALLY, REALLY SHITTY! So my class is having a drive to raise $2,000 to help the people there, and unlike most things my school sponsors, I actually think I might contribute to this. So I'm going to pitch in fifty bucks, partly because I'd feel guilty not doing it when I just got approximately one buttload of money for my birthday, and also because... y'know... it might save someone's f**king life.

   << Also, this.

Interestingly enough, the only country in the world that isn't represented at least occasionally in Miss World pageants is Vatican City (which, thinking back, I should have guessed). But amazingly, there's been Miss Iran, Miss Uzbekistan, and even Miss North Korea. Anyway, now that I've guaranteed a lot of traffic for my blog, I'll leave this story behind. But people-- send some money to The Philippines (this time it only took me three tries to spell correctly!). And don't send it through some anonymous, faceless donor that will probably pocket a lot of that cash for personal gain... like Vertco. 

Oh, and as a follow-up to last post's story-- Toronto mayor Rob Ford has been declared "Mayor in Name Only" by the council of The Illuminati Toronto. So no, crime doesn't even pay in Canada, proving once again that moving to Canada is a bad idea. But before this blog post turns into the 1,001 reasons why I will never move to Canada (I don't know if I could fit them all into that few), I shall sign off. 

Bye!

Oot and Aboot

Oh hai readers! My 16th birthday was last week, and I'm happy as hell. Not because I had a party (I didn't, parties are lame), and not because of presents-- no-- I CAN NOW PROBABLY GET INTO R-RATED MOVIES WITHOUT PARENTS! Joy to the world! And it helps that I'm 6'3". Speaking of movies, by the way, Tut's Tutillating Reviews is coming along swimmingly, and I have a truckload of new reviews out, including a Halloween special: HORROR WEEK. My Ender's Game review is also up, so check all that out HERE.

Anyway, for my birthday my parents gave me A Clockwork Orange and Donnie Darko on DVD, which I shall now proceed to watch multiple times. Also received: A chunk of the Berlin Wall, a coffee mug, and a book entitled "The Disaster Artist," the story behind the making of the worst movie of all time: The Room. If you haven't seen this spectacular film yet, I highly recommend it. It is utterly mesmerizing in its ineptitude. If I judged movies purely on how much I enjoy watching them, that thing might be my favorite movie of all time.

But I made Tut's Reviews just so I could separate my incessant movie-related banter from this blog, so let's move on to something that will send my readership into free-fall: CURRENT EVENTS. Cower in fear, Americans, because this is a news story that will require you to know some geography! Now: With your dominant hand, point to the US on a map. No, higher. No, still higher. Okay, lower. Really, are you f**king kidding me? It's the one with the oddly shaped peninsula. The yellow one. Okay. Now, point to Canada. Jesus Christ, that's Russia. Point to the big red one. The BIG red one. Not India. ABOVE AMERICA. Kill me now...



Eh, you found them! Yes, foolish Americans, that's Canada. And that's where my top story takes place today: In Toronto (AKA America's ridiculous poofy hat), mayor Rob Ford has come under fire for smoking crack. Yeah, you heard right-- SMOKING CRACK. So it's time to unveil the official 2014 slogan for American politicians! "We tweet pictures of our junk, bang secretaries, fly to Buenos Aires to meet our mistresses, get our housemaids pregnant, and use taxpayer money to fund money-laundering schemes... but at least we don't smoke crack!"

The hilarious thing is that the guy hasn't even been charged with a criminal offense yet. You gotta love Canada. Also, there's a tape of him saying, slurred "I'm gonna f**king kill that guy... it's me or him brother" over and over again. All he had to say when asked about it was that he was "Clearly very, very, very intoxicated." Yeah, you don't say. Somebody's been hitting the ol' maple syrup too hard...

Bye!

Affordable Brain Aneurysm

Well, I've done another weird thing for school... I had to draw an Immune System Diagram for my biology class, and it had to be accurate and scientific. However, we were allowed to use anything we wanted as icons to represent the cells, viruses, antibodies, etc. So I decided to create a diagram in the spirit of Caging. Caging, for those of you who aren't up to date on your memes, is the practice of photoshopping Nicolas Cage's face onto random things. If you're confused about why this is hilarious, click HERE. Anyway, I drew Nic Cage's immune system, with little Nic Cage faces (which I drew myself) drawn to represent the cells. The Macrophage became the Macrocage, and the viruses became bees. If THAT confuses you, two things: Watch The Wicker Man, and click HERE.

But as funny as Nicolas Cage's face on random shit is, I can't devote an entire blog post to it. Which is why, to celebrate the Democrat's incredible victory on the debt ceiling battle, I decided to sign up for Obamacare online. As you may know, the website that people are supposed to use to sign up for the Affordable Care Act has been beleaguered by criticism ever since it was opened a few weeks ago. The server goes down occasionally, the connection is weak, the process is convoluted, and even the calculator doesn't work. Really? You'd think that they could have gotten that right. Because, you know... they're friggin' everywhere.

Anyway, I signed up for Obamacare yesterday, but I don't fully remember what happened. Fortunately, I had a video camera and audio feed recording everything that happened, which I then rewatched and wrote a running commentary on. The pros? I got in. The cons? Well... here we go...



00:05-- Within five minutes, I turn on the computer, make a cup of coffee, crack my knuckles, and get ready to fill out some forms.
00:09-- After a few Google searches, I finally locate the website. Huh. You'd think that would be a little easier...
00:10-- Click on website.
1:17-- Website loads.
1:20-- One hour in, and this website is beginning to test my resolve.
1:27-- After stabbing my computer screen repeatedly with a kitchen knife, I click on the right link. This immediately downloads 5,000 gigabytes of malware and viruses onto my hard drive.
1:42-- Wipe cookies. Note: This is not the last time I will have to do this.
2:04-- Smash coffee cup out of pure anger and desperation.
2:35-- Click the correct link (finally). I am greeted with a form in English, which for some reason goes into Spanish and then French. What the hell? You have to be trilingual just to read the directions.
2:52-- "Glitch" in the system lists my cat as my father-in-law.
3:09-- Cookie wipe #2.
3:18-- The accursed spinning beach ball of death.
3:20-- System requires immediate payment of  "1 (one) arm and 1 (one) leg, to be mailed to your local government office accordingly and filed."
3:25 to 3:48-- In the garage with the ol' hacksaw.
3:51-- A quick re-read of the form makes me realize that the website asks for your NON-dominant arm. Shit.
4:00-- Bleeding out. Healthcare is, sadly, not helping me much here.
4:20-- Blaze it.
4:32-- Cookie wipe #3.
4:45 to 4:57-- Mostly screaming, accompanied by fits of unbridled rage. The keyboard gets thrown out the window.
5:12-- System finally makes my account. Oh, joyous day.
5:13-- System unfortunately listed my first name as "Ghram." Never mind; pressing on.
5:24-- After spinning my head around Exorcist-style for eleven minutes, I projectile vomit all over the room.
5:40-- System creates health care plan for me, at long last. It will cost $613 a month, up $613 from my previous health care plan, "Do whatever the hell you want and go to the ER if you get sick."
5:52-- My laptop, already under extreme duress, catches on fire.
6:02-- Pass out.

The moral of the story? Yes, it IS possible to sign up for Obamacare! It's just really, really, really, REALLY time-consuming, painful, and mentally scarring. Anyway, I'm going to bed to rest my tired limb. 'Night!

B.S.A.T.

Wow, what a week. I don't even know where to start. First, I had to take four hours out of my Saturday morning to get up at 6:00, walk over to my school, and take a Pre-SAT test--- AND IT WAS VOLUNTARY. Seriously, I don't know why I said I would take this, but I did, and I paid the price for it. Fortunately, it was incredibly easy, and it doesn't matter on my grade, as it's a voluntary test. And most of that four-hour period was spent bubbling in answers for shit like "What is your home address," which apparently they couldn't have me just WRITE OUT, so they had me bubble in 17 letters for it. What really grates me is when they ask for your student ID card. What do they think is going on? Are people sneaking in off the street to take a test? OH SHIT, SON. I bet that's an epidemic. Once again, school, you have wasted my time and accomplished nothing in the process. Good job.

Then I had my yearly classic Halloween sleepover at my friend Benny's house, and (as always) there were a lot of epic moments, involving parkour tag, a gallon of milk, six bags of Doritos, a bagel, a hedgehog with a hat on it, a "Slow children playing" sign, and a game called Cards Against Humanity. It's a long, long, LOOOOOOOONG story and I don't want to get into it. All I can say is... I'm scarred for life, both mentally and physically. In other words, it was a success. 8/10, a seriously underrated party in my opinion.

But here's an interesting turn of events: Remember the couple who crashed the a party at the White House a few years ago? Well, since then, the woman has divorced her husband and gone off to marry Neal Schon, the lead guitarist for Journey. Why do I care, you ask? Well, Neal Schon lives just up the street from me on a hill-- in fact, not to sound like Sarah Palin, but I can practically see his house from my backyard. He drives around in his Lamborghini and it's awesome. I'm getting sidetracked. The point is, he's going to marry that party-crasher in December, so my mom (being the liberal she is) wants to crash the wedding in order to give her a taste of her own medicine.



Yeah, I figured you guys would like that idea. Anyway, things are heatin' up over here in Marin County. I really hope that my parents have the guts to go through with this one, because if we crash this party, it'll be awesome. Free food as far as the eye can see, plus Journey performing? Awesome! I'll get to throw food at them, just like I've always wanted to after having to listen to "Don't Stop Believing" for the 9,001st time! Seriously, WHY DOES EVERY SINGLE BASEBALL TEAM USE THAT AS THEIR ANTHEM? JESUS!

If we do this, it will live forever as an epic and unforgettable moment in my life. Because you might be able to attend parties throughout your life, but it's not every day that you attend one in which security throws your dad out for trying to touch Neal Schon's guitar. Anyway, if there's anyone else out there who is a raging Democrat and wants to make this woman butthurt, our lines are open! My mom wants as many people crashing this thing as possible, and I highly doubt that nobody else out there has come up with this idea yet. So drop in on the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on December 15th! Eat as much food as you possibly can before getting thrown out, thus running up the bill and pissing this obnoxious rich songwriter and his dumb soon-to-be-wife off.

See you there!

Ceiling the Deal

After a lot of work, I have finally made my epic movie review website about as good as I can get it. However, a few things before you visit it: Firstly, all of the reviews are written under the persona of Diego Tutweiller, a vindictive asshole who takes pride in calling movies the "Anus of Cinema" and handing out ridiculously low ratings such as negative zero out of ten stars. That's right-- I INVENTED A NUMBER. And secondarily, I also used the site to upload fake movie posters for a film I had an idea for, so that's what the odd latest post is all about. So if you want to see the website, click HERE.

Besides making a new website, there's not much going on. Let me just check Google news... OH SHIT, SON. The government's back! And I didn't even notice! Apparently, the Republicans allowed the debt ceiling to be raised for the next three months. However, we may have to revisit this tired old debate in February, when the new debt ceiling expires and Democrats start needing to borrow more money for their crippling addiction to welfare.



On the left, we have a perfectly normal, healthy person. But on the right, we have the same woman, six months after becoming addicted to welfare. Welfare. NOT EVEN ONCE. (This ad paid for by the Republican Party).

Anyway, the debt ceiling is raised, people have compromised, and in short, nobody's happy. In fact, one woman went so far as to drive her Infiniti through the barricades around monuments in DC last week, leading police on an hour-long chase through the streets and wreaking havoc. Meanwhile, I was a little miffed because my mail wasn't delivered until 6:00 last night. I guess we all have different ways of dealing with stress.
Skinny skinny
But I really can't get very worked up over any of what just happened, because at the end of the day, both sides are incredibly obnoxious and stupid (perhaps the Republicans a little more so). I honestly couldn't care less about which side came out 'on top' or which one ended up 'losing' this little turf war. Most people agree with me-- in a recent poll, FOX found that congress's approval rating is lower than Nickleback's. Now THAT is some public backlash.

Bye!

SHUTDOWN 2013

One of the biggest news stories I missed during my two-month hiatus was the government shitdown-- er-- shutdown. I have been predicting something to this effect for years, however I was slightly off. In my initial projections, an asteroid would head for Earth, threatening to destroy humanity. Congress would OK a bill to use all of our natural resources to destroy the asteroid, but Republicans in the House would hold out to attach riders to the bill slashing the EPA and Obamacare. Democrats, of course, would refuse, and the Earth would subsequently be destroyed.

Fortunately, we're not faced with such a cataclysmic event, but instead we're sitting around with basically no government. It's day twelve of the shutdown, and there is chaos in the streets. Of course, I'm not seeing any of that here in San Anselmo. If there are riots around here, us Marinites raise the drawbridges and fill the moats with piranhas. We then allow the rest of the world to continue on falling into anarchy while we sit back and enjoy our spas, nail salons, and scented candle stores. God, no wonder the rest of the country hates us.

Meanwhile, President Barack Hussein Achmed Abu-Mohammed Bin Achmed Obama is doing his best to get the House and Congress to agree on something... anything... but it's harder than it looks. Which is saying something, because from where I'm sitting, it looks pretty damn hard. In short, none of the Tea Party Republicans will raise the debt ceiling, because they want to defund Obamacare. Obama needs to save face, so he refuses to give in YET AGAIN. This is what happens... when an unstoppable force meets... an immovable object...



Oh, I'm sure you all have missed my scathing political commentary.

Anyway, while Obama and Boehner battle it out in DC, the rest of us are stuck in a state of total shock. The National Parks Service has shut down all of the parks. Federal government employees aren't getting paid. The infrastructure is collapsing! THE UNIVERSE IS TEARING ITSELF APART AT THE SEAMS!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!

Actually, no. None of that is happening. In fact, I haven't noticed anything different in my life since the government shut down. We're nearly two weeks into it, and there hasn't been a single riot, mugging, shooting, arson, robbery, blitzkrieg, genocide, school shooting, explosion, or YouTube stunt gone horribly wrong in my whole town. It's almost as if the government shutdown didn't really matter, because they weren't doing anything in the first place. Nah, that's ridiculous...

Bye!

Anti-Pasta

Okay, firstly... yes, it's been two months, your eyes are not deceiving you. However, I have a valid excuse-- I've been setting up a new website. You see, recently my movie reviews have been taking over this blog, so I figured I'd make a movie review blog as a subsidiary of G-Force. The problem was, I didn't have enough reviews written to demand a whole new blog site. So I took two months off to write a buttload of movie reviews, ranging from new movies (as well as 32 from 2013) to classics. I beta-tested them on Rotten Tomatoes, and so far, I've gotten some very positive feedback. Once I get the website up and running, I shall use it for all of my movie reviewing needs. Until then, my reviews can be found HERE. I wrote them under a screen name, by the way, so don't be surprised when my account name is Diego John Tutweiller.

In the meantime, I've missed a lot of news stories, from the government shutdown to the chaos in Syria. But today, let's focus more on another news story: PASTA. You wouldn't think that bland, tasteless starch sticks would warrant an entire blog post, but hey, this is a pretty big story right now. In an interview, Guido Barilla, chairman of Barilla Pasta, said that he would never feature same-sex couples in his advertisements, because he believes in "traditional" couples. So here's the new standings for COMPANIES AND WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE!

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 figurines 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.

 Barilla----- Apparently a no. They believe in spaghetti-conchigile marriage, nothing more, nothing less.

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!!!

However, it's not this simple, because the other pasta companies (yes, there's more than one, it was a surprise to me too) have decided to respond with ad campaigns such as this one:


Did you catch it? Yeah, that's right-- this is an ad about gay farfalle. I found it kind of odd that the 'straight' couple in the picture was pointing at the gay couple (perhaps yelling a slur of some sort), but I guess that's just my weird mind at work.

So: Should we care about homosexual Italian dishes? I say NO! Because even though gay rights is a big and important issue, there are far more pressing matters in the world of civil rights than pasta ads. Let's focus on getting gay marriage LEGALIZED before we bother worrying about the vaguely bigoted comments of one Italian guy who just so happens to run a highly profitable pasta company. Nobody cared about where their pasta came from before this; they just bought whatever box was closest to their cart. They shouldn't care now either. Seriously, people-- political correctness can be taken too far. It's just pasta.

Bye!