THIS BLOG HAS MOVED UP IN THE WORLD

Check out our new content at: http://ynteonline.com

Thursday, February 17, 2011

We're moving!

Hey, everyone!

It's hard to believe it's been almost 4 years since the first YNTE posts went up. Over time we've evolved and expanded, and I'm proud to say we're at a point where it just makes sense to move off of blogger's servers and onto our own.

So, without any further ado, I give you: http://ynteonline.com

New content will no longer be published here, it will be published there instead. All the classic posts and comments have been moved. If you manually visit our site, update your bookmarks to reflect the change, if you read us via RSS, hopefully the same feed will work! (if not, just pull a new feed from the new site!)

Thanks to all of you who for your support; we hope you enjoy the new site!

Name that celebrity - the reveal!

The man pictured in yesterday's Name that Celebrity is none other than Fred Durst, lead singer of Limp Bizkit.
Apparently he has that disease from Jack where he ages 4 times as fast a regular human, which also explains why a lot of Limp Bizkit songs sound like they were written by a five year old.

You may think "I wonder how old he is" and go check wikipedia to see when he was born. Here's what that yielded me:

Don't do drugs, kids.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Name that celebrity!

The celebrity pictured above has fallen out of the limelight, and, well, now looks like this. He's indistinguishable from his former self unless you know what you're looking for, squint, and use your imagination.

Guess who this is in the comments! If you get it right I may give you a prize or something.

I'll be back tomorrow with the answer!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor: Serial 2 - The Daleks; Part 2 - The Survivors

First things first, if you want to watch along, the episode I'm reviewing is available from Amazon. Additionally, a lot of these old Doctor Who episodes are available on YouTube or on services such as Netflix. I encourage you to watch along with me and leave your thoughts in the comments!

Secondly, a big spoiler warning for anything I say after this sentence. I'm not sure if it's still common courtesy to put spoiler warnings on content that is almost 50 years old, but I'm going to air on the side of caution.

Disclaimers out of the way, lets watch some Who!


Serial 2: The Daleks
Part 2: The Survivors (1963)
Starring: Doctor 1 - William Hartnell

Quick recap: Doctor Who and his granddaughter Susan accidentally kidnap two of her teachers, Ian and Barbara, and take them on a trip through time. Intent on investigating an abandoned city, the Doctor sabotages the ship, stating that the ship's mercury fuel could be found in the city. While searching the city, they split up, and Barbara is attacked by a plunger.

While looking for Barbara, the gang find a room with a bunch of monitoring equipment, including a radiation-meter that, like the one on the ship, is reading "über-death".

The doctor then reasons that they probably shouldn't be out in the incredibly toxic planet and decides to head back to the ship and travel to a time that has medicine for radiation. At this point, Ian reminds him that the ship is busted. Then the doctor admits that the TARDIS is fine, he was just lying and throwing a tantrum to get his way. To prove this, he hands Ian the perfectly functional fluid core.

Last episode I thought he had actually damaged the ship, but it turns out he only pretend damaged it. This makes much more sense.

The doctor then continues his "I'm going to do whatever I want" attitude by saying that he and Susan are going to leave the planet. He then gives Ian the choice of coming with them in the TARDIS to get medicine or staying on the radioactive planet forever. Ian, however, is concerned with someone other than just himself and refuses to leave without Barbara, and points out that he is in possession of the fluid core that powers the ship.

The doctor's pleas of "Gimme that so I can strand you here forever!" don't have an effect, so they all leave in search of Barbara.

Or rather, they would have searched for Barbara, but the moment they open the door, they are ambushed by Daleks. Doctor Who and Susan are terrified by the plunger appendages and immediately surrender, but Ian attempts to run away. Unfortunately for him, the non-plunger arm is a paralyzing ray.

All the companions are held in the same room. And this time there isn't an old crazy caveman lady to free them, although the room is less skully this time.

The Daleks summon the doctor so they can give him some backstory. Apparently the Daleks are at war with a species called the Thals, who look human enough that the Daleks assumed that the companions are Thals. However, the Thals are immune to radiation and the companions are not, and this is becoming fairly obvious, as everyone has suddenly started to look pretty sick. The doctor then remembers the medicine that was left outside their ship and convinces the Daleks to let one of the group go to get it. The ship has safeguards against anyone but Susan or Dr. Who, and the doctor pretends to be asleep so Susan has to go.

The Daleks have an impromptu evil mastermind meeting where they reveal that they have no intention of actually letting the group USE the medicine, they just want them all to have false hope before they die.

Susan runs back to the ship, and there's about two minutes of footage just of her running, which is pretty hilarious, because she's TERRIBLE at it. Girl could not run in a straight line to save her life. Eventually, she makes it to the ship, finds the medicine. Then, in a cliffhanger ending, she leaves the ship normally.

That's it for Serial 2, Episode 2! Check back soon for more Who!


Miss one? Check out our previous episodes below:
Serial 2 - The Daleks; Part 1 - The Dead Planet
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 4 - The Firemaker
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 3 - The Forest of Fear
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 2 - The Cave of Skulls
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 1 - An Unearthly Child
Introduction

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!

As you can see, I'm just as romantic as last year. In fact, I'm two bird plates romantic-er.

Hope everyone has a pleasant day!

YNTE Horror Night Holiday Edition: Valentine

Welcome to a special Valentine's Day edition of YNTE Horror Night! I've decided that for as many major holidays as possible this year, I'll be reviewing the slasher film equivalent. For Valentine's Day, this left me with a choice: 2001's "Valentine" or 1981's "My Bloody Valentine". This time "Valentine" won out because the plot seemed a bit more holiday specific, and a lot more ridiculous. As always, tons of spoilers ahead. You've been warned!

The movie starts off with a bunch of middle-schoolers at a Valentine's day dance. A nerdy kid named Jeremy Melton asks all the pretty girls to dance with him. They all reject him cruelly. He then asks a chubby girl to dance with him and they start making out under the bleachers. When some bullies catch them smoochin', the chubby girl claims he attacked her, everyone starts calling him "pervert", and they make fun of him so hard he gets a nosebleed. The bullies then drag him out to the middle of the dance floor and kick his ass. Apparently chaperons weren't invented yet.

Flash forward 13 years. Katherine Heigl, who you may know from Grey's Anatomy, is stretching her acting legs here by playing a Med School student. After going on a bad date with a man named Jason Marquette, she returns to the morgue to practice surgery-ing on some corpses.

She gets a Valentine's card that says something along the lines of "Happy Valentine's Day, I'm going to stab you", and while the writing of the card leaves something to be desired, this guy should seriously get into the greeting card business because the construction of the card was immaculate. It was like a pop-up card with multiple layers and moving parts. Impressive stuff! The card is signed "JM".

Well, surprise, surprise, a psychotic murderer in a Cupid Mask shows up and kills Katherine Heigl's character, and then has a nosebleed out the mask. That right there should tell you everything you need to know about this movie. It is (at least on the surface) a movie about a nerd who girls were mean to who decides years later to kill them.

Unfortunately, the movie takes a downward turn here, as of the 5 girls, Katherine Heigl's character is the only likeable one. Luckily, most of them wind up dead. One of them gets shot by the killer with a hunting bow. You know, the whole "getting shot by Cupid's arrow" thing. Only instead of falling in love after getting shot, she falls off a balcony. Into a dumpster. But the symbolism's still there.

They come to the conclusion that Jeremy Melton got plastic surgery so he'd look less dorky and is secretly dating one of the girls. This leads to a lot of bitchy fingerpointing. At one point, Fatty McGoo admits that Jeremy didn't really attack her, she just didn't want to get made fun of for being fat. At this point she's thin and pretty and ALSO a cast member on Grey's Anatomy.

Cue the big finale where there's a big party and some people get killed. Denise Richards gets killed in a hot tub by a power drill. (On a side note, I don't understand how she became as popular as she did, she's a pretty terrible actress, then again, I think the only movies I've seen her in are this and Starship Troopers.)

It becomes very apparent at one point (and it has been from the beginning for anyone with half a brain) that the main female's boyfriend Adam (played by David Boreanaz, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 'Angel') is Jeremy. He very creepily asks her to dance again. She gets creeped out and runs away. There's a chase scene, and the killer in the Cupid mask tackles her. Adam pops out and shoots Cupid with a gun he happened to find.

They pull off Cupid's mask to reveal Fatty McGoo, who apparently went on a killing spree because her friends treated her poorly as a fat kid. Adam hugs the main character lady, despite her not liking him as a nerdy kid or an alcoholic adult, and his nose starts to bleed, showing that he's Jeremy Melton after all.

First of all, as both a nerd who girls disliked in junior high, and as a bit of a fatty myself, I can tell you, these are not motivations to kill. I have never murdered anyone, and according to this movie, I'd be a double threat!

Secondly, the ending sucks. It's too muddy to be satisfying. It just kind of lays out some events without giving them context. There's at least three possibilities this ending could mean:
  1. Adam isn't Jeremy Melton, and the chubby girl was the killer all along
  2. The chubby girl is still the killer, but Adam is Jeremy Melton who got all the face surgery so he could trick the girl into dating him, but nothing more sinister
  3. Adam IS Jeremy Melton, and the killer, dressed the chubby girl(who is innocent) up in the costume and shot her to cover up his identity
Any one of those endings would have been much better, but by not articulating it, the end just felt lazy.

Anyway, all in all, not as bad of a movie as I expected.

But remember, on this Valentine's Day, the moral of this movie: Nerds and fatties need lovin' too

Catch up on past installments:
Jason X
Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday
Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan

I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor delayed until Tuesday

Today's regularly scheduled "I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor" will run tomorrow due to the Valentine's Day YNTE Horror Night Special.

This is a public service so your heads don't explode from awesome overload. You're welcome.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

YNTE Horror Night: Jason X


Welcome to YNTE Horror Night, a spinoff series of YNTE Movie Night! This month we'll be analyzing "Jason X", the tenth movie in the Friday the 13th series. As always, tons of spoilers ahead. You've been warned!
Before we get into the plot of this movie, a bit of background on the nine movies that came before: Jason Vorhees drowned as a child at summer camp; now as a an adult he murders promiscuous teens around the site of his death. Last film left him, through a series of crossovers, banished to Hell with no chance of escape. It ended with a tease for the film "Freddy vs. Jason", leading many to believe that would be the next Friday the 13th film made. It wasn't.

At this point, everyone wanted to make Freddy vs. Jason, but for one reason or another, it just wasn't happening. So while waiting to make the film they all wanted to, they put together and crapped out another movie to tide people over.

Couple that with the fact that it's set in the future, in space, so as to not be saddled with all that pesky "continuity", you've got the formula for greatness right there.

Jason starts this movie in government captivity, where scientists are running tests on him to try and discover how he is seemingly invincible. It's interesting to note that they've ALREADY retconned the mystical reasoning introduced last film. He's chained up in a device that looks like one of Houdini's straightjackets. And like Houdini, he escapes from it. Unlike Houdini, instead of taking a bow, he starts with the murderin'.

He kills everyone in the facility except the one cleverest lady scientist who manages to lure him into a cryrogenic chamber. Unfortunately before he can be frozen completely, he stabs her through the door, causing them both to be cryrogenically frozen.

Many years later, the room is discovered by a team of scavengers. They assume Jason is too far gone to save, but think they can bring the lady scientist back to life. So they bag up both bodies and return to their spaceship, which flies them out to an orbital space station where they plan to perform the medical procedures.

At this point the movie looks like a low budget, Stargate rip-off, SyFy Channel original movie. If I walked into a room where someone was watching this, asked them what it was, and they said "A Friday the 13th film" I would not believe them.

They must be spiking the water with horny juice on the spaceship, because nobody on board can go 5 minutes without having sex. One couple starts making out on top of the operating table Jason is still on. One guy puts on a woman's nightgown and has a female crew member tweak his nipples with oversized tongs. One person tries to add nipples to a robot so he can fuck that robot. Seriously.

Well, it should be no surprise to anyone that Jason comes back to life to kill these oversexed spacemen. His first victim is the lady that was doing the autopsy on him, and after killing her he picks up an incredibly impractical surgical tool that happens to look exactly like a machete, but a future machete. FOR SCIENCE.

Jason then proceeds to take out a whole squad of heavily-armed soldiers, one by one, guerrilla-style. The dark, enclosed areas of the spaceship really do a good job of upping the suspense. Or rather, they would, if the film took itself seriously, which it does not. At one point Jason throws a body onto a corkscrew drill, and the body spins around its impale wound. When a soldier finds the body, she reports to her commanding officer "He's screwed."

The pilot prepares to take the ship in to dock with a space colony, knowing that there are many armed commandos on the colony who can take care of Jason. Unfortunately, once the pilot lines up the ship for dock, Jason kills him, and the ship plows through the space colony, blowing it to smithereens.

There's a really touching scene where the robot lady tells the dude crushing on her that there's only a 12% chance of survival. Then they make out. She says that the odds just improved to 53%. Then they "go for 100", which happens off camera, but I'm guessing it means sex. I don't have the calculation skills of a sexbot but I'm pretty sure fucking instead of trying to escape actually LOWERS your odds of survival.

They all have a great plan for leaving in the shuttle, but one scared idiot attempts to fly off without the rest of the group before the shuttle is detached from the ship and it crashes and blows up.

Just when it looks like everyone is doomed, the robot-lovin nerd comes back. It turns out that after the robot sex, he reprogrammed her from a sexbot into a killbot. Despite the fact that he programmed her to kill with flair, not efficiency, she still manages to kill Jason pretty completely. She even blows off a good 3/4 of his head. Everyone, even the lady from the past who KNOWS Jason is unkillable, accepts that he's dead and continue going about their day.

What nobody thought of was that they left Jason's body was left on one of their Science Healing Beds. There's not enough organic tissue left to revive him, so he is augmented with robot parts, replacing Jason Vorhees with the unstoppable cyborg "Jason X"

The group manages to blow Jason up and shoot him out into the vaccum of space, but he punches a hole in the hull, causing explosive decompression. One lady gets sucked out, but before she dies she screams "This sucks on so many levels!", which is actually a pretty accurate review of the movie.

A ship comes to rescue them, unfortunately, the hatch is jammed and they can't get to the space-bridge connecting the two ships, and the hatch controls are on the OUTSIDE of the ship. One guy puts on a space suit and goes to try and unjam the controls from the outside, which begs two questions:
  1. Why the hell would you put the hatch controls on the OUTSIDE of the ship?
  2. If you have space suits, why not just space suit up and float to the other ship?
To slow Jason down while he stalks them, they boot up a crystal lake hologram simulation, complete with immoral camp counselors for him to kill. This slows him down just enough for the last 2.5 survivors (The scientist lady from the past, the nerd, and his robot lover's decapitated head) to escape. The guy in the space suit propels Jason X's body down toward nearby planet "Earth 2".

The movie ends with two immoral campers by a lake seeing the "shooting star", and deciding to go check it out.

The next Friday the 13th film is finally the crossover, Freddy vs. Jason, which begs the question, which film should I do next? Freddy vs. Jason? Nightmare on Elm Street (for a primer), or should I put the Friday the 13th franchise on ice for a while and do something else, like Scream? Let me know in the comments! One way or another, I'll see you back here next month with a new review!

Catch up on past installments:
Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday
Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Most Bizarre but True News Story: Man's Spleen in the Running for a Guinness World Record

Here's a link to the picture, for people not curious about a disembodied giant organ.

This technically is a news story, since I found it on Reddit. Although I haven't actually found a good link to any other site reporting on it, the guy at least was gracious enough to give his personal account about his giant spleen in the comments to that picture.

So in 2009 this guy started just losing weight at a very quick pace. He said he would keep eating constantly, but he'd just keep losing weight and sweat a lot. (As a side effect though, he said he got the most kickass 8-pack abs, pictured here).

Well, as you might imagine, he started getting chest pains. After going to the doctor he found out that he had Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, a disorder that basically makes new white blood cells that are not programmed to die, so the spleen decides to retain all of them. And to facilitate this, it needed more energy, hence the guys weight loss, and more space, hence the giant spleen. Apparently he had so many white blood cells that the surgeons had to thin his blood twice to make it operable.

Long story short he gets his spleen removed, and you can see it at the top of the page if you didn't already. Apparently it was so big that it was crunched up against his abdominals and ribcage, which is why he got that 8-pack.

Fast forward to 2011. The guy says he's got the paperwork filed to Guinness World Records as the "heaviest spleen removed" and is just currently waiting on his medical documentation to reach them. Once it gets to them, this guy will be immortalized in history. As the guy with the really huge spleen.

And apparently you can also live without a spleen. Anyway, this story is pretty much just chock full of bizarre if you ask me.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Most Bizarre But True News Story - Baywatch: Where are they now?

The TV show "Baywatch" famously launched the career of Pamela Anderson. But what about Donna D'Errico, the other large breasted blonde on that show?

Recently she was offered a chance to be on Dancing with the "Stars", but turned it down due to pursue a lifelong dream. She wants to climb Mount Ararat in Turkey to search for the frozen remains of Noah's ark.

This is a real news story.

Highlights of the article:

However, despite numerous sightings and expeditions, no solid proof of the ark has ever been found.

D'Errico would like to be the person who changes things and makes one of the biggest historical finds in human history.
and also:

Now that her plans are set, D'Errico is swimming and running to build up her endurance.

What about running in slow-motion, a la "Baywatch"?

"Not doing that," she said with a laugh. "But I'll probably be climbing in slow motion when I start."

There was a football game yesterday?

My planned interaction with the super bowl consisted of me playing Xbox all day and then looking up the Captain America trailer later that night. Which is more or less what I did.

Then the twitters were atwatter and the blogosphere was all bloggey.

Apparently, the "entertainment" they hired has never heard of "rehearsal", and as this is a blog that frequently focuses on the unintentionally hilarious, I feel obligated to sum up the day's events.

To start off, Christina Aguilera sang the National Anthem. She liked certain parts of that song SO MUCH she sang them twice. I realize that the national anthem is a long, complicated song that the average American has trouble singing. But Christina, you are not an average American. You are a professional singer.

Luckily, then came the halftime show, and everyone forgot her mistake. Remember the time they "accidentally" showed a saggy boob in the halftime show? This was a FAR BIGGER train wreck.

[EDIT: That was fast! The video of the halftime show I posted got pulled off youtube before I finished writing. Looks like most of them did. Good luck finding one if you want, or just read my review below and you will have missed NOTHING]

Watch the video, or read my shot for shot:
-The Black Eyed Peas are lowered down from space wearing Tron jumpsuits. But not actual tron jumpsuits, the kind your mom would make you when you were 8 and you told her you wanted to be "a tron" for Halloween. There's a string of lights taped to black clothing.
-They start singing "I've Gotta Feeling", which is a song I don't particularly like. Little did I know this would be the high point of the show. Also, they aren't singing in time with their backing track.
-Part way through the song, the four peas(Fergie, Wi.l.ia.m., derp.de.derp, and that other guy whos name nobody knows) take turns singing their various solos. When Fergie goes to sing hers, the sound guy forgets to turn on her mic. Fergie's rap also includes the line "I'm so 2008", which I would tend to agree with.
-The crowd of people "enjoying" the show seem far more choreographed than actual fans would be. It becomes clear later that these are just dancers paid to "like the show" in unison. And to their credit, far better dancers than the mooks on stage.
-Everyone gets one solo segment, except Fergie, who gets three.
-Slash inexplicably comes out of the stage and starts playing "Sweet Child of Mine" while Fergie sings. I never thought I'd say this, but I find myself wishing desperately it was Axl Rose singing instead.
-I also find myself wondering if it's more difficult to play guitar when the singer is straight up dry humping you the whole time, which is another problem we didn't have when Guns 'n' Roses were together.
-Third note about Slash: He's not wearing his signature Top Hat, but instead a bedazzled top hat to "match" the Tron motif they're sort of doing.
-Then Dick Dale's Misrilou comes on, and the Black Eyed Peas start yelling over it phrases such as "check it out" and "louder". Is this what passes for talent these days? Repeating phrase over other people music?
-What the hell is on W.il.li.a.m's head? It looks like he has a plastic shell to protect his hair from rain.
-Transition to "Lets Get It Started". There's a scene in Hot Tub Time Machine where a guy's band covers this song. That's sort of what this feels like, only the people covering this song in the movie had talent. Lets Get It Started is one of the few Black Eyed Peas songs I don't totally hate, but this version of it was abysmal.
-Usher comes on stage just to dance around.
-Usher jumps over .wi.ll..i.a..m's head and lands in the splits. Okay, I'll concede. That was kinda cool.
-The peas come back on to sing "Where is the Love". The stage has been reconfigured to be the shape of the word "Love", but part of the V is not lighting up so it looks like "Lol.E"
-In the middle of "Where is the Love", ..........william... changes the lyrics so it is now a song about how Obama's doing a bad job as president. News flash, dude: you're standing on a "lol.E" stage. You don't get to criticize anyone for doing poorly at their job.
-They start singing that "Time of my Life" song from "Dirty Dancing" only this time its v.vil.i.an.n singing it to Fergie. Josh Duhamel is going to be PISSED.
-All the backup dancers on stage put boxes on their heads. I was going to put a second sentence here with a joke, but the best joke I could come up with was "All the backup dancers put boxes on their heads." Seemed redundant.
-The "fans" on the field do some synchronized dancing that once again upstages the black eyed peas
-They sing "I've gotta feeling" AGAIN. It's a 12 minute set and they have so little material they have recycle from earlier in the show. This time there's box people though, so it's different, I guess.

The show ends with somebody saying "That was MEGA."

I disagree.

I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor: Serial 2 - The Daleks; Part 1 - The Dead Planet

First things first, if you want to watch along, the episode I'm reviewing is available from Amazon. Additionally, a lot of these old Doctor Who episodes are available on YouTube or on services such as Netflix. I encourage you to watch along with me and leave your thoughts in the comments!

Secondly, a big spoiler warning for anything I say after this sentence. I'm not sure if it's still common courtesy to put spoiler warnings on content that is almost 50 years old, but I'm going to air on the side of caution.

Disclaimers out of the way, lets watch some Who!


Serial 2: The Daleks
Part 1: The Dead Planet (1963)
Starring: Doctor 1 - William Hartnell

Quick recap: Doctor Who and his granddaughter Susan accidentally kidnap two of her teachers, Ian and Barbara, and take them back in time. In the past, their time machine, the TARDIS, malfunctions, leaving them unsure if they will ever be able to return to their own time. After a blind jump to an unknown point in space and time, the Doctor suggests they all "freshen up" before going outside, but first asks Susan to check the radiation levels, which are fine, until she looks away and they jump to MAXIMUM DEATH.

Oh, my god. SO MUCH to cover this week. I'm excited!

First of all, when the Doctor suggested they all "freshen up", what that meant is that they are all wearing new clothes now. Ian is wearing a Mister Rodgers sweater. Susan is wearing a shirt with a tiny collar all the way up her neck. Barbara is wearing a low cut shirt with a GIANT collar. Doctor Who is wearing a new set of the exact same clothes.


The mysterious thing here isn't what they're wearing, but where these clothes came from. You can maybe assume that Susan has a closet full of shirts with various sizes of collar, but it's been demonstrated that Doctor Who only has one style of clothes (like Monk!). And this is of course assuming that the kidnapped teachers wear the same size as the doctor and Susan, which is clearly not the case.

You can then draw one of three conclusions:
  1. They have a machine that creates clothes out of thin air in whatever sizes you want
  2. They have a massive warehouse full of clothes of all sizes within the TARDIS.
  3. The kidnapping was not accidental, but premeditated, and the Doctor stocked up on clothes in the teachers' sizes.
Any one of these three situations would be fascinating to watch, or at least more fascinating to watch than looking at a bunch of petrified trees, which is what they do show instead.

It turns out that everything around here is dead and petrified. They wander about for a bit but don't discover anything anything. They're all set to head back to the ship and leave when Ian sees a large city off in the distance. The Doctor then goes on another of his selfish benders and decides he WILL study the city, completely ignoring the protests of all his traveling companions.

They all agree it would be too dangerous to explore the site then and there though so they head back to the ship to wait until morning. On the way back, somebody touches Susan. The adults handle this child groping by telling Susan she's crazy and made it up.

Then they all take a snack break! Apparently in the future, Science has discovered that all food is comprised of two base flavors. Depending on how you combine these two flavors, you can create food that tastes like anything. Conveniently, the TARDIS has one of these machines on board, and by twisting two knobs to various settings, it spits out a paste that tastes like bacon and eggs. Unless the two "primary flavors" are "bacon" and "eggs", then I don't really see this as plausible, but it's an interesting idea. Honestly, this was my favorite part of the episode, and at this point I don't care if they ever leave the ship again.

They hear some banging on the outside of the ship and come to the conclusion that there may actually be life on this planet, so they decide to leave as quickly as possible. But the doctor still has his heart set on visiting the city so he SABOTAGES HIS OWN SHIP. The ship's drive runs on liquid Mercury, so he empties it out so they will be forced to go into the city and find some.

Needless to say, this is quite the gamble. If my life depended on my finding liquid Mercury here in Tacoma, I'm not sure I could. And this is a planet where I know liquid Mercury actually exists! And there are live people to help me! But apparently for Doctor Who, always getting what he wants is far more important than not being stranded forever on a radioactive planet.

As they leave the ship the next morning, they discover a metal box. Presuming it to be a bomb, they take the proper precautions and poke it with a stick from 2 feet away. Ian at least has the good sense to put one hand in front of his face, while the others just stand in the blast range unprotected. Here's a travel tip: when you find yourself in a petrified forest, and one of your friends is going to poke what you assume is a bomb, hide behind a rock, which is pretty much ANYTHING AROUND YOU. Luckily for them all, it isn't a bomb, but a container of vials of fluid which they ignore and continue on.

When they arrive in the city the next day, they decide to split the party up, which is always a great idea. Unfortunately, Barbara, who went off by herself, doesn't meet back up with the group, because she's attacked by what seems to be a giant toilet plunger.

No, seriously:

That's it for Serial 2, Episode 1! Check back soon for more Who!


Miss one? Check out our previous episodes below:
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 4 - The Firemaker
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 3 - The Forest of Fear
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 2 - The Cave of Skulls
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 1 - An Unearthly Child
Introduction

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

I've been to Leavenworth...

...it was not this exciting:

Most Bizarre but True News Story: Publicly shamed into sobriety?

LA is thinking of a new strategy to combat drunk driving... publicly (electronically via the net) shaming drunk drivers by posting their mug shots on their facebook profile.

LA to post DUI offenders on Facebook

Most Bizarre but True News Story: Exotic Taco Wednesday

Boca Tacos and Tequila, of Tucson, AZ. has had an Exotic Taco Wednesday for the last six months. This special menu has seen items such as python, alligator, elk, kangaroo, rattlesnake, Rocky Mountain oysters, turtle, duck and frog legs in its tacos. The usual going rate is $3-$4 per taco. Last month, owner Bryan Mazon, announced that he would be serving up African Lion tacos starting Feb. 16th and would be taking pre-orders for this specialty taco at $8.75 per taco. People all over the world have since placed orders for their lion tacos (I would love to have the chance to eat lion too...). The FDA has no rules against serving up the King of the Jungle in a tasty corn tortilla since it isn't on the endangered species list. The price for lion is even steeper than lobster at $100/lb for ground lion, and $400/lb for a tenderloin.

The news of this epic taco has stirred up quite the hubbub and has resulted in many threats to the restaurant, employees, and customers. Due to these threats, Boca Tacos and Tequila, has decided to scrap the lion taco in favor of safety and angry mobs.

Articles About Lion Tacos

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Most Bizarre But True News Story - Diddy Gets Sued


You didn't think I'd make a new contest without pre-selecting an entry, did you?

Sean Combs, AKA "Sean 'Puffy' Combs" AKA "Puff Daddy" AKA "P Diddy" AKA "Diddy" AKA "That dude from 'Get Him to the Greek' that isn't the fat one or the one banging Katy Perry" is being sued. For ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

Here are the charges being brought against him, in descending order of absurdity:
1) He fathered an illegitimate love child who is now 23 and now owes 900 billion in child support
2) He stole a poker chip "well worth over 100 zillions of dollars"
3) He caused the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11

THIS IS A REAL NEWS STORY. Your move, competitors!

February Contest - Most Bizarre But True News Story

The contest for this month: Most Bizarre But True News Story

The Rules:
1) News stories CANNOT be fake. Nothing from the Onion or similar fake news sites.
2) News stories must be from 2011. Current events, people!
3) Contest is open to everyone (except the rule czar). To enter, leave a comment with your news story on any contest blog post one of the writers puts up.
4) Contest will run until Friday, February 25th, at Midnight.
5) Winner will be chosen by the Rule Czar.
6) Bribing the Rule Czar with money or food IS ALLOWED, as long as it is done publicly.
7) Outstanding bribes MUST be paid off by Friday, February 25th. Promising a bribe and failing to pay up will result in disqualification and public shame.
8) Bribing Evan with money or food is also allowed, but will have no affect on the outcome of the contest.
9) Evan, as the rulewriter, withholds the right to append or modify these rules at any time, assuming it is not for a douchey reason. (Douchiness quotient determined by rule czar)
10) A prize (TBD) will be supplied to the winner. Good luck!

Monday, January 31, 2011

Fast Humor

So I'm not sure about you guys, but I've always been a fan of when fast food chains decide to be humorous. I don't want them to be inspirational, like say:


No, screw that. I go there to get a burger, not to fly a kite with my multicultural team of imagined inspiration and togetherness. That's why I like Burger King's old "Have it your way" campaign, where they just put a bunch of random stuff on all of their containers. Remember that? Here's a refresher, a sticker they put on their doors:



Well to my delight, I was at taco bell a while back, and I got this one jumbo XXL something something box deal. And after consuming most of my meal, I was examining the box and found this little gem on the bottom:


Why don't more places do this?

I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor: Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 4 - The Firemaker

First things first, if you want to watch along, the episode I'm reviewing is available from Amazon. Additionally, a lot of these old Doctor Who episodes are available on YouTube or on services such as Netflix. I encourage you to watch along with me and leave your thoughts in the comments!

Secondly, a big spoiler warning for anything I say after this sentence. I'm not sure if it's still common courtesy to put spoiler warnings on content that is almost 50 years old, but I'm going to air on the side of caution.

Disclaimers out of the way, lets watch some Who!


Serial 1: An Unearthly Child
Part 4: The Firemaker (1963)
Starring: Doctor 1 - William Hartnell

Quick recap: The doctor and his inappropriately young female companion have traveled back in time to caveman days with two unsuspecting teachers. The cavemen are in a battle over which useless twat will be the leader of the tribe, Za, the idiot son of the former leader, or Kal, the last surviving member of another tribe. It's generally accepted that whichever of the two gets fire will rule the tribe. Za captures the companions to get them to make fire, but they escape and then inexplicably team-up with him. The whole group gets recaptured by Kal, who has just murdered an old lady and framed Za for it.

Ka's frame-up job is believed by pretty much everyone blindly, but once the doctor shows even the slightest amount of scrutiny to it, the whole thing falls apart. He points out that Za's knife, which supposedly just stabbed a lady to death, has no blood on it. He then begins to compliment what an awesome knife it is (it's a rock). Kal decides he'd rather be known as a murderer than someone with a subpar kniferock, so he busts out the murder weapon to show just how effective it can be. The companions, who just last episode were so kind as to stop and help Za out of "kindness" now incite the tribe to stone Kal.

Za thanks the companions for reasserting his leadership for him the only way he knows how - by RE-recapturing and putting them back into the Cave of Skulls. And, despite the fact that these people escaped from this very cave earlier that same day, they aren't bound or restrained in any way, leaving them completely free to re-escape.

They don't re-escape though. They decide that since the tribe had treated them so well thus far to do the tribe a solid and make fire for them anyway; and when i say "they" make fire, I mean Ian does all the work while the women sit nearby "helping" while the doctor pouts in a corner refusing to be any part of it.

Za enters the cave and once again flip-flops on his relationship with them, even going so far as to HILARIOUSLY confuse that Ian's name is "Friend". Get it? It's funny because... well I'm sure it's funny somehow.

Then Kal breaks into the cave, and, in a fight that looks more like the first day of junior high wrestling practice than a deathmatch, gets killed by Za.

Za continues to not let them leave though, so they devise an escape plan. The pick up some skulls from the cave floor, mount them on torches, and set these up around the campfire, assuming of course that the cavemen will mistake skulltorches for dead bodies. Then they sneak out somehow.

Despite this being probably the worst plan I have EVER heard, it totally works somehow. The cavemen cry over the flaming, bodiless corpses, and the gang sneaks away. The cavemen remain enthralled until one of the skulltorches falls over and the illusion is ruined. A vertical torch with a skull on it totally looks like a human corpse, but horizontal? Don't be ridiculous.

The cavemen chase after the group, but the group reaches the TARDIS in time and makes a blind jump. They can't just go back to 1963 because A) the TARDIS is malfunctioning, and B) the doctor's a dick. The land in some weird swampy area, which I'm sure we'll learn where and when they are next week. The doctor asks Susan to check the radiation levels, which are fine, until she looks away and they jump to MAXIMUM DEATH.

That's it for Episode 4, and with it Serial 1! Check back soon for more Who!


Miss one? Check out our previous episodes below:
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 3 - The Forest of Fear
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 2 - The Cave of Skulls
Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 1 - An Unearthly Child
Introduction

Sunday, January 30, 2011

YNTE Move Night - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

My movie reviews of late have gotten a bit verbose, So I'm going to do this review in haiku:

No English at all
Too long and pacing is slow
Lots of rape; still good

Hopefully you now know if you want to see it.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Politics are FUN!

I normally try to keep the blog pretty apolitical. But sometimes a story comes along that is TOO GOOD to ignore.

Right now Pierce County is having an election to determine whether it wants to keep paying for Public Transportation. Here are both campaign's signs:



Put simply, it is SOB vs. WTF. Was this campaign organized by 12-year-olds?

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Tabasco gets a fancy ad?


Don't get me wrong, Tabasco is delicious and makes a lot of things (like food) better. Even taste better! But I noticed our usual Adsense adverts are replaced with Tabasco's Twitter feed. And yet it still says "Ads by Google" on the thing, so either Adsense is becoming more targeted or Evan struck a deal with the hot sauce masterminds. Does this mean we get paid more?

Anyway, it just seems so... appropriate. Also probably meta, somehow.

Edit: I guess it's just regular old boring Adsense ads if you're viewing a single post. I was almost hoping I could see a twitter feed on our blog on every page!

Monday, January 24, 2011

Razzie Nominations Announced!

Yikes. 2010 was a bad year for movies. This is probably the most competitive field for Worst Picture I've seen.

2010 Razzie Nominations for Worst Picture
The Bounty Hunter
The Last Airbender
Sex and the City 2
Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Vampires Suck

If you're not a 12 year old girl, you probably agree with me that the Twilight franchise is terrible. What you may not know, is that it is essentially a trilogy's worth of story. There was the first book and second book, but instead of making the last book, there's an extra book first of filler material. While the 4th book has vampire C-Sections and werewolves dating babies, this is the part of the saga where people just sit around and wait. So while the whole franchise is repugnant, this film has the added sin of being boring.

Then there's Vampires Suck, a "parody" of Twilight. It's brought to you by the folks who brought you such AWESOME pictures as Scary Movie 3, Date Movie, and Epic Movie. These "parody" films are basically the lowest, most obvious, form of humor. Their "parody" of Napoleon Dynamite, for example, had a character wearing a shirt that said "DON'T vote for Pedro". Get it? It's the opposite! Their filmmaking style has been described as "the cinematic equivalent of peeing and missing the toilet by a good three feet". While these people have a track record of taking good movies and making terrible versions of them, I shudder to think what would result when the source material is as horrendous as Twilight.

Also, there's The Last Airbender. I reviewed it here, but let me repeat the summary: this is the single worst movie I have ever seen. WORST EVER.

I suspect, however, that if I had seen Sex and the City 2 though, it might take the top spot. Everything that needs to be said about this film has been said in Lindy West's review: "SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human—working hard, contributing to society, not being an entitled cunt like it's my job—and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car".

Any other year, any one of these would be a runaway winner (loser?) but this year, man, I just don't know. Too close to call!

Pizza on the cheap

I came across this article while browsing Life-Hacker today. The idea seems interesting, but I'm not sure how well these pizzas will turn out. This week I will try to come up with a recipe of my own for making pizza on the cheap and tasty. Maybe this coming Friday I'll have a pizza and booze party?

http://centstoshare.com/2011/01/how-to-make-pizza-for-38-cents/

I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor: Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 3 - The Forest of Fear

First things first, if you want to watch along, the episode I'm reviewing is available from Amazon. Additionally, a lot of these old Doctor Who episodes are available on YouTube or on services such as Netflix. I encourage you to watch along with me and leave your thoughts in the comments!

Secondly, a big spoiler warning for anything I say after this sentence. I'm not sure if it's still common courtesy to put spoiler warnings on content that is almost 50 years old, but I'm going to air on the side of caution.

Disclaimers out of the way, lets watch some Who!


Serial 1: An Unearthly Child
Part 3: The Forest of Fear (1963)
Starring: Doctor 1 - William Hartnell

You may recall from last week, that our time travelers have been trapped in a cave by mean cavemen who want to crack their skulls open. If you don't recall that, they remind you at the top of the episode with repeated footage from last week.

The time travelers of course attempt feverishly to escape, except Dr. Who, who just sits there and whines about how they're all doomed. When they finally convince him to shut up and help he returns to his old douchey self, this time lecturing the adults on HOPE, something he had none of mere seconds before.

Za (the useless leader of the cavemen) wakes up and realizes the old crazy lady is off to kill the travelers. Even though killing them was his plan, he wants everyone else to be as useless as him so he decides to take action to stop this. He then hits his ladyfriend to prove his point. Multiple times.

It turns out though, that the old lady isn't trying to kill them after all. She sets the companions free on one condition: that they leave without giving the cavemen (who had just decided to murder them) fire. Since this was pretty much their plan all along, they agree and cheese it out the cave.

Za then busts in the cave, and is furious that the people he just decided not to murder weren't murdered. He takes out his aggression by beating up the old lady and then monologuing while she moans in pain on the floor. Apparently earlier when I called him useless, I was wrong. He's useless at everything BUT brutality toward women. At least he has his specialty!

As the gang flees the cave, the Doctor chastises the others, both for marching him too hard since he is a weak old man, and for treating him as though he is weaker than the others. Then there are "scary" animal sounds. Barbara (the lady teacher) sees a dead animal and screams in terror.

Za, hears the scream of a woman and chases after her, presumably because he wants to beat her up. Unfortunately, the animal noises attack him. At least, I'm assuming they attack him, since all the action happens offscreen. It may have been a mating ritual.

Now, if I were being chased by a caveman who may or may not want to murder me and beat up my women, and he was attacked by sound incarnate, I would count that as a good thing and keep going onward to my imminent escape. That would be the logical thing to do. So of course, instead, they do something inexplicable and batshit crazy. The go back to the caveman and attempt to nurse him back to health.

(fun side note: blogger is telling me I misspelled "batshit" because it's not in its internal dictionary. I left it in because "guano crazy" just didn't have the same ring to it.)

The doctor begins complaining, this time with good reason since there's no logical explanation as to why they should be doing what they are. He stubbornly refuses to help, even uttering the phrase "I'm not a doctor" at one point. CLASSIC.

Since they are ignoring the obvious threat right in front of them, they need something else to worry about, something insane. So they decide to worry about the crazy old lady, the one who helped them escape because she just wanted them to leave; the one unconscious on a cave floor. They worry that she will wake up and bring the tribe out to capture them all. When confronted about the logic of these fears Doctor Who explains that cavemen don't have logic or reason, which actually explains a lot of what has gone on so far.

Also, the doctor, in a tantrum that nobody is listening to him, decides that killing Za is the best way to prove his point, even though Za is friendly at this point. He picks up a sharp rock, makes a not at all subtle stabbing motion, and when he gets caught blatantly attempting to kill a dude, plays it off like nothing happend. This is generally accepted by the group and he goes back to sulking.

Sadly, their worst fears have come true. The old lady tells Kal (Za's rival) everything she knows so he can go capture them. Then, because he wants to prove he's better than Za at everything, decides to not just beat her, but kill her. He pins the whole thing on Za and elects himself leader of the tribe. Then, using a magic shortcut, Kal and the other cavemen arrive at the T.A.R.D.I.S. before the protagonists. Kal has them captured and then makes a mean face.

That's what is so compelling about this show so far. It keeps you guessing! Any thing that could happen, and logically would, doesn't and something you would have never thought of because it makes no sense at all happens instead! It's so exciting!

That's it for episode 3! Check back soon for more Who!


Miss one? Check out our previous episodes below:
Episode 2 - The Cave of Skulls
Episode 1 - An Unearthly Child
Introduction

Friday, January 21, 2011

Evan's Horrible Product Name Contest Prize

Evan received his prize of pizza and bread sticks on Wednesday.

I would also like to thank everyone that participated. I didn't know if the contest would actually work. Also, I learned that I should actually make some rules for a contest.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

These are suppossed to be horizontal, I think.

This is what greeted me when I came home yesterday:




None of my neighbors saw/heard it happen. Bets on how long until they get fixed?

Until then, probably not a great time to send me snail mail. At least I'm not expecting important tax forms!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

I won!

I actually had a lot of fun with the contest, and as such, I am turning it into a regular event here at YNTE. Next month, I, as the winner of this months contest, will create the rules (and provide the prize) for next month's contest. This pattern will continue all year until the end of the year, when the points will be tallied and a yearlong winner will win a super special prize provided by me.

I want you all to know that I accepted this award with humility and grace. Upon realizing I'd won, I contacted my opponents and congratulated them on a contest well run. I believe my exact words were:

SUCK FAILURE FREAK
I KICKED YOUR ASS UP DOWN AND SIDEWAYS

Though with Umi, I added a nice little bit on the end:

now you owe me a tasty prize

I'm a classy guy like that. I will see you in February with a new contest!

Winner - Horrible product name for a good invention

It is I, the Rule Czar, with my first post EVER! You will find that I like caps lock. Also referring to obscure lines from movies in a way that only I and a few others find hilarious. Posting privileges have been bestowed upon me so that I may hand down decrees from on high, rather than just give little notes in the mostly-neglected comment section. I intend to immediately abuse my privilege and go mad with power. MAD, I TELL YOU!

Anyways. Without further ado, I shall reveal the winner of the Horrible Product Name contest! Hopefully Umi has rustled up a worthy prize, because the winner is....(drumroll)...

Evan, with his submission of i.Beat blaxx! Take a bow, Evan, because that name is truly heinous.

To everyone else, thanks for playing, and maybe we'll have a new contest next month, because this was fun.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Horrible product name for a good invention - last chance!

REMINDER: The "Horrible product name for a good invention" contest ends tonight at midnight! Get your last minute entries in now!

Full rules here.

I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor: Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 2 - The Cave of Skulls

First things first, if you want to watch along, the episode I'm reviewing is available from Amazon. Additionally, a lot of these old Doctor Who episodes are available on YouTube or on services such as Netflix. I encourage you to watch along with me and leave your thoughts in the comments!

Secondly, a big spoiler warning for anything I say after this sentence. I'm not sure if it's still common courtesy to put spoiler warnings on content that is almost 50 years old, but I'm going to air on the side of caution.

Disclaimers out of the way, lets watch some Who!


Serial 1: An Unearthly Child
Part 2: The Cave of Skulls (1963)
Starring: Doctor 1 - William Hartnell

Now that the series' four main characters (the doctor, annoying girl, man teacher and lady teacher - they all have names, but I have already forgotten them) have been introduced, and some conflict has been set up amongst them, and the audience is beginning to become interested in them, the show does the only logical thing it could do at this point: it ignores them almost entirely to focus instead on caveman politics.

You see, Za (it's a bit of a sad commentary that I remember the cavemen's names, but not the protagonists', but mainly its the annoying bit that the cavemen talk only in 3rd person) is the current leader. He is the son of the former leader, who was able to hunt and make fires. Za can't make fire, and wastes all his time attempting in vain to start one (by rubbing his hands against a bone). There's another dude, Kal, who is an outcast from another tribe, who is consistently hunting and bringing the tribe food. Some people want to make Kal the leader since he actually does shit for them, but Za insists that "the firemaker is the leader" despite the fact that he cannot actually make fire, or do anything else useful.

Upping the ante is an old man who will whore out his presumably desirable daughter to the leader. She seems to like Za, despite him being fucking USELESS. There's also a crazy lady who's convinced fire will kill them all and they should freeze to death instead.

I only go into this much detail about the caveman politics because the show spends most of an episode setting this up, so it MUST be important.

In one of the rare moments where we actually get to see the series regulars, the doctor splits off by himself to have a smoke, when he is immediately captured by Kal who sees him light a match and is convinced that the doctor has "fire hands". Kal brings the doctor back to camp. There's some more arguing over who should be leader, since Kal is now clearly much more suited to be.

The doctor's companions then stage the most poorly planned rescue attempt ever. I'm assuming it was poorly planned, there wasn't time to show the planning amongst all the caveman politics. But unless their plan was "get captured immediately", it was at the very least poorly executed.

Za decides, in his first real act of true leadership, to swallow his pride and allow these strangers to show him how to make fire, for the good of the tribe. JUST KIDDING! He orders them to be killed, but not right away. Much better to tie them up in a cave and go to bed. Nothing wrong with that plan!

They spend the last 10 seconds of the episode in the titular Cave of Skulls. To drive the point home, somebody's like "Hey look, some skulls! From DEAD PEOPLE."

That's it for episode 2! Check back soon for more Who!


Miss one? Check out our previous episodes below:
Episode 1 - An Unearthly Child
Introduction

Friday, January 14, 2011

Horrible product name for a good invention - take 2!

You will notice there is no rule stating one entry per person. As such, here is my second entry.

Research in Motion, the company behind Blackberry, has just created a new Careers page for those looking to apply for a position in the company. The URL? http://rim.jobs

The URL probably already got pulled, honestly I'm scared to look. But I assure you, this actually happened.

I realize the contest is for "horrible product name for a good invention", and a careers page on a website is really nothing new. But it's a pretty horrible name, and maybe that will propel me to the prize.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

YNTE Horror Night: Jason Goes to Hell - The Final Friday


Welcome to YNTE Horror Night, a spinoff series of YNTE Movie Night following the success of my review of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. I'm going to stick with Friday the 13th for now, continuing where I left off, but expect me to go back and get those first 7 eventually, as well as branching out into other horror franchises. As always, tons of spoilers ahead. You've been warned!
Before we get into the plot of this movie, a bit of background on the eight movies that came before: Jason Vorhees drowned as a child at summer camp; now as a an adult he murders promiscuous teens around the site of his death.

The original Friday was intended as a one off, then it was expanded and the third film was going to be the last. Then they made a 4th movie entitled "The Final Chapter". So not only has Jason been "killed" before, he's also been "no seriously guys he's really dead forever this time killed" before and always seems to recover. So, since this was intended to be the last Friday the 13th ever (it wasn't), the filmmakers had to come up with a way to make sure he was "those other times we said he was really dead we were just kidding but not this time, this time he's super dead and can't ever not be super dead he will never be back again why don't you believe us killed".

All of this leads to a wacky, disturbing, and more than a little over the top Friday the 13th film unlike any other. It's unique not only because it changed a lot of the core tenets of the franchise, but also because all films after it knew better and changed them back.

If you recall the end of the last movie, it had Jason drowned (again!) and reverted magically back into a child in a New York sewer. This movie flat out ignores this and starts with Jason as an adult, very much alive, and back to killing nekkid ladiez at Crystal Lake.

Unfortunately for Jason, the first nekkid lady he runs into happens to be a government agent laying a trap for him. She flees to the woods, and when he chases her, a bunch of other agents jump out of the bushes and shoot him a bunch. Then they bring in some bombs and blow him to smithereens.

During the autopsy of the smithereens, Jason's black heart (not hyperbole, it's literally black and slimy) starts to beat again. The coroner, being a pro, does what any pro would do in that situation. He picks it up and starts eating it. Beams of light fly out of the corpse chunks and the coroner is possessed by Jason's soul. He then kills everyone in the hospital and cheeses it out of the building.

That's right, Jason is absent for most of the film, instead possessing various bodies with black slime, light beams, and a parasitic snake demon to do his dirty work.

We are introduced to Creighton Duke, a bounty hunter who somehow knows exactly how to kill Jason, for permanentsies! Apparently the worm demon can't survive in a single body for any period of time, so it needs to keep killing to survive. However, if it bonds with a member of the Vorhees family, Jason will be reborn back into his former body at full strength and will be unkillable. But if a Vorhees kills him, it will kill the worm demon and he will stay dead.

Thus, Jason's main goal this movie has shifted from killing random slutty teens to killing his family, characters who have not been involved in the franchise at all until this chapter. Apparently Jason has a sister (despite previously being referred to as an only child). Jason's sister (Diana) has a daughter (Jessica) who in turn had a baby with a schmuck (Steven) who inexplicably becomes the action hero main character. However, Jessica is no longer dating the schmuck and is instead dating a famous TV reporter d-bag.

Jason (via various possessed bodies) decides to kill some teens by the lake for old time's sake then proceeds to his goal - his sister. There's a big fight, and Steven the schmuck steps in at the last moment and breaks it up. Jason gets away, but not before killing Diana (though not managing to posess her corpse). Cops show up and assume Steven is the killer, so he gets hauled off to jail.

Duke is also in jail, and tells Stephen everything he needs to know, but first breaks several of Stephen's fingers for no reason. Worried that Jason will be trying to kill Jessica or the Baby next to take their body, Stephen orchestrates a jailbreak to go rescue them. But first he goes to the old Vorhees house for some reason.

While there, he sees, and I am not making this up, the Necronomicon from the Evil Dead films. I check to see if I'm watching an official Friday the 13th film or reading bad internet fanfic, but alas this is real. Also there, he finds Diana's corpse, which the TV D-Bag had brought there to do a piece on how Jason is still killing or something. He then gets killed and possessed by Jason.

Jason, in her lover's body, goes to possess Jessica. Stephen arrives in the nick of time to kidnap her against her will. He then attempts to explain the whole thing to her, which she shrugs off as idiotic and insane, because, well, it is.

A this point there's a big long action piece where a bunch of minor characters die. It really does nothing to move the plot along. Stephen gets arrested again, and escapes again. Finally, there's a big climactic showdown back at the Vorhees house.

It's important that the climax takes place here because A) the power of the Necronomicon, coupled with a Vorhees causes the magical dagger from Evil Dead to appear. This is the only thing that can kill Jason (I swear I am not making this up). And B) Evil Demon Worm Jason finds his dead sister in the basement and crawls up her hoo-hah.

Completely reborn Jason comes back, complete with a hockey mask. Luckily, predictably, he gets stabbed with the magic dagger and gets drug down to hell, leaving only his hockey mask sitting in the dirt. Then, Freddy Kreuger's clawed hand comes out from the dirt and drags that down too, setting up the inevitable crossover.

None of the mystical elements were BAD per se, but they were SO out of place in a Friday the 13th film I had a hard time enjoying it. Coupled with all the fanboy nods riddled throughout the piece made me glad that this was the Final Friday...

...except that it wasn't! And I'll review those as well! See you next month!

Catch up on past installments:
Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Horrible Product Name for a Good Invention: The Bugzooka


Alright, so my product is a borderline As-Seen-On-TV type product. I could have done the Slap Chop, but the commercial is great; or the Eggstractor, but it's not really a great invention seeing that it explodes eggs; or Comfort Wipe. I don't need to get into details on that one. All you need to know is that people are terrible.

But this one is different. It's the Bugzooka. This one is just oozing badness all around. First of all, you liken the product in your mind to being a projectile of sorts, since you see the name and think of this:

But that's not how it works at all. It uses suction to bring bugs through a one-way door, instead of firing some projectile to splatter them against a wall. Secondly, it's not very flashy or complex, it's just a spring connected to an enclosed chamber with a button to release the spring to cause a small amount of suction. You could do the same job with a vacuum cleaner, and although the suction on one of those would be better, it'd be a pain in the ass to lug around just to get a spider off your walls. Lastly, their website doesn't really make the case well that this is a good product right off the bat.

But, I happen to have one, and let me tell you, it has caught plenty of spiders in my day. Living down in a basement can do that. All you need to do is push on the end until the spring locks in place, stand a safe distance from whatever pest you're trying to remove from your vicinity, and press the button to exile the thing from your floor or wall or wherever it is. The thing is, the device (usually) doesn't kill the bugs, it just sucks them up and you can remove the end of the device and observe them. Alternatively you can release the bugs into the wild. Here, let me show you...


Uhm... well, you CAN release the bugs into the wild... I guess. You just have to put your hand so damn close to them. These have been in here for months, maybe I should go toss these somewhere. Don't let any nature freaks/arachnophobes see this spider prison death camp, it might upset them.

BUT I DIGRESS. Basically, it keeps spiders the hell away from me by putting them in a clear plastic prison. And keeping spiders out of the range of anywhere close to me is something I can support.

This is Content

Evan: Dude, you need to step up your game
Evan: Umi is kicking your ass
Matt: dude, I'm making a post right now
Matt: talking about how you guys are kicking my ass
Evan: I've even written posts IN THE FUTURE already
Matt: while you were busy writing posts IN THE FUTURE
Matt: I was busy writing them IN THE PAST
Evan: WHOA
Evan: this is some crazy Bill and Ted shit right here
Matt: Excellent!


Monday, January 10, 2011

Horrible product name for a good invention - i.Beat blaxx

I accept Umi's contest challenge. My entry will be the "i.Beat blaxx" MP3 player.

German mp3 manufacturer TrekStor has a whole line of mp3 players in the i.Beat line. i.Beat blaxx was just a new, black mp3 player, following their i.Beat ________ naming structure.
Apparently someone noticed the problem, and it is now just named blaxx.

via listverse


The rules of the contest are as follows (since Umi didn't specify):
1) The contest will run one week, until January 17th, at midnight. Get your entries in before then!
2) If you aren't a writer for the blog, leave a comment in any of the entry posts.
3) Winner will be selected by the Rule Czar, and her ruling is FINAL. No heckling!
4) Prize will be supplied by Umi, and it had better be something GOOD.

Getting Back On Track

By the way, when the NASA scientists made their list of the top movies least likely to happen, I think they forgot about Battlefield Earth. Something tells me that's less likely to happen than 2012. Gigli got better reviews than this film.

Anyway, as you may or may not know I'm back in Pullman, fending off bears and classwork alike. And you guys made 7 posts in just 3 days? Now I feel like a slacker. I feel like I should be obliged to make a usual column of sorts. You know, classic YNTE's, or game reviews, or the "at least one crazy food item per month" sort of thing.

But this is a Democracy Evanocracy, so I think everyone Evan should get a say strike fear into my heart into what I should do regularly. So what would you guys like to see? Me ranting? Finding Google image searches? Incoherent rabble? Being able to have the right to edit posts again? There's so much potential, and so many directions you could push me towards.

Don't worry though, I'll finally get back into semi-regular posting as usual. Even if this one kinda felt like a big recap post of sorts. The Gauntlet shall be conquered once again this year.

I Don't Know, I'm Not a Doctor: Serial 1 - An Unearthly Child; Part 1 - An Unearthly Child

First things first, if you want to watch along, the episode I'm reviewing is available from Amazon. Additionally, a lot of these old Doctor Who episodes are available on YouTube (see below), in addition to services such as Netflix. I encourage you to watch along with me and leave your thoughts in the comments!

Secondly, a big spoiler warning for anything I say after this sentence. I'm not sure if it's still common courtesy to put spoiler warnings on content that is almost 50 years old, but I'm going to air on the side of caution.

Disclaimers out of the way, lets watch some Who!


Serial 1: An Unearthly Child
Part 1: An Unearthly Child (1963)
Starring: Doctor 1 - William Hartnell

One of the problems with reviewing old TV and movies is that what constituted compelling watching back then and what constitutes compelling watching now has changed. One of the main things that suffers from the change is pacing. Modern tv and film tend to get a lot more information conveyed much quicker than their older counterparts. However, "the classics" manage to stay relevant despite their slower pacing. Lets see how Doctor Who holds up:



They have, inexplicably, decided to start their program with literally TWO MINUTES of zooming in on a phone booth. I honestly can't imagine this was EVER compelling tv, and it certainly isn't now.

Luckily, after the two minute slow jam phone booth oogling, the show gets markedly better. Two teachers discuss a student who is inexplicably good at both science and history, as though she can travel through time. The only questions she ever gets wrong are ones where the answer will be different in the future, for example, the character in the show correctly predicts that Brittish currency will be on the decimal system in the future, and shortly after the show aired, they switched.

The teachers of course pick up on none of the not-at-all-subtle clues that this girl is a time traveller, and then proceed to do what any concerned teachers would do. They stalk her. They follow her to her home, which happens to be a junkyard.

It's at this point, halfway through the episode, that we first meet the titular doctor. Normally I'd begrudge a show for waiting so long without showing the protagonist, but in this case it makes sense because the doctor is kind of a dick. He spends the whole time berating and demeaning anyone who doesn't blindly believe in time travel. The teachers (rightfully so) believe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but apparently the doctor does not and treats them like disobedient 5 year olds.

Eventually the teachers decide the Doctor is a crazy person who is wholly unfit to be raising a child and decide to leave with the girl, however, before they can leave, the doctor, in a fit of douchery, zaps them all back in time. To CAVEMAN TIME.

That's it for the first episode! Check back soon for more Who!


Miss one? Check out our previous episodes below:
Introduction

Horrible product name for a good invention - Skunk Juice Earbuds

I'm not trying to cram a lot of posts into one day, I just have found a lot of interesting things to post about today. That being said, I have come up with a way to help everyone generate more posts for this month. We need to have a contest this month for the worst product name for a relatively good/decent invention.

My contribution to this contest will be Skunk Juice earbuds. You should watch the videos. They are mildly entertaining.