Category: Uncategorized

“Uta Hagen! I was thinking about her a lot lately. Specifically her name. And how if people are trying to get her attention they shout, “UTA! UTA! UTAUTAUTA! UTA HAGEN! HEY UTA! UTA HAGEN! UTA! UTA TAKE YOUR HEADPHONES OFF! UTA UTA UTA UTA! GODDAMN IT YOU ARE A FAST JOGGER!” Imagine that, trying to flag down Uta Hagen during her morning jog. UTA! UTA I HAVE AN IDEA — UTA! MY STANISLAVSKI PAPER IS DONE UTA! UTA HAGEN! UTA HAAAAAGEN! WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO, BLACK METAL?! SLOW DOWN! UTA! UTA HAGEN! UTA UTA UTA UTA UTA UTA UTA UTA UTA UTA HAGEN! CHRIST ON A CRACKER!”

“I talk about myself a lot, and this website knows that. It’s judging me right now. It’s saying, Josh, you talk a lot about yourself, don’t you? And I say Yes 750words.com, I do, I’m sorry but before I can even continue it’s soothing me, putting a finger to my lips. Shhh, 750words.com says, you take it easy now, have a seat on the couch. You want some water? And I say Yes and it says Okay baby, I’ll get you some water, and then it turns around and ooh, damn 750words.com, you have a shapely ass, I didn’t notice your figure when I came in here. Do you work out? It shows. Vegan? I bet you’re a vegan. Look, I eat meat, but it’s cool that you don’t. We can still be friends — is that what we are? Friends? Or something more?”

750words.com is great for a guy like me, who enjoys what he writes faaaar more than anyone else I know.

“This thing just turned into a novella. Not really, but I am babbling. This is what I do! I babble. I stop paying attention for two seconds and when I come back I have something else on my mind. I am going to write in this thing all fucking day. That’ll show you, 750 words! I will write double, nay, TRIPLE what you expect! Unless … that’s what you’re expecting. I’m on to you, 750words.com! I know what lies in your breast. Or breasts. Do you have breasts, 750words.com? The person who designed this site is male, but you, 750words.com, the site itself, do YOU have breasts? Come on, let’s see them. Don’t mess with me! I am an important person! I have over three hundred Twitter followers! Okay so most of them are spambots but whatever! Spambots find ME important enough to spam! How many spambots do YOU have, 750words.com?”

The best part is that it’s private! You’ll never get to read the things I write! I am laughing right now! A big belly laugh!

[WARNING! SPOILERS ABOUND! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!]

So I recently was able to watch the six-episode first season of The Walking Dead, the AMC show about zombies based on the graphic novels of the same name. In general, I enjoyed them, a lot. I really love how the zombie genre has turned into stories of human character, rather than just horror stories of the undead prowling around trying to eat everyone. And six episodes is a good way to get in, establish characters, setting, and loose plotline, while not dragging on too long. Six episodes should be the default for first seasons, I think. You show what’s up, then you show that you’re good enough to last more than one season. (more…)

Look, I won’t begin this blog by saying I’m sorry for not updating my blog as much as I should. There is no set time for blog posts; rather, there is a set time for human concentration, when people will hang around before they realize nothing’s going on, and then leave. I write posts for people, and if there are no people, then what is the point of writing? (more…)

Killing the figurehead of a decentralized terrorist organization really doesn’t do much. It gives closure for victims of the 9/11 attacks, sure, but killing someone whose followers are ready and eager to blow themselves up in order to kill others is a hollow victory. Showing terrorists that we will find and kill them in an attempt to frighten them makes no sense when they see no fear in their own sacrifice.

If anything, we should’ve taken bin Laden to New York City. Put him in an expensive suit. Taken him to McDonalds for lunch. Forced him to do all the things he hates about this country. Not torture, per se, but the things that piss off radicals. We should’ve kept him alive, interrogated him, and then forced him to work at a Foot Locker for ten years. We should’ve made him microwave Hungry Man dinners for food, and drink Coca Cola, and talk about baseball with his neighbors. Mow the lawn. Prepare his taxes. Try to find a girlfriend on OKCupid (wait, I said no torture). Make him live in a triplex house in Spokane Washington, next to a meth addict and a obnoxious family with three screaming kids. Cut off his beard, get him some snazzy eyeglasses and a polo shirt. Force him to go to therapy twice a week.

I think that would demoralize al-Qaeda more than just killing Osama. Hell, it demoralizes us, and we’re the ones who think it’s so great, aren’t we?

I received an event invite on my Facebook recently with the heading, “RED FRIDAY.” As with most Facebook invites these days, I promptly forgot about it, letting it fester in the depths of the abomination that is the Events page. But, occasionally I return to that page to purge all the various invites I receive, from people who live nowhere near me, or people who invite me to “awesoem keggars!” and such. Today I did such a thing, which is how I were I saw RED FRIDAY all over again.

The event page for RED FRIDAY has a long letter on it, but the gist is that on Friday, people will wear red to the airport to show their appreciation for the troops who return home from overseas. This I don’t have a problem with. What I do have a problem with is the letter in the event. So I am going to respond to said letter, right now. The letter is in block quotes, while my responses are not.

HERE WE GO! (more…)

It all started with Haiti. The earthquake there was devastating, destroying thousands or poorly built homes and killing an estimated 200,000 people. Such violence and destruction are unheard of in many first world nations, and so when they happen, we tend to react. Positively, for the most part. Those who are on the front lines send relief and aid to these nations, while people like me — middle class wage earners — do our part by donating money to various organizations who are sending the relief.

Donating to these organizations is key. It is our duty as a country of means, a nation of helpers, to do our part globally to ensure the health and good will of other countries. Plainly put, if we don’t help, it makes us look bad, both on a global scale, and on a moral scale. (more…)

Dear Food Items with “Hint of Salt” Emblazoned On Their Packaging,

It appears we have come to an impasse. You, dear food item, have had a transcendental realization: that you may have too much salt in or on you. I have come to a similar realization: that I, too, may have too much salt in or on me. Thus, we both enter introspective negotiations, you, with your earnest decision to reduce your sodium, and me, with my acknowledgment of, well, gout, I suppose. And kidney stones? Is that how that works?

Either way, here we currently sit, Food Item, confused and frightened, desperately wanting to hold each other but at the same time worried, anxious, maybe a little depressed. Maybe a little … let down. People, people add salt to everything, right? They add salt to already salty things. They would sprinkle salt on a salt lick for chrissakes if it was being licked by horses, with their disgusting germy horse tongues. But here you are, removed of all but a simple touch of salt. And here I am, ready to head down a terrible path, a path wherein “pass the salt” becomes a taboo as dire as Japanese pubic hair.

What do we do? Do I eat you? I am afraid, but curious. Do things taste the same with less salt? How would we know? We are a gluttonous country; when we eat Chinese food, it is not truly the food that Chinese people eat, and they know it, and we know it, and they put MSG in it because they know we are addicted to MSG. There are some things that taste good without salt, to me at least: corn on the cob. Potatoes. Ice cream. However, if you put salt on them — copious, copious amounts of salt, maybe some butter, sour cream, a dollop of lard — they leave the mortal plane of Food and enter the astral plane of Delicious. Not the ice cream though. Let’s leave ice cream out of this. I’m sorry I even brought it up.

The point being, I just ate a sleeve of you, specifically Ritz crackers with a “hint of salt,” and let me say — no. You don’t taste like Ritz. You taste like Shitz. YES I WENT THERE. I went there and I built a hammock, and now I’m resting and wearing sunglasses there. But really. Really? I’ve had the Lays potato chips with a hint of salt, and you know what? They taste great! They taste BETTER than the original Lays. I don’t feel like my taste buds have been scraped off when I eat the hint of salt Lays. But these Ritz! Why? I have three more sleeves to eat! And I will eat them, oh yes, but why? Why do you taste so wrong?

Also afterwards I went to lunch at the Greek deli and ate really salty french fries. Will I ever learn?

Sincerely,
Josh

Sometimes I see news of people I admire dying and it hurts in ways that require me to speak about it.

Every irreverent comedy that you see today owes its success to Leslie Nielsen and Mel Brooks.  Anchorman would never have been made if Airplane! didn’t exist.  This is history.  History is influence. Your legacy is influence.  Your books, your computer, this website, doesn’t matter unless it influences others.  If your name is remembered, when your soul is remembered.

And now Leslie Nielsen is dead, from complications of pneumonia, at a very excellent age to die.  And he lived his life well, humbly and Canadianly, never the kind of guy to boast or brag.  And now we have comedians making spoofs in the same vein, but they’re just not the same. They’re cruder, less clever.  There will never be another Airplane!.  Ever.  The brilliance, I suppose, is in that.  And while Anchorman has quotable lines, they’re not punchlines, they’re just funny dialogue, which is fine, but it’s just not the same.

So with Leslie dead, a bit of that old style of comedy is dying.  Maybe it’s for the best, but I seriously will miss the jokey aspect of comedy shows from the past fifty years.  There will never be another Abbott and Costello.  Never another Your Show of Shows. No more Sid Caesar.  No more Neil Simon.  That style just isn’t popular anymore with kids.

Anyway, it just saddens me when someone who has such influence on a generation of people who like to be funny (me included) dies.  Rest in Peace, Leslie Nielsen!  I would watch your movies but Netflix instant doesn’t have them. 🙁