Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Worst Commercial on Television

One of my favorite shows is "Mad Men" on AMC, which, by the way, is fucking brilliant. Anyway, it's on at 10pm on Sunday nights, which is too late for me to stay up. Insert old man joke here. I have to be at work at 7am, so I need to get to bed. Lay off!

Anyway, we end up watching it the next day on-demand through the digital cable box. It works out just fine. There's only one commercial break, which is awesome. Viagra sponsors the on-demand replay. The problem is that the only commercial they've shown all season is this one, and it's god-awful. You'll have to click on the link to watch it, and then watch the video called "Anniversary."

VIAGRA COMMERCIAL

I don't know where to begin.

First, the odd tonal discrepancies. At one point, it's "cute," with this guy's hang-dog looks (more on that in a moment), then it's super-stylized with the freeze-frame and blue-outlined husband. Also, the commercial wants us to believe they're going to do it because of what, nostalgia? "Look, I've got my wedding suit on. Remember when we used to be attracted to each other?" What a romantic sentiment. But that's not what really gets me about it.

I hate the guy, a lot. I hate his ridiculous mugging, and then the close up of his face, his weathered grin saying "I'm goofy, but also horny." Then, he carries her to the foot of the stairs, they have their "Golly, we're old" moment, and he sets her down. "Ha ha, I need help to get my penis up, and apparently I need help to get you up the stairs, too." Perhaps they should consider having sex on the ground floor.

I give this commercial one erection, lasting more than four hours. Priapism, I believe it's called. Call a doctor.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Hemorrhoid Treatment? Around Back!

I was going to take a picture of this, but decided I'm too lazy. Across the street from my work, is a clinic that specializes in treating hemorrhoids. Ha ha, hemorrhoids. And as funny as that is, I recently drove around the back side of the building, on a side street. And there I saw, the sign that says "Hemorrhoid Clinic: Rear Entrance." Or something like that. The little things in life... soak them up.

I give the owner of the hemorrhoid clinic 3 painful butt sores for that sweet sign.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Olive Olive You, Olives

Please forgive the pun that is the title of this post, but darn it, I DO love all of you, olives.



It's weird. I used to hate olives. I'd pick them off my pizza and out of my nachos (and I still do. Seriously, who puts olives in mexican food? That doesn't make any sense.) I resisted any attempts by foodies to make me eat olives. Then, one day, magically, I discovered that olives are actually delicious. I love the green buttery ones, the mushy black ones, the hearty monster black and green olives with the firm flesh and stubborn pits. I love the brine. I could eat an entire tub of fancy olives in one sitting. I have to force myself to put them back in the fridge.

I realized recently why I thought I didn't like olives. It's the same reason my mother insists she doesn't care for curry: she never had good curry, and I never had good olives. The disgusting black pearl olives they slice thin on pizzas are better described as olive-flavored gummy rings, in the same way watermelon Dubble Bubble approachs the taste of watermelon, but never achieves it. Like the way a prison b.j. could almost pass for the kind from a lady, but you know it's not.

I give real olives a couple dozen discarded pits.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Monday, Monday

This will be another random round-up of stuff. Enjoy.

- Today I grabbed the last plastic spoon from the lunch room for my curry. After I finished my lunch, I noticed my co-worker, sitting next to me, eating her pudding with a fork. I felt bad: I could have eaten my curry with a fork, but chose to take the last spoon instead. She couldn't get to the last dregs of her pudding at the bottom of the cup.

- We went to a wedding in Eugene this weekend. Our friend T got married to K at Shotgun Creek Park out near Marcola. Her mom and dad got married there a long time ago. I didn't expect the place to be that great, but I was pleasantly surprised. We were in the shade the whole time, and the post-wedding dinner and party was held in one of those picnic shelter thingies. It was pretty fun, although I couldn't drink because I had to drive us home.

- I finally won the Tecmo Bowl (see my earlier post). As the Chicago Bears, I beat the Cleveland Browns 30-15. It took me 3 tries to win the divisional playoff, but after I did, it was smooth sailing. I'm going to take a break for a while, but when I try again, I think I'll stay true to my roots and be the Minnesota Vikings.

- The album is coming along. I've more or less finished the sex song (see previous entry), and have about 5 other songs in various stages of completion. It's been challenging to make them interesting enough to sustain an entire song length without lyrics. I'm also trying to find a balance between chopping and cutting music and outright sampling.

That's it for now. I have nothing to rate, so I'll instead rate this blog. On a scale of "What were you thinking?" to "Dude, that's sweet!"... this blog gets a "The back of my shampoo bottle is more interesting."

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Sleepless Mornings, and Other Stuff

Sorry I didn't write anything last week. I had to be at work at 3:30 am twice last week, and my parents are in town, so I've been a bit busy. Ooh, plus, the weekend before was my 1st wedding anniversary, so we were out of town. Here now are some miscellaneous updates on my life:

- We stayed at the Olympic Club in Centralia for our anniversary. It was the only McMenamin's hotel that had any vacancies on the holiday weekend. Not surprising, it's in beautiful Centralia. The hotel itself is fine. It was formerly a hotel for railmen, and is appropriately old-timey. Our room was just big enough for our bed and a sink. We shared bathrooms with the rest of the guests. Although we were kind of worried about that, it was no problem. There were plenty of them, and they were always clean. The Olympic Club itself has a movie theater (with second run movies, ala the McMenamin's trademark), a very small bar, a much larger bar, and a billiards room with several tables. This part of the hotel is very cool, with lots of tables and the usual McMenamin's charm.

The town of Centralia, however, is somewhat devoid of charm. It's trying, it's really trying, but the downtown is half-empty. There are a few shops here and there, only a handful of which have anything of interest (to the lady, not me). There's a pedestrian mexican place, and another restaurant that was kind of disappointing. I always find it off-putting when servers try to convince you their food is great, then ask you to confirm their opinion. We spent a lot of time walking around, doing nothing. It was relaxing.

- While in Centralia, we saw all 3 movies playing at the hotel: "Sex and the City," "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the blah, blah blah," and "Wall-E." We had seen "Sex" and "Indiana Jones" already, but "Wall-E" we had not. It was really good. I don't usually like kids' movies, because they ignore the grownups forced to watch along. But Pixar movies are always different. I thought Wall-E had a great message for kids, was funny and sweet, and most importantly, had a compelling plot. I enjoyed it, although I understand the right-wingers don't. Something about humanity devolving into a race of corpulent zombies makes them feel bad about consumerism. Huh.

- My parents are in town right now, and leave tonight. It's kind of odd to have them back, since they moved away a couple years ago. I have nothing else to say about that.



- We also managed to squeeze in a movie this weekend, "Hamlet 2." It was pretty good, overall. There were some definite flat points, but Steve Coogan was hilarious, and managed to make what otherwise may have been lame into something funny with his performance. The film is about a high school drama teacher who tries to save his department with a blockbuster play, a sequel to "Hamlet" he wrote himself. The premise? What if Hamlet, using a time machine, was able to make it so everyone DIDN'T die at the end? It's one of those movies with a great premise, that could have flopped enormously in execution. While I don't think it was the best thing I've seen, I certainly got a lot of laughs out of it. I give it a "B."