It’s Captain Crunch, it’s Halloween-themed, it’s for a limited time only and it TURNS YOUR MILK GREEN. How could I NOT do a review of it?
I’m not sure how I was able to overlook it, but last year, a new, Halloween-themed variation of Captain Crunch - called, fittingly enough, “Halloween Crunch” - hit store shelves. I may have missed the proverbial boat last year, but you know DAMN well that I’m not letting this one sail by me two autumns in a row.
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of the product (or, if you want to be a little more literal, grains and oats), I find it imperative to state that, all in all, I’ve never really been that big a fan of Captain Crunch. That’s not to say that I foster a distaste for the product, it’s just that it was never a cereal I regularly consumed as a youngster. Odds are, if old man Crunch were a werewolf sea captain as opposed to a regular sea captain, I probably would’ve been likelier to gravitate to the product - but alas, that is territory we are ALL familiar with by now.
What makes “Halloween Crunch” different from your standard box of Captain Crunch, you may be wondering? Well, a lot, beginning with the packaging, which I am now going to spend a ridiculous amount of time analyzing and assessing.
First off, the color scheme here is pretty great. It’s mostly black, with lots of orange and green splashed around the box. There are tons of sinister looking pumpkins all over it, too, which makes it even more awesome, clearly. Really, if it wasn’t for the Cap’s grinning Jack O’ Lantern mug carved on the pumpkin, most folks would be hard pressed to distinguish this box from the box art of some antediluvian VHS horror movie from the mid ‘80s. That’s worth so many points, you don’t even know.
As with most cereals, you get some mildly airbrushed, mildly exaggerated cereal bits painted onto the box, complete with splashing milk - because as we all know, if you ain’t eating your cereal and it’s going all over the damn place, you, my friend, aren’t really eating cereal. The attention to detail on the cereal bits is pretty impressive, as you can even see the little green granules on the grain. And this is important, for one MAJOR reason…
…BECAUSE THE CEREAL TURNS YOUR MILK GREEN. GREEN, PEOPLE, GREEN! Granted, just about every cereal I can think of ends up turning your cow juice into some color other than ivory by the time you’re finished with it, but in this case, it’s actually being marketed as a prominent selling point, just like that Reptar cereal from “Rugrats.” And really, what kid in the U.S. could turn down the prospect of eating a cauldron of slime and sugar-sweetened ghosts for breakfast, anyway?
The back of the box has some information about pumpkins and stuff, which, yeah, is probably cool for a read while you’re waiting in line to purchase it, but the clear reason to get excited here is that the manufacturer provides you with a Captain Crunch Jack O’ Lantern template.
You know, something tells me you’re going to be seeing some orange, candle-filled fruit with these things mutilated into them before the month’s over. Just call it a hunch or something.
As for the cereal itself, it’s very, very Halloweeny, with lots of orange and yellow and brown. I guess that would technically make the product more Thanksgiving-colored than Halloween-hued but hey - it’s the right season, at least.
Half of the cereal is your traditional Captain Crunch bricks, while the other half are these light red, ghost looking things that bear more than a passing resemblance to the denizens of a certain General Mills breakfast offering. With that in mind, I like the fact that the ghosts here actually look sort of like traditional, table-cloth-draped spirits than the kinds were used to seeing in cereal-form; you know, the variety that looks more like the monsters that chase Pac-Man around than an otherworldly being caught betwixt the worlds of the living and the dead.
As a general rule, I don’t eat my cereal with milk, because…I don’t know, I just don’t like milk, I guess. Since soy milk was on sell, I decided to use that for my initial Halloween Crunch taste-through. And if you wanted to see me losing my Halloween Crunch cherry live on the Intraweb, well, here you go, folks:
Honestly, I think I feel about soy milk the way most normal people feel about tofu. Yeah, it’s all right, but it’s clearly no substitute for the real deal. Some folks may dig that sweetened-corn-plastic taste, but to me, it just wasn’t thick enough to provide an optimal Halloween Crunch experience. That’s sage advice for anybody, even the lactose intolerant, you know.
Taste-wise, I thought the cereal was pretty good. Granted, it isn’t going to convert me from the Church of Chocula, but it wasn’t a bad specialty item by any stretch. I guess it’s sort of redundant to call a cereal’s taste “sweet,” but this stuff was just excruciatingly sweet, as if someone dumped the contents of a hummingbird feeder over a barrel of oats and marketed under the Capt Crunch flagship. To a lot of people, that probably sounds like a negative declaration, but this IS cereal we’re talking about here: if you want subtlety and refined textures, you’re marching down the wrong supermarket aisle, amigo.
Oh, and in case you were wondering? It DOES end up turning your milk green, to a certain extent. But then again, I was using soy milk…that shit may NATURALLY be that color, for all I know.
Featuring a stomach-churning beatdown on Fabio (but not THAT Fabio), an inconceivably EXCITING Jon Fitch bout and Anderson Silva destroying an American Psycho while acting like a Brazilian A-Hole!
Remember how last month, I said the Jon Jones / Vitor Belfort main event at UFC 152 was one of the most absurdly one-sided bouts ever booked by the Zuffa brass? Well, despite the one or two minutes in the first round where Belfort’s jiu-jitsu made things mildly interesting, I stand by my declaration that such a fight constitutes criminal negligence on the part of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. And if things go as planned tonight in Brazil, it looks like the UFC may be on the verge of garnering their first ever wrongful death suit.
Now, I like this Stephan Bonnar kid. He seems likable, and down-to-earth, and the fact that he fights like a chimpanzee having a seizure always makes me interested in seeing his bouts. He was the yin to Forrest Griffin’s yang in a fight that many people consider to be the turning point of the sport, at least as a U.S. cable phenomenon, and to his credit, he’s never been knocked out or submitted. The problem here is, Stephan Bonnar is simply Stephan Bonnar, while his opponent tonight is ANDERSON GODDAMN SILVA.
I think the UFC knows that things could get horror-movie quality real quick here, which is probably why they decided to make the main event a three round affair as opposed to the typical five rounder. In many ways, this non-title bout - booked on short notice as a replacement for the Aldo/Edgar probably-never-going-to-happen-ever Featherweight Championship match-up - is really nothing more than a glorified sparring session, with the UFC 153 commercials pretty much ANCHORED around the fact that Bonnar has no chance in hell of winning tonight’s fight.
There’s no denying that Silva will be phoning it in tonight, but we know how this Bonnar kid likes to work it. He’s going to come out swinging early, and Silva is going to have no choice but to do…something very, VERY horrible to his adversary. Our best case scenario is that Bonnar ends up drooling on the mat about a minute in, while at the absolute worst, we’ll end up watching this poor, poor father-to-be get slung around the cage for fifteen agonizing minutes. And when things are THIS obvious, you can’t help but think: what if, through some magical, mystical, metaphysical means, Bonnar manages to pull off the upset? It’s a prospect so unfathomable, not even the UFC marketing department can think of such a scenario. All I know is, tonight in Rio de Janeiro, we’re going to witness something we’ve never seen in an Octagon before…and odds are, it’s something we’re not going to forget for a LONG time to come, either.
Welcome, one and all, to the Rocktagon Recap of UFC 153: Silva vs. Bonnar!
We are coming to you LIVE from the River of January in Brazil, where shockingly, the locals DON’T resemble retarded Frankenstein monsters that shoot electricity at you. As always, I’m calling this hootenanny live from the quaint and cozy Bailey's, where working class college girls, frat boys and dwarves commingle in harmony. You know, I did so much jibber-jabbering about tonight’s main event that I sort of glossed over the rest of the main card, which, on paper, looks to be one of the most stacked shows in recent memory.
Welterweight Bout
Demian Maia vs. Rick Story
Maia with a takedown to begin the bout. Story tries to keep things vertical, but Maia manages to wrestle him down. And then, another takedown from Maia. Maia almost has a rear naked choke locked in. Story fighting it. Maia now has a neck crank, and Story is spitting blood all over the cage. The ref waves it off, and Demian Maia is officially 2-0 in the UFC’s welterweight division.
Light Heavyweight Bout
Phil Davis vs. Wagner Prado
A rematch here, since the first fight ended with Prado having his cornea poked out by “Mr. Wonderful.” A dude tries to snatch off Prado’s hat, but he manages to yank it back, which has to be a first in UFC history. Davis with the first takedown of the fight. Davis going for a choke, but Prado is holding on to the cage for dear life. Davis with a MASSIVE slam. Prado getting his face rocked on the ground, and Davis is trying to work the back. Prado looking for an armbar, but it ain’t happening. Davis with another takedown. Gotta’ be Davis’s round.
Davis with a low takedown to begin the second. Prado absorbing some nasty body shots. Davis has Prado covered like a plate of Waffle House hash browns. Davis looking for an arm triangle. Prado slips out. Davis looking for an anaconda choke, and he’s got it. An impressive performance by “Mr. Wonderful,” no doubt about it.
Welterweight Bout
Erick Silva vs. Jon Fitch
Fitch is the undisputed king of the 15 minute lay-and-pray, while Silva’s average fight time is somewhere between 10 to 15 seconds. Clearly, there is going to be a clash of fighting styles on display here.
Silva may very well have the nicest head of hair of any non-Asian fighter in the UFC, by the way. Fitch with a takedown, and he’s working Silva’s back. Fitch with a waist lock, and he’s dangerously close to locking in a guillotine. Fitch just teeing off on Silva, but thankfully for Erick, striking ain’t exactly his opponent’s strong suit. Fitch looking for a standing triangle, but Silva breaks free. Fitch with another takedown. So far, Fitch has completely neutralized Silva’s striking. 10-9 for Fitch, in usual Fitch fashion.
Fitch and Silva trade blows, and Silva drops Fitch with a knee to the abdomen. Silva looking for a crucifix mount, then transitions to Fitch’s back. We’re standing again. Fitch trying to get a double leg takedown against the cage. Silva doing a good job of defending. Silva has Fitch’s back, and the choke is in DEEP. AND FITCH ESCAPES. Silva trying to lock in a body triangle and now Fitch has Silva’s back. Fitch with an armbar, but Silva manages to hold on until the end of the round. And unbelievably, this thing is looking like a fight of the year contender. A dead even contest heading into the third round.
Fitch feeding Silva some big shots to begin the third, and he’s looking for his opponent’s back. And Silva with a guillotine. Fitch fighting it, but it is deep. And Fitch is out. Fitch with his opponent’s back again. Jon looking for a choke. Two minutes to go and Fitch is just pounding on Silva at this point. Silva’s just barely hanging on with a minute left. Definitely Fitch’s round here, which should be enough to earn him the W.
Unanimous decision victory for Fitch. Huh…never heard that one before.
Light Heavyweight Bout
Glover Teixeira vs. Fabio Maldonado
Texiera, in case you haven’t noticed, is being hyped to the moon and back by MMA nerds the world over as the NEXT big thing in the Light Heavyweight division, with some folks already calling him the Great Brazilian Hope against Jon Jones. Maldonado, on the other hand is, uh…who the hell is Maldonado, anyway?
Glover drops Fabio early, and now he’s raining fist burgers from the full mount. Glover just clubbing Fabio with elbows now. Short range punches in bunches get thrown in the mix, too. Glover with an arm triangle, and Fabio is just, uh, waiting to die, I guess. Fabio survives, somehow. Glover continues the face mauling from the top. The fact that Fabio isn’t a massive blood stain now is just staggering. Fabio’s face looks like a butcher’s cutting board at this point, and he’s basically ambling around the cage punch drunk now. Fabio, despite experiencing a miniature seizure, manages to survive the round, proving once and for all that God is crueler beyond or wildest imaginations. 10-9, Glover’s round. 10-8, potentially.
Glover ain’t messing around, as he tackles Fabio as soon as the second round begins. Glover has Fabio’s back. Things get vertical again. For a dude who’s amygdale was turned into gelatin five minutes ago, Fabio isn’t doing all that bad, surprisingly. Glover on top, and the beating continues. A minute to go in the second, and the doctor is checking out a nasty cut on Fabio’s face. Glover totally dominating, but you have to give this Fabio fellow some credit; the beating he’s taken tonight would’ve killed most standing armies, let alone a single individual.
The doctor steps in before the third round begins and says “nah, that’s cool, I really don’t want anybody dying in here tonight” and just awards the fight to Teixeira.
Commercial for the next “Assassin’s Creed” game, where you can Brazilian jiu-jitsu redcoats during the Revolutionary War. Why didn't my eighth grade civics teacher tell me about THAT, precisely?
Heavyweight Bout
Antonio Rodrigo Nogiuera vs. Dave Herman
Nog comes out to some Puff Daddy, while looking as he always does: like the end-result of a monkey hopping into the telepod thing from “The Fly” while holding an alligator skin purse.
Herman begins the fight with a takedown. Nog is up and he bullies Herman up against the cage. He’s starting to throw some wild punches now. Herman throwing some kicks, but nothing is sticking. Nog pushing the tempo with his punches, as the Brazilian locals hoot and holler like crazy. 10-9 round for Big Nog.
Nog begins the round by dropping Herman right off the bat. Nog gets in side control and looks for an armbar. Herman escapes, but Nog ends up back in the full mount. Herman with a takedown, but since he’s scared of Nog’s jiu-jitsu, he lets his adversary up. Herman with another takedown, and now he’s in side control. Nog trying to lock in an armbar. And he’s got it, and Herman has no choice but to tap. The crowd goes bananas, as expected.
Light Heavyweight Bout
Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar
Bonnar out first to "Eminence Front" by The Who, while Silva strolls out to that one DMX song from "Exit Wounds." Silva trips - ironically, in a very Chael Sonnen-ish manner - early in the first, but Bonnar can't do anything. Stephan tries to take his opponent down, but it ain't happening. Bonnar has Silva pressed against the cage, but he's not connecting with anything he throws. Silva starts shunting Bonnar in the face with those shoulder pops that he debuted against Chael Sonnen at the pre-fight presser for UFC 148, which gives this thing a very nice sense of continuity. Bonnar already looking exhausted, as Silva just ducks and weaves out of everything he throws. Silva presses himself against the back of the cage, and just LETS Bonnar hit him in the face a few times, just to let him know that he ain't doing shit to him. We get a clinch and one knee to the chest is all it takes to drop the former Ultimate Fighter runner-up. After the bout, Silva says he'll "never" fight at 205 ever again, and does some celebrating with Big Nog in the middle of the Octagon.
So, Where Do We Go From Here? After Silva's mauling of Banner, pretty much everyone on the planet will be calling for a mega-super-duper-hyper-mecha bout of the all-time against Jon Jones, but since both of those dudes are fighting under the Nike banner, the prospect is about as likely as Louie Anderson winning next year's "Sexiest Man Alive" competition. At this point, it seems like Silva's next adversary will be either Georges St-Pierre or the winner of the upcoming Tim Boetsch/Chris Weidman fight. It's hard to gauge just how many more miles Big Nog has on him, but I think he did enough tonight to at least put him into top 10 consideration within the UFC's heavyweight division again. Why not link Big Nog up with Travis Browne for his next match-up? Glover Teixeira looked dominant as all tonight, and he NEEDS to go toe-to-toe with a top 10, marquee name. Since Teixeira's original opponent for the evening was scheduled to be Quinton Jackson, why not go ahead and make the bout official once more? And lastly, both Jon Fitch and Demian Maia looked super-impressive in their victories tonight...so how about putting them in a 170-showcase for an event later in 2013?
Highlight of the Night: I'd cast my ballot for the Silva/Fitch bout, but there were a ton of awesome finishes to choose from tonight, as well.
Lowlight of the Night: Nothing this evening was really all that bad, off the top of my head. Maybe the decision to NOT let Fabio get eviscerated in the third round, perhaps?
Roganism of the Night: "Jesus!" - uttered while Jon Fitch beat the living crap out of Erick Silva from the side mount.
FIVE THINGS I LEARNED FROM TONIGHT'S SHOW:
You can legitimately knock someone silly with shoulder bumps.
If you ever make the accusation that Brazilian jiu-jitsu "doesn't' work," it's a 100 percent guarantee that you will be submitted in the most comically ironic fashion imaginable.
Apparently, being mildly brain damaged from elbow shots makes you a MORE accurate striker.
Contrary to popular belief, having a weatherman-quality haircut will NOT give you better submission defense.
You know, you can still choke a bitch sometimes, if you really make an effort to.
PTA’S latest Oscar-bait is here, and yeah, it is pretty freaking outstanding
The Master (2012)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
I caught “The Master” - PTA’s latest sure-fire, Academy-fellating Oscar-bait opus that totally ISN’T about Dianetics and stuff -a few nights ago, and yeah, I thought it was pretty freaking terrific, as does every other human being on the planet. I have to admit, I’m a huge mark for Paul Thomas Anderson’s work, as “There Will Be Blood,” “Punch Drunk Love” and “Magnolia” are all three of my favorite films from the last fifteen years or so, and while I don’t think “The Master” is necessarily on par with any of those movies, there’s no denying that it’s still one of the best flicks you’ll see this year.
The movie begins with Joaquin Phoenix stumbling around an island, pouring lighter fluid into coconuts and getting sloshed on the fruity, poisonous contents therein. After that, he decides to beat off into the Pacific Ocean before defiling a sand dune, and then he catches word that World War II has ended, so he celebrates by drinking the gasoline out of an undetonated missile. After the Japanese surrender, he tries to get a job as a cameraman at Sears, but he spends too much time getting liquored up and trying to make it with hand models at Macy’s to make anything out of it. He gets into a fistfight with this fat guy, so he has to get a new job whacking cabbages for a living. Of course, he spends most of his tenure there making highly toxic alcoholic beverages, which results in the probable death of at least one elderly worker. Ran out of town by sickle-wielding Latinos, he comes across a party being held on a yacht, which he decides to crash. He wakes up the next day with a massive hangover, and even worse, Philip Seymour Hoffman standing over him.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman - in what is almost assuredly a Best Supporting Actor-locking performance - plays a very L. Ron Hubbard-ish figure that has all of these grand, highfalutin ideas about time travel and past lives and all of that junk. He’s managed to sell his shtick to a bunch of rich socialites, and he takes a liking to Joaquin’s character because he digs his paint thinner and orange juice mixers. Hoffmann decides to interview Joaquin, in a really great scene where Joaquin tries to keep from blinking while he talks about the time he did it with his own aunt.
As it turns out, Joaquin’s big psychological problem is that he abandoned his high-school aged lover to join the navy, and yeah, he feels pretty conflicted about that. Hoffman’s character decides to let Joaquin join his entourage, as they spread the gospel of “The Cause” - a really abstract, pseudo-scientific philosophy that’s just mildly less convoluted and intelligence insulting that Objectivism. At a mixer, some skeptic dude shows up and starts picking apart Hoffman’s theory, and Joaquin responds by going to his apartment at three in the morning and beating the hell out of him as a rebuttal.
After that, it’s subplot city, as we come to find out that Hoffman’s son doesn’t really believe that his dad is sincere about what he’s preaching. Meanwhile, Joaquin fantasizes about naked old people at social gatherings while Hoffman runs around doing these grandiose song and dance numbers. And oh yeah, there’s also a part where Amy Adams gives Hoffman a hand-shandy and insinuates that her husband is either gay or super-duper adulterous. Either way, she doesn’t seem to care, apparently.
Eventually, Hoffman gets busted for practicing medicine without a license, and Joaquin ends up in the slammer with him because he tries to wrestle a couple of cops that attempt to arrest his “leader.” Cue another fantastic scene where the two banter back and forth in side-by-side jail cells, with Joaquin going freaking crazy and breaking toilets and stuff while Hoffman just stands there, all cool and collected, before taking a really long pee.
So, Joaquin and Hoffman end being released and they patch up their differences, even though pretty much everybody in the group distrusts Phoenix. This leads to a very, very long montage sequence where Phoenix has to pass one of the “Cause’s” rituals, which he finally manages to complete. After that, he and Hoffman drive out into the desert and unearth one of Phil’s long-buried manifestos, which goes to print despite the fact that the book’s publisher thought it was a piece of crap (Joaquin responds, of course, by beating the poor dude into a bloody pulp.)
At a social mixer, one of Hoffman’s long-term followers drills him for changing up his philosophies in the new book, and during this really bizarre motorcycle-driving ritual, Joaquin decides to steal Hoffman’s ride and contact that one girl he left to join the navy. She’s married and moved off, and, quite surprisingly, Joaquin seems to take the news very well. After falling asleep during a “Casper, the Friendly Ghost” cartoon in a theater, Joaquin decides to hightail it to England with a pack of Kools and seek advice from his…mentor.
So, Hoffman and Phoenix have one final conversation, which ends with Phil singing a song about taking a rowboat ride to China. Joaquin decides to hit up a pub and sleep with a very, umm, English-looking woman, and the film concludes with Phoenix having another dream about that sand dune he humped at the beginning of the movie.
All in all, “The Master” is a downright terrific movie, albeit not exactly what I would deem as the year’s best overall motion picture (“Beasts of the Southern Wild” STILL gets that particular nod from me, by the way.) Unless Daniel Day-Lewis puts on the acting job of all acting jobs in “Lincoln,” Joaquin is pretty much guaranteed a Best Actor statuette for his performance in the film, and Hoffman might as well be clearing space on his awards mantle already. The rest of the cast is pretty good - if not unremarkable - while PTA does a commendable job helming the action. As before, I don’t think it’s as good as his previous work, but seeing as how literally everything the dude has made has been four star-material, it’s not like this is a major step down for him in any regard.
Long story short? You need to see this movie, because it’s awesome and an absolute acting clinic. That said, I do have one word of warning before heading into it: at two and half hours long, this is NOT a movie you need to be seeing after chowing down on some itis-inducing foodstuffs. I had an enormous plate of pesto gnocchi as a pre-movie dinner, and trust me…I have NEVER had to battle the Sandman so hard in a movie theater EVER.
A Marshmallow Square Monster Mash Featuring Guest Appearances by Boo Berry and Franken Berry, Too!
I don’t know if you are aware of this by now, but I sorta’ like General Mills’ Monster Cereals - you know, the horror-themed breakfast product trifecta of Count Chocula, Boo Berry and Franken Berry. That pack at one point included two additional monster-foodstuffs - a vanilla-flavored cereal called Yummy Mummy and a lime-flavored offering called Fruit Brute - and I’m seriously thinking about starting a national letter writing campaign to get General Mills to put the two discontinued cereals back into production for the Halloween 2013 season. While that uphill battle is still a couple of months away from kicking off, it just wouldn’t be a proper Halloween around Jimbo’s neck of the woods without SOME look at the contemporary holy trinity of monster-themed, sugar-encrusted breakfast goods, and this year, I decided to up the ante, and HARD.
I’ve never really been a fan of Rice Krispies Treats - or, if you’re a fan of more generic, non-trademarked descriptors, “marshmallow squares” - but there was just something about the idea of turning Count Chocula into a gooey cereal bar that just felt…I don’t know, necessary, for this Halloween season. But hey, why stop there? The last time I checked, there’s plenty of room in the mixing bowl for Franken Berry and Boo Berry, too - which means it was nigh time for a marshmallow sauce-soaked monster mash around casa de Internet is in America.
To replicate the experiment at home, you’re going to need a few things. Clearly, you’re going to need a box each of the General Mills cereals, and also three bags of marshmallows (one bag of the really big kind, and two of the miniature variety that you normally chunk into your hot chocolate come December.) You’re also going to need some butter, some corn syrup, and some heavy duty mixing equipment. Trust me, folks - if you’re not an excellent whisker, you may not be man enough to continue with the project.
To begin, you’re going to have to melt a stick of butter in a fairly large sized pot. From there, you’re going to have to annex about a cup and a half of corn syrup - a vital ingredient that serves as the adhesive that “glues” your little puffed rice ghosts and marshmallow bats together - into the bowl. The end result of step one of the process should look gross as shit, as you can no doubt see for yourself.
Step two entails dumping the large marshmallows into the pot. I really cannot stress how important it is to have top-notch whisking and beating utensils at your disposal. If it all possible, I would recommend dragging out the old electric egg-beater, if your have one. And if not? I’d say about a week of lifting weights before beginning the recipe would be the bare minimum to prepare you for the later stages of the prep work.
After dumping the large bag into the bowl, that’s your cue to insert the two bags of smaller marshmallows. If you’re looking at a physical estimate of how much you’ll need, I’d say that we’re probably looking at about 22 ounces of product here - a 10.5 ounce bag of large marshmallows, with two 5.5 ounce bags of the smaller marshmallows, ought to be enough to do the trick.
It doesn’t take long for your marshmallows to coalesce into a nice, creamy white ocean of sugary madness, and to make matters worse, you have a really finite amount of time before the marshmallow sauce begins hardening. As soon as the lumps in your sauce seem to disappear, that’s your cue to open the cereal boxes.
You can be really technical about what you’re doing here, but that’s kinda’ missing the point. I’d say that you would need to scoop out about one-third of the cereal from each box, but hey, it’s your dessert, so do whatever you want with it. Some folks prefer a more Boo Berry-ish mix, while others are all about the Franken Berries. There’s really no wrong way to mix things up, but remember: you are working against the clock as SOON as the first puffed up piece of rice falls into the marshmallowy abyss, so if you ain’t ready to haul ass, you may need to abort the project.
I’m not exaggerating when I say you have less than two minutes to whip your cereal up in the sauce. Any longer, and the marshmallow DNA begins to crust over, and it becomes practically impossible to move your chunks around. This is a two-person job, at the absolute minimum, and as before: egg-beater assistance is HIGHLY recommended here.
Transferring your batter from the pot to a glass container isn’t easy, but there’s a trick to it. The idea is to basically scoop all of the cereal chunks to one side of the pot, so that you create a sort of inclined plane at the bottom of the cookware. This way, you can scrap up the rest of the cereal with a spatula and use that one mound of cereal as a ramp to easily transport your mixture from resting spot A to resting spot B. And in case you are wondering? Yes, washing out marshmallow fragments in cookware IS a real bitch and a half.
From here, you really have two options with your treats. Some people like to dump the things off in the deep freeze for about a half hour, while others prefer to aluminum foil wrap it fro about an hour and a half. Personally, I prefer leaving the things out to congeal at room temperature, but whatever works for you, works for you.
Not surprisingly, it’s just a wee bit difficult to cut up the bars, and the harder they get, obviously, the more unmanageable they become. If you are really dedicated, you could probably saw through them with a butter knife, but that’s the exact verb you will performing - these things are so rocky, you pretty much HAVE to apply as much force as you can to sever them from the mother bar.
I don’t really need to tell you this, but the final products are going to be EXTREMELY messy. Even better, it’s almost impossible to eat the things with a utensil, so it looks like you have no choice but to hop in there with your grubby little meat hooks and splash chocolate cereal chunks and marshmallow webbing all over the place. Not that it’s necessarily a negative experience, of course.
One of the absolute best things about marshmallow squares is that, after they’ve gotten rock solid, they’re actually fairly easy to transport. About two hours after you begin the project, you can easily dump the remainders of the dessert into a freezer bag for safe keeping. And for those of you that like to snack on the same foodstuff for a week? These things, amazingly, manage to maintain their flavor for quite some time, so there are no worries about this stuff going “stale” anytime soon.
As far as the taste of the dish itself…I liked it. Then again, this is coming from a guy that’s spent the last two years making Franken-Food on virtually a weekly basis, so your mileage, most definitely, would vary. None of the cereals really become “dominant” as far as the overall taste of the bars are concerned, and the different textures and flavors, surprisingly, gelled quite well together. All in all, the experiment, more like the Bride of Frankenstein than Franken Berry’s literary inspiration, was a lot more successful than I had imagined.
Odds are, you’re probably going to be participating in a whole lot of Halloween hootenannies and spooky shindigs this season, and if there’s one thing that stands out at a Samhain mixer, it’s probably a huge assed block of differing cereals cobbled together like some sort of undead creature. And as an added bonus, the final product is not only edible, but somewhat yummy, to boot. Unless you have the hands of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, there really isn’t an excuse for you to miss out on this delicious abomination of science - just be sure to lend all of your were-guests non-silver sporks when it comes dessert time, of course.
First of, let’s begin with the director of the film, a fellow named Dinesh D’Souza. D’Souza is a guy that was born in India that got a chance to attend an Ivy League school based on some international scholar program, who ended up becoming a member of the Reagan Administration, despite the fact that he didn’t have legal U.S. citizenship at the time (and this, I might add, is a point he actually MAKES HIMSELF in the movie.) Early on in the film, he criticizes Obama for showing a fondness for welfare programs and placing a focus on foreign diplomacy - not at all an ironic statement, seeing as how the sole reason D’Souza even GOT into the U.S. to begin with is because of a massive welfare program that targeted non-U.S. benefactors. It’s an upfront dose of fatalistic hypocrisy that makes sitting through the rest of the film a laborious chore - and rest assured, there is a LOT to not like about this movie on top of that.
Obviously inspired by Michael Moore’s ego-centrical pop-documentary approach - which, peculiarly, has been (mal)adopted by dozens of conservative doc-makers, from Ben Stein to Sarah Palin’s utterly hopeless PAC - D’Souza narrates the film, serving as the great, omnipresent tour guide through the four year nightmare known as Obama’s first term as President of the United States of America. This is an ill-advised decision on D’Souza’s part, for several reasons.
First off, D’Souza is about as interesting as a piece of microwaved white bread, displaying the sort of on-screen charisma usually relegated to Kristen Stewart performances. D’Souza - who, strangely, sounds JUST LIKE Stephen Colbert - drifts around the world, staring at Barack Obama Sr.’s grave, pacing back and forth while pretending to talk on a cell-phone and reenacting his college conversations with boring white people. My girlfriend said that the dude is a dead ringer for the villain from “Lost,” while I mulled the consideration that he looks like cartoon mouse come to life. At any moment, I expected him to put on a pair red suspenders and eat a block of yellow cheddar while he droned on and on about American exceptionalism.
Even BEFORE you get into the politics of the movie, there’s no way around it; this is a flat-out terrible documentary, from a technical stance. I’m not kidding when I say that half of the damn movie is just stock footage of dirty people hanging out in Kenya and Indonesia - if you’re looking for a comprehensive critique of Obama Administration policies, you’ll probably be sorely disappointed, while if you’re a fan of scenes of brown people shambling through muddy streets and smoking cigarettes on the back of dinghies, then my friend, you have hit the mother lode.
The editing in the film is pretty poor, with a ton of jump cuts and clearly staged scenes spliced together with completely context-less audio bits, a majority of which is culled straight from Obama’s book-on-tape reading of "Dreams from My Father." At one point, D’Souza talks about violence erupting at “Occupy” rallies across America, and I’m almost 100 percent certain that the footage onscreen is actually video from the 2011 Vancouver riots when the Canucks choked in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.
About halfway through the movie, I realized something: had Obama not titled his book "Dreams from My Father," there probably wouldn’t have been a documentary for D’Souza to film. In a nutshell, the director’s “grand statement” with the film is, well, just a little convoluted: since Obama, Jr. never really knew Obama, Sr., that father absenteeism has given him a psychological yen to carry out the anti-colonialist “dreams” of his daddy, which thus explains his foreign policy and “socialistic” aspirations as POTUS.
Despite the fact that D’Souza is clearly NOT a guy who has “Euro-centric colonialist” plasma in his platelets, he seems to be, well, a proponent of colonialism. As in, he comes out and SAYS that Kenya would have been in better shape had the white overseers just hung around like they did in South Africa, which if not for the mind-breaking HIV-infection levels and frequent executions by tire necklacing, is truly a developed, modernized country in ever sense of the word. In a later segment, D’Souza interviews a former “policy advisor” that said that the only thing standing between humanity and total civil collapse is a hegemonic American presence. D’Souza’s argument, to summarize, is that Obama is using his stature as President to relinquish American power AS that global hegemonic force, which means that any day now, the United States of Islam will nuclear annihilate us all while we burn $100 bills to stay warm in winter, because the Chinese will be using all of that Keystone oil that would’ve been ours to fuel modern industry for the next 100 years.
D’Souza, like many conservative analysts, predicts something REAL bad will happen if Iran develops nuclear weapons, and argues that our measly nuclear arsenal of 5,000 plus warheads isn’t enough to keep the rest of the world cowering in their boots every time they hear the letters “U,” “S,” and “A” strung together. He argues that Obama isn’t doing enough to fight Islamic extremists (I’m guessing that was a Doombot that got capped back in ‘11, then) or enough to support Israel.
And then there’s Obama’s economic policies…and yeah, it’s pretty much the same-old, same-old in D’Souza’s documentary.
The director of “2016” said that Obama was influenced by a quartet of socialistic thinkers, including Frank Marshall Davis and Bill Ayers. He concludes the film by saying that Obama’s “dream” for America - an anti-colonialist-fueled, quasi-communistic recipe for American decay - is something altogether different than the “dreams of Americans,” which D’Souza never explicitly spells out. And then, the credits roll, and you realize that you’ll never be able to get your 20 bucks back. By the time the lights flipped back on in the theater, a guy in front of me was dabbing away tears from his two glass eyeballs with both hands.
You’re probably curious about what all the hubbub is about. I was, too, and eventually, I just caved in to the pressure. No matter how crappy I tell you the movie is, you’re going to want to experience the pure fecal stench for yourself, so capping this review of with a declaration of its’ lousiness as a motion picture is sheer superfluity.
If you see “2016,” you’ll no doubt experience some chills and shivers, though. As a matter of fact, it’s probably the most frightening film of the fall, and a flick that will surely give you a case of the creeps and the willies.
Unfortunately for D’Souza, however, it’s for all of the reasons he didn’t intend.
Who says all Halloween treats have to be naturally unhealthy?
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but sometimes, bell peppers kinda’ look like little pumpkins. Especially when they’re orange. A little when they’re green, and to some extent when they’re red and yellow, but most definitely, they appear the most pumpkin-like when the same color as an Oompa-Loompa, Hulk Hogan or somebody from “Jersey Shore.”
So one night, I decided to make a bell pepper meal. Only, I wasn’t eating regular bell peppers. Oh, no. I was going to be feasting on bell peppers, that sorta’ looked liked JACK O’LANTERNS.
I guess some people would look at the foray and automatically consider it fruitless (which is complete bullshit, by the way, because as seeded plants, bell peppers technically ARE fruits.) Those people are most likely joyless prudes that have no idea how great the “Spirit of Halloween” can be. Yeah, it’s a lot of work to carve out spooky faces on bell peppers, and it doesn’t really do anything to change the taste or texture of the meal, but that’s not the point. The point is, in case you haven’t deduced it, that I’m eating MEXICAN FOOD THAT’S SHAPED LIKE A JACK O’ LANTERN. If you can’t figure out why that’s awesome and something that I need to do at least once in my lifetime, you, mi amigo, just ought to go take a hike and let everybody else enjoy this wacky thing we call “existing.”
As you can no doubt see, the very first thing you need to make Jack O’ Lantern bell peppers are bell peppers and some sort of paring equipment. Oddly enough, I decided to use a pumpkin carving knife, which works about as excellently on peppers as it does gigantic orange squash-thingies. As you should know by now, there’s no real “right” way to make a spooky, scowling Jack O’ Lantern face - as long as it has angry eyes and a mouth that sort of looks like its uttering some permutation of “BYAGGHHH!” or “GRUHHHHN!” - you’re probably on the right path.
For those of you unfamiliar with how stuffed bell peppers operate, they’re not that difficult to prepare. Basically, all you really need is some Spanish rice mix - I prefer mine loaded with chopped up green olives and a nice frappe of Mexican cheeses - and some shredded cheddar.
Your first order of business is spooning out the rice mix, which you then insert into the hollowed out shell of your Pepper O’ Lantern. I guess there is the tiny question of how to keep rice and cheese and stuff from falling out of the eyeball and mouth perforations you just carved into your fruit, but on my trial run, it really wasn’t an issue. I suppose as long as you pack the rice in there, the gravitational forces of the universe will do what they will to make sure your Halloween dinner comes out A-OK.
Ever the experimental sorts here at THE INTERNET IS IN AMERICA, we decided to serve up an additional side, called quinoa. Quinoa (pronounced like KEEN-WAH, if you were wondering), is some sort of rice like-product that’s popular in places you’ve never heard of, which is basically the exact same thing as rice, except with way more protein content. I’ve never tried it before, but after my initial taste-test, I thought it was pretty darn yummy, and texturally, an excellent tag team partner for your Pablo O’ Lantern. And even if you don’t like the taste and texture of the dish, you can always resort to that universal remedy: just take whatever leftover cheese you have, and melt it all over the bowl.
Probably the coolest part about making Bell Pepper O’ Lanterns is stuffing them with cheddar, because a.) when you first top off your creations, it looks like the peppers have shaggy, orange hair and b.) everything tastes better when it’s wearing a helmet of warm, crusty cheese.
By the time your bell peppers are finished, they should have a nice, dehydrated look to them, sort of like leather (rest assured, they still have lots of flavor though.) I advise plopping your pepper in a paste of quinoa, and sprinkling your leftover cheeses around the base like garnish. As far as sodas go, I think anything cranberry-flavored makes an excellent complementary drink with your meal - although any of the more abstruse, fruity-flavored colas (like the aberrant pomegranate pop) would probably gel really well with the creation, too.
As far as taste goes, they taste, well, a lot like bell peppers. Amazingly, shaping something to resemble something else doesn’t necessarily change its textural qualities, which means, despite the spooky eyes and evil-looking mouths that drool magma cheese and tomato chunks, the thing still tasted like authentic Mexican cuisine…which is probably a good thing, because let’s face it; if these things ended up tasting like actual Jack O’ Lanterns, that probably means our oven is haunted or something.
BONUS PRETTY MUCH IRRELEVANT CONTENT!
As a dessert to follow up the Jack O’ Lantern bell peppers, I decided to make some cupcakes that somewhat resembled bichon puppies. You’ve seen these before while scouring the Intraweb, no doubt. All in all, my attempt turned out just sort of OK - surprisingly, it’s hard to make spirals and shit with an aerosol frosting canister - but it wasn’t until I took my pup-cakes back to my fridge and looked at them the next day that a tinge of Halloween horror really struck me.
Let this be a lesson to you, Pinterest enthusiasts: if you don’t set up barriers for your baked and frosted goods, you, too, may end up with a Tupperware container of poodle-hydra monsters...
Missed the first debate of the 2012 Presidential season? Here's a verbatim transcript of what was said...in REAL-SPEAK.
08:49 PM EDT - We’re ten minutes away from the kickoff of the first debate of the 2012 Presidential cycle. For those of you wondering at home, I’m using the New York Times feed for tonight’s hootenanny, proving once and for all that I am free from cable news network biases.
08:56 PM EDT - Not that it really matters, but according to the almighty Goog, Romney has a one inch height advantage over Barack Obama. No word on who has the greater reach, though.
09:02 PM EDT - On second thought, the New York Times feed blows. Time to switch to C-SPAN!
09:03 PM EDT - Aw man, I thought Obama was going to come out spider-walking like Jon Jones…
09:05 PM EDT - Obama: “We’re were going, we don’t need roads. Or taxes.”
09:07 PM EDT - Romney: “Poor people are poor, but the only way we can help them is by not helping them financially.”
09:09 PM EDT - Obama: “Education is important and stuff. Especially that math and science stuff, and whatever it is that they teach at community colleges.”
09:10 PM EDT - Obama: “My opponent wants to suck 8 trillion dollars out of the economy. Just like his mama.”
09:12 PM EDT - Romney: “The Middle class is STARVING! They can only afford to buy half as much caviar as they used to.”
09:13 PM EDT - Romney: “As we all know, private gas is the best kind of gas. And if you’re re-elected, all of those poor West Virginians will have no dank, dark shafts to fall into and get cancer anymore.”
09:15 PM EDT - Obama: “FIVE TRILLION, MAN. FIVE TRILLION. And come on, like the military actually wants more money for stuff.”
09:16 PM EDT - Romney: “I wouldn’t support my own tax plan. Oh, shi…”
09:17 PM EDT - Romney: “My children are liars.”
09:19 PM EDT - Obama: “I lowered taxes for small business <makes flashing motion with hands> eighteen times.”
09:20 PM EDT - Obama: “Donald Trump is not a small business, primarily because Donald Trump is a human being, and not an edified, institutional system that generates revenue based on wealth creation. Or hell, maybe he is. I don’t really know anymore.”
09:22 PM EDT - Romney: “If elected, I’ll make sure your Radio Shacks in St. Louis stay open, and hard.”
09:24 PM EDT - Obama: “SEVEN TRILLION. Was I saying five trillion earlier? Well, I meant seven trillion.”
09:25 PM EDT - Romney: “My plan has never been tried before in history. Well, tried while I’m president, anyway.”
09:26 PM EDT - Romney: “Solving the federal deficit is simple: we shouldn’t be in a federal deficit. Not having a federal deficit would surely keep us from having a federal deficit. And also, eff PBS.”
09:29 PM EDT - Obama: “Dude, we got drones now. What’s the point in having an air force, anyway?”
09:30 PM EDT - Obama: “You know, if the upper class actually paid taxes, we might be able to chip away at this whole federal deficit thing. Maybe.”
09:31 PM EDT - Romney: “Do I support ‘Simpson Bowls?’ Hell yeah, I love Bart and Homer!”
09:33 PM EDT - Romney: “Taxation kills jobs. My plan is to take them all to China and Indonesia, where they will be safe form being murdered by American taxes.”
09:34 PM EDT - Romney: “Spain sucks.”
09:36 PM EDT - Obama: “So, I met this one chick in Vegas last week…”
09:38 PM EDT - Romney: “Education. Children. Healthcare. Let me start by talking about the oil companies’ reputations first…”
09:40 PM EDT - Romney: “As the noble Confederacy taught us, states are what make America great, not the totality of the nation as a construct.”
09:41 PM EDT - Obama: “Independence can only be obtained when you rely upon the government to use other peoples’ money to pay your medical bills.”
09:43 PM EDT - Romney: “Old, worthless people? Yeah, you ain’t got nothing to worry about.”
09:44 PM EDT - Romney: “And let’s not forget about your controversial ‘death panel initiative,’ either!”
09:46 PM EDT - Obama: “And you know I’m down with AARP, like AC is down with OJ.”
09:48 PM EDT - Romney: “I’d rather have a private plan. Then again, I’ve got an extra $13 million to kick around, so take of that what you will.”
09:50 PM EDT - Romney: <grabs microphone> “Lemme tell you something, Mean Gene…”
09:51 PM EDT - Romney: “We need regulation. But not HIS kinda’ regulation, if you know what I mean.”
09:52 PM EDT - Romney: “Dodd-Frank needs to be repealed…sorta’.”
09:53 PM EDT - Obama: “So, yeah, a lot of the crap we have going on nowadays is a direct result of poor, individual decision making. Therefore, it’s time to get all sorts of New Deal up in this bitch.”
09:55 PM EDT - Romney: “I don’t know what a qualified mortgage is. I paid off mine with the change in my pocket.”
09:57 PM EDT - Romney: “Expensive things hurt families. And believe you me, my family is HURTING right now.”
09:59 PM EDT - Obama: “Dude, let’s just face it. Dying is a whole lot easier these days than filling out an intake form, anyway.”
10:00 PM EDT - Obama: “Where did I learn it? I LEARNED IT FROM YOU, DAD!”
10:03 PM EDT - Romney: “ So, yeah, that means the next President better have some really long arms, then.”
10:06 PM EDT - Romney: “Under my plan, preexisting conditions are covered. With a band-aid, because that’s all I’m going to give you.”
10:08 PM EDT - Romney: “Federal government should not take over healthcare. By golly, that’s what states are for.”
10:09 PM EDT - Obama: “Nice plan you have there, buddy. You know, the one that’s all invisible and shit.”
10:14 PM EDT - Obama: “And that’s while he was STILL fighting all of those damn vampires, too.”
10:15 PM EDT - Obama: “I was talking to this dude in Europe the other day, and he was telling me about this ‘education’ thing…”
10:16 PM EDT - Romney: “It’s the government’s obligation to protect vague, ill-defined abstract concepts.”
10:17 PM EDT - Romney: “I’m telling you, trickle down economics are going to work this time, for sure.”
10:18 PM EDT - Obama: “Budgets reflect choices. And we’re all out of choices.”
10:20 PM EDT - Obama: “Because community colleges are the veritable heart of this nation, right?”
10:23 PM EDT - Romney: “Well, there’s no way private sectors could improve with government funding.”
10:24 PM EDT - Romney: “On day one, I’m going to sit down, and talk to some Democrats. As long as there’s nothing good on, anyway.”
10:27 PM EDT - Obama: “Sometimes, you have got to say ‘no.’ And that works in both English and Spanish, so it’s like, double-effective.”
10:29 PM EDT - Obama: “This election season, let’s not forget America’s most valuable natural resource; grit. Although, truthfully, I prefer oatmeal.”
10:30 PM EDT - Romney: “Obama will squeeze the middle class, while I will create a million, billion jobs using money that rich people will surely not spend on themselves and their respective interests.”
10:31 PM EDT - Jim Lehrer: “Well, that’s all the time we have for tonight, folks. And excuse me, I think I’ll go dunk my head into a trough of whiskey real quick, and drown away the sorrows of this evening…”
They’re back…and by “they,” I mean some really, really awesomely stupid scenes
The “Poltergeist” movies have always freaked me out - not so much because of the films’ content, but because of all of those super-creepy, off-camera mishaps and tragedies that have plagued the series. If you haven’t heard of the “Poltergeist Curse” before, you might as well buy yourself a one way ticket to Latvia and just plain give up on being a part of American society - this shit is important, and you need to know as much about it as you can.
Back in high school, I saw that one E! special about the doomed franchise about a gajillion times. No matter what else was happening, no matter what else was on TV, even though I had watched it four trillion times previously, I just HAD to see it one more time. I think they played the thing on a constant loop during the Halloween season, because I vaguely recall the thing being on TV every afternoon following school for all of October one year.
I’m not really a superstitious sort, but when you factor in all of the bizarre accidents that have haunted the cast and crew from the trilogy…well, it’s enough to get ANYBODY just a little unnerved. The star of the series died at an absurdly young age from septic shock, a young up-and-coming actress was murdered by her boyfriend - allegedly, while the soundtrack from the first movie played in the background, no less - and then, perhaps the most unsettling of all - “Poltergeist III” actually got released, despite being a horrendous, plotless piece of shit. The locus of the film’s curse, some have pointed out, stems from Stevie Spielberg’s decision to use real-life skeletons - as in, the kind that usually get donated to medical research labs - in the finale of the first movie. So the next time you catch the movie on cable, and you see JoBeth Williams screaming her lungs out while crispy-chicken faced cadavers try to drown her, just remember - those are REAL DEAD PEOPLE she’s having to use as props.
A lot has been said about the first movie, and like everybody else, I think it’s a terrific little pop-horror flick, even though I thought it would have been a billion times more awesome if they had just let Tobe Hooper go apeshit with Spielberg’s budget and let him churn out the most kick-ass, R-rated haunted house movie of all-time. With that in mind, I’m not here to talk about the inherent greatness of the first “Poltergeist” flick; instead, I want to share with you my favorite aspects of the awesomely sucky second movie - a film that, in many regards, might just be one of the greatest “bad” horror films in movie history.
As an overall picture, there’s no denying that “Poltergeist II: The Other Side” pretty much blows. It has about four million subplots going on and introduces so many superfluous characters and backstory that after awhile, you just wish they’d drop all of that talk about shamanism and religious cults and crap and just start showing kids getting eaten by trees and sucked into TV sets again. The film tried to create a certain “mythos,” but it’s a boring, uninteresting one, which detracts from the main objective of ANY 1980s horror movie: finding new ways to make people die, preferably via a bloated special effects budget.
As bad as “Poltergeist II,” as a comprehensive film, was, it actually had a few standout moments that I thought we’re pretty awesome…in a really crappy kinda’ way. And if that sounds like a complete oxymoron, you have to remember; this IS the mid 1980s we’re talking about here, and that’s how stuff operated back then. There’s no denying that “Poltergeist II” was a spectacularly sucky movie, and in a film glutted with spectacularly sucky moments, these are the five that I think stand out as the absolute suckiest…in a spectacular fashion, of course.
HEY, IT’S THAT INDIAN GUY FROM “ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST!”
I suppose the first thing that would strike anyone watching “Poltergeist II” is the notion that one of the film’s central characters, Taylor the Medicine Man, is played by Will Sampson - perhaps best known as that really tall Indian dude in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” In the very first scene of the film, he’s doing some sort of Native American spirit dance where he sucks up some special effect ghosts, and the next time we see him, he’s driving around in a rust-bucket truck and warning the guy from “Coach” that zombie demons from hell will keep trying to eat his family until they learn to fight as a group. He really is one of the best things about the movie, even if most of his dialogue is limited to quasi-racist Kim-Chee-speak about the astral plane and burial rites. That, and it’s pretty hard to root against any plot point that entails a shaman camping out in the backyard, especially when he only seems to resurface when Craig T. Nelson needs to say insensitive things about indigenous peoples.
IT PREDICTED THE EMERGENCE OF FRED PHELPS 20 YEARS IN ADVANCE!
Unless you’ve been living underneath a rock for the last decade, you’ve probably heard about the Phelps clan, a merry evangelical family from Kansas that likes to spread the gospel by holding signs that read “God Hates (insert hurtful slur of your choice)” at the funerals of AIDS victims and dead soldiers. The first time I saw Fred Phelps - the great progenitor of the Westboro Baptist Church regime - my initial thought was, and this is a direct quote, people - “holy shit, he looks like that dude from ‘Poltergeist II!”
No offense to Julian Beck (ironically enough, according to his Wikipedia article, a bisexual Jew), but the late actor was an absolute dead ringer for old Freddie, a notion made a million times more bizarre because Beck’s character was also an extremist reverend. And any day now, I’m just waiting to find out that Westboro was likewise built on the tombs of a hundred starved children…
A MOUTHFUL OF TERROR!
The ultimate spook out in the first “Poltergeist” film, clearly, was the scene where Robbie got attacked by that god-awful clown puppet. In the sequel, Robbie is yet again on the receiving end of the film’s most terrifying moment, this time involving a set of sentient braces that come alive, mummify him in dental wire and threaten to electrocute him and his entire family. Yeah, the special effects haven’t aged all that well over the last two decades (at one point, the wire looks like nothing more than aluminum foil), but if you can suspend your disbelief, it’s actually a pretty horrifying sequence. It’s a shocking scene that clearly had an effect on at least one international audience - since 1986, Britons have been so spooked by being attacked by living dental equipment that not a single person has visited an orthodontist in the U.K. in over twenty five years.
THREE WORDS: THE VOMIT CREATURE!
At one point in the film, Craig T. Nelson’s character, perhaps exhausted from watching his offspring get kidnapped by undead monsters, decides to soothe his jangled nerves with a bottle of tequila. Unfortunately, he ends up ingesting the worm at the bottom of the bottle, and since this is a horror film, I think it’s pretty apparent what ends up happening next. He starts coughing and thrashing around the room, and after a pretty long puking spell, he ends up spitting up this weird-ass H.R. Giger monster that sort of looks like something out of “Hellraiser,” or perhaps “Beetlejuice” had Tim Burton been given the go-ahead to make it an R-rated flick. And the best part about the scene? None of that fancy animatronics or CGI bullstuff was used, meaning that for the rest of his life, a guy named “Noble Craig” can actually list “Vomit Creature” on his resume.
TALK ABOUT AN ANTI-CLIMACTIC ENDING!
Perhaps the most memorable thing about “Poltergeist II” was also the aspect of the film that was the most disappointing. Admittedly, it was pretty hard to outdo the finale from the first film, so perhaps it was a bit unrealistic to assume that the producers could create an equally rousing climax in this one. Even so, there’s really no way around it; not only was the ending of “Poltergeist II” sucky, it was spectacularly sucky. We start off pretty good, with the Freelings being attacked by a flying chainsaw, but after that? I’m not really sure WHAT is supposed to be going on. For a majority of the movie, the Freelings have been living across the street from their old house, which is now just a massive crater in the ground. But, it’s also an excavation site, where Tangina (aka, that midget psychic chick) is doing some sort of archaeological dig. After being attacked by everything in their garage, the Freelings manage to hightail it back to the excavation point, where Tangina and the medicine man are just, you know, kinda’ hanging out at two in the morning. For reasons that can only exist because the scriptwriter was lazy as hell, the family ends up hopping in the abyss, where they uncover a whole bunch of skeletal remains. If you’re wondering where those skeletons came from, it’s because that spooky reverend from earlier is actually the ghost of this dark messiah dude from the 1800s that rounded up a bunch of children and left them to die in a cave for some reason that is never clearly explained in the movie. Well, the family ends up getting sucked into a netherworld (which, oddly enough, looks like something created on a Commodore 64) where they’re just floating around while the preacher - now in a giant, totem-pole, turd monster form - tries to eat them. And after all of that, the movie ends with Craig T. Nelson throwing a staff - imbued with mystical Native American powers - through the monster’s gut, which just ups and kills the demon because, I don’t know, that’s how magic and stuff works. And then, the credits roll after the Indian steals the Freelings’ car. And I swear, I am NOT making that up, either.
So, yeah, “Poltergeist II” isn’t exactly the dandiest horror sequel you’ll encounter, but it has its moments. Which is way more than you can say for the third film in the franchise, which was just a plain old sucky flick as opposed to a spectacularly cruddy one. If you’ve got a jonesing for some quasi-family-friendly horror, it’s probably not the worst you can do, and it’s readily available pretty much anytime you want it - if not on Netflix, then just wait a couple of weeks, and it’ll probably be airing around the clock on AMC or something. All in all, “Poltergeist II” isn’t the optimal kick-off for the 2012 Halloween season…but sometimes, starting the fall off in a spectacularly sucky fashion is even better than starting it off in a spectacularly spectacular one, no?
Reliving the (Mostly) Illogical Fears that Scarred My Childhood
You know, a lot of people tell me, “Jimbo, with all of those articles you write and videos you make and the way you’re always standing up for what you believe in, you must have quite the set of cojones on you, huh?” Well, I hate to let you folks down, but I’m actually the biggest scaredy cat on the planet. Everything - I mean EVERYTHING, from hard rain to riding in a car going faster than 70 miles per hour to that one tree next to the patio that kind of looks like it has eyes a little - scares the ever-loving beejezuz out of me. Ultimately, I’m such a coward that I make Monk look like Evel freaking Knievel by comparison.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been a major league puss. Believe it or not, I was probably an even bigger wimp as a wee one than I am now - and as a 26 year old man, I STILL have to check the backseat of my car before I get in at night to make sure Michael Myers isn’t trying to hitch a ride with me.
It’s one of the great ironies of life, I know; I’m one of the most horror/monster/Halloween-obsessed people you will ever meet, but I’m also one of the most easily frightened human beings in the annals of human history. As neurotic as I am now, I was probably WAY more anxious as a youngster, when practically EVERYTHING I encountered, to some extent, gave me a bad case of the heebies, the jeebies, and in some of the more extreme circumstances, even an onset bout of the willies. Eight year old me, in essence, was practically an anthropomorphicized Chuckie Finster.
As the Halloween season steadily approaches, I was thinking recently about some of the things that scared me as kid. And that shortlist, as you will soon see, quickly grew to a bulleted, itemized sheet with more than 40 objects on it. And I’m man enough to admit it; half of the stuff on this list STILL kinda’ freaks me out a little. Maybe even three-quarters, if it’s really, really dark and stuff.
ANY OF THE CASTLE LEVELS IN THE FIRST “SUPER MARIO BROS.” GAME - Like every other child that grew up in the late 1980s, “Super Mario Bros.” was a cornerstone of my pre-elementary school existence. I really can’t tell you how many hours I spent bopping on turtles and hurling fiery death at waddling mushrooms, but I can assure you that every time I encountered one of the game’s eight castle stages, my exuberance quickly transformed into bone-chilling trepidation. Playing Mario may have been a fancy-free experience for the most part, but every time I ventured into Bowser’s domain, shit, as they say, got real. I don’t know if it was the stage music - this urgent, dungeon-sounding tune that was like “Ride of the Valkyries” mashed-up with the theme song from “Unsolved Mysteries” - or if it was all of that flaming ambience, or those pain-in-the-ass platforming sequences or some unholy mixture of the three, but those damn levels always made me feel about three or four notches less uncomfortable than I was about ten seconds before the level began. Oh, and if the timer went into the double digits, and that music began speeding up? Forget it, it was enough to make a five year old mull peeing himself. On more than one occasion, I simply got up and turned off the NES rather than play on until my avatar died from sudden onset “time-running-out-itis.” The original “SMB” will always be one of my most cherished childhood memories…but by that same token, it’s sure as hell going to remain one of my most nerve-racking, too.
THE ANGRY SUN FROM “SUPER MARIO BROS. 3” - “Super Mario Bros. 3” is clearly one of the best video games ever made, and a game that took everything that was fundamentally great about the original NES pack-in game and amped it up to 7 million. That said, I don’t think ANYBODY will forget that one desert level, where you’re just hanging out, chilling under the sun, when, all of a sudden…IT COMES TO LIFE AND STARTS CHASING AFTER YOU. In a lot of ways, that was the 8-bit equivalent of the dog jumping through the window in the first “Resident Evil” game - nobody expected it, and the first time it happened, there was no way you were EVER going to forget it. Even now, it’s a stage that gives me the creeps. All I can say is, thank god for that P-Wing power-up…
THE GHOSTS FROM “SUPER MARIO BROS. 3” - While “SMB 3” is one of my all-time favorite NES games, it’s also a game that’s traumatized me on two separate fronts. As much as I hated the castle stages in the first “SMB,” I think I probably hated the “ghost houses” in the third Mario game even more. Skeleton turtles (probably the reptiles Mario killed in the first game), those killer fuzz balls that revolved endlessly around those red orbs, and of course, the ghosts themselves. Oh, how I hated those bashful bastards, which would home in on your ass the very second you stopped looking at them. And good luck using a fire flower, because those marshmallow-looking pricks were impervious to everything except an invincibility star and, for whatever reason, hammers (it must be a Japanese thing, I guess.) How much did those things unnerve me as a kid? So much so that it was a variable I took into consideration when making the leap to the 16-bit consoles - and since there were bigger ghosts in “Super Mario World,” I decided to take my chances with “Sonic the Hedgehog” and his newfangled Genesis machine instead.
THOSE HALLOWEEN SOUND EFFECTS TAPES - You know what I’m talking about; those audio cassettes that were released every Halloween, which contained the sounds of witches cackling, thunderstorms and the periodic whirring chainsaw, which was almost always coupled with a bloodcurdling scream. The entire tape - side A and B - was just one long track that played endlessly on a loop. I think we had about three or four just laying around the place, and my mother would often threaten to play them at full volume whenever I misbehaved. Needless to say, my ass got scared straight, and I mean that in pretty much the most literal interpretation imaginable.
“PAC-MAN” - You can lump in “Ms. Pac-Man,” too. A lot of people look back on “Pac-Man” as a cutesy game, but that’s never the impression it made on me. When you really think about it, “Pac-Man” was the first survival horror game - you’re stuck in a blackened maze, while unkillable monsters chase you around until you find special objects that temporarily give you invincibility. And after that? They come back at you, twice as pissed as they were before. Playing the game was like defusing a bomb - if you had collected all of the palm sweat that game made me produce, you’d probably have enough fluid to fill a medium-sized Jacuzzi.
CHUCKY FROM THE “CHILD’S PLAY” MOVIES - Or more specifically, that giant, life-sized cardboard cut-out of Chucky that was placed in the corner of the local mom and pop movie store for about three months to coincide with the release of the second “Child’s Play” movie. Yes, in hindsight, the idea of Chucky seems pretty stupid (in the immortal words of Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider, “it’s a doll…step on it!”), but you have to think about the character as would a five-year-old. For one thing, he was roughly the same size as you, and since none of the adults in town would believe you, you were pretty much effed. That same video store also doled out “Child’s Play 2” bumper stickers, which read something to the effect of “Back off Jack, Chucky’s Back!” And I’ll be damned if I didn’t see that stupid thing plastered on Mazdas at random intersections for about a year afterward. My cousin eventually got the idea to slap one on our washing machine, a gesture which I subtlety responded to by trying to stab him in the face with a particularly pointy Hulk Hogan action figure.
ROBOTS, IN GENERAL - My entire life, I’ve had this strange attraction to robots. Perhaps my favorite toy as a kid was this little yellow fella’ named “Robie the Robot,” a Radio Shack toy that doubled as a coin bank. You’d place a coin in his hand, squeeze this lever on his arm, and he would proceed to devour the change while doing this robotic jig. After he was finished, he would lick his robotic lips with his tongue, and his eyes would shut. I loved Robbie during the day, but at night, I had to hide him from my peripheral vision. There was just something so cold and inhuman about the thing, as if one night, he could spring to life, confuse my face for a couple of nickels and try to eat my nose or something.
VAMPIRES, IN GENERAL - Not those fruity Ed Cullen vampires, I’m talking the old-school, Nosferatu vampires that looked like Billy Corgan and had fingernails that looked like rusty salad tongs. The concept of vampires was so spooky to me that, for the longest time, I slept with a pillow over my neck to keep those bloodsucking bastards from doing me in while I dozed off. It wouldn’t have prevented them from turning me into one of the undead, but I figured it would at least inconvenience them for a second or two.
Note how he isn't sparkling, either.
THE IDEA THAT THE WATER SUPPLY COULD GET POISONED - I attribute this to a Weekly World News article that claimed that a tribe of disgruntled Native Americans were going to get revenge on old paleface by pouring dangerous chemicals into our drinking water. It spooked me so much that I convinced my mom to melt the ice in the freezer rather than take our chances with what was in the tap.
THE EBOLA VIRUS - I recall seeing a documentary about the great outbreak of 1976 as youngster. The fact that we lived about fifty miles away from the CDC headquarters - where that shit was literally kept in an icebox - really didn’t do a lot to assuage my worries that I wasn’t going to bleed my intestines out of my mouth.
AMOEBAS - Such a spooky organism. They’re basically “The Blob,” only smaller, and practically impossible to notice. You could have fifty of them throwing a rave on your forehead right now, and you would never know. That, and there’s a certain species that’s known to feast on brain tissue - and I’m man enough to admit that, even now, the primary reason I refuse to go swimming in lakes is because I still have concerns that one of those Metroid-looking bastards is going to go swimming right up my nasal passages.
THE VHS BOX ART FOR “MONKEY SHINES” - There was this George Romero movie that came out in the late 1980s called “Monkey Shines,” and it had arguably the most horrifying box art I have ever seen for any video in my life. Look at it. LOOK AT IT. If Satan himself were commissioned for the work, I don’t think a scarier image could have been plastered on the cover. The funny thing is, I caught the movie many years later on cable, and the film had absolutely NOTHING at all to do with killer clapper monkey toys. If the movie were just 90 minutes of this image on screen, it would’ve been the single most horrifying motion picture in history.
NUCLEAR WARFARE - I attribute this to the trifecta of “The Day After,” “Threads,” and that one scene in “Terminator 2.” And unlike a Freddy or Jason movie, I just couldn’t say “eh, it ain’t real,” and go back to playing “Battletoads.” Trust me, I tried.
RUSSIANS, IN GENERAL - Sort of the logical progression of the nuclear warfare worries. After all, these were the kind of people that had their fingers on the buttons that could unleash radioactive Armageddon at any moment, and therefore, they scared me shitless. Even after the Soviet Union collapsed, I had this irrational(?) fear of the Ruskies, that deep down, they were just pretending to be all democratic and capitalistic to lull is into a false sense of security and then…BAM! “Red Dawn” becomes a reality. I also had the idea in my head that all Russian men were steroid-eating monster-men like Zangief from “Street Fighter II,” and that all of their women were Brigette Nielsen-like Amazons. The latter, I assure you, scared me a whole lot more than the former.
THE FLESH-EATING VIRUS - Finding out this was a REAL disease was one of the darkest days of my childhood. Needless to say, my hand washing sessions got a LOT lengthier in the ensuing weeks.
METEORS, ASTEROIDS, METEORITES, ETC. - Really, any form of space rock that could collide into Earth and kill us all. I think my neuroticism began when I heard about these giant-ass objects that collided into Jupiter in 1995, which I was CERTAIN was going to have some sort of intra-solar-system effect on Earth and cause the oceans to rise or something. And then there was all of that talk about how the dinosaurs died, that one vignette from the first “Creepshow” movie and the general notion that there was pretty much NOTHING we could do to prevent a collision from occurring. Honestly, I’m still kinda’ worried about these things. OK, I’m A LOT of worried about these things.
ACID-SPEWING THINGS - One part borne of the “Alien” movies, and one part borne from the toxic waste scene in the first “RoboCop” flick. There was just something so icky about the idea of having your body melted by some sort of chemical means. Sort of the inversion of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” principle, which kind of got my hopes up that if nuclear slime was poured on me, I would get to turn into a seven foot tall tortoise.
PANDAS - Wholly irrational to some, but I just don’t trust ‘em. They have teeth like jaguars, could easily overpower an adult male, chew on bamboo (which is way harder than a elementary skull student’s facial tissue) and their poo is golden. I don’t know why that last thing bothers me so much, but it just does. Every time I hear about conservation efforts to increase their populations, I cringe a little.
HUMMINGBIRDS - They’re basically flying syringes, coked up on sugar-water 24 hours a day. They’re the animal world’s equivalent of a crackhead holding a hypodermic needle - and they ALWAYS travel in clusters, too.
Nectar, from the Latin prefix "nec" meaning "death" and "tar," meaning "juice."
GETTING SUCKED INTO A BLACK HOLE - A pretty unlikely scenario (or is it?), but a notion that still scared the hell out of me, regardless. Nobody knows what’s on the other side of those things, except that once something gets pulled into it, it ain’t EVER coming back out. The notion of getting locked out of my own house was enough to drive me to tears, so this was enough to have me crawling into the fetal position.
HAVING MY INTERNAL ORGANS YANKED OUT BY A WHIRLPOOL - I caught a “20/20” special when I was in elementary school, about this kid that was hanging out in a swimming pool and had her intestines sucked out of her by a jet pool vacuum. As it turns out, it occurs a lot more frequently than you’d think. And if any of the people that invited me to pool parties back in the 1990s are wondering why I no-showed, there you go right there.
THE FACE ON MARS - AKA, that really creepy mountain on Cydonia that looks eerily like a human face. The first time I saw it, oddly enough, was during a commercial break on the Weather Channel, back when 90 percent of their sponsors were people hawking supernatural-themed, “NOT AVAILABLE IN STORES” video tapes.
ESCALATORS - I just KNEW that eventually, I was going to get my shoelace caught in the cogs and have my body vivisected right outside the Orange Julius stand. Even now, I have to leap over that last “step,” because it feels like some sort of mechanical blade is going to pop out and slice my calves off.
THE OLD SCHOOL COLONEL SANDERS LOGO AT KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN - For whatever reason, I thought he was a half man, half chicken hybrid. I didn’t know what the hell a bolo tie was, and just assumed that was the rest of him in poultry form.
BLENDERS - An electrical contraption that consists solely of super sharp blades swirling around and around. That one scene in “The Goonies” probably expedited my fears a bit.
DELI SLICERS - For pretty much the same reason I was afraid of blenders.
ANY KIND OF POWER TOOL - Chainsaws, circular saws, drills, etc. If it was sharp and powered by electricity or gasoline, it gave me the creeps.
BEING FORCED INTO A DRYER - I figured if some dude broke into my house and ordered me into one, I probably wasn’t going to be able to escape. I think this one was borne of all those hours I used to spend watching stuff get tumble dried at the local Laundromat.
GIANT ASS TREE STUMPS - Way, WAY spookier than full-sized trees. Periodically, I would stumble across one with the bark shaved off just enough to give it the illusion of facial features. And of course, those damn things were never the smiling sort, either.
THE INTRO TO “DREAM WEAVER” - Of all the songs I’ve ever listened to, I don’t think any has really creeped me out as much as Gary Wright’s seminal “easy listening” standard. How the first thirty seconds of that song never made it into a “Nightmare on Elm Street” movie is simply beyond me.
THE BIG ONE - As in, that huge-assed earthquake that was supposed to rock California and turn Los Angles into an island. It’s an odd phobia, especially considering the fact that I grew up on the opposite coast of the country, but thanks to this one apocalyptic VHS tape my mom ordered called “The Jupiter Menace” - which featured George Kennedy narrating over a bunch of pseudo-scientists and fundamentalist Christians that swore the world was going to end in 1984 - I was damned CERTAIN that it was going to hit before I was in junior high, and cause the Great Lakes to drown me and stuff.
Hail Satan.
PORCUPINES - Despite my adulation for “Sonic the Hedgehog,” I just couldn’t find myself able to trust these things. That probably has something to do with the legendary B-horror classic “Critters,” which I saw when I was in the first grade. It wasn’t until recently - as in, the last year, actually - that I found out that porcupines CAN’T launch their quills at you like projectiles. All I can say is, I REALLY wish somebody would’ve told me that shit back when I was six.
NOT GETTING RAPTURED / BEING FORCED TO ACCEPT THE MARK OF THE BEAST - I grew up in a very religious (read: on the verge of bat shit crazy) household, so I knew WAY more about the Book of Revelations than any elementary school student should have. My mom was always renting these god-awful VHS dramas from the local Christian book store, with names like “A Thief in the Night” and “A Distant Thunder,” so of course, I had it in the back of my head that the Antichrist was nigh approaching and it was only a matter of time until a One World Government was going to round up all ye faithful and cut of our heads because we wouldn’t accept this barcode on our left hands or forehead (and if you’re unfamiliar with Christian “philosophy,” that’s what the New Testament actually SAYS is going to happen in the “end of days.”) Long story short, the literature stated that if you’re a Christian, you and all of your dead Christian relatives will get sucked into heaven BEFORE things start getting really violent, while all of the sinners are left to fend for themselves - and eventually, God gets pissed and rains hellfire on the planet for a couple of years, and then all of the saved souls return to Earth and rebuild everything. In hindsight, when THAT is the crux of what your innermost ideals resemble, I guess it’s not really all that surprising that I lived most of my childhood in abject, piss-soaked horror…
THE COMMERCIALS FOR BOYS TOWN NATIONAL HOTLINE - Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, you would often see some outrageously out-of-place public service announcements during afternoon cartoon programming blocks. You’re kicking back, watching some “Tiny Toon Adventures,” and then BAM! You’re face to face with an anti-drug PSA featuring a dope dealer that turns into a lizard monster. A lot of times, I couldn’t even watch “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” in peace, because I knew, at some point, I was going to get assailed by some super-serious PSA about drunk driving and date rape. The commercials for Boys Town stood out to me, because I didn’t really grasp the idea of what the service was supposed to do - so for a good five year window, I thought “Boys Town” was an actual, physical place where all of the runaway kids were exiled for misbehaving.
THE COMMERCIALS FOR CHARTER - Similar to the Boys Town commercials, in the sense that a.) they ALWAYS seemed to pop up unexpectedly during cartoons, b.) I was WAY too young to grasp the sociocultural messages the commercials were sending and c.) I had the unfortunate tendency to interpret the commercials in the absolute worst possible way. I always thought “Charter” was a physical place, where you could be committed to at any moment, for any reason. That insanely spooky music, which always trailed behind the organization’s signature “if you can’t get help at Charter, please get help somewhere” tagline, probably didn’t help things, either.
THIS ANTI-GLUE SNIFFING PSA FROM 1995 - All I’ve got to say about this one is gah-damn!
THE FREDDY KRUEGER SQUIRTBALL - Perhaps Freddy in his most horrifying incarnation ever. Say what you will about LJN’s disastrous attempt to translate Fred K into a decent NES game, but you have to give the old Rainbow all the credit in the world for their Freddy-themed “Fright Squirter,” which was basically a squirt-gun variation shaped like the iconic “Elm Street” denizen. Even compared to today’s toy standards, the craftsmanship on this thing is pretty damned amazing, and seeing it for the first time - at this one convenience store, where it was positioned right above the magazine rack - was almost enough to make me poop myself. For the rest of my youth, I couldn’t bring myself to come within ten foot of the comics section, sensing that the cabinet would come alive and shove a razor-fingered glove up my bunghole if I got too close to it.
The sound of unbridled horror to a full-bladdered second grader.
HALLWAYS, IN GENERAL - I don’t know what it is, but there’s just something about angular vestibules - the longer and narrower, the spookier, of course - that always weirded me out. I guess it was the fear that as soon as I got halfway through it, SOMETHING was going to rush from the darkness and hit me like a freight train. Going to the bathroom all by myself in elementary school was when this fear was the absolute fiercest, which, obviously, brings us to EVERYBODY’S greatest childhood fear…
THE PROSPECT OF HAVING TO TAKE A DUMP AT SCHOOL - Probably the downright scariest thing I could think of, then AND now. All those germs, and you know kids like to miss the bowl on purpose. That, and my school’s janitors were the creepiest gaggle of individuals I’d ever seen - they actually had a house smackdab in the MIDDLE of the playground, for crying aloud - and I was certain that if I ever had to drop trou during the daytime, they were going to whisk me away in a burlap sack and turn me into tomorrow’s meat loaf or something. This fear was so strong that it’s probably the reason why I could never stomach the idea of eating breakfast as a kid - as if I needed to INCREASE my likelihood of pooing at school, right?
Greetings, Intraweb travelers! My name is Jimbo X (an unusual surname, I know...I think it's Greenlandic) and I'm your kindly proprietor of IIIA. You're probably wondering what the intent of this site is, so that makes two of us. I suppose it's an info-dump for all of the stuff that I find fascinating/irksome about American culture and society, so you'll find a nice jumble of high culture snobbery and low culture sleaze here. It's also a place for me to rant, rave and ramble about all sorts of things that matter and don't matter, so prepare yourself for some heavy-handed bloviating about politics and consumption. Well, that, and lots of stuff about video games and junk food. The things that matter the most obviously.
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