1) "tropic thunder" was not very funny. this disappoints me greatly.

2) my summer vacation is over. this saddens me greatly, as i did not feel as though there was a lot of vacationing during said time.

3) i am always suspicious of that particular breed of males who sang in a capella groups in college. creepy.

4). when my birthday rolls around next month, please, remember this cake:

Goodness, a bunch of things on my mind. I've had tabs and tabs in my browser open for days and days, waiting to post. When it rains, it pours. Let's start:

• Saw The Host and Talk To Me. c and a-, respectively. Really, really enjoyed Talk To Me, though I found some of it a bit odd structurally.
• I'm enjoying American Gladiators still, which is something I shouldn't be admitting publicly. But it has filled that gap in my life where, once a week, I like to have a couple of drinks and yell horrible things at the TV. Kid Nation was also primo for this and, surprisingly, AG has filled that gap nicely. Although, some people believe the old version of the show was better.
• There is someone who is watching all the Criterion movies and blogging about each one. It's interesting and many of the reviews are quite fun to read. But oh, how I was delighted when I cam across Armageddon. Seriously, I always forget this and The Rock somehow snuck through. Oh, and at the bottom of his review for Rushmore (which Roxy has never seen!) is a nice in-joke about Armageddon as well. Highlights from this review:
  

  • There's an entire commentary track with the "science advisors," a NASA employee and a former astronaut, who tried to make the movie as scientifically accurate as possible. Listening to these guys talk about their constant battles to get Michael Bay and company to make the film at all relate to the world of science (for example, when Mir explodes, it explodes, like it's in an atmosphere) is a case study in cognitive dissonance.
  • The Armadillo, the drill car they drive around on the asteroid, has a chin mounted chain gun. You might wonder when NASA started putting weapons on their vehicles, or what they were expecting to shoot at on an asteroid, or even how they expected bullets to fire in a vacuum. But in fact, this wasn't NASA's decision so much as Mattel's; there was a toy version of this car, and toys with guns sell better. I'm not kidding; plot points were decided on by the toy company.

• Cola increases the odds of kidney issues/problems hugely. Though I don't drink much cola, so that ain't my issue. But seriously, time to give this shit up. Tea, coffee, water, maybe juice and milk. That's all you're allowed to drink.
• Finally, Hank, I expect a full review of: Strawberry Cheetos, salad flavored water and cucumber pepsi. And if you can pick up a few of those masturbation cans*, that would be cool. Oh and I won't be sad if you can find a similar haircuttery to this:

  [via: the consumerist, fimoculous and joey devilla]

• Finally, and perhaps most exciting, a new Gnarls Barkley track has been spotted. Released. Leaked. Anyway, it's call Run and now you need to go grab it.

Seriously, this is from the FAQ:
"7. Is it safe to drink the lotion inside the cup?"
Who are these people who think its ok (or a good idea) to drink the lotion that comes inside a sex toy?

so i don't usually do this, but then, i never get these from anywhere other than petunia. so i'll indulge.

april tagged me with a 'say 7 secrets' meme. now, as i said, i don't usually do these things. but i believe april made 2 faulty assumptions here, one building on the other.

the first is that i would see that she had tagged. because other than mentioning it in her post, she didn't give me a heads-up. fine, fine. though i have blogs by friends who i dont read regularly, so i dont think its clear-cut that i would see this.

but the second is the reason i might not have caught it. because april has not told me she is writing online again. i only found out i had been tagged when i noticed some traffic from her site and wondered what the hey was going on. nice one, april. you were in my feeds, but i had shifted folders around and hadn't seen your latest wave of writing. oops.

but here we are, so let's see what seven secrets i can whip out for you that aren't totally obscene, freaky or depressing.

1. i have recently figured out that my job, and indeed, my life, requires a fair amount of control. by me. i think it has to do partly with being sick and lack of control that inflicted upon me.
2. i hate that the skin on my face is fucked up but am loathe to take too much medicine to try to help it. additionally, it got worse after being sick, for whatever reason. every doctor i have ever spoken to about it has refused to believe me that they are related.
3. i had a 20 second crush a few minutes ago as i got on the train. sadly, she sat elsewhere in the train and i will probably never see her again. especially since i'm riding a train that is an hour later than my usual one.
4. though i make myself sick with anxiety in trying to decide if roxy is the right girl for me, i'm also fairly positive i will marry her. though this just increases my anxiety because 'what if she isn't right for me…and i end up with her anyway?' the logic is circular and like every other relationship i have ever been in, i commit myself so totally that i feel completely trapped before there is even any notion of a future.
5. i am listening to 'no more tears' by ozzy right now. and you know? it fucking rules. in fact, i'm going to have to listen to it a second time.
6. ok, that doesn't count as 5, because it really isn't a secret. and this doesn't count as 6 either.
5. i am planning on a large amount of creative output in the next 6 to 8 months. writing, books, animation, drawings, videos and dvds are all on the plate. i'll post as things firm up.
6. i'm terrified of rachael moving for grad school and having to make the decision to move with her or not. this is not so secretly referred to as 'the talk we aren't allowed to have yet.' coupled with secret #4, i believe i have an unwise amount of anxiety about my relationship with her. this too only causes more anxiety.
7. i have, not so tastefully, suggested recently to roxy that we get a girlfriend. and explained the notion by saying it would be like 'getting a dog that talks. and that we could dump.' if you find this to be not so surprising, i would like to say i was at least 33% joking. this, again, may or may not be a secret. but it is somewhat horrible to be admitting publicly. so it stays.

i'm not as high strung as i sound by these; i actually just tried really hard to admit things i don't usually admit. at least in writing, publicly.

plus, ive posted (and will post again tomorrow) so much silliness, i thought i would be serious again for a moment.

and now i think i get to tag 7 people with it.

petunia, aubrey, roxy, madame levy, kurt, lisa, ray and hima (8, because i think hima will rebel. but still, i want to see what she does.)

edit: well fuck. re-reading the meme rules, it's facts, not secrets. so i just said a bunch of personal stuff for no real reason. well, secrets are more interesting than facts, so i'm changing the rules a bit. that's right. secrets it is. if i'm going down, i'm taking you with me. die fish devil!*

* quote from ben in 'mask of evil.' it rolled off my tongue. or something.

when did i turn this blog into silliness about sex, comics and depression? sometime in the last 24 hours.

it seems ray and i aren't the only people thinking about 90s comics these days. i've seen several articles recently talking about them. then, just a bit ago, vulture pointed to a list of the worst 40 drawings by liefeld. and i loved it way too much not to share.

for those of you who don't know liefeld's style, check out this image:

and let me say that this image was #40 on the list. 39 more, after you marvel at this.

the goggles! they do nothing!

so, we are all aware that i have become more anal and exactly in trying to organize all the things i own. i have posted over the years on my attempts to wrangle my music files into some kind of manageable order.

anyway, a month or so ago, i found a link to a pdf called 'managing your ipod with smart playlists'. its a heady document — clocking in around 20 pages of details on how to auto-magically rotate an ipod's music when your main library is bigger than your ipod.

i know this won't appeal to the majority of you. that's ok. but i have been using this system for a little over a month now and and have been delighted by the results. you spend the 30 minutes to set the playlists up, you take a little time to rate songs and suddenly your listening experience just got a whole lot more enjoyable.

and while i'm talking up itunes, here are my top 10 songs, along with their number of plays. you know, just because:

1. underworld - jal to toyko (117)
2. tim deluxe - let the beats roll (86)
3. institute of technology - king of rock (75)
4. the game - it's ok (one blood) (remix) (70)
5. dan le sac vs scrobious pip - thou shalt always kill (live on xfm) (63)
6. lcd soundsystem - losing my edge (63)
7. the streets - turn the page (60)
8. runaways uk - levitation (remix feat cyclops 4000) (55)
9. green velvet - genedefekt (51)
10. leslie winer - old school (rough mix unfinished) (51)

down the list includes kayne, the chemical brothers, u2, m.i.a, convenant, dirty beatniks, public enemy, pantera…what a weird list of music.

it isn't what i would have picked for myself, though to be air, many of these songs were on my 'workout' playlist for several months, so they got overplayed because of it. (see: 2, 4 and 5) i'm amazed at the lead 'jal to toyko' has over the rest. 30 plays. thats serious. but looking at this list, it really reflects the last 3 years of my listening to music. nothing goes much farther back than that. id love to see my lifetime numbers.

what do your number say your top 10 are? and no fair making it up, because i bet your list is just as surprising as mine was. to me. i want hard numbers.

i dont know why i should be surprised but wikipedia has the list of problems solved by macgyver. i have not been able to find a similar list for macgruber.

also, happy birthday, aubrey!

while i leave it up to you to guess how many of these i say (often), here is a list of 50 things you shouldn't utter including:

This is my favorite Creed song.

We met on eHarmony.com.

So I was reading The Fountainhead …

Id like to order the NASCAR-themed checks, please.

and my favorite:
I respect the jurys verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libbys sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

[via fimoculous]