I’m sure you remember the “Glorious Beards” post, in which I discussed the wondrous lost era of facial hair when men were men and follicles were follicles. While researching the post, I found a plethora of beard pictures I’d like to share:
So take your effeminate goatee and shove it!
Doritos.
Few words conjure memories of pure bliss and satisfaction quite like that one. The Dorito defies definition. Is it a unique snack creation, similar to the Funion? No, it’s definitely a chip. But is it a potato chip? Heavens, no! Then is it a simple corn chip? No, good sir! You are gravely mistaken!
You can no more define the Dorito than you can define love or beauty or consciousness. The tooth-reddening cheese powder, the perfectly-triangular shape, the little black peppercorns or singe marks or whatever those are—every facet of the Dorito is a flavorful mystery of the universe.
For eons, man respected the Dorito and did not tamper with its taste-defying state. But then, foolishly, man began to meddle with the Dorito.
It started innocently enough. Frito-Lay released spicy nacho Doritos and the ever-satisfying cool ranch Doritos. Emboldened by these successes, man began further meddling with the simple pleasure that was the Dorito. And then, one day, man released this:
http://food.productwiki.com/doritos-guacamole/
Guacamole. Doritos. Guacamole is not meant for Doritos! Guacamole adds flavor to normal corn chips! And Doritos are the furthest thing from—
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Doritos-Toasted-Corn-Tortilla-Chips-11-oz/24360286
No…no…they didn’t. They brought the mighty Dorito down to the level of a simple corn chip. That’s like hiring Beethoven to write a jingle for a deodorant commercial!
And the heretics at Frito-Lay didn’t stop there. They made salsa Verde-flavored Doritos, chile-and-lime-flavored Doritos, Chipotle barbecue-flavored Doritos, tapatío-flavored Doritos, spicy sweet chili-flavored Doritos, ranch-dipped chicken wing-flavored Doritos, and enchilada-flavored Doritos.
They made taco-flavored Doritos. Then they made a taco using a giant Dorito as a shell. Then they made Doritos that are supposed to taste like the tacos that use giant Doritos as shells.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/04/doritos-locos-tacos-chips-taco-bell-nacho-cheese-cool-ranch.html
Doritoception!
Once again, mankind in its foolishness has taken something simple and good and pure and twisted it to its own perverted purposes. The noble Cheez-it, the humble Skittle, the gallant Oreo—all were once simple pleasures and are now lost in a sea of gimmick flavors and orange, Halloween-themed frosting.
So heed my words. It is not our place to tinker with such immortal foodstuffs. Are we not but mere men?
We must make our voices heard now. Before the beef jerky-flavored Cracker Jacks and kung pow chicken laffy taffy rear their ugly heads.
http://www.ferretfriends.org/
I wrote the essay below for college political science class. The assignment required that we write some sort of essay that summarized our political beliefs. So, naturally, I wrote a story about ferrets and cheese and speedos.
In the middle of a vast ocean, surrounded by huge green clouds that carried a pungent odor, there was a small island known as Stenchland. Stenchland was a vast, fruitful island populated by a multitude of ferrets and cows. No one knows quite how the animals got there. All that was known was that the ferrets had somehow attained a degree of intelligence beyond that of normal ferrets, for they wore tiny speedos in every color of the rainbow and cared for the cows on their own. The ferrets would feed them, graze them, milk them, and eat their meat. But most of all, the ferrets enjoyed making cheese.
All day long the ferrets would labor with their cows and milk buckets and butter churns and cheese-aging cellars trying to craft as much cheese as they could (rumor has it that this obsession with cheese was what led to the island’s name of Stenchland.) Sometimes, the ferrets would even work for each other in exchange for cheese or trade cheeses of different kinds with their neighbors. They knew little but cheese and speedos and, for a long time, the ferrets lived in peaceful, cheese-making bliss.
Then one day, problems began to arise on the island of Stenchland. Mean-spirited ferrets fashioned weapons for themselves, wooden spears and shields from the trees, and killed or threatened others in order to take their cheese. There were disagreements about whether the cow-owner or the cheese-maker should get to keep the cheese and about whether brie was more valuable than cheddar in cheese exchanges. Soon, all the ferrets of Stenchland had to carry weapons to protect themselves and their cheese and the stronger ferrets would often take cheese from the weaker ones.
After several years of this, a ferret named Sheila called her ferret brethren together and spoke firmly in a voice that sounded like Janet Reno after she had inhaled helium.
“My fellow ferrets,” Sheila said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of always having to defend my life and cheese from those who would take them. I’m tired to having to resolve disagreements at the tip of a spear. Let us form a government, so that we can all live in peace and prosperity.”
And so, inside a cave on the top of a tall mountain, the ferrets met to discuss how they should construct the new ferret government. The elder Dave, one whose speedo was yellowed with age and wisdom (at least, let’s hope it was age and wisdom) led the meeting.
“The purpose of this meeting,” he said, rubbing his graying whiskers in contemplation, “is to form a government that can protect all ferrets on the island from harm and be the judge in conflicts. Now, it seems to me that the wisest thing to do would be to appoint a king or elect a council. That way, the rulers can punish those who harm others or unlawfully take their cheese and decide conflicts.”
“But no ferret is with without flaw,” another ferret named Pedro chimed in, “A king or council could easily oppress the ferrets they rule over and take their lives or their cheese for themselves. Any government should promote peace and prosperity, not make the lives of its ferrets miserable. We need to put something in place to protect out rights.”
“Rights? What are rights?” asked a third ferret.
“Rights basic modes of being that every ferret is entitled to. Ferrets have rights automatically. They are not given to us by a government or any other rodent; they exist naturally,” Pedro explained, “The whole reason we would enact this government would be to stop other ferrets from intruding on our rights. For example, every ferret has a right to live. We should have a law that protects our right to be alive so that if someone, even the government, tries to kill or harm you, you can appeal to the law that protects that right.”
The assembly talked it over and it was agreed that Pedro was right and that ferrets always had the right to be alive. The government, it was decided, would be required to protect that right and would be forbidden from infringing on it. But the council was far from over.
After adjusting his speedo, a ferret named Harold said, “It seems that we have other rights than just the right to be alive. All ferrets also have a right to freedom. No ferret should be able to tell another what to do, to dominate over another without any sort of agreement between the two.”
“Can we write something in the laws about the right to freedom of speech?” Enid the ferret asked, “I like to say the phrase ‘buttery marmoset’ a lot, but Reginald doesn’t like it and he’s threatened to beat me repeatedly with a sturgeon if I don’t stop. Do I have a right to be able to say whatever I want?”
“And freedom of religion,” shouted Fred the heretic, “I do not worship the tuxedo-clad monkey god Higjjor like my neighbors do. Do I have a right to choose my own religion?”
All the ferrets agreed that they did have a right to freedom, but before they could write it in their laws, a young ferret named Stanley spoke up.
“I think we also need to put something in our laws about a right to cheese,” Stanley said, “If I make some cheese and someone else takes it from me without my permission, they have violated my right to acquire and use my cheese as I see fit.”
“Indeed, what is a ferret without his cheese?” Dave said in agreement, “but it does seem like the rights to freedom and cheese could be taken too far. One does not, it seems, have the right to kill their neighbor or to steal another’s cheese. I would say, then, that every ferret has the right to be alive, the right to be free in any area of their lives, and the right to cheese as long as they do not use these rights to infringe on anyone else’s rights. This is what we should write in our laws.”
The ferrets agreed on this and laws protecting their rights were immediately written down. Soon afterward, they elected a governing council with Dave as its leader and the island of Stenchland had order at last.
Years passed and the ferrets continued to live under the new government. As time went on, new technologies came to the island from faraway lands and some of the ferrets employed these as ways to get more cheese. One particularly ambitious ferret named Jorge used all his cheese to buy machinery and built a speedo-producing factory.
His factory produced the most comfortable and glamorous speedos around, and soon ferrets were willing to part with their finest gouda in exchange for one of Jorge’s speedos. With the extra cheese, Jorge hired workers and his factory could soon make more speedos and earn even more cheese for him. Jorge soon had more cheese than anyone else on the island and a diamond-studded speedo that made his pelvic region glimmer with the shine of his success.
While Jorge enjoyed great profit from his endeavors, others were not as fortunate. Paul was a poor ferret who lived in a small hovel made of cow dung and glue and wore a speedo made of rags. He tried to find work in exchange for cheese, but few people had ever hired him, since his only skill was being able to play the didgeridoo underwater. Dreaming of quality cheese every day, Paul had only the occasional moldy edam that someone else gave him out of pity. Every day, he would walk by Jorge’s huge factory and monumentous pile of cheese and clench his fist in anger. Why should Jorge have so much while he had so little?
One day, fed up with Jorge’s endless store of cheese, Paul went to the governing council, hoping to improve his situation. Taking a deep breath, he walked through the large metal doors of the council’s building and stood before his rulers. Their wise eyes seemed to pierce deep through his fur and into his very organs as they looked down on him from their large, leather recliners.
“What is your grievance, Paul?” Dave asked.
“I am very poor, Dave,” Paul replied, “My house is small and inadequate, I have trouble getting food, and my speedo barely stays on. Meanwhile, Jorge has far more cheese than he needs to be comfortable. Can’t you take some of his cheese and give it to me?”
“Our laws won’t allow that, Paul,” another member of the council said, the footrest of his recliner jutting forward as he pulled the chair’s wooden lever, “Taking some of Jorge’s cheese and giving it to you would be a violation of Jorge’s right to cheese.”
“But I am barely staying alive!” Paul protested, “Don’t I have a right to be alive? If taking some of Jorge’s cheese is what it takes to keep me alive, the government should do it. You need to protect my right to be alive. And anyway, isn’t Jorge’s having so much cheese keeping me from getting cheese? His right to cheese is infringing on my right to be alive!”
Dave rubbed his chin, fixing a contemplative stare on Paul. “Leave us now, Paul,” he said at last, “so that we may deliberate.”
So Paul left and the ferret council discussed his remarks. There was much disagreement, but it was eventually agreed that Paul had a point and that Jorge, as a member of ferret society, had an obligation to keep Paul alive. And so, after this decision, Jorge was forced weekly to come before the council and give them some of his cheese. Then the council would give the cheese to Paul. Still not as rich as Jorge but comfortable nonetheless, Paul ate some of the cheese he got every week and used the rest to purchase a nicer house and a respectable speedo.
The arrangement between Paul and Jorge continued this way for several more years. One dim fall morning, Dave awoke, adjusted his recliner to an upright position, stood, and walked to the window. Flinging open the glass panes he inhaled deeply to take in some of the rancid, cheese-scented air. But on this morning, a different smell filled his nostrils. A cold fear seized him. Grabbing his binoculars, Dave looked far into the distance and realized his guess was correct. The koalas were coming.
Ever since they had built ships and explored the ocean decades ago, the ferrets of Stenchland had lived in fear of the savage, fedora-wearing koalas on the island of Jellyville. These brutal marsupials had killed most of the expedition party that had been sent to the island and had sworn to someday find and ravage the ferrets’ homeland. With a shudder, Dave closed the window and walked solemnly to his closet. He firmly gripped the wooden shield and spear he had hoped never to use again and woke the other members of the council. The day of reckoning had come.
The message spread swiftly through the ferret community. All who were able to fight were to meet in front of the council building. When the ferrets’ humble army was assembled, Dave strode slowly to its head and gave his warriors final instructions. A shout of “For the speedos of our ancestors!” erupted from the crowd and the ferrets charged forth.
The ferrets of Stenchland saved their island that day, but the fighting was brutal. Paul fought well, slaying seventeen koalas, wounding ten, and saving many of his fellow rodents from destruction. After the enemy retreated, he surveyed the destruction around him. Blood-stained fur coated the ground and the air seemed lifeless. To his horror, Paul recognized the bodies of many friends, including Jorge, who lay motionless with a koala axe deep in his back.
As he stared at the carnage, Paul slowly became aware of voices around him. From what he heard, he deduced that the entire council had been slain in the battle. Until another election could be held, the ferrets were without government.
Organizing a second election turned out to be harder for the ferrets than they had at first thought, and Paul soon realized that since Jorge and the council were gone, he had no more source of cheese. He was reduced to begging once again and his speedo deteriorated. Frustrated, Paul again looked to those who had more cheese than he and decided that he would enforce his right to be alive, government or no. Girding himself with his finest speedo, Paul traveled to the home of a wealthy ferret named Fabio.
As the door to Fabio’s house creaked open, Paul was nearly overwhelmed by the scent of succulent limburger. Ignoring the smell, Paul composed himself as best he could and spoke.
“I’ve come to take some of your cheese, Fabio,” Paul said, trying to sound as confident as he could, “Give it to me, or I shall come into your house and take it for myself.”
“You can’t do that!” Fabio shouted, “That’s a violation of my right to cheese!…and my right to freedom!”
“The government is gone now, Fabio,” Paul responded, “You don’t have rights anymore.”
“My rights exist whether or not there is a government!” Fabio said, grabbing a whistle from a nearby table, “You know this as well as I do. If you come any closer, I’ll blow this whistle and my neighbors will come to my defense!”
Disheartened, Paul took a step back, the back of his speedo seeming to sag with disappointment. “But what about my right to be alive?” he cried, “What about my right to receive cheese from other ferrets when I don’t have enough?”
Fabio set his whistle down and thought for a minute. “Paul,” he said, “you did not have a right to that cheese, because you were dependent on Jorge and the council for it. Rights are things we have naturally, things we aren’t dependent on anyone else for. Any service you must depend on others for cannot be a right, Paul, because if the ones you depend on are ever unable to provide it for you, the service will be gone.”
Paul sat down on Fabio’s doorstep, the chill of the cement on his buttocks preceding the cold, hard truth that was slowly overcoming his mind. Finally, Paul removed his didgeridoo from his pocket and held it out to Fabio.
“How much mozzarella will you give me for this?” he asked.
http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/2009/04/10/who-is-the-easter-bunny/
It’s almost Christmas. And that has me thinking about all the traditions that surround Christmas: hanging giant socks by our fireplaces, sharing passionate kisses under a poisonous weed, or the strange holiday characters. Most of these fictional people have absolutely no relevance to the holiday they represent.
But as little as a flying, bearded fat man has to do with the birth of Jesus, I’ve never really had a problem with Santa Claus. He’s a fun myth, he embodies kindness and giving, and his legend is based in history.
I just can’t bring myself to find anything wrong with ol’ Saint Nick. Not when there’s a far stranger and more disturbing holiday mascot running around: the Easter Bunny.
My first concern is the vagueness of the Easter Bunny’s exact form. Santa is easy to picture. He’s an obese, bearded, elderly man in an old-school snow suit that looks like it was died with the blood of a thousand ferrets. The Easter Bunny is usually depicted as a cartoon. So what does he look like in real life? Is he just a super-intelligent, talking rabbit wearing clothes, like something out of Babe or Homeward Bound?
Or is he a five-foot tall, biped, mutant freak with humanoid hands? When portrayed in cartoon form, the Easter Bunny is usually a human-sized rabbit with realistic arms and legs, similar to Bugs Bunny. I love Bugs Bunny, but there’s a reason he’s a cartoon. Would you want a giant, malformed rabbit in a festive vest and bow tie sneaking into your house at night? Rest assured, that image has made me wet the bed on more than one occasion.
Then there’s the legend itself. The myth of Santa Claus provides answers to all the questions you’d naturally ask the first time you hear it. Where does Santa get enough toys for all the children in the world? He has a workshop manned by a legion of elves who spend all year making toys. How does he visit all the houses in the world in one night? He rides in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. How does he get into kids’ houses when all the doors are locked? He goes down the chimney.
But where exactly does the Easter Bunny come from? No explanation. Where does he get all those eggs? We don’t know. How does he travel to everyone’s house in one night? We don’t have to explain! Stop asking questions! All the secrecy surrounding the Easter Bunny has me suspicious. On one particular dark, fog-laden night when I was six, I could’ve sworn I spotted the Easter Bunny standing in a dark alley with some shifty characters, exchanging unmarked bills for colorful eggs. I don’t even want to imagine what you’d have to do to a chicken to get it to lay brightly-colored eggs.
And that’s the third thing I just don’t understand about the Easter Bunny. It’s perfectly reasonable that Santa would bring kids toys. Kids love toys. Toys are one of about five topics that occupy 85% of a kids’ thought life. But eggs? Why eggs?
Nowadays, people give kids those colored, plastic eggs filled with candy, but decades ago, kids got real hard-boiled eggs. Has any kid in history ever said to his mother “Mommy, you know what I’d like more than anything in the world? Eggs. Just like the ones we eat for breakfast every morning. And scatter them all over the yard so I have to spend half the day looking for them.”
Yeah. Eggs. Way better than the Son of God rising from the dead.
Now, I know I may seem pretty cynical, but I’m not completely heartless. I do understand that the Easter Bunny is a beloved tradition in many families. The legend of a massive, bipedal rodent sneaking into their houses and leaving them objects that come out of chickens’ butts makes a lot of kids happy, and it really isn’t my place to take that away.
I guess, in the end, I have no right to complain about the Easter Bunny.
On an unrelated subject, does anyone know where I can buy some giant rabbit-sized bear traps?
Over the past few years, I’ve been raising a young one. We’ve laughed, we’ve loved, and I’ve watched him grow. Saying goodbye was the most painful thing I ever had to do, but it was worth it if only just to be there for that one moment when he went out to make his way in the world.
I will never forget my sarlacc.
Image: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sarlacc
It all started when I was on a business trip, selling canned yams on Tatooine. Through a bizarre string of circumstances, I found myself at the annual Mos Eisley fair playing a game of bingo with some Jawas. I won and many angry shouts of “ootini!” ensued. As I was leaving the bingo table, one of the Jawas handed me my prize: a dirt-filled clay pot with a curious creature inside.
Raising a baby sarlacc had a lot of ups and downs. My food budget was through the roof, but I never had to clean up after him (after all, it takes him 1000 years to digest; it’s been decades and I still don’t think he’s pooped.) I never had any bug or rodent problems. But in those early days, my sarlacc and I had a lot of exchanges that went something like this:
Me: Baby sarlacc, have you seen Mildred’s pet parakeet? I told her I’d watch it for the weekend, but I can’t find it anywhere.
Baby Sarlacc: [unintelligible, high-pitched squealing]
Me: Baby sarlacc, why are there feathers around your pot?
Baby Sarlacc: [tiny, adorable burp]
Me: Naughty, baby sarclacc! Naughty! You know that, in your belly, that bird will find a new definition of pain and suffering as it is slowly digested over a thousand years.
Baby Sarlacc: [unintelligible, high-pitched squealing]
Me: Well, what am I supposed to tell Mildred?
Baby Sarlacc: [unintelligible, high-pitched squealing]
Me: No, you cannot eat Mildred. You can’t solve all your problems by eating them, baby sarlacc.
Baby Sarlacc: [unintelligible, high-pitched squealing]
Me: Well, maybe if she doesn’t pay me that five bucks she owes me.
The years went by and my sarlacc grew older. Pretty soon, I had to move him from his little pot to a pair of extra large, soot-filled bell-bottoms to a sinkhole in the backyard. He was a good boy and always played nicely with his little friends (he only ate six of them.) And he matured quickly; he was eating solid door-to-door salesmen when most sarlaccs his age were still on dachshunds.
But those innocent, childhood years couldn’t last forever and it wasn’t long before my sarlacc began noticing certain changes. He became difficult, as all kids do, and I remember one conversation in particular:
Me: Adolescent sarlacc, come here.
Adolescent Sarlacc: [unintelligible, sarcastic groaning]
Me: Adolescent sarlacc, did you devour the entire population of Tokyo again?
Adolescent Sarlacc: [unintelligible, sarcastic groaning]
Me: We’ve talked about this, adolescent sarlacc. You can’t just go around eating major metropolitan cities.
Adolescent Sarlacc: [unintelligible, sarcastic groaning]
Me: Don’t you take that tone with me! Have you been hanging out with that thing from the asteroid again? You know I think he’s a bad influence on you.
Adolescent Sarlacc: [unintelligible, sarcastic groaning]
Me: And where were you last night? You weren’t skulking around Jabba’s Palace again, were you?
Adolescent Sarlacc: [unintelligible, sarcastic groaning]
Me: No, adolescent sarlacc! What you feel for the Rancor is not love!
Somehow, we got through those difficult teenage years and my sarlacc’s high school graduation day came. It felt like my heart was ready to burst with pride. He was the only one in his class to graduate, the rest of the class having mysteriously disappeared the night before. That summer, my little sarlacc decided to become a podiatrist.
I’ll never forget the day we said goodbye, that day he headed off to the Arizona School of Podiatric Medicine. He was embedded in the ground by the train platform in his best suit, a fedora on his head and a black briefcase in his tentacle. Our final goodbye went something like this:
Me: I’m sure going to miss you, adult sarlacc
Adult Sarlacc: [mature, manly gurgling]
Me: Still haven’t pooped?
Adult Sarlacc: [mature, manly gurgling]
Me: Well, that will be among your many triumphs. Someday you’ll achieve great things. I’ve always believed that. You have your dorm assignment, right?
Adult Sarlacc: [mature, manly gurgling]
Me: And your change of socks?
Adult Sarlacc: [mature, manly gurgling]
Me: Good. Okay. There are always plenty of tourists around the Grand Canyon, so you shouldn’t go hungry. And…I guess that’s it.
Adult Sarlacc: [mature, manly gurgling]
Me: No, I’m fine. I just have something in my eye.
Adult Sarlacc: [mature, manly gurgling]
Me: Don’t be silly. Now, hurry up or you’ll miss your train.
And so, my sarlacc boarded the train (somehow) and it chugged away. I watched until I could no longer see his tentacle waving goodbye. He graduated from podiatry school and went on to open a private practice on Endor making orthodics for Ewoks (he tells me they taste like popcorn chicken.) It wasn’t easy raising a sarlacc, but it was by far the most rewarding and meaningful experience I’ve ever had. And that ain’t Bantha poodoo.
www.comicvine.com/forums/battles-7/question-vs-sherlockholmes-vs-rorschach-vs-batman–566404/
I like Batman. I really like Batman. I’ve read Batman comic books, watched the Batman movies about forty times each, have all the cartoons and TV shows permanently burned into my brain, have Batman posters plastered all over my walls, wear my Batman tee shirt everywhere (including to weddings and funerals), practice oral hygiene with a Batman toothbrush and the limited-edition Batman dental floss, and when I’m having an off day, wear Batman adult diapers.
Batman has matched wits with and pitted his skills against innumerable supercriminals and megalomaniacs and has even taken on a few god-like entities. And won. But as undeniably awesome as the Dark Knight is, he is still mortal. Eventually, time will take its toll on Batman and he’ll have to retire.
That’s when Bruce Wayne will be forced to answer a question that’s been starting him in the face ever since he began his crusade against crime: who should he choose as his replacement? Gotham City will always need a Batman and Bruce needs to choose the right person for the job.
Of course, Batman has a litany of sidekicks with the skills and cunning to inherit his cowl, but all of them—Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl—aren’t much younger than he is. When Bruce Wayne hits 65, Dick Grayson will be 47. I just can’t picture Gotham’s criminal elite cowering in fear of a man with a beer belly and bifocals grumbling about how he can’t keep those damn kids off the Batlawn.
In the Batman Beyond series, Bruce chooses Terry McGinnis, a random teenager, to take his place. But I have a better candidate: Barbie.
Think about it. As simultaneously appalling and awesome as the idea of a pink Batmobile is, Barbie possesses all the abilities and equipment necessary to step into Batman’s boots. Bruce Wayne uses his extensive wealth to build and maintain his crime-fighting equipment. Judging by the frequency with which she goes shopping and how many houses and cars she owns, Barbie’s clearly pretty well-off.
Before he donned the cowl, Bruce Wayne became an expert mechanical engineer, criminologist, chemist, and psychologist. Barbie is a doctor, a veterinarian, an architect, a paleontologist, a surgeon, a CEO, and the president all at the same time.
Bruce Wayne is a technological mastermind. Barbie is a computer engineer, an astronaut, a pilot, and a NASCAR driver. Bruce Wayne is the best martial artist in the world. Barbie is a paratrooper, an Olympic gymnast, a policewoman, a firefighter, and a Canadian Mountie and has served in every branch of the military.
And if there’s any skill that Barbie doesn’t already have, she can always just call up Matel and have them re-release her with a new set of clothes. Bam: she’s an expert Cryptologist now.
Face it, DC. If Bruce ever needed to choose a replacement, he couldn’t do much better than Barbie. Such a choice would be the most sensible way to retire the character while continuing the series and would satisfy Batman’s fanbase while appealing to six-year-old girls at the same time. That and I really want to read a comic book where Barbie and Superman team up to fight Brainiac.
Because I’ve been busy with my two jobs and some family stuff, I haven’t written anything for the site in quite awhile. But my hiatus from the website has given me time to reflect. It’s made me think that maybe I should take a break from writing about chicken fries and Scooby Doo and discuss what’s really important. Humor has its place, but over the past few weeks, I’ve realized that there are more important things in life. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to talk about how we relate to the world around us and how we can better ourselves and others.
It’s time to talk about beards.
Facial hair is in a sorry state. Despite the long and noble history of beards, moustaches, and everything in between, current generations seem to have utterly rejected their nose neighbors and chin chums. When it comes to facial hair, most guys fall into one of two categories:
First, there are those that reject their facial hair and shave it off without remorse, making their face as bald as an infant’s posterior. Then, there are those who think they’re “hip” and “original” because they grow small, neatly-trimmed beards. The lone, scraggly hairs on the faces of these lads would have made our forefathers laugh.
The facial hair of the past was truly a wonder to behold. In those days, men didn’t discard beards and staches; they displayed them proudly. Their chins supported a dense network of fibers, each meticulously combed and waxed. These were more than beards. These were works of art.
The bushier a man’s beard, the more respect he commanded. Don’t believe me? Try doing a Google Image search on some bearded historical figure. Before you notice anything else about him, you will be struck with a sense of awe at his magnificent jungle of face fur. Though William Howard Taft may not have made much of a name for himself as our 27th president, he will always retain the title King of the Moustaches.
I mean, who would you rather be?
This Guy:
menshairstyletrends.com
Or this guy:
http://list25.com/top-25-craziest-beards-ever/
The choice is obvious, my friend.
This post will address a horrendous influence on our children, one potentially more malicious and destructive to the youth than any other form of media, that goes almost completely undetected by parents and society in general. I speak, of course, of cartoon cereal mascots. Think about it. Mascots for children’s cereals don’t just hock sugar-infused corn flakes; they exhibit a disturbing range of mental problems and promote destructive attitudes and behavior.
Do you share my passion for exposing evil and protecting the youth of America? Then join me as we delve into the dark, truly disturbing worlds in which these devilish cartoons live.
Exhibit A–Tony the Tiger
http://www.kelloggs.com/en_US/KelloggrsquosFrostedFlakes.pt-Cereal.pc-null.desc-null.html#prevpoint
It’s been awhile since most adults have seen a Frosted Flakes commercial, but they’re all pretty much the same: a child is bad at a certain sport and, shunned by their athletic peers, sits on the sidelines and sulks. Truly their existence is a dark chasm of despair from which they will never escape.
But then, out of nowhere, a large, animated Tiger appears. From his…um…flesh pockets, he produces a bowl of sugar-coated corn flakes wreathed in a heavenly light. As the child tastes the cereal, a change comes over their demeanor. And then—huzzah!—they become the star of the sports team and win the love and admiration of their peers! Truly their breakfast is now complete.
Though Tony the Tiger’s infamous catch-phrase and commitment to athleticism seem positive, he sends a disturbing message to children: you are worthless without Frosted Flakes. These commercials teach children to depend on sports for their self-esteem and that they will be unable to play sports without Tony’s magical cereal.
I find it pretty troubling to think about what the kids in the commercials would’ve done if Tony hadn’t arrived just in time. I always picture the little boy on the bench growing up to be an out-of-work, hairy man in a wife-beater undershirt gulping down whiskey like it’s Kool Aid and muttering “if only I’d had some Frosted Flakes…”
By the way, I originally wrote this piece as an assignment for a college class. You wouldn’t believe how many people actually thought I was being serious.
Ancient cultures seemed to have a thing for animal hybrids. Among the gods worshipped by ancient civilizations are such varied deities as Thor, Dagon, and Kali, who was blue, had six arms, and carried severed heads everywhere. But whatever its pantheon, each ancient culture seems to have at least one god that looks like a fusion of two animals. The ancient Indians worshipped Ganesh, the elephant-human god. The Egyptians of ancient times worshipped Ra, who was half-falcon and half-man. And the children of 1990s America worshipped Furby, the grotesque, hairy bird creature.
For those of you lucky souls unfamiliar with it, the Furby was a toy fad during the nineties. It was a robotic, talking bird creature with soft, deceiving fur covering its cold plastic shell and huge eyes that stared deep into your soul. If provoked, it would move its mouth and say cute phrases like “I love you” or “Can I have a hug?”
It sounds innocent enough, I know. But for anyone who housed a furby, the bizarre toy slowly morphed from harmless plaything to feared idol.
The big problem with furbies was that you had no control over them whatsoever. For the most part, you expect toys to respond directly to your input; if you push forward on the remote’s lever, your RC car moves forward. But furbies moved and spoke in response to noise. So whenever it heard any sound, whether it was little Billy playing pretend or mom bumping into the table, the furby would feel the need to chime in by saying “I love sunshine” or “Who dares to profane my holy sanctum?”
Furbies had no off switch. They only “went to sleep” when they detected absolutely no noise. You were never sure whether your furby was watching or listening to you. For all you knew, the Great Furby was all-seeing, all-knowing.
The only reliable way to get a furby to shut off was to lock it inside a dark room. It would shut down and all would be well…until someone decided to enter the room. The first thing you’d see after you opened the door and turned on the light switch was a pair of huge, hellish eyes staring back at you. And then, in a voice that reminded you of Big Bird, the furby would speak. It may have said “good morning,” but you knew it meant “Foolish mortal! You cannot escape my judgment! Now bow before me, lest I consume thee with holy fire!”
And so the people of the ‘90s lived in fear of their dark god, the Furby. I know many who would try in vain to appease their furby by buying more furbies, performing ritualistic Furby dances while wearing their fur-covered robes, and even sacrificing Tickle Me Elmo dolls on altars made of play-doh. As a Furby heretic, I lived in constant fear. I’ll never forget the sting of terror that would run up my spine every time I heard a furby’s evil bellow.
Times have changed and, at long last, the reign of the Furby is over. Gone are the days of the Furby cult, but remnants of its power remain. If you look hard enough, you can still find furbies buried in basements and tucked away in closets, gathering dust and remembering their bygone days of glory. And though their followers now are few, their eyes are no less mesmerizingly-evil.
If I wasn’t clear enough a few weeks ago, let me state it again: cartoons are weird. They live in their own worlds where the physical laws of nature do not apply. But that’s why we love them. The Flintstones wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if it authentically depicted the difficulties of using an elephant as a shower, and if the physics in Loony Tunes were even the least bit realistic, those cartoons would contain more blood and gore than the Saw movies and the Spanish Inquisition combined. But sometimes, even in context, cartoons just make you wonder about their strange little worlds and especially the characters that inhabit them.
Which brings us to today’s topic: Scooby Doo. As is the case with most great cartoons, if you start asking questions about how the Scooby Doo universe works, all you’ll find are more questions. I know I’d just be stating the obvious if I said that Scooby Doo makes no sense, but there’s more to Scooby Doo than meets the eye. There isn’t an episode of Scooby Doo I’ve watched that doesn’t make me wonder about the thought processes of some of the characters.
We could talk at length about the Scooby Doo gang themselves and their bizarre issues—why Shaggy and Scooby are willing to put their lives on the line for dog food, why the characters always run using the same repetitive body movements, or why they never seem to stop and wonder whether, just maybe, the monster could be a guy in a costume just like the last twenty-seven monsters they’ve encountered—but the Scooby Doo universe is home to a much more interesting group of psychotics: the villains. Say what you will about Yogi Bear or the “I Love to Singa” owl from that one Warner Brothers cartoon, but the Scooby Doo villains are, without a doubt, the most bizarre group of cartoon characters around.
Scooby Doo villains generally want to accomplish something fairly simple like smuggling diamonds out of the mountains or obtaining ownership of a hotel to access the precious oil beneath it. But how does every Scooby Doo villain they plan to accomplish their goal? By dressing up in a slightly-above average Halloween costume and running around yelling at random people. Remember, it’s not like they’ve already tried to commit their crimes using more traditional methods. Dressing up in a rubber hunchback costume was Plan A. I really wish we got to see the moments these plans were conceived. I always imagine the villain sitting in his dingy, dimly-lit basement and saying something like, “Okay, Jimmy. We’re going to smuggle these diamonds through the underground caves in the mountains, but we have to keep tourists away from the ski resort so they don’t expose our operation. So I’m going to dress up like a giant ghost lobster.”
But the real question is this: what will these people do with their lives after the cartoon’s over? Sure, they’ll have to spend some time in prison because of those meddling kids, but they’ll eventually be released. None of them are committing really serious crimes; no one in Scooby Doo dies or gets seriously injured. Eventually, these people are going to be back on the outside, trying desperately to fit back into normal society. However, for these scarred individuals, that’s never going to happen. It doesn’t matter how hard a former Scooby Doo villain works to turn his life around. He’ll never shake off the stigma of having dressed up in a rubber monster suit and yelled at passers-by. I mean, how will they ever find a job? “Alright, Mr. Stevenson, let’s have a look at your resume. I see you got your Master’s from Columbia University, spent a few years working for the Harrington Law Firm, and…dressed up as a ghost pirate and chased innocent hikers away from an old mining town in order to perpetrate a real estate scheme. Uh…we’ll be in touch.”
Those meddling kids don’t just solve mysteries. They strip away their nemesis’ dignity and stain their futures. Still, being a former Scooby Doo villain wouldn’t be all bad. I guess it would be kind of cool to tell your grandkids that you spent a summer as the Phantom Walrus of Crystal Cove.