2009: A Year In Review [Part One]

Part One: Entertainment Schmentertainment - Things I truly enjoyed. And remembered. And stuff.

If 2009 was a person, it would look like this.

{As always, in no particular order.}

Moving Picture Films:

Up
District 9
Star Trek
The Road
Watchmen
Zombieland
Adventureland
Drag Me To Hell
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Inglourious Basterds
Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
*At this point I had yet to see 'Up in the Air' and 'Avatar'

Sounds & Rhythms For Your Ear Holes:

Matt & Kim - Grand
Wolfmother - Cosmic Egg
Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
Morrissey - Years of Refusal
The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Modest Mouse - No One's First And You Are Next [EP]
Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds - The Soundtrack [Various Artists]
*A Special Thanks to Reid Connell for over putting 70 albums of awesomeness on my iPod. [Especially Foxy Shazam, Wolfmother, Battles, Dead Man's Bones, Chip Connell, fun., Why?, and Yeasayer.]

One Of The Many Glowing Rectangles I Stare At Daily:

Lost
Glee
Dexter
Mad Men
The Office
Community
The Simpsons
Modern Family
The Colbert Report
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
*Arrested Development [no matter what year or what list, this will always be on it.]

Twas a fantastic year for la musica, la television [say it with an accent,] and la movie-film. Kind of. 1994 was a great year: Pulp Fiction, Shawshank, Hakuna Matata, Seinfeld, Ace of Base, Salt-N-Pepa, and so on and so forth. Lets all take the time to remember how epic 1994 was. Hmmmmm. OJ!

More tomorrow. Part 2 involves influential books and people ... as well as specifics from part 1 and runners-up.

It's been a while

Sorry for the hiatus. Wait, who am I apologizing to? Eh, for all you guys know I could just be building up suspense for the next post. [Do you like how I said the plural form 'guys' - that's me pretending that more than one person reads this thing.] Denial is fun.

Anyway, I wrote a pretty lengthy awesome review of Tarantino's latest flick, Inglourious Basterds. Putting spelling aside, and my sloppy copy-and-paste job, enjoy:


Sadly, to be honest, I was weary of seeing this movie. Yes, I know. Tarantino, Pitt, Roth, Kruger, Novak, WWII, Hitler, Nazis, Scalps and Tyler was weary. Why, one might ask? Well, [1] the fear of expectations not being met [HA,] [2] the fear of seeing just another war movie [HAHA,] [3] the fear that for the first time that I may not enjoy a Tarantino film [HAHAHA!] Unexpectedly, fiercely, and with force, I was blown out of the theater and my scalp hit the projector. [1] My expectations were exceeded. [2] This film shouldn't float around the words 'just another war movie.' [3] This is a bright shining example of why I love Tarantino's flicks and why I will keep loving them. Note: I should NOT have been weary. Bad Tyler, BAD Tyler!!

Yes, I have created a new paragraph. Different from my usual blob of a review, I know. Get used to it. Anyway: This movie, this character study, this comedy, this tale of fate, this [uh,] tragedy[?], this retelling of history grabbed me from the opening credits until the big blue screen at the end. I love the old-school opening, something I see being done more and more often. [I think 'Drag Me To Hell' was the last time I saw it.] I was engaged fully, and did not once turn my head from the screen ... even though there were some more than graphic violence occurring. However, there was one part in Chapter 5 where I literally grabbed my friend Shannon's arm and just gaped merrily at the screen.

Don't even get me started about the dialogue. Mentioning the awesomeness of dialogue in a Tarantino movie is like, well, making a worthy note of the explosions in a Michael Bay picture: there are a whole lot of them, they are amazing, and blah blah blah shitty simile. There were ladies, there were cigarettes, there were feet, [well a shoe,] I mean come on, look who's directing!! You should know his fetishes by now.

Can we just talk about Christopher "Col. Hans Landa: bad ass, devilish, wacky, fun, evil Nazi" Waltz? He stole the screen!! I was in awe!! Where did this guy come from? I haven't seen a performance like that EVER! Yes, Pitt and Roth and Kruger and everybody else was amazing as well but COME ON! As far as villains go, he is ranked all way up in my Top 5 Cinematic Bad Ass Villain Douche Bag list. [Yes I have one that is indeed titled like that.] I just wanted to put aside a paragraph exclusively for this bad ass mother fucker.

The supporting players, the sound, the direction, the violence, the acting, the visuals, the ... everything ... it was just right. I wanted a Tarantino war movie and boy did they shove it right down my throat! I licked my lips and then asked for seconds. I ate that shit up. *Shout out to Ryan from The Office for having some great scenes.* Oh, and stay until the end of the credits: no hidden surprises, just simply fantastic music and yellow credits. Oh, and the extra-long disclaimer at the end is amusing. See this movie. The old history major in me is tingling all over with giddiness.

4 and a half / 5 stars

A little side note about tension. This movie has a shit load of it ... along with a few surprises. I have never seen tension build like this: whole scenes just dedicated to it. By the middle to end of any given part it's just nail-biting, seat grabbing, "Oh God Come ON' ... in a good way, of course. You are never let down. Every wind up has it's punch. [OH and quite the punch indeed. A punch right in the testicles. Nazi testicles.] It's brilliant. Just brilliant. The film did not overstay it's welcome, and it's one of those "didn't feel like two and a half hours" type of deals.

Why couldn't THIS movie be released on my birthday and NOT any shitty movies that deserve an October release instead of August. The Final Destination AND Halloween II ... both in August, both on my twenty-first birthday. Come on.

Movie Extravaganza!

I've seen several movies this past week, some new ones in la theatre, some on la DVD that I've revisited from my movie box, and it's been quite some time since a post, so, yah. It only made sense. Plus I've started reading again. [Does porn literature count?]

No sassy comment. Just no. No. Never. Ever. NEVER!

Anyway, the book series and movie I've been obsessed with is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not like Misery obsessed, but almost one step down from that. Douglas Adams is a fantastic author, and I'm starting to dip in his other works. The movie is fantastic [if you've read the book series that is,] and it's just ok I guess if you're going into it blind. The flick is filled with inside jokes and so many references to the book's material that it's almost a different movie entirely if you've read even the first four chapters of the book. Read it. Watch it.

1979 was a crazy, crazy, tie dye-ish time.

Other movies and some "brief," brief, comments... otherwise I'll get carried away and angry:

Bruno: I gave it 2 and a half stars out of five. Hence the rating, I was fifty/fifty on the movie. It succeeded and failed in a cornucopia of ways. I laughed a lot, I did cover my mouth in shock a few times, occasionally my jaw dropped. On the other side of it, sometimes I stared at the screen asking myself 'Is this funny?' and 'Why am I here?' This was a dirtier, less funny version of Borat. I had a feeling Sacha Baron Cohen would not be able to strike gold twice. It didn't feel that short, nor was it too long - it was just right. I don't think it hit Borat's success at all; we loved Borat - he didn't know American culture, he was ignorant, he was pushed around, we almost felt bad for him so when he said something sassy or did something awful, we laughed. Bruno was in-your-face, he was too 'head-on' and the whole gay thing got pretty stale really fast. Plus, his sidekicks were nothing compared to Borats'. I did admire Cohen's technique though - the way it played out and his manipulation is just amazing to ogle at. The movie had a formula just like Borat, but since Bruno didn't have the best turn out, humor like this might only be caught on repeats of Da Ali G Show. When did the penis become so funny? I think it all started with Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Thanks Jason Segal!

This just in: Penises are in and Vaginas/Boobs are out Out OUT!

That was not brief. My apologies - so much to say, so little blog.

In the next Movie post [will be posted tomorrow,] I'll touch upon Public Enemies, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, The Nines, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Papp Schnapp's Movie Recaps: Across 110th Street

"You don't know what you'll do until you're put under pressure/Across 110th Street is a hell of a tester"

The lyrics, which play out over Blaxploitation-style credits overlaid on scenes of a car driving through Harlem, may at first listen suggest this is a movie about "gun-totin gangstas" (a notion which the DVD case would have you believe, but more on that later), but those lyrics say so much about the movie you're about to watch compared to the reputation it has. Or hasn't, for that matter.

That car, though you don't know it initially, is actually the fuse being lit for a movie which is in a state of constant explosion. That's not to say it's some Michael Bay-level pyrotechnic fest (although there is a literal explosion more fantastic in its "simplicity" than any million dollar fireball he could ever ejaculate [btw, see Transformers 2!]), but this moofie has the ability to take your breath away and shock you in every sense in almost every scene.

Y'see, the DVD case would have you suggest that this is "Soul Cinema", which is actually just a nice way of saying it's a movie about gangstas, pimps, and honkies. But this is no Coffy (I loved that movie, too). It's a dense, layered drama that unfortunately got lost in the shuffle and as a result is treated the same way as some bargain-bin Sheba, Baby clone (also starring Yaphet Kotto).

The plotting is fantastic, and like I said before, you're in a constant state of being 'at the edge of your seat'. This is helped by the fantastic cinematography, which uses a lot of experimental techniques to show you the action. Por ejemplo: There's a scene where the Harlem mob is torturing a man in a dry cleaner's, but it's done in one shot, and you don't hear what's going on. You're looking into the shop through the display window while a guard patrols the area. It's so fucking brilliant that I cracked my skull from the force of my jaw hitting the floor.

This reminds me of Vertigo ... but with black people.

The narrative takes a look at a botched robbery through the eyes of three different sets of characters, and all get equal screen time and characterization (a feat for a movie that doesn't pass the 100-minute mark). All of the actors in this are absolutely fantastic, and while it seems surprising at first that Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto don't inhabit every scene (another thing to blame on MGM for shitty advertising), there are characters here as compelling (if not moreso) than they are.

So here's a movie that's lost and forgotten, and really doesn't deserve to be. Also, do yourself a favor:

DON'T LOOK AT THE BACK OF THE BOX

Please follow this advice, for reasons I won't make clear due to spoilers. Just... Rent it from Netflix. It's better that way.

This was released the same year as The Godfather, and a year after The French Connection. To say this movie is in the same league as those would be a bold statement. Well, watch this movie, and that eyebrow you have raised at this "blaxploitation cheapie" will sit the fuck down and pay attention to this absolutely, astoundingly, unbelievably, and ultimately amazing film.

Papp Schnapp's Movie Recaps: The Mist

This is the first of many movie reviews from my friend John Papp! Enjoy the silly title and the review.

I had some wonderful insight when I began to re-re-watch this, but I sort of cut my viewing in half. Two things to make sure of:

1. Watch this in one sitting. You should always watch films in one setting. Interrupting for longer than an hour or two ruins the flow.

2. Watch it in black and white. The 2nd disc contains the black and white version, which is ten times as terrifying, and ten times as harrowing. Desaturate the colors on your TV if you must to achieve the effect.

"Oh my God, it's Kirstie Alley! Ruuuuuuunnn!"

Anyway, Frank Darabont has wrought upon us the single greatest horror film (along with 28 Days Later) since Suspiria and Dawn of the Dead (1977 and 1978, respectively). This is an exercise in extreme terror, and if you can't buy into that terror, then you're not allowed to watch horror movies ever again.

The acting's what helps make this movie as terrifying as it is. Tom "I just want my kids back" Jane is our rock in this affair, leading us through the horrors and inspiring hope. He's helped by Toby "I've absolved myself from Dobby" Jones, who just might be the best actor in this movie. He should be in more shit. Andre "Frank Pembleton" Braugher is great in the short amount of time he's in this (he should be in more stuff, too), and so is Nathan "Commissioner Gordon's son" Gamble, who is amazing as that little kid (It's funny how both of his most high-profile roles involve him crying in most of his scenes, and he manages to sell them both well).

But the most talked about performance is sure to be Marcia "more like Gay Hard-on, lol" Gay Harden, as the most wretched and evil female villain this side of Nurse Ratched. In a way, her character is more frightening than the Cthulu-like monsters that attack the characters, though they're downright horrifying, too.

"Is now the best time to fly a kite?"

Y'see, this is certainly more than just a monster movie. Like Night of the Living Dead, a movie it certainly owes a lot too, and admits it openly, it's about what happens when the skies turn red, but more importantly, it's about how we cope with that. Some lead, some.... Go absolutely nuts.

Uh, anyway, I didn't like it at first, mostly because of the ending. But Michael Messina changed my perspective on it (I'm trying not to give anything away here), and made me realize that this is a horror movie, and horrifying things can't always be pleasing.

So, I would certainly hope that this film be ranked highly in the "Greatest Horror Films of all Time" list, whenever that's made. Because it is. It scares me to the point of shivers and tears, and I hope it keeps you all up throughout the night.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Nerds

A few days ago I saw the Transformers sequel. [Insert extremely exaggerated and one-sided slur/review here.] Surprisingly, I came out of the cinema neither enraged nor super-excited. What can I say? It was a summer-blockbuster movie directed by Michael Bay*. [*Michael Fucking Bay.] After I saw the flick, I read the reviews; from pretentious tight-ass critics to some guy on "the YouTube" with glasses that didn't look right on him.

It was loved, hated, and shat on by the internet. Bay is known for three things: 1. Explosions, 2. Tits, and 3. Exploding Tits in Slow-motion. I had these three things in mind when seeing this flick. Other Bay movies: The Rock is the shit, the Bad Boys franchise is alright by me, Armageddon is fine, and I don't want to talk about Pearl Harbor. Bay, like any director, has a few critics that despise him ... unfortunately for Bay, "a few critics" means every single critic ever. He brings it where it really counts: the box office. Critics could care less about the box office. Screw all this critic talk, who cares about their secret terrorist agenda.

"You guys want to come back to my place and watch Point Break?"

Do you think that in high school Michael Bay was a nerd? Is this Bay's revenge? [Hence the title of this blog.] Maybe Bay never got any action in high school; maybe he didn't see any boobs or explosions under the bleachers next to the football field. Maybe there was a set of really annoying African American twins in his class that beat him up and sassed him, and Bay's revenge is portraying them as sassy racist robots in this Transformers movie. Who knows.

There were three things in [evil, awful] Boston Globe columnist Ty Burr's review of Transformers 2 that I agreed with. [And I never agree with him on anything!!] 1. I agree with his comparison of the robot twins to "Jar Jar Binks times two..." 2. My "inner child" did indeed "go into a blissful coma..." 3. Ty Burr is an ass. Well he didn't say that directly, it's just something implied in all of his reviews. I think he also calls Bay a fascist. Sigh. I was thinking of photoshopping Bay's head onto Mussolini's body, but that nerd-picture of Bay is enough for me.

The dude with glasses on the YouTube did bring up a fan-fucking-tastic point in his video. I'll sum it up for you in case you didn't watch it. [The link is still up there and he talks about the movie one minute and twenty seconds into the vid.] When watching Transformers, you have to see it as TWO movies. As a 'movie-movie' [where you want to be entertained and intrigued and such] and as a Michael Bay movie [where it doesn't have to make sense, there needs to be explosions and slow-motion boobs and such.] As a Michael Bay movie: A Fucking Plus!! As a movie-movie: just plain awful. Enough with his opinon, (which I agree with,) and on to mine.

This is Michael Bay in 20 years.

I was thoroughly entertained by this movie. There were plenty of ladies, like that girl that looks like an alien. You know, Megan Fox. I don't know what planet she came from but she needs to go back to acting school - she can barely act human as it is. Unfortunately I don't go to the movies just to be entertained; I want to be provoked as a movie viewer; I want there to be questions asked; I want to see the full range of human emotion [and not just Shia's girly scream.] I have to admit, that part in the dorm room and then the chase to the library was shma-shmazing. The dialogue that took place in the library between Shia and E.T. [Megan Fox] was hilarious. [Until somebody's first instinct while escaping explosions was NOT just scuttling in the other direction but to instead leap over the balcony and land on a light fixture.]

Besides all the cool graphics, an awesome helicopter slow-mo shot, the sometimes awful writing, the plot holes, the racist robots, the explosions, the slow-mo boob shots, the semi-OK acting, and the ridiculously old robot with a cane, I give it 3 and a half stars. Some things you just cannot overlook. There is a part where John Turturro says something along the lines of "Beginning, middle, and end. Plot, we need substance!" That is not a direct quote ... it's just what I remember. Kind of. But the things mentioned in that quote aren't all in the movie itself. I mean for every dumb thing Shia said, his parents did something hilariously amazing. His roommate Leo however, got kind of stale after a while. 3 and a half stars is pretty sweet.

Arrested Development: Awesome Episode Alert!

Today's Epsiode: From Season 2, #32: Ready, Aim, Marry Me!
Original Air Date: February 13th, 2005 [Presumably a Wednesday.]
Director: Paul Feig
Written by: Jim Vallely & Mitchell Hurwitz

"These kinds of skills?"

'Regular' Guest Stars:

Liza Minnelli: ["Lucile 2"]
Ed Begley, JR [Stan Sitwell]

Awesome One-Time-Only Guest Star:

Martin Short [Uncle Jack Dorso, aka "The Bullet"] Martin Short steals the show in this episode as 'Uncle Jack,' a wealthy family friend who lost the use of his legs after a freak weight-lifting accident. He won't use a wheelchair so his deaf assistant Dragon carries him and swoops him everywhere.

"Somebody order 14- pounds of upper-body strength? Walk Dragon! Walk!"

Plot:

{this is the usual spot where you'd read about the plot ... BUT in this episode the plot is filled with a cornucopia of twists and inside jokes and crazy mix-ups which would take me about an hour to explain, [Or 5 huge paragraphs like the Wikipedia Page has for has this episode,] and nobody wants that. I like to keep these short and sweet kind of.}

This is one of my ALL TIME favorite episodes. Now I know what you are asking yourselves: [1] Why does the author of this blog like to wear women's undergarments while he types ... and [2] How can you have a favorite episode of this spectacular show? Well that's easy: like any television show, some episodes are funnier than others. In this episode there is a plethora of sight gags: people slipping, people being "shot" onto others, falling off horses, and Lindsay getting knocked unconscious due to a kick in the head by a paraplegic body-buidler.

"What is that, is that a chicken?"

Plus we have one of the first installments of the chicken gag. This is where the Bluth family [in true Back to the Future fashion,] call Michael a chicken, and then they attempt to imitate a chicken with horrible, misguided results.

You all better appreciate a good BTTF reference, dammit.

Fun fact:

Anne, [aka Egg, Bland, Her, and also called "Who?"] does not appear in this episode.

Awesome Scene Time:

Lindsay introduces herself to Jack.
Uncle Jack: Why she is no bigger than one of my legs! Shake them for her!!
Jack is shaken violently by Dragon; Jack grunts and moans.
George-Michael: Excuse me, Uncle Jack, I'm George-Michael and ...
Still grunting, Jack vomits a clear-gooey substance across the room.
Uncle Jack: It's ok. Just ignore it. IGNORE IT! It's just something the body does when your shaken.

Favorite Character in the Epiode: Tobias Funke

"Tobias, you blowhard!"

Some of best moments and most quotable lines from Tobias are in this very episode; he takes the cake. Besides Martin Short as Uncle Jack, Tobias is king. He has the funniest slip-and-fall I have ever seen. Close runners-up in this episode are Lucille Bluth and Buster. Lucille has some great facial expressions and Buster is just, well, Buster. The best lines from Tobias (all at once) are at the end of the episode via tape recorder during the "On The Next Arrested Development..."

Narrator: "Tobias listens to a day's worth of his own words to see what Michael was referring to."
Tape Recorder: "Even it means me taking a chubby, I will suck it up."
Tobias: "Nothing wrong with that."
Tape Recorder: "Oh I've been in the film business for a while but I just can't seem to get one in the can."
Tobias: "Out of context."
Tape Recorder: "I wouldn't mind kissing that man between the cheeks, so to speak."

If you want to get somebody hooked on this series, show them this episode!!

One last favorite quote from Michael Bluth:
"You mean the deaf giant holding our fake uncle?"

Arrested Development Character Study: G.O.B.

This is the first in a series of character studies from the famously cancelled television show Arrested Development. I will post my favorite quotes and moments from the character of choice, as well as try and define what makes them funny. Today we have:

Name: G.O.B. [George Oscar Bluth, Jr.] Pronounced jōb ... like that famous guy from the bible, you know, Job.

Here he is on his transportation device of choice: the Segway. Looks like he is ready to Thelma and Louise-it off a cliff or something. Please tell me somebody gets that reference.

Being the older brother in a family has its ups and downs. For G.O.B. though, its mainly downs. The first born child: the favorite? No. The least favorite? In his mother Lucille's eyes: hell yes. G.O.B. is everything that a TV show audience wants in an older brother: he is a blabbering idiot, he is a womanizer and a man-whore, he is ignorant, he is slightly racist, and most importantly, he is a magician! [Not even a good magician.] He is the butt of the joke in the Bluth family.

Example of idiocy:

G.O.B: Anyway, it involves us making some money with our Mexican friends from Colombia.
Michael: I think they're called Colombians.

Example of ignorance with a dash of idiocy:

G.O.B: What is this feeling? It's not hungry, it's not angry...
Michael: I think it's love, Gob
G.O.B: I know what an erection feels like, Michael!

Example of womanizing man-whoring tendencies:

G.O.B: I'm dating this Christian girl right now. She wants me to be honest and reconnect with my son. And I'm trying to get her to renounce God and fuck me, but I just want to prove to her that I'm worth it.

The only thing sadder than a bad magician is a dead clown on fire. G.O.B. constantly reveals how tricks are done, has been blackballed by the Magician's Alliance [who demand to be taken seriously,] and always has a 'Forget-me-now" pill on hand to drug somebody when they know just a little bit tooo much. G.O.B. also had a small stint in the ventriloquist field with is good old [incredibly racist] black puppet Franklin Delano Bluth.

G.O.B. has an amazingly bad theme song that he uses for his magic tricks. He even had a 'sad' version done with an organ for a wake/funeral in the episode 'Good Grief.' Here is that song. Speaking of awful, horrible songs: here we have this. Oh, its just so delightfully sickening!

There will be more on G.O.B pretty soon, maybe tomorrow. Right now html and the font and format of this post is being quite bitchy. YAY!

The Customer Is Not Always Right

I don't know which asshole came up with the saying "The customer is always right," but apparently he has never left his big comfy corner office and stepped into any type of service industry. I work at a grocery store - enough said.

I have had three years of soul-sucking miserable people yell at me because they "just used a check earlier today and it worked fine." Or maybe "$3.00 for a package of cookies is just tooo much!" Occasionally a "Can I get paper in plastic, then put them in this box so I can shrink-wrap it and then ship it to Alaska?" You know, so the cold stuff can stay cold.

"Would you like your milk, green shit, bread, orange-stick things, fancy rich people water and blue tub in the same bag?"

If you're in the service industry, or if you just deal with stupid people daily, you would probably appreciate this website. It's along the lines of F My Life and the less popular My Life Is Average websites that are a hit these days. It's just a series of stories and quotes from dealing with dumb-asses that come into retail stores.

I am a big fan of the singular form 'person.' The word 'people' however, is awful. Person can be smart, occasionally funny, and nice. People however are dumb, scared, angry, and just plain idiotic. You put more than two people in a room and they are all ready taking sides and getting ready to kill each other. I think I may have just accidentally paraphrased that from the movie-version of Stephen King's The Mist.

This is kind of grocery-store related; it takes place in one at least. Still was a suck bomb though.

Ok, that's all for today. In conclusion: people suck; person however is awesome ... and working in a grocery is, well, awful - but its a paycheck. It could be worse. If you have time, check out this blog. It's becoming a website pretty soon, but check out the older posts, they're pretty kick ass. Click here for the link. Or here. And here and here.

Here is one of my favorite excerpts from [The Customer is] Not Always Right:

Dinner Without A Show Is No Dinner At All

Grocery Store | Buffalo, NY, USA

(I’m cashing out a customer and bagging his groceries.)

Me: “And what’s in your bakery bag, sir?”

Customer: “A cantaloupe. I put it in there to get ripe.”

Me: “OK…”

Customer: “You know what they do in California? They JUGGLE the fruit - the cantaloupes and the mangoes and the apples and such.”

Me: “Oh, that must be neat to see–”

Customer: “YOU SHOULD DO THAT!”

Me: *laughing* “That’d be interesting, but I don’t know how to juggle.”

Customer: “You mean to tell me you can’t juggle this fruit?”

Me: “I’m afraid not…”

Customer: “Then take the cantaloupe off. I don’t want it if you won’t juggle it for me.”

Arrested Development: An Introduction

What is there to say about Arrested Development that has not already been said? "Best show on television." [Check] "...the smartest, most shockingly funny series on TV." [Check] "Funnier than those Free Credit Report dot com commercials." [Has never been said, but true.] Just look at the picture below and try to explain to me why this show was canceled.

Sadly, this post has been delayed. I honestly had no idea where to begin. The awesomeness of this show put such a strain on my body, I could not type for two whole days. [Or I was just distracted by Obama killing a fly. Whoopty-doo.]

I don't know how I should handle this: I was thinking of doing episode reviews, but that involves way tooo much observation; I don't feel like watching the episode a bazillion times and then have it loose its funny. I think today I'll just post a quote and a few pictures. I think that character bios and running-jokes may just be the content of the next few posts.

I'm pretty sure this picture was used for the season 3 finale, [which ended up being the series finale. Insert angry and sad face here.]

Here's a good G.O.B. quote:

"They're pills that create a sort of temporary forgettingness. So if somebody finds out how you do a trick, you just give 'em one of these, and they forget the whole thing. It's a mainstay of the magician's toolkit, like how clowns always have a rag soaked in ether."

Ahhh, oh G.O.B. - you always know how to make a good magic-themed joke. In the series there are plenty - especially in the first season with the whole 'Alliance of Magicians' thing. Ben Stiller even makes a cameo appearance in three episodes as rival magician 'Tony Wonder.'

Well, writing about A.D. is better than I thought, so I shall do it often. Oh, and the name of the blog has nothing to do with Michael Cera. Yes, he may be awkwadorable, and yes he is in Arrested Development, but it is not named after him. That would just be creepy. [Kind of like falling in love with your cousin.] [Creepy like, well, creepy like this.]

Good night!

The 'First Post' Post

According to the Urban Dictionary: Awkwadorable: Adjective: Awkward and adorable at the same time.

I love combining two words into one even more awesome word. Also, if you are a fan of entirely grammatically incorrect paragraphs and/or run-on sentences, you are in the right place.

Well anyway, welcome to this crazy blog located on this crazy series of tubes called "the internet." If all goes correctly and if I don't get that distracted, [like on things like this,] I will be telling true and slightly exaggerated stories from college life and the supermarket I work at. My passion for the amazingly canceled TV show Arrested Development will also make appearances in weekly homages, (episode reviews, favorite quotes, photoshopped pictures,) and such.

I have to leave now. Things are distracting me again. I'll be back tomorrow with the first Arrested Development post, the first of a series of true and slightly exaggerated college stories, and other stuff.