It’s time for straight men to reclaim Kristin Chenoweth
May 18, 2009 | Filed under Misc., Rants
Alright men - specifically, straight men - listen up. This is Kristin Chenoweth:
She has become an icon in the gay community, and the majority of her fanbase is gay men…and this simply won’t do. Straight men, we are taking back Kristin Chenoweth. The reasons why we need to take action and reclaim her for ourselves are as follows:
- She’s gorgeous. This is kind of a given…otherwise we wouldn’t have to fight the gay men over her.
- She’s crazy talented. In addition to winning a Tony and being a fantastic actress, she’s also a classically trained soprano. You know, the glass-breaking kind.
- She’s a good girl you can bring home to Mom. Chenoweth makes no secret about the fact that she’s a Born-Again Christian (in fact, the character of Harriet Hayes on the short-lived Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip was pretty much based on her), and you know your mom would definitely approve. Continued »
Even more inappropriate Mother’s Day cards
May 14, 2009 | Filed under Misc.
Mother’s day was this past weekend, and if you didn’t know that, you’ve probably already been on the recieving end of a guilt-riddled phone call. However, just like last year, while shopping for cards for those I know that have expunged a human from their loins, I came across some very unusual cards. And, just like last year, I thought I’d share them with the rest of the internets.
Let’s kick things off with a card that seems to completely miss the point.
Did you know that black mothers occasionally need to be reminded of their blackness?
I’m not exactly what a portrait of “whiteness” would be, but I’m sure it would involve clothing from the Gap. Continued »
Whiskey, Dollhouse, and why everyone else on the internet is wrong
May 2, 2009 | Filed under Misc., TV
This post contains severe spoilers for last night’s Dollhouse episode, so if you haven’t watched it on your DVR or Hulu or whatever, then DO NOT KEEP READING. Continued »
The Cycle
May 1, 2009 | Filed under Misc.
1. Media picks up on unusual disease ravaging rural/poor/3rd world country.
2. Disease sort of comes to US.
3. Medical organization says something quotable and easily taken out of context about disease. Media runs with it.
4. Relentless media coverage creates panic. Surgical mask sales spike.
5. Panic spurs politicians and bureaucrats into saying and doing silly things that further feed panic.
6. Media reports on panic, wondering why everyone is panicky. Media questions if panic is really necessary.
7. Media reports that disease wasn’t as bad as hoped, advises people to stop panicking.
8. Media offers retrospective on panic, wonders what caused it. Could excessive media coverage be to blame?
9. American public loses interest, watches American Idol.A handy guide to pronouncing Texas city names
Apr 21, 2009 | Filed under Misc.
Everything’s bigger in Texas, it’s true. But, did you know that sometimes things are a bit more confusing, too? For instance, there are quite a few places in this great state that might give pause to ‘foreigners’ when it comes to pronouncing their names. But don’t fret, ‘pardner’! Just follow this handy pronounciation guide, and you’ll be talkin’ like a Texan in no time!
Dallas - DAL-us (okay, that one was easy!)
Sachse - SAX-ey
Montague - mon-TAYGH
Lewisville - LEWIS-ville (no French allowed)
Bowie - BOO-eee (like Jim & knife, not David)
Fort Worth - COW-town
Coppell - COP-pell
Arlington -TRAFFIC-jam
Terrell - “Oh yeah, where the nuthouse is, right?”
Paris - SHITS-ville
Padre Island - SPRING-break
White Settlement - “Yes, it’s a real town, yes it’s called ‘White Settlement’, and yes, the population of said town continues to vote to keep it named that way.”
Bexar county - BEAR (or bay-HAR if you speak Spanish or are a pretentious white person)
Please feel free to add your own in the comments!
Better off Ted is the best show you’re not watching
Apr 15, 2009 | Filed under TV
Were it not for a fortuitous trip to the gym a few weeks ago, I may never have watched Better Off Ted, a brilliant and hilarious show that somehow managed to wind up on ABC Wednesday nights. Ted is a workplace sitcom in the vein of 30 Rock and The Office, but with the cartoonish, crazy elements of those two turned up a few notches. Underneath the zany, sweet sitcom antics, however, lies a subversive and dark satire of work politics and the kind of mega-corporations that make everything from food to office chairs.
The action centers around Ted, the head of research at a giant conglomerate called Veridian Dynamics - whose real life closest analogue is GE. Take a look at one of the corporate commercials that are a staple of the show’s opening:
The characters are likeable enough that the standard sitcom-y plots, such as the will-they-or-won’t-they romance of main character Ted and creamer-stealing Linda, could stand on their own as sweet and amusing. But the brilliance of the show lies in the satire. Linda points out that the company sends her a bill for the personal calls she makes — although they don’t charge her for them, they just want her to know that they know she’s making them. ”Is it possible for a company to be bitchy?” she asks. Faithful scientist Phil is frozen cryogenically, but accidentally thawed by careless movers, leading to unfortunate side effects such as screaming uncontrollably in the middle of a sentence. Or, like last week’s episode, when the company replaces all the motion sensors that control the lighting and automatic doors with sensors that detect light bouncing off the skin — except the sensors don’t see black people. The company’s solution? Hiring minimum-wage white people to follow the black employees around. Which of course, leads to another problem (which Portia de Rossi explains about halfway through this clip):
The short of it is: Better Off Ted is the funniest show since 30 Rock, and your life is demonstrably worse if you’re not watching it. It airs Wednesdays at 8:30/7:30c on ABC.
A year of various rage
Apr 13, 2009 | Filed under Misc.
Today marks the one year anniversary of this website, and I thought I’d mark the occasion by sharing a few things I’ve learned, and to recap some popular posts, and personal favorites.
Did you know the site icon is called the "Mean little ball of rage?" Did you know this site HAD an icon?
Things I’ve learned over the last year of blogging:
- WordPress is easy to manage, but not so easy to set up.
- Never, ever use Yahoo! webhosting. Ever.
- The people that care about Tekken 6 are not necessarily the people that will care about anything else on this website.
- The need for new content on a regular basis creates a tremendous amount of pressure, even when it’s a hobby and you’re not making any money from it.
- I do not respond well to that kind of pressure.
- “Child sex porno” is inexplicably one of the top search terms used to direct people to this website. Seriously. I really don’t know what to do with that.
- No one else seems to hate heelys as much as I do.
- The Germans who make the Opera web browser are pretty nice guys.
Here are some of my personal favorites from the past year you may have missed:
- Zippity-doo-dah - my very first post which dealt with the never-controversial topics of video games and racism: specifically, the controversy over the first Resident Evil 5 trailer.
- Harmony Remote 550 review - My take on the Harmony Remote was somewhere between absurd and disturbing. My love, however, has not faded with time.
- An Open Letter to the Woman in the Car Behind Me - Because she really needs to read it.
- A Politician Lied? - The closest thing to a political viewpoint you’ll probably ever find on this website, but hopefully not the last usage of the term “kitten-rape”.
- A Grown Up’s Guide to Sesame Street - Because the world needs to know about Baby Bear.
- Dash Express GPS Post-Mortem - I’ve spent a lot of time covering the Dash over the past year, but my review of what went wrong invited a very interesting comment from an anonymous source claiming to be a former Dash employee. I can’t verify because the email used for comment verification was a throwaway address, but it rings true, even if it’s just rumor.
Thanks for sticking with me, and I promise another, even better year of tardy updates, bizarre sexual odes to electronics, nonsensical ramblings, and blatant attempts to drive up pageviews. Happy anniversary, me!
