I am back in Washington. Thanks to everyone in Philadelphia who came out to the show -- always nice to hear friends and family laughing in the audience. I hope you got your money's worth.
Among the many pleasant aspects of the weekend was a chance to meet one Mr. Doogie Horner, the emcee for the weekend. Doogie has a very distinctive comedic voice, and also a hellacious beard. He's also the guy who did the cover art for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters). Plus he has a book in the works that will fully mine the comedic value of flow charts. He's a very, very interesting dude. Do yourself a favor and google his name -- you can see a few of his charts online.
More Fun With Automobiles
We had some snow in Philly -- just enough to make the housing development where my parents live almost undriveable. I was struggling to get to a main road, tires spinning a bit, and suddenly the "ABS" light starts beeping on my display panel.
Apparently, my car noticed that I have been lax on my sit-up routine. We all try to stay in shape -- and I was definitely inspired by "Jersey Shore" -- but sometimes exercise gets lost in my busy schedule of sleeping and not working very hard. This was more upsetting than December, when the small "oil lamp" light turned on, indicating that my car was low on magic genies. As they must be imported from the Middle East, genies are not cheap.
Another possible explanation, floated by the Jetta manual, is that ABS stands for "anti-lock braking system." But that would probably cost a lot of money to fix. So I stuck with my original diagnosis and made my way into downtown Philadelphia, flexing muscles as I drove. And sure enough, the light magically went out after about half an hour.
I have been attempting to learn more about my car, so that I can perform my own diagnosis and repairs. But it is very difficult when you don't know the terminology. For example, do you know what a solenoid is? Apparently it's very important. My current guess is that it's a very cool, suave black robot which somehow improves the sound of R and B on my stereo. If this isn't the case, I don't want to know, because I like my version just fine.
Promising a "solid future for America," President Obama signed a $62.4 billion odd jobs bill this afternoon at a Rose Garden ceremony.
The initiative provides a massive infusion to the struggling economy, for the purpose of painting fences, evening-out table legs and oiling the crap that needs to get oiled. "The cracks in our economy's foundation are troubling," Obama said, "but now they will be weed-free for the first time in months."
Reactions on Capitol Hill were mixed. "I cannot condone this spending in a time of soaring deficits," said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the top Republican on the Budget Committee. "But the leaves in the Capitol gutters are like, totally turning black. It's nasty, and I'm not getting up at 8 a.m. on Sunday to handle that s***."
More than $23 billion will go to the purchase of 3-day-old bagels and muffins, which will be exchanged for the stump pulling, shed builiding and screen-door hanging covered under the program. Around $20 billion goes to rail infrastructure and cars to transport workers across the country. And $19.4 billion is designated as "scratch money, for parts and hooch and whatnot." Combined with the recently passed whitewash tax credit, the total economic impact is estimated at $100 billion.
The International Brotherhood of Hobos and Vagrants applauded the signing. "The devasating recession has deferred too many dreams," said IBHV President Patches Malone. "No longer will ditches go undug, nor holes unfilled. The promise of America is still strong. Uh, where's the nearest liquor store?"
Enjoy! Here's an evil snowman, Andrew Jackson, and two guys PUSHING A BUS.
On the (Snowy) Town
Hey -- guy jogging in two feet of snow. I like jogging. I came to it later in life, and I am no expert. My bosoms heave a great deal as I jog. But I, like the Doobie Brothers, sincerely understand the joys of getting off the treadmill and taking it to the streets. I even jog outside when it's cold! But you are an idiot. We get it, you're in shape. Now, you aren't like that jerk across the street jogging in short shorts. But that's where you're headed. Slow down before you get there.
Hey -- people in snow shoes. We've all had buyer's remorse. Most of the instances in my life involve t-shirts with logos, but I've even sunk $300 on a 19-inch flat screen TV with a crappy picture. My boogie board hasn't gotten much use in the last 18 years. And hey, we want to get some use out of those money pits. But as I make my way through Chinatown, I can't help but notice that I am outpacing you wearing low-end trail-runners with severely eroded tread. And, let's be frank, I'm not THAT athletic. That should be a hint.
Hey -- people wearing cross-country skis in the city. You're making the snow shoe people look good.
Hey -- guy walking around town in the snow judging people like a jerk. Stop looking so handsome, you scamp.
A few doors down from me lives a couple with 3-year-old twins. After the storm, they dug out their car. On Sunday they had to run an errand with their kids. On their return one hour later, they found that someone had parked in the space they cleared. They did not recognize the car.
They left a note on the windshield, explaining that they had cleared the spot, and that they needed to park in front of their house for the sake of their young kids. Later in the day, they noticed that the note had been removed from the windshield and torn up. The remnants were visible inside the stranger's car.
I learned all this while shoveling out my own car Sunday afternoon. The mother of the twins was relating it to a plow driver she had flagged down. "Money!" she yelled, and the man pulled over. They did not want help clearing out a new spot, she explained. Then her husband took over. "I want to bury him," he said, while gesturing to the stranger's car.
It didn't take long. The plow made a few passes and rammed a mountain of solid-pack snow against the driver's side of the stranger's car. Then the couple went inside.
About 40 minutes later, a young man walked past me, got up to the buried car, and yelled (very loudly, with children just across the street) "F**K!" He got into his car through the passenger side, started it, tried to gun his way from the spot and saw that his car was going nowhere. He walked back up the street and asked me, "What happened here?"
I said I didn't know, and that plows had been coming regularly up and down the street. He asked if I had an extra shovel, which I didn't. So he trudged to the hardware store a few blocks away and came back with a new shovel. Then he started shoveling out his car, not by throwing the snow in some kind of pile, but by whipping it into the middle of the street. When I went inside 20 minutes later, he was still working.
I can't decide if this is an example of society working perfectly, or horribly.
Snowed in
Sometimes weather drives us to horrible things, like cannibalism. On Saturday, I suffered a much worse fate: I had to watch "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."
Facebook ads are obviously designed to target individual users. I'm not sure what this one is trying to say.
Going by the picture, I'm guessing that guy does not qualify for the $49 a month rate. Also, it occurs to me that Geico could lower rates even further if they stopped spending $16 billion a year on ad campaigns.
Trivia Rescheduled
For fans of Happy Hour Trivia -- the approaching third end of the world has forced us to reschedule Happy Hour Trivia for Feb. 10. We're pushing everything back two weeks, to Wednesday, Feb. 24. If you want to keep your reservation (or need to change the size of it, etc.) be sure to e-mail trivia@dcstandup.com as soon as possible. Thanks!
Hammerin' Hank
Let's take a minute and think about the amazing career of one Mr. Hank Baskett. He was the fourth receiver on the Philadelphia Eagles. He somehow started dating Kendra from "The Girls Next Door," eventually taking her away from Hef. He knocked up Kendra and became a (sort-of) reality TV star, but he was also cut by the Eagles. Somehow, he ended up on the Colts roster, specifically on special teams.
And then he opened the second half of the Super Bowl by falling into an onside kick like a drunk toddler lunging at a coffee table. Armless people could have looked more graceful trying to catch the ball in their teeth. The Saints go on to win.
Hank, you have lived the hell out of your 15 minutes. May basic cable always have a place for you.
Right up front: I really wanted to hate this movie. At a party, it's more fun to be the guy who complains about popular movies, especially if there's a science fiction theme. Nerds will take a challenge to their favorite movie as an assault on their entire worldview, so they go straight into nerd berzerker rage. It never ends with violence, but instead some kind of a challenge to play Guitar Hero to defend your honor. And then you have an opening to mock Guitar Hero.
But "Avatar" wasn't bad! I usually don't like the combination of live action and CGI; computer environments almost always seem slightly off. Even if you're accepting the fact that it's an alien planet, once you know it's entirely inside a computer, it will never look "real." This however, was easily the best CGI I've ever seen in any movie, with the best use of 3D. And they didn't skimp by putting all the fun in an office park. It's mostly jungle, so they have to color to the edges of the page. There's no "wow" factor to CGI action -- it's pretty, but on a computer there are no stunts -- but the action sequences are put together nicely. I think I have to echo every other review I've read and say that it's worth it to see this movie just to appreciate the technical achievements.
The story is crap; it's a rehash of "Dances With Wolves" and "The Last Samurai" with lots of corporation-bashing and heavy-handed eco-posturing. But it is well-acted, and the story did not anger me enough to make me forget about the effects. And more important, it gives you just enough ammo to anger those Guitar Hero nerds! SPOILER ALERT.
Science has advanced enough to allow interstellar travel near the speed of light, cryogenic sleep, high-tech exo-skeletons and genetically engineered biological hosts into which consciousness can be transplanted. But the hero does not even have a motorized wheelchair.
The evil corporation, despite having no morals and virtually no interest in the indigenous people of the planet, opts against an orbital bombardment. Spaceships are a slight tactical advantage when your opponents haven't advanced beyond bows.
All the action takes place in a jungle where it never rains.
On a planet swarming with flying carnivores, the primitive aliens opt to sleep in hammocks in a tree.
The corporation has a multi-trillion dollar high-tech mining concern, but there doesn't seem to be any mining equipment or miners.
There's so much bioluminesence that the entire jungle is like the sidewalk in the "Billie Jean" video.
All the living things on the planet have some evolved some kind of biological USB port, but the only living thing that plugs in is the giant humanoid aliens.
Despite a complete lack of advanced technology, all the aliens have perfectly white, straight teeth.
That's just the surface. If this movie wins best picture, I'll puke, but it is entertaining.
Happy Lincoln's birthday! In honor of our 16th president, I have devoted my latest McSweeney's column to the log cabin of Lincoln's birth and what makes it special. You can click on over and read it right here.
One great factoid about the presidents: the first one born in a hospital was ... Jimmy Carter. Before that, it was home birthing for all of them. With the exception of John Quincy Adams, who sprang fully grown from John Adams' temple.
And I would certainly be remiss if I didn't include this very important video:
George Washington was excellent at tactical retreats, but he NEVER evacuated the dance floor.
Whatever John Adams lacked in charisma, he made up for by being shaped like a sack of potatoes.
Thomas Jefferson loved France, but he was never in love with France.
By virtue of his small stature and insanely hot wife, James Madison is commonly known as the Danny DeVito of presidents.
Yes, James Monroe quit college to fight in the American Revolution, but you quitting the University of Phoenix Online to pursue ultimate fighting is not the same thing.
John Quincy Adams sprang from his father's temple fully grown.
Before settling on "Old Hickory," Andrew Jackson tried the nicknames "Rotten Magnolia," "Crusty Pine," and "Sergeant Von Awesome."
Martin Van Buren was the origin of both "O.K." and "Look, I said O.K., so shut up about it already."
Though president for only a month, William Henry Harrison managed to get old man smell all over the White House.
John Tyler lived in the longest frame house in America. Seriously. Exciting guy, that John Tyler. Yup.
Manifest Destiny was cooked up mainly as a way for James Polk to impress chicks.
Zachary Taylor lived through four wars, only to be killed by a bowl of bad cherries. And that's why I never eat fruit, mom.
"Millard Fillmore" is a very awkward thing to yell out in a moment of passion.
Franklin Pierce's son was decapitated in a train wreck shortly before his inauguration, and his wife considered that God's punishment for Franklin aspiring to the presidency. So, relatively speaking, your marriage is a cakewalk.
We'll never know for sure if James Buchanan was gay, but we do know that asking about it is a great way to anger the tour guides at his house.
Abraham Lincoln wrestled as a youth, and it was his fervent hope that the seventh Lincoln-Douglas debate be held IN A STEEL CAGE.
Andrew Johnson only teases because he secretly likes you.
U.S. Grant knew no fear. He had been introduced to fear at a cocktail party once, but he was never that good at networking, plus the drinking affected his memory.
The "B" in Rutherford B. Hayes stands for Beyonce.
James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other simultaneously, and whenever he started, it was a good idea to grab your coat and find another party.
Chester A. Arthur would sometimes change pants several times a day, thanks to both his love of fashion, and his severe kidney problems.
In between White House stints, Grover Cleveland lived in Manhattan and worked as a bar back at Coyote Ugly.
After setting the record for longest presidency by a Harrison, Benjamin Harrison basically phoned it in the rest of the way.
William McKinley served under Rutherford Hayes in the Civil War. Hayes fired Chester Arthur from the New York customs house. Arthur was almost replaced by Theodore Roosevelt's dad. Roosevelt's dad was in "Footloose" with Kevin Bacon.
We all know that story about the teddy bear, but you should hear how Teddy Roosevelt lent his name to sexy nightgowns.
William Howard Taft was so much more than the fattest president. He was also the fattest military governor of the Philippines.
Woodrow Wilson loved vaudeville, and hated crippling strokes.
More than 100 love letters between Warren Harding and his primary mistress have been sealed by court order until 2023. So at least we have something to look forward to after the Chinese invade.
If you ask historians, they will tell you that Calvin "Silent Cal" Coolidge was not a ninja. Because that's how good of a ninja Calvin Coolidge was.
There's a little bit of Herbert Hoover in all of us. Not literally -- that would be disgusting.
Franklin Roosevelt contracted polio at a Boy Scouts event, and would have ordered them all into camps if they didn't enjoy that sort of thing.
Had Harry Truman lived long enough, he probably would have enjoyed the hits of Hall and Oates. Or nuked them. One of those.
The highlight of Dwight Eisenhower's tenure at Columbia University was the aquatic assault on Brown during homecoming weekend.
John Kennedy almost brought us to nuclear ruin, was unable to fulfill most of his campaign pledges and cheated on his wife a lot. But man, was he handsome!
Lyndon Johnson spent 25 percent of his presidency on his Texas ranch. So, there was a precedent.
Richard Nixon actually did a pretty good job, if you don't count that whole thing about destroying public trust in government.
Gerald Ford had offers to play in the NFL. And even today, he could probably start for the Rams.
Jimmy Carter means well.
As of 2010, Ronald Reagan is the only president to have been divorced. Everyone else has stayed together for the sake of the country.
There's a building in Langley called the George Bush Center for Intelligence, the signs for which make Northern Virginia Democrats hork a lot of coffee out their noses.
No matter what you think about Bill Clinton, he took Andrew Johnson off the hook. And that's something.
For eight years, George W. Bush was the greatest president of the 21st century.
Barack Obama has motivated a whole new generation of starry-eyed youth to be disappointed by government.
I saw this movie on Tuesday night, at a screening by the local B-movie society. I knew it would be bad. I did not know it would be the film equivalent of getting stage 4 cancer in every body part simultaneously while also being set on fire.
I don't want to revisit the memories, but the "story" is that ... oh, there is no story, and shots of women flashing the camera do not help. "Girls Gone Wild" has more gravitas. There's something about Galileo (the astronomer) trying to hunt down a zombie, but that sentence makes WAY MORE SENSE than what I watched. In an Ed Wood movie, at least the people are trying very hard. In this movie, the people involved seem to have an active hatred for the viewer. This whole movie might qualify as a hate crime.
In conclusion, if Hurricane Katrina somehow worsened the life of anyone involved with this movie, then it was not entirely a bad thing.
I have overcome the forces of tremendous apathy to finally post challenge 23. The topic is "Pandemics" and it was suggested by Cory Harris many moons ago. I've been using these jokes for months, but I just got around to taping them and posting it. Be warned that there is some profanity (it was a Thursday night and the crowd was demanding it). This is filmed in Philadelphia a tthe truly excellent Helium Comedy Club.
"Shutter Island" isn't a bad movie -- it looks pretty, and it's refreshing to watch every character chain smoke -- but it is offensively mediocre. If you get that much talent into one film, it should elevate the material, right? Like, if Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese decided to work on a teenage sex comedy, it should be a REALLY GOOD teenage sex comedy. As the women's field hockey team does jumping jacks in the shower, it should make you both laugh and truly appreciate the quiet and disturbingly human desperation of the sociopathic loner watching from his hiding place inside a locker.
The genre here is psychological mystery: DiCaprio investigates a disappearance of a criminally insane inmate at an island asylum, which also supposedly holds the psycho who killed his wife and kids. And he thinks the guys running the place are experimenting on the inmates. The problem is, the psychology isn't that gripping and the mystery isn't that mysterious. About 40 minutes in you get the vibe that something is seriously amiss -- the action never leaves DiCaprio, so you only get his perspective, and that perspective is increasingly weird. So either there's something massively sinister at foot, or DiCaprio is bonkers. It's not too tough to figure out the answer about halfway through, and then you keep hoping for another twist that's not coming. By the end, the "actual" explanation is so logically implausible that nothing in the plot is entirely satisfying.
If the lead was John Cusack and the production values were suckier, it would be perfectly acceptable entertainment. But that's not the case, so the real mystery is why DiCaprio and Scorsese would be pumped to work on this. It's not bad, but the screenplay is on par with something you might have thought up over lunch in a college dining hall. Expectations are not met. Go for the rental.
P.S. -- the previews for "Shutter Island" were awesome, and they suggested that there was a horror / action element. This is completely not the case.
Sausage Party!
A few weeks ago my lovely girlfriend decided to organize a girls only brunch -- a chance for her to spend time with friends of the same hormonal imbalances. It was a smashing success, not only from a socializing standpoint, but also because it made me and several other guys extremely jealous.
And so this Sunday, I hosted my first ever sausage party, in which guys gather to ... uh, eat sausages for brunch. Look, it sounded hilarious on paper. As if guys sitting around eating four kinds of sausage isn't manly enough, we also had an excellent and manly screening of ...
Movie Review: Black Dynamite
Every red-blooded American male worth his salt goes through a blaxploitation phase, because the movies combine male wish fulfillment, great music, nudity and karate/guns. "Black Dynamite" is not exactly a spoof of blaxploitation, but a careful re-creation, right down to the awful camera work and acting. Then once they establish that they can do a perfect imitation, they let it go off the rails and get progressively stupider.
It's awesome. You should probably see it. Easily the best Michael Jai White film that I've ever seen.
Who doesn't enjoy the Winter Olympics? Every four years, we get to see this glorious assemblage of amazing athletes who play fabulous sports that no one cares about 3.96 years at time, because we live somewhere warm, are too poor to play them or don't feel like getting up at 2:30 a.m. five days a week to have our semi-lucid and mentally abusive parents drive us to the rink for some ice time before school. As a layman, I love that tingly feeling when a hot-dog aerial skier loses a medal after a lifetime of training because her legs were two centimeters askew as she did 43 backflips and 17 twists in midair. That's what sports are all about.
But even if you don't LOVE the Winter Olympics, I think we can all agree that the breakout star is Madeleine Dupont of the Danish women's curling team. She first came to my attention in a bar last Thursday. The sound was off on that corner TV, but women's curling has a mysterious allure: women sweeping, happily. So right away, you have a sport clearly designed by men to get women intrigued about housework. But it gets better, because the Danish team decided to compete IN SKIRTS. At this point, we're pretty close to "French Maid" costume, so what guy wouldn't take notice?
Then it gets EVEN MORE BETTERER, because Madeleine Dupont is sort of hot. CNBC knows this, because every time she threw a stone (or whatever the terminology is), they gave you shots of her face that were so tight you could count her pores. I can totally imagine her with a headset microphone and a halter top, and I'm pretty sure they can design an auto-tuner that takes away a Danish accent. All of her songs could about curling, but really, they would be metaphors for heartbreak. I'm thinking we call the album "Swept Away" and get it on iTunes within the next two weeks. Either that or we bang out a new James Bond movie where she's the ward of some sinister guy with a curling fetish on the side, and then Bond seduces her. She can kill someone with a curling stone in the final scene. It can even be a tricky shot, around a corner or something.
So now we have an attractive Nordic woman who sometimes competes in a skirt, surrounded by other women who are doing housework on ice. That's almost USA-Canada hockey levels of excitement. And here comes the cherry on top: Canadians made her cry. They were so loud and abusive that she totally lost it! So she's a VULNERABLE skirt-wearing, housework-loving potential Nordic pop star/Bond girl. The Danish team isn't even that good, so what's holding her back?
Madeleine Dupont, the world is your oyster. Crack it.
It's taken me a few months to accept it, but I think my body has downshifted. And
also, the transmission fell out. And three of the four tires are flat and the AM
radio reception sucks.
Basically, I cannot easily lose weight anymore. During the 2008 holiday season, I
put on about 5 pounds. Par for the course. I blazed through 2009 with my usual level
of physical ferocity -- fighting street gangs twice a month, bench-pressing the
prostitutes in my stable three times a week, jazzercising -- but for whatever reason
my weight held at 195. No big deal, I figured: all my leather pants still fit, and
it's probably just extra muscle weight.
During the 2009 holiday season, I put on 5 more pounds. I am still hovering around
200 two months later. I'd fight more street gangs if I could, but I can only make
the streets so clean. I still feel and look pretty good, but if we project this out,
by New Year's Day 2040 I'll be pushing 350 pounds. I know the complete collapse of
the global economy in 2019 will prevent me from retiring in my 60s, but I'm not sure
I want to roll into my cybernetic golden years on a wheelchair with caterpillar
treads.
My metabolism now sucks. I tried to keep it fresh by not moving very much between
the ages of 15 and 25. But apparently these things have a shelf life, and so now
when I eat a one-pound bag of pretzels at 2 a.m., I'm going to pay the horrible
price.
I've been reviewing my options, and they aren't pretty. I could start heavy weight
training, but I'm really concerned that it will cut all the hours I have budgeted
for the programming of the Game Show Network. Also, say you get really buff, and
then you decide to go on a three-week bender in Sao Paulo to celebrate your 35th
birthday All that muscle turns to fat! It's like carrying around a loaded gun with
the safety off. No dice.
I could start eating right, but you know what costs a lot more than beer? Fruits and
vegetables. It would be fiscally abhorrent of me to eat apples in these troubling
times when I could get valuable nutrients from affordable, American-made beer.
So I think I'm stuck with fad diets. I need something to get me down 10 pounds by my
wedding, six months from now. Any suggestions? Do they involve honey sandwiches? If
they do, I'm all ears.
Snow delayed the fun by two weeks, but that enthusiasm just builds up behind the trivia dam. By Feb. 24 the trivia town was ready for some trivia flooding. (Metaphor over.) We had a packed house -- not an empty chair in sight -- with 14 teams total. "Speaking of ..." featured 10 general knowledge questions. "Zine-o-File" challenged teams to pick the real magazine titles out of a list filled with fakes. "Broken Resolutions" was a double challenge: given a heavily pixelated image, you had to identify what famous painting was shown AND know its formal title. "Short Stuff" honored the shortest month with questions about short things. And a special 4-point bonus question had a presidential bent:
Multiply the number of presidents named James by the number who died in office. Deduct that from the number of states Reagan carried in 1984. Add on the number of presidents who served exactly one full term. Whatever the total, tell me the president who corresponds to that number (i.e., 44 equals Obama). Answer below the pictures, if you want it.
"Hurry Up! Curling Starts at 9 p.m." overcame their obvious distraction to get 30 points out of 41. Plus they were the only team to nail down the bonus, for 34 points and the win. Squizzle and ToyoDUDS both ended up with 32, and a dance-off couldn't settle things -- both teams put in so much effort that they tied for second. Here they are:
And your answer ... 6 times 8 equals 48, subtracted from 49 equals 1, plus 12 equals 13. Your answer ... Millard Fillmore! Easy, right?
In search of something different, I checked out the Oscar-nominated animated shorts, packed together into one screening along with a few bonus films. The five contenders below (massive spoilers for all of them):
French Roast. A rich guy can't afford to pay for his coffee after losing his wallet, so he sits at the table hoping things will magically get better. Instead, they get worse. Not quite deep or funny enough to fill the 8-minute run time, and the animation isn't exactly eye-popping. Presentable, but it tops out at "cute."
A Matter of Loaf and Death. Wallace and Gromit are funny in a British way, which means you won't really laugh all that much, but you will smile every now and then. And also Wallace has bad teeth. At 30 minutes this is twice is long as any of the other shorts, but it holds up -- the story is that Wallace (a baker in this episode) ends up dating a serial killer obsessed with bakers. Good, light-hearted fun! It's nothing too different from the other Wallace and Gromit films, but it is clever and consistently amusing. They color to the edges of the page with all the sets, and since it's stop motion it looks substantially different from the competition.
Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty. This one struck me as an old-school "Saturday Night Live" sketch that just happened to be animated. A grandmother tells her pretty granddaughter a bedtime story: a beautiful princess is born, and while all the hot young fairies are invited to the christening, the old gassy fairy (i.e., grandmom) is left off the list. She crashes the party and curses everyone, so that if they ever fall asleep, they will die. Then she says good night. Morbid and good for a chuckle, but what's the point? It didn't need to be animated at all.
The Lady and the Reaper. An old widow takes a look at a photo of her dead husband, lays down for bed, and dies in her sleep. The Grim Reaper comes to collect her, and she's almost in heaven when she is suddenly yanked back by a surgeon who looks like Johnny Bravo. The Reaper gets frustrated, so he kills her again; the doctor revives her again. Then there's a Bugs Bunny-esque chase sequence, as the doctor and his nurses square off with Death, carrying the old lady like a football. Death gets frustrated and gives up, but the old lady, on learning of her revival, punches the doctor in the face, then ELECTROCUTES HERSELF. This was very confusing. There were some good sight gags here, and again it was a morbid chuckle. It might have had a point about end-of-life issues, but that doesn't quite gel with the slapstick. Bizarre. Very, very bizarre.
Logorama. This was the most frustrating of the bunch. The concept is great: it's a city (Los Angeles) in which every building and person is a corporate logo. The first few minutes (it runs for 16) you're just impressed with how clever it is, and how ubiquitous these images are in our life. And then ... nothing. There's a police chase, where Michelin man cops hunt down an evil Ronald McDonald, a lot of people get hurt in the crossfire, and then there's an earthquake. It's kind of funny, but the concept never pays dividends -- the story doesn't really seem to relate to the theme. In this case, it HAS to -- the theme is just too intriguing. Logos are symbols, so you need something symbolic to say. If there was a point here, I missed it, which is an absolute shame.
If I have to pick a winner ... beats the hell out of me. With a better story I'd give it to Logorama, hands down. But as far as combining vision with execution, the best one was Wallace and Gromit.
Honestly, my favorite short in the whole program was just an honorable mention. Pixar's "Partly Cloudy" played before "Up" in the theaters, and like most Pixar products it's close to perfect: inventive visuals, sweet sentiment and excellent humor. I guess no one wants to let Pixar big-foot these awards, though. Sigh.
Legal Stuff: If you have questions about this Web site, why? You should spend your time questioning the moral nature of any god who would let Chris White exist. But anyhow ... copyright 2009, Chris White Sucks Inc.
Martin Van Buren was the origin of both "O.K." and "Look, I said O.K., so shut up about it already."
Andrew Johnson only teases because he secretly likes you.
More than 100 love letters between Warren Harding and his primary mistress have been sealed by court order until 2023. So at least we have something to look forward to after the Chinese invade.
But even if you don't LOVE the Winter Olympics, I think we can all agree that the breakout star is 
August 2009: Jefferson.
Fall 2009: comic interviews on the podcast. 
