Shawn Johnson is My Favorite Chipmunk

Watching adorable chipmunk person Shawn Johnson win the gold tonight warmed my little grinch heart to its core. Seeing her eyes light up when she realized she had won made me want to have children and then shower them in Christmas presents. As she made her little Charlie Chaplin waddle up to the podium, I took joy knowing that she’d still have the same big smile if she had won silver or gold. What a good little representative of America. I hope they make a little porcelain angel version of her to put up on my mantle during the winter.

Only because I’m bored

Here’s what I’ve been bumping lately:

Kings of Leon - Sex On Fire

Ryan Adams - Cherry Lane

The Frames - Locusts

Phish - 10/31/98 in Vegas, the entire show has like nine plays on my iTunes this week

Randy Newman - Burn On

Steve Earle - Warrior

Ghostface - Big Girl

Leo Kottke - Rings

Terence Blanchard - Levees

Rufus Wainwright - Little Sister

Anthony Hamilton - I’m a Mess

Least Effective Facebook Ad of 2008

Thanks for the heads up, Thrillist.

Space: The Irrelevant Frontier

NASA’s 2008 budget is well over 17 billion dollars. Wow. Like many others, I find myself asking if it is necessary, or even beneficial, for that matter, to use taxpayer money to fly around in spaceships. Is the information pertinent to our future survival? Or is NASA just the governmental equivalent of checking for monsters in the closet before going to bed?

This depends. Renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking once said, “It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species.  Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.”

In response to that, I ask, is life on Mars or the moon really a better alternative? I think that it’s fair to note that YOU CAN’T BREATHE IN SPACE! There’s no water or anything else necessary for survival, and I imagine that interplanetary jetlag is just a nightmare. I’m going to take a stab in the dark, but maybe outer space wasn’t designed with humans in mind.

With all due respect to Mr. Hawking, the last thing I’m thinking of at the end of the world is taking up a duplex with Marvin the Martian. It is beyond depressing thinking about a typical morning on Mars: Oh, what a beautiful day—oh wait, it’s not beautiful, because I’m wearing a glass helmet and it is dark. And here comes another awe-inspiring dust storm to frustrate my allergies and wreak havoc on my vegetable garden—not that anything grows here, because there is ice in the soil.

Keep in mind the harrowing journey, too, that is required to travel to Mars. To escape Earth’s gravity, one must travel at seven miles per second. Don’t bother doing your hair that morning. Furthermore, a journey to Mars would take eight months. I’ve never been stuck in a room with someone for more than a couple of hours, but even then my stories get repetitive. Eight months? Fuh-getta-boutit.

So maybe it isn’t necessary or safe to explore Mars, but can we really put a dollar value on the human desire for knowledge and exploration? Yes, four dollars. Because if someone approaches me and asks, “Would you like to see something that has never seen before by human eyes?” in reference to some newly discovered Martian germ, I would pay no more than four dollars. When it comes down to it, a germ is a germ, and I am more than satisfied with what has been given to me on this planet.

Why the US Women’s Gymnastics Wins Gold Over China

There’s something disenchanting and creepy about the Chinese women’s gymnastics team. Sure, their performance was outstanding, but it’s hard to feel anything but pity for them. All I’ve heard is how these girls were plucked from the cradle and thrown into this gymnastics machine, where they no longer had rights to see their families, where every waking moment was devoted to learning and perfecting gymnastics. Whether or not they’re all sixteen (there’s no way), all these girls have been denied what should be a very basic right, and that is to live. To lose all that is important and to substitute it with, well, something that is only important once every four years (and to very few people), you know that in the end they’ve lost. Is a gold medal even worth a fraction of that cost? No way. I couldn’t wish a life like that on my worst enemy.

*End Sappiness*

Let’s not forget to mention how…weird the Chinese girls look. They look like mutated sewer monsters. America has these adorable cartoon chipmunk people like Alicia Sacramone and Shawn Johnson, but the Chinese girls look like evolutionary stragglers. The only normal-ish looking one—don’t know any of their names—is the one who is missing a couple of teeth on the left side of her mouth. I’m guessing they’re baby teeth, and that the tooth fairy definitely did not visit her. Either way, for a country that clearly cherishes appearances over endearment (see news story about girl that sang in opening ceremony) you think they could spring for a couple of lookers. Sorry, glitter can’t cover ugly.

PS: It’s totally uncharacteristic of me to go for something like the Olympics, but I can’t help it. I’ve gone crazy! I go back to school in less than a week, and I’m turning down hanging out with my friends to watch the Olympics. Everything is interesting to me. I need help. My eyes hurt from watching.

8/3

- My computer’s starting to turn on me. I can feel it. I think it started on Thursday when I tried to use one of those websites that streams television shows. I think I may have picked up some mal-ware, and now everything’s running frustratingly slow. Naturally, I don’t know how to fix it. Something tells me that waiting and hoping for the best isn’t the best solution, either.

- I have a big shot job at a little shot newspaper as the opinions editor, and it’s imperative that I learn InDesign. I’ve tried learning it on three separate occasions, but each attempt left me feeling burned out and stupid. Help.

- The funny thing about summer is that everything fun comes with consequence. I went out to a nature preserve today with some friends, we grilled, we music’d, we displayed our mediocre athletic skills, and we had a good time. Unfortunately, I’m burnt and bitten. My skin has had better days. My apologies, Skin!

- Kurt Vonnegut had these kind things to say about semicolons: “But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” I felt a little ashamed after reading that. I suppose I won’t be using semicolons anymore. Except, of course, to make little winking smileys, like this

- I’ve calculated that by the end of the summer, I will have spent more than I made. This is unfortunate, seeing that since I’m in college, eighty percent of my annual income is made during the summer. Typically I’m a fiscally responsible person, but my need to invest in memorable experiences got the best of me. I guess it’s okay, though, to drop a few grand for priceless memories. Right? Right.

Death to the Ad Men (or at least make them shut up)

Something’s been annoying me lately, but I don’t think there’s a term to describe it, so I’ll make one up: fludging. Fludging, according to me, is when a company pats themselves on the back for doing something they should have been doing all along. Like when Kraft brags on its label that their cheese is made with real milk.

Cheese by definition is a food prepared from pressed curd of milk. In essence, Kraft is boasting that what they package and sell as cheese is just that: cheese. It’s sort of like meeting someone new and expecting them to give you a dollar for not lying about your name.

McDonalds is more than proud of the fact that they use 100% real beef in their burgers. Forget those digital cows or the deformed horses that sometimes get mis-sorted at the meat rendering plant, they use real cows, and they’re real proud.

I shouldn’t just single out these two companies, though, because everyone’s doing it. The worst scenario is when a company promotes their sudden ecological consciousness. If you buy this T-shirt made from bla bla bla postconsumer bla bla bla organic cotton bla bla bla all the factory’s children were generously compensated bla bla bla, you will reduce your carbon footprint. Translation: We’re not as evil as we once were. Sure, you’ll undo whatever environmental good you did simply by starting your engine, but at least you’ve acknowledged that a small portion of our massive gamut is sort of making things a little better, kind of. Not really, though.

What the fludge is wrong with these companies? Any good intentions are immediately voided once you exploit them for profit. Not to mention that they shouldn’t have been destroying the earth, feeding us cow-like foodstuffs, or passing off a medley of chemicals as milk in the first place.

Tricky advertising has done more than its part in thickening our economy and making America into the mighty, nation-stomping giant it is, but it has also led us by the hand into widespread obesity, lung cancer, and unobtainable expectations.

To me, not much is sadder than knowing there are people picking up their phones and credit cards to buy hope from infomercials or the internet, only to be let down and let down and let down, finally settling with defeat.

If by chance you are a big time corporate executive traveling through the blogosphere looking for a punk kid’s opinion, and you are under the weight of a staggering moral crisis, I have a suggestion.

Put out a commercial that is entirely honest and forthright. Show your product—let’s assume it is a food—prepared exactly how a suburban mother might prepare it. Alongside the product, show a list of ingredients, not sparing the coloring agents and chemicals. Next, drop the politically correct, multi-racial menagerie of spokespeople, and have a fat guy in an undershirt and crumb-speckled chinos. Lastly, insert the following voiceover: “This is our product. Though you may be turned off by its artificial composition, we can assure you that it still tastes pretty good. The easiest way to achieve satisfaction is to set your expectations low, so why not give us a try? We’re really not that bad.” And fade to black.

Hard-Hitting News

Wait…what’s that say?

Did anyone else catch this on Breitbart today other than me?

Pedophile Chic?

I try to stay abreast (ha!) on what’s fashionable, and I suppose I’m a reasonably trendy guy. So when I’m looking at clothes on rich people websites to try and buy similar things from poor people stores, I don’t expect to see anything like this:

These are all new “styles” from Marc Jacobs. I imagine that if Pee Wee Herman, a child pornographer, Tim Burton, 1987, a crossing guard, and the bad guy from The Mask all got together and made some clothes, these would be them. This is what’s in vogue? First off, I didn’t realize that they recruited vampires with scoliosis to be fashion models. That’s bizarre. I got bullied a fair bit when I was younger, and am therefore sympathetic, but I would love to see this guy get pummeled against a locker until he peed himself.

I’m guessing Mr. Jacobs is an observational artist, and that he takes his ideas from things around him. Like wrapping paper. Retirement villages. Fisher Price play sets. Or Steve Buscemi in Billy Madison. Wherever he gets his ideas from, I think it might be a good idea for him to move someplace else, where there aren’t so many good looking eight-year-olds.

Then again, maybe I’m not sophisticated enough to understand it all.