Tuesday, November 19, 2013

We're Not Smoking Crack...

I get a lot of emails every day. Most of it is spam, some of it is daily epic deals and suchlike, but I have been pleasantly surprised with the awesomeness of one company.  Spirit Airlines has the testicular fortitude to set itself apart as the Michael Richards of email marketing.  They're as edgy as the parrot from Aladdin making a joke about 9/11 WAY too soon after the 9/11s. 


One morning while browsing the emails that hand wandered into my inbox over night like wisps of fog blown across a Scottish moor (delicious visuals) I chanced upon one with the title "We're Not Smoking Crack..." and then glanced over to the sender and saw it was my dear and faithful penpal Spirit Airlines.  They are almost as faithful as the crap I get from a linked in account I made in college, or the damned offers from Mimis Cafe.  That sort of attention is not worth a free breakfast guys.  I opened the email instead of banishing it directly to the fourth ring of hell (my trash folder) and was greeted with this:

  

This could be the edgiest spam email I've ever received and although I have no idea how I got onto their mailing list I now fully endorse spirit airlines.  To make a joke about Rob Ford and used it as a way to market flights to the city of delicious snow (you got that snow, man?) is absolutely awesome.  According to a coworker who is from Canada, Toronto used to be a nice place.  My Grandma used to say that about the Plaza Bonita Mall in Chula Vista, but she was always being racist because brown people made her nervous.  Old racist people are adorable. 

In case you are confused about why jokes about smoking crack are funny and you were wondering why a hitchcockian silhouette and a record tally would be funny you sure have come late to the party.  Your boy (Rob Ford, the former current whatever guy from Toronto) apparently likes to get really wasted with "urban" individuals and smoke a bunch of crack.  And shoot video of it.  Well done Toronto.

 
 
-G

PS: Have you guys been watching our new season of CRAFTY?! Its going very well. So many delicious beers, and we put our livers on the line for YOU!  Visit HotDamnTV.com/crafty or go to HotDamnTV.com and click on the delicious beer. Or get lost browsing our website like I get lost in Cary Elwes' eyes in The Princess Bride and maybe you'll find it.  Episode two is out now!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

HORRORS of Craigslist! (part iii)


Welcome my little friends to the darker side of one of the most useful and spookiest places on the internets!  This is HORRORS OF CRAIGSLIST~!  Each thread of this tapestry of woe and misery will be woven together before your very eyes.  Witness if you dare, the first installment that removes the rose tinted spectacles and reveals true unpleasantness and shocking audacity on the world's largest free classified page.  Read on fellows, if you're a bad enough dude.

part iii: Free... GIVE ME a trampoline.. For my goats?


Normally when you find something posted in craigslist's free section (aka the part of the ocean floor just past the continental shelf where everything just kind of slides off into the abyss, but just before the spooky tranny meetup threads) it is someone trying to give something away. For free.  That's what its for.  The vast majority of the posts follow this seemingly simple formula.  The other two things that get placed are panhandlers and SCAM ALERT white knight bullshit.  Panhandlers seem to think that by demanding a free washing machine or refrigerator because god bless you and I have 10 kids and they all need new ropas de ninos for school and whatever sob story you should make getting free shit on craigslist easier for them and I guess they're entitled because they almost spelled everything right in their ad.  Nice try Bruce, but free shit is earned through luck and skill.  It doesn't just fall in your lap.

All rants aside though, this beggar has got to be the most awesome one I've ever seen.  He wants a trampoline for his goats to gambol on!  Gamboling is goats doing goat stuff.  Ya know, like frolicking.  This guy is some kind of saint.  He has so much going for him.  When have you ever used the phrase "my goat herd" in a sentence?  Let alone this awesome sentence:


And this guy took the time out of his busy schedule to include names and pictures of all of his rad goats (that he employs on his sexy animal farm):

Lotus, Gorgeous, Blake, Zen, Christina, Lucy and Moose (The bad boy)
Why this guy owns goat(s) I really don't care, but damn it he wants them to be happy!  SOMEONE GIVE THIS GUY A TRAMPOLINE!  I'm not even going to go over how he's from Antelope Valley, one of the worst parts of the country since Hesperia formed itself a municipal county.  Also take note, if you were inclined to give this guy a trampoline you can find yourself the proud owner of some spooky not so free range chicken eggs and some preserves. Now he did state what was preserved, but if its in a mason jar and you got it from a weirdo there is a 90% chance its urine.


On a scale of 1 to SPOOOKY this ad rates a 1/2 out of 5 possible spook'ems for meeting the following criteria: Awww lookit the goats doing goat stuff on a trampoline!



-G

PS: Know of any horrors of craigslist we should know about?  Drop us a line here in the comments or on our learning challenged facebook page!  While you're here you should probably subscribe to our jazz and also go to the facemash and join that!  We will love you forever and let you play with our Army Men in the sandbox.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

HORRORS of Craigslist! (part ii)


Welcome my little friends to the darker side of one of the most useful and spookiest places on the internets!  This is HORRORS OF CRAIGSLIST~!  Each thread of this tapestry of woe and misery will be woven together before your very eyes.  Witness if you dare, the first installment that removes the rose tinted spectacles and reveals true unpleasantness and shocking audacity on the world's largest free classified page.  Read on fellows, if you're a bad enough dude.

part ii: Free... SPIDER for $50?

OH MY GOD KIDS GET BACK IN THE CAR, Look at the size of that spider!  I happened to be browsing the Free section (aka Le'Section Du Excellence) the other day and stumbled across this gem.  Finding some savage trying to sell something for $50 in the free section is always a treat, but a varmint that he found behind his toilet?  In Long Beach?  By all the gods. 

I do applaud Adam's effort, I even decided to blur out his phone number.  Kudos for being brave enough to put that up.  I wonder who would respond to an advert like this? In my mind I imagine the conversation would go something like this:

 TRANSCRIPT BEGINS:

**RING RING RING**

ADAM: Hello, this is like Adam and stuff.

CALLER: ~HEAVY BREATHING~

ADAM: HELLO? Enrique is that you vato?

CALLER: ~Clears throat~ H...hello, I am calling in regards to your
~sharp inhale as voice changes pitch a bit higher and more frantic~
Spider, it looks really lovely and I think I could give it a good home is it still available I am driving around long beach now just in case I came all the way from La Canada Flintridge and I would really like it!

ADAM: (barely audible: Oh Jesus..) Umm, yea man but the price went u
p this is like a premium spider with all legs fully attached and shit esse.

CALLER: ~High pitched squeak~ So what you're saying is that it is available?

ADAM: Yea, I just said it was. Damn.

CALLER: And its Huge? You said you would be willing to trade, what can I do to make this happen?

ADAM: I dunno like unnn.... Maybe some rims or something?  My little primo has this dope razor scooter and we wanna trick it out.  I mean its like already pretty low to the ground, but rims would help eyyy.

CALLER: Done and done. What is your address. ~Sharp inhale~ I'll write it down in my palm pilot.

**TRANSCRIPT ENDS**

You know, and more like that.  Only weirder.  I hope to the dark lord of the Missed Connections section of Craigslist that someone actually answered this guy's ad.  I am sure it must have been magical.


On a scale of 1 to SPOOOKY this ad rates a 5/5 for meeting the following criteria: Holy shit what the fuck a spider? It was posted in the free section and your boy clearly wanted to get paid for a fucking spider he found in his bathroom! And finally because he seemed to think that someone might be willing to barter for a spider.  He found.  In his bathroom.



-G

PS: Know of any horrors of craigslist we should know about?  Drop us a line here in the comments or on our learning challenged facebook page!  While you're here you should probably subscribe to our jazz and also go to the facemash and join that!  We will love you forever and let you play with our Army Men in the sandbox.

BONUS: Since this is our first ever 5/5 on the spook-o-meter here is a bonus gif that probably wont work because I don't think blogger likes gifs:


Wednesday, July 24, 2013

HotDamnTV Book Club : Chapter 1



Books are neat. They are full of words, punctuation, and all sorts of different notions! The HotDamnTV Book Club is going to be an ongoing semi (heh, semi) regular feature about literature.

Chapter 1: Or, Why Haven't THEY Made This Stuff Into Awesome Movies Yet?
EDIT: I wrote this post like 2 years ago and I'll be damned if all of these things aren't either going to be built into movies or have already become one!

I do realize that a good portion of these authors/books that I am about to discuss may or may not be in various states of production and well on their way to becoming films, or may have already been made into a really stupid animated movie (Watership Down, I'm looking you squarely in the eyes) but I don't care. Moving on, I am going to discuss a few properties that should be movies and express my indignation at their absolute lack of box office presence.  If you haven't read 'em, go out and get your learn on!

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

I'm working on another blog specifically about this book, but suffice it to say that it is incredible.  One of my favorite books of all time.  Ernie Cline wrote Fanboys (easily one of the most under rated and over looked geek movies of all time) and if you liked that movie you'd love this book. This book is chalk full of video game and pop culture references from the 80s and would be a licensing nightmare to try to produce, but ohhhhhh so worth it! It would be so epic.  In a dystopian near-future a willy-wonka esque contest plays itself out in a virtual world not unlike The Matrix or Snowcrash and it is awesome.  That's why it should be a movie. The other blog is way longer, so stand by and I'll do some cross linking when I'm done with all the typing and whatnot.

UPDATE: The movie rights have been sold and Ready Player One is currently in production!  It is my life's work to become a part of the cast or crew of this film.  I'd spit-shine lenses for just copy and credit if Ernie would have me.


Redwall (series) - Brian Jacques

I was once a young boy, and at some point I was in the third grade. Even at this early age I had been told constantly how much potential I had and that I was special or something because I read so much and barely had to study to ace tests like it was my job. Once upon a yesteryear I walked into my school library and asked the Librarian if she had anything in the occult section. I had learned the word the previous week and had read a pretty fresh book about a vampire that lived in a library and did vampire stuff to roast beef sandwiches instead of people's necks. The kindly lady replied that there was not really an occult section because this was a public library in a grammar school. Undaunted I demanded that she fetch for me her largest tome. According to her the longest book in her repository of knowledge was one by none other than Brian Jacques, and it was called Redwall.

I was enthralled!  These were tales of high adventure and more than that they had pages and pages dedicated to describing delicious feasts.  I'm a big fan of stuffing the old gob so these passages really spoke to me.  Every one of Jacques' books are full of battles, suspense, escape, slavery, possible racism, moles that have serious speech impediments.  I couldn't put them down and over the years I have read just about everything Jacques wrote.  If you like young adult furry fiction look no farther than this series.  Get eyes on some crummy fan made trailer or something.  Its all more or less rubbish.


I recently found a website to stream the animated series online supported the author's estate and bought a copy of the cartoons.  The cartoons are absolute shit and so repetitive it makes Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children books seem like they're not just 6-14 pages of descriptions of prehistoric ferns.  This property could do with a good CGI movie full of excitement and peril.



The Dark Tower (series) - Stephen King

When I was unemployed for an extended period of time a few years ago my then current and very muscley flatmate Steve introduced me to Steven King's The Gunslinger, the first tale in the epic meta-fiction and genre bending journey that would become known as the quest for The Dark Tower. I was hooked, I couldn't put them down! For something like 2 months I spent pretty much every spare minute reading through all of the ponderous tomes (Sorry Steve, but you and I both know that your books are worth their weight in gold and no editor would dare remove so much as a semicolon.) and eventually I got to the end. No spoilers, but I'm sure we all know that if a journey is grand enough the destination doesn't really matter. There are periods on the end of all of our man's sentences and that's good enough for me.

Bringing the entire scope of this sage to life on celluloid (or whatever is inside of memory cards) would be a challenge. I'm not even sure if HBO could do it. Perhaps focusing on one movie at a time and making it as amazing as possible would be the ticket.


The Dragonriders of Pern (series) - Anne McCaffrey

Much to my (and I'm sure Ms. McCaffrey's) chagrin the only bit of media produced under the Pern banner has been a by all the gods awful dreamcast game. It was like Shenmue bad. I cringe just typing about it. I feel like I need to clorox wipe my keyboard.

How can such a rich body of work be so long neglected? There are countless amazing stories to choose from, to say nothing of the incredible world that Anne McCaffrey built with so many thousands of pages. Take the Harper Hall Trilogy (just three of 22 novels in this verdant landscape) and make that into an epic HBO mini series!  Or literally any of the novels could stand alone and fill 90 pages of script and be a pretty fun summer event.  Dragons, Killer thread falling from the skies and devouring anything not made of stone, medieval stuff, DRAGONS!  These books were so much fun to read as a kid I would literally devour one in a sitting.  Staying up way past my bed time and destroying my vision by the dim glow of my lava lamps I would read them cover to cover.

Here, clap eyes on some of the shitty gameplay.  Its all more or less like this:




Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

Ender's Game is the quintessential precocious child book. Kids read this at a young age because the protagonist is a kid who does something that is almost unheard of in any type of fiction (or literature in general), that is behave like an adult and have complex views on what is going on in the world around them.  Card for years said he refused to give an Ender's Game movie his blessing because he hate's CGI.  That is all well and good, but I guess science has caught up to Card's moderately homophobic but otherwise excellent vision of the future where small kids should beat up aliens.  I have read all of the Ender's books, and even the weird ones with grown up Ender and all sorts of time travel and existential science fiction and its all great stuff.  I am very excited and I can't wait for Ender's Game to come out.  Also it has Han Solo in it!  Here, dig the trailer and try not to develop a serious case of the goosepimples:



That's it for this classy discussion of literature by learned men.  Do you have a favorite book that you think would make a dynamite movie?  Post it here in the comments!  Or go back to our dumb facemash page and leave one there.


BONUS: Brian Jacques seducing the shit out of you:


-G

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

HORRORS of Craigslist! (part i)


Welcome my little friends to the darker side of one of the most useful and spookiest places on the internets!  This is HORRORS OF CRAIGSLIST~!  Each thread of this tapestry of woe and misery will be woven together before your very eyes.  Witness if you dare, the first installment that removes the rose tinted spectacles and reveals true unpleasantness and shocking audacity on the world's largest free classified page.  Read on fellows, if you're a bad enough dude.

part i: Free Palm Trees

The free section of craigslist is amazing.  I've gotten myself a dryer that more or less works, something like half a dozen trampolines, even a full sized arcade machine!  But it has a darker and much more sinister side.  Are you familiar with freebie marketing, also known as the razor and blades business model?  Its kind of like that.  Or more accurately the ol' bait and switch.

You show up to the free section of craigslist and think to yourself, "Lamb sakes, would you look at this?  Some kind and benevolent soul is offering me not one but FIVE free palm trees?  Holy crow that is an exceptional deal.  I'm going to tweet the pope right now and start the beatification process because this guy is some kind of modern day Pope Pius XII (Hitler's pope lol, you can look it up he was actually not that cool)."

But my dear friend you are wrong.  As with anything in the free section of listo del Craig you have to think about the other end of the poker table.  Why would someone be giving away perfectly good crap?  Because removing gigantic fucking palm trees costs serious time, money, and effort!  Even if you weren't going to save it or replant it (seriously dude?) and just chop it down that alone is a bill from your boy Ernesto with several zeroes in it.  Let's take a closer look.

AH HAH~!  That's the kicker right there.  Who in there right mind would want to do this?  Much like the other horrors of craigslist I ask myself, "Is anyone actually stupid enough to fall for this obvious bid for free labor and/or junk removal?"
I guess I should blur that guy's number, unless you dear reader are VERY excited about his free palm trees.

  

There, much better.  Nice and respectful of the ol' privacy and such like, wot? Wait, back that minecar up, are those free pine trees beautiful AND 30ft tall?  Let me run right out and strap 3 of them to my '94 Saturn SL2.

On a scale of 1 to SPOOOKY this ad rates a 4/5, not too original but if you are stupid enough to fall for it woe unto thee!  The lesson here my precious little curly haired maidens is do not even bother clicking on a free palm tree post.  Use your noggins for something other than a hat rack!


-G

PS: Know of any horrors of craigslist we should know about?  Drop us a line here in the comments or on our learning challenged facebook page!  While you're here you should probably subscribe to our jazz and also go to the facemash and join that!  We will love you forever and let you play with our Army Men in the sandbox.


Monday, July 22, 2013

Drinking Game : Live! (Starring Bob Levy)

 
 
I have lots of friends who were in movies, but none I respect more than Bob.  Bob is not only one of the most talented directors in the game but he also has more heart than a bag of sweethearts valentines day candy.  When he told me that he was in a movie where he played a director I immediately had to run out and get it (and by run I mean of course use the internet to buy it at a high price.).  The movie is actually pretty good (no Gymkata or Miami Connection, but what is?) and I especially enjoyed Bob's acting.  Imagine Arnold's Running Man on even more steroids and with more bullets and you pretty much have Live! starring Eva Mendes Bob Levy!  So sit back and enjoy the life imitating art imitating life!


Step 1: Get a hold of "Live!"
Step 2: ???

Rules:
Drink Whenever the following is said or heard:
Live!
Bob (aka The Director) calls the line cut (i.e. Camera 1! Ready Camera 7! etc.) (drink twice if you actually see him doing the directing)
Reality
Russian Roulette
Ratings (including a number and the audience share)
 
Drink Whenever the Following is seen:
Someone pulls a trigger
Someone breaks the 4th wall (usually looking at the camera, but sometimes talking to the flimsy director of the fake documentary that frames up the film)
Unnecessary star filter on the revolver
WATERFALL: When Bob does his opening speech!
Characters in the film drink anything
Nudity (one or more nipples attached to a female lady)
Boom in shot



Finish Your Drink When:
WTF 50 Cent?
SPOILER: The Bro from Santa Cruz Shots himself
SPOILER: Katie Gets Shot

NIGHTMARE MODE:
Fund our kickstarter to get Bob to do director commentary!  (Just kidding. Or are we?..)
 
REAL NIGHTMARE MODE:
DRINK CHILI BEER THE ENTIRE GAME~

Final Thoughts:
GRANT: I've got a really great feeling about this, now all we have to do is test it.  From my notes we have a lot of LIVE and a lot of Bob calling the line cut so I think this should go really well.  Wanna see me suffer through a movie like Howard the Duck or Gigli just to try to build a drinking game?  Feel free to suggest a new movie for us to do up in the comments here or on our dumb Facebook page!  Thanks for lookin' at the first new drinking game in like 2 years!  Stay more or less satiated my friends.


TYSAN: Grant, I love Bob and he is the only thing that enabled me to sit through this movie, but we both know that I was missing a beer. So heaven forbid I would have to endure this again and not just fast foward to 11 time emmy award winning Bob Levy's brave and Oscar worthy performance, I think some serious drinking describe in such text above is required. hashtag drinkingrequired.

-G

BONUS:  That up there is Tysan's first ever blog post! Holy crow.  Also, one of Bob's favorite beers is Chili Beer, go get you some!



Tuesday, June 25, 2013

similar vol.2


So after much hemming and hawing and gnashing of teeth, here's part two of an on going series on movies that are awfully similar. Was one studio just too lazy to think up an original idea? Is there some "inspired by" going on? Is America just ready for two movies about Victorian era magicians? The people cry out, and its for two movies about trains.




I pride myself on watching movies and then telling other people my deeply personal thoughts about 'em via the interwebbys, but this will not be one of those cases.  I've never seen either of the two films we are discussing today.  I was so thoroughly confused when I saw posters and adverts for White House Down that I honestly thought it was the same movie.  Seriously.  Both appear to have a Black President (farfetched, I know) and some mansome secret service fella who will undoubtedly start the movie with a suit on but end it in a tank top or an undershirt.  But honestly, as a fan of black president hunky white secret service dude white house action films 2013 is truly a banner year.


Let's take a look at some stats:

"Olympus Is Down":
Budget: $70,000,000
Release Date: 22 March 2013
Amount of Plot Keywords: 144
Runtime: 120 min
Trailer:



"White House Falling":
Budget: $150,000,000
Release Date: 28 June 2013
Amount of Plot Keywords: 15
Runtime: 131 min
Trailer:




While White House (stick with me here, I know this is going to get confusing) has more than twice the budget of Olympus, it is clear which movie is superior since not only does Olympus have almost 10 times the plot keywords but it also has 100% more Morgan Freeman.  Freeman has been a staple for decades as the go to semi-mystical black man / presidential figure.  He has played GOD for God's sake! Although so has Alanis Morisette (Isn't that ironic?).  If Morgan Freeman wasn't enough Olympus is Stumbling also has Dean McDermott, one of the manliest actors on TV.  Pic is related on the right, Dean McDermott.  He is a pretty cool guy and often plays a pretty cool dude on tv shows and movies.  He occasionally shows up on morning television on Hallmark Channel's Home & Family. 

Upon further review (of just the trailers, not the movies) I have managed to piece together the jarring fact that apparently Morgan Freeman is not the black president in the one movie, he is the speaker of the house who ends up being the acting president because I guess the chinese murdered everyone else or something?  I also learned that we don't negotiate with terrorists and/or madmen.

I probably will not pay to see either of these movies.  In fact I couldn't be bothered to watch both trailers.  These movies excite me almost as much as cop-drama or lawyer-drama tv shows.  The only thing remarkable about either of these films (term is used loosely) is that they are so similar.  All we are doing here is throwing more pies people.  One pie may be funny, but if you throw another pie at someone it does not get twice as funny (if it was funny or good to begin with).  Save your money and go see the third installment in the coronetto trilogy, The World's End starring my boy Sean from Sean of the Dead (not to be confused with The End starring almost every funny contemporary american comedian/stoner)


-G

(BONUS: You just read the first complete blog I've written in like 1.5 years.  I am America.  Also we are still hard at work on CRAFTY!  We've got something like 3 or 4 episodes in the can so look forward to the future.)