In the War Between.: June 2011

June 30, 2011

Someone entered a Disney Vacation contest via Facebook & noticed an odd official rule.

Trailer Mashup - 'Friends With Benefits' vs. 'No Strings Attached'.

Because, yes, the rumors are true... they are the same God damned movie.
Hollywood is the new Chrysler. You think you have options, but you really don't.

The Curious Case of the Parallel Career Trajectories of Michael Bay and Kevin Smith

I'm sure it's nothing.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes.

Mother-In-Law Carolyn Bourne's Scathing Email to Heidi Withers.

After a "get-to-know-you" family visit apparently turned into an ordeal, Carolyn Bourne wrote an email to Heidi Withers, 29, telling her she had a thing or two to learn about proper manners before she married Bourne's 29-year-old stepson, Freddie.

The email criticized everything from Withers' table manners and sleeping habits to her parents' financial status after the young couple visited the Bourne family home in Devon, a rural county west of London.

"Your behavior on your visit to Devon during April was staggering in its uncouthness and lack of grace," Bourne wrote, according to Britain's Press Association. Bourne even said it was a pity that Freddie had fallen in love with her.

Withers then passed on the email to some friends, who passed it on to others. The email quickly sparked a debate in the press, on Twitter and on Facebook about who was right: The hypercritical mother-in-law or the future bride who offended her in-laws by specifying what foods she wouldn't eat and taking seconds without asking permission.

Edward Bourne, Freddie's father, told The Associated Press on Thursday that no one involved would comment on the matter.

But the future bride's father did surface, telling the Daily Mail newspaper that Carolyn Bourne seemed to be an unbearable snob.

Nick Curtis, a columnist with the Evening Standard newspaper, said the contretemps has revived every stale joke on the planet about intrusive mothers-in-law.

"I sort of sided with both," he told the AP. "I'm not a parent, but I am a son-in-law, so I side with the junior partner. But I'm old enough now to believe in good manners, so I sided with the mother-in-law too."

Curtis said there was a useful lesson in this for every family.

"The moral is don't send out emails like this, and if you do receive one, don't forward it out. And be as nice to your in-laws as possible," he suggested.

"It is high time someone explained to you about good manners. Yours are obvious by their absence and I feel sorry for you.

Unfortunately for Freddie, he has fallen in love with you and Freddie being Freddie, I gather it is not easy to reason with him or yet encourage him to consider how he might be able to help you. It may just be possible to get through to you though. I do hope so.

If you want to be accepted by the wider Bourne family I suggest you take some guidance from experts with utmost haste. There are plenty of finishing schools around.

Please, for your own good, for Freddie's sake and for your future involvement with the Bourne family, do something as soon as possible.

Here are a few examples of your lack of manners:

When you are a guest in another's house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat, unless you are positively allergic to something. You do not remark that you do not have enough food. You do not start before everyone else. You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host.

When a guest in another's house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early, you fall in line with house norms.

You should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time and most definitely not in public. I gather you passed this off as a joke but the reaction in the pub was one of shock, not laughter.

You should have hand-written a card to me. You have never written to thank me when you have stayed.

You regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself why.

No one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash, celebrity style behaviour.

I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that convention is such that one might presume they would have saved over the years for their daughters' marriages.)
If this is the case, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes."

June 29, 2011

Can't Tell Me Nothing: Kanye West with Zach Galifianakis

MSNBC Airs Chick with 'CUNT' T-Shirt.

Suck it, Fox.

Edmonton Storm.

Came on FAST (I feel for my cyclist friends), tried to destroy us all, rained so hard people had to pull over when driving, it hailed in some places, then fifteen minutes later... gone.

Chet Haze, Tom Hank's Son, is a Bad Motherfucker.

He rhymed "again" with "again" because he DON'T GIVE A FUCK, y'all.

And he don't give a fuck about math either, apparently:

Actually, his entire Twitter is HIGHlarious, yo... (including using the word “homie” no less than eight times.)

– scratch last tweet — homie showed up with a case of hennessy a fresh new system and DJ equipment –#DOPE

Oh man…yall don’t know the heat I’m about to bring with this mixtape…its gunna be #BONKERZ

@chelseavperetti just saw some of your stand up….funny stuff girl keep it up! #comedy lol

Ima go to olive mountain tonight, get myself a mountain of olives. Sike olives are nasty

a good rule of thumb for frat parties: dont mingle, let the minglers come to you..hahaaa!! #krunked #fratlife #college

steady on the grind – take care of business thats rule number one #realtalk

i treat these women kinda sheik, so every time i post some shit *brrr* *brrr*

GOTTA tweet #twitty #tweet #twat

2 Fast 2 Furious was on tv….if this rap shit doesnt work out im becoming a loose cannon street racer #nodoubt #evamendes

I’m pretty sure this is some kind of performance art project for a thesis. Like Joaquin Phoenix except you KNOW this punk ass bitch ain't gonna allow hisself to get shat on, boi.

June 28, 2011

If Record Executives Signed The Beatles in 2011.

The Farm.

Newsweek's Princess Diana Cover & Accompanying Facebook Page.

What exactly was Newsweek trying to accomplish with these promotional ideas?
Because all they do is creep everyone the fuck out.

June 26, 2011

'Are You fucking Kidding Me?' by Kate Miller-Heidke. An Ode to Facebook.

I know I put up the live version of this up about 2 years ago but I remembered this song after the previous Facebook song and found this version quite beautiful.
So... enjoy.

TSA Pats Down Cancer-Stricken 95-Year-Old Woman, Removes Adult Diaper.

A Suspiciously "Wet and Firm" Diaper.

While passing through security, TSA officials "felt something suspicious and they couldn't determine what it was," so they took Weber's mother to a private room.

A TSA agent told Weber that her mother's Depends underwear was "wet and firm and they couldn't check it thoroughly," so the mother-daughter duo left in search of a bathroom to remove the underwear. Weber did not have an extra pair of Depends with her. Weber "burst into tears" but her mother was "very calm" even though she was forced to go through the airport without underwear. Her elderly mother was taken to the boarding gate without her as Weber was still going through security.

In response to the incident, the TSA said on Sunday that "While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner. We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure."

I recall a lot of my readers not having an issue with the power the TSA has been endowed with in the last few years.
I can't wait for all the "rules are rules" comments I get on this one, too.

Facebook Song- Another Reminder of How Facebook Reduces Us to Insecure Children.

Just When I Am Sure Marc Maron Only Responds to Hecklers and Haters on Twitter...

Leave it to Maron to stick it to me. ;)

"oh fucking well."

Marc Maron at the Comic Strip in Edmonton Alberta: A Fan's Review.

"For my next trick I will make everyone understand me..."

There are big laughs throughout his set, but it wouldn't do for Maron to be caught admitting it. Self-criticism is his thing; he is one of the "neurotic whining Jews" on whom standup was built. And he has continued to build upon that paradigm through his podcast 'WTF with Marc Maron', and his incessant need to come to terms with who he is and what he has been in a world that is seemingly against him. In essence, he is a man treading the water of sanity who is unabashed enough to let you watch and listen and laugh along.

In the Edmonton show, the American comic and podcaster proved that there's life left in traditional formula. Fretful solipsism and misanthropy may cost a lot in therapy, but the comedic value is limitless. His failed marriages, tumultuous friendships, and crash and burn career trajectories mirror even the most confident in his audience. And they loved him for it.

This is not, as Maron would be the first to point out, a show with momentum. He seemed to enjoy the awkward audience banter, possibly too much. While the first rule of stand up comedy would state 'Don't feed the trolls', he seemed pleasantly inspired by the cackling alcoholic "bitch" in the front of the room who left plenty of room for Maron's prepared heckler deflation. He'd rather be drawing attention to the drunks in the room or picking holes in his own now-meandering jokes than indulge in anything so formulaic as "structure". All the more surprising was that one found themselves blurting out big laughs at Maron's indiscriminate sideswipes. As my friend Shawn pointed out "His humour is accusatory." You are left wondering what his set would be without the hecklers.

But most of the humour is self-reflective and steeped in neurosis. The jokes revolved around Maron's midlife angst and the world seen through a fretful lens. There was great material about his relationships with women and his gnawing desire to fuck things up when they are going well, his struggle to get out of his own head, the "sad, tired demon" at his shoulder who once led him astray and now leads him to the Ben & Jerry's carton, and of course, his three cats. Authentic or otherwise, there's an impression of honesty and astringent relish of the fact that relentless self-questioning usually throws up some pretty galling answers.

Most ending with a desperate Maron screaming "GOD DAMN IT."

For more info on Marc Maron, here is a great interview: http://offthemike.com/2011/04/05/my-interview-with-marc-maron/

*All photos courtesy of Marc Maron's personal Facebook page and sample paragraphs lifted from the Guardian Article August 2010.

June 25, 2011

My Dad and I at the Eskimo Game.

The pictures are twenty bucks and that is just crazy so I stole a screen shot of the proof. Football season has begun!

June 23, 2011

Betsy Loves Sarah Palin But Nobody Else Does.

The reactions of the people from South Carolina give me hope.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention: The Flip Flop Flask.

Your move, Officer.

Love Your Vagina.

Shania Twain's First Single in 6 Years: Today is Your Day.

Sonically, it is as bland as anything she has ever done.
Lyrically, it is a fucking embarrassment.
I understand that she lost her producer of 14 years, but I have also come to understand that she isn't a twelve year old. This is the most juvenile shit I have heard since Rebecca Black.
Even the font used on the cover of the single makes me cringe.

I'm pretty sure her legacy is to be the artist every karaoke chick wants to sing because it requires them to be even less than marginally talented.

June 22, 2011

Sherri Shepherd Had More Abortions Than She Would Like to Count, but That's Okay Because Now She Trusts God When He Says "Because I Said So."

In an interview about her life before she found God, Sherri Shepherd talks about her promiscuous lifestyle that included "more abortions than (she) would like to count":

"Before I converted to Christianity, I was a Jehovah's Witness. In 1993, my mother was dying from diabetic complications. My sister was heavy into drugs, and we would have to go and get her from crack houses. I was in a very physically abusive relationship. I was sleeping with a lot of guys and had more abortions than I would like to count. I had very low self-esteem and just wanted to die. I felt if someone killed me, it wouldn't even make a difference. But God showed me that it would make a difference."

So, Jehovah's Witnesses won't accept blood transfusions, but multiple abortions are A-Ok? I can't get enough of people fucking their lives up and partying so hard they undo basic math skills only to "find" God and go sanctimonious all over everyone's ass.
Sherri then told the magazine that some days, she wishes her "View" boss, Barbara Walters, would be "saved":

"Oh sometimes I say, 'Lord, Juanita Bynum or Joyce Myers would be so good at this table.' They could lay hands on Barbara Walters and get her saved. I ask the Lord, 'Why am I here?' I have to trust God when He says, 'Because I said so.'"

In case you weren't aware of her particular brand of idiocy, here are a few more gems from the files of a woman who still maintains that OJ Simpson was framed.

She doesn't know if the world is flat.

She thought that nothing and no one came before Jesus.

She doesn't believe in evolution and considers 'Lucy' to be just a human.

She would not let her son "be" transgendered or even wear a dress until he was 18 and left the house.

She has never voted because she didn't know the dates of any federal elections, and she was unaware that elections were held every 4 years, not every year.

For my US Friends. Spread the Love.

A sassy reframing of the economic crisis the States is in right now.

June 21, 2011

Canada's New Money. Another Reason Not to Take Us Seriously.

"FUCK KIDS."- The Justin Bieber Facebook Disturbance.

The Talk.

Hey Shawn, I Think You Can Admit to Being My Friend in Public Now.

Dear Keg Steakhouse.

It is not 1987.
This commercial is terrible.

Fire whoever you need to fire and get back to telling people how you guys make really really good steaks.

New York State Too Busy to Review Same Sex Marriage Bill.

No, that's cool, you guys. Take your time. That is important shit you got goin' on.
(Tomorrow is likely the last day of the legislative session.)

Kissing "Training Wheels" for Couples Who Need Assistance with Making Out and Putting Pants On and Breathing...

Artist Didier Faustino created this mask to work as “training wheels” for those who may need some help with kissing. What?
"Two people must wear it simultaneously in order for it to work, and four distinct curves on its sides ensure it stays in place, while a hole in the middle allows participants' lips to meet..." yadda yadda. I don't fucking know.
What the hell is wrong with hipsters, anyway? What is their problem with doing anything without complexity or irony?

Fuck you guys.

June 20, 2011

Vagina Wedding Dress.

Because I care.

June 17, 2011

Childbirth Halloween Costume.

Bike Lanes, Casey Neistat, and Bullshit.

I came across this photo today and it reminded me of the video of Casey Neistat getting a ticket for not riding his bike in the bike lane. Even though he later found out after paying the $50 fine that it wasn't even fucking illegal. He retaliated with this brilliant video released at the beginning of the month. If you haven't seen it yet, you really should. It is amazing.