Archive for ‘Blog’
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Probably the worst part of moving to St. Louis has been living in a city that doesn’t understand what football is or why it’s so awesome. Despite the fact they’ve had four different teams (All Stars, Gunners, Cardinals, and Rams) and having won a Super Bowl just a decade ago this city barely knows what football is. Of course, I can’t blame them. Their team is kinda fail, in a dome, in a division where all their rivals are pretty bad too, and there isn’t a good college team anywhere nearby either. Plus there’s this baseball team that’s been pretty good since like the 1880’s or something. Shrug.
To me, baseball is 6 months of sport for 2 weeks of entertainment at the END of the season, and thus my summer is spent being bored while I wait for football. Seriously, once the NFL Draft and March Madness are done I do nothing sports-wise but hover over a couple of football blogs each day to see how my team is doing (if they’re doing anything) while playing ten seasons of Madden. Once camps get started I start to get a little more jittery and a little less patient, until FINALLY the wait is over – and tonight the wait is over! Preseason football starts up tonight and goes through the weekend.
Well, okay, to be fair the first preseason game was Monday but that was the Bengals and the Cowboys and no one cares about either of those teams.
Anyway, tonight there’s three games, tomorrow there’s three more (including my Chiefs), and then another seven Saturday, two on Sunday, and even a Monday night game. Football is BACK! Yes, it’s preseason and the games don’t matter but it’s still football and its only a few weeks now till the season starts! So, grab a footlong from Subway or Hardee’s, find the most comfortable spot on the couch, kickback and join me in enjoying the first official weekend of football.
Everyone knows the great Stan Lee. Even if you don’t know it, you know Stan Lee. Maybe you know him cause he created like half of the Marvel superheroes including Spider-man, Ironman, Hulk, Daredevil, Thor, the Fantastic Four and the original X-Men. Maybe you know him because you saw his cameos in any of the movies starring the before mentioned Marvel Superheroes. Maybe you know him in OTHER movies like Mallrats and Princess Diaries 2, or TV shows like Big Bang Theory or History Channel’s Superhuman, or even on cartoons such as The Simpsons and Muppet Babies. Maybe you just know him cause he’s a living geek icon.
No matter the reason, you know Stan Lee and now you can follow him on Twitter. Life is great isn’t it?
But, what if the real Stan Lee just isn’t enough Stan Lee for you? Well, good news True Believers, cause now there’s also a Fake Stan Lee you can follow.
Now, to clarify, the Fake Stan Lee isn’t completely fake – there’s a real person you can follow. He’s even got a website with videos and information about some of his appearances. Including the recent visit to San Diego Comic Con where he met with the Real Stan Lee. Check out the video below – it’s hilarious.
Now, obviously, Fake Stan Lee is just a character played by Kevin McShane, who happens to be artistic in many ways – all of which you can find on his website. Still, if two Stan Lee’s aren’t enough people to follow you might as well add Kevin too. Especially since he -is- one of the Stan Lee’s right.
Okay, three for one on Twitter Tuesday this week. EXCELSIOR!!
Yesterday I revealed Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s new footlong cheeseburger and that got me thinking to one of the best commercial’s ever. This commercial was so great that every time it came on I would stop whatever I was doing – even breathing – so I could savor every moment of it. Just ask Rob, cause many a time I’d stop a conversation mid-word cause my brain immediately went to ‘the zone.’ Of course I’m talking about the Hardee’s commercial with Padma Lakshmi.
Just to clarify: yes, I’m a guy and she’s hot and that’s pretty much it. Think less of me if you want, but I know why my sister and girlfriend go to see every Twilight movie. Besides, for a Hardee’s commercial this one’s pretty tame, and that may be a large part of the reason it appealed to me so much. Nothing wrong with a woman in a sundress eating a giant bacon cheeseburger. Nothing at all.
Anyway, remembering Padma led me to check up on the next season of Top Chef which which just started a couple of weeks ago. New season is called Top Chef D.C. and is on Bravo Wednesday nights at 9. Padma Lakshmi returns as the host and that’s reason enough to watch – a role with got her an Emmy nomination in 2009. If you like cooking challenge shows this is one of the better ones.
Oh, and if you were thinking she’s just a pretty face hosting a show about food you’ve fooled yourself cause she’s actually written two cookbooks – the first of which was awarded the Best First Book at the 1999 World Cookbook Awards in Versailles. She also hosted a show on the Food Network called Padma’s Passport before joining Top Chef.
Plus she was also in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, so you know she’s gotta have some geek cred too. Just sayin’.
This week, Carl’s Jr. & Hardee’s began market testing a new footlong cheeseburger. As you can see in the picture it’s 3 patties with 3 slices of cheese on a large footlong bread roll. The whole thing will sell for $4.50 and it’s being tested in southern California and Indiana to see how it goes over. You can read a little more about it over at USA TODAY if you’re interested.
So, here’s the awesome part: if you were a fan of my first comic WTH then you might remember I made a joke about EXACTLY THIS BURGER. Well, not exactly. My joke was a 5 dollar footlong thickburger and this is a $4.50 footlong regular burger, but the fact remains that I totally called it!! CALLED IT!
Well, either I predicted it or the fine folks at Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s must’ve read my comic and thought I was on to something great. Which I was. In that case, I’m fully in support of their new footlong burger but I also expect some free Hardee’s giftcards in the very near future. I think that’s a fair deal for being the inspiration behind the next great heartattack-maker. Right?
Anyway, for those that don’t remember or didn’t read WTH, I went ahead and dug up that old comic for you. You can find it in the archives here on or just read the classic comic below.
Hey BlueCrew, I tried to get this poll up earlier this week and wasn’t savvy enough to figure out how to make the plugin work. After a little reading and trial-and-error I was able to figure it out. I’m really curious to know what you guys think, so take a moment and let me know your favorite – and you’re welcome to add a comment with a reason for your vote too! Thanks, all!
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Dave at a Con getting his sketch on... sorta
Last weekend was the ever-impressive San Diego Comic Con, and if you don’t have the pleasure of following webcomic people who frequent such an awesome event then you won’t realize what your missing. So, let me tell you what you’re missing. Most of the time you’re missing inside jokes between creators, but there are also great pictures including the fan arts the creator is drawing. There’ll also tell you about the panels and after parties so you get an idea of what’s going on and who’s having all the fun.
I’ve gone to one SDCC myself, and the event was amazing. Every year after that I had to rely on blog posts that typically recapped the whole weekend days after it was over. Now, thanks to Twitter, I’m able to feel in a small way like I’m still out there by following celebrities and webcomicers who actually ARE out there. It’s actually pretty fun.
That said, I thought I’d suggest an artist for you this week, and though there are a lot of great people to follow I decided on Dave Kellett for a few reasons. First, Dave is one of the first people I started following and one of the few I’ve never stopped following. Since I follow Dave, I also know for a fact he really is one of the more entertaining follows – especially at cons. Lots of pictures, jokes, sketches and such in his feed.
There is an alterieror motive I admit. Just a few days before SDCC, Dave actually posted his 3000th Sheldon Comic!! That’s a huge feet, and there aren’t a lot of comic people out there that have been doing such high-quality comics for so long. Sheldon is one of the first webcomics I found, and it’s still one of the ones that can make me laugh almost every day. After 3000 comics, that’s really impressive.
Plus, Dave’s started dipping his feet into Sci-Fi now with his new comic Drive which updates on Saturdays. Both comics are great, and I fully recommend both to anyone who loves webcomics – which, hopefully all of you visiting this site do. Love webcomics.
Anyway, jump over to Twitter and check out Dave’s awesome feed and then add him to your follow list. You can thank me later.
(The following review is intended to be spoiler free, but since the movie isn’t out for a week I thought it was only fair to warn you ahead of time. Again, I do my best to avoid spoilers but you have been warned.)
This weekend Rob and I were invited to an early screening of the new movie Dinner for Schmucks starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd. It’s the first movie the two have done together since The 40 Year Old Virgin when they were both still earning their fame. Obviously, since then, they’ve risen the ranks quickly. Steve’s been headlining a little show called The Office and been in a few movies like Little Miss Sunshine, Get Smart, and Date Night. Paul stared in movies like Role Models and I Love You, Man. If you’ve seen at least one movie from each of these guys, then you probably have no doubt the two could carry a movie together.
Oh, and also, that new up-and-comer Zach Galifianakisarscosamoosekaneenisesaos is also in the movie. You know, the goofy guy from Hangover? Yeah. He’s in this too.
To start with, this movie is a comedy about a normal guy (Rudd) trying to get a promotion by impressing his boss with the best ‘idiot’ (Carell) at a dinner where the guests make fun of the losers. My concern going into this movie was that with an idiot dinner as the basis of the comedy the humor would be nonsensical and over-the-top. To my great surprise it was the absolute opposite. The writers did a great job of keeping the story in a zone of plausible – instead of a bunch of people being stupid simply for stupid’s sake, most everything that happened in the movie felt like something that actually could happen. Carell’s idiot was far more a naive, good-hearted simpleton and less a crazy person. That has a really endearing effect, allowing the audience to become sympathetic for the character while still appreciating the humor in the stupid things he does.
As good as Carell’s character is – and lets be fair, it’s a mix of the script and the actor – Rudd’s character never really blossoms. This time I’m gonna blame the script, cause there is no doubt in my mind that Paul Rudd can play a normal, everyday guy. His entire career is based on playing that guy. He’s the Sandra Bullock of guys. He still manages to be that normal guy in this movie. The problem is that the writers forgot to give him a clear motivation. The character is just kind of a mix of internal struggles, bouncing between conflicts without a lot of clarity to what drives him. At the end of the movie there’s a nice little summary, but at that point you’ve lost any chance to understand him or why he’s so conflicted. Still, even with that lacking Rudd does a great job playing counter to Carell’s antics and his acting actually makes you forget (for the most part) what a poorly fleshed out character he’s playing.
Now, I don’t want that criticism to carry too heavy. Overall the movie is fantastic and that one flaw was really an after-thought I had while talking with Rob about the movie. It certainly didn’t hurt the movie while I was watching itl. Especially since I spent 90% of my time in the theater laughing. The humor is mostly one liners that are well written and tend to build on themselves, and they’re crafted so well they never feel tired. There are also some great ‘goofy’ moments, and the best part about those is that the director sells out for them. What I mean is that when a goofy moment is about to happen you know before it starts and I found myself laughing in anticipation of what was going to happen and then laughing harder when it did. No tricks, no sucker punches, no bait and switch, no spit takes. What you think is going to happen does, and when it does you can’t stop laughing cause Carell and Rudd sell it perfectly. Simple but so very effective.
The movie is rated PG-13 and I think that’s exactly right. Mostly it’s pretty tame. The language is never too foul. There are some sexual conversations and jokes, but the content of those conversations is about on par with an episode of Family Guy or South Park. In my opinion it was pretty mild and not really very offensive.
I’d highly recommend the movie to anyone who’s a fan of smart comedy. Ironic to call a movie about idiots smart, but that’s really what it is. In a packed theater, the entire crowd was laughing out loud almost from beginning to end. For me, it was the best comedy since Hangover.
When you get to see it, let me know what you think with a comment or a tweet! Enjoy the movie!
