Fuck you, Dina. Fuck you so fucking much.

To the high and mighty Dina, sitting smugly behind me in her covertly commandeered window seat, passing judgement down upon me palpably with no discretion:

Fuck you. Fuck you so fucking much.

How's that for your delicate ears, Dina? Is that what you're sick of "having to sit there all day listening" to? Hmm, is it? Well why don't you just go and play a nice game of hide and go fuck yourself.

That amount that I choose to use words that some people deem obscene is not "depressing." It's fucking awesome. I promote an environment where consenting adults don't have to censor themselves in order to comply with the inane unwritten rules of society. I'm a fucking freedom fighter, Dina. A goddamn pioneer. So you can go eat a dick.

If I want to say fuck, shit, dick, ass, bitch or pussy all fucking goddamn day than guess what, I fucking will, and there's nothing you can do about it. Why don't you think about relocating yourself? I hear the surface of the sun is nice this time of year. And I bet you won't complain about being cold there, either.

In conclusion, let me say that if there's one thing I want you to take away from this little tirade of mine, it's this: Fuck you. Fuck you so fucking much.

Thanks.

D.

Recipe: Grilled Chicken Helper Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Burrito

Phew. That's a mouthful. And so is this, literally. Or several mouthfuls depending on how much (or little) willpower you have, which, once you smell and/or taste this culinary masterpiece of my own devising, will be nigh but completely out the window. I know, good use of "nigh," right? Yeah. I know.

Anyway, this is a pretty simple recipe, and I'm going to skip lots of steps, because, as will no doubt be evidenced by this recipe, and my life in general, I myself am, regrettably, extremely, unthinkably lazy. That's a lot of commas. Yeah. I know.

So here's a synopsis: This is a burrito that uses a modified version of Betty Crocker's Cheesy Chicken Enchilada flavored Chicken Helper as filling. Here's what you'll need.

1.) Betty Crocker's Cheesy Chicken Enchilada flavored Chicken Helper, prepared according to the directions on the box ( a monkey could do this).
2.) One can of refried Beans
3.) One or more 12" Soft flour tortillas, (pronounced tor-TIL-as)
4.) One Tomato
5.) Sour Cream

Alot of the actual proportions are left to your discretion, but here's the basic idea:

Step 1: Prepare Betty Crocker's Cheesy Chicken Enchilada flavored Chicken Helper according to the directions on the box ( a retarded monkey could do this. with one arm. good luck, Ryan).



Step 2: Prepare one can of refried beans. I used the microwave, on high for three minutes, covered. This worked perfectly, but only if your into things like simplicity and convenience.

Don't they look tasty? Very appetizing.

Step 3: Transfer the prepared Betty Crocker's Cheesy Chicken Enchilada flavored Chicken Helper into a stainless steel bowl. This makes it look like you're on a cooking show, which I find gives some type of meaning to my ridiculous cooking escapades. My cookscapades. I know.


Step 4: Fold the heated refried beans into the prepared Betty Crocker's Cheesy Chicken Enchilada flavored Chicken Helper. Mix well.

Step 5: Transfer a small portion, I recommend roughly one cup of the filling to the center of a flour tortilla.

Step 6: Add toppings. I recommend tomato and shredded mexican style cheeses, but you can add whatever you want. If you add lettuce, I won't eat it. Yes I will, but I'll just complain about the lettuce.












Step 7: Fold the tortilla in the traditional mexican way, or in this alternate way, that I like. Fold the top of the burrito down to form an enclosed shell.

Step 8: Grill the burrito lightly on both sides on a non-stick skillet greased with cooking spray.











Step 9: Serve to self with sour cream. Gorge grotesquely in an uncontrollable and pathetic way, alone, in the dark. Silently hate self for lack of control.



That's it! This recipe is sure to please all lovers of mexican food, and is (can be) WAY better then the gilled stuffed burrito from Taco Bell.

Oh, and for you health conscious few out there, you'll be glad to know that I found this curious little morsel quite by accident on the front label of the tortilla shells I used:


See? No lard!! Isn't that AWESOME!? I was so worried about the lard content of my tortillas. I thought it was just an evil I would have to deal with to enjoy my creation. Not so! Now I can enjoy lard-free tortillas in good conscience whenever I please. And so can you! Lets all rejoice in a song of lard emancipation. Or maybe just eat your burrito.

Stuff That Totally Kicks Ass: All Things Silver Surfer

Oh god. Fantastic Four 2: Rise of The Silve Surfer, how you have lived up to my every expectation I'll never know, but, regardless, the fact remains that... you did. I'd like to call attention to the punctuation of that last sentence. Just stare it for a minute, like one of those computer generated 3D wall posters. Now squint a little. Now relax your eyes. No, no... look through the sentence. See? A schooner!

Ok, that was a little random, but it's been that kind of day.

Back to the point. Fantastic Four 2 totally rocked my pants off. I would watch it immediately again, except I expect that it has literally no replay value. As in, it rocked ass, sure, but once was plenty. The heroes were played exactly as I'd always imagined them being in real (fake) life. The movie and the actors are very true to the comics which, as we all know, is all that really matters here. I can swallow shitty acting, convenient coincidences, and even accept (without even mention or comment, mind you) the extreme disregard for modern physics and science in general, as long as the heroes are adequately super, look cool, have corny banter and triumph in the end.

That brings us to the question of Galactus. Now, a lot of people (read: no one except me) was upset about the portrayal of Galactus the World Eater in the movie, particularly the absence of that crazy yet regal looking pink and purple helmet/jumper combo that he usually appears in, and, oh yeah, a body. In the movie, Galactus is only seen as a giant sort of swirling vortex of clouds which, for me, doesn't exactly strike the same kind of chord as a totally flaming but at the same time badass cosmic destroyer whose pinky finger is the size of africa. And, oh yeah, he's going to literally eat the world. Now that's fucking cool. The whole swirling vortex thing kind of just made me think that Galactus was probably going to fuck up my sinuses. And, as uncomfortable and annoying as that can be... not so much terrifying as I'd like. But that's me.

Ok, so aside from that, this movie totally dominated. The surfer was, aside from being a surfer, completely badass, and smacked down the Human Torch, who I always thought was a toolbox, and who is portrayed as a complete toolbox by a guy who is either an excellent actor or a real toolbox. The Special effects are... actually now that I think about it they weren't really that great, but I love the movie so much it didn't matter. I mean, they were adequate. There weren't any real "wow" moments special effects wise, but the movie moves so fast and has so much action in it that you don't even notice the subpar CGI.

And that's the thing that sets this movie apart from some other super hero movies I've seen, is that it's gets right to the good stuff and then it just keep giving it to you. It's not like the Hulk, where you have to watch him jumping through the desert for twenty minutes (yeah, yeah, I get it, he can jump really far...), or Ghost Rider, where the acting and script were so achingly bad that cool super hero stuff alone wasn't enough to save it. This movie gives you the goods in a palatable package and doesn't try to be more than it is. And I totally dig that.

Summary: Fantastic Four 2 is twice as fantastic as the first, and 1/3 the carbs. You can't go wrong.

Stuff That Sucks: TV

I love TV. I spend way too much potentially productive time absorbed in entertainment, accomplishing nothing, letting my brain rot and allowing the corporate sponsored stimuli to work it's subliminal crimes on me day in and day out. And it rocks.

TV totally kicks ass. Or, at least, it did... until I discovered the absolute face on fire, edge of your seat insanity that is: 24. 24 is without a doubt the best fucking show in the history of TV. It's the pinnacle of mind smashing entertainment, requiring next to no thought but also moving so fast with so many twists and turn that it grips your attention like grim death and holds on until there just simply is no more. In short, it rocks your pants off.

The problem is, after 24, everything else pretty much blows nuts. I mean, normally I would love the continuation of old favorites like "Heroes" and "Smallville", and I might have enjoyed some newcomers... say "Chuck" maybe, or "The Bionic Woman"... who knows? But now, after having watched three consecutive seasons of 24, my entertainment standards are so high and attention span so low that I almost can't be bothered with regular TV. I need the non-stop, pulse pounding, ball splitting action/adventure/awesomeness of 24 all the time. If it's not 24, I don't want to watch it.

I watched the premiere of Heroes... yawn. I was dosing off during half of it, wondering when it was gonna start getting good. The same with Smallville... I can barely make through the tedious exchanges between the lifeless characters in between the one or two sweet shots per episode where Clark finally does something super. Clark needs to be freaking out way more, ala Jack Bauer, instead of weeping over his annoying dead girlfriend, who was, lets face it, total shit from day one. I mean I know he's super and all, but if you pit him against the iron will of Bauer, I just don't know who to bet on. My gut tells me, Jack would find a way. And he'll do whatever it takes, all whilst blowing up everything he possibly can, and somehow finding time to torture people. Which, by the way, rules.

It's not that other shows are bad... in fact everyone is pretty much still raving about Heroes, and how great it is, and I'm sure that's relatively accurate, except I've been watching back to back episodes of collected seasons of pure TV domination. After three episodes of 24, Heroes is like watching paint dry. And so is, you know, anything that's not 24.

So I'm torn. On the one hand, I'm compelled to encourage you to watch 24, and watch it religiously, and write to your congressman about how great it is, so that they can continue making new episodes until Kiefer Sutherland is 80. (BTW, what the hell kind of hippie name is Kiefer? How do normal-named people like Donald and Shirley go and give their kid a kool-aid name like Kiefer?). On the other hand though, I'm compelled to recommend that you not watch 24, and thus retain the ability to watch other, non-24 TV shows. Ultimately, the decision is yours, but I will say this:






Sorry, gotta go. There's a torture scene.

Stuff That Sucks: Death Proof

Ok, just calm down. I wanted to like this movie. Really, I did. I was totally psyched to like it. I went in expecting to love it. Tarantino, car chases, gruesome gory awesomeness all in a convenient homage to the grindhouse movie watching experience. And I get that it's supposed to be bad. I get that it's made to be a "B" movie. But here's the thing about "B" movies: They suck ass. They're "B" movies, because if they were any good, they'd be "A" movies, or "independent" movies, or some other such nonsense. But Death Proof is a "B" movie in it's truest sense. In fact, were I rating it on an alphabetic scale, I'd probably put it in the low M's.

It sucked. Granted, there were a few decent parts... the car chase at the end, the amazingly and repeatedly bloody accident scene shown from different perspectives, and maybe a tenth of the dialogue were all entertaining. But the lasting overall impression that I got from the film was: "Wha?" The plot was barely there, and arguably missing altogether, and the ending was abrupt and unsatisfying. I didn't hate the antagonist, if you could call him that, I actually kind of liked him, and by the end of the movie, I kind of wanted all those stupid wannabe badass bitches to eat asphalt. Maybe it's because the second group of girls was so fucking annoying, or maybe it's because the token black chick was such a painfully stereotypical cartoon of herself, or maybe it was that they were all just so goddamned annoying, but I just couldn't get attached to them. no character development, no plot evolution, no story, very low entertainment value altogether.

And I know...it's supposed to be that way, but, I don't know, I just thought it would be that way, except in an edgy, different, entertaining sort of way, that kind of redefined the long dead genre and breathed some life into it. But this movie could easily fit on a shelf with every other god awful piece of shit "B" movie no one's ever heard of but that your hippie, alternative friend with the dreadlocks told you was "totally mind-opening, man."

The worst part is that the companion movie, Planet Terror, composed by the familiar Tarantino counterpart Robert Rodriguez, actually looks pretty awesome, just like Death Proof looked awesome when i saw its trailer. And when I see it, and it inevitably sucks monkey balls, it will be nobody's fault but mine. And Robert Rodriguez's. I predict I'll put most of the blame on him.

To sum up, Death Proof is less fun then a car crash, and takes a whole lot longer.

Stuff That, I Suspect, Sucks: Sony PS Pee

It's quite possible that the PSP sucks. But it might also be that I'm not sufficiently "hardcore" in my gaming enthusiasm. Let me give you some background, and you can decide for yourself.

I've been playing video games or, as we say in the industry, "gaming," for about 18 years now, (Christ, I'm old) and I've had my fair share, or what I'd like to call, a crapload, of gaming experience. During the tenure of my gamer career, I've owned the NES, Super NES, Sega Genesis, gameboy, game gear, Nintendo 64, Game Cube, Playstation, Playstation 2, XBOX, PSP and XBOX 360. I've been around the block. And I have to say, I have never had more trouble finding just one game that I like, than I have with the PSP. I think that quite possibly, the PSP blows ass.


But I'm not sure. I mean right off the bat, the control scheme just doesn't lend itself to FPS games. You need another joystick in there. It's obvious. And ever since the Playstation Expo in 1996, when Sony unveiled it's dual analog joystick for the PS1, Sony has consistently moved forward in video game controller technology. Until the release of the PSP in 2004. That's when they decided not just to step backwards and include only a D-pad with their device, but also, they just tease you with that one useless analog joystick. That's just mean. Throw another one of those on the other side of the device, where it seems to symmetrically beg to be placed, and you, Sony, have got yourself a winner. Without it, sadly, you suck nuts.


So yeah, I'm pissed. Sure, I knew the control setup when I was shopping for a PSP. I had access to information about the games, and even could have played the demo models on the floors of electronics and game stores. But I didn't. I saw the one analog and thought... it's on. Analog frag-fest of global, yet portable, proportions is within my grasp. And with game after game, inevitable disappointment sets in as I experiment with universally shitty control schemes.

It's just so frustrating, all that graphic power and processing potential, but a complete inability to take advantage of it, because of one simple, stupid little oversight. Damn you Sony... you tease us with potentially great things, and then you fuck it all up in an unscrupulous efforts to secure market dominance. Ok, that doesn't really apply here, but you know you're guilty of that too.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to drown my sorrows by basking in the superior videocassette recording format of BetaMax.