This Playlist Sucks

Working in a place where the music is piped in through some mysterious satellite connection and or some sort of internal network leads to some really fucking amusing songs coming up. Most of the songs I actually end up enjoying, which is a testament to how shitty my musical tastes truly are. Duran Duran - Come Undone was definitely the highlight of todays music rotation.

One of the more disturbing things that is going on is that Smash Mouth is getting a shocking amount of play time. There appears to be some sort of playlist because every day I'll end up hearing at least some sort of overlap from the day before...songs that come to mind are the shockingly awesome I would Walk 500 Miles by the Proclaimers and even the occasional Spin Doctors song. The thing is Smash Mouth's entire fucking musical library appears to be stuck in this playlist. One thing I have to note is I never out right hated Smash Mouth like a lot of folks at the time or even now...and really, its way to fucking easy to hate on Smash Mouth. They have been featured in about 10000000 commercials and movies and did a bunch of trash covers and along the way managed to become insanely rich. This is by the way no sort of strong endorsement of Smash Mouth because I do think they suck...but not in the way that makes me lash out at even a mention of them.

In Conclusion: WHO DO YOU NEED? WHO DO YOU LOVE?? WHEN YOU COME UNDONE, CAN'T EVER KEEP FROM FALLING APART

Really Bad

This is not going to shock many pundits out there, but I think Pink is a really terrible musician. Nothing against her personally but I started to realize a while ago that I really think that every one of her songs that has been popular and gotten a decent amount of radio play is a song that I think is absolutely terrible. I just really hate most of the songs she has done.

Several things I am mystified by...first of all her stage name which is the aforementioned "Pink." Yeah so her hair for a while was always dyed Pink. Right. Other reasons I find her annoying include the fact that her 2001 album release was actually titled M!ssundazstood which by the way had the song "Get This Party Started" which is by far one of the most annoying songs of the last ten years. It's also worth noting that my friend Dan has an awesome story about this song. When he went to France back in 2001/2002 school year he said that the first song he heard when he arrived in France was Get This Party Started and he continued to hear it while he was in France. This is after constantly being bombarded with it in America as well...which goes to show you, the French may claim to have taste but they embraced Pink just as foolishly as we did.

I also take issue with the song "Just Like A Pill." And before you start accusing me of actually just being a closeted Pink fan, it just happens that I usually work jobs where there is a radio/internal radio station playing all the time and its usually stock on a generic loop of top 40 songs so I heard this song a shit ton too. Anyhow, the song Just Like A Pill has some really fucking terrible lyrics. I don't really give a shit about what they lyrics are actually trying to say, the line "I tried to call the nurse again but shes being a little bitch" is just really fucking bad.

I do want to say that if Ms. Pink is reading this, I mean no offense. I'm sure you're a nice young woman and I probably sound like an asshole, but I just don't like your music.

Muy Importante

Reasons Why Southern California is Stupid

1. The Traffic - Yeah its a cliche to bitch about traffic in California but seriously, what the fuck its bad. Where is everyone going at every hour of the day or night? Compound this with the fact that traffic gets really fucking bad if it rains. And I'm not talking about the type of rain that overflows the streets and causes those mini-floods where you drive through and its super deep and your car gets stuck. I'm talking about rain that is just you know, a light patter of rain. Yet when this happens people act like it just snowed 12 inches in the last 2 hours. It slows shit down really bad.

Also if there is A SINGLE ACCIDENT on some stretch of any of the major freeways you get spill over into less traveled streets...which means it gets bad everywhere. And guess what, there is always a fucking accident.

2. Dogs - Everyone here has a fucking dog...but somehow there is some sort of intrinsic difference between the dog owner in Alabama or Nebraska or Minnesota....in California somehow people who own dogs manage to mostly just piss me off. From having your maid/house worker walk your dog, to the really stupid outfits that people have for dogs out here to, well...just I love dogs but people out here piss me off with their dogs.

3. Homeless people - I am completely empathetic to the homeless and their situation. That said, there are a lot of homeless people out here and I'm currently in some stage of homeless fatigue because I am one of those suckers who gives homeless people money. But when I'm walking and I get asked by 42 of them in a row I get annoyed.

I HAVE AN IDEA

I am going to pitch a dating show to MTV. Your standard and by standard I mean really fucking stereotypical "Frat Dude" and a really attractive yet studious young lady at the same college. Think, that really hot chick you see riding the campus bus who is both the lead cheerleader for the football cheer squad but is also double majoring in Biology and Aerospace Engineering and has already applied and been admitted to MIT to pursue her graduate studies in the effects of weightlessness on breast cancer cells.

The woman is supposed to fall for the guy while simultaneously reforming his "bro" like ways.

I CALL IT: BROMEO & JULIET.

Musings of a bored Person

I put a lot of thought into this last night while I was drinking...alone. If you didn't guess, I'm single because I thought about DVD covers while I was drinking alone on Valentines. Jesus christ that sounds bad.

Anyways, you may or may not notice that when movies come out there is usually one or two standard one sheets that come out and are placed in theaters promoting these upcoming titles. They typically range from terrible, to boring. Then another funnier thing happens. When it comes out on Blu-Ray or DVD the marketers decide to change up the poster from the actual theatrical release and usually just throw up the ol' "FLOATING HEADS" treatment for a dvd cover so all the people who are complete morons and buy dvds based only on covers will buy The Departed because it evidently has Matt Damon and Leo Dicaprio and they somehow didn't know this prior to buying it.

Even stupider is when a DVD has been out for a while...take the film Varsity Blues (which I really fucking love) and own. The original cover had a publicity still that I believe doubled as the films poster. It had the whole cast in a 'casual hey we're hanging out' pose either sitting in and or around the truck that Billy Bob owns and drives to school in the film. Well at some point in the last year the powers that be decide that this cover is fucking lame and instead they'll insert a really shitty photoshop composite picture for the cover. Seriously, this looks really fucking lame.

Which brings me to the best of the best of the worst cover of all time. This has been documented on multiple sites in the past but its worth noting. Check out the cover to Scrubs season 4. Notice anything weird?? MAYBE ITS ZACH BRAFF'S WRIST BENDING THE WRONG WAY OR HIS SNAKE LIKE ARM BEING FUCKING LONG AND FUCKED UP?!?!

Laziest fucking photoshop job ever. Also in part 2 of the ongoing series of scenes that make me cry (adding a little note that it doesn't have to be straight up balling, rather its the typical "MAN CRY" where you know are starting to tear up but you refuse to let yourself get to that point so as Bill Simmons points out, you act like Tom Cruise in Top Gun after goose dies and you're holding it in with that quivering lower lip but thats it)...I leave you with another scene. Not sure if this is just me but any movie no matter how bad can usually at the very least get my a bit choked up if it involves a long paegant like funeral (think soldier or cop or firefighter death ceremony).

Actually I won't post the clip since it is rather violent and I can't really find this scene specifically since youtube is a clusterfuck to search for clips. Anyways in Saving Private Ryan there are obviously several pretty brutal scenes but the one that kills me is where the medic played by Giovanni Ribisi is dying. His anguish and the futile attempts made by his squadmates to at the very least ease his pain always get me.

Holy Terrible News

Two funny pieces of news that seriously make me laugh, and not a good kind of laugh either.

1. Limp Bizkit is BACK!!! THANK GOD!!! Seriously though, they're back together. This is clearly the one big reunion we all wanted.

2. If you recall the movie Waiting, that starred Ryan Reynolds about those people who serve your food and why they hate you. Had a shit ton of potential to be one of the best comedies in a long time but squandered it on a poor script and really a lack of energy....well if you wanted a sequel with none of the more famous people returning from the original (Except Luiz Guzman) then you're in for a treat! Still Waiting is coming out soon! Well IMDB has Justin Long listed as well but I'm assuming since he is so low on the cast list its either a flashback or a cameo.

Lastly, I'm going to start doing an entire series of posts that conclude with 'Scenes that Make Me Cry'. I'm pretty sure i posted this scene a while ago but seriously, I think I'm way to easily emotionally manipulated by movies. This scene absolutely kills me when I watch it.

Gotta Be, Gotta Be, Dominoes...CRUNCHY THIN CRUST!

The title here is actually a bit of a misdirection ploy. Sung to the tune of 'We Will Rock You' by Queen, Dominoes actually had a commercial with that little jingle in it. I fucking hate advertising some times.

Anyways this has been touched on by the AV Club blogs and a lot of other stuff, but seriously, I fucking hate the new Pizza Hut commercials that have been going on for the last few months. As one of my former roommates has pointed out, in an earlier Pizza Hut "hidden camera" commercial they are in New York because New Yorkers know pasta and then they give these people pasta from Pizza Hut instead of the restaurant that they're at. The people rave about how it tastes so good and then are shocked (in a good way) that the food they had is actually pizza hut! What my roommate pointed out was that the pasta they served them had bits of bacon in it. Last time I checked, authentic Italian dining is not heavy on bacon all over the pasta.

Even worse are the latest round of stupid commercials where they go to Italy (WHERE THOSE GUYS KNOW PASTA EVEN MORE!) and one woman exclaims, "It's vivacious!!!" Right. This is literally the equivalent of me taking a few orders of food from Panda Express to some restaurant and feeding it to a Chinese Junk sailor and having him exclaim that "THIS IS JUST LIKE HOW MY MOM USED TO MAKE GENERAL TSO'S!!!"

And to quote another friend of mine, "To pull off the Pizza Hut commercials you have to have a lot of credibility. And we have no reason to think that the Italians really loved their pasta." In conclusion...stop making stupid commercials.

Dishonorable Mention: This goes to Wal-Mart for those commercials running before the Superbowl where the mom starts singing We Will Rock You and then the kid starts and then everyone is and they all get excited to buy junk food from the local Wal Mart. ANNOYING

Nipples

I was walking home today and I saw three mannequins in a window display at a womans clothing store and all three were seriously nipping out. What is the purpose of putting nipples on a mannequin besides drawing attention to how tight this shirt is on SAID mannequin and then have the subsequent feeling of both intrigue and also shame for even looking!!!

Even better is there is this place a few blocks away from my house that has this mannequin bust in the window and this mannequin has gigantic plastic breasts. I'd say in the F range for size. Not only is this projecting and creating a negative body image for the women who walk by this and now WILL DEMAND breast implants, but it makes you wonder who designs the mannequins?! They should make really obese mannequins and mannequins with gigantic testicles or something. Have a little fun with the mannequin industry!

This all leads me to my next point, Mannequin needs to be remade with a hip young cast and a fresh round of hip music. This time though I think the Mannequin should be a man and the lead is a woman who is just out of college trying to make her way in the Big City (New York). One night after being stood up by a guy she is walking home when her eye catches a sexy mannequin. The rest as we say, is history.

The Holy Trinity

I'm going to give a shout out to White Town for their hit single Your Woman. I actually really like this song...and for whatever reason I at least in my memory remember hearing this song all the time on weekends during the summer of 97. Like, it was on the radio a lot.

I actually lump this song, Closing Time by Semisonic, and The Way by Fastball as some sort of holy trinity of late 90's alternative rock super hits. In fact now that I think about it I'm going to officially start lumping those three bands and three songs in as a pop culturally important holy trinity of 97-1998. Bank on it people.

I think I should also point out that I heard Closing Time when I was ironically enough getting ready to leave work on Monday and it was a pretty awesomely surreal moment. I like these songs because they're clearly pretty well produced but it still has this weird stripped down feel to the song...in that a pop song that I hear today on the radio is really fucking over produced. Think...The Killers new album or something like that. And this is in a world where indie rock has not taken over the popular music radio waves and bands like Sugar Ray are still popular. Fucked up times people.

I have always also felt that the Grunge music "killing" glam rock was overrated on the scale of importance in pop culture music history where as Indie Rock killing this type of pop music is vastly under talked about. IF IT WASN'T FOR DEATH CAB FOR CUTIES RISE TO PROMINENCE WE'D BE ON FASTBALL'S 9TH GRAMMY WINNING ALBUM!!!

Big - LIVE BLOGGING EDITION

Big is a great movie and reminds everyone that Tom Hanks started out his career honing his comedic chops which I believe helped him establish his later more mature 'Every Man' roles which he often handled with just a sprinkle of deft humor.

:17 - Josh is playing some extremely old shitty text based computer game. Its also interesting that his parents are yelling at him because you hear his dad yell at him to "listen to his mother" since you never see the father in the entire film. Not even a shot of him worried since you know, his son has disappeared.

1:47 - Josh's friend "Billy" is that red headed kid who also starred in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Wonder where he is now?

2:44 - Cynthia is the Young Josh love interest. She is not really even cute...and she falls into the stupid 80's paradigm of 'I'm wearing a stupid jean jacked and bad hair but I'm supposed to be cute'

3:55 - Josh and Billy live next door to each other so they can talk to each other via walkie talkie. Now that I think about it, I wish I could have had this happen when I was younger.

4:58 - I lied, I guess I just saw Josh's father when he is at the carnival. His dad is carrying his baby sister. And directly after this scene we have the scene that causes the whole movie. He wants to go on the 'scary' ride with his dream girl Cynthia but he is too short. This is the type of incident that would scar you for life...but imagine if he does get on the ride. Not only does the entire not movie take place, but Big Josh aka Tom Hanks doesn't get laid later. I mean in reality (and I'll get into this later) but Josh is what, in sixth or seventh grade max and he's already had sex with a mature older woman and had a loving relationship, worked for a major company in New York, and owned a swank Manhattan loft with at least 2000 square feet. Baller Status achieved and he is not even 16. I should also mention the Carny/Carnie is totally an asshole to Josh when he can't get on the ride.

8:20 - Josh runs into Zoltar and makes his wish! OH SHIT!!!!

10:55 - Josh is now big. I would have liked to have seen some really disturbing transformation scene where his bones stretch out and its all gruesome ala any werewolf movie ever.

15:03 - Funny scene where Josh comes into his house and his mom is vacuuming and she is obviously freaked out and he apologizes and goes and wipes his feet on the doormat. Then we cut to a scene where Billy is at the school playing basketball and he is terrible. He has a wise cracking PE Coach with a thick New York accent. Funny.

18:18 - A less explored aspect of this entire movie is that his parents think Josh is kidnapped. They rarely explore the psychological aspect of what his parents go through. Maybe his dad and mom got in a fight after he disappeared and thats why you don't see his dad the rest of the movie.

20:00 - So Josh and his young friend Billy roll into New York and they have a good scene in Times Square and its all sleazy and homeless people abound and Josh is accosted by both a beggar and hooker. If this takes place in 1987 or 88 when it was released this is still Pre-Guliani era and for New York marks a historically bad period of crime and crack and issues in New York. If Big took place today there is no way Josh could even afford a hotel room.

26:27 - Josh goes to a job interview at Macmillan Toy Company for a computer operator. He is filling out a resume/template sheet in the office. This rings false! He gets the job anyways because the HR guy thinks he went to GW.

28:45 - Forgot to mention that Jon Lovitz is in this movie. Very small role as a guy stuck in a computer cubicle next to Josh but yeah. I wonder if they hooked him up in this role/friends via SNL. Or perhaps this is before that time...not sure.

30:38 - Robert Loggia, my favorite evil father in law from Over the Top makes his first screen appearance and he is flanked by the Dad from Home Alone. I don't know his name and in the spirit of this live blogging experience I won't look it up yet.

32:30 - Cue touching moments...Josh calls home and then he sings that song to his mom over the phone of the song she used to sing to him. Him mom starts to cry. Directly after this we see Josh watching the French Connection and there is gun fire and crying etc...good movie and great scene. Then he shuts off the tv and the exact sounds occur outside his hotel room. Another good scene.

35:00 - Silly string scene. I kind of want to buy some now.

36:00 - F.A.O. Schwarz scene. I've never been there but still have a strong desire to be there. It's like how I always felt about Lego Land until..you know, I got to go there.

38:15 - So we've hit the iconic piano playing scene. Probably the most famous scene from this movie and I would actually put it in a top 500 iconic film scenes ever in film history. I am almost positive that if this was on in a bar or some tv display at Best Buy, people would naturally watch it and not be able to contain at least a small grin. Not sure why, but it is charming. I must imagine though that this scene would have been a pain in the ass to film.

41:55 - Josh's secretary was I believe the mom from That 70's Show.

42:31 - I did actually pause the DVD here because there is a shot of Josh on the milk carton being missing. It looks like it says he was born 1/28/76 and he disappeared on 9/12/87. That makes him 11...so thats uhh, 5th grade?

43:11 - Elizabeth Perkins/Susan begins to see the childish charm in Josh during a market report in which he states "I Don't Get It?" Susan is also wearing a lot of great 80's power woman clothes. Although I haven't noticed any hardcore shoulder pads yet.

46:45 - I don't remember this but evidently there is a musical montage sequence of Josh having fun with his new money etc. being at a Yankees game and if I'm not mistaken this is Huey Lewis and The News.

48:45 - Party time for corporate MacMillan. Josh is about to roll in with his badass tux. And if I'm not mistaken Josh is about to seriously put the moves on Susan. Jon Lovitz dances bad, Josh eats a lot of gross shit and doesn't know how to eat mini corn etc. I actually find this entire sequence a bit tiring. I mean yeah, its more fish out of water crap but I like how Susan is bored of Mr. Home Alone Dad and wants to just get her freak on/move up the corporate ladder by fucking Josh. So yeah she starts out as a bitch but then learns to LOVE!!! It is funny how Josh ignores her come ons though and is hyped to be in a LIMO. I think I'm kind of the same way. If I get in a LIMO I'll immediately be more excited about whatever I'm doing. If I'm going to a root canal in a LIMO I'd be more excited.

56:19 - Ok he has a bunk bed and more sexual moves go by. Top bunk etc. I feel like i'm summarizing the movie right now and thats not what the point of this was about. He does have a pepsi machine in his room which is fucking awesome . I guess I'm still stuck in arrested development where I think 90 percent of what Josh has in his apartment is awesome.

1:04:40 - We're officially entering the part of the movie where it gets too sappy...or as I call it, THE TIME SCOTT STOPS WATCHING THIS MOVIE WHEN ITS ON CABLE AND STARTS CHANNEL SURFING. This is a movie where the parents can take their kids to the movie and the kid laughs at the slapstick stuff but the parents can get a little bit of a love story.

Susan starts falling for Josh's boying (GET IT..BOYISH!!!) charm. Little does she know she is committing statutory rape. And then we get the stomach punch moment a minute later as she is dumping Mr. Home Alone Dad and says that Josh, "IS A GROWN UP!!" GET IT?!?!

1:12:43 - Yeah I'm pretty much hard up on comments at this point. It has turned into touching scenes of emotional connection. I'm a bitter cold husk of a human being though so these scenes have no effect on me!!!

1:14:00 - Josh touches his first boob.

1:32:44 - I've kind of zoned out a bit but here we are. Josh has gone back to the Zoltar machine and is about to wish that he was a young kid again. Of course over the course of these scene and the last few we have Susan dealing with the fact that she fell in love with a Man-Child. It has to be a bit humiliating. I mean how does she go on knowing that the one relationship in her life has pretty much been a sham!!? Also, Josh just comes through with his true age that he is only 13.

1:38:33 - Okay this next scene bothers me. Josh is getting dropped off in his neighborhood by Susan and he is wearing a suit. The camera cuts and he is now all of a sudden young Josh again immediately. First of all, the transformation happening that fast rings false and going back to the opening transformation scene which happened to coincide with a freak storm indicates that something supernatural was occuring. So I guess the storm was just a coincidence?

The ending scene is Josh back with his old red headed buddy walking down the street talking about stick ball. Its worth noting that the original ending was to be Josh in class and then a new young girl is introduced in the class and its heavily implied that Susan had wished herself young. If that had been the ending...that would have been terrible.

And now finally checking wikipedia/imdb it appears a special edition has been released that has extended footage with over 20 minutes of new scenes. I should get that. I should also point out I don't hate the love story in this movie and it provides the last 1/3rd of the movie with a great emotional arc. But once you really start thinking about how Josh is just 13, it does start getting plain freaky!