That kind of strikes me as an
arrogant title to use, but I think it's
appropriate for the subject matter. See, I'm a big fan of the
Howard Stern Show, and whenever
Apopros
of nothing, here's a picture of Kylie Minogue I found doing a google
image search for "best of stern", trying to illustrate my point.
they'd take vacation, the radio
station
wouldn't just air repeats of old shows, but compilations of the best
moments from a whole lot of shows, all put together. This was called
"The Best of Stern", and it struck me as a good apellation for recycled
content.
Which
brings me to this little project. My blog, which you can
find embedded on the front page of the little yellow room, is well over
three years old. I've written a lot of stuff in that time, and
some of it I'm kind of proud of. See, I know a lot of people
blog, and of those bloggers, many are content to just jot down their
thoughts or record day-to-day events. Others seem to use the
technology as an extended message board. I do a lot of that
myself, naturally, but to me, the point of having a public journal on
the internet is to give people something to see. So I try to make
sure that most of my entries are funny, or thought provoking, or at
least something, so that
anyone on my friendslist will see it and get a little entertainment in
between reading about annoying co-workers or memes. Not that
there's anything wrong with stories about work or quiz results--I do
those all the time, too--but I hope that my extracurricular posts keep
things more interesting.
Of course, the downside to
Livejournal is that if I should happen to
write something cool, you're only going to be able to see it for a few
days before it's bumped down by other posts. It was about a year
ago I finally figured out how to use the "Memories" function to
organize my old entires by themes, but to me this still wasn't
enough. I wanted to be able to pick out my favorite pieces, and
introduce them with a sentence or two before the link, so Joe Q. Reader
would understand what I was talking about in 2002. Also, doing it
like this gives me a chance to clean up a few errors, like that one
time I referred to Ernie Fletcher as a Senator instead of the U.S.
Representative (R-KY). Again, LJ lets you do that, but it's
harder.
Below, you'll find some of my rants
and raves from years gone by,
covering a variety of subjects from politics to candy to my own
buttocks. Actually, that last one comes up surprisingly
often. Well, at least try to enjoy as best you can.
"Hey
Fred, We're All-New!"
My favorite manga had just gotten revamped with a new
title. It wasn't the relaunch that bothered me, but
the terrible
curse!
"Azrael:
Agent of the Rut"
Once it was one of my favorite comics, and then it
jumped the shark. Find out how.
"Serious
Strawberry Alarm Clock" The year was 2003, and
everyone was still calling
President Bush
"Shrub". My middle-of-the-road backlash against unoriginality.
"Planeteer
Alert!" Democratic Presidential
hopeful John Kerry told voters
in Michigan that
he owned an SUV, and then told voters in California that he
didn't. A certain environmentally themed superhero is about
to get the story straight.
"More
Stuff That Sucks" There
are times when I can get sick of a movie without
even thinking of
going to see it. So it was with "Charlie's Angels II: Full
Throttle".
"RRRRNNNNN...
CANDY GOOD."
The Incredible Hulk didn't
exactly smash any box office
records, but
Ol' Jade Jaws did manage to bust onto the junk food promotional tie-in
scene, and that was probably all he really cared about.
"Tough
Enough Part Duex: Still Pretty Dumb"
When MTV and the WWF joined forces, the result was a
reality show about
kids training to become wrestlers. A young Jackie Gayda went on
to win the show and perform one of the worst matches in WWF history,
but what did MTV get out of the deal? Why, a minor sex scandal,
of course.
"Gathered
Together From
Remote Galaxies..." One of my favorite
pasttimes in comics is to keep tabs on the
individual members of the Legion of Doom, the much beloved supervillain
team of the 1970's cartoon Challenge of the Superfriends. In DC
Comics, the Legion never actually existed, but I always figured it was
a matter of time before some nostalgic writer formed a comics version
of the team and bring the Big Thirteen together again... for the first
time. Only problem is at any given time half of them are dead or
unusable. So to help me keep score, this was my official record
of everyone's status quo in 2002.
"Or
the Lobster Gets it..."
If anyone at PETA is wondering why
no one respects their cause, look no
further. Of course, that's a rhetorical statement, since it's
become clear to me that no one at PETA even knows what "respect"
means.
"It's
Doomsday... It's Doomsday for us all..."
As is the case every few years, Marvel Comics fans
began to prophesy the inevitable self-destruction of the comapny they
professed to love. Somehow Marvel survived six issues of Rob
Liefeld drawing Captain America, but Bill Jemas turning the Rawhide Kid
gay was supposed to kill it dead and take the entire industry down with
it. As usual, this was me refusing to play Henny Penny to
everyone else's Chicken Little.
"Once
More, Unto the Breach..."
For some reason, Disney seems content to rest on is
laurels this century and market sequels to its library of classic
animated films. No one really asked for Pocahontas II, but it's easier
to make than something. And they wonder why they're in so much
financial trouble.
"Oyez, Oyez!" For some reason, everyone on the
internet's got a
title. "Keeper of the Plotbunnies." "High Preist of the
Shrine to Two Anime Girls You Never Heard Of." In response, I
have declared myself the Obsidian Overlord of Opacity. Read on...
IF YOU DARE!
"Calls,
calls, calls, calls from the
public, calls, calls, calls..."
I never really complain about my income taxs, in part
because I'm so grateful to the federal government for the Do-Not-Call
list. Although, even with it, I still have to put up with idiots
on the phone from time to time. See above.
"The
Sliiiiime Chamber!"
For some reason, political pundits
like Hannity and Colmes, Michael
Savage, the creepy bald guy on CNN, and Ann Coulter, refused to give an
opinion on the unveiling of the Harry Potter Slime Chamber. So
that left it up to me.
"What
Will YOU See?" Thanks to
advances in anti-popup
technology, the days
when every website in the universe had a commerical for miniature
surveillance cameras is but a fleeting memory. Come with me now,
on a trip to yesteryear...
"Tab." My first encounter with the 1970's
king of diet
soda. As thrilling as it sounds.
"Stupid
Crap."
I mainly included this one because of my account of the dumbest car
I've ever seen. This was one of those potpourri deals where I
combined three LJ entries into one big one with no point. I
should really stop doing that.
"Till
All Are One Ring"
I liked some of the Lord of
the Rings movies, but I think things could have been vastly improved
with the addition of a single character: Ultra Magnus.
"The WWE
Sucks." [1]
[2]
[3] Before all is said and done, I'll
probably have more
critiques of World Wrestling Entertainment than I'll know what to do
with. So I'm giving them their own little section here.
"Whatever
Happened to William, the King of Imagination?" From a
kingdom of chlorinated water he came, larger than life, accompanied by
pomp and pool-toys alike during three glorious seconds in 1997.
Eight years later, he is but a fading memory, conspicuous only by his
absence.
"Clean Sheets?" If there's
one thing I hate about Japanese cartoon characters, it's their constant
and shameless attempts at sex appeal, despite lacking most of the
anatomical features I tend to demand of my soulless fantasy
women. Silly costumes don't really compensate for any of this.
"R.I.P.
Star Trek"
On the night of Star Trek:
Enterprise's series finale, I offered a little advice to
Paramount, and even less sympathy to the die-hard fans who actually
thought we'd be worse off without the franchise.