Hard to Live: June 2010

6/30/10

Teacup Pigs Vs. Baby Dik Diks

Old and busted: Teacup Pigs. New Hotness: Kirk's Dik Diks. See for yourself.

Father, Son, and the Holy Toast

Via Reddit

6/23/10

Fed up with Oil-bama and the BP Executive Elite? Feel like your voice isn't being heard? Send a baby mail, courtesy of BP's horribly cutesy "a little better gas station" campaign circa 2007. Choose one of four dumb babies, accessorize them, then baby-mail your political leaders or share it on your Boycott BP Facebook Page.

I picked a bandit mask and a beach setting. Seemed appropriate. Then I selected a special message for Billy Nungesser, a Louisiana politician who's super pissed about the government halting his effort to block oil from the shore.

No one can resist a message from a baby, so make your own and tell the do-nothings in Washington how you really feel!

Bonus: Here's an old commercial featuring the BPabies. It's hard to remember a time when four perfectly diverse cartoon infants could drive around listening to KidzBop without worrying about burning turtles. I bet Tony Hayward jams this song on the yacht.

6/22/10

You clever little bastard

A glimpse of Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters in their teenage years.

6/16/10

Workin' Out

I love this picture. Anybody that can provide context should drop me a line. Email in profile.

6/11/10

Back to you, Tits McGee

The strain of a sagging economy is written all over the faces of Dallas-Fort Worth's local news anchors. People are losing their jobs and my guess would be that viewership is steadily slipping away, lost to Nancy Grace, Anderson Cooper, and the whole 24hr news cycle.

So the local news station, one of the last bastions of honorable televised reporting, must either re-invent itself or attempt to compete with the glitz, sleaze, and utter vacuity that is modern cable news. Watch this crap-tastic broadcast from DFW's independent CW33 titled, "The Popularity of Breasts" and tell me where you think we're headed.

Jesus H. Christ. That poor, poor news team. They almost appear to be under duress, like the News Director has a shotgun trained on them. I've seen this five times and still can't believe it's real.

From "My Humps" playing over the open to the final "more breasts this way" drive to their website, this is the most stupefying news segment I've ever witnessed. Idiocracy has arrived, at least in Dallas, TX. I can't decide whether to protest or just say f*#k it and head to the Tilted Kilt.

The only good thing about this piece is the line, "Since the beginning of time, there have been prehistoric beasts, the battle for survival and breasts." That is now the first sentence of my novel.

Via UncleBarky.com, a truly fantastic DFW media blog.

Sleep is Death

Three days ago, I found out about a video game called Sleep is Death and I haven't been able to write or do much of anything else since. A loooooong review is coming soon but for now, see if you can figure it out for yourself. The download runs on a sliding scale, though the minimum is $1.75 to cover bandwidth.

That's nothing for a game with more storytelling potential than any other title in gaming history. I swear I'll write again soon. Till then, see you on SidTube.com.

6/7/10

Survival Gun of Choice: The Big F'ing .357 Revolver

The Samaritan, Hellboy's Handgun

In an apocalyptic survival scenario, any gun is better than no gun. But seeing as the bomb hasn't dropped yet, I'm doing my best to end up with a big f'ing revolver. Sadly, Hellboy's Samaritan revolver doesn't actually exist so I'll go with a simple .357 Magnum. Here's why:

1. Reliability. The less complex mechanisms of traditional revolvers don't jam nearly so often as automatic pistols.

2. Durability. Fewer moving parts and an all-metal construction means your pistol could still be holding off blood hungry hoards when the sun re-appears. Polymer frames are for short-timers.

3. Flexibility. The .357 Magnum cartridge is based on Smith and Wesson's older .38 Special. While the magnum packs a lot more power, the cases are actually the same diameter and your .357 will happily shoot .38 bullets. That means more potential sources of ammunition. Plus these common calibers should be easier to find than more exotic sizes.

4. Power compromise. .357 sits perfectly in the middle of the power spectrum. You won't break your wrist, but even the largest zombie will be stopped in its stump dragging tracks. If the kid has to guard while you investigate potential food sources, load up .38's for less kick.

5. Weight. More comforting than a .38 without the near tonnage of a Desert Eagle .50 cal. It's a gun that feels good in the hand and bad in the back of your enemy's head after you resort to pistol whipping.

Click for clear version

Think what you will about us, but HTL would never sucker-punch you with a picture of a guy vomiting. Especially not while you try to finish a sloppy breakfast croissan-wich after drinking too many cape cods yesterday. Well, that's more than I can say about NBC Chicago.

Apparently their "news" item about a man throwing vomit filled condoms (not safe for breakfast crossain-wich) at a college campus security officer just wasn't visual enough. So they looked around for an AP photo of somebody hurling and came up with a spray-tastic picture. A quick glance at the file name reveals the photo's source as Philadelphia's Wing Bowl (nsfbc), a rather raunchy looking eating contest

What's the rationale here? The average public isn't imaginative enough to visualize vomit filled condoms? Thanks for your help NBC Chicago. I had forgotten what a fat guy puking looked like since I took the bicycle mirror off my toilet. .

I've never understood the compulsion to put a barely related generic photograph at the head of these little webby articles. Maybe it dresses up the page but Christ, in some cases it's just inappropriate. And insulting, honestly. I don't need to see a picture of yellow crime scene tape on asphalt every time you write about a fucking shooting or robbery or whatever. If I couldn't read, how would I have gotten to your site? It's the internet, not a See 'n Say.

So thanks for the fine journalism guys. Can't wait to see the visual aids for your upcoming necrophilia series. Also, I'd love to meet the 8% of people who identified that condom throwing story as boring. Their daily lives must be absolutely incredible.

6/3/10

12 Spillcams and Nothing on

WKRG has all 12 spillcams in a live multiplex!

For the actual (and really cool) spillcam multiplex go to WKRG.

Golden Girl

There are now more living Beatles than Golden Girls.

And then there was one. Rue McClanahan, best known for her role as Blanche Devereaux on the television sitcom Golden Girls, has died from a stroke at age 76. Rue, if you're reading this from heaven, I want you to know something. During your final hours I was drunk watching Golden Girls and admiring how it still holds up, twenty years later. Really, I'd rather watch Golden Girls than eighty percent of the trash on television today.

Not interested in Golden Girls? Think it's a show for old people? Well then don't let me hear your trendy ass butchering Modern Family lines while I eavesdrop on your booth adjacent to mine at the Chili's in Lufkin, Texas.

David and Christopher Lloyd

See, Christopher Lloyd, not Doc Brown but rather the co-creator of Modern Family, wrote eleven episodes of Golden Girls and he was story editor/executive script consultant on sixty-two more. He was also heavily involved in Wings and Frasier with his father David Lloyd, who wrote pretty much everything on television between 1970 and 1990.

So the next time you crack up at Cam's latest diva flourish, ask yourself if maybe there's a little Blanche Devereaux in his character. Then do yourself a favor and spend some time with the coolest older women I know. Other than my grandmas.

6/2/10

10 Women in Cheap Food Costumes

I'm sick and tired of my pedestrian sexual proclivities. Here's my latest attempt to develop a unique fetish: "Women in Cheap Food Costumes."

1. "Just Shoot Me"
The cap really makes this one work

2. "California Roll in the Hay"
The always popular Eat Sushi Off Me girl

3. "Berry Pickin'"
The No-Panties strawberry