Sweet Tattoo

As some of you know, I float around the edges of a couple of online fandoms, mostly because I find what goes on in these created communities fucking hilarious. Now, I am not a fan of Twilight, nor do I EVER intend to read a single word of the books or see a single frame of the movies (aside from what was forced on me at Comic Con). The vampires sparkle, people. SPARKLE. Anyway, Twilight fans? Those bitches crazy. And hilarious.



......they do get that this is so not how it works, right?



........I wonder what they will do with the black chess pieces now.

Ok, and I say this as someone who violently LOVES Whole Lotta Love, but didn't the closing ceremonies sort of suck?

And you know what? The cushiest job on the planet is not weatherman in San Diego. It's being David Beckham. He pops up, does a half-smile, kicks the ball, and that's IT. And I bet he was paid boatloads of cash for that.

Whatever.

Ok, seriously people. I was angry when Santa stuck his big, red, flesh-eating butt into Thanksgiving. I was yet more annoyed when Halloween was forced to share the seasonal isle with a holiday yet months away.

But this? IT IS AUGUST, PEOPLE. This is the time for annoyingly perky back-to-school ads which piss of middle schoolers and end-of-summer bonanza sales on grills and shit. And we're talking about the one you put hamburgers on, not the ones on your teeth, Lochte.

What am I ranting about? THIS IS WHAT I AM RANTING ABOUT. Yes, the capslock is necessary. It's a fucking Iron Man ornament in AUGUST. There's not enough Lewis Black-style finger-waving vitriol in the WORLD. I saw this at Longs today at lunch, and it literally stopped me dead in my tracks.

Today is the first day that West Hollywood based Ticketmaster is on their own. Its parent company IAC/InterActiveCorp spun off the ticket seller and three other internet sites to make five separate publicly traded companies. At the end of the article posted on the LA Times' website, it has this little nugget about one of the most frustrating parts regarding Ticketmaster: "[The Company] may consider revamping how it presents fees and charges, if not reduce the actual costs, which vary from ticket to ticket but can amount to nearly half of face value.'The fee structure is too complex,' [CEO Sean] Moriarty said. 'We're hopeful that over the next couple of years we'll make it much more fan-friendly.'"

[Source.]

You know what would make Ticketmaster more fan friendly?

Not more than doubling the goddamned price.


As you can see, I'm still trying to work out my new color scheme. Whatever.

Ok, seriously, enough. I am so effing tired of Fringe. It hasn't even premiered and I'm already so fucking done.

I went to Comic Con. I spend a lot of time educating myself about pop culture, especially when it comes to movies and TV. When shit like the Jonas Brothers escape my notice, I'm totally ok with it. But when J.J. "let's see how we can work the backstreets of China into this one" Abrams comes out with a new show, I should have some idea what the hell it's about.

Here? Nope. Not a thing. If I have to work this hard, which is to say, at all, it's too much. I should at least be able to tell you a general plot point. Something, anything more than that giant poster outside the Personal Storage in Westwood near the 405 has a girl's upside-down head on it, and Joshua "Pacey" Jackson is in it.

This show, apparently, should be right up my alley. So why don't I know a fucking thing about it except that there were frogs on the posters they handed out at the Fox booth at Comic Con?

You're a new show. I should not be having to wonder. You should be spoon feeding me this shit so I get excited, not annoyed that I can't even find a fucking premise.

And no, I'm not gonna go to imdb and look up the tag line or the plot keywords. As I said, I'm already working too hard by wondering about this for longer than about 30 seconds.

Bite me, Fringe.

The man my sister has taken to calling "Phelpsy" models his bling, Spitz-style.

Though, I have to say, the commenters on that post are my favorite part. It has become this whole debate about hirsute men v. the manscaped, and also a forum on whether baggy swim trunks are a sign of homophobia.

And then one of them complains about how Phelps "never misses an opportunity to be photographed shirtless."

Let's examine this for a second.

Point 1. HE"S A FUCKING SWIMMER. It's absolutely no different from photographing Apolo Ono in his unitard or Nastia Lukin in her little bathing-suit-with-sleeves thing. It's what they do. It's the goddamned uniform.

Point 2. Have you seen him in clothes? He looks like any other lanky, doofy tall guy.

Point 3. Have you seen his abs? He's doing the world a favor (that some others could learn from >cough<) and sharing.

Point 4. Did you miss the part about how this is a specific and deliberate echo of the earlier Mark Spitz portrait, you osteocephalic moron?

ETA: J.Lo is a self-centered moron (SHOCKER) and Michael Phelps is the new Chuck Norris. hee.

Ok, you all know I am not a fan of Gossip Girl, and you also know I hold just about everything on the CW as helmed by Dawn Ostroff (with the notable exception being my temporary insanity on Thursdays at 9) to pretty much be a clusterfuck of mythic proportions, especially their marketing department.

But I seriously gotta give it up for whomever came up with this idea. There is one on my way to work every day, and every time I see it I have to chuckle and think, awesome.








And, OK, I seriously had no plans to add any more Supernatural content to this post than the thinly veiled plug above, but this is too awesome not to share. In reviewing SPN, this is in huge red letters across the top of the review: WARNING: Graphic Content!!! Do NOT push play if you don't want to see the explicit video!!! Ok, seriously? If they get this apoplectic over a show that airs just after watershed on a 5th rate network station, what must they say about shit on HBO? I think Supernatural has shown a shirtless guy like 3 times in 3 years. There have been more bra/underwear-clad women, but as we all know, the male form is infinitely more scary than the naked female one. Just looking at Olympic Swimming can turn you gay. All those glistening pecs? You better watch yourself, cause pretty soon, you'll have to move to the Castro and buy yourself an overpriced flat and possibly some assless chaps and a cock ring. Next thing you know, you're on the top of a Pride Parade float in the all together. Such is the power of male aureole. Not that female nipple is anything to sneeze at. I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm still traumatized by the Janet Jackson Super Bowl fiasco. Surely the nation's youth is still reeling.

I think I lost the topic there for a minute.

::cough::

Also, this doesn't exactly dissuade me from wanting me to watch cause pretty much everything listed was pretty awesome when it happened:

“What say we kill some evil sons of bitches and we raise a little hell?”

With these words to his brother Sam, the character Dean establishes the premise of the CW’s horror/detective series Supernatural. But this program is no humorous, gentle Ghostbusters imitator. Suiting their actions to Dean’s words, Sam is shown using a flamethrower-like device to incinerate an enemy; Dean fires a pistol at a ghost, causing it to disintegrate; Bella shoots Sam in the shoulder; Sam complains, “I’m busting my ass trying to keep you alive, Dean”; and Sam shoots a woman directly in the forehead, her head jerking back as her eyes and skull glow infernally. She then stares blankly at Sam, the bloody bullet hole in her forehead visible, then slumps to the ground, dead. And all this happens in the program’s first few minutes -- before the current episode’s storyline even begins!

You know the best part of that chick Sam shot in the head? That was Jared Padalecki's then girlfriend. Someone on the show has a seriously sick sense of humor, and I like it.


Oh, and the answer to my rhetorical question about HBO? They didn't even review Rome, which leads me to the inevitable conclusion that the show was so mindblowingly inappropriate that it actually blew the mind of the reviewer. HA!

In fact, six years after the show ended, you can ask nearly any casual or die-hard fan of the show which episode stuck out the most, and eight out of ten will invariably say, “Home,” likely the single most terrifying episode ever aired on network television, an episode you’d be wise to never watch alone, in the dark, late at night unless, of course, you enjoy the sensation of shit running down your leg, shit which will be scared out of your bowels by an elderly amputee charged with continuing the family line by screwing her deformed, mutant sons. Yeah. We’re talking inbred horror, 42 minutes that will fuck you up. I cannot recommend it enough.

Exactly. Shudder. Single most horrifying television experience of my life.

This should not come as a surprise.

“It’s so strange,” Gaiman said. “Time has really passed. I remember the early days of ‘Sandman,’ when I’d go to comic conventions, and everyone was male. I would get comic book store owners pumping my hand, saying, ‘Oh my god, you brought women into my store for the first time.’ It was one of the first few things that brought women into comics — they were essentially comics guys could give their girlfriends. Like a gateway drug. But then it was spreading sexually, because they’d split up, and the girls would keep the comics, and spread it to their next partner. It was a STD: Sexually Transmitted Dream.”

Hee. Awesome.

Parenthetically, I have a version of that poster. They gave it out at Comic Con.

People who post comments on band myspace/facebook pages messages like "Have a good weekend."

Regardless of whether this artist has "friended" you, you're not actually friends. If this band is big enough to have "people" those people are probably laughing at you. I am.

Anna Friel just became my hero in the pantheon of people like Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson:

The...actress says she was even told by a film producer to eat fewer doughnuts.

‘I told him he could have me or a model without a brain. The obsession with weight today is just incredible. Curves have gone out of the window and I don’t understand it,’ she tells Hot TV.

Awesome.

"Many use the term 'flat-earther' as a term of abuse, and with connotations that imply blind faith, ignorance or even anti-intellectualism."

That's because you're an idiot.

OK, seriously, what the fuck is going on on Project Runway this season? They have so far gotten 100% of the judging wrong--the wrong people win and the wrong people go home--and in three episodes, Tim Gun has said both "hot mess" and "Holla at ya boy."

Will someone stop the insanity?!


In vaguely related news, when will Burn Notice stop with the helping the hopeless bullshit and let Michael and Carla circle each other like the sleek and awesome sharks that they are? Enough dancing!