Cru Jones Society

No, we haven’t gone gay here in this edition of Happy Friday (unless you’re offering), but our links this week are as diverse as any of the works of the esteemed and highly acclaimed Roy G Biv. So pack your umbrella because it’s about to start raining internet links everywhere! Be on the lookout for cats, dogs, bears, lingerie-clad models, and… Gloppy the Molasses Monster?

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In the spirit of pissing away a day’s work, let’s start off with this week’s most irrelevant links. We realize most of you can’t access YouTube from work, and to that we say: Your job is stupid. That notwithstanding, the following videos of cats acting hilarious are well worth whatever extra effort you have to make to watch them. Our first link sees a cat pissed off at an HP Deskjet printer. What’s funny isn’t that the cat destroys this poor sap’s documents with such zeal, it’s that if your parents have a problem with the printer, they react in essentially the same way.

Speaking of which, if your paper fails to load on a print job, HIT IT! Take it from this cat and just beat the shit out of the paper tray either until the sumbitch loads, or you flail off the stool scared out of your mind taking refuge under a bed somewhere.

And finally, this is almost certainly the greatest feline compilation in recorded history. Even if you’re a not cat fan, this video has something for you. Just trust me. And before the comments section lights up with indignant posters calling us assholes for including a video where a cat probably got hurt, rest assured the cat on the ceiling fan is CGI and was used in a commercial. It isn’t real. If that doesn’t pique your interest in this video, we don’t know what will.

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On a more useful front, evidently the change over to DTV (digital television apparently, not that awesome Donald Duck show that used to be on the Disney Channel like we initially thought) will be delayed until June. Departing from form a bit, I’d like to offer individual takes on this issue from the CJS staff:

Lee S. Hart (email sent to me 2/4 at 3:02 pm): Is four more months really going to help? How long have we known about this? 2 plus years? How many times a day are we bombarded with commercials or a rolling message along the bottom of shows informing us that there will indeed be a switch to digital TV and if you have an antenna and don’t the converter box you are royally boned? What the fuck is with people? Why couldn’t they have cracked the code on this by now?

Senor Limon (email sent to me 2/5 7:15 am): “The changeover has been planned since 2005, but the last 12 months were marked by public confusion about the switch.”

And I read some of the statistics about what the public at large thinks about what they need to be ready for the changeover. Jesus fucking Christ I have lost all faith in humanity. Those commercials seriously could not have been more clear.  A golden retriever with a mild case of retardation could have figured out what to do after watching one.

Senor Limon follow-up (email sent to me 2/5 at 7:19 am): Actually, nevermind, the article goes on to say that 6% of the population isn’t ready for the changeover. Are we seriously holding off because of the dumbest 6% of the population? Seriously. If you haven’t figured it out by now maybe you should lose the right to watch television.

E Dagger (posted now in Happy Friday #32): I have cable. Switch in February, switch in June, don’t switch at all. I don’t give a shit. But I agree with my compatriots, if you’re somehow not ready for this, get your head out of your ass and take 10 minutes to rectify the situation or just shut the fuck up. The government shouldn’t be wasting time with this. They have more important things to do like holding hearings about steroids in baseball.

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In news that’ll make your parents feel old, this week saw the 50^th anniversary of “The Day the Music Died.” We’ve been racking our brains trying to come up with a modern comparison to this, and while Travis Barker and DJ AM came close to re-enacting this dreadful scene, we don’t think either of them is a big enough star. We think the closest comparison would be if Justin Timberlake, Jason Mraz, and John Mayer all died in the same plane crash, only they’re all younger, and all even bigger stars than they are right now. Can you even fathom something like that in our generation? It’s damned creepy.

We’re still not sure who would play the Don McLean part in this tragedy chronicling the song with ridiculous and impossible-to-sit-all-the-way-through-unless-you’re-stoned detail, but we sadly suspect it’s Kanye West.

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Speaking of music (and jarringly awkward transitions), our next Monday Confessional asks you the following: What is the best song to blast in your car and why? We want answers, dammit! Send your rocktastic choices to staff@crujonessociety.com and see ‘em in Monday’s article. We’ll be there. Will you?

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Our favorite article this week comes from Newsweek, which, because we’re weird, we read instead of nothing. The author decides to quit Facebook because, as he states, “With all the status updates, it’s like volunteering to receive spam.” Perpetual status updates strike us as the height of narcissism, as we can’t imagine who would give one rat’s ass that you’re cooking dinner, watching a movie, or dropping a deuce at that very moment. CJS is on Facebook now, and we’d link to that page, but E Dagger is one of approximately 7 people in this age demographic without his own page. You’re on your own for now, but hopefully Senor Limon links to it next week.

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On the other hand, this piece about Stephen King dissing the work of Stephanie Meyer is what we thoroughly enjoyed hating this week. We’re no huge fans of vampire fiction, and you certainly wouldn’t find us with our noses eagerly pressed into the Twilight books, but we don’t think a creepy 61 year-old guy has any business critiquing the authorial stylings of a woman whose work is clearly aimed at a demographic he obviously has no business in.

He smugly states: “A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that’s a shorthand for all the feelings that they’re not ready to deal with yet.” And that’s shitty writing craftsmanship, how exactly? Sounds like a decent stylistic device that relates to the experiences of young girls everywhere in an indirect, but interesting way. Is that not the point?

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Speaking of writers (on the verge of being) overexposed, “Stuff White People Like” author Christian Lander was interviewed by CNN.com. We’ve been hip to this site since, oh, the beginning of last year, so it’s always funny to see the mainstream media finally get around to the cultural happenings of the Internet a day late and a dollar short. People wonder why traditional media continues to crap the bed… we’d contend that it’s because they’re so woefully late all the time. Nice job, CNN! Welcome to January 2008!

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This is just plain old hilarious.

So is this.

And for that matter, this is too. 

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Do you spend a lot of time with old people? Apparently we do because we scored 27 out of 30 on this quiz of old adages from Sporcle.com. That’s weird because aside from small children, the elderly are the demographic group we probably spend the least amount of time with. Maybe we’re just sagacious old chaps. Or maybe we just can’t discard the boring clichés we heard during that stupid 4^th grade fables unit we hated because we were paired up with the dorky kid who always got the best book which made the work a zillion times easier. That still didn’t make his hair any less disgusting-smelling.

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Fellas, if you don’t know how to buy lingerie properly for the special little sex bomb in your life, Esquire is here to help with a handy guide (and slideshow!). Ladies, if you don’t know which types of sexy apparel will most flatter your body, this article is for you too. Now check it out, hit the Trashy Lingerie Store, and go home and roll around together like wild sea otters during the month of May (the height of sea otter mating – doi!). And make sure to high five each other in the middle giving a big ol’ thanks to the CJS for bringing the fire back to your mundane sex lives! You’re welcome!

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Of course, now that you’re thinking boobs, you’re probably thinking back to sneaking looks at the National Geographic in the library during school hours. We know we are. Apparently, National Geographic offers more than the tingly sensation in a young boy’s pants, and has branched out to the music industry. We may spend our time hating monkeys and analyzing our own DVD collections, but we’re always happy National Geographic is around. It’s sort of like NPR, someone’s elevating the dialogue somewhere, we’re just pleased we don’t necessarily have to do it.

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Speaking of which, here’s three random things I wrote this week that don’t warrant their own article.

1. What is it about driving a Jeep Wrangler that turns people into such insufferable preening jerks? I feel like every one of these you see on the street has some pompous dickhead in the driver’s seat weaving in and out of traffic like he’s playing Mario Kart. I saw a guy in one of these recently (with no doors on it), swinging his leg out of the side like a little kid heading to the fishing hole, spit on his hand and wipe off a scuff on his loafer. Classy move. Naturally, he had a sticker on the back that said, “It’s a Jeep thing, you wouldn’t understand.” He’s right. I don’t understand how these mediocre cars are such a fertile breeding ground for assbags and douche nozzles alike.

2. Someone asked me at work the other day what the highlight of my night was. So I told ‘em, “The cat fell asleep on the couch next to me and snored so loud he woke himself up.” What else was I going to say? It was a Tuesday night and I came home, had a chicken breast for dinner, did dishes, watched “The Biggest Loser” with Lady E, and did Wii Fit for a half hour. Not exactly a life’s highlight reel. I wanted to feel sad during that recitation, but then I thought about a typical Tuesday night in college: Had cheese dip for dinner, played Madden for an hour, played foosball for another hour, Senor Limon farted, then Internet porn. Fundamentally these nights really aren’t any different from each other, except that I’m now older with more responsibilities and have no foosball table. That, and it’s horribly emasculating to admit watching “The Biggest Loser.” Hey, Lady E likes it, what am I supposed to do? What’s my point here? I don’t think I have one, but watching the cat wake up confused from his own snoring was pretty damn funny.

3. My buddy Braden and I argued while we were in San Diego about whether or not a crane operator climbs up the ladder into his little compartment. I said he did, Braden said he didn’t and got lifted up by some sort of elevator apparatus. I asked a nearby construction site how he got up there, and the guys told me he climbed up and looked at me like I had two heads. Like – “How the hell else would he get up there, dumbass?” So I was right about that. But a bigger question looms – does every building just have a crane permanently embedded inside itself? And if so, where? I’m looking at one now, and the crane has gotten progressively shorter and shorter as the building gets taller. Am I nuts for wondering this? Or maybe just retarded… I know we have some engineers here, can someone answer this please?

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This week’s further proof that there are no ideas left in Hollywood is news that Tropic Thunder screenwriter Etan Cohen and Enchanted director Kevin Lima seek to make a movie adaptation of the board game Candy Land. Does the prospect of this Wizard of Oz meets diabeetus psychedelic terror fest scare the shit out of anyone else, or just us? Seriously, it’ll be like “Return To Oz” only more abjectly terrifying.

No word yet on who’ll play the oozing disgustingness that is Gloppy the Molasses Monster, but our early vote goes to Al Roker!

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And finally, remember kids, patience is a virtue. When it feels like you can’t wait any longer for dinner/that new Atari 2600/a blowjob, just take a lesson from Patient Bear.

 

Now be patient and wait ‘til Monday for the next Confessional.

Until then, Happy Friday, mofos!

edagger@crujonessociety.com