Happy Friday #36: Drizzle Edition
What’s Snoop Dogg’s favorite weather?
Drizzle.
God that joke’s old, but we still like it. The weather report here at CJS calls for a steady drizzle of links. So let’s waste another Friday together with a steady smattering of links to quench your healthy knowledge thirst. Because it’s drizzling, son. And it’s time to fend up and get yo’ internet on.
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Let’s start with this week’s suckass news. Denver’s proud position as a two newspaper town is dead as of today. The 27th of February marks the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News due to celebrate its 150th Anniversary two months from now.
On a personal note, I grew up reading the Rocky and will miss it dearly. The Rocky is where I first got insider information on professional wrestling thanks to Alex Marvez’s syndicated column, where I first thought about movies in a sophisticated way thanks to Robert Denerstein, and where I continue to enjoy one of the nation’s finest sports columnists, Dave Krieger, who wrote a dandy of a piece on Thursday.
But things can and always do change. Thankfully Krieger is sticking around town and will share space with senile as hell Woody Paige and “can someone please buy me a clue?” Mark Kiszla (called “Mike” in his own inter-office memo – classic!). But that doesn’t change the fact that our favorite paper is no more.
Here’s to you, Rocky! You’ll be missed but not forgotten. We’ll raise a glass to you this evening when hoisting a Crown on the rocks isn’t so out of the ordinary like it is here at the office during business hours.
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Thankfully, no one at the Rocky is as sad as these silly bastards. You might remember last October when we ranted about how much we hate pictures of forlorn stockbrokers looking melancholy, but enough time has passed and enough trillions of dollars have been casually tossed about to make “Sad Guys on Trading Floors” hilarious. We can’t get enough of this site. In fact, we check it everyday just to giggle at these jackasses who act surprised when the market finds another previously unthinkable low to sink to. Wake up, fellas!
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We’ve got three items that are this week’s Cru Jones Society required reading:
1) If you can think of a reason not to read an interview with comedy and animation God Matt Groening, we don’t want to know you. He delves into why he’s a fan of “Family Guy,” “South Park,” and the cartoons on Adult Swim and hints that more “Futurama” might be in the offing. Our nerd sense is tingling that many of you perked up at that thought and we can’t help but wonder why you’re still reading this and not over at CNN already.
2) One of our favorite throwaway lines from Superbad comes from the guy at the liquor store who has to clean up the beer McLovin spilled. He glumly gazes at the ground lousy with spilled beer and busted cans and mutters to himself, “Fuck my life.” In the spirit of that gentleman, we proudly present to you F***MyLife.com. The site is dedicated to snippets of anonymous embarrassment or declarations of failure that all have the same construction. Here are three of our favorites so far:
Today, I was pissing in a urinal and I had the urge to sneeze. Unable to hold it, I sneezed and hit my head on a metal beam supporting the urinal. In complete disarray, I had to step back from the urinal while pissing and managed to spray the floor, the wall, and the person next to me. FML
Today, I went to get a condom because my boyfriend and I were going to have sex for the first time. When I opened the drawer, I saw that every single condom had a Jesus pin stabbed through it, and a note on top of the box: “love mom.” FML
Today, my guy friend and I were in his dorm room watching a movie when he started kissing me. Things heated up so we moved things over to his bed. He was on me when a hand shoots down from his top bunk. His roommate had been up there the whole time and he wanted a high-five. So they high-fived. FML
We spent a good, oh, fucking day and a half perusing these and haven’t stopped. Reading these is an odd mix of pity, hilarity, empathy, catharsis, and discomfort. In short, it’s like bite-sized versions of watching an “Arrested Development” episode.
3) Finally, remember when the drug dealer in the movie Go discusses his contradictory relationship with The Family Circus? He says, “I hate it, but I’m uncontrollably drawn to it.” We suspect many of us have that kind of adversarial relationship with the comics, and The Comics Curmudgeon articulates it flawlessly. He really fucking hates Mary Worth, and his absolute skin-peeling deconstruction of it makes this site worth reading by itself.
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Do you have what it takes to be anointed “Beer Drinker of the Year?”
No. No you don’t.
Don’t believe me? Read this and measure yourself against these three titans of barley.
Yeah, you and your “My college town had three breweries” chump ass can sit down now. These guys are serious.
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But hey, if you can’t be the country’s foremost consumer of malted hops, maybe you can save the world, right?
We would never advocate taking your behavioral advice from a comedy website (Join the CJS Facebook group!), but this article offers a nice counterpoint to all the annoying do-gooders who needle you to death about all the ways you’re poisoning the earth or ruining our children. Remember that anytime someone trumpets a “crisis” that you need to help prevent right away, they’re probably selling you something. Nothing is ever as bad as it seems.
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Why you would want to claim ownership over the window where JFK was allegedly shot from escapes us, but as noted above, there are people who are proud to claim ownership of carbon offsets, so whatever. There’s perceived value in pretty much everything, so good luck, you two weird assholes.
But this reminds us: Is the time of JFK the historical period you’d like to live in most? Fancy yourself a flower child? Or maybe the 60s ain’t your bag. Maybe you’d like to rule the school and invade China with Genghis Khan and then thrash Oshman’s Sporting Goods. Send in your response to this week’s Confessional and tell us which historical time period you’d like to live in or visit and why. Send your responses to staff@crujonessociety.com and we’ll include ‘em next week. Last week’s debate was lively, and this week’s promises to be no different.
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We suspect as more information becomes more available on the current mortgage, scenarios like this will become altogether pedestrian. And that’s just sad.
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One of the most charming guys we’ve met in the recent past was an usher at CassieB’s wedding. He bagged the bride’s cousin, although to be honest, with a few more drinks and hilarious stories of the groom for college, we may have been ready to slip our room key into his tuxedo jacket ourselves. That’s why we’re proud to plug his new company Pocket Square Me with such zeal. Creative new products are always a favorite of the Cru Jones Society, and this one’s a doozy. If you’re tired of your wallet and looking for a unique way of fire up a conversation with someone new, this new-fangled billfold variation will certainly do the trick.
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Anyone remember that awful game show Caesar’s Challenge that lasted like a year hosted by Ahmad Rashad? For whatever reason we think about this show at least once a month and wonder if there’s some place we can get our fix. Thankfully for you, there is! We dare you to play the Flash version of this game’s bonus round and not go for at least five words. If you do, congratulations, your day is actually important. Added bonus: Should you get a word right, listen for the Howard Dean style “Yeagghhh!” in the celebration.
CAESAR SAYS STOP!
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Since we’ve grown up and matured – just go with us on that – we find ourselves giving less and less of a fuck about people “selling out.” Celebrities need money sometimes too, you still like their art, who gives a shit? This article from the BBC examines “selling out” and wonders if it even matters anymore. Do people just expect their heroes to up and start shilling for car insurance or should there be more outrage? You know where we stand. Decide for yourselves.
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A band that can never be accused of selling out is The Bouncing Souls. These punk stalwarts continue to r0x0rs our b0x0rs (people still say that, right?) with kickass album after kickass album after kickass album. So it’s no surprise they give a damn good interview too. We particularly liked their thoughts on George Bush galvanizing the punk base and how that plays into the overall ethos of punk rock. Here’s a sampling: He was a great counterpoint to punk ideology, but punk will be okay without him. Just like we had punk rock during the Clinton years, we’ll continue to have punk rock in the time of Obama.
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And on one final music note: Are you tired of getting rick rolled every time those “Hayden Panettiere Nude!” links come up? Well, you’re not alone as one of the biggest companies in the entire fucking world actually tasked someone with coming up with new Rick Roll alternatives. We’re ashamed we actually spent two hours contemplating this, but our choice is “Take On Me” by A-Ha for its gooseshit crazy music video, it’s catchy beat, and the memories of drunkenly singing the falsetto part on our back porch so loud all the neighborhood dogs started howling.
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Yo, Snoop! Where we at, dogg?
Happy Friday, pizzle! See you next week.
27 Feb 2009 E Dagger