Cru Jones Society

 

Labor Day weekend is upon us, Regulars. And since you’re likely not coming to work on Monday, what’s the difference if you blow off Friday too? With that in mind, we’ve got some of the best time-wasting links we’ve found in quite some time right along side a preview of the Broncos, the upcoming Fall TV schedule, and the father of Beavis & Butthead himself. There’s no time like the present, so get to clicking and make sure your IT department knows just how woefully inefficient you can be!

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Let’s get retarded with our latest obsession. Hart and I both worked retail jobs (although he’s got 4 years of soul-sucking servitude on me), so we’ve dealt with our share of eye-poppingly stupid tales of customer incompetence. Which is why we were so pleased to happen upon Not Always Right, where downtrodden retail slaves share hilarious stories from their experiences trying to help asshole without a clue. Here’s a sample entry (complete with upgraded nerdiness) for your enjoyment.

Hailing Frequencies Open But Nobody’s Home
Retail | Salt Lake City, UT, USA

(My brother runs a company that sells sci-fi and fantasy memorabilia. A customer came up to the table and started inspecting a replica Star Trek communicator.)

Customer: “So does this actually work?”

Me: “Oh, yes. When you flip it open, it lights up and plays authentic sound effects.”

Customer: “No, no, I mean, does it actually communicate with the Enterprise?”

Me: *joking* “Well, the ship would be out of range if it wasn’t in orbit.”

Customer: *serious* “Oh, right!”

WARNING: Once you start reading these, you’re likely not to stop. So open this link if you dare, and then we’ll see you in 3 hours.

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Welcome back.

Now that you’ve indulged in delicious schadenfraude wondering how some people even dress themselves in the morning, get ready to laugh your fucking balls off thanks to our new favorite Twitter account. Shit My Dad Says is just like it sounds. The feed’s author Justin describes his Tweets as such: I’m 28. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down shit that he says.

First CJS rule of comedy: Virtually anything a crotchety man over the age of 70 says is automatically funny. Example: “What are you listening to?…I know who Hall & Oates are god dammit. It’s the mustache guy and the gay man.” Not grabbing you? How about this: (watching the Little League World Series) “These kids are all fat. I remember when you were in little league…. You were fat.”

This is just another reason you need to be on Twitter. And outside of “prove you’re not a homo” and “CJS asked me to, what am I, gay? Why haven’t I started following them yet?” reading Shit My Dad Says is probably the third best reason to join.

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With the fall approaching, we suppose that means it’s time for football season. And since this is Denver, and despite the fact the Broncos seem poised to toss the rest of the league’s salad this year, we ought to give you a Broncos preview before the season starts. In the spirit of the hideous acrimony surrounding the Jay Cutler/Josh McDaniels debacle, the infantile antics of Brandon Marshall, and our group of friends who, in the face of all logic, seem excited for a Broncos season, we’ll give you Deadspin’s preview of their season. Entitled “Why Your Team Sucks: Denver Broncos” Deadspin describes their team-by-team previews thusly: “Some people are fans of the Denver Broncos. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Denver Broncos. This 2009 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group.”

We found this positively hilarious and in fact read several previews of other teams despite the fact that a) we don’t like any other teams; b) don’t especially give a rat’s ass about the NFL in general; and c) actually had better things to do this week. These are that funny. So fear not, non-Bronco fans. Your team sucks too. Just ask Deadspin.

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And if the NFL is starting, that means network television returns too so you can finally bring an end to that stifling bike riding habit, put an end to the tiresome drinking on patios routine, and get your yuppie ass back inside for a winter of free entertainment where you’re once again clear to get fat and pale in front of your favorite episodes of “Rules of Engagement” or whatever equally awful show you enjoy. We’ve got a handy-dandy calendar to give you an easy reference point for when all of the fall shows premiere.

The shows CJS is  most looking forward to:

• The Office, Parks & Recreation, and Community on Thursday, the 17^th.
• How I Met Your Mother & Big Bang Theory on Monday, the 21^st.
• Saturday Night Live on the 26^th.
• All the Sunday animated shows on Fox on the 27^th (as well as Dexter, although we’ll have to make friends in our new neighborhood with someone who has Showtime… and then kill them and sneak into their house each week)
• And Lie To Me on on Monday the 28^th.

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Apparently Swine Flu is still in the news. The Cru Jones Society has upped its level of concern regarding this developing pandemic and has acted accordingly in re-doubled its prevention efforts. I asked Hart over the phone last night about it.

Me: Are you taking the necessary precautions to prevent swine flu?

Hart: Man, Jason Giambi has gotten fat.

So there you go, we’re ready for it. And so is Elmo as the US Department of Health and Human Services has enlisted his help in encouraging children to wash their hands and sneeze into the crook of their elbows. Our favorite part of this story is the picture that makes it look like that giant Elmo is fantasizing about eating Kathleen Sebelius whole Tony Robbins-style. Look out, Madame Secretary!

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Apropos of absolutely nothing, here’s why Hart and I hid our wrestling fandom in high school. Mouth breathers like this poor rube give us all a bad name.

We still own a shitload of these toys though, and I remember when I finally finished off my Ric Flair, Mr. Perfect, Bobby Heenan triumvirate, Lady E said with a note of dread, “Thos are going on your nightstand, aren’t they?” You’re damn right! Because it’s still real to me, dammit!

But that’s us. We want to know what your favorite toys were growing up. Action figures? Nerf guns? Barbie and the Rockers playset? A big bottle of Drano with “DRINK ME” scrawled across the side by your evil parents? CJS wants to know! Send your responses to staff@crujonessociety.com and we’ll have a big ol’ ridiculous toy fest here on Monday.

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The letters “WTF” get thrown around a lot, and we hate to see them wasted on shit that isn’t even shocking. We hate it when one of your boring ass co-workers sends out something like “Did you see Melissa’s shoes today? WTF?!” that is so painfully banal, you just want to reach through your monitor so you can knock over their coffee, and smack them upside the head for wasting 10 second of your day that could have been spent giggling innocently at LOLcats.

But Picture is Unrelated does us proud and serves up a collection worthy of bearing the WTF mantle. Want to see axe-wielding rednecks with horrendous underbites? Boom! It’s there. An elephant on water skis? You got it! Two guys hauling a bathtub across a barren desert? Booya! It’s all there and more. Although, no photos of alligators wearing sunglasses because that would mean you’ve now seen EVERYTHING.

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We like to think we’re funny here at CJS, but we know when to bow to our masters. Chris Hardwick you may remember as host of MTV dating show “Singled Out,” and his erudite quips at the expense of first-order d-bags were legendary. His site is called Nerdist.com and he offers blog postings on the latest tech gadgets, deconstructions of the inherent absurdity of Back to the Future, and in the case of this post, Bill Hicks’s Principles of Comedy.

We were just a shade too young for Bill Hicks, but almost every comedian we’ve grown up loving (Patton Oswalt, Lewis Black, Chris Hardwick, just to name three) has worshipped at the altar of the brilliant comedy of Bill Hicks, and Denis Leary basically stole his entire act after he died, so there you go. So it was with great relish that we read his principles of comedy on Nerdist. Hardwick offers his own advice for getting into the world of stand-up making this an all-around great read.

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And speaking of comedy gods, we continue our grand Happy Friday tradition of linking to an interview conducted by the AV Club. This time it’s Mike Judge who we’d like to thank right now for our childhood. I can’t speak for Hart, but I spent the better part of middle school talking like Beavis & Butthead not fully in on the joke. It wasn’t until later that I totally got it, and then laughed even harder about them.

This interview hypes his new movie Extract, which we’re damned excited to see.  But he spends the lion’s share of the interview talking about the finer points of Office Space, so if you love this movie as much as we do (and if you’re between the ages of 40 and 25, we’re guessing you do), this is definitely this week’s CJS Required Reading.

As a bonus, if you’ve missed having Beavis & Butthead in your lives as much as we have, here’s a video featuring them promoting Extract. It’s only 3 minutes, but that’s 3 minutes of Beavis & Butthead you didn’t have before, so savor it while you can. Savor it like a pedophile enjoying the musk of illicit sex in a new house just before Chris Hansen shows up.

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You know what robots do? They steal old people’s medicine, and use it for fuel. That’s why Sam Waterston looked out for us all those years ago with his robot insurance commercials. And that’s also why we find these giant robots used to transport old people all about the nursing home so abjectly terrifying. Haven’t these people seen the commercials? I mean, c’mon, SAM WATERSTON!

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Three things we can all agree on:

1) Rad is the greatest movie not available on DVD.

2) “The Stepdads ” is the greatest team name ever because whenever anyone asks you why you’re called “The Stepdads,” you get to say, “Because we beat you and you hate us.  And when this game’s over, I’m going home to fuck your mother.”

3) We need better ways to transport Jagermeister.

Thankfully Geekologie has us covered with their recent post about this handsome Jagermeister branded cooler with tap. We wish we still had the liver, metabolism, and spare time to necessitate purchasing a cooler like this, but alas, it’s yet another awesome invention that came five years too late much like the Flabongo, pretzel necklaces to wear at beer festivals, and playing Nintendo Wii naked with members of the opposite sex.

As if “Not Always Right” and “Picture is Unrelated” weren’t beautiful enough time sucks for you, we’ve now thrown Geekologie – hilariously written, and uncoverer of the crème de la crème of weirdo techno junk – on the pile for you as well. Truly, this is an epic Happy Friday for sheer time wastery.

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TWINSBURG, OH-Jesus Christ, area man Mark Hurley cannot fucking believe this dumb shit who has been riding his ass all the way out to Cleveland, even though they’re traveling on an empty three-lane highway.

If you can’t guess what indispensible news source we got that opening line from, you have no business reading this site.

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And finally this week, we end with baseball. Oh come on, like we’d get through an entire Happy Friday in the midst of baseball season without at least one link to our favorite game. In the spirit of last week’s quiz seeing if you know who’s a Rockies player and who’s a United States Congressman, we present you with this week’s offering: How well do you know your Rockies entrance music? Everyone recognizes Spilly’s iconic at-bat music, but can you recognize the sunshiny Christian music Seth Smith comes up to? Let us know how you did in the comments section.

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And since we don’t have that Jager cooler just yet (not too late for a belated E Dagger birthday present, CJS Regulars!), we’ll settle for the next best thing. Just a few hours to go…

Happy Friday, bitches. And have a safe and happy holiday weekend.

See you next week in the Confessional toy store.

edagger@crujonessociety.com