Cru Jones Society

Get out of your chair and quit listening to that classical music all day. I’ve got a whole collection of stuff not suited for its own column to discuss. You don’t even have to put pants on (unless you’re at work, I suppose). Continue Reading »

Since I live alone and rarely have another person to talk to while I watch movies, I ask myself questions that I spend the rest of the evening wrestling with. Last night’s difficult query came courtesy of the film Alien, and no the question was not whether some one could hear you scream in space or not. What I was wondering was if I was given the opportunity, would I partake in space travel. What follows are the pros and cons I took into consideration to answer this conundrum. Continue Reading »

We’re all aware that Canada doesn’t have what it takes to mount a full-scale military invasion of the US. What with being all tucked away under there we feel that our homes are safe from them.

But what if they aren’t? What if Canada has secretly been using slow and subtle tactics in an effort to make the US it’s bitch? Here are a few of the tactics they might be using. Continue Reading »

The soft drink business is a multi-billion dollar industry. So it’s no surprise that I can’t go a single day without seeing a can of the stuff. And since the cans tend to be brightly colored, my attention is grabbed and I find myself staring awkwardly until it angrily asks me what I’m staring at and I reply “Oh, uh, um nothing,” as I fidget and look anywhere else. But as soon it looks away, I start staring again.

Sorry, the personification got away from me there for a moment. The last time I looked at a can I was intrigued by it’s name. I wondered where the name came from, and if it really was the best choice for a name. I mean Mello Yello? Do you want to remind consumers that your drink is the same color as pee? What follows are the origins of the names behind 5 of the more popular soft drinks. Now click the button, read on, and put it in your head. Continue Reading »

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you  on behalf of the Garmin Corporation for your purchase of the Garmin Forerunner^® 305; the Pinnacle in mobilized GPS-enabled wrist mounted fitness technology.  Continue Reading »

What happens when you’ve got a bunch of nonsense rattling around in your brain - none of which merits its own column? Why, you slap it all together in one haphazard collection and call it Random Musings, of course! C’mon in! Continue Reading »

This weekend I walked passed several Goth kids. I could only assume they were heading to the graveyard to write poems about death and how pointless life is. I didn’t judge since I was on my way to spoil my liver and destroy myself one internal organ at a time.

The image of those kids dressed all in black, hanging out at a cemetery kept haunting my head. I soon began to think about death myself. I wasn’t thinking about it a morbid way, well not completely morbid; it is death after all, there’s bound to be some morbidity. I was thinking about it more in a fun way. I was considering the coolest ways to go. Ways that would make someone look twice when they read it in the obituaries. So here they are: The top 5 ways I’d like to die. Continue Reading »

In what might be an effort to make drinking more fun, or start fights, or create an opening to talk to girls the beer Molson Canadian has created new labels for the back of their bottles. These labels read Answer Honestly: Would You Prefer . . . then two options are given, these options are semi related, in most cases anyway. The first half dozen I had were questions that required no thought at all. The questions involved choices with obvious answers. Something along the lines of, “Would you prefer to bleed from the ears or not bleed from the ears?”

I would like to present to you the questions I have come across in my journey towards drunk, as well as my answers. Maybe we’ll learn that we have more in common than we previously thought. So let’s put the spaghetti in the machine and get this under way. Continue Reading »

Just waking up in the morning gotta thank god
I dont know but today seems kinda odd
No barking from the dogs, no smog
And momma cooked a breakfast with no hog

Since I’m a dorky white guy, this is naturally my favorite Cube song. It’s also a song that paints a grim picture of urban life where it’s not that things go right to constitute a good day, it’s more that they don’t go wrong and you finish the day with minimal threats on your life and fewer harrowing experiences than normal. This song is urban poetry at its finest and says more about inner city strife than a year’s worth of op-ed columns. Conversely, it’s also been appropriated by frat guys everywhere as a Saturday afternoon drinking anthem, which, by my estimation, misses the point completely. Although I’m guilty of doing this in college myself. Whatever…

This annotates the dichotomy of rap music beautifully. Rap used to stand for a particular set of politics and reflected a portion of the population that until it had rap, had virtually no voice whatsoever. Since the movement went mainstream, rap’s inclusion of political, sociological, and even controversial material (aside from almost trite depictions of violence and misogyny) has been ever dwindling. With ephemeral, meaningless garbage like Soulja Boy and Flo Rida polluting the airwaves, rap stands as a mere parody of itself these days. It used to be fucking scary, now it’s a pure clown act.

The reason I bring this up is because Cube tickets go on sale this Saturday. Having never been to a rap show in my life (unless you count the Kottonmouth Kings, which you shouldn’t - they’re terrible), I have intense curiosity about the experience. But thinking about what a scary dude Cube used to be - and the resultant thuggish crowd that would come out to see him perform - I find myself conflicted about buying tickets.

It’s possible I’m overthinking things - I mean, what kind of real thug has time to go to a concert, anyway - and the crowd will be filled with gawky, uncertain, douchy white guys like me, but still.

It’s also possible Cube ruined his street cred by driving around those bratty kids for two movies and chasing a gigantic snake around the Amazon, but still.

The overarching mythology of what Ice Cube is, what his tenure in N.W.A. means, and the specter of my memory of being frightened of all rappers as a child (aside from kiddie fare like Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer, naturally) prevents me from immediately jumping on the bandwagon and buying tickets.

What about everyone else? Would you see Cube? Do you even like Cube? Am I a quasi-racist tool for worrying about this? Feel free to leave a comment. Let’s discuss…

edagger@crujonessociety.com

Have you ever been at a bar (wait let me finish), trying to have a good time, when two of your friends are rationally, or what they think is rationally, arguing, for what feels like a life time, about something stupid, like Dakota Fanning. Both smart people, both more stubborn that a mule that thinks it is a husband in 1950s society. Each coming up with what they believe are legitimate reasons to argue about a fucking 8 year old actress.

That could be annoying to be around.

Though, the two jackasses arguing in the bar did appear to be having fun. If the person who had to experience this had strong feelings either way they would have joined in and probably would have had a better time.

I think we all enjoy a good argument, or rather what I would like to call a “Ball Busting Debate.” Because you’re not going to change your buddy’s mind, but you’ll make points that either a) really get under their skin or b) bust their balls. Under this theory, I present to you the top five “Ball Busting Debate” topics that I have experienced over the years. Please feel free to take a side, and share your opinions, and if they differ from mine I hope you’re prepared to live a life knowing you’re wrong. Continue Reading »

Its my day to post, and instead of missing two days in a row I feel compelled to post something, even if it is the kind of pointless drivel we initially promised we’d never do here at CJS. I returned home this morning from the most boring 8 hours and 30 minutes of work I have ever had to endure, and upon looking at no less than 23 half finished articles on my computer I have found absolutely nothing I feel compelled to finish. Instead, here is a video of a ferret stuck in a tube, and a very sleepy kitten. I promise to be back with something substantial this Friday. Some dweeb in an art museum really pissed me off, and I feel the need to register my disgust with the entire incident on the internet. I’d post it today, but I was so enraged upon writing it the first time that the article right now is just three pages of hate filled stream of consciousness and doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Sr. Limon:     We have ample storage in our kitchen. Why does my roommate insist on putting pots and pans in the oven?

E Dagger:     There is no accounting for how some people were raised.

Sr. Limon:     Seriously. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to pull out piping hot pots and pans from there because I forgot to look before pre-heating.

E Dagger:     I haven’t heard the phrase ‘piping hot’ in I don’t know how long, and even then I only heard it in reference to gravy.

Sr. Limon:     Interesting. I probably wouldn’t describe gravy that way.

E Dagger:     You would if you needed an accurate way of describing graby that was exceptionally hot.

Sr. Limon:     I suppose so, but since you never have to consume gravy directly, the danger of being burned is minimal.

E Dagger:     Have you ever had piping hot gravy? It rivals pizza sauce in terms of intense mouth burn and you don’t consume that directly either.

Sr. Limon:     Pizza sauce is only dangerous because it squirts out from where its contained between the cheese and the crust when you bite the pizza. Gravy goes on top of food, and is therefore much less dangerous. (the cheese and crust both disguise and retain the piping hot pizza sauce, making the potential for dangerous mouth burn rise approximately three-fold.)

E Dagger:     Ok, but in a way it makes it more dangerous because you never see it coming. Piping hot gravy is like the colon cancer of mouth burns: unexpected, but deadly.

Sr. Limon:     I suppose anything is possible. Plus, nothing would ruin Thanksgiving dinner like a burnt mouth.

Sr. Limon:    I still say that I can’t recall a single gravy burning incident, yet I burn my mouth with pizza sauce almost weekly.

E Dagger:     You’re right, mostly its a non-issue, but from time to time piping hot gravy is serious.

Sr. Limon:   I’ll keep that in mind.

E Dagger:    Definitely. So, you cooking something then?

So I’m getting ready this morning and somehow despite feeling like I fell out of a dog’s ass when I woke up, I’m set to go quicker than usual. Having a few spare minutes for once, I happily plop down on the couch for some early morning television.

Not feeling like staring at Al Roker’s smiley ass this morning, I cruise the digital movie channels and what do I find? Booya! Top Gun is on! I can’t think of a better way to start my Friday morning. Planes! Motorcycles! Kenny Loggins music! Homoerotic beach volleyball! What could be better?!

So what happens?

I come in right at the scene where Iceman acts like an idiotic prick during the final Top Gun training exercise causing Maverick to fly through his jet wash. Flat spin ensues. Goose punches them out and crashes into the canopy which hadn’t yet cleared. Goose is dead. And now I’m depressed.

Talk about your all-time backfires. Goose is the glue of Top Gun. Without him, the movie isn’t half as good and we’re missing damn near all the quotable lines. His death ranks as one of the All-Time Top 3 Most Depressing Movie Deaths with Hooch from Turner & Hooch and Jim Brown in The Dirty Dozen.

And now all I can think about is Tom Skerritt talking to Tom Cruise in his underwear telling him he’s got to “let him go.” What the fuck, Tom Skerritt? It’s been a matter of hours since Goose died and you want Maverick to let him go? Why don’t you and your mustache go back to Picket Fences where you belong and let Maverick grieve for christ’s sake? I realize you’re a military man, but give the man some time!

I thought about this all the way to work. Not even the dulcet tones of Rise Against could shake me out of it. Goose is dead, and now I have to live with it for the rest of the day. Swell…

Hopefully Senor Limon can turn this Friday around. We’ll see.

Sr. Limon: If you ever want to see some ridiculous shit you should check out the Cabela’s Home Catalog.

Hart: Cabela’s: the opposite of Big Lots

Sr. Limon: In many ways, yes. If you need a toothbrush holder shaped like shotgun shell casings I can tell you just where to look.

Hart: I have a whole shotgun themed bathroom. That is the only piece that is missing.

Sr. Limon: Or how about a coat hanger shaped like a hog’s head or maybe a gigantic wall mural featuring mule deer?

Sr. Limon: Need a Camouflaged shower curtain?

Hart: Dude, I want camo everything!

Sr. Limon: You’re in luck. They have bedsheets too.

Hart: The sad thing is someone out there is actually buying, that, shit. That store rakes in the dough.

Sr. Limon: So true. Ooh! A lightswitch cover, I know what someone is getting for Christmas!

Bad movies have clichés. In fact in many ways, bad movies are clichés. As a well documented fan of terrible movies, I feel well qualified to know a cliché when I see one. I realized something recently while glassy-eyed watching U-571 a while back after a long day of work. I had previously never seen this movie, and about halfway through watching I realized something that struck me as oddly profound. Every submarine movie I have ever seen is essentially the same. I’m far from an expert though, when it comes to movies about submarines. I wouldn’t even exactly classify myself as a fan, and aside from U-571 I probably haven’t seen a submarine movie since the last time I was watching Down Periscope on Comedy Central some morning for no other reason than it was on. I’d like to complete my research and be qualified to articulate exactly what it is about submarine movies that makes them essentially the same. After all, many movie genres have their own cliches, but I think it really goes deeper than that (get it? Deeper! haaawwww!).

So, come along with me on a journey below the sea, this is going to take some work, I had better break it down:

Continue Reading »

Since I only work a half day on Fridays, my afternoons usually consist of a nice lunch coupled with a splendid lunch beer, a trip to the gym, and watching whatever movie happens to be on one of the 25 pay movie channels. Obviously, Lady E does not have the same luxury which allows me to feed my shitty-to-marginal movie habit.

Today, I was surfing through the channels and stopped on Kindergarten Cop. This movie is a mid-afternoon classic bestowing upon us lines like “It’s not a too-mah!” and “Our mom says that our dad is a real sex machine.” Ultimately, Kindergarten Cop is cutesy as hell, but the movie’s climax features one of the most psychologically disturbing scenes ever captured on film.

Schwarzenegger has successfully passed himself off as a kindergarten teacher and figured out that his colleague is the former wife of the criminal, Cullen Crisp, he pursues at the beginning of the movie (and mother to the criminal’s son - a member of Schwarzenegger’s kindergarten class). When the witness who helped put Crisp behind bars ODs on whatever, Crisp is released from jail and comes to Oregon to kidnap his son and presumably kill his ex-wife. He sets a fire in the school’s library and snatches his son amid the chaos of the fire evacuation. This is all relatively normal given the context of the plot.

Here’s where it gets fucked up. Schwarzenegger finds Crisp who’s holding a gun to his son’s head while threatening to shoot his mom. Before Crisp can do anything, the ferret hiding in the kid’s shirt climbs up and bites Crisp on the face allowing him to escape and Schwarzenegger to blow his father to hell. Then the kid’s grandmother enters the frame and shoots Schwarzenegger. She’s about to put his lights out when Schwarzenegger’s partner shows up (who the kid thought was Schwarzenegger’s sister) after getting hit by a car and dispatches his grandmother with a baseball bat. Everyone lives happily after ever and Schwarzenegger comes back to teach kindergarten - assumedly forever thereafter.

Put yourself in this kid’s shoes. You’re six years old, and your dad, whom you haven’t seen in a few years, shows up threatening to kill your mom, holds a gun to your head, and tells you he’s taking you away to start a new life. He would have killed your mom had it not been for your kindergarten teacher who blew him to hell. Now your grandmother is in jail, and the lady who you thought was your teacher’s sister, but it turns out she’s just a hypoglycemic cop, beat the shit out of her with a baseball bat.

Jesus!

This kid is going to be messed up for a long time. My money’s on him looking like John Connor at the beginning of Terminator 2 in a few years: riding around with Bobby Budnick on his little motorbike, committing credit card fraud, and living with lowlife foster parents.

Did the end of Kindergarten Cop weird anyone else out? Or am I alone here in thinking the poor kid in this movie suffered worse mental damage than anyone outside of Dr. Evil having to grow up with crazy Belgian parents?

The three blocks I walk each morning between my parking lot (at the Greyhound Station!) and my office building is filled with some of Denver’s most colorful characters. Between the affordable housing complex, the assisted living apartment building (which I believe houses approximately 85% of Denver’s blind population), the most ghetto-tastic 7-11 this side of Baltimore, and the assorted hooligans populating the bus station at all times, it’s never a dull five minutes. I get hit up for change at least three times per week, see people who look like they’ve been hanging out since Reconstruction, and dudes wearing clothes big enough to comfortably house a family of four.

Today was especially unusual. Continue Reading »

In my Las Vegas post, I spent an entire section singing the praises of Allegiant Airlines and how great it is to fly out of Fort Collins/Loveland. I stand by my analysis of the airport - inexpensive tickets, no lines, easy parking, cheap booze - but perhaps I failed to put in perspective an important aspect of Allegiant that could taint it’s overall favorability rating: having a pilot who knows how to stop on the fucking runway.

Behold this story where the pilot misjudged the landing and caused the plane to continue past the end of the runway into the grass. Okay, seriously… what the hell? It’s an airport with one runway, no other air traffic, and mostly clear weather. How hard can it be to land the sumbitch in a way that doesn’t make everyone shit their pants?

When I returned from Vegas, the pilot did almost the exact same thing, only he managed to stop before he ran out of road. I didn’t include this in my column because it didn’t seem important. At the time, I was simply happy not to hear slot machines winning in my head anymore. However, in retrospect, I probably should have included all of the complaints and scoffs I heard from passengers about the pilot’s ridiculously fast approach and subsequent skippin’-stones-off-the-water touch down on the runway.

Here’s hoping Allegiant finds a pilot who learns to use the brakes better than a 16 year-old that just got his license and lands the plane non-retardedly. More performances like this, and I’ll reconsider flying to Vegas out of DIA.

Oh, who am I kidding? They could land the thing on I-25 and it would still be better than flying out of DIA.

edagger@crujonessociety.com

Do you guys know a fella by the name of Bill Brasky?

BILL BRASKY?!?!

Bill Brasky is a son of a bitch.

Best damn salesman in the office!

They say he goes about 7′ 10″, 590!

Brasky had scoliosis as a kid and cured himself by eating nothing but Kellogg’s Product 19 and Maker’s Mark!

He once menstruated on a dare!

I saw Brasky stick 15 lbs. of fireworks in his mouth and light them off. An Air Force captain who was standing nearby said it was the prettiest display he ever laid eyes on.

Brasky’s Adam’s apple is actually The Heart of the Ocean jewel from Titanic!

He ate Joan Lunden!

Did you guys know that Brasky is the only person besides the president to have ever been allowed to carry the nuclear football? When they handed it to him, he did the Ickey Shuffle!

I once saw him shove two basketballs in his nostrils while playing “Smoke on the Water” on his butt cheeks.

He regulates his blood sugar using a Geiger counter.

One time Brasky asked me to check his prostate during a sales call. When I pulled out my hand, I was wearing a Cartier watch! Increased my sales 27% that quarter!

They hid Jimmy Hoffa in Brasky’s colon until they found a place to bury him.

Yep, that Brasky is a son of a bitch!

TO BILL BRASKY!!!!!

This, is my car:

In the interest of saving everyone some time (especially me), I’d like to go ahead and answer your next few questions before you have the chance. I’m getting a little tired of answering the same four stupid questions every time someone sees the car for the first time, maybe I’ll print out this post and attach it to my windshield.

1. Yes, I actually like this car.

2. Yes, It gets good gas mileage.

3. Yes, it probably would fit in the bed of your truck. That’s a nice big truck you have there by the way, sorry about the penis.

4. No, I don’t really care if you’re thinking about getting one for your girlfriend/wife/whatever.

Now, Interestingly enough, questions 1 and 2 are the ones most commonly asked by random people approaching me on the street. I’m happy enough to entertain the questions, since it really is just someone expressing curiosity about the car. Questions 3 and 4 are the ones that I’ve really got a problem with, and is more commonly raised by people that I know who are seeing my car for the first time in some crude attempt to bond with me over the car. I don’t want to bond with you over my car.