A return to form

Ok first it's time again for me to assail Blockbuster. Boy they sure don't know what they hell they are doing. For a refresher course, here's the Gurftastic Recaps, 1, 2, 3. The latest is an attempt to take-over the troubled Circuit City franchises. What Blockbuster touts as a new retail experience with lots of paradigms and fusions, seems to me like the worst idea I've heard in years. Here's my fav quote from the above article, by Blockbuster CEO, Jim Keyes,

"We believe the combination will result in a compelling consumer proposition that will drive significant revenue and margin enhancements as well as cost synergies."

Can you spot the double talk? Granted Blockbuster has been over for a while now (refer to above cited Gurfblogs), and true that Circuit City's new CEO's big money saving gamble (namely firing all of their best- read: highest commission earning- salsepeople) has turned out to be a collosally bad idea. But Blockbuster actually thinks that since they made money this last quarter (by raising their rates for everything) that their business has a future. They don't. Not as currently constructed, that's for sure. Furthermore, in case you didn't notice, Circuit City already sells DVD's, CD's, and video games. So what exactly would a merger with LACKLUSTER do for CC? I mean I guess they don't sell US Weekly at the register, and they don't have popcorn. So I mean there's that. But how many people so you know who go out to buy a new TV and realize they should also rent a DVD at the same time? Nobody. Because that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard of. In a world where you can subscribe to toilet paper (Melly's blog shout-out) are there enough centagenarians out there buying LCD flat screen TVs who then wheelchair themselves over to blockbuster to quench their insatiable urge for Queen Latifa's latest foray into 'comedy' or softcore porn? I mean, shit... my mother has a Netflix account. This is a woman who asked me in all seriousness if copying a file from the computer to a floppy disk would erase the computer. Love her to death, but she's afraid of technology (and why not? Girls of her generation weren't supposed to touch anything techno-anything... and some phobias die hard). And she's got Netflix. When I asked her why... 'Because Netflix has everything and especially foreign films, which is great'. She also felt that the local Blockbuster didn't really have enough foreign and indie. Well newsflash: it's not just THAT Blockbuster. It's the entire corporation. Someday for fun, you should read the Netflix hiring guidelines. It's pretty enlightening.

On another note, we have to talk about the big sunglasses again, ladies. The thing about it is, it's getting warmer, and the sunglasses are getting bigger. DJSkram and I were talking recently about the phenom as we sat and people watched in SOHO. Every, and I mean EVERY fucking chick that walked by was wearing stupidly big sunglasses. Some dudes too. And it became clear suddenly. The bigger the glasses the smaller the area of your ugly face I can see. Therefore I think you are hotter than you are. Essentially you are lying to me. And that's not cool, we don't even know each other. That's no way to start a relationship. But it works. So Deej and I decided to invent the next fad. Which would be something to cover rest of your hideous mugs, so as to better homogenize society, whilst making us rich, and getting ugos laid. Seems almost like a humanitarian gesture really. Incidentally, who the FUCK invents what is fashionable? Remember side ponytails? Who decided that was a good idea? How the fuck does this shit get decided and why don't I have a say?

And lastly, I know the economy is in the shitter, the gov is strapped for cash, and everyone is using this intertube thing to send those electro-digi telegrams thingmajigs, so the USPS has been hurting for a while. And I know they've been relying on the junkmail industry to keep them afloat for a while. But as I mobi-blog here from the 68th street post-office, I really feel the need to mention that in this consumer society where cute macbot chicks can convince me to buy the faster/more expensive anything, just by batting her beautiful brown eyes at me, the last place I want someone to try to upsell me is the FUCKING POST OFFICE. It doesn't bother me when they ask me if I want stamps after my transaction is complete. Maybe I do... Everyone needs stamps sometimes. I'm almost used to that now (it used to irk me to no end). No, what bothers me is the two dudes who are roving the 100+ person line here asking if you need delivery confirmation, express shipping, return receipt or any of the other myriad of services that their bosses have asked them to hock. I came here to mail my fucking taxes, don't try to get me to pony up (get it?) any more cash. Also, since when did it become Home Depot presents the Post Office? Fuck sheeple...

Daytime is the Right Time

Oh, they have the internet on computers now.

KFC, why do you produce commercials just to irk me? The latest and greatest? Well it's a family having a BUCKET of chicken. MMMM... I love to have all of my food in bucket form, but that's just me. I mean... like... uhh, there ARE other types of receptacles out there... So this family is gathering around, and little Jimmy or Tommy has a friend over for dinner. That doesn't really bother me. I mean, people have dinner. And kids have friends. And they sometimes come over for dinner. No... what irks me is that everyone looks like they have a fine SHEEN on their hair. The kids look like they're wearing hard plastic wigs, instead of hair. It's hard for me to imagine that whomever shot this didn't catch this abomination, so I'm guessing that they actually PAID someone to do this in POST production. Yes... they WANTED this effect. Why? Probably cause the "Srimp" dude was busy that week. Yeah. And then it's like the WORST commercial I've ever seen. Completely and utterly inane. It's just awful. I seriously think KFC needs to fire their ad firm.

Meanwhile, the best thing about not having cable and having a job that requires you to spend long hours indoors means that I'm tempted to watch daytime television. You know how I love to be hungover and watch bad movies? Well the corollary to that is that I somewhat detest daytime TV. It's not that it's bad. It's terrible. So here I am, blogging while John O'Hurley hosts Family Fued (I remember when the host was the dude who was two before Al Borlan from Tool Time, but I mean, that's neither here nor there). Yeah. Kinda weird watching J. Peterman sort of half do his schtick while sort of perving out on every chick that's on the show. It's weird.

Also I saw a hot girl on the street this one time in New York. It was totally sweet.

Best Name EVER

Yes... Yes it is...

Obligatory End of the Work Week Obama Gush

Suck it, Chris Matthews.





Cable news gets off way too easily. And also, Obama went on the View. Dunno how I feel about that, but like, I guess maybe it's a good idea to let the dumbass housewives of middle-America know that he's like... ya know... not Muslim.

A Theorem

Those of you who know me know that I'm a fan of what the ancient Greeks called "logic". So I tend to "think" about "things". So here's what I've been thinking of lately:

You know how hot chicks are always with DOUCHEBAGS? Yeah. I've been wondering about that a lot lately. So here's my half-baked theory:

Guys fuck chicks based on their looks. When a guy first sees a girl, he knows A) if he wants to fuck her right then, B) how many beers he would need to want to fuck her, and then he begins the painfully long process of trying to manage to fool her into liking him.

Girls fuck dudes based on their personality. Now wait a second here ladies. I know that you gals go through the same "do I want to fuck this guy based on his physical appearance" thing. I'm not going to pretend you don't fuck guys you are physically attracted to. BUT, you TOTALLY fuck dudes who you maybe aren't all that physically attracted to at first, but then decide after your initial impression that you really dig his personality, and therefore want to bone him. This doesn't really explain why hot chicks date douchebags, because I can't begin to contemplate douchebags having great personalities. So... I guess what I'm saying is, I'm stumped. I mean, unless like, all these douchey dudes are somehow just super-cool and we just would never think it. But like why would there be a website like this?

The Last Question

This is one of my favorite short stories. Asimov rocks.

LLLLLLUUUUKKKKKKKKEEEEE

The "Luke" Arm, from the creator of the Segway...

Ummm

GUSHGUSHGUSH:

uhhhh

Ummmm... Did NOBODY think that "Choosing Tampax helps Hillary stop the bloodshed" is like the WORST idea ever? As though when the average American thinks about who to vote for, he wants to think about Hillary's period...

Weird

Ok, aside from the awful cover by a girl band doing the new commercials for Target (they're singing "Hello Goodbye" by the Beatles. Except in text on the screen, they change the words to "Good buy"... yeah) nothing much has really pissed me off lately, and I'm sorry for that. Maybe it's that I've been awash in bliss these last few months, what with the drunken binge-fest that is Culiacan, and then the whole return to my old stomping grounds.

Here's something awesome that doesn't piss me off: The Fox affiliate in NYC (Fox 5) has a new feature (well it might be old, but I've been in the snow-belt for a long time) on it's Simpson's syndicated episodes. About 3 minutes into the episode, they put a banner up (a lower third, for you editorially inclined) which shows the episode number, name, and original air date. Kinda sweet. Tonight's episode is "Bart's Comet" which is pretty fucking great.

Ok... so this has kinda been tripping me out. I guess they're making another X-files movie. That would be X-files 2 for anyone keeping score. The thing is, like the X-files as a show totally was over in 2002. The movie came out in 1998. So, uhhh, like... uhhh... I mean... uhhh... Don't get me wrong. I really liked the X-files as a kid. Shit I liked the movie. And they left it all open ended enough for everything to be all crazy, blah blah blah. But here's the thing. There's been enough time between the show, the first movie, and whenever this next movie is coming out for even like hardcore fanboys to like forget most of the intricate plot twists. So this movie will be another delicate balancing of how much fanboy glory to add versus how much explain what the hell is going on to the fucking kids of America who've never seen the fucking show and only want to see explosions. Judging by how the Simpson's movie didn't exactly cater to the die-hards, I'm not expecting a lot. And also there's this:





The distubring-est part is that there's these fans in the audience who sound like they're cumming every time anything happens. And don't get me started on the orgy-tastic sounds that happen as soon as Mulder and Scully kiss. You have to be fucking kidding me. Please see Gurftastic Blogs: "Dear Hollywood" on why I hate sequels. Fuck you, Hollywood.

uh-huh

They lied to us. They were supposed to be just ordinary cartoons... THEY LIED.

In other news, Hillary lied. We've all done it. We all embellish a story to make it really juicy. Shit I've probably done it on the Gurftastic blog. No I haven't. But the thing is, when you're a politician, it's best to make sure your lies won't be brought to light by irrefutable video evidence... YEAH...

Spiritual Awakening

I had a moment of clarity this Easter morning. Somewhere between the resurrection according to Matthew, and the Hallelujah Chorus. You see, I've been assumed by some, accused by others of being anti-religion. I mean, I don't find fault with people because they are religious. I don't think that organized religion is for me, that's all. Let me reiterate: I don't fault people for being religious. I feel like a spiritual person. I have thoughts about the nature of life and death, humanity, and creation. The thing is, I'm suspicious of organized religion because I know a bit about the history of religion. And I can't bring myself to be told what I should believe and what I should not. How I should believe. What to worship and how to behave. Maybe that makes me a heathen. I think more likely I'm a hedonist. I like things that make me feel good. I like to eat. I like to drink. I like to fuck. I like to sloth it up. I like to lust after hot chicks I see in the Village. I like to covet... things.

So, I realized what my religion is on Sunday. I worship at the altar of technology. Literally. I was sitting in the altar room of a church between two services, and rather than my usual Easter tradition of reading Deuteronomy, I found myself reading Google News on my iPhone. And it hit me. There I was sitting in a place of worship, and in my own way I was worshiping. I mean, I had all the news and information a boy could desire. And I was sitting in reverence to the technological marvel in my hand. So yeah, religion is that of technological innovation. Of information. Of being informed and alert and generally up-to-date. And in these ways it makes me think it couldn't possibly be any less of a religion.

And Seth, have no fear, my usual woman-bashing (I prefer to think of it as man-enhancing), fucked up shit that happens to me tales are still bountiful on the Gurftastic Blog. But there's more of that good stuff on The Sack-Up blog. It's a blog dedicated to sacking-up and being a man. Written by Gurftastic, Mafoo, and Selly. Good shit. Check it out.