I realized the other day that despite having been an English major in college, I haven’t really been reading for pleasure very much lately unless you count snarky websites, glossy magazines, and comic books. I remember telling myself when I was still in school that graduating would be great because I’d have so much more time to read “whatever I want.” I’ve been meaning to get around to reading The Brothers Karamazov ever since, but cut me some slack – Guitar Hero 2 just came out. I’m totally gonna read some Russian classics as soon as I get 5 stars on Misirlou on Expert Mode.

So I was sitting around the other night, feeling guilty for letting my brain rot, when I got inspired and decided to scan through the contents of my bookshelf in search of some stimulation. I figured maybe I should read some books that I own but have never read. Sounds like a good enough plan, doesn’t it? Think about it: they’re sitting right there in my living room! All I have to do is open the cover and start absorbing! How easy!

Well, not quite. Here’s the problem: At some point in my life I bought these books with the intention of reading them. Maybe I started reading them but got bored in the middle. Maybe I only made it a few pages in and then decided I’d rather play Counterstrike or something. Maybe I never even opened the damn thing but thought it made me look smart sitting on my shelf. No matter what the reason was for not reading these books, there’s one underlying fact shared by every possible explanation: I was more excited to read these books when I bought them than I am now.

Which probably explains why as I scanned the shelves looking for something new and exciting, every unread book I came across made me kind of shudder a little. Here’s a handful of them in no particular order.

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Tired of shooting AND seasoning your fowl? Good news, folks: Season Shot has arrived.

Ready for the pun of the century? Ready?

Kill two birds with one stone.

Fuck.

A little info from the site:

Note the first difference between Season Shot and “other brands.” Apparently, one of the biggest differences between the two is the fact that one of them has “flavor.” The “other brands,” as you can see, have “no flavor” [here]. That’s an important clarification. Thanks, guys.

(via digg)

I was stuck in traffic the other day and got a bit fed up with the radio. I was listening to NPR, a story about how obtaining building permits around New Orleans is a bureaucratic nightmare. That’s unbelievably boring, so I flipped down the dial to some college radio station that had a whole show dedicated to Inuit Throat-Singing. I’ve never been that into the Inuit Throat-Singing scene (the shows are too expensive and always really far away, usually in Alaska), so I kept flipping until… hey! I know this song! These words sound really familiar! This is bringing me back! Back to a special time, a magical time long, long ago! Let me bring you back with me. Let’s take a little trip back to the most bland and inoffensive chunk of… get ready it… are you ready yet?

We’re going all the way back to motherfucking 1998.

I want to put my tender
heart in a blender,
watch it spin around
to a beautiful oblivion.
Rendezvous
then I’m through with you.

So I’m driving in stop-and-go traffic and hey, great. Now I’m nauseous too. But then it hits me like a McDonalds bag full of unsold promotional CD singles: This version of “Inside Out” is not being performed by Eve 6. No. Someone else decided it would be a really good idea to cover it. They practiced it a whole bunch, and then they brought all their gear into a studio and recorded it. Then they dragged all their gear back to the practice space, practiced it some more, and then they dragged all their gear to a venue and performed it in front of a bunch of people. Then some radio station guys were like “Fuck yeah.. what’s it been? 8 years?” and then they hit a button which sent a cover version of Eve 6’s “Inside Out” over the airwaves and out to millions and millions of people.

That rules. Too bad the song sucks.

[note: since I wrote this, I tried to look up who in the name of god decided to record a version of this abysmal song, but I couldn’t find anything about it. Maybe carbon monoxide was leaking into my car or something… or maybe (more likely) it was a live version. That made me kind of nervous. Was my rant all for naught?! YouTube to the rescue. For even if I did hear a live version by Eve 6, that still doesn’t erase these videos from the face of the earth:

Note the first comment on the last video, by misterdehn: “omg this is so bad. You should rename this video “a simple way to ruin a classic rock song.” Congrats, misterdehn. You win the Missed-The-Point Award.]

From : Gabriel Brown
Reply-To : brown_gab@yahoo.com
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To : gb_brown11@yahoo.com
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Will It Blend? – Marbles
a white lab coat does not make you a scientist. this is still just some dude putting marbles in a blender.

Will It Blend? – Rake Handle
i know these videos are trying desperately to go viral, and i know i’m doing nothing but help them do so, but man. blending shit rules.

Belinda Bedekovic
an oldie but a way-way-way goodie.

Rocket Lincoln Jump
fuck death… oh, and the laws of physics, too.

Zach Galifianakis on Wonder Showzen
awesome.

More from the Amazing David “Fingers” Haynes
you can actually program those things to do that shit for you, david. that’s kinda the point.

Dove – Evolution Commercial
neato.

Danny Way jumps the Great Wall
this is somehow even more ridiculous than it’s supposed to be.

Spy Magazine’s How to Be Famous: The Montalban Experiment
i believe they mean “The Vincent Ludwig Experiment.”

First question wrong on Who Wants to be a Millionaire
college is completely worthless.

This rules. ‘Nuff said.

[poll=3]

Bad news, ladies: The following costumes at halloweenmart.com are sold out:

– Sexy Pirate Wench

– Sexy Bee

– Sexy Firefighter

– Sexy Gangster Moll (note: with an alternate meaning of the word “moll” the name of this costume could technically be “Sexy Gangster Prostitute,” which totally fucking rules.)

– Sexy Delegate

It’s true: The demand for Sexy Delegate costumes was greater than halloweenmart.com’s supply of them this year, but don’t worry! There are still plenty of totally sexy costumes available on the market! Consider one of the following:

– Sexy Notary Public

– Sexy Homeless Person

– Sexy Wilford Brimley

– Sexy Foreign Exchange Student With Little Or No Understanding Of American Halloween Customs

– Sexy Teenager With Low Self Esteem

– Sexy Holocaust Survivor

– Sexy Girl With Basically Nothing Else Going For Her Except For Her Sexiness

– Sexy Tuba Player

– Sexy Burn Victim

– Sexy Girl At The Halloween Party Who Looks Like She’d Be Really Easy To Bone

Back in the 1980s, the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus boasted a “real life” Unicorn on its list of attractions. The “Unicorn” was actually a goat named Lancelot, but fuck it—it only had one horn, or it looked that way at least, so it was close enough for most of the paying public. The guy who… well.. MADE Lancelot, I guess, is a guy named Oberon Zell-Ravenheart (no joke), founder of the Church of All Worlds. He and his wife, Morning Glory, made ten Unicorns in the 1980s in an attempt to save the world. This is all totally for real. Seriously.

Hypocritical Ross: So where did you get the idea to create Lancelot and start the Living Unicorn Project?

Oberon Zell-Ravenheart: Well, it started off around 1975 when [my wife] Morning Glory and I got this idea to write a book on the true stories and foundations behind mythical creatures. In the process of our research over the next few years, we came upon the long-lost secret of the Unicorn—that these were actual living animals that had been produced by closely-guarded secret means that were lost and rediscovered several times throughout history. And we learned how it had been done. At that point, we said, “We could do this!” So we gave up on the book, moved to a hippie homesteading community in the mountains of NorCalifia, and began the several-year project of breeding and raising living Unicorns. Lancelot was the first, born on Spring Equinox of 1980. In all, we produced ten of them over the next six years. We named most of them after Knights of the Round Table. Some we kept as our own pets, and others we boarded out. For several years (1980-’84), we toured every Renaissance Faire in North America, and were interviewed and written up in countless newspapers, magazines, radio & TV shows, and even a few books—including the Encyclopedia Britannica. Four of them we leased to Ringling Bros.Barnum & Bailey Circus for a 4-year exhibition tour, where they were the star attraction of the Greatest Show on Earth (1985-’89). The very last one died just over a year ago, at the age of 17.

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This billboard used to be up a few blocks away from my apartment. It’s gone now, but I will now immortalize it through the amazing (and permanent – no, seriously) power of the internet.

Shriners: Having Fun & Helping Kids. That’s Shriners – a.k.a. the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Having Fun & Helping Kids.

Hmm.

Oh, wait. According to this page the Shriners own a network of 22 hospitals that offer free care for children. Also, the third sentence in the Wikipedia entry for Shriners is this: “Established in New York City in the 1870s, the Shriners are best known for having fun.”

Wow. This post was a complete failure, but I still think it’s kind of a funny billboard. Even if it’s, you know… completely 100% true.