WARNING: this post has lots of spoilers in it for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. You cannot escape them if you continue reading.

continue reading "You fucking nerds"

FLAPJACKS: So we have stars. Is this Star Trek? Or Star Wars?
MGK: I doubt it. If it was an established franchise this would make sure all the nerds knew it was an established franchise, right? There would be some ambiguity, but by the end of the trailer there would be an “oh that’s exciting” money shot.
FLAPJACKS: A tease-en-scene, if you will.
MGK: Very well done.
FLAPJACKS: I actually thought of it last month but now I get to use it.
MGK: Guy staggering through the surf.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe it’s Aquaman.
MGK: What did I just say about established franchises?
FLAPJACKS: I know, but I would counter with “nobody cares about Aquaman.”
MGK: …okay, fair point.
FLAPJACKS: Also, the guy is tied up, so that would make sense, right? Aquaman being exiled from his home planet.
MGK: Ocean.
FLAPJACKS: Whatever. He can breathe underwater so being tied up in the ocean, that’s no big deal. In fact he’s being driven to shore because that’s how underwater people execute criminals!
MGK: You’re saying that in Atlantis, beaching is a form of execution?
FLAPJACKS: Yes!
MGK: But why don’t the prisoners just walk back to the ocean?
FLAPJACKS: That’s why they tie them up! But Aquaman can breathe air, so he survives the beaching… and… um.
MGK: You didn’t have any idea as to what happens next, did you.
FLAPJACKS: Not really, no.
MGK: We call that “the Aquaman problem.”
FLAPJACKS: So. There’s also another guy with his lips sewn shut.
MGK: You know he’s probably evil because he has to drink his meals through a straw.
FLAPJACKS: …I have no idea what this is supposed to be.
MGK: You’re not supposed to. Remember when the Cloverfield teasers first came out and people were all “is this Godzilla? Is it a superhero movie?” because the idea of something new scared them, much like the dancing scared the rural people in Footloose.
FLAPJACKS: So in this metaphor I am the strict country preacher who doesn’t get today’s youth?
MGK: Pretty much.
FLAPJACKS: Dang.

As a sidenote, this is as good a time as any to point out that I now have a Tumblr precisely for things like this which I want to link to but which are not really, most of the time, post-worthy in and of themselves or which I don’t feel like discussing at length. (I just really happened to like this.)

Well, that trailer got just about everything absolutely right. The music is appropriately triumphant. The overall message is about the hope Superman instills in others. Most of the action shots are of him saving people (well, except for where he is super-fighting Zod and holy shit does that ever look great).

I am stoked. I’m going to have to donate money to the CBLDF or some other comics-related charity in the cost of my ticket to feel okay with giving DC any of my money with all of their bullshit treatment of creators (and particularly the Siegel and Shuster estates in this case), but daaaaaaaamn.

This ad:

You have to understand that it is not simply that this is a bad commercial (and it’s a very bad commercial). It is that this commercial is on all the goddamn time. Watch the Raptors game? Okay, get ready to see this commercial fourteen times. Watch The Daily Show? Five times in a half hour! It NEVER FUCKING ENDS. Is there a worse commercial airing currently than this one? Seriously, if there is, put up a Youtube link in comments because I think the sheer banality of this one cannot be topped.

Proof that 2013 has quite a bit of fucking up in order to match 2012:

I dunno. It’s no Ponponpon, but it’s still pretty weird. PSY doesn’t even begin to measure up to the glorious tiny mountain of WTF that is Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.

I know some of you readers might choose to celebrate Vandalhkah rather than No Doubtmas, and we celebrate diversity of course, but this is how we do things here:

Sex House was pretty brilliant, but The Onion’s new serial Youtube comedy is probably even darker than it was:

(Total runtime of all the episodes is about an hour and change.)

Guys, I have totally had it up to here with the whole “fake nerds” thing at this point, which just refuses to die and just keeps getting stupider and stupider as otherwise generally rational people insist on clutching whatever ostracization they have suffered previously like it is some sort of precious jewel or something. However, because I am brilliant I have found the perfect metaphor to describe all of this.

Sadly there is no embedding on Youtube allowed of my brilliant metaphor because Youtube is THE MAN, but you can all go to the link and figure out the metaphor for yourselves, because I am not going to explain it or who represents what. Is Tony Harris Stan Gable? Are “fake geek girls” represented by Poindexter’s violin, or perhaps they are the synchronized handclaps? Does Booger represent the fantasy football nerds who are apparently not for-real nerds? Is the fact that Takahashi is dressed up as a stereotypical Indian chief subtle commentary on nerd tokenism in multiculturalism, or is it a clever inversion of that, reinforced by Lamar’s prominence in the clip?

NO EXPLANATIONS. It is simply a perfect metaphor for the entire mess and you all have to accept this. I leave it to the huddled masses to parse this bit of received wisdom.

Okay, he’s forgiven for somehow getting people to think Dr. Horrible was brilliant.

Unless he is using his mind-rays again! OH LORD WHAT IF HE IS USING HIS TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE MIND-RAYS AGAIN

Via Leah, this is fantastic:

Watch this compilation of finishing moves from All-Japan Pro Wrestling in the early-to-mid-1990s without wincing at least once and you will impress me:

What’s interesting about this to me is that All-Japan’s death rate (and it is sad to say that death rate in wrestling is something that can be quantified) is so low. There’s only one guy in this video who directly died as a result of wrestling, Mitsuhara Misawa (green and white trunks). [EDIT: In comments, Rev rightly points out that Gary Albright died of a heart attack mid-match in 2000, so: two, not one.] Terry Gordy died of a blood clot, Doug Furnas of complications from Parkinson’s and Steve “Dr. Death” Williams from throat cancer, but none of those can really be blamed on their wrestling careers. All of the rest of the people in this video are still quite alive and in many cases are still actively wrestling, and this is video from almost twenty years ago where every other move looks like they’re actively trying to break the other guy’s neck. This, I think, speaks very well of Japanese wrestling’s training culture.

Dancing Matt’s fourth go-around: