Man—life really got in the way… It’s already February and I still haven’t finished my Top Disappointments & Surprises or Top 10 Films of 2009…  Better bang this post out tonight (without pics) so that I can focus on that Top 10 list….

Five Disappointments

Public Enemies
Michael Mann directing Depp, Bale, Cotillard, Crudup, Ribisi, et al should have been a tour de force of movie making, but instead we get a bloated, high definition, great looking piece of crap.  Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not a fan of the digital revolution.  High definition takes away the real look of film.  The cigarette burns, scratches, dirt and dust that show up on film make the experience much more tangible than digital projection.  Here, the film looked too perfect, and what could have been a compelling story about America’s Public Enemy #1 was turned into an over-long piece of drivel that featured Bale doing his Batman voice way too often.

Couples Retreat
I was really looking forward to this (but knew it would probably disappoint).  Vince Vaughn and Jason Bateman are two very funny actors, plus the film featured a scene with Kristin Davis, Malin Akerman & Kristen Bell stripping down to their skivvies.  Unfortunately, the film was edited down from its original R-rating, and it really suffered for it (Davis and Jon Favreau were shown cheating on each other in the trailer, but these scenes are completely cut out of the film and they only imply infidelity for the first half of the film).  Plus, the writing (Favreau, Vaughn and What Happens In Vegas scribe Dana Fox) and direction (Peter Billingsley of A Christmas Story fame) were pretty weak (serious marital problems are “solved” in minutes).  And is there anyone who would believe that Favreau would even be able to cheat on Davis with these hot young women?

Extract
I had mixed feelings about Mike Judge’s sophomore effort, Idiocracy—it had a decent premise that seemed to just miss its mark.  Office Space is near perfect, however the first time I saw it was in college with a lot of friends during its hype.  I wasn’t sure where Extract would land, but I was hoping that the combination of Judge, Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, JK Simmons,  a seemingly funny Affleck, Clifton Collins Jr. (who needs more features!) & David Koechner would equal hilarity.  I want to revisit this on DVD to see if it could improve on a second viewing, but my first and only viewing was definitely a huge disappoint

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Clooney, McGregor, Bridges, Spacey—this should have been great.  Instead it put me to sleep—literally—twice.  My first viewing was a late night showing, so I watched it again a week later after a good night’s rest, and I still dozed off in the middle.  It was trying really hard to be quirky and funny, but this is one instance where real life is just too unbelievable to be compelling.

The only bigger disappointment was…..

Brüno
Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles had previously worked together on Borat: CLoAfMBGNoK which was a pretty funny movie.  However, stories about Pamela Anderson’s knowledge of what was happening in Borat made me more skeptical of Brüno.  Most of the “comedy” presented here, however, was too narrow to be really clever.  Cohen simply goes into Redneck America to find some homophobes to make fun of… Am I supposed to be impressed or shocked?

Five Surprises

The Blind Side
After watching All About Steve, I wasn’t expecting much from Sandra Bullock’s “Based on a true story” schlock, but it really delivered.  Do I think it deserves the #10 spot in the Best Picture race? Not really.  The film has too many faults—young SJ is super irritating, the back-story given to Michael is pointless (to me), the film relies too much on manipulation—to be a real contender, but the manipulation it uses is pretty effective, as the theater did get a little dusty for me.

The Invention of Lying
Ricky Gervais really has a tendency to surprise me with his films.  I expected 2008′s Ghost Town to be a mediocre comedy, but it was really funny and sweet.  In Lying, I expected all the laughs to be in the trailers, but there’s an entire plot that was a complete surprise to me (I won’t ruin it here).  The film could have gotten old really quickly (“I know I’m fat and have no chance with you, but we have to have sex otherwise the world will end!”), but instead it takes this secret(?) plot point and actually turns it into an interesting talking point.  It made me think as well as laugh, which is more than I expected from this little comedy.

Paranormal Activity
One of about a dozen films I saw more than once in theaters last year.  The film does suffer some of the Blair Witch problems—when presented as real footage, you get a lot of long, boring scenes because life is boring.  However, these drawn out bits of “reality” counter the middle of the night scares really well.  It’s not the kind of film that will make you lose sleep for days, but it does have a lot of great scares in the theater (especially night #13). 

Bandslam
This movie stars Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) as a character named Sa5m, where the “5″ is silent.  And that’s about all I knew as I went into this film, but the story about a bunch of misfits entering a Battle of the Bands is actually quite charming.  The film featured some pretty decent music but the story is what really surprised me.  The trailer made me think this was just going to be an HSM-knock-off, but it really was much more than that and featured a pretty unexpected ending.  The acting wasn’t great, but I forgave it simply because the rest surprised me so much.

And the biggest surprise of 2009 (although why I doubted it, I’ll never know) was….

Drag Me To Hell
I’m not a huge fan of horror films, but I was curious what Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead trilogy) would do after his Spider-Man success.  He does not disappoint.  There is a great mix of humor (both intentional, and un-), scares (helped by an amazing score—at times dark and menacing and at others light and lilting) and blood (one of the worst nosebleeds EVER).  The ending is a bit telegraphed, and I’m sure the film couldn’t have been worse had it gone for the R-rating, but Raimi proves he still has what it takes to do horror well.

So, did any 2009 films catch you off guard? Whether it was something you were really looking forward that turned out to be crap or something you were dragged to by friends that actually turned out to be good or great?  Let me know what I forgot as I spend the next month writing my Top 10 of 2009 list!

Slapping children in big-box stores isn’t necessarily a habit of mine. Then again, going to big-box stores isn’t a habit of mine, period, but I digress.

I have to admit that, on more than one occasion, I’ve seriously contemplated doing just what Roger Stevens did at a Walmart in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

He slapped around a toddler.

Not his own toddler. Not a relative’s toddler. A complete stranger’s toddler. He gave the stranger fair warning to shut up their mewling spawn and when they inevitably failed to heed his totally reasonable request, he smacked the kid around for being so mewl-y.

Perfectly reasonable, if you ask me.

But the judicial system in Georgia and I don’t see eye-to-eye on this issue (and many others, I assume) and decided to sentence Stevens to one year in prison. Go figure. It probably doesn’t help that Stevens, pictured above, looks exactly like the mental image most people would get if they were told to imagine a “cantankerous old cuss.” He just looks like he wouldn’t hesitate to use a little corporal punishment on a child, if the situation merited it. He also looks like he’s very much at home standing on his perfectly manicured front lawn, yelling at neighbor kids to keep off. He could’ve easily played Clint Eastwood’s role in Gran Torino without so much as an iota of direction from Eastwood himself.

All I can hope is that one day, thirty or so years from now, I’ll end up being half the man that Roger Stevens is. I salute you, sir.

Far be it for me to make assumptions, but I’m going to go ahead and assume that a few of you reading this website have children. If this is the case, I need you to do something for me. Right now, go into your child’s bedroom and look underneath their mattress. There will probably be several periodicals hidden underneath it. Of the items you find, the one in particular you should be looking for looks like this:

If you see this book, BURN IT IMMEDIATELY AND SEND IT BACK TO HELL. That book has something in that can have a profoundly negative impact on young minds – words. Because it turns out that words can sometimes be bad, and if you expose a child to bad words, they will turn into actual demons. With pitchforks. And those things are really sharp.

So it’s good to see there’s other people out there as considered about the negative influence dictionaries are having on today’s youth as I am. Because if this newspaper article had not confirmed this fact, I might have started to believe that I was the one who was bat shit crazy.

Now were it me, I would probably be a bit more concerned less with the child’s act of looking up the definition of “oral sex” as much as I would be what the child then plans on doing after reading the definition. Because it’s a pretty good bet that if I’m looking up the definition of, say, “money laundering,” there’s a fairly decent chance that sometime later that day I’m going to attempt to make myself rich, rich, rich!

Merriam Webster’s 10th edition, which has been used for the past few years in fourth and fifth grade classrooms (for children aged nine to 10) in Menifee Union school district, has been pulled from shelves over fears that the “sexually graphic” entry is “just not age appropriate”, according to the area’s local paper.

Damn you, Merriam Webster and your lewdness. Everyone knows the more family friendly term for oral sex is “peepee kissing.” At least that’s how they referred to it on Barney & Friends last week.

The dictionary’s online definition of the term is “oral stimulation of the genitals”. “It’s hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we’ll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature,” district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper.

I cannot begin to tell you how amused I am by the idea of Betti Cadmus and the rest of the Menifee school district board sitting and reading through the entire dictionary looking for more words of a graphic nature. The idea of this actually happening is pleasing to me.

While some parents have praised the move – “[it's] a prestigious dictionary that’s used in the Riverside County spelling bee, but I also imagine there are words in there of concern,” said Randy Freeman – others have raised concerns. “It is not such a bad thing for a kid to have the wherewithal to go and look up a word he may have even heard on the playground,” father Jason Rogers told local press. “You have to draw the line somewhere. What are they going to do next, pull encyclopedias because they list parts of the human anatomy like the penis and vagina?”

Actually, yeah. That’s exactly what’s going to happen. Because if we get rid of the definitions for words like penis and vagina, logic dictates that these things will cease to exist. And when we no longer have genitals, everyone will be on their best behavior. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this plan.

So what have we learned today? Not much. Just that the only proper way to protect our children is to destroy knowledge once and for all. So three cheers for this little school district, for doing what we as a country have been too scared to do to this point – get rid of the dictionary. Because in America, you want to know what oral sex is, you look it up on Google just like the rest of us.

Journey with me back to the hallowed days of 2004. You may recall that was the year we were all doing a dance called the Funky Armadillo and a handful of horse feed was only a buck and a hay penny. But what also happened in that year I don’t remember all that well was a fellow by the name of Jay Leno who was, at the time, the host of the Tonight Show for some stupid reason, made an announcement that he was going to retire in the year 2009 and hand over the reins of the Tonight Show to Conan O’Brien. I still recall the day very well, sitting at the same desk that I’m sitting at right now, and the two thoughts I had that day: 1) You mean to tell me that in only five years, I can watch Conan at 10:30 each night and not have to ever see Jay Leno ever again? This is the greatest news ever! and 2) There is no way Jay Leno is retiring in five years.

I hate being right.

If I have to recap the late night situation for you, you either aren’t paying attention or you have your priorities straight and are paying more attention to the crisis in Haiti. If it’s the latter, bully. Please send them money. But either way, I don’t feel any pressing need to break down what’s happening. What I can say is this: There is only one good thing coming out of Conan O’Brien being forced out of the Tonight Show after only seven months and it is this: The world can finally see Jay Leno for the disingenuous piece of dog crap that he’s always been.

I think we can all agree that there is something seriously wrong in a world where Jay Leno can almost single-handedly destroy an entire network and Conan O’Brien is the one looking for a new job. And that’s the thing that should be mentioned in every single story on the subject of the Conan situation: This is all Jay Leno’s fault. He was the one who said five years ago, whether it was his idea or not, that he was leaving his job. He was the one who then undermined his replacement by agreeing to do a late night talk show in prime time. He was the one who, rather than provide the completely revamped show experience that he promised, instead delivered a watered-down, rearranged format of the same Tonight Show he’d been doing for the last seventeen years that nobody wanted to watch. And now, rather than accept the fact that he didn’t deliver, rather than live up to the promise he made five years ago, he is the one who has no shame whatsoever in going along with the idiot network executives’ idea to jam him back into late night, popular opinion be damned.

Jay Leno failed. And it’s Jay Leno who deserves to pay the price for that. Not Conan O’Brien, and not the people who work for Conan.

And on top of all that, besides Jay Leno being a weasel, a kiss-ass, and a generally despicable human being, he’s also apparently the world’s stupidest human being. Because only the world’s stupidest human being would have willingly walked right into this:

What you just witnessed there, if you didn’t know, was Jay Leno attempting to “put Jimmy Kimmel in has place” after Kimmel spent his entire show on Tuesday dressed up as Jay and ridiculing Jay. Because Jay Leno feels he needs to do that, being the king of late night and all. Gotta keep the peasants in their place. So there was Jay Leno getting Kimmel back, by letting him come onto his failed prime time show and ridicule him and his inability to sire children to his face while his own audience laughed at him. Sure showed him, didn’t you, Jay?

Here’s hoping Leno gets Letterman to fall in line by having Dave fly to L.A. and punch him in the balls repeatedly.

But here we are, it’s 1992 all over again and Jay Leno is doing the only thing that he’s ever really been any good at – stealing the Tonight Show from someone else more deserving. But to what ends? I just finished talking to my co-worker, the one who loves Leno and hates Conan, and even he doesn’t know what Leno’s game is here. Why take back the Tonight Show when he already walked away from it on top? Is it for his legacy? Can’t be that. This whole disaster is now Leno’s legacy. Is it for the money? He doesn’t need it. He has more money than God or Oprah. So why does Leno willingly make himself America’s most hated monster? Chances are you shouldn’t take my opinion on it, but here it is anyway. Despite all of Leno’s success as Tonight Show host, he still does not hold a candle on the legacy of Johnny Carson. And I don’t think Leno wants to have both his predecessor and his successor end up being more successful than he was. So what’s a guy to do to ensure he doesn’t go down in history as the Tonight Show’s crappiest host? I’ll show you.

Meet your new Tonight Show host, circa 2015 when Leno drops dead behind his desk. Give him one thing, Leno may be a prick, but he’s one sadistic evil genius of a prick.

So, yeah, I don’t like Jay Leno. Which is fine because now, thanks to Jay Leno’s massive ego, nobody else likes him either. And now Conan can move from the fourth place network to the first and maybe even bring back the Masturbating Bear, Letterman can get one last chance to knock Leno on his ass before he retires, and thanks to the dynamite comedic teaming of Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon, I never have to watch NBC ever again. When you think about it that way, everybody’s a winner. Except Jay Leno. Which is just the way things should be.

When you see practically every movie that comes out in theaters like I do (for the complete list see my previous blog), you end up seeing a lot of crap.  Some people ask me why I subject myself to pieces of crap like Knowing, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Land of the Lost, 12 Rounds, Bride Wars or The Pink Panther 2 (none of which even make my list!).  I answer them simply, “Seeing bad movies helps me appreciate the good ones all the more.”

Plus, if I didn’t see everything, what would I have to snark on?

So, I present for your disapproval, the 10 12 Worst Films of 2009:

These posters should have been warning enough...

10. (tie) The Bracelet of Bordeaux, Gooby & When I Find the Ocean

These three films were all distributed by Monterey Media, each with a one week run.  In a foolish attempt to see more than 200 films in 2009, I was seeing everything I could which led me to these three wastes of celluloid.  They probably deserve to be higher up (further down?) the list, but because of their minimal distribution, I thought I’d keep them lumped together here at #10, reserving nos. 9-1 for stuff you’ve probably actually heard of.  Bracelet is a story that mixes the mafia, dognapping, magical jewelry and the Nazis into one cluster*$@# of a kids’ film; Gooby features Robbie Coltrane & Eugene Levy (cashing their paychecks no doubt) in a film about a young boy whose only friend is a teddy bear who comes to life only to sound like a mildly retarded Shrek; and Ocean follows a young girl as she takes her dog and her pet rabbit on a trip through the 1960s South (ooh! Civil Rights!) to deal with the death of her father (or something).  Bracelet was the only film I saw in 2009 to get(all other films on this list got a ) but Gooby was most offensive because it was so polished.  How films like this get financing for good cameras and editing while others sit in limbo waiting to be made amazes me.

Skoog and Irena A Hoffman in Transylmania

9. Transylmania

Ever wonder what would happen if Twilight was Nationally Lampooned?  Well, here’s your answer, and it ain’t pretty.  A bunch of college kids decide to spend a semester abroad in a Transylvanian castle, because given the choice of Paris, London, Prague or Romania, who wouldn’t choose Romania?!  The group of co-eds have every stereotype you’d expect: stoners, nymphos, twin sisters (one naughty, the other nice), jocks and dweebs.  Oren Skoog’s Rusty had been chatting it up with a seemingly hott Romanian student, but surprise! she’s actually a hunchback (“Always ask for a full body shot!,” he laments).  The castle they are studying at was once home to the evil vampire Count Radu (also played by Skoog) who is determined to reawaken his bride with a magical music box.  The school’s dean is a pint-sized man who claims he doesn’t believe in vampires, yet has hired a Van Helsing-like descendant to teach the kids about fencing and stake-wielding.  One of the jocks figures he can score by claiming to be a vampire hunter, and gets deputized by this Van Helsing-like teacher to hunt down the returning fiends.  The dean is also father to the hunchback and tries to steal a pretty co-ed’s body to transplant his daughter’s head onto.  With real twins playing the sisters, one actor playing two roles and that pesky music box possessing another girl whenever it is open, there are enough mistaken identities to make me wonder if the screenwriters were trying to channel Shakespeare.  However, I doubt the 21st Century National Lampoon’s writers even know how to spell Shakespeare.

Keaton, Burnett, Coleman, Lynch, Bledel and Zach Gilford in Post Grad

8. Post Grad

Post Grad could have been an interesting look at what faces college students in today’s economy.  No longer does a degree and excellent interview skills guarantee anyone a job.  Actually, I think it was Alexis Bledel’s Rory on Gilmore Girls who had the interview skills; I think her Ryden here, while intelligent had no common sense actually interviewing without knowing where she was.  Ryden’s family, the Malbys, is Quirk with a capital “Q.”  Dad (Michael Keaton) is a luggage salesman determined DIY is the only way to get anything done; Mom (Jane Lynch) is the most normal, but still a bit unbelievable; Grandma (Carol Burnett) is obsessed with death, convinced she’s going to kick it any moment; and Brother (Bobby Coleman) wears a sock puppet to his sister’s graduation.  We’re supposed to believe Ryden is intelligent, but when she doesn’t get her dream job the week after graduation and she can’t afford that apartment in the city, her life is ruined!  The script is horrible, the characters were totally unbelievable, the acting was mediocre (at best).  While I loved Bledel’s work on Gilmore Girls, this film did not make me hope for more films in her future…

Stewart and Robert Pattinson in New Moon

7. New Moon

Up until this point, you might be saying to yourself “I’ve never even heard of these movies!,” and you should consider yourself lucky.  A lot of them are in and out of theaters before you can bat an eye.  However, I’m sure you’ve all heard of my #7, and maybe even a few of you are Team this guy or Team the other one.  As for me, I’ll take Harry Potter (hell, I’ll even take Lemony Snicket) over this ridiculous tripe.  The teen angst Kristen Stewart emotes here is a bit disturbing when you realize she is a high schooler who is so in love with a several-hundred year old man (sure, sure, in a high schooler’s body) that she can’t even breathe without him.  Even more disturbing are the actual middle-aged women in the audience hooting and hollering every time these actual high school boys take their shirts off.  Apparently, if your abs are well-defined enough, there’s no need to know how to act–just take off your shirt!

Larter and Elba in Obsessed

6. Obsessed

To be fair, however, this acting rule doesn’t apply to just underage boys.  Ali Larter proves that flashing the goods can help distract from bad acting.  In this Fatal Attraction knock-off, Idris Elba plays some successful suit (how do we know he’s successful?  He has a huge office and is married to Beyoncé!) who gets Larter as a temp secretary.  She quickly becomes [ahem] obsessed with him and misinterprets a bunch of innocent comments to think the two should run off together.  Craziness ensues and it all culminates in a house-destroying catfight, which isn’t nearly as exciting as it may sound because it comes at the end of a ridiculous story that is filled with absurd characters who never do anything that makes a bit of sense!

Odette Yustman in The Unborn

5. The Unborn

There’s nothing like a PG-13 horror movie about a high school girl haunted by the spirit of the twin brother she killed in the womb (seen one, seen ‘em all!).  Throw in a cheesy opening dream sequence, some Holocaust mythology and a completely pointless exorcism led by Gary Oldman (poor Gary Oldman) and you have the worst horror film of the year.  The trailer has every single “scare” that the film tries to pass off (and with the PG-13 rating, these scares suck).  I recall sitting in a nearly sold-out showing of this film back in January and the entire theater laughing throughout.  It’s pretty bad when your target audience (opening weekend teens ready to be scared) find more Ha’s than Aaah’s!

Nighy in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

4. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

I’ll admit, I haven’t seen either of the previous Underworld films, nor did I even realize this was a prequel to the series, but this Romeo & Juliet story with vampires and werewolves seemed pretty pointless.  Are the vampires in the other Underworld films as pathetic as they are here?  And I assume that the only reason Bill Nighy and the (usually) excellent Michael Sheen are in this was due to contractual obligations involved from their work on the first one (which might not have been so bad).  Basically, you have a bunch of pathetic vampires locked up in their castle with Sheen as this werewolf who protects them during the day from a bunch of other more-evil werewolves during the day. The two (three?) groups have an epic battle that felt a bit reminiscent of some of the Lord of the Ring battles, and in the end some people die.  Luckily, it’s the type of movie that is very ephemeral.  I can’t recall much of the plot.  I do remember wondering when my 92 minutes would be over and I could move on to something better….

Perry in Madea Goes to Jail

3. Madea Goes to Jail

I feel like it just wouldn’t be a “Worst of” list without Tyler Perry.  I actually had avoided all of his movies up until Madea Goes to Jail, but I was faithfully trying to see every movie released in theaters, and every hobby has some downsides, right?  I really don’t understand the appeal of these characters.  I was always under the impression that African-Americans and Christians were the main components of his target audience.  While I get the Christian message about redemption, it’s in a story filled with cursing, sexual jokes and pot smoking.  Somehow, I found it difficult to imagine Christians finding this (or his second movie of 2009, I Can Do Bad All By Myself which also features child abuse as comedy) humorous, but a few months ago my parents actually got a free pass for a PPV film from DirecTV.  They chose Jail and loved it.  I wanted to ask why they enjoyed this “comedy,” but decided to sidestep that conversation where I envisioned eventually mocking their movie choices.  But still, it pains me that a movie like this can outperform something like Zombieland in total domestic box office.  What is wrong with our country?

Bart the Bear and Grant in Did You Hear About the Morgans?

2. Did You Hear About the Morgans?

I don’t understand how this movie was cast.  Did someone actually think that horse face and charming Brit would make for a believable, likable couple?  In this film, two New Yorkers are thrown into middle America in some ridiculous Witness Protection plot.  Halfway through, I was hoping the killer would find them and kill them just so I could get to my next screening.  There’s absolutely no chemistry between these two actors, even during the rekindling of their cold marriage.  Hugh Grant seems to phone it in the entire film, making eye contact with Sarah Jessica Parker for approximately 60 seconds total.  Mary Steenburgen (looking fantastic) and Sam Elliott (whose mustache looks fantastic) play the couple housing them while deeper covers are developed elsewhere.  “Jokes” about guns, Republicans, bear-repellent and serving meat to vegetarians abound. The only tiny bright spot in this film are the scenes involving the couple’s assistants (Elisabeth Moss and Jesse Liebman)—I enjoyed their awkward chemistry, but sadly, their screen time is limited.  The coda of the film is one of the most ridiculous endings I can recall in recent cinema.

And the worst film of 2009 is….

Williams and Travolta in Old Dogs

1. Old Dogs

It’s odd how Robin Williams seems to see-saw back and forth between quality and crap.  Earlier this year, he was fantastic in World’s Greatest Dad, an odd but touching comedy directed by Bobcat Goldthwait.  Then, he stars in this absolute POS that actually features a series of “jokes” revolving around a self-tanning accident that makes Williams look black.  John Travolta comes along for the ride, where these 50-something heterolifemates and business partners (and yes the movie stoops to making a “partner” joke) have to babysit 7-year-old twins despite having no parenting experience or knowledge.  It’s like two times The Game Plan which ends up being half as funny.  This wins the title of Worst Movie of 2009 simply because it is so trite and ridiculous and yet features so many actors who I know can do better.  Besides Williams and Travolta, you have Kelly Preston, Lori Loughlin, Seth Green, Bernie Mac (how sad is it that this was his final film?), Matt Dillon, Rita Wilson, Amy Sedaris & Luis Guzmán in this dreck.  Can no one in Hollywood read a script and make recommendations to fix it?

Think you saw something worse?  Tell me about it…

Only eleven days ago, I turned 30. 30 is a magical age where you don’t quite fit in with people who are 40 and you don’t quite want to fit in with people who are 20. It’s awkward and should not be wished on anyone, ever.

Still, it’s not all bleak. There are benefits to everything under the sun. Well, almost everything. No one likes a sweaty handshake. There is no upside to that. Being 30 isn’t quite a sweaty handshake, but it’s not awesome, either. Here are ten things that I’ve been doing since I turned 30.

1. Bought a peacoat and tweed fedora. When I go out, I look like your grandpa, but when I take off my coat and hat, I look like a slob. It’s great camouflage.
2. Sitting around and complaining about everyone 29 and younger.
3. Contemplated own existence over cup of coffee.
4. Forgotten what it’s like to be any age under 30
5. Actually considered buying prunes at the grocery store (to keep me regular)
6. Puttered around in my garden
7. Turned down that damned noise (any music, anywhere)
8. Grunted from the effort it takes to get out of chair
9. Gotten lost in a place I’ve been 100 times
10. Wondered what all the fuss is about

Have we advanced far enough as a society that we can accept a a Black Taco as a part of our meal? At the risk of sounding unpopular, I say no. Sure, maybe I’m pejudiced against black tacos, but it doesn’t mean that I’m some backwards redneck. Backwards rednecks are probably buying these things up by the monster truck-full. I will never accept a black taco. Never!

Good news, everybody! You remember all that polite listening you used to always have to do when other people were talking? Well, no more of that shit! Got something you want to say RIGHT FRICKING NOW? Don’t hold it in. Let it out! Because everyone knows, suppressing your idiot opinions damages your kidneys.

In case you’ve had your head jammed in a storm drain for the last week (and honestly, why would anyone do that?), we had not one, not two, but three incidences of super smart people letting everyone know their super smart opinions just as soon as they thought to have them, decorum be damned. Let’s review these cases, and see what if we can make ourselves into better people as a result.

INSOLENT JACKASS #1: Joe Wilson

Remember the glorious days of yesteryear, like this time last week, when you had no idea who the hell Joe Wilson was? Well, those days are over, pal. Now, one idiotic blurting out loud later, you’ll never again be able to enjoy a Joe Wilson-less world. Which is a shame, really, because just look at this guy.

If words could have smells, this guy would literally reek of “schmuck.”

WHAT HAPPENED: Like the rest of the Republican congressmen, Joe Wilson was forced to sit through President Obama’s dumb boring speech on health care or something else lame. So he managed to get through most of it like the rest of his buddies, either by sitting on his hands or twittering on his Blackberry or waving around sheets of paper or anything else short of listening. But then he did manage to catch this one part where the President actually tried to say that his health care bill wouldn’t give brown people free health insurance, which triggered an uncontrollable urge deep within Joe Wilson’s belly to scream out “LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE,” cause he was pretty sure he read that bill and he remembered there was this whole big part where everyone in Mexico got free health care. And that’s when everything just went straight to shit.

WAS THE JACKASSERY JUSTIFIED? Well, see, it turns out that the health care bill actually kinda specifically says that illegal immigrants aren’t eligible for health care under the President’s plan. But still, it’s not like Joe Wilson specifically said that Obama was lying about that illegal immigrant thing. All the guy said was “You lie!” which could be referring to anything. Chances are pretty good Obama’s lied about something at least once in his life.

DID HE APOLOGIZE? Yep. Right away, in fact, even though he still determinedly stated that he was right about the guy lying, even though he wasn’t. But since he’s still kind of a douche, everybody wants him to apologize a few more times in front of the whole House of Representatives, or else they’ll disapproval the living hell right out of him. Which, as I understand it, involves some very severe finger wagging.

END RESULT: Wilson’s Democratic opponent in the next election received a million dollars in donations in the next two days following Wilson’s outburst. So if you want to strike it rich, the lesson is clear: Just don’t be Joe Wilson.

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INSOLENT JACKASS #2: Serena Williams

WHAT HAPPENED: Whilst playing in the semifinals of the U.S. Open, a questionable call by an official caused Serena to offhandedly suggest “If I could, I would take this [expletive] ball and shove it down your [expletive] throat.” So the official said, “That’s it. You lose.” And that was that.

WAS THE JACKASSERY JUSTIFIED?: To be fair, the call kinda sucked. But still, if it was Maria Shaprova threatening to shove a ball down your throat, you’d just laugh it off. Serena Williams, though, I’m pretty sure she could actually pull that shit off.

DID SHE APOLOGIZE? Oh, most certainly. She said she just got a little bit overexcited, and after the outburst, she “wanted to give [the official] a big hug … and tell her I was sorry.” Which is almost certainly a trap.

END RESULT: Williams was fined $10,000 for the rant and, as mentioned, lost the match because of it. The high judges of tennis are also exploring other ways of punishing her. Like making her wear a sign that says JERK around her neck during her next match or making her eat a bug or something like that.

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INSOLENT JACKASS #3: Kanye West

During any given week, Kanye West is already a jackass. But this week, wanting to make sure he wasn’t outstaged by the politician screaming out loud at the President of the United States and the tennis player threatening to murder a line judge, Kanye decided to jump on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards and ruin 19-year-old Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video by screaming that Beyonce was totally robbed.

WAS THE JACKASSERY JUSTIFIED?: Have you seen the Taylor Swift video? It’s She’s All That shortened down to 3 minutes, and that movie had freaking Freddie Prinze Jr. in it. Why exactly is that worthy of an award? But, hey, if Beyonce was cool with it winning, what the hell business was it of Kanye West’s? Dude, you’re not even in that category. Would you please just once chill the fuck out?

DID HE APOLOGIZE? By my count, he’s apologized about fifteen times by now. Once on his ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME blog, once to Jay Leno after the asshole demanded to know what his dead mother would think of him, and now just muttering it over and over to himself for the last day or so.

END RESULT: Beyonce went on to win Video of the Year, and donated her time to Taylor Swift so she could finish her acceptance speech. Which would have made Kanye feel pretty damn stupid, if Kanye West possessed the ability to feel stupid about any of the stuff he does.

And there you have it. Turns out your grandfather was right all along. The problem with all you damn kids is that you don’t have any respect for anything. So please, take the rest of the day to feel very sorry about whatever disrespectful thing you had planned to do in the near future. And then just do it anyway. Because how the hell else are you going to get anyone to pay any attention to you?

Nobility is just such a drag, man.

If you are like me, you were up late last night thinking to yourself, “Boy, it’s sure been a while since the world got a new Duggar. I wonder how much longer I’ll have to wait for that to happen?” The answer, as it always is, is about five more minutes.

Yes, the Duggars are, as Duggars are wont to do, expecting yet another addition to their mulletted brood. And because this is apparently something that someone somewhere will care about, they went onto the Today Show to announce the news, where they actually had the gall to try to tease their audience before the commercial break that they had a “special announcement” to make,  as if anyone would have no idea what it was they’d be announcing. “The Duggars have something to announce, you say? Well, I wonder if they finally discovered that cure for polio they were talking about. I’ll bet you anything that’s it.”

In case you haven’t had your intelligence insulted enough already yet today, check out this section of the interview from Mama Duggar:

“I was wanting pickles and the older girls were saying, ‘Mom, you only crave these at the very beginning of being pregnant, You kept it from us before, now tell us. Are you?’” Michelle says. “And I kept telling them I wasn’t. I just wanted some pickles.”

But when she couldn’t lose weight on her diet, she became suspicious.

“I was in Weight Watchers with Jim Bob and I wasn’t losing any weight,” she says. “I couldn’t figure it out. I was doing what I should. And the baby, who was nursing, was fussy. I kept thinking, ‘This isn’t right. She isn’t teething, she doesn’t have an ear infection. I’m not cheating on my diet, I should be losing weight.’ Then, I put two and two together and wondered if I could possibly be pregnant.”

She took out one of two tests she had in the house and it was immediately positive.

“I told Jim Bob and he couldn’t keep it in, he was so excited.  The kids were outside playing on a water slide and he gathered them together and had to share the news. There was all this screaming and yelling.”

This is the part that confuses me. This woman has had eighteen children already, yet for reasons beyond my comprehension, she is still somehow completely blindsided by the news that she is pregnant yet again. Lady, have you seriously not yet figured out what it is that causes this condition? I’ll give you a clue. It’s that thing that you and your husband must be doing with each other every other hour of your lives. But no, sudden food cravings and weight gain and she has to actually stop to ponder whether she might just be pregnant. Nah, couldn’t be. Probably just the monkey pox.

And then, of course, her kids greet this news like they just found out that Donny Osmond is moving into their basement. Because this is something that’s never happened before! Mom’s pregnant! Oh my God! Jump up and down and scream in excitement! Another brother or sister that I’ll have difficulties remembering the name of! It’s like Christmas, but only better!

Okay, last thing, I swear. You only had two pregnancy tests in your house? Scientists need to seriously create some sort of permanent pregnancy test that this woman can strap around her arm and when Jim Bob inevitably impregnates her yet again in another two months, it’ll send an electrical current down into what’s left of her uterus, just so it’d have that much more warning to get the hell out of here while you still can.

I don’t mean to joke around here, because this is serious business. If you’re unfortunate enough to be like me, you’ve already done the math and come to the same conclusion I have: there is only about three to four more years before the Earth’s population is completely overrun by Duggars. Figure it out for yourself. The remaining female Duggars that weren’t already traded to the gypsies for food will soon be reaching their prime birthing years of the age of 7. Once that starts, there will be no stopping them. Unless you’ve figured out a way to stay alive while being crushed underneath the weight of a veritable sea of children with every “J” name possible, I’d suggest getting your affairs in order tonight. You have very little time left until a Duggar is standing on top of you.

Why does it always have to be the Mormons who breed so much that they bring about the end of civilizations? Why can’t it ever be someone cool, like the Gideons?

Aberdeen, Washington is not a town you ever want to visit. Sure, it’s the birthplace of grunge icon Kurt Cobain and more than a few of you reading this just had that though scrawl through your head, “hey, I should go to Aberdeen, so I can see where Kurt was born.” No, no you should not. It’s a shitty town in a surprisingly drab part of an otherwise beautiful part of the state of Washington. It’s a backwater.

So, why am I even bringing this up? Because the only thing that Kurt Cobain fans would want to go see inside the city, a plaque in a city park dedicated to the memory of Kurt, has been censored.

Originally etched on the plaque was a quote from Cobain, “Drugs are bad for you. They will fuck you up.” Now the plaque reads, “Drugs are bad for you. They will f— up.” Apparently, the delicate sensibilities of the townsfolk are more important than driving the point home with authority that drugs really are bad for you, as spoken by someone who should know in language that kids will understand. All of this in a town that has a huge meth problem and, as I learned the hard way, a populace that sneers at the notion of a bookstore aside from the small section devoted to crap paperbacks and right-wing nut hardcovers at the local Walmart.

Those drags on society don’t bother the people of Aberdeen as much as one naughty curse word uttered by a their only famous native son, etched onto a plaque in a city park.

For that, the city of Aberdeen wins the inagural Sodblog “Are You Fucking Serious?” award for extreme stupidity. I mean, come on, Aberdeen, it’s just a fucking curse word. It’s just the fucking word fuck, you fucking fucks.