Bearrorism

It has come to my attention that wild bears roaming deeper into the cityscape in search of food has become an increasing problem as of late. Cute news stories about bears opening doors to enter Subway restaurants end tragically with said bears being shot. I say that these animals need not be destroyed needlessly, nay, for they can aid us in our struggle against terrorism.
The idea is simple: bears, in bear suits. You remember the bear suit, of course, and probably the man who made it. This is not a suit in the guise of a bear, but rather a hand-crafted suit of armour capable of taking a bear swat to the face and leaving the wearer intact. Yet, the suit it cumbersome and heavy, and it's better suited for a creature of greater strength, like say: a bear. An armoured bear is the ultimate weapon. In the history of Man Vs. Nature, no man has ever taken down a bear without a knife, a bow, a gun, or perhaps a rock. What happens when those weapons become useless? The bear wins.

So why not let them win? We should be capturing these beasts when they trespass on our land, then equip them with special armour. What comes next is pure genius:
We fly them to Afghanistan, but not before we deliver a special care package of salmon, berries, and honey. Terrorist will collect these items and retreat with them back into their caves. Then we drop the bears. The bears will naturally seek out a cave to make their new dens. There, they will find terrorists, heavy and groaning with Pacific fresh salmon, and dripping with honey.
All hell breaks loose. Bears 1/Terrorists 0.
But what of the greatest terrorist of all, Osama Bin Laden? Better yet, call him, "Salmon Bin Laden", which is what we will tell our alpha bear we've specially trained to seek out and destroy him. This bear will have the most advanced armour know to man, and shall be dubbed, "Iron Bear." A bear is one thing: a bear with a flame thrower and jetpack is another.

If you think this is just shameful animal cruelty, think again. 1: The bears are protected with armour. 2: The bears are being fed a delicious meal. 3: The bears get their own caves to live in.
After all, what's the worst that can happen?

Bombo!

As I predicted, the inaugural episode of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon was decidedly unentertaining. As with all traditional late-night talk shows, it began with his monologue. An overexcited audience immediately threw him off his game with an energy he couldn't match. He joked about people being more excited hearing him mention their own home states than the jokes themselves, and he was right. I remember laughing once, but I can't remember what I was laughing at: him, or the jokes.
For his house band, he has The Roots. While that's a coup, they seem oddly out of place next to Fallon, a lot like Jay Leno was with his original band leader. The difference is The Roots are more than willing to participate with Fallon's shennanagins. With Leno, you could never tell if he was about to be stabbed or not by a man trying to break free from Uncle Tom's cabin.
The set looks like it was stitched together from rejected SNL sets. If you look at Saturday Night Live over the years, you'll know that the main stages have never looked good. The set designers are obsessed with making the studio look as gritty like back-alley New York as possible, to the extent that there's street lights, subway signs and giant exhaust fans everywhere. Jimmy Fallon's set goes one further by setting the stage under a bridge. You'd almost expect a rat to crawl out. The Roots have to play on fire escape, like they're in West Side Story. It's not a place someone would want to be for overly long.
For some reason, they had a sketch about one of their demographics, blonde mothers, which seemed funnier than it was. It could actually pay out if they continued with it and explored weirder demographics, like EMO kids, or Japanese school girls.
Afterwards, the show turned into a bad night at the club, with a contest for studio audience members to lick something for $10. It reminded me of one of those douchebag club hosts that always have some weird game to play, and it only serves to distract people for a few seconds from the fact that the music sucks, the drinks are overpriced, and all the girls are lucky the lights are so dark.
Then Jimmy got to the guests. The first was Robert De Niro, who despite being in a sketch with Jimmy appearing later on, (which was terrible), seemed uncomfortable to be there. Or perhaps he was just acting that way. He is Robert De Niro, after all.
The next guest was Justin Timberlake, and Van Morrison, but we all know that everyone after the first guest is just filler. Jimmy got Justin to sing something goofy, and I completely tuned out when the band came on.
The whole thing is pretty standard fare, in a world where late night television had gone completely stagnant about fifteen years ago. Jimmy hasn't brought anything new or exciting to the equation, just the same old formula, with a complete lack of expertise.
You know what blows my mind, though? When you see Letterman bomb a joke, and it's still awkward. If he didn't have Paul Schaffer to turn to and laugh it off, he'd have another heart attack. The guy's been in the industry since forever. He does the same thing every night. He's a pro, and he still stumbles. Jimmy's just a rookie by most standards. When he bombs a joke, it's painful. He hasn't learnt that magic technique to turn to whoever's closest, and make some mocking comment about how bad the joke is. He needs a sidekick, just so he can look over and say, "What'd you think of that one? Nice suit. I didn't realize Wal-Mart had formal attire."

Dear God, No.

Time may have erased our memories, but I expect most people will find themselves remembering just how terrible Jimmy Fallon is come this Monday with the premier of, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. In a long history of Weekend Update on SNL, Jimmy Fallon ranked somewhere in between Collin Quinn and Dennis Miller. I say, "In between," because I can't decide which of those two is worse. Remember how no-name Tina Fey had to back him up as his co-host, because he couldn't handle the enormous responsibility of reading off cue cards on his own without having a giggling fit? The saddest thing is that there actually exists a, "Best of Jimmy Fallon" DVD. Seeing that on the shelves next to Chris Farley and Phil Hartman makes me want to puke.
For some reason, people thought he'd go on to be a big sensation like Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, or Will Ferrel, all of whom have made terrible, terrible movies, repeatedly, and without apology. Arguably, they haven't made any movie as bad as, "Taxi," in which he plays "the dude," next to Queen Latifa's straight-up gangsta bitch taxi-driver, with her pimped out ghetto taxi. His movie credits after that fiasco seemed to dwindle.
He even released a comedy album he sings on, in the highest voice imaginable. I don't think you could even find it in the bargain bin selection. Remember how Adam Sandler put out hilarious albums people use to play at parties, or even the new Incredibad album? This wasn't it.
Then again, in a world with Jimmy Kimmel, is he really the worst choice? At least he has some hosting experience. Conan O'Brien's biggest credit before becoming a host was writing a couple episodes for The Simpsons.
In other news, Ed McMahon contracted bone cancer right before Conan O'Brien takes over the Tonight Show. Is he trying to tell us something?
Late-Night TV is dead to me anyway. I can't stay up that late anymore, and even if I do, I usually watch The Daily Show or the Colbert Report. I can barely make it to the end of SNL anymore, not like there's a lot of incentive for me to do that anyway.

You're All Kinds of Pissing Me Off

It's snowing today. It's practically Spring, and it's snowing. That's a bunch of bullshit.
What really pisses me off, though, is today is Anti-Bullying Day, where children are encouraged to wear pink to school to take a stand against bullies, who will laugh and harass them for wearing pink. Let me get this straight: you're using peer-pressure to get kids to take part in some bullshit campaign, plus they have to wear a certain colour to show their solidarity, you know, like a fucking gang? What happens if a kid doesn't want to wear pink? Are they ostracized? Do you beat them up? You want to stop bullying? Make it, "Take a Gun to School Day." Level that playing-field out a little. It'll work so long as EVERYONE has a gun. If a child can't provide a gun for themselves, a gun will be provided for them, because no child should be left behind. It'll be part of a larger, "Guns for Tots," program.
On a different subject, since Hugh Jackman tells me, "The musical is back," I had an idea for a musical myself: "High School Shooting Musical."
Seriously, how is wearing pink supposed to stop bullying? Say there actually is some kid who's being bullied, and wants to take part, but his dad catches him trying to wear pink to school and beats the shit out of him for being a little sissy fairy? So he has to borrow a pink shirt from a friend at school, and his bully comes into the bathroom while he's changing, pushes him down, calls him a, "Fag," and flushes the shirt down the toilet, so his friend gets upset with him, and then the kid gets blamed for clogging the toilet and he has to go to the principal's office. Then his dad beats the shit out of him again when he gets home for getting into trouble at school, 'cause that shit could happen.
You know the other thing pissing me off, this new, "Not all bugs need drugs," P.S.A. they're trying to pass off to kids to keep them from becoming germaphobes. They want people to stop using anti-bacterial soap, cleaners, etc., because it's supposedly creating Superbugs. They're targeting little kids, though, so they're trying to program them from a young age to become human germ cultures. Seriously though, fuck you. I've been sick now for 14 days. If I find out that it's because someone didn't use some Lysol, I'm going to lose it. You know who the Superbugs are going to kill when they come? The ones not using antibacterial cleansers. You don't need an immunity if the germs never reach you.

Hollywood Handjobs

So the Oscars were last night, and once again they featured movies no one went to see or care about. "Slumdog Millionaire" won Best Picture, which is ironic, since I think it made a million dollars at the box office, tops. The only nomination anyone cared about was if Heath Ledger for Best Supporting Actor for acting like a strung out drug addict. (What a stretch!) He won, but what's the point? What's more pointless that a posthumous award? It's not like he can bask in his success with his traditional pill-popping. He's fucking dead. Why kiss someone's ass if it's already rotting in the ground?  I think Heath's more enduring legacy will be the phrase, "Pulling a Ledger," when someone O.D.s on Nyquil and Tylenol.
What about Mickey Rourke? Did he actually think he was going to win? I say this ironically, because he was damn sure of it. Sean Penn even had to mention him him his speech so he wouldn't cry. "The Wrestler?" Mickey thought he deserved Oscar gold for a role better suited to the Ultimate Warrior. Seriously, Macho Man Randy Savage could have done that movie. The only difference is, I would have paid to see Macho Man. You can be certain the Macho Man would have a better acceptance speech than Mickey Rourke. "Step into a Slim Jim, ooooooh yeah!" then he would have elbow-dropped Anthony Hopkins. Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman would be powerless against him, because we all know he can only be defeated by Spider-Man.
The most pathetic thing is how I had to read about his Chihuahua dying a few days before, meaning I was supposed to be sad and say, "Oh, I hope he wins now. Only Oscar can heal his heart." Instead, I was, "Who the fuck is Mickey Rourke? If I have to be reminded who you are, you're not A-list. Also, "What kind of man has a Paris Hilton dog?"
I love the fact they kept taking about how it was Meryl Streep's 15th Oscar nomination, and they kept kissing her ass, and they sat her at the very front of the audience, and she fucking lost. They cut their cameras away too fast after declaring the winners, so you didn't get to see their hateful reactions.
Also: why the fuck is Wolverine singing and dancing? Don't fucking do that again, ever. The musical is not back, despite your musical number saying it is.

'00-'09 R.I.P.

With less than eleventh months in the decade, I'm going to call it: the '00's were the most irrelevant decade for music, ever. No one created any major artistic musical movement or trend, like Grunge or Pop. The only thing that came close was Krunk and EMO, and I don't even want to get into how much those two "genres" suck, and how they're virtually indistinguishable from their Hip-Hop and Pop/Punk counterparts. It's funny too, because we started the decade stealing as much music as we could by illegally downloading it off of Napster, and we ended with illegally downloading it off of bittorrents. With that virtually inexhaustible source of reference, you think someone could have cobbled something together and called it, "new," but it didn't happen. In fact, everyone tried to keep it as ol' school as possible by going back to basics. Any band that tried to go in a new direction were criticized roughly until they gave in and went back to their old material. Think: Metallica.

The only thing that changed about music was how we listened to it. Instead of radio, we listened to satellite radio. What's the difference? Satellite radio isn't free. Way to go, geniuses. Why not pay a monthly subscription for what you already have for free at the flick of a dial? Instead of walkmans, or CD walkmans, we had iPods, which can hold more CDs than you can possibly fit in your crappy little apartment, thus eliminating the need for CDs. Hence, CD and record stores are becoming defunct. Walk into an HMV today and the "M" doesn't mean as much any more as the "V."

The weirdest change in music, however, was the fact that people became obsessed with "playing" musical instruments, if you consider a plastic guitar a musical instrument. People were willing to pay half the price of their gaming systems to buy cheap plastic novelty toys that they can use in synch with glowing lights flashing across a screen, and then consider themselves rockers. And they were willing to buy albums online they could only ever listen to in-game, so they never have to leave their basements. They can just keep "rocking out," until they lose all connection with the real world.

And the Monkees made a come-back, in the form of Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers, proving once again that teenage girls have no taste. To all the dads forced to take their daughters to see these shows: congratulations: you've allowed yourself to be emasculated by the Disney corporation, and your daughter will still grow up to hate you.

Also, MTV stopped playing music videos altogether. Now it's all shows about Tila Tequila trying to get laid and rich white bitches. What does that have to do with music? NOTHING. So stop calling yourself, "MTV." People decided they'd rather watch music videos on youtube, before they're yanked off by moderators.

So fuck you '00's, you've done nothing, much like the Presidency of George W. Bush, which I was forced to listen to hippie-bullshit musicians bitch about in song after song.

It'll make you go from: "Damn, I'm Lost," to: "Lost and Damned."

I just finished playing the, "Lost and Damned," Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable content game add-on, or "episode," for GTA IV. In it, you play as a Jewish biker, Johnny Klebbitz, (I don't fucking care how it's spelt,) who appears in a couple of cut-scenes in the original GTA IV game. When Johnny showed up in the game, it usually meant that Niko was going to have to shoot his way through about hundred or so gangsters or F.B.I. agents just so he could call his employer back and tell them, "I don't have the money." The add-on game ties in with the real game for these cut-scenes, and in fact reuses them. For these overlapping missions, Johnny's basically going the opposite direction as Niko. If Niko's going to the roof, Johnny's going to the street.
Mostly, though, you just get in fights with other biker gangs, or hang out with some rough-rider buddies. Johnny doesn't seem to be able to take as much damage as old Niko does, however, so there's the ever-present spectre of the headshot-kill, only you're on the receiving end. I can't count the number of times I tried making a break from the police only to see my health meter deplete from about half to zero and have Johnny go flying off the back of his bike in black-and-white slow motion because some cop got a lucky shot off. Meanwhile, using any weapon aside from the heaviest shot-gun, or carbine rifle, means having to spend about forty-bullets per kill. Even blowing up a conveniently placed oil drum right next to your target doesn't guarantee you've put them down. I got better kills with stray bullets than using their auto-targeting system.
They did beef up some of the weapons. The combat shotgun in the game is brutal, and they added a grenade launcher, which is handy for blowing up cars. Like I said, though, huge explosions don't tend to kill everyone, so when I went in to finish a kill, I'd be hit by the secondary chain explosion of the car-next-to-the-car blowing up. That was fun.
One of the most annoying missions is one where you're using a heavy shot-gun on the back of a motorcycle while being chased by every police officer in the city. So you have to blow up all these cars, but you have no way to defend yourself in the meantime. So you're watching huge chunks of your health just fade away. I died about ten times doing that one.
The plot to the game is pretty hectic. Basically, your biker gang leader gets out of jail/rehab and starts acting like an asshole, then he gets arrested again and you get blamed. So you end up killing over half of your own gang, There's a memorial on the wall of the biker clubhouse for every member who dies. When the game starts, there's one dude up there. After it's over, the whole wall is full. Then you burn the place down, which is a shame because there were strippers in there.
You have your own special bike, too, but I lost mine after about the seventh mission, and when it's gone, it's gone. I didn't even wreck it. I just had to leave it behind to take another vehicle.
One of the weird things is that it goes into a lot more depth to this one character who appears in one or two cut scenes in the original GTA IV, Ashley, who's this crackhead hanging out with Ray Boccino.
Considering it was jut a game-add-on, it was longer than I expected, but still pretty short. I finished with only 68% of the game complete, so I'm guessing the rest is the Gang War and race missions, which are bull-shit anyway.