Ten Things

Ok so my birthday was Friday, and I decided to make a list of things I like right now in honor of it.  Originally the list was going to be twenty-three things, since that's how old I just became, but the more I thought about it the more I wasn't sure I'd be able to come up with that many things I liked.  So I cut it to ten, for the tenth.  Here we go:

10. The Parlor Mob

I always turn on one of the Music Choice channels when I'm reading, writing, or doing pretty much anything except watching something else on television.  This song came up, and the singer's voice really got my attention.  Upon looking up more of their stuff I've found that these guys are pretty great at being unhappy, and if there's anyone who appreciates the finer points of discontent, it's me.



9. Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse
What you have here is comic about a worm demon who occupies the right eye-sockets of dead bodies in order to fight supernatural crime alongside a stripper and a robot.  Yeah.  I was drawn to this series primarily because of the art, which is amazing.  Ben Templesmith is the artist behind the "30 Days of Night" comics, and if you're curious about what that art actually looks like, you can check out his blog right here.  He writes "Wormwood" as well as illustrates, and the result is one of the best combinations of horror and comedy I've seen in a while.  The horror/comedy combo is kind of "in" these days (Shaun of the Dead and on up from there), but most movies or books in this genre tend to be more like comedies with a few horror elements, or just using some typical horror scenario for the story's backdrop.  Not here.  Here there's some really gory, freaky shit going down.  But it's still funny.  There are demons, leprechauns, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (my favorite!), and a surprising amount of tentacles showing up when you least expect them.  I love it.

8. This Fake Ad for Downton Abbey

If you don't know anything about the real show, this probably isn't very funny.  I for one am obsessed with Downton Abbey.  It's the most ridiculously dramatic thing I've ever seen, and SNL pretty much got it down pat.  We've been quoting "you just pissed off the chicken lady" at my house for the past several days.

7. Extended Family
According to ABC News, January and February have the highest death rates out of the year.  I personally have a lot of experience with deaths in February.  Earlier this week, my cousin's grandfather passed away after a long illness, and his funeral was Saturday afternoon.  It was a military funeral, and afterwards we sang "Happy Birthday" and had cake.
Now, in the technical sense, I am not related to this man.  He was connected to my family through marriage, but a divorce ended that before I was even born.  I didn't realize that until I was a teenager.  The thing is, my family never kicks people out.  Whether it's a divorce or the foster system or your own stupid mistakes, you can still come back and hang out with us, no questions asked.  That's why I knew the man we honored today, and that's the thing I like about extended family.


6. This Picture

This is my brother and I, quite some time ago, at the Universal Studios theme park's King Kong ride.  I was looking for something in the cubboard over the refrigerator and found this instead.  His birthday is this Monday, and I'm sure he'll be thrilled if he ever sees this gem made its way onto the Internet.

5. Dooce
A professional blogger who talks about being a mom, a former Mormon, and haver of emotional problems.  I like her because she a fellow Heather-in-arms who writes beautifully, and consistently introduces me to new music and interesting stuff on the Internet.  Also, she's been blogging since 2001, so there's a fascinating amount of information about this one person available at your fingertips.  You can sit there and act like you're above voyeurism, but everyone knows that's what the Internet is all about.  So click away.  There's a whole life on here.

4. Good Guy Lucifer
So pretty much everything on Quickmeme gets done to death, but there are some real diamonds in the rough within the Good Guy Lucifer category.  As a former studier of religions, and an even more former follower of religions, I have a soft spot for this kind of humor.  Here are a couple of the better offerings:

I particularly like the one about Job, but that's a story for another time.


3. Potbelly Sandwich Shop
We don't have these where I live, but there are plenty of them around the Chicago area, where I was last weekend.  I've heard they sell sandwiches, but all I ever get there is soup.  I love soup.  Soup is one of the better things humanity has come up with over its existence.  There was a Potbelly's right by my college when I was an undergrad, and every couple Sundays I was there for some broccoli cheddar soup and an Oreo milkshake.  I've been told this is an odd combination, but the people saying that are usually getting sandwiches instead, so I don't trust their judgement.
This place also has oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, which I love because most oatmeal cookies have raisins, and I really don't like raisins.  My paternal grandmother used to throw raisins in her apple pies a lot, and I always wondered why someone would willingly ruin such an awesome food with such a nasty shrivelled fruit.  So when I had my chance, I bought a little bag of raisin-free oatmeal cookies to take home.  I've been told that I could easily make these cookies myself, but then they wouldn't feel so special, or rare, and I probably wouldn't like them as much anymore.


2.  Bad Lip Reading
How to explain this... what this site does is take music videos and sound bites and dub over them with words that are completely different, but look the same when you say them.  Does that make any sense?  An example might help.

I love when the Fergie's voice over randomly says "piano".  BLR has also started doing soundbite voice overs for the Republican candidates, and I can't believe how well done they are.  It really looks like Gingrich is talking about crumping.



1. An Idiot Abroad
It shouldn't be this funny to see someone so miserable.  But it is, and that's why Ricky Gervais pays for his friend Karl Pilkington to travel around the world and experience extreme discomfort for a television audience.  Last year this poor guy was sent to the New Seven Wonders of the World (the ones are gone, I guess, so they had to pick out new ones).  It sounds really cool, and under normal circumstances the travel would probably be fun, but they go out their way to make Karl's experience unhappy.  When he goes to see Petra, he is set up with a group living out in the desert who feed him lamb's eyes and testicles for dinner.  They also tend to set him up in shady hotels and give him "guides" that make him miserable.  At the Great Pyramids (the only "old" wonder he sees), he meets up with this new-agey couple that thinks the pyramids connect to some kind of extraterrestrial life?
Anyway, now there's a season two, and they're making Karl do things that most people want to do before they die.  He chooses which thing he's going to do, but then Ricky goes behind his back and pretty much makes the trip unbearable.  The last episode I saw, where Karl wanted to go whale watching, they forced him to go dog-sledding and glacier-watching (don't know what else to call it, they were looking at glaciers), and then they set him up on a fishing boat for several days where he's forced to work.  By the time he actually gets to see some whales, he's so tired and seasick that he doesn't even give a shit and barely looks at them.  Here he is dog-sledding:

Yeah, he calls the dogs "twats" at one point.  It's not all about revelling is someone else's pain, though, I genuinely think Karl is a funny guy and I like hearing him talk about what he's going through.

So there's my advertisements for the ten things I like.  I'm so glad I didn't go with my original idea of twenty-three, since this list ended up taking three days for me to make.  If it was any longer I'd be passed out somewhere bleeding out my ears by now.