Sleigh Bells is in every trailer!

Sleigh Bells is the soundtrack for people doing bad things, kids!!!

Scary Clown GIF

Apologies for a little housekeeping here. I started this blog wayyy back in 2002 and you'd think I'd have a better filing system for everything I've posted and yet, all too often, I'm unable to find things that I *know* I've posted. Like these SCARY DANCING CLOWN gifs I created from this YouTube video.

So... repost.

Here's a smaller version that's 300px in width:
And another GIF...

With its own smaller version, 300px wide:

While we're here, Misanthropy Central endorses the *proper* pronunciation of "GIF"... with a soft G, like the peanut butter. It's obnoxious that there's so much controversy over this. It's because people don't want to change the way they've been saying it, even though the creator of the fucking format pronounces it like the fucking peanut butter.

These are my most important blog entries.

Breaking Bad on ABC Family!

I can't believe the last goddamn stretch of Breaking Bad starts in August...

Fire Alarms and Cooking

This has happened while cooking in almost every NYC apartment I've lived in and at most friends' homes I've cooked in. You start cooking and the fire alarm gets set off.

A lot of NYC apartments don't even have stovetop range hoods to vent the smoked caused by cooking. Most of them recirculate the air instead of expelling it outside the home. (And most people don't bother to change the filters regularly or ever.)

Lifehacker offers some basic suggestions for how to deal with this. Placement is an obvious factor. Using a fan to blow smoke away from the smoke alarm while cooking is a fine ghetto solution. Taking the batteries out of the alarm can be the most tragic solution.

What seems like the best fix is to get a better fire alarm.

GOOGLE: "Photoelectric Smoke Alarm"

A comparison of "ionization" vs "photoelectric" detectors.

A decent way to err toward extra safety: use a photoelectric detector in/by the kitchen and use an ionization detector elsewhere.

And that's the tooth!

Globe Institute Bloodbath

Have you seen this advert for the Globe Institute in subway stations? It's supposed to suggest the range of careers the school can offer you.

The top half of this student offers a vision of her as a medical assistant.

The bottom half offers a vision of her as some sort of fashion girl.

In a way, it's reminiscent of the 1984 classic, ANGEL:

The Globe Institute can prepare you for a life where you're a medical assistant by day and a street walker by night!

Worse than that from a design perspective, to me it always just looks like it's a nurse who's drenched in blood.

Well-played, Globe Institute of Technology.

Creepypasta

What is "creepypasta"?

A portmanteau of “copy” & “paste” — copypasta — originated in 4chan’s Anon community some time in 2006. "Copypasta" indicates any block of text that's copied and pasted from one source to another, over and over, often to the point where quotes get misattributed. Happens a lot with inspirational and spiritual anecdotes on Facebook.

"Creepypasta" is a subgenre of copypasta, consisting of horrific short stories and urban legends.

There's one about a Russian sleep-deprivation experiment that took place in the late 1940s... The Russian Sleep Experiment. [WARNING: GRAPHIC]

No idea who the original author was. This story has, apparently, been copied and pasted and *adjusted* many times in varies places on the internet. Often with claims that the experiment actually happened. All signs point to this being fake as shit.

Here's another creepypasta about the scariest videogame ever.

Natasha Leggero as Constance Zimmer

Natasha Leggero is NOT Constance Zimmer, apparently.

Natasha Leggero was not in ENTOURAGE or HOUSE OF CARDS.

Constance Zimmer is not a comedian.

Unless... they're the same person...???

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks...

It was like a movie...

It was like something out of a movie...

You hear things like that a lot in the aftermath of one of these ostentatious terrorist attacks. Count how many times eyewitnesses will compare something like the Boston Marathon Bombing to movies. So, how are movies tied into a terrorist attack like this...?

Movies have been depicting disasters for years. Explosions are cinematic. A burst of fire, plumes of smoke, people running and screaming. It's dramatic, it's great for trailers, getting asses in movie theater seats. A few years before 9/11, I remember seeing the trailer for INDEPENDENCE DAY in a packed movie theater and the crowd went apeshit just watching a series of American landmarks blow up. And this is from the trailer for 1995's DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE:

Action movies are awesome at dealing with themes of vengeance. It's some great shit and kids are raised on it.

Technology, the 24-hour news cycle and social networking have really changed how we deal with a real world attack like this.

24-hour news channels have to fill the air no matter how little information exists. It's been a day since the bombing and it could be a while yet before we find out who was behind it, but those news channels need to keep riffing so they'll cover the action from every angle. Repeating the same questions that have no answers, inviting speculation from experts of various fields. Shaping the narratives of individual people involved — the selfless heroes, the tragic victims — using the language of film to convey those stories. And because we're borrowing from action movies... we need to find out who or what needs to be brought to justice.

Let's hear from celebrities. What does Survivor's "Boston Rob" think about this...?

Thinking of everyone back home in Boston! Ur all in our thoughts and prayers. #PrayforBoston twitter.com/BostonRob/stat…

— Boston Rob (@BostonRob) April 16, 2013

Thanks, Boston Rob: a nation thanks you!

What about other famous people...? Maybe they'll have something to say to help us get through this one. Some inspiring message of hope I can retweet to heal the world.

It's all in the service of breaking it down and trying to repackage this senseless act into something that makes more sense. Something inspiring. Just like the movies.

A NATION REBUILDS! TOGETHER WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL!

I don't think we need anymore fucking tragedies, natural disasters or terrorist attacks to remind us how great we can be.

It sometimes feels like the world is getting crazier. Like the crazy people are letting loose with increasing frequency. Corroding everything that keeps this country in one piece. I'm bracing for the point where we find out the nationality of the people behind this one. Let's see how much this nation stands together, then.

(Let's all hope it was a giant alien squid.)

A Quiet Place to Die

Shall we talk about the weather...? Forecast suggests the mid-70s later today. Spring always seems to land abruptly and make an extravagant show of itself.

I'd enjoy it more if I could. I'm enjoying it enough for now.

A good way to harm yourself is to dwell excessively on where you want to be and how far away you are from that place.

Kahjoh

Willie Wolfe was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the group who kidnapped Patty Hearst. He was reported to be Hearst's lover. Wolfe's nickname was "Kahjoh", but the media reported it as "Cujo".

"Cujo" is a 1981 horror novel written by Stephen King, about a St. Bernard named Cujo who gets rabies from a bat bite and goes fucking apeshit.

There was a movie adaptation released in 1983, featuring a dog slathered in corn syrup. (A sequel was released in 1992, called BEETHOVEN.)

Here's the problem with making a CUJO movie: nobody wants to see a dog get killed. I don't care how much you bathe that doggy in food coloring and syrup, how many people he rips apart in the movie — no matter how much of an asshole he is, no matter how badly he's got it coming to him, NOBODY wants to see a fucking dog get iced in a movie! And if you're making a CUJO movie, you're going to have to kill that dog in the end. Probably twice because you KNOW he's not REALLY dead... he is the titular monster in a monster movie and "good" has to overcome "evil", if only superficially. And guess what? The math leaves you with a dead dog and a fade to black when you're making a fucking CUJO movie!

Oh no, one might protest, Cujo was a *good* dog! It's the bat-rabies that made him sick. Like in a zombie movie where a good person gets bitten and turned into a crazy zombie. So it's really like you're dealing with a zombie dog.

Well, America loves its goddamn zombie dogs just as much as its regular dogs. I don't think you could make a CUJO movie again. In the early 80s, sure. But now, too many people would be up in arms.

This past weekend, a remake of another 80s horror movie won the top spot at the box office — with a hard R-rating, no less. The EVIL DEAD remake is one of the bloodiest films I have ever seen. It may very well be THE bloodiest. It certainly has the most cringe-inducing bloodshed and gore I've seen in ages. Did I mention it was rated R and snagged the top spot at the box office? This is what horror should be. Rated R and #1 at the box office.

Remembering Roger Ebert

I was a sophomore in college when I got my first email address at NYU. My friend (at the time) Nick introduced me to the computer lab and showed me a really primitive form of a visual web browser, and this site called "Ain't It Cool News" where you could read spy reports of the long-in-development SPIDER-MAN movie (to be directed by James Cameron!) and other reports about George Lucas developing STAR WARS *prequels*. This was the mid-90s and the internet was all usenet groups and mailing people blank cassette tapes in exchange for bootlegs of concerts. And we loved every bit of it.

Roger Ebert had a presence on the internet early on. He was an early adopter of the technology. He even responded to a few emails I sent him back in the day.

I grew up watching Siskel & Ebert.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s, there was no internet. There weren't a thousand niche channels catering to everything you could possibly imagine. If you were interested in the movies, there were movie magazines, Entertainment Tonight and Siskel & Ebert. With Siskel & Ebert, you could watch two critics -- who loved the movies -- nearly come to fisticuffs over the merits of all the latest films. They spoke intelligently, were passionate in defense of their opinions, and it helped shape my appreciation of film from an early age.

I've a fond memory of going back to the dorm right before the spring semester of my freshman year. Few students were back from their winter breaks, including my roommate at the time who was scarcely there. Nick may have been there, for some reason. Empty dorm, dead of winter, Nick and I watched a new episode of Siskel & Ebert. There was just something comforting about watching them discuss movies. Family friends you'd grown up with.

And... now they're both dead.

I think kids today -- many adults today -- might have some difficulty understanding how you could have a genuine affection for a couple of movie critics. For me, they were the first people I knew who treated films seriously. Who treated films with respect. Who had a reverence for the art form which could inform their anger when a movie failed. I probably disagreed with both of them as often as I agreed with them, but there was no denying they took their commitment to film criticism seriously. I had a book with collected Ebert reviews that I remember using to discover movies at the video store growing up. I used to fantasize, with some dread, the day that one of my movies would be reviewed on Siskel & Ebert.

This is the way the world works.

[See also, Remembering Gene Siskel.]

Roger Ebert Has a Posse

Roger Joseph Ebert
June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013
Roger Ebert has a posse. Just 2 days after he'd announced a leave of presence wherein he would only review movies he *wanted* to review from now on.