After a long hiatus, I find it necessary to bring back a Ranty Classic. Conspiracy Theories. I have been silenced by various forces in the government who find my views unpleasant, but by a clever manipulation of one letter of my last name I found a way to elude them. SUCKERS!

Matt Damon Clones

     If you watched The Office last Thursday, you most surely noted that one of the interns bore a striking resemblance to Matt Damon. What relevance does this have to anything you may be asking. Well it’s quite obvious. The government is cloning Matt Damon. What reason could they possibly have for this? The answer is simple: To create a race of superior poker players. Any of you that have seen Rounders knows that the Matt Damon gene contains not only superior acting capabilites but the ability to bust down Teddy KGB at will. After the recent financial crisis, the government was obviously looking for ways to make money. What better way than with legalized gambling? These Matt Damon clones have their bankrolls financed by the CIA and work as “Kites.” If anyone finds their identity, they are cut loose and disavowed. All their earnings go directly to the government to fund things that they do not want us to know about. Through extensive research I found out what some of these projects are. One is to figure out a way to put ketchup and mustard in the same bottle, thus saving Americans literally seconds of time in bottle switching mayhem. Another is screen doors for submarines. Yes, this was originally a Polish idea but the goverment has seen some merit to the project. Those nuclear reactors aren’t going to cool themselves. Anyway, something went horribly wrong with the cloning and one of the noobs got more acting talent than he was supposed to. After being disavowed, he obviously tried to make it as an actor and stumbled onto The Office. Because of Damon’s work on the Bourne Trilogy, he can blend in to any situation. The government apparently overlooked this and I predict more of the clones going rouge. Count on various university janitors solving complex mathematical problems, or men having all of their brothers killed in WWII and having Tom Hanks fish them out of the mess.

Clearly a clone.

—

Listen: Third Eye Blind, “Non Dairy Creamer”
Quote: “Not victory, Obi-Wan. The shroud of the Dark Side has fallen. Begun, this Clone War has.” – Yoda

————————————————————————————

Tickets from Abroad

     The next conspiracy comes from a friend who shall remain nameless to protect her identity. Although I managed to get this post out, it is only a matter of time until the gummyment finds me again and I would not want my crimes taken out on her. Said nameless person’s parents visited Italy and rented a car with GPS there. This GPS was supposed to tell them where they could drive and park legally while in Italy. Unfortunately, a year later they began to receive tickets in the mail for various parking violations while in Italy. Obviously this is some sort of conspiracy between the GPS companies and world governments. The GPS companies get a certain cut of the tickets while hapless Americans pay tickets that they can no longer remember. Absolutely brilliant. Apparently the statute of limitations on parking tickets knows no bounds in other countries. My advice: If you get a ticket for a parking ticket in another country, don’t pay it. Chances are we don’t have extradition with the country, so they can’t touch you. If you have to go to said country again, use an alias. Airports are pretty cool with that nowadays.

This could be from Italy, who knows?

—

Listen: The Used, “Lunacy Fringe”
Quote: “There are big signs, you can’t park there! They should get towed! I hope they get towed to Queens, and the Triborough is closed, and there’s a big craft show at Shea, a flea market, or a tractor show!” – President Josiah Bartlet

No caption required.

     I know that the Hero of the Month is usually posted at the end of the month, but for this man I could not wait any longer. As everyone knows, Patrick Swayze passed away this week after losing his battle against pancreatic cancer. Swayze has always been a personal hero to me and I am paying him tribute to making him one of my patented Heroes of the Month. Although I’ve done many sarcastic Heroes posts, I save the serious ones for my favorite people/fictional characters/inanimate objects, including Harry Kalas, Blade and The Truck.

     Everyone knows Swayze from his roles in Ghost, The Outsiders and Dirty Dancing, however I would like to mention the movies in which I liked him best.

     First off, Red Dawn. Who wouldn’t like a movie where the Soviet Union allies with Cuba to take over the southwestern portion of the United States? And what if a band of teenagers on horseback fought a guerrilla war with the invaders? And what if those teenagers included Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen and Lea Thompson? Further suppose that they eventually meet up with Powers Boothe and shit got real? That would make for an awesome movie. WOLVERINES!

Damn dirty Soviets.

     Next we have Youngblood, a hockey classic starring Rob Lowe as Dean Youngblood. Swayze is Dean’s mentor and teaches him how to ‘throw bows’ in the rink. You don’t even have to see the movie to know that it will be awesome. The antagonist of the movie fights and injures Swayze and Youngblood must fight to protect his honor. The movie is 100% badass.

Gotta be good.

     Road House: Swayze beating the shit out of people for 114 minutes. Not much needs to be said here.

Hard-nosed mofo.

     Finally, my favorite: Point Break. Now you might be saying, “Clint, that movie sucked.” You’re absolutely wrong and I’m ashamed to know you. I will admit that Keanu Reeves is not the most talented actor, but he’s gotta be in the top 100,000 of male actors his age. It doesn’t even matter, Swayze can carry a movie all by himself, especially when he is an existentialist surfer who also robs banks with his crew dressed as former presidents. Plus, there’s Busey. You never know what that cat is gonna do. Every time I watch the movie I wonder what Busey is going to do next. I have the movie memorized, but I’m still unsure if he has edited the movie to put in some crazy new shit. It is way more than likely. Tom Seizmore is also in the movie (uncredited), as well as Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Clearly the best movie EVER.

Yeah, skydiving too.

     The only really obscure one of these is Youngblood. You should have heard of all the rest of them. If you haven’t, watch them immediately. Hell, watch Youngblood too. Even if you don’t like it, it’s worth a oncethrough. Anyway, God bless you Patrick Swayze. May the wind always be at your back, and the sun always upon your face, and may the wings of destiny carry you aloft to dance with the stars. Yes, that’s from Blow.

—

Listen: Muse, “Knights of Cydonia”
Quote: “Good looking people turn me off. Myself included.” – Patrick Swayze

     I have a lot of interesting and funny stories from high school. Some of these you will never hear. But some you will. This is one of the latter. Since Souderton’s new high school is opening up, I figured it would be appropriate to tell a story that intimately involves the old building. Souderton’s old high school is a mess of additions, making for a very confusing floor plan that no one can figure out until the last couple days of senior year. That is actually neither here nor there or anywhere in between. What I want to tell you about is our class’ (attempted) senior prank.

     Many in our graduating class never heard about this prank (it wasn’t exactly pulled off), but the idea was brilliant and I need for everyone to know about it. It was a concept spawned by me and two of my friends, Tyler and Steve. Again, last names will be omitted in case this blows job prospects for these two gentlemen. Anyway, we had the idea that we would put a banner up on the school on one of the last days of school. So that doesn’t sound that great, but we had the plan that we would put the banner on the main entrance of the school to drop down from the three story roof down to right above the first floor. In other words, it was to be HUGE. We went to SprawlMart and bought two sets of king sized sheets. Not exactly cheap but what the hey, you only live once. I then went to work with my mother’s sewing machine. I sewed the two cover sheets together to create the full size banner. (I guess that means that I have two fitted sheets and four pillow covers somewhere. I have no idea where they have gotten to.) So now we were ready to put the quote on.

I think we went with Ivory.

     We selected a quote from our yearbook from a fellow classmate Emerson. It was something to the effect to the effect of “You know you’re at Souderton when you hear the squeak of knowledge against the education of linoleum.” I don’t remember the exact quote, maybe Pete has it or I can update this when I visit home and look at my yearbook. Either that, or you’ll never know. Sufficient to say, it was an awesome quote and a perfect fit for the banner. Now, how are we gonna put that quote on the banner? Well in our high school, it turns out that seniors only have to go in for their actual finals for finals week. After that, we can go home. Since I lived a couple blocks from the high school and my parents were away for the day, my house was the perfect honeycomb hideout. I moved all the furniture in the living room out of the way every morning, and put flattened cardboard boxes on the floor so I didn’t stain the hardwood. We used paint to put the quote on the banner. Outdoor paint. That stuff smells. I had to make sure that I had sufficiently aired out the house before my parents came home every night. I would hide the banner in my room every evening and bust it out again every morning. This took about three days.

     Finally we finished. Now it came time to actually put the banner up. In previous years, we had discovered a way to get onto the roof of our high school by way of a low roof section on one corner. From here there are ladders leading to all of the other portions of the roof. Basically, once you’re up you’re good to go. Unfortunately, to get up on this particular part of the roof, you are on the side of the building that is thirty feet from the road. If a cop rolls by (they frequently do) and you’re trying to climb onto the building, chances are that you’re screwed. We set the plan for me to pick up the other two at about three in the morning. I had to sneak out of my house undetected and take my dad’s minivan which is about twenty feet from my parent’s bedroom. This wasn’t the first time I had stolen my dad’s car in the dead of night so I wasn’t that worried about it. I picked up Tyler and then went over to Steve’s. As I pull up, he runs out of the bushes dressed in all black. It was hilarious. Anyway, we decide that one of us will drive the car while the other two jump out and run to the school to put the banner up. Since Steve seemed a little skittish, we decided that he would drive the car while Tyler and I would do the deed.

     So we were all ready. We had the banner and various other materials necessary to the operation that I will mention later. Steve pulled up and Tyler and I jumped out. Steve took off to park somewhere close by and wait for us to finish. Tyler and I scaled the wall and climbed the five different ladders that took us up to the very top of the building. We then started construction. We had previously known that if we just put the banner up, it would be gone by the time we got to the school in the morning. We decided that it would be best to roll the banner up and secure it to the top of the school and then dangle a line from the top of the building all the way down to next to the ground floor entrance. That way, when we showed up, we could just pull the line and drop the banner down. Since we didn’t have to go to school the next day, we figured we would all go out for breakfast and then pull the string when we dropped Steve’s sister off for school. The plan was flawless. Tyler and I made sure we fitted weights to the bottom of the banner so that when we dropped it, it would stay down in the fashion we desired. We also secured the banner to the top of the school using strings and tying the banner to gallon jugs of water. It was a real pain in the ass bringing all those gallons of water up the ladders. Anyway, we set it all up and strung the string down to the entrance (which was on a different level and required more ladder work). All finished, we gave Steve a call and he came to pick us up. He was reluctant to actually stop the van so we jumped in through the sliding door.

     I drove both Steve and Tyler back home and then went home myself. My parents had somehow realized that both I and the van were gone and were awake and waiting for me when I made it home. I tried to make some excuse about going to Wawa, but they were not having it. They grounded me. When Steve and Tyler pulled up in the morning, I told them I was grounded and that one of them would have to pull the string (the original plan was for me to pull it). So I spent the day wondering what had happened. Later that night, I talked to them on AIM and discovered that neither of them had pulled the string. I was crushed. I knew that the janitors at our high school would have surely found the banner during the course of the day and that our prank was essentially boned. I snuck out again that night and walked down to the high school to check on the banner. Sure enough, it was gone. I was pretty pissed at Steve and Tyler, but after a week I cooled down. Even if it didn’t fly, it was still a pretty good prank. If we had pulled it off though, damn. Legendary.

Souderton's janitors were the inspiration for this level of craftiness.

—

Listen: Relient K, “Sadie Hawkins Dance”
Quote: “Gee, I can’t wait till I get to ‘hike’ school.” – 3rd Grader

     It was recently pointed out to me by my temporary roomate Shanknasty that these latest posts lack the ranting chops that our readers have come to expect. I don’t really have much of an answer to that. Maybe I’m mellowing out in my old age. Probably not. I think it’s more of an issue that I don’t really go out that often, so I rarely encounter things that enrage me. Sad I know. When I get a real job I’m sure that the rage will be back. Anyway, I figured for this post I’d start off with a story that ends in a rant (hence the Story McRanterson subtitle).

     This weekend I took the plunge. I got a new phone. My previous phone had a broken screen for more than two years, and I figured I was well overdue for an upgrade. There is a moderately funny story behind how the screen got broken. I was out having a couple beers with my co-workers about 45 minutes away from my house. After leaving, I realized that I had to take a piss. I held it as long as I could, but it reached a point where I could no longer wait without making a mess of myself. I pulled into and alley, got out and let loose. After that, I drove home, hung out for a little and went to bed. The next day I couldn’t find my cell phone. I was wondering what had happened to it and then it struck me. My phone was sitting on my lap when I got out to whiz. I drove back to the alley and, sure enough, there was my phone lying face down on the pavement. Unfortunately, it had tire tracks on the back. Since the alley is not well used, I’m pretty sure that I am the one who ran over my phone. Embarrassing.

     Either way, the screen was cracked and only showed a cool purple design of shattered LCD. I had had the phone long enough that I reached the point where I could access my contact list and type in a name to call a person without having to actually see the screen. So, I limped along for two years like this. If people called me and I missed the call, I didn’t know they had called unless they left a message. If my phone rang and I was worried about avoiding someone, I couldn’t tell who was calling. I would just wait to see if they left a message. Text messages were out. Some of my friends (Pete) delighted in texting me, knowing that I would hear the sound and fly off into a rage because someone was leaving me a text message. I hate him for this. Anyhow, it was beyond time to get another phone.

     My previous phone was a Nokia as were the three phones before it. I kept going with Nokia because I liked their phones and because all their chargers are the same. I have about six phone chargers placed strategically throughout important places in my life so that if I forget a charger, one is close at hand. You must admit that this is a brilliant strategy. I’ve never had to worry about leaving a cell phone charger in a hotel room. Who cares, I have five more sucker! Also, Nokias are tough phones. I am very hard on my possessions. Cell phones do not usually last long with me. I can’t have a flip or slide phone, they would be destroyed in a matter of seconds. I find the Nokia Brick Phone® to be the best choice for me. Plus, this recent one survived being run over by a car so I thought, let’s get that one again. I looked for it on the interwebs and saw that it was no longer available. Disappointing. However, they did have a phone that appeared to be the next generation of the phone I had so I decided to go for it.

The phones I went through during the last finals week.

     Bad move. First off, it is not nearly as destruction proof as the last one. I’m pretty sure if I sat on it, it would break. I know I’ve put on some weight, but that’s still ridiculous. I require a phone that can sustain at least 100,000 Ns of impulse. (For those of you unfamiliar with physics, that is the resultant impulse for a 100 kg object travelling 100 m/s coming to a halt in 0.1 s.) Also, they changed the damn charger. It is exactly the same shape but the hole it fits into is smaller, rendering all of my previous chargers useless. How dare you Nokia. Our relationship was based on reliability and consistency. You have pimp slapped my genius plan and left me with one pitiful cellular device charger. I will be Goddamned before I buy another charger. If I lose this charger I will burn Utica to the ground. I know you want to go for innovation, sleekness and all that shit, but changing your base model that much is unforgivable. Riddle me this, what the Hell am I supposed to do with all these useless chargers?! I’ll probably just use them to hang myself. That’ll show that faceless corporation.

My next phone.

—

Listen: Jadakiss, “Welcome to D-Block”
Quote: “You’re talking about your phone, it’s more like Story McStoryson.” – Shanknasty

P.S. If you have my number, chances are I don’t have it anymore so text it to me.

     Let’s face it, commercials are annoying. I used to have Direct TV and could record shows and view them later in order to skip over the network’s attempts to pay for the programming that I was enjoying. Unfortunately, due someone moving in with an already existing two year contract, we switched to Comcast. We do not have a DVR and I am frequently forced to find alternate channels during commercial breaks. I am the king of this move, but more often than not all the networks seem to take their commercial breaks at the same time. Irresponsible. The channels that I watch should anticipate my needs and stagger their break times. Come on man, get it together. Anyway, after a few months of having to watch crap commercials, I have a new found appreciation for the great commercials of our time. I’m not talking about stand alone commercials, that would be too easy. Actually too hard. I don’t want to have to go have to think about this post all that much. I’ll do three of my favorites.

Terry Tate-Reebok

It's mindgames.

     The concept here is simple. An office drafts a linebacker to enforce a variety of rules and codes. Every commercial comes equipped with Terry tackling various violators and spewing fantastic catch phrases and speeches. Some of the funnier ones:

-”Well he in for a surprise. A RUDE, PAINFUL SURPRISE!”
-”And do I enjoy what I do? Heh heh heh heh heh, hell yeah.”
-”You know Triple T gonna condense the nonsense.”
-”You can’t be tippy-toin’ up in here! WOOOO!”
-”That’s my game, that’s Terry’s game. And when it’s game time, it’s pain time! WOOOO!”
-”You can’t come in my kitchen, kick my dog and steal a box full of ballpoints! Your ass must be crazy!”
-”Ain’t nobody downsizin’ this. I’m done when I say I’m done.”
-”You got mail baby!”
-”I’m gonna give you a slice of Terry’s special pain cake! And you won’t, want seconds of that!”
-”You can’t hurt this! I’m a machine Gene! I was built for this!”
-”You can’t walk away from a K-22 paper jam! You must be out of your mind son! This is my world Donny, you just work here!”

When you’re feeling loud and obnoxious it’s fun to yell some of these at the top of your lungs and see what happens. There are a great many of these that can be found on YouTube. If you haven’t seen them, I suggest you do now. If you have, look again. They’re still funny as hell:

Terry Tate: Office Linebacker
Terry Tate: Vacation
Terry Tate: Draft Day
Terry Tate: OSPN
Terry Tate: Sensitivity Training

High Life Delivery Guy-Miller High Life

What a jovial fellow.

     Another simple concept. This guy goes into swanky places and takes High Life away from goobers who don’t understand what beer should be. He then usually goes and hangs out with the common man and passes out High Life. I don’t even really like and Miller products but I would buy Miller High Life if he asked me to. The guy is absolutely hysterical. Just the idea of a delivery man going into a place and taking beer back is very enjoyable to me. He also has some pretty funny quotes, but they’re kind of context based and won’t make much sense if I just write them. Watch the provided YouTube links and hear them yourself.

High Life: Skybox
High Life: Club
High Life: Track
High Life: VIP
High Life: Limo
High Life: Hamburger
High Life: Light

This is SportsCenter-ESPN

Follow me to freedom!

     This is an obvious choice. There are tons of them with varying degrees of hilarity, but all are worth watching. I even liked the Michael Phelps commercial and everyone knows my seething hatred for Michael Phelps. There are hundreds, literally hundreds, but I’m going to include only a few of my favs.

Rollins and SVP
Western Kentucky Mascot
International Edition
New Kid
Lance
Y2K
Star Wars
Chad Johnson (Ochocinco)
SVP Performance Enhancers
Stuart Scott and Federer
Stuart Scott and Sharapova
Wrong Number
Catch Phrases
SVP and Carmelo

I just spent about three hours going through all of the SportsCenter commercials. Best research EVER. Obviously I’m partial to Scott Van Pelt. He’s funny AND a UMD grad. I actually talked to him once when he called into my old roommates Maryland radio show. Marcus and the Mann. I was the phone bitch. It was a good year.

     It would be bereft of me not to mention the commercial campaigns that have pissed me off so much that I want to destroy things. These are the commercials that are played over and over again ad-nauseum, even though they make everyone viewing want to go into a murderous rage. Again, three examples.

Geico

What does this even mean?

     Pretty much everything they have done up to this point is garbage. The Cavemen, the Gecko, the singing money. All terrible. We get it, you spend no money on advertising.

Free Credit Report Band

YOU ARE AWFUL.

     Alright, so the first commercial was okay. At least until the played it eleventy billion times and caused me to wish that credit reports never existed. Then they went on to do about ten other commercials with equally crappy and annoying songs. Congrats, you’ve inspired me to hate whatever it is you’re advertising.

Weird Progressive Insurance Chick

What a freak.

     This woman’s chipperness causes me consternation. No one is that happy about work. Unless you’re somehow involved in porn, you cannot be that satisfied with your job. It’s strictly IMPOSSIBLE. Also, she is a straight up annoying human being. Why are we rewarding this type of behavior?

     Perhaps channels should give a five second preview of the commercials that they will be showing so that we can tell if its worth leaving the channel on for the commercials. That way, if they’re going to play something good, I’ll keep watching and they can jack up their prices. It’s win win.

—

Listen: Cake, “Nugget”
Quote: SVP: “Is that bad?”
J-Roll: “It’s not good.”

That is one baaaaaaad man.

     Well, I’ve been storing up some Heroes for a while and rather than waiting for the next month, I’m going to pleasure you by going back in time and posting Heroes from past months. Unorthodox I know, but that’s just who I am this week. As soon as this has sat for a while (read: gets pushed off the front page) I’ll move it to it’s proper month. If I can figure out how to change the date of posting. Anyway, Enjoy!

[Author's Note: It would be criminal not to mention that this post was partly inspired by my new best friend cocoxcae. Find that post here.]

     I was watching The Office on TBS and I saw a commercial for a show called The Vampire Diaries on the CW. First of all, the CW blows. I could go into it, but that is an issue for another post. The real issue is this new (by now not so new) vampire craze. I love vampires as much as the next guy, but these new shows/movies don’t seem to quite get it. Vampires are supposed to be badass. They’re not supposed to whine about their feelings all the time, they’re supposed to slay humans and fight against other kinds of monsters. Vampires don’t have diaries, they’re freaking monsters! Uhhh. Okay. The biggest threat to the vampire reputation is Twilight. Here is an excerpt from the plot summary of Twilight on IMDb:

To Edward, Bella is that thing he has waited 90 years for – a soul mate. But the closer they get, the more Edward must struggle to resist the primal pull of her scent, which could send him into an uncontrollable frenzy.

You have got to be kidding me. That’s really what I wanted. A vampire chick flick. Maybe next we can have a vampire edition of Cheaper by the Dozen. If Steve Martin actually dies, I’m all for it. One of the taglines for Twilight is “When you can live forever, what do you live for?” Uhh, revenge is the obvious answer, but I’m pretty sure that is not what they had in mind. Now some quotes:

#1. Edward Cullen: “I hate you for making me want you so much.”

#2. Isabella Swan: “Do you do this a lot?”
Edward Cullen: “Just the past couple of months. I like watching you sleep. I find it fascinating.”

#3. Edward Cullen: “Your scent, it’s like a drug to me. You’re like my own personal brand of heroin.”

#4. Edward Cullen: “That’s what you dream about? Being a monster?”
Isabella Swan: “I dream about being with you forever.”

Those were the four that I could bring myself to actually put on this site. The others were unworthy of reprinting.

Look, vampires are just like us! Just with better hair.

     The creators of the Blade trilogy understand what a vampire movie should be. When I see a vampire movie, I want non-stop action with very little plot or character development. The Blade movies deliver. Blade is a daywalker, half-vampire and half-human. He has all of the vampire’s strengths and none of their weaknesses, except his need for blood. He fights on the side of the humans, slaying various vampire threats. For three movies (Blade, Blade II and Blade: Trinity) Blade kicks ass and takes names. Sometimes he even neglects to take names. Blade is played by Wesley Snipes who, as everyone knows, is the baddest man on the face of the planet. Plus his co-stars in the movies are also at the tip-top in the badness category. Kris Kristofferson, Stephen Dorff, Ron Perlman, Dominic Purcell and Triple H. Also Ryan Reynolds, who is a dreamboat in addition to being a hard-nosed mofo. So how about some quotes from the Blade movies? I’ll only include some of my favorites, but the movies are filled with crazy badass quotes [from the various IMDb pages]:

#1. Blade: “You give Frost a message from me. You tell him it’s open season on all suckheads.”

#2. Dr. Karen Jenson: “Oh, great. Now you’re robbing him. You gonna rob me, too?”
Blade: “How do you think that we fund this organization, huh? We’re not exactly the March of Dimes.”

#3. Blade: “There are worse things out tonight than vampires.”
Dr. Karen Jenson: “Like what?”
Blade: “Like me.”

#4. Blade: [after being shot by hospital security] “Mother fucker! Are you out of your damn mind?”

#5. Eli Damaskinos: “Who do you think God really favors in the web? The spider, or the fly?”

#6. Blade: [pulling the pin out of a UV grenade] “You obviously do not know who you are fucking with!”

#7. Hannibal King: “Her name is Danica Talos. You met her earlier. And unlike typical vampires, her fangs are located in her vagina.”
[uncomfortable pause]
Hannibal King: “Moving on…”

#8. Blade: “Now, what’s behind Door Number One?”
Chief Martin Vreede: “I can’t tell you. They-they’ll kill me.”
Blade: “Kill you? Motherfucker, I’ll kill you! I’ll just enjoy it better.”

#9. Hannibal King: “She’s making playlists. She likes to listen to MP3s when she hunts. It’s like her own internal soundtrack, you know? Dark core, trip-hop, whatever kids are listening to these days. Me, I’m more of a David Hasselhof fan, you know?”

#10. Danica Talos: “Tell us about Blade, King. What’s this weapon he’s been planning?”
Hannibal King: “I can tell you two things. One, your hairdo is ridiculous. Two, I ate a lot of garlic, and I just farted. Silent but deadly.”

#11. Hannibal King: “We call ourselves the Nightstalkers.”
Blade: Hmm. “Sounds like rejects from a Saturday morning cartoon.”
Hannibal King: “Well, we were gonna go with the Care Bears, but, uh, that was taken.”

#12. Dracula: “Kill one man, you’re a murderer, kill a million, a king. Kill them all, a God.”

#13. Dr. Edgar Vance: “Do you know what day it is?”
[Blade declines to answer]
Dr. Edgar Vance: “How ’bout the president? You know who that is. Who’s in the White House, right now?”
Blade: “An asshole.”

Thirteen of the most badass quotes known to man. Hannibal King is the character played by Ryan Reynolds, so just imagine him saying those things. It adds a lot. I guess what I’m trying to say is that vampires are violent, blood-thirsty abominations to humanity and should be portrayed as such. If you see a vampire, don’t try to fall in love with it. Either kill it or run like hell.

Total dreamboat.

—

Listen: Muse, “Map of Your Head”
Quote: “Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice-skate uphill.” – Blade

     So some time back, I wrote a nice eugoogooly for my favorite website the Enduring Vision. You can click on either link, the first one will take you to my post, the second will take you to the actual Enduring Vision website. If you clicked on the second one, you know that the Enduring Vision is now back in action, with all the pith and sarcasm we have come to expect from them. I wrote Josh a couple of emails congratulating him for being back and explaining that I stole his idea for Yahoo User Reviews. He has not contacted me back and I can only assume that he is now contacting his lawyers to figure out how he can sue me for idea infringement. The joke’s on him though, unless he really wants a 2000 baby blue Ford Focus with over 111,000 miles, I’ve got nothing for him to take. If you’ve read any of this blog, you know that my dignity is gone and I’ve already sold my soul several times over.

This is the Vision's banner. They may kill me for this.

     Either way, the Enduring Vision is BACK BABY. I encourage you to periodically click on the link we have on our sidebar to check what those crazy bastards are up to. If you do comment on their stories, be sure to remember that it is satire and not true. Otherwise they will mercilessly beat you with words on their Letters section. Trust me, you do not want to be on the wrong side of those tracks.

     If you do not visit this site, you will be missing out on the most cutting edge satire out there. Also, their Character Editorials are pretty much the funniest things I’ve ever read in my life. Look up Pete Dunson. I’ve quoted him several times on this page. Pete’s unyielding anger is second to none. For a limited time I was concerned that Pete Liability on this blog was actually Pete Dunson. It was a terrifying couple of days. I can’t keep up with the unbridled rage that is Pete Dunson.

Pete Dunson. He looks pissed.

     Much of my inspiration over the years has come from this particular website, but I clearly didn’t have enough satire chops to keep up. Instead, Pete Liability and I decided to go this way. For me, it is beneficial. It focuses my rage into a more productive (or at least less violent) outlet.

     Irregardless, check the Enduring Vision every couple days or so. They update rather frequently and according to the Pirate’s Code, he who falls behind is left behind.

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Listen: KoRn, “Dead Bodies Everywhere”
Quote: “Like I said, I’m a pretty reasonable guy. It’s just I have a few problems with some of life’s little bitches it likes to throw at me. No big deal.” – Pete Dunson

This dude is in trouble.

     Well, I’ve been storing up some Heroes for a while and rather than waiting for the next month, I’m going to pleasure you by going back in time and posting Heroes from past months. Unorthodox I know, but that’s just who I am this week. As soon as this has sat for a while (read: gets pushed off the front page) I’ll move it to it’s proper month. If I can figure out how to change the date of posting. Anyway, Enjoy!

     Anyone who knows me knows I am a total sucker for really bad sci-fi horror movies with super ridiculous premises. The Cube franchise is a trilogy of Canadian horror movies that exemplifies this genre perfectly. The plot for each movie is simple. People are placed into a giant cube structure that is filled with smaller cubes about the size of a college dorm room. Each cube has a door on each side, leading into six other cube rooms. The people must navigate through the cubes to try and find a way out. However, every so often, they stumble into a cube that has a booby trap that kills the people inside. Awesome. Furthermore, the cubes periodically shift position in relation to one another so finding a way out is virtually impossible. The people generally have no idea what is happening or why they are there. They don’t know each other and, because of the stress of the situation, they start being suspicious of each other in the first five minutes. If that isn’t a formula for disaster, I don’t know what is. There were three movies: Cube, Cube 2: Hypercube and the prequel Cube Zero. Although they came out in the order listed, I’m going to go though them in their proposed chronological order. (Most information gotten from the hyperlinked Wikipedia pages. That and personal remembrances.)

That tagline is 100% true.

In Cube Zero (2004) the movie follows the people trapped in the cube and the people monitoring them from the outside. Yes, that’s right, there are actually people watching the hellish conditions in the cube on video monitors. The people doing the monitoring work for a company who tells them that these people volunteered to be in the cube. Unfortunately, the people in the cube have had their minds erased and can’t remember volunteering. One of the monitors smells something fishy and hilarity ensues. And by hilarity, I obviously mean various gruesome deaths.

Notable Traps:
Nozzles that spray victims with a highly corrosive material, causing them to melt.
Liquid nitrogen showers that cause the victim to freeze and shatter.
Wires that entangle the victim and then tighten, cutting the victim to pieces.
Speakers that pulverize the victim with sound waves.

     Also, it is revealed that even if you survive, the cube does a thermal sweep when it resets, obliterating everything, living or dead. Kinda sucks. If you get out, the company lobotomizes you and puts you back in.

The foreign poster is so much cooler.

     In the original Cube (1997) we follow people on the inside of the cube only. One of the people in the cube helped design it and reveals that there are 17,576 rooms. They come up with various theories as to how to figure out which cubes are booby trapped (each cube has a sort of visible serial number) but most of these theories prove to be wrong. They actually make it to a cube on the outside of structure, but have little success escaping. This one even contains an autistic savant, which many fans theorize is a lobotomized character from Cube Zero placed back into the cube. The savant proves to be useful in figuring out the multiples of prime numbers that they believe will get them out of the cube.

Notable Traps:
A mesh of wires that track across the room and cut the victim to pieces.
A flame thrower that reduces the victim to ash.
A sound activated spear trap that skewers the victim if noise is made within the cube.
People getting caught between cubes when they shift are cut in half.

     Interesting note, all of the characters in the movie are named after famous prisons. Totally sweet.

Another foreign poster.

     Cube 2: Hypercube (2002) is a little more science-fictiony. All of the people within the cube are in some way involved with its development, or trying to bring the development to public light. This cube can manipulate time and space, which makes for some pretty spectacular deaths. Since time is manipulated, people that have died can reappear and one of the guys goes crazy and starts murdering people and collecting their watches only to see them reappear in other rooms so he can murder them again. He has a pretty good collection by the end of the movie. After a certain period of time, the cube begins collapsing onto itself to bring all the parallel universes to singularity. If people aren’t out by then, they are destroyed by all the universes coming into one.

Notable Traps:
A tesseract of blades that respond to motion and slice victims to bits.
Rooms where time proceeds rapidly and kills victims by old age.
Rooms collapsing into each other and destroying anything inside.

     This franchise breaks out of the usual horror staple of people being killed by other people (or haunting spirits) for no conceivable reason. It’s fun to see people being destroyed by lifeless technology. The creators obviously meant it to be some sort of deep social commentary. Take that military-industrial complex. If you didn’t understand the deeper meaning of these movies, don’t worry. No one else did either. My roommate Shanknasty just asked if it was supposed to be a prison. The truth is, it’s not really clear what purpose the cube serves. Since all of the characters in Cube are named after prisons, I suppose they might be Beta-testing a new prison. That would really cut down on prison costs, considering they don’t get food or cable.

     I really don’t know where they would go with another sequel, but I hope someone figures it out. I could use another Cube movie in my life.

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Listen: No Doubt, “End it on This”
Quote: “Who do you think the establishment is? It’s just guys like me. Their desks are bigger, but their jobs aren’t. They don’t conspire, they buy boats.” – Quentin

Due to Ted Kennedy’s untimely passing on Tuesday, there is currently a seat open in the US Senate. Who is the best man for the job?

You guessed it, George Clooney.

Six Reasons George Clooney should occupy the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate Seat

1. George Clooney has A LOT of experience with health care issues. As Dr. Doug Ross on ER, he dealt with a multitude of issues with the cool head and steady hand needed in the Senate right now to sort out this health care reform business.

2. George Clooney also is well versed in the law. See Michael Clayton.

3. Although Clooney doesn’t currently reside in the state of Massachusetts per se, he has banged like 70 women that do live there, so I’m sure he could just shack up with one of them for a while.

4. As for his D.C. residence, 132 women.

5. Ted Kennedy had an entire room dedicated to Clooney and his films in his house.

6. Clooney is one of two people to ever be twice named The Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine.  It would be at least four times if it were up to me. Plus he’s still got a lot of sexy in him, a Senate seat may be his ticket to another title!

Listen: Manchester Orchestra, “I’ve Got Friends”
Quote: “I am extremely disappointed that [the president] has proposed this relief using such a politically charged approach. This is not time for a partisan political debate on vouchers.” - Ted Kennedy

     Today I Googled Ranty McRanterson to check up on things and I was shocked to find other results than our blog. It used to be that when I would Google Ranty McRanterson, there would just be a link to our website and another asking if I meant Randy McRanterson (I almost never did). But now there seem to be several new pretenders to the throne. We’re not even the first link anymore, its someone’s Twitter account whose name is Ranty McRanterson. Considering we started this blog before Twitter existed, I think we have some sort of trademark on the name. Specifically Pete, cause I’m pretty sure he came up with the name.

     Anyhow, I found several other blogs that used variations on Ranty McRanterson as post titles, as subjects for their blogs and even, wait for it, as actual blog titles. Yes, there are other blogs out there named Ranty McRanterson. I specifically visited all of these sites to make sure that we preceded them. We preceded it all. We are the creators of the phrase Ranty McRanterson and I resent all of these potential copyright infringers. One person started a blog called Ranty McRanterson a mere matter of months after ours. He clearly saw our site name and thought: “Hey, I’m gonna take it.” How dare these people. Also, I don’t know how I feel with us being dangerously close on Google to a Twitter account. I feel dirty for even putting that link on this site. If you clicked on it and also feel dirty, I’m sorry.

     I really feel bad including any of these links because they give potential hit credence to these plagiarists, but I feel that you all must know the heinous crime that has been perpetrated on Pete and me. It’s unconscionable.

Sites blatantly besmirching our good name:
Ranty McRanterson-Weak rants.
Ranty McRanterson-I think this is called Ranty McRanterson.

Posts robbing us of our dignity:
Voodoo Knickers
And Everything Will Work Out Fine
Geometricsleep
mister.drumz

Even a YouTube vid:
*headthunk* (or: Ranty McRanterson)

     We’re not even in any of the results for a BlogCatalog search for Ranty McRanterson. Shenanigans have been called and confirmed. This was only from the first two Google pages. I remember when there was barely one search page for Ranty McRanterson. Sigh, simpler times. Maybe Pete Liability knows whether or not we have grounds to sue. It sure seems like it to me. I’m not calling for vigilante justice or anything, but feel free to hunt down these people like the animals they are.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.

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Listen: Jadakiss, “Show Discipline”
Quote: “Earlier generations of technology . . . have presented challenges to existing copyright law, but none have posed the same threat as the digital age.” – John V. Pavlik, New Media Technology, 1996