Underpants On The Outside

I’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.

Jack’s Day, 4-5 AM:  Even though there are only two hours left, Jack begins them by once again being put into custody, which might make this the first season where Jack gets arrested more times than he kills people.  Luckily for him, over half of the CTU workforce seems to have just come from a temp agency – they don’t even bother to take away his phone. 

Jack calls Chloe, who explains what is going on in a matter of minutes – meanwhile I’ve written about 40 pages on this season and maybe three of them have been coherent.  I should either stop being a writer or Chloe is Hemingway. 

Read more…

Over a year ago, the top of my head looked like this:

Looking at that should give you a better understanding of why, after reading the headline, “Hair Follicles May Regrow After Head Wounds”  (http://health.yahoo.com/news/175229) I immediately went out and brained myself with a ball-peen hammer.  When I came to, I was about to give myself another whack for good measure when I realized it was stupid for me not to read the entire article.  After all, it might contain information on which head injuries I could give myself to maximize hair restoration. 

It was fascinating.  For instance, like Silly Putty and the Post-it Note, this finding fortuitously stemmed from completely unrelated research:

While studying the healing of wounds in mice, a team at the University of Pennsylvania noticed that the animals developed new hair follicles after their skin was scraped.

So basically, “hurtin’ ‘em for hurtin’ ‘em’s sake.”  It certainly reinforces my personal theory about science: that it’s ultimate purpose is to legitimize the shit we did either as children or while drunk.

“We’re amazed that we’re getting follicles to form,” Cotsarelis said. 

“Usually the mice just roll around in agony and cry.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s hilarious – but when I think of those six months we spent punching them in the stomach, it makes me sad to think that time could also have been spent curing baldness.”  Costarelis added, “If only ‘scraping’ came before ‘punching’ alphabetically…” 

Unfortunately for mammals who don’t care to undergo physical pain for potential beautification, there are a lot of other mammals who are just fine with the idea, and one group has bank accounts while the other doesn’t wear pants.

Costarelis…is forming a company to explore ways to develop the treatment for human use.

It’s a shame, really.  He’s leaving before he had a chance to find out if titty twisters affect rodent mammary gland production.

Besides hair growth, the research could have other benefits:

“The follicle is a small organ, a mini-organ,” Cotsarelis said. “If you can figure out how to regenerate the follicle, you also have a better idea about how to regenerate a finger or a limb.”

Kinda taking the long way around the barn, no?  Has this guy seen lizards???  You can pull their tail off and like, two days later…new tail!  Wouldn’t it be sweet if we could do that???  Of course, extensive experimentation would be required.  Like, what if you cut off their tail rather than pull it off?  Or burn it off?  Or hit it with a belt sander, or…

Unfortunately, “No one knows if new follicle growth occurs in wounded humans”, and you know what that means: more research.  In other words, it still sucks to be a mouse.  I just hope they don’t keep them near the room where it’s always simian happy hour.

Somewhere there’s a mother who just noticed her son tying an M-80 to a kitten.  She wants to stop him; her husband wants to apply for grant money.   Meanwhile I’m combing my hair with a potato peeler and searching for signs of life.

I’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.

Yesterday I got a phone call from Big Brother.  His first word was “Hey”.  The next four were, “Your 24 blogs suck.”  To that I say… there’s only three more to go, let’s just get through this.

Jack’s Day, 3-4 AM:  As the Chinese lead her illegitimate son away, the Widow starts freaking out, but not the finds-super-strength-and-lifts-car-off-of-baby, Incredible Hulk type of freak out.  More like the high pitched shrieking and blubbering.  I didn’t realize that the Buzzkill also comes in a brunette model.

We’ve seen in the past that Jack doesn’t handle women screaming too well – he tends to freak out and act very impulsively.  Like the way he tries to rush to the Widow/Buzzkill, forgetting that there’s a Chinese dude with a rifle standing right behind him. The guy reminds Jack by rifle-butting him in the kidneys, showing Jack a good use for rifles other than, “stuff in vent fan.” 

(Yet another parenthetical comment – I do so love them: many members of the Chinese Assault team have facial hair.  It’s an interesting contrast to all of my Asian friends, who on average shave once every two weeks.  Therefore the preponderance of beards lets me know that these guys are BAD ASS and not to be trifled with.  Jack doesn’t seem to pick up on this.) 

Frankly, I wonder if having a Chinese man cause him intense physical pain gives Jack a sense of nostalgia, considering that’s what was going on a little over 21 hours ago.  For the past two years.  That probably pisses him off, so Jack counterattacks by – oh fuck, he’s begging again!  Goddamnit - show some fucking dignity! 

Read more…

Got another article on Cracked: 5 Movie Quotes that Must be Stopped.  Check it out and rate it highly, Focker!

Originally, the article was framed as another guide to Movie Quotes, but the editor wanted to make it a tad more focused on annoying quotes.  That meant that the following got left out:

“Bacon tastes goooood.  Pork chops taste goooood. — Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I’d never know ’cause I wouldn’t eat the filthy motherfucker.” 

Origin: One of the amazing things about Pulp Fiction quotes is that unlike 99% of movie quotes and 100% of philosophy, they never became stale, inane nonsense spouted by morons.  Pulp Fiction has dozens of terrific quotes, so many that it was difficult to choose which to discuss in this article.  In the end we choose “bacon” because we were hungry.

Proper Usage: “Bacon tastes good” is funny in a wide variety of situations.  Consider a few of the following examples:

• While eating Bacon
• While eating Pork Chops
• While eating Bacon stacked on Pork Chops
• While being arrested
• Passover
• Ramadan 
• While watching Babe

Conversely, there are only three times when quoting “Bacon” would be a bad thing:
 
• Before Cunnilingus
• After Cunnilingus
• During Cunnilingus

I’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.

Jack’s Day, 2-3 AM: It’s been 20 hours now. Jack has a dead brother, a crazy girlfriend, and the Secretary of Defense just called him cursed. Sure, he stopped a threat of nuclear terrorism, which would be awesome if he hadn’t then gone and incited a possible nuclear war.  Not exactly Jack’s best day.  Now to win Cold War II, Jack’s going to have to do more than JFK, Reagan, Maverick and Rocky combined. Too bad he’s incarcerated.

2:04 AM: Even though it sounded like “Mrrflmorg”, Audrey and the rest of CTU’s Chess Club have managed to track down a lead to some building where they think the Chinese are hiding, which is really impressive since the sign doesn’t contain any of the following words: Happy, King, Dragon, Jade, Palace.

Yet again, Jack pleads with someone, this time to go on the raid. First of all, it’s surprising how little he seems to understand the concept of arrest. Perhaps that’s because it’s so rare that he actually puts people in it. Second of all, his reasoning for why he should go is that he believes he knows how Hello Kitty (the Chinese Ambassador) thinks after two years of being tortured by the guy. That means that Jack developed a deeper relationship with his torturer than with the Buzzkill. Surprisingly, parole is not granted.

Read more…

I’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.

It’s been a long time since I had a chance to write for the underpants – I wish I could say I’ve been up to something really cool, but in fact I’ve just been working very hard to sell pop-up advertisements, and my nights are booked solid: Mondays are for Heroes and 24, Wednesdays for Lost, Thursdays for Magic, and Tuesdays are for making sure Wonder Woman doesn’t forget I live here (aka, meeting my minimum weekly Boyfriend Quota.)

Don’t get me wrong – having so much to do at work has nothing to do with my lack of blogging, because I NEVER blog on the job. I also love having lots of work, and feel more than adequately compensated. [Editor’s note: This has nothing to do with the events of a month ago when the director of my division came into town, we all went out, I had one martini too many (in other words, one martini) and told him he’s gotta go check out the funniest site on the internet, Underpants On The Outside.com.]

In any case, I’m two episodes behind – no time for screwing around. Here we go.

Jack’s Day, 1-2 AM: Jack is under arrest, Audrey is incoherent, and the Chinese have the super-secret ultra-cool circuit board that will somehow allow them to conquer Russia. I haven’t played Risk in a while, but if that ever happened I’m pretty sure I’d forfeit. Jack should be working on learning Mandarin (a pretty difficult language, as it turns out), but instead he wants to interrogate the Buzzkill. He even pleads with Silver Spoon. I can’t believe the amount of begging Jack has done this season, not to mention who he has been begging to. (Wayne? WAYNE????) Unfortunately, Silver Spoon can probably think of a few other reasons Jack might want some alone time with Audrey in a deserted motel, and isn’t going to allow it. Thank you, Agent Cockblock. Come to think of it, he’s probably still pissed that Jack ditched him by the side of the road. I’ve heard that one before – I hope Jack doesn’t think, “Hey, babe, you said you wanted me to let you out of the car,” is gonna make everything all right. Instead, Schroeder puts Jack in a helicopter heading back to CTU.

Read more…

Do you know what Saturday is?  That’s right, hermanos, it’s Cinco De Mayo, which I think is how you say “The Fourth of July” in Spanish.  I’m a big fan of Cinco de Mayo, and not just because of the ceremonial four cups of tequila*.  Mostly I enjoy foods that have been set on fire stacked on top of foods that taste like fire and then wrapped in a tortilla.  

If I was back in L.A. I would spend the day at Big Brother’s in-laws, and I’m pretty sad to miss it.   Those of you who know his in-laws know how awesome they are, and those of you who don’t, well, if you ever meet them your lives will be better for it.  As an added bonus, they’re actually Mexican, so their party has more gravitas than down at Muldoon’s, where Cinco de Mayo consists of 2-for-1 Coronas and corned beef with salsa.

Even my Brooklyn friends are getting into the swing of things and planning a party.  Unfortunately, I’m going to have to miss that too, because months ago I apparently agreed to accompany Wonder Woman to St. Louis, where a friend of hers is getting married.  In case you’re wondering, in 2005, St. Louis’s population was 1.8% Hispanic.  (Read: hard to find a good tamale)

Any other day, I’d be 100% fine with going, but I’m disappointed to miss Cinco de Mayo. And while I’m trying my damnedest to blame WW, this one really is my fault.  I’m willing to bet the conversation went like this:

WW:  Z, would you come to St. Lou-
Z: Enough with all the yak-yak, woman!  This X-box isn’t gonna play itself, you know!
WW:  Wanna go to a wedding?
Z:  Is it ours?
WW:  ….No.
Z:  Sure, I’ll go.

Then she probably said some other stuff.  This is our routine, and it works well except for occasional collisions like this.  What kills me about this weekend is that since I forgot this wedding was coming up, I had already started planning our Brooklyn party, and it was going to be amazing.  We’d already agreed to a Carne Asada competition, and I would make many batches of my delicious Rainbow Sherbet Margueritas (patent pending); all that was left was for me to figure out some way to get a piñata in there.  

An aside: piñatas are the coolest thing ever** – violence followed by sudden candy.   I like them so much I even dressed up as one for Halloween a couple years ago.

This picture was taken right before Big Brother hit me with a stick.  Very, very hard.  Then his wife hit me with the stick, even harder.

Then I came up with what was quite possibly my best idea ever: a piñata joust.  I didn’t have all the details worked out, but it involved grocery carts, trash can lids, broomsticks and plenty of mouth guards.  I imagined all of Brooklyn coming to witness the spectacle and to gather the candy spilled into the streets like so much blood.  There would probably be a good deal of actual blood as well, but certain bodily harm aside, I was bouncing in my seat with anticipation.  An hour later, Wonder Woman reminded me that my presence was required elsewhere, and now I’m bummed because as I imagined it, a pinata joust would just about have been the pinnacle of rad.

For the record, I am happy for her.  She gets to go back home and see her friends, which is important.  I’m also sure we will have a great night, and eat very well (for gringo food).  These are the things you do for someone you love – it’s worth it.  It’s just…well…I can’t help but notice that for all of its strong points, no matter how many times you hit love with a stick, candy is never gonna fall out. 

*It’s possible that I have some of my dates/cultures wrong
**Except for a blow job/grilled cheese sandwich combo platter, of course