Now we’re talking! I know it looks kind of gay but so does everything else in that picture. You’ve got to see it in action.
Two questions come to mind regarding that commercial. 1: Why were all the kids at that party in bathing suits? And 2: Was that mall they showed the same one that Commando went nuts in?
For my own personal enjoyment, I’m going to say… yes.
But back to Air Swimmers. I think I like them. In a weird, freak people out kind of way. If I had one of those and a time machine I could go back to Woodstock circa 1969 and rule.
Yes master.
Then again if I had a time machine I could go back to 1971 and write Smoke on the Water before Deep Purple does (it’s really easy to play) and rule anyway without even needing the fish.
Yes master.
There are a few problems with the Air Swimmer though. First off you have to fill it up with helium. Unless you’re a clown or a pedophile (most often one in the same) you probably don’t keep a tank of helium at home. That means you can either give it to your children on Christmas morning un-blown up along with a, kid-pointless, speech about how rad it will be 3 days from now when you finally get it filled (note: your child will cast it into the lame pile along with the sox and the educational toys) or you can do the right thing and fill it up before hand. Now, not only does that mean having to suffer through the pain of going to one of those depressing party stores on Christmas eve but also how do you wrap it?
2 words: You can’t.
And that kind of spoils the surprise. I suppose you could still make it a surprise by flying it into little Timmy’s bedroom on Christmas morning and scaring the living shit out of him but that can be done a lot more cheaply with a real dead fish.
Timmy, wake up, Santa’s here!
But the biggest downfall of the Air Swimmer is that it’s going to pop. You know it is. I’d give it an hour after your kid gets his hands on it to 48 hours tops. And then your child will cry and demand a new one. You can give in if you like but that will just send you into an endless downward spiral of exploding balloon fish, tears and financial hardship. What the Air Swimmer people should do is include a little conciliation prize inside the balloon kind of like a piñata. Nothing major, maybe some candy or a little toy like you get in a Kinder Egg.
Hmm. Maybe include some ear plugs too.
All in all I’d say the Air Swimmer is a pretty cool toy but maybe not for Christmas. It will probably wind up on the bad toy list next year when some stoner kid flies it into his own face while toking up and winds up looking like he’s been hot boxing with Travis the chimp.
Oh Creepshow, I know I’ve treated you like a redheaded step child lately but it is Christmas time and I’d like to make it up to you. Let me get you a present. What would you like? A tumblr ? We have lots of tumblers. I’m drinking out of one right now.
Tell you what. Let’s spend the next few days together checking out the top selling toys are for kids this Christmas. Maybe that will give us some ideas…
The Razor eSpark Electric Scooter.
Are you kidding me?! This is a terrible toy on so many levels. First of all, a powered push scooter for a child? As if today’s kids need an excuse to be lazy. They spend half their life staring at glowing rectangles. The very least you could do is encourage them to go outside, put their foot on the on the ground, push and propel themselves forward briefly. But no! Standing is more than enough for today’s youth. Why not go all out and get them a rascal and a set of dentures until their adult teeth grow in?
Ghost of Christmas Future File Photo: Your daughter in 20 years.
Secondly, it makes sparks.
Now I’m not one of these worrisome spastics that wants to ban any toy that could be considered even remotely dangerous. Hell, I’m still mad about what they did to the Micronaughts. I firmly believe that the future world could use a few less dumb adults. But how long do you think baby Einstein will have that scooter before he’s getting the gas can out of the garage and trying to recreate 88 MPH? Well I say if he is going to do it he should learn to do it the hard way like I did.
This:
Plus this:
Plus this:
Equals this:
And finally, giving a kid something like this on Christmas morning can totally back fire. Kids wait the whole fucking year for Christmas. So when they run downstairs on Christmas morning
Or around back to the trunk for you guys.
they are going to want instant gratification. A Razor eSpark may be fine on Christmas morning for you people living down south but here in Canada Christmas morning can look like this:
And you know what that means… Timmy can’t go outside and play with his new toy so Timmy plays with it in the house. Timmy scoots head first into the wall knocking down daddy’s poorly mounted 72 inch flat screen toy. The neighbors hear shouting and call the police. The police show up and see bleeding crying Timmy and half-in-the-bag daddy. Daddy spends the rest of Christmas in jail.
Oh, yeah, and stop naming everything like an iPod. Next.
Christmas is almost here and you know I’ve been thinking a lot about Santa. When I was little I was pretty obsessed with Santa Claus. I remember I used to set up elaborate traps on Christmas Eve to catch him. I don’t really know why. I think I just wanted to see him. I suppose I regarded Santa Claus as being akin to E.T. or Bigfoot.
I never did catch Santa and my parents told me that if I did I wouldn’t get any presents and neither would any other kids. So I eventually abandoned my Trap Santa initiative and moved on to obtaining Santa’s Autograph. For several years each Christmas I would draft up this strange document on lined paper with Santa’s name and the names of all his Reindeer. Next to the names I’d have lines for them all to sign their autographs on. Yes, even the reindeer. I’d put this piece of paper next to the milk, cookies and carrots that I used to leave out on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning I’d wake up to find the milk and cookies gone, the carrot nubs out on the back lawn and my autograph document signed by Santa along with 9 little hoof prints. I think one year I even asked for a nose print from Rudolph. (I bet my folks wished I’d go back to trying to trap Santa after that one.) I guess I went from thinking of Santa as a mythical creature to some sort of celebrity. Kind of like Paris Hilton.
Mommy! Daddy! Santa was here! Santa was here!
I don’t remember when I stopped really believing in Santa Claus. I guess it was when I started taking a more realistic, cynical view of the world in general. But what if Santa was real? How could he bring joy to all those kids in just one night? Is it even scientifically or mathematically possible? He’d have to be faster than Google! Hey, that gives me an idea. Why don’t we ask the Magic Internet?
Question 19: What would happen if Santa Claus was real?
While it’s revving up, please enjoy Count Floyd singing Reggae Christmas in Transylvania.
Magic Internet Answer: Ah yes, Santa Clause. Formerly Saint Nicholas, your obese annual gift man. I won’t make the pretension of comprehension in regards to your human infants’ belief in such a creature but the internet does contain a vast amount of data regarding Santa Clause.
Some of it you would be better off not knowing about.
What I believe you are asking of me is that I suspend disbelief of the existence of Santa Claus and calculate the probability and outcome of his annual task. Well that I can do. Let us first look at the task its self. Let us assume that this Santa Clause only visits the homes of legal children. That is only children under 18.
File Photo: Disqualified.
There are currently approximately 2 billion persons under the age of 18 living on this planet. However those of Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Jewish faiths do not recognize Santa so they can be excluded. This reduces the number of children down to a much more manageable 378 million. Next we must factor in the number of children per household. The current census average is 3.5. Santa only visits the good children but if we take the innocence of youth into account we can assume that each household should contain at least 1 good child. This means that Santa must visit 91.8 million homes. No small feat, especially when he must visit them all in one night. That is what we will look at next. If Santa traverses the globe from east to west to take advantage of the earth’s rotation and time zones he will have 31 hours of Christmas night in which to complete his deliveries. This means Santa must visit 822.6 homes per second. That gives him 1.2 milliseconds to park his sleigh, slide down the chimney, deliver his gifts, eat the cookies and milk left for him (and sign your stupid document) and then move on to the next house. Perhaps he could make up a millisecond here and there visiting apartment blocks but that would definitely be used up for a bathroom break. (Let’s see you eat cookies every 1.2 milliseconds for 31 hours and not have to stop for a shit.)
File Photo: Santa poop.
Of course we are also assuming that each home is an equal distance apart with little to no backtracking. If we factor in ocean crossings that’s about 78 miles per household for a total of 71.6 million total miles to be traveled in a 31 hour period. This means that Santa will need to be traveling at a speed of 650 miles per second. That’s 3,000 times the speed of sound!
Still not fast enough to get me away from the sound of this.
A conventional reindeer can run at an average speed of 15 miles per hour. But Santa’s reindeer can fly. Biologists believe there are still some 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified so we can assume these flying reindeer are some sort of undiscovered species.
Like Bigfoot! God I love this picture.
Let’s turn our attention now to exactly what these flying reindeer will be pulling. If every child on Santa’s list gets an average sized present, say 2 lbs then the reindeer are pulling 321,300 tons of presents plus a sleigh and hefty Santa. A conventional reindeer can pull around 300 lbs and even if this undiscovered species of flying reindeer can pull 10 times that amount 9 reindeer still would not be enough.
What if this guy helped?
That still wouldn’t be enough. Santa would need at least 214,200 of his special flying reindeer to pull his sleigh. This brings us to the scientific outcome of all of this.
214,200 flying reindeer pulling Santa Claus and a sleigh carrying 321,300 tons of gifts attempting to reach a speed of 650 miles per second would face so much air resistance that they would heat up much like a spacecraft reentering the earth’s atmosphere. The resulting friction would cause the chain of reindeer to combust like the wick of a firecracker. Santa and his slay would be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500 times greater than gravity causing him, the sleigh and all the toys to explode instantaneously.
Kind of like this but with more red and green.
Bummer!
Oh well. Who needs Santa Claus when we’ve got you Magic Internet. You always deliver the best presents. Like this:
The season is upon us. And by the looks of Santa up there, I'd say the second phase of rigger is upon him. (The key is the bloating First stage corpses tend to, more or less, keep their original shape.) There's only se7en shopping days left until Christmas! (Ok, 6. This is posted lated. I'm busy too you know.)
File Photo: Saturday!
Not that it matters. I know all you out there are done your shopping. The only people still shopping now are those sad losers that wait until the last minute. Those shitty husbands, those meat-head boyfriends, those frazzled dads, those weekend dads.. That's right, men.
File Photo: You!
Dudes! You've only got one person to shop for and you can't even get that right! You're running around swearing you're not going to get her a gift card (news flash, you are) and you're pushing and shoving in La Senza to get her that Mrs. Claus/Mrs. Elf/Something to do with Christmas whore lingerie set for $40 in RED (because the green one is trashy). And the whole drive home you're thinking of what you should have said to that guy with the glasses that took your parking space and you're thinking of the first 3 moves you would have used on him had he responded to your battle cry of, you fucking shitty shit with the windows rolled up.
You in front of the mirror 3 hours later with 2 Coors Lights in you.
Let's face it. You need help. And thankfully, Uncle Johnny Creepy is here for you. I'm going to give you not 1 but Se7en perfect gift ideas for the lady in your life. (Or the lady that will be in your life once she realizes that all those phone calls and window wanks are romantic.) One present for each day this week. Let's Begin.
On the first last day of Christmas some loser gave to me....
The Prayer Cross Neckless from Montebello Collections!
Not convinced by that shitty picture and the promise that you've seen in it on TV?
Watch the commercial.
Still not convinced??!!
Let me tell you why this gift rules:
- It's made from Austrian Crystal! (You know the guys next to the Germans make good stuff.)
- It comes with a certificate of authenticity! (Because counterfeiting this would be very profitable and we all need to be careful.)
- It comes in both child and adult sizes! (If you're dating a midget you don't want her straining her neck lugging around the adult size. That might ruin Christmas Eve La Senza night.)
- It comes with a beautiful display box that you can open for her just like it's something really important! (That snooty looking bitch in the red bob looked impressed.)
Trust me fellas. Click on the link, giver her a wink, and prepare your dink. The Prayer Cross Neckless is a guaranteed action gift.
The Winter Olympics start today. Whoopty –Doo! You know what I think about that?
That about sums it up.
I think I started hating the Olympics back in High School. I didn’t see why these athletes got all this money and support from their government and community to realize there dream. What if your dream was to become an actor or a musician or a porn star? Do you think you’d get time off school to train and government funding?
(Who would put this on their baby?)
I don’t really think that way anymore. I don’t care about the athletes or even the Olympics themselves. It’s more the people that get all into them that I can’t stand.
On the news they’re so excited you’d think Jesus was coming back with Elvis under one arm and Marilyn Munroe under the other. They’ve been talking about how many sleeps it is until the Olympics begins, like it’s Christmas and today they want everyone to wear red. (I never thought I’d get another chance to wear this so soon.)
There’s nothing worse then seeing a couple holding hands in matching Olympic wear. I saw one the other day and it made my head hurt just looking at them. Thank God the games are being played on the other side of the country because if I had to see that every day for 2 weeks…
Another thing that bothers me about the Winter Olympics is the events. Does anyone really like these sports? Does anyone regularly follow speed skating or luging or skeletoning . Do these sports even exist in a professional sense beyond Olympic qualification? Does anyone care if they do? Nope. Nobody does. Until the Olympics come around and then it’s I want my country to be the best at that weird sport I don’t know anything about and never watch. Wooo Hooo! Go Canada! Go!
Seriously?
So how could the Olympics become more appealing to me? Let’s think.
1) Three words: all nude Olympics.
Weren’t they all nude in the original Olympics in Rome? Well they should do it again. The uniforms the athletes wear are getting tighter and skimpier with every games. Get rid of them all together. The cold will make the athletes go faster and work harder and it would give new meaning to the term double helicopter in ski jumping.
2) More entries like this.
And this.
3) Let trained animals compete.
Did anyone see that show Man Vs Beast on Fox many years ago? It had like 50 midgets playing tug-o-war with an elephant and it had a hot dog eating completion between Japanese hot dog champ Kobayashi and a bear!
I can’t begin to tell you how much I love this.
4) Include more of those hopeless but amusing loser competitors like Eddie the Eagle and The Jamaican Bob Sled Team. Who doesn’t like Cool Runnings?
5) Go a step further and have an all untrained Olympics.
Look at all the great programming reality television has brought us by allowing regular schlubs to showcase their singing and dancing skills. Just take a bunch of morons off the street and say Ok, you’re going to Speed Skate, you’re going to luge and here’s some skis and a rifle you’re in the biathalon. It would be like a live action version of America’s Funniest Home Videos. Yes!
So there you go Olympic committee or Greek Gods or who ever oversees the Olympics 5 great ways to keep future Olympics from sucking. If you need more I’ll be in the tub.
P.S. Have you seen the medals they’re giving out this year?
Who designed these things, an 8 year old that lives near the train tracks?
P.P.S. On the subway platform today I heard someone say Happy Olympics to her friend as they said good bye. Happy Olympics??!! This is bullshit!
So I got the movie The Hangover on DVD for Christmas. It’s a funny movie. I like Zach Galifianakis. He’s funny. I like Ed Helms. He’s funny too. The movie reminded me of something though. How much Las Vegas sucks and how horrible it must be to live there. Giving someone a ticket to Las Vegas is basically like handing them a license to be a complete and utter douche bag.
You know what it’s like to live a typical day. You get up. Have breakfast. Hit the pavement. Maybe you drive to work, maybe you take public transit. You work your day (screw you artist types reading this that spend all day at home doing practically nothing and then complain that you have no money). On the way home maybe you need to stop at the grocery store or do some shopping. I’m talking about one of those days that isn’t your worst day but it’s far from your best and when you get home you’re glad it’s over. Got a good picture of it in your head? Well if you lived in Las Vegas you’d have to live those days, all of them, dealing with this:
All over Las Vegas there are these roving bands of pumped up shit heads all dressed up in various outfits they believe to be “money”. They’ve been watching Casino, Swingers, Fear & Loathing, Scarface and yes now The Hangover all week in preparation for their trip. If you live in Las Vegas there’s no escaping them. Although they might only be in town for a few days StretchUVs are trooping in hundreds more to take their place.
The worst part is that not only does the city condone them, the city encourages them. They’re always advertising Vegas as “Sin City” and throwing that tired old phrase around “What happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas”. (God, it physically hurt me to type that. It’s like the literary equivalent of leather pants, worse then the line from Fight Club even.) If you live in Vegas not only do you probably get to hear that every day but if you go out you get to hear it being spoken dead serious by some alpha chimp to his horny loser friends before they all cheers and make a bro-pact. (If you’re a half-way decent looking girl living in Las Vegas it's probably best that you just don’t leave your house). Hell, never mind hearing that stupid phrase. If you physically stay in Vegas you get to witness first hand all the gross bullshit that stays in Vegas.
Then there are all the Douche Bag celebrities that live there.
Chris Angel
If I ran into this guy even once at the corner store I’d have to move. Knowing that his greasy stripper fingers may have touched something I might eat would be too much for me.
Carrot Top
Knowing that he’s even on the same planet as me already gives me screaming night terrors.
Siegfried & Roy
I don’t want to be out walking my dog one night, happen to glance up at their bedroom window and find out the real reason that tiger went nuts.
My heart goes out to you citizens of Las Vegas. You have it even worse then New Yorkers. At least they can revel in the knowledge that they’re expected to be an asshole to anyone that visits their city.
The only Vegas Vacation I’ll be taking is with Cousin Eddie.
Merry Christmas friends, family and selection of weirdos lurking online. In the spirit of the season I have compiled for your viewing pleasure (actually probably more for my own pleasure) a list of what I believe to be the 10 best presents I ever got for Christmas.
1) The Alpha Probe
There must have been a time when I didn’t hate space because I LOVED this thing. Never mind that the Astronauts look more like disco deep sea divers and space travel might have been difficult with all the windows down, the Alpha Probe ruled. It had that cool curly plastic thing that made the figures look like they were floating in space and there was three chunky rubber buttons on the wing that you could press to make sound effects. The only good sound effect was the take-off noise. The other two I think were alarms of some kind. One was probably to tell them to roll up the god damn windows and the other was to alert Punky Brewster to turn on the tv because the Challenger was about to blow up.
Go to 5:11 in for the goods.
2) Gauntlet for My Commodore 64
This game was at the Appleby Mall and I always wanted to play it but even though it was a four player arcade game:
I could never play it because guys like this hogged it all day.
When I got this game for Christmas it was the only thing I wanted and I remember my parents hid it at the back of the tree Red Rider Bee-bee Gun style. I was so happy that the 2 hours it took to load it seemed to fly by. Then it was nothing but this:
“Your Warrior needs food”
3) G. I. Joe Headquarters
I wanted this for my birthday but never got it. Three solid months of successful whining and begging bore results. The G. I. Joe Base had it all.
- A big gun at the front to shoot any Cobras that got too close (or Iraqis as Americans now call them ).
- A Command Center to keep tabs on the two vehicles and one helicopter that the base holds. (What is this G. I. Joe’s Canadian headquarters?)
- A drunk tank for Shipwreck to sleep off his rum ration.
- A garage with a lift so that Rock N Roll can work on his Chevy Nova.
- An open top concept that provides the Joes with lots of fresh air and a good view of any incoming missile attacks.
I know it looks like a total piece of shit now but I loved it and happily spent hours setting my Joes up in it. Later on, after seeing Police Academy, my sister would sneak into my room with a hand made sign that said “The Blue Oyster Bar”. She’d stick it on the base and rearrange all the Joes so they were dancing together. This infuriated me. Who knew I was so homophobic as a child?
I know everyone has seen these but I can’t resist:
4) Handmade Batman Cape
There were these old ladies at the Appleby Mall that made and sold scarves, toques and mitts. I think it was for charity or something. Anyway they also sold handmade superhero capes and I got a batman one for Christmas. I think it was made out of felt. It was blue with navy blue piping around it and the yellow bat symbol on the back. There’s a picture of me standing in front of the Christmas tree wearing it along with my sister’s navy blue tights. What’s that? Yes, that does sound kind of gay. I guess I wasn’t that homophobic as a child after all.
5) My first DVD Player
Ok it wasn’t as cool as that but it was still an awesome gift and it did have something in common with this Terminator one beyond playing DVDs. The first movie I got with it was Detroit Rock City starring Edward Furlong who also played the little creep in Terminator 2.
A lot of people think Detroit Rock City sucked but I like it and I still love the scene with the Guidos.
Try to watch this movie with the Gene Simmons commentary on. Try to. I dare you.
6) The James Bond Lotus Submarine Car
This was the car that James Bond drove in The Spy Who Loved Me. The toy version had a button on the top that you could press to turn it from a car into a submarine (fins popped out and I think the wheels retracted). It also fired little red missiles that I called “Timothy Dinks” because they looked like our pet cat Timothy’s penis.
7) Revenge of the Nerds: Panty Raid Edition DVD
Revenge of the Nerds is tied for first place with Bachelor Party as my ultimate favorite movie. Not only does the Panty Raid edition contain (horribly unwatchable) deleted scenes like when the Nerds go to a fraternity convention in Las Vegas dressed as Africans but it also contains great commentary by Curtis Armstrong aka Booger.
8) Plush ET Doll
I loved ET as kid. After I saw that movie I became obsessed with him. I started a club called the “ET Touch the Stars Club” and I was the president because I wore a pair of jeans with ET on the back pocket (again, I guess I wasn’t that homophobic as a child). The clubs main goals were building traps and putting them out in the woods to catch our own ET, talking about how much we liked ET and boycotting ham (I thought that ham looked just like ET when he was sick and refused to eat it). I also wore this creepy plastic ET finger that glowed when you squeezed a battery pack and looked more like a sex toy:
The plush ET that I got was the same as the one in the picture above. It didn’t really look like ET. More like a cross between ET and a teddy bear. I don’t think it was a licensed ET product. Still, with my summer time ET Touch the Stars Club long since disbanded (they grew tired of never actually catching an ET and craved ham no doubt), my new plush ET became the sole conduit for my ET affection.
P.S. Although I did enjoy the ET movie I’d kind of like to see an alternate Rambo version where ET just hides in the woods picking off the Government Agents one by one saving the man with the keys for last and healing all his orifices shut with his glow finger.
9) Skid Row “Slave to the Grind” shirt
My aunt and uncle sent me a Skid Row t-shirt for Christmas when I was about 14 years old. I never liked Skid Row and I never really liked heavy metal. (Attention metal geeks, please refrain from posting comments saying Skid Row wasn’t heavy metal they were hair metal or other such nonsense. It’s all the same. I don’t care and you’re a loser if you care). Now that I’m older I do have a collection of metal records that I enjoy with a certain mocking appreciation but none of them are Slave to the Grind. No matter how you look at it Skid Row sucks.
Except 18 And Life. That song is awesome and the video is awesome:
I thought this shirt was a pretty shitty gift at the time. Maybe I should have expected it seeing as they sent me a Bon Jovi tape for my Birthday a few months earlier. Over the years I’ve grown to appreciate my Skid Row t-shirt. A white trash dress up party and one Halloween have seen me dawning it as a center piece. Now Slave to the Grind sits folded in my bottom drawer uncertain of its future. Maybe I’ll send it to my nephew when he turns 14. Thus carrying on the unwanted legacy.
10) Castle Grey Skull
I don’t remember much about playing with Castle Grey Skull but I sure do remember getting it for Christmas. That’s because the box was fucking HUGE! Every kid should get a Christmas present that comes in a box as big as them at least once. It really makes for the wow factor regardless of what’s in it. What’s in Castle Grey Skull? Let’s have a look:
Jeez, nice place you’ve got here Skeletor. I’ve seen crack heads and gangster rappers with more furniture. At least you’ve got your trap door throne there. Too bad He Man and every other figure was too ripped to fit through it.
No bathroom I see. No problem there as I hear steroids make you constipated. But what’s with the elevator? Shouldn’t you have a winding staircase so you can blast your calves on your way up to Beastor’s room?
Yes a closer examination reveals why I don’t remember much about playing with Castle Grey Skull. Because it sucked. No wonder Skellator was such a negative jerk. Castle Grey Skull was like a porn star… an alluring exterior with a possible hint of danger but inside… lifeless, dead and empty (except when stuffed with meaty oiled hulks).
There it is folks. For better or worse my 10 most memorable Christmas presents. Everything a boy could dream of on Christmas morn. I hope you all had a great Christmas and Santa brought you something good. It will never be as good as Revenge of the Nerds: Panty Raid Edition or the Alpha Probe but that’s life.
