Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone!  Finally, a day to acknowledge all the loutish drunken potato-eating Micks in our lives.  No; no.  I kid.  I love the Irish.  I really do.

…And in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, let’s take some time out to, um, honor the Irish.  And to honor the greatest Irish writer.  And to honor the greatest book ever written by the greatest writer of all time.  And this book is, of course…  “Ulysses” by James Joyce.

Yes, yes, yes.  We all hate being told what the best book ever is.  We all hate lists made by experts.  But in this case, the experts actually happen to be right, for once.  “Ulysses” actually is the best book ever written.  And I’ll prove it to you, sort of.  And so I present…

A QUICK GUIDE TO “ULYSSES” FOR THE BENEFIT OF YOU SEMI-ILLITERATE DUDES

…“Ulysses” was written by James Joyce in 1916, and takes place in Dublin, covering the single day of June 16th, 1904.  What’s it about, you say?  Um…  Well.  Basically.  Um.  What happens is, Stephen Dedalus, this over-educated, pretentious guy, gets kicked out of his house, and spends the day wandering around Dublin.  Meanwhile, Leopold Bloom, an average-joe sort of guy, spends the whole day wandering around Dublin because his wife is fucking some other guy that day, and he’s trying to avoid going home.

But that’s not really what it’s about.  Try this:

Stephen Dedalus, this guy whose mother has just died, is wearing all black and living in a tower.  He thinks he’s Hamlet.  (Because Hamlet wore all black and lived in a tower.)  Leopold Bloom, this guy who’s been wounded in love, thinks that he’s Don Juan.  But he’s not.  And Stephen isn’t Hamlet either.  Most of us spend our whole lives thinking that we’re someone that we’re not.  Stephen and Bloom are trapped in their wrong roles, but then, after wandering all over Dublin for a day, they meet, and for a second they really realize who they really are.  Bloom is Ulysses; a wise, crafty, heroic adventurer.  Stephen is Telemachus, his noble son.  Together, they are father and son.  They meet, realize this for a second, and then they part and never see each other again.

But that’s not really what it’s about.  Try this:

Books are bullshit.  Did you ever read a book and think, “this is nothing like my life”?  Movies too.  Who ever runs down an alleyway, chased by thieves?  Who, for that matter, ever has a perfect meaningful conversation with their wife or husband or kid or girlfriend that suddenly resolves all these issues that they’ve been having?  Books are a load of crap.  And here’s a book that isn’t like that.  Nothing gets resolved.  It’s hard to figure out what’s going on.  Things only change very slightly.  That’s what “Ulysses” is like — and, let’s face it — that’s what all of our lives are like too.

Or this:

It’s the first book ever written where people masturbate, pee on walls, curse, take dumps, think about pussies and penises, and have normal human conversations.  And it was written in 1916 and it’s still more modern that most of what is written today.

_____

Here’s the book itself, talking about what it’s about:

Chapter 1:

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love’s bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea,
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

Chapter 2:

He came forward a pace and stood by the table.  His underjaw fell sideways open uncertainly.   Is this old wisdom? He waits to hear from me.

“History,” Stephen said, “is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”

From the playfield the boys raised a shout.  A whirring whistle:  goal. What if that nightmare gave you a back kick?

“The ways of the Creator are not our ways,” Mr. Deasy said.  “All history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God.”

Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying:

“That is God.”

Hooray!  Ay!  Whrrwhee!

“What?” Mr. Deasy asked.

“A shout in the street,” Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.

Chapter 9:

Hold onto the here, the now, through which all future plunges into the past.

Chapter 9:

If Socrates leaves his house today he will find the sage seated on his doorstep.  If Judas goes forth tonight it is to Judas his steps will tend.  Every life is many days, day after day.  We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, giants, ghosts, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.

Chapter 16:

“…Why did you leave your father’s house?”

“To seek misfortune,” Stephen said.

Chapter 17:

What did each do at the door of egress?

Bloom set the candlestick on the floor.  Stephen put the hat on his head.

For what creature was the door of egress a door of ingress?

For a cat.

What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage from the rear of the house into the penumbra of the garden?

The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.

With what meditations did Bloom accompany his demonstration to his companion of various constellations?

Meditations of evolution increasingly vaster: of the moon invisible in incipient lunation, approaching perigee: of the infinite lattiginous scintillating uncondensed milky way, discernible by daylight by an observer placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft 5000 ft deep sunk from the surface towards the centre of the earth:  of Sirius (alpha in Canis Maior) 10 lightyears (57,000,000,000,000 miles) distant and in volume 900 times the dimension of our planet:  of Arcturus:  of the precession of equinoxes: of Orion with belt and sextuple sun theta and nebula in which 100 of our solar systems could be contained:  of moribund and of nascent new stars such as Nova in 1901:  of our system plunging towards the constellation of Hercules: of the parallax or parallactic drift of socalled fixed stars, in reality evermoving wanderers from immeasurably remote eons to infinitely remote futures in comparison with which the years, threescore and ten, of allotted human life formed a parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity.

Were there obverse meditations of involution increasingly less vast?

Of the eons of geological periods recorded in the stratifications of the earth:  of the myriad minute entomological organic existences concealed in cavities of the earth, beneath removable stones, in hives and mounds, of microbes, germs, bacteria, bacilli, spermatozoa:  of the incalculable trillions of billions of millions of imperceptible molecules contained by cohesion of molecular affinity in a single pinhead: of the universe of human serum constellated with red and white bodies, themselves universes of void space constellated with other bodies, each, in continuity, its universe of divisible component bodies of which each was again divisible in divisions of redivisible component bodies, dividends and divisors ever diminishing without actual division till, if the progress were carried far enough, nought nowhere was never reached.

_____

Confused?  Don’t worry about it!  In order to get booze money, James Joyce taught Berlitz language classes.  These are classes where you teach English to foreigners, while only ever speaking in English.  You’re not allowed to speak to your students in their own language. It’s the “total immersion” theory of teaching, and it’s supposed to work better than other methods.   …So when he was working, James Joyce spent eight hours a day having conversations like this:

–My name is Mr. Joyce.  It is raining outside today.  You are holding an umbrella.

?

–Today it is raining.  You are holding an umbrella.

??

–In your hand.  An umbrella.

???

–Um-brell-a.

So if you’re confused while reading the book, fuck it!  Don’t worry about it!  Just skip to a part where you’re not confused.  Hell, I skipped most of chapter 14 myself.  Joyce is writing in a new language; he starts off kind of easy, but then he gets harder and harder.  And like a good foreign-language teacher, he’s trusting us to figure out things on our own.   So don’t fret!  The book is confusing, but so is fucking life, and we do that every day, not expecting to understand every single fucking thing that’s going on.  So go forth, my winged monkey people, and read:

The book.

Another quick guide to the book.

The book being read out loud. (Only thirty-two hours long!)

…So check out all of that shit and then get back to me.

]]> http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2010/03/17/the-best-book-ever-written-is-irish/feed/ http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2010/03/09/review-of-still-even-more-diet-sodas/ http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2010/03/09/review-of-still-even-more-diet-sodas/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:59:33 +0000 Oliver Miller http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/?p=1048 Diet Pepsi: According to my past review of sodas, I have not yet covered  the important topic of Diet Pepsi.  What a shocking oversight!  Anyway, I am taking a sip of it right now.  …Hmm.  It tastes pretty much like Diet Coke.  So, in other words, like sugar-water mixed with crushed-up aspirin, except it’s slightly sweeter than Diet Coke.

I feel like I’m running out of clever words with which to describe diet sodas, and that’s a concern.  In other news, I currently work part-time at a wine store, and all I ever do is lie.  Which is what I feel like I should do with Diet Pepsi.  People at my store ask me about wine, and I don’t even like wine that much.  So I lie.  And the thing that I’ve learned about lying about how something tastes is that you need to be imaginative.  Someone asks me about, say, a red wine, and I’m like:  “Oh, it has a strong bouquet of shale.  With an undercurrent of  oak.“  This is a perfect lie, because it’s meaningless.  Wine can’t taste like a rock with an undercurrent of a tree.  But the lie sounds fantastic and profound.  …Anyway, to bring us back to base — Diet Pepsi has a strong undercurrent of Diet Coke.  Except with a less good advertising revenue.  And so it gets a grade of:  C.

Caffeine Free Diet Coke: …Which is the only soda that my girlfriend ever drinks.  My question here being:  “Why?“  No sugar and no caffeine and it tastes bad.  Why not just give up soda altogether?  There are plenty of other drinks, after all.  I hate people who can’t make a choice like that; it’s why I like atheists better than agnostics.  So okay, diet soda, fine.  (Especially if you’re a, um, diabetic, which my girlfriend is.)  …But no caffeine?  Isn’t soda just basically a caffeine delivery system?  …Dante reserved a special place in Hell for the indecisive, and that’s what I think the lovers of Caffeine Free Coke are:  indecisive.  Or, as Yoda once said:  “Do, or do not.  There is no ‘try.‘”  …Oh, wise little Yoda.

Anyway, what were we talking about?  …Oh, the soda itself?  It tastes bad.  Grade:  C-minus.

Coke Zero: For centuries, philosophers have been fascinated with the concept of “zero.”  How can a number be a number and yet not a number?  …If you know what I mean.  …And did you know that “zero,” as an idea, wasn’t even invented until the 13th century — 5,000 years after all the other numbers were invented?  (This is just the kind of pointless information that you’ll learn while reading these reviews, and you’re welcome.)

Anyway, the idea of “zero”!  It’s impressive, maybe.  It is a thing…  and yet is not a thing.  Like, for example, how many enormous wild tigers do you have in your apartment right now?  Zero: I’m guessing.  But is that something?  Don’t you almost always have zero tigers in your apartment?  So what does it mean to point that out?  Is there a point?  Or no point?  …Think about all of this for too long, and you’ll go crazy.  And so, “Coke Zero,” we must pause to salute you.  You are something, and yet you are nothing.  You embody contradiction.

…As for the taste of “Coke Zero” itself, it tastes like slightly better Diet Coke.  And so, in conclusion, whatever.  Grade:  B-minus

Spirit Zero: Let’s not talk about that whole “zero” thing again!  So…  Sprite.  Hmm.  The slogan is “Obey Your Thirst.  Drink Sprite.”  Wow.  Soda slogans are pretty fascist, aren’t they?  “YOUR PATHETIC WHIMS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING.  DRINK YOUR SPRITE, SLAVE!”  …Yay.

I’d make a terrible advertiser, I guess, because I’m wussy like that.  My slogan would be:  “Perhaps maybe you’d enjoy a small sip of Sprite, if you’re not doing anything else right now?  …Or not? Anyway, sorry for bothering you.”  …But then, I’m pretty wussy.

Anyway, Sprite Zero tastes…  shockingly good.  For once I’m going to drop the irony here.  I’d never tried it before, but it tastes just like a normal soda, with no “diet” taste whatsoever, except it’s less grossly sweet than normal sodas, which is actually an improvement.  Well done, Sprite Zero!  Grade:  A

Diet Sunkist:  Whoa.  Holy crud.  They still make Sunkist?  Color me very surprised.  I haven’t thought about Sunkist since 1985, at least, and really, I associate the soda with the 80s, and bad commercials with girls in bikinis and that “Good Vibrations” song.

Honestly, I guess I just don’t go to the supermarket often enough, because they had a lot of stuff that I didn’t think still existed.  …Like Deviled Ham.   And “Five Alive.”  And “After Eight” brand mints.  …Whoa.  All the forgotten brands of my past.  And “Junket”!  They even had “Junket”!  Do you even remember “Junket”?  I bet you don’t.

But that’s the American supermarket for you; a “mausoleum of all hope and desire,” to quote William Faulkner.  (To be honest, I just wanted to squeeze that Faulkner quote in here so that you would think I was smart.)  …And as for Sunkist, it also tastes pretty good!  Fruit flavors seem to be the winners here with diet sodas.  First lemon-lime, and now orange.  Kind of surprising.  If I ever saw someone with a Sunkist, I’d make fun of them, but still…  a pretty good diet soda.  Grade:  B-plus.

Diet A&W Root Beer:  Close your eyes.  Now take a sip of root beer.  Now forget what you’ve just drunk, and ask yourself:  “What does this actually taste like?”  …Answer:  toothpaste!  …Right?  Root beer actually tastes exactly like toothpaste.  …Bizarre.  Someone pointed this out to me once, and it ruined root beer for me forever, because they were right.  Anyway, I just wanted to point this out again, so that I could ruin root beer for you too.

As for Diet Root Beer.  …Well, do you like the idea of diet toothpaste?  If so, then we may have found the soda for you, my friend.  Grade:  D-minus.

____________________________________________________________

Nota bene: A version of this column also appears on the website “A Sweet Life.”  Which is a very fine website that you can go to by clicking here.

Anyway, these days I live in New Orleans, which has the best claw machines in the entire nation.  Here’s the one at my local bar:

The claw machines down here are ancient…  from the 1950s, at the latest.  Not only are they ancient, but they have an entirely different system of play:  instead of pressing buttons with arrows, you turn a metal crank, which is connected to a pointer at the back, which indicates which section of the “prize area” your claw will end up in.  …That’s assuming that the arrow ever ever worked, which it never does.  In fact, as I was saying to these two dudes the other day, who were trying to win at “my” claw machine — “Dudes.  Ignore the arrow.  The arrow is nothing.  Pretend it’s not even there.  Rotate your claw all the way to the left or right, and then ‘feel’ your distance out from there, like using the Force.”  I think that they were pleased to get this info.

Plus, whereas claw machines up north seem to only feature toys that represent the trend o’ the month — or, more accurately, the trend o’ five to ten years ago, e.g., Pokemon!  Garfield!  Bratz! — New Orleans claw machines feature awesome unbranded toys that are unchanged from the original date of the machine’s inception.

Below are couple pictures of locals from my local bar, the best bar in the world, even though, these days, I am only allowed to drink fake non-alcoholic beers it in.  But it’s Irish, has lesbian barmaids, looks as though it’s about to fall down, serves food, has a “Galaga” machine, a terrible jukebox, AND a claw machine.  If I could I would spend my entire life there.

I always forget this bartender’s name.  Is it Jim?  …Tim?

This is Frank.  Frank lives a few blocks away from me, has multiple sclerosis, and sells drugs…  I hear tell.  He looks really drunk in this photo, which is a bad sign because Frank is always really drunk.  If you have to point out that Frank is really drunk, what you actually mean is that he’s about to physically implode into a small puddle of gin.

Anyway.  Here’s your review.

REVIEW OF:  SHIT THAT I WON FROM THE CLAW MACHINE IN THE BAR ACROSS THE STREET (Part One of a Billion)

Squeaky Rat: Ah, Squeaky Rat.  Mere words cannot describe how blah I feel about you.  I’ll be honest:  I was trying to win something else with the claw when I got you. Yes, true, you are a life-sized plastic replica of a rat — and when squeezed, you do squeak — but…  then what?  Whither from there?  Really, rats only make me think of two things:  bubonic plague, and Templeton from “Charlotte’s Web,” which in turn makes me think of Charlotte dying, which makes me sad.  Let’s move on. Grade:  C

Happy Tomato Face Bank Guy: I mean, I assume he’s supposed to be a tomato.  I don’t have a lot to go on here.  He could be, say, a persimmon, or a kumquat, and I would never know.  I didn’t major in Agriculture or nothing like that.  I majored in English Literature, which means that I majored in bullshit.  Grade:  B

Happy Girl Bunny Translucent Bank Thing: Happy Girl Bunny Translucent Bank Thing wants to kill you.  Yeah, she’s holding her poseable arms open like she wants to give you a “hug,” but do not be fooled.  Happy Girl Bunny Translucent Bank Thing will fuck you up.  Given half the chance, she will maul you worse than the Queen Mother in “Aliens.”  In essence, Happy Girl Bunny Translucent Bank Thing scares the fuck out of me.  On the plus side — and much like Tomato Face Guy — Happy Girl Bunny has a coin slot in the back and a removable porthole thing, so she does indeed store loose change.  That’s assuming that your life has reached such a low point that you need to be storing your quarters inside a fucked-up plastic rabbit.  Grade:  B-minus

Albino Alligator: Yes!  I love the Albino Alligator.  Toys like him are the whole reason that I got into the whole crappy-toy-winning-business in the first place.  In fact, I have only good things to say about him.  He’s plastic, albino, and he’s a gator, and there is nothing un-awesome about any of these things.  This ain’t rocket science, people.  Grade:  A-plus

Subtraction Flash Cards: Mere words also cannot express how much I did not want to win the Subtraction Flash Cards.  But combine a cranky, malfunctioning, circa-1950 claw machine with my own desperate compulsion to win useless shitty toys, and we wind up with…  Subtraction Flash Cards.  I was not trying to win them.  I was trying to win the Plastic Football Guy Coin Bank.  No one ever wins the Football Guy Coin Bank, he’s enormous, and he’s wedged tightly into a crevice in the extreme corner of the machine.  He’ll probably be there till the day I die.  …Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I am about to open the subtraction cards for the first and only time.  (Short pause while I open the package.)  …Huh.  According to this first card, 10 minus 1 equals Square.  I don’t think that I have a joke here.  Grade:  F

Stuffed Racist Caricature Cannibal Doll: This guy is likewise awesome.  And he looks so sweet and befuddled, almost like he doesn’t want to be a cannibal at all, but he can’t help it, ’cause he loves the taste of human meat.  Also, he seems to have a cataract or glaucoma, as his eyes are staring off into two wildly different directions.  …I spent almost two dollars worth of quarters to win Cannibal Doll, and it was worth every penny.  You simply do not find shit like this outside of the Deep South.  …To help explicate Racist Doll a little bit, he was probably created with reference to the final parade held during Mardi Gras, which is called “Zulu,” and which features black people dressed up much like Mr. Cannibal Doll himself.  During the parade, people throw painted coconuts from the floats into the crowd below.  You’d be right in thinking that five-pound coconuts are a fairly dangerous thing to throw from above into a crowd of drunk people.  In fact, several people get badly injured each year.  Luckily, to prevent any lawsuits, our legislature passed a special injunction specifically permitting the throwing of heavy coconuts from parade floats, and I’m not kidding about this.  New Orleans…  it’s a unique town, you’ve got to admit it.  Grade:  A

Mardi Gras Ruler: Actually, it’s not a ruler.  I thought that it was a ruler, but that was before I won it and was able to look closer at the thing.  It’s a keychain, with a very large ruler-like thing, that is inscribed with all the dates of future Mardi Grai up until the year 2016, but with no inch measurements or anything like that.  I guess you’re going to be so wasted during Mardi Gras that if you had a normal-sized keychain you’d lose it at the bar or drunkenly drop it into the gutter, so this one wins vague points for practicality.  Also, it has a very small cartoon of a moron guy from “Mad Magazine” printed on the ruler.  You can’t see it, but it’s there.  Whenever I win shit like this, I just imagine the poor, underpaid Chinese factory workers who have to put shit like this together, and what they must think of American people who demand a never-ceasing production of bunny banks, tomato banks, and plastic non-ruler rulers.  My firm conclusion:  Chinese people hate us.  Grade:  D

Luke Skywalker:

Luke also gets major props for figuring out that Darth Vader is really a nice guy underneath it all.  Granted, this a huge, huge leap of faith (especially considering that Vader has already killed billions of people³), but it gives Vader a nice redemptive arc, and who isn’t in favor of that?  I won’t be doing any redemptive-arc-bashing on my part, at least.  Grade:  A-plus

Han Solo: “I love you.”  “…I know.”  Oh, Han, you cocky asshole, you.  Han wins major, major points for being potentially the coolest person of all time.  (It’s also very impressive that he pulls off the “cool” thing even though his standard outfit makes him look pretty much like a waiter in an Italian restaurant.)  Han also bangs his best friend’s sister, which nicely straddles the line between “bad-ass” and “vaguely creepy.”  …So, all in all, fairly high marks for Harrison Ford here.  Grade:  A

The Death Star: The Empire just has the worst P.R. people ever.  “The Death Star”?  You may as well just pin a huge “HEY WE’RE REALLY EVIL” sign to your own back.  …No wonder they’re always fighting off rebellions.  Might I suggest a name that’s a little less, oh, I don’t know…  “in-your-face”?  How about “Department of Homeland Security Star,” or something like that?  …Just a thought.  Grade:  C-minus

Princess Leia: …Man, what the hell is Princess Leia’s problem?  She sure gets away with dishing out a lot of crap, especially considering that she’s only 60% good-looking, tops.  My favorite part is how she gives Han an eternal hard time for trying to go to pay off his debt to Jabba the Hutt.  (My witty rejoinder in that situation would be:  “Hey, Princess, I’m going to be brutally fucking murdered if I don’t pay off that debt, so maybe give me a cocksucking break about it already.”  …But then, that’s why I’m not as suave as Han Solo.)

On the other hand, Leia is tough.  (Although her “Hey, let’s all jump in a trash compactor” plan is stupid.⁴)  She never whines or complains, even though everyone she ever knew was assumedly killed when her planet was blown up.  Considering that I bitch and moan when I get, say, a paper cut, this definitely makes Leia far more hardcore than I could ever be.  Grade:  C-plus

Darth Vader: …So after Darth Vader dies in “Return of the Jedi” and goes to Jedi-Heaven with Yoda and Obi-Wan, does that mean that everyone’s cool now?  Are we sure that he’s really okay with the fact that Obi-Wan sliced his legs off and left him to slowly die after being horrifically burned in a lava pit?  Because I, for one, would be bringing that up.  “Hey, man.  I feel like maybe we should really talk out this whole ‘you horribly mutilating me’ situation.”  “Oh…  what’s that now?”  “The legs.  Remember?  The time that you chopped off my legs?”  “Oh, er, uh, yeah.”  “…Are you saying that you forgot about the legs?”  Etc…  Anyway, eek.  There’s just one word for that whole situation:  awkward.  Grade:  B-plus

The Ewoks: Wow, so people really hate the Ewoks, huh?  (Among Muppet-ish creatures, only Elmo seems to inspire similar levels of hatred.)  Well, I’m here to say something:  Lay off the Ewoks already.  They’re teddy bears with spears, and that’s cool.  Yes, they’re a little goofy, but they defeat the Stormtoopers and provide a nice metaphor for “the little guy” sticking it to “the Man.”  Also, if you pay close attention to “Return of the Jedi,” you’ll note that they’re preparing to roast Han and Luke alive so that they can eat them.  Yeah.  So maybe the Ewoks are just a little more bad-ass than you think.  Grade:  B

____________________________________________________________

FOOTNOTES

____________________________________________________________

1)  Whine along with me now:  “Aw!  But I was going into Toshi Station to pick up some power converters!”  Shuddup, Luke.

2)  Yes, Han Solo does get to fuck Princess Leia while Luke remains a virgin (I assume), but since I was five years old when I saw these movies, the concept of “sex” wasn’t very alluring to me, and it did not tip the scales in favor of Mr. Solo.

3)  Most of them Alderaanians or Alderaanites or whatever you would call them.

4)  …Soooo, the Stormtroopers couldn’t figure that one out?  “Hey, where’d they go?”  “…I don’t know.  Could they have jumped into the huge hole right next to where they were standing five seconds ago?”   “Dude; that’s, like, crazy talk!”  “You’re right; sorry.”  “…Well, I certainly am stumped right now.”  …Idiots.

5)  NOT REALLY A FOOTNOTE:  …For the purposes of this review, we’re basically trying to pretend that the new Star Wars movies never ever happened.  Or at least, I’m still actively repressing my memories of them.

Lady and the Tramp:

In real life, the “Lady and the Tramp” message seems a bit…  sketchy.  In real life, if you marry an asshole, he’s pretty much going to remain an asshole and not suddenly become mild-mannered and charming.  Trust me on this one.  However, I can’t really hate on this movie.  It features dogs.  Talking dogs.  I like dogs and I like talking, and the combination of these two things — well, that’s pretty good also.  Grade:  B-minus

The Little Mermaid: …Which should win some kind of an award for “least accurate depiction of a fairy-tale, ever.”  In the Disney version of this story, Ariel (the mermaid) gets the guy and they get married and everyone is happy, FOREVER.  In the original Hans Christian Andersen version of the story, that’s not quite what happens.

In the real version of the story, the mermaid has her fins magically transformed into legs, but it feels like she’s stepping on broken shards of glass with every step that she takes.  Then, even though she’s transformed herself into an approximation of a human being, the prince dumps her for an actual human chick.  Then, upon being left at the altar, she jumps out of a boat, commits suicide, dies, and is magically transformed into…  sea foam.  (Keep in mind, by the way, that none of this makes any fucking sense whatsoever.)

So, if we’re paying attention at home, the actual original moral of “The Little Mermaid” is this:

Don’t ever take a risk, or fall in love, because you’ll get turned into SEA FOAM.  …FUCKING SEA FOAM!

So there’s that.  Not the most empowering or uplifting message, but we are all worried about being transformed into sea foam, so I guess the moral remains relevant, even to this day.  …I suppose this would be a good time for me to complain about Disney movies and how the Walt Disney Corporation has turned an originally dark story into vaguely sentimental pap, but really, I’d rather watch a movie where the heroine isn’t HORRIBLY PUNISHED for trying to seek a different life.  …Although the book version of the story does win points for not featuring a reggae-fied crab.  So in conclusion, all in all, the whole kit-and-caboodle basically receives a grade of:  C.  Grade:  That’s right, C

Cinderella: …If the lesson of “The Little Mermaid” is “Don’t try to do anything, ever,” then the lesson of “Cinderella” is this:  “It’s better to be really really hot than ugly.”  It’s hard to argue with that one, I guess.  (The other lesson of Cinderella is “magical talking mice are helpful,” but you knew that already.)

This is yet another movie where Disney has taken some crazy liberties with the original version of the fairy tale.  In the original version of Cinderella, the wicked stepsisters have their feet chopped off, their eyes pecked out by birds, and then are forced to wander the land as blind crippled beggars.  Jesus!  I think it’s about time to ask:  what the fuck is wrong with the people who write fairy tales?  Do they want to traumatize little children?  Are they sadists?  I mean, I’m not defending the wicked stepsisters here.  They clearly kind of suck.  …But still, blinding people and chopping their feet off:  I’m against that.  That’s a strong moral stand on my part, but it’s a stand that I’m willing to take.   Grade:  D-plus

Beauty and the Beast: The list of Disney heroines that I’d really like to have hot sex with goes something like this:

1)  Belle from “Beauty and the Beast.”

2)  Princess Jasmine from “Aladdin.”

3)  …Annnnd that’s about it, I guess.²

Lookit.  I know that we’re talking about cartoon characters here, but let’s face it — Belle is hot.  She’s French, she can sing, she likes to read books, and that’s really all that I need in a girl.  Also, Belle says that she wants “adventure in the great wide something.”  That’s a little vaguely put, but I agree!  I want to have adventures too!  And like me, Belle thinks that “there must be something more than this provincial life.”  So true!  I mean, this can’t be all there is…  right?

Anyway, in my poorly thought-out sexual fantasies involving Belle, we meet somewhere in her village, I take her out for a moderately-priced French meal, and then we — I dunno — have sex in a haystack or something.  And then we go home and talk about our favorite books.  My sexual fantasies are very restrained like that.  Grade:  B-plus

Oliver & Company: Okay.  Just a quick thing here.  My name is “Oliver,” and for some reason, a certain percentage of people feel compelled to ask the following questions when they meet me:

1)  Do you like that book “Oliver Twist”?

2)  Wow, so you must love that musical “Oliver!”

3)  Hey, so do you like that movie “Oliver & Company”?

I have no idea why people ask these things either.  But the answers are:  “Yes,” “No,” and “‘Oliver & Company’ is fine if you think the big problem with Charles Dickens is a lack of kittens and Billy Joel songs.”  But the real answer is, “What a completely stupid/bizarre question!  Why the fuck would you ask that?  …Huh?  People don’t automatically like things because of their names.  Do people named ‘Julia’ automatically love all Julia Roberts movies?  I’m sorry that I have a slightly unusual name, but in conclusion…  you’re a fucktard.”  Grade:  D

Pinocchio: ….I never really thought about this before writing this review, but why does Pinocchio care so much about being a puppet versus being a Real Live Boy?  Being a magical talking puppet sounds pretty cool to me.  …And on a deeper level, does this mean that all wooden toys don’t want to be wooden toys?  And on an even deeper level, does this mean that all inanimate objects hate being inanimate?  You’d think they’d be content or something.  …Do trees loathe their own tree-ishness?  Do rocks really wish that they were something other than rocks?  I kind of really wish that I still got stoned, because this would be a good pointless five-hour conversation/debate to have if you were stoned.³  Grade:  C

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FOOTNOTES:

____________________________________________________________

1)  In the interest of utter fairness, I should point out that I ripped off the “‘Lady and the Tramp’ is all about rich girls marrying assholes” theory from the film “The Last Days of Disco.”  I’m all about giving credit where credit is due, and you’re welcome.

2)  I pray to God that at least a few other guys find some of the Disney princesses to be hot; otherwise, I’m going to really, really regret bringing this up.

3)  “Whoa.  …How can a thing hate like its own essence?  That’s pretty deep,  etc…”

]]> http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2010/01/17/review-of-disney-films/feed/ http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2010/01/16/review-of-the-solar-system/ http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2010/01/16/review-of-the-solar-system/#comments Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:40:48 +0000 Oliver Miller http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/?p=737

The Sun: The Sun is responsible for the existence of all life in our solar system.  That’s good.  However, this also means that the Sun is responsible for the existence of, say, Tila Tequila.  That’s bad.  Without getting into a too-involved debate about the merits of all human existence, I’m going to declare the whole thing a wash, and give the Sun a grade of C.

Venus: In 1950s-era science fiction movies, Venus is filled with all sorts of sexalicious babes who sexily hang out in sextacular outfits.  However, I’m here to tell you that the surface temperature of Venus is 860 degrees Fahrenheit, and that the atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide.  Thus, any potential sexy ladies would be instantly incinerated and poisoned.  (Also, they would be crushed, based on the whole gravity thingy.)  Really, the lack of actual hot girls on other planets is probably why NASA has so much trouble securing funding and why the whole great era of Space Exploration has come to an end.  And that’s just one more reason to hate Venus.  Grade:  D-minus

The Earth: Do you think I’m going to make fun of the Earth?  I am not.  I’ve pretty much lived here my whole life, and I like it.  Grade:  A-plus

Mars: I don’t really care about Mars, but there’s an asteroid field between Mars and the Earth.  That’s cool.  Based on my repeated viewings of “The Empire Strikes Back,” I have come to understand that asteroid fields are the most awesome places of ever, good for flying, hiding, and seducing semi-attractive princesses.¹  And hey!  Did you know that the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are approximately 3720 to 1?  “…Never tell me the odds!”  Yep; I can do all the dialogue from “Empire Strikes Back.”  I was not an incredibly popular teenager or anything, if you haven’t figured that out by now.  Grade:  A-minus

Jupiter: Fun (and true) fact.  The core of Jupiter is an enormous diamond that is the size of the planet Earth.²  An Earth-sized diamond; cool!  Not only does this mean that Jupiter is really awesome, it also makes it the perfect setting for a heist movie featuring, say, Nicholas Cage.  “…We’re gonna steal the biggest diamond in history.  Okay; here’s my plan.  We’re gonna need five men…”   Etc…

Also, another true fact about Jupiter is that it’s basically a failed star.  If Jupiter was just a little bigger, it would ignite via nuclear fusion, and become a second sun.  This makes me feel bad for Jupiter, but it also makes Jupiter seem more…  relatable.  As an unsuccessful comedy writer, I can get down with the whole failure thing.³  Grade:  A

Uranus: I’m not going to make any jokes about Uranus.  True, Uranus is big, and very gassy.  But that’s just not very funny.  Grade:  F

Neptune: Neptune has always been my favorite planet.  There’s a very simple reason for this.  It’s blue.  As a kid, I was deeply, deeply committed to the color blue.  For instance, I painted my entire room “Superman” blue, wore only blue T-shirts, and declared Neptune to be my favorite planet.  (Which is weird in and of itself:   do normal people even have “favorite” planets?)  Also, I continually forced myself to eat lots of blueberry-flavored stuff, even though I find the taste of blueberries to be kind of actually sort of gross.  But listen up, people.  I’m going to say this, and I’m only going to say it once.  When I declare allegiance to a color, I go all the way.

So anyway, in summation — Neptune, you rock!  You’re named after the god of the sea, and you’re like a much cooler Uranus without the whole bizarre “sideways” thingy and the horribly scatological name.  I heart you forever, Neptune.  Grade:  A-plus

Pluto: We have all of this debate now about whether Pluto is actually a planet or not.  Scientists say that it isn’t.  But my working theory is that if someone tells me something when I’m five years old, then that thing is true.  And that’s why Pluto is still a planet and also why, as I understand it, babies happen when two people love each other very very much and smush their noses together while standing in a cabbage patch.  So.  There you go.⁴ Grade:  B-minus

Planets that are not interesting enough to get a full review: Mercury, Saturn.  Sorry, guys.  Grade:  C

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FOOTNOTES:

____________________________________________________________

1)  Asteroid fields:  also an excellent place to get into endless fights with gay bitchy robots.

2)  The reason that Jupiter’s core is a diamond is that it’s made of a lot of carbon, and the surface pressure caused by Jupiter’s atmosphere pushes down on it and compresses that carbon.  If you need some help with this concept, think of the part in “Superman III” where he crushes the lump of coal.  Have you noticed, by the way, that I can only explain advanced concepts with reference to “Star Wars” and “Superman”?  I’m dumb.

3)  I should also note, for the sake of total scientific accuracy, that Jupiter’s core is “probably” a diamond, not DEFINITELY a diamond.  We don’t know because we haven’t been there.  We should fly there and find out!  A diamond that size could make us rich beyond the wildest dreams of Satan!  Except, of course, a diamond that size would depress diamond prices world-wide, rendering them worthless.  …Okay.  I sure managed to suck any possible humor out of that joke, right?

4)  Pluto’s moon, Charon, rotates with Pluto in absolute “lockstep.”  So if you lived on one side of Pluto, you’d never see the moon, and if you lived on the other side, you’d always see it.  Feel free to use this “non-interesting” scientific “factoid” to “break the ice” at your next party, wedding, funeral, or Intervention.

]]> http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2010/01/16/review-of-the-solar-system/feed/ http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2009/11/08/review-of-license-plates/ http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2009/11/08/review-of-license-plates/#comments Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:33:11 +0000 Oliver Miller http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/?p=683

Pennsylvania: My great home state of Pennsylvania currently has a license plate with a blue and a yellow stripe on it, with the somewhat uninspiring motto, “www.state.pa.us.”  Before that, our motto was “You’ve Got a Friend in Pennsylvania,” which just plain creeped people out with its overt clingy-ness.  And before that, our motto was “The Keystone State,” which meant, I guess, that if you removed us from the map, the state of New York would fall straight downward and collapse onto Delaware, killing thousands of people.  Grade:  B-ish

Alabama: My co-worker Alex (an Alabamanian!) informs me that the motto “Stars Fell on Alabama” is from some famous state song or other.  Now, considering the things that you think of when you hear the word “Alabama” — and topics such as illiteracy, obesity, and the Civil War come to mind — using a state song as your motto strikes me as being the license plate equivalent of whistling awkwardly when someone asks you an unpleasant question that you don’t want to answer.¹ Grade:  D

Texas: A cowboy.  A horse.  The space shuttle.  Some oil rigs.  Some scrub brush and a prairie and a mesa or butte or whatever the hell you call it.  Well, brand me with a cattle iron and spank my mammy!  Yee-haaaaw! Or whatever.  Anyway, yes, this license plate does include images of all the things from the grand pu-pu platter known as “Texas.”  Way to cover all the bases, Texas!  Awesome job, way to go!

Really, the only way that this license plate could be more Texan is if it was an unqualified moron who got elected to the U.S. Presidency during a highly shady election and then led us into a pointless war in the Middle East.  …Y’know what I’m sayin’?   Yee-haw! …No, but now you understand that there is a reason that I write about things like license plates, and generally stay away from political satire.  For I am not good at political satire.

ANY-way, just to close things out, Texas fucking sucks.  I’ve been there twice in my life, and really, death would have been preferable either time.  …I was talking to my friend Jeremy on the phone the other day, and we were both making fun of Delaware, for some unknown reason, and then I stopped the whole conversation and was like:  “No, but really.  What is the worst state?”  It only took us 0.5 seconds and then, on cue, we both said:  “…Texas.”  So congrats, Lone Star State!  Awesome job, way to go.  Grade:  F

Quebec: Attentive readers of my past writing may have noticed that I have an unhealthy obsession with all things Quebec-ish.  With that said, the official state of Quebec is, apparently, “Je Me Souviens,” which translates as “I Remember.”  Which seems a little…  underwhelming.  I mean, I manage to wake up, go to work, eat lunch, and go to law school most days, and you don’t see me throwing that on a license plate.  But one quick yet boring look at some Canadian websites later, and we learn that what “Je Me Souviens” actually means is “I remember 350 years of British tyranny and oppression,” which now makes the license plate seem a little… catty, doesn’t it?  Hey, Quebec, “Je Me Meow!”  Grade:  B-minus

Idaho: The fact that Idaho’s state motto is “Famous Potatoes” is…  I dunno…  it just makes me sad, I guess.  I mean, it’s like when you read some story in the newspaper about an orphaned child and then they ask the kid what he wants for Christmas or his birthday and he says, “a Daddy.”  I mean, it’s true and it’s honest and it’s accurate and all of that, but it still makes me depressed as all get out.   Grade:  C

Northwest Territories: Holy Joe!  Now we’re rockin’… now we’re really-really-rockin’!  Now this I like.  A license plate in the shape of a bear…  All right!  I guess I just have some sort of unhealthy bear fixation.  But, I mean, I never even knew there was such a place as the Northwest Territories, but now, I’m totally there.  And they’ve been kind enough to include directions to the place within the name of the territory itself, so that even though I’m not going to drive 4,000 miles in order to actually see a license plate in the shape of a bear, it’s nice to know that if I wanted to, I could.  Grade:  A

Native American: Hey, did you know that Indian tribes actually get their own license plates? Well, me neither until I started writing this quasi-humorous review.  Now, thanks to some tomfoolery in my family’s past, I actually have something like 1.25 percent Blackfoot Indian blood coursing through my veins.  So in addition to getting into college for free, collecting casino revenues, and getting a hyphenated last name which describes some ability that I have, I might also be able to get a super-keen license plate like this one, which features a jaguar (or maybe a puma), a spear, and — god knows why — a swan.  …And all of this in return for a mere 400 years of murder, slavery, and oppression!  And…  actually, this is making me sound like the makers of the Quebec license plate, so I’ll just stop.  Grade:  F

(Editor’s Note: Oliver is crazy.  Texas Rules.  The Rockets will take it all in 2010…  Believe it again!)

___________________________________________________________

A SINGLE FOOTNOTE:

1)  Special bonus, I’ve spent too much time researching this review mini-factoid:  Upon the release of the above license plate,  former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman said the following: “It is my hope that this design will help send a message that stars have indeed fallen on Alabama and continue to fall on Alabama.”  Indeed. Wise words, governor.  Wise, confusing, disturbing, stoned-sounding, actually kind of batshit insane words.  But it needed to be said.  Mini-grade: B

The Muppet Show: “It’s time to put on make-up!  It’s time to dress up nice!”  If you hear these words, then you are watching:

a)      “Project Runway”

b)      “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”

c)      “Brokeback Mountain.”¹

d)     “The Muppet Show.”

e)      Any show whatsoever on “Bravo.”

If you answered (d), then you are correct!  Yep, that’s part of the theme song.  I mean, we always knew that Muppets were gay, but…  Um.  I mean.  I mean, I guess I don’t really have a follow-up joke here.² Grade:  A-minus

The Jetsons: Frankly, it’s nice to see a vision of the future that doesn’t involve evil robots or robots running amuck or Keanu Reeves battling robots.  In “The Jetsons,” robots were treated with the same casual disregard with which you would treat a used-up, ten-dollar Saigon whore.  Put even more simply:  in “The Jetsons,” robots were humanity’s little bitch.  And that’s the way it was meant to be.

Plus, hamburger pills.  Whenever Astro and Elroy ran away from home, they would take miniature hamburger pills in their (space) backpacks with them.  Sweet!  I want futuristic hamburger pills!  I’d imagine that they’d be like sort of like “Dippin’ Dots,” the magical speck-sized “Ice Cream of the Future,” except hopefully they’d actually taste good and like actual hamburgers and not contain that strange aura of sadness that Dippin’ Dots so inevitably contain.  …Anyway that’s, um, about all that I remember about the Jetsons.  It wasn’t a very good show, but somehow, it gets a pretty good grade.³  Grade:  B-plus

Tom and Jerry:  Take one cat.  Add mouse.  Stir briskly.  Garnish with anvils, exploding rockets, and sharp pointy knives.  Serves:  Everyone.

What a great show!  I guess that Tom was trying to eat Jerry, but in my mind, they just really really hated one another.  In fact, I always assumed some sort of backstory where Tom’s brother had killed Jerry’s never-shown mouse-wife in a car wreck or drug-turf war or something.  I mean…  this fight was personal, people.⁴

Also great were the episodes where Tom had not only to contend with Jerry, the bulldog, his own stupidity, and gravity, but also with the enormous, incredibly angry, racist-caricature black housemaid, who we only ever saw from the shoulders down.  Man, did that lady have a temper, or what?  “Thom-mas!  Thomas!  Git yo’ motherfucking ass in here!  Goddamn motherfucking cracker-ass cat!  I swear to God, Thomas, if you don’t git your ass in here right now, I’m gonna take your @##$$** and shove it so far up your @##$$ that you’ll be eating motherfucking @#$ for breakfast for a week!”  …Um…  Holy shit!  Yes, ma’am. Grade: A

He-Man (”The Masters of the Universe”): “I am Adam, Prince of Eternia, and keeper of the secrets of Castle Greyskull.” Really?  Please tell me more!  “…This is Cringer, my fearless friend.”

“Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said, ‘BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL! I HAVE THE POWER!” Please, continue.  “Cringer became the Mighty Battle Cat, and I became… He-Man: the most powerful man in the universe!” Really?  You’re the most powerful man in the universe?  Like, for real?  Doesn’t that render the show sort of…  anticlimactic?  It’s kind of like having an action show that features Jehovah.  ”Will the Lord God of Hosts manage to get across town to his girlfriend’s house before the bomb explodes?  Tune in next week…  to find out that he does.”

But hey…  That’s cool.  Most powerful, least powerful, whatever.  And the show gets an extra-added grade, boosting it up to a B-plus, for featuring — in addition to “Skeletor” — a bad guy named “Stinkor,” whose power was…  that his farts were really disgusting.  Am I kidding here?  You wish that I was kidding here.  And so do I.

Anyway, I also recommend checking out the live-action movie version of “The Masters of the Universe,” starring Dolph Lundgren.  It’s really really awful!  And Courtney Cox is in it.  Go figure.

Thunder-Cats: “Feel the thunder! Feel the cats!  Thunder-Cats are loose!” Okay, I can’t actually remember the lyrics to every cartoon theme song.  Those are probably not the words.  Feel the cats! sounds particularly sketchy to me.

So the Thunder-Cats, as you may or may not remember, depending on whether or not you had a social life in middle-school, were led by Lion-O, and…  God…  that’s a stupid name.  Lion-O?  Was that like a thirty-second writer’s conference meeting or what?  Anyway, and they were led by “Lion-O,” and faced off against the dread mummy villain “Mum-ra.”  Jesus, what stupid names.

O-kay…  let’s pull it all together.  Mum-ra, he certainly was one mighty villain, oh yes, except for his one minor weakness:  he could be completely and magically defeated at any time by showing him his own reflection.⁵ Huh.  Imposing!  And yet where you and I would have just started carrying mirrors around with us everywhere, it somehow managed to take the Thunder-Cats a entire half-hour long cartoon to defeat Mum-ra every time that they met him.  But, hey, what do you want?  They’re fucking cats.  My cat here at my house in New Orleans can’t get past the whole hey there’s an identical cat trying to attack me stage with mirrors, so maybe we should all just feel fortunate that we had the mighty Thunder-Cats on the case.  Grade:  B-minus

The Snorks: This show is sort of like what would happen if you attempted to kill “The Smurfs” by drowning them.  “…Holy shit, they’re still alive!”  ”…Oh, man, nothing kills Smurfs. Didn’t you know that?” Grade:  C-minus

The Dukes of Hazzard and The A-Team:  You know what? I never actually saw either one of these shows.  Pretty amazing, huh?  That’s one full hour of each day of my childhood that I didn’t piss away.  Maybe if they could have combined them into a single half-hour.  “I pity the fool who don’t…  Yee-haw!”  …And so, thus we learn that it is not a good idea to try to write a funny review of a show you’ve never seen.  Grade, not for the shows, but for myself:  D-minus.

The Flintstones: I just always wanted to get to eat a “Brontoburger.”  It was a simple dream, yes, but it was a simple dream that I had.  Likewise, when I was six years old, I often attempted to order a “T-bone steak” in a restaurant, in the belief that I would be able to swallow it whole in a single gulp, and then could spit the perfectly clean white bone back out in under 2.5 seconds.  But my dad always stopped me from ordering one.   Granted, this has nothing at all to do with the Flintstones, but the T-bone steak thing did happen in many other cartoons.

Uhh…  The Flintstones.  Do I want to make fun of anything about the Flintstones?  …Talking birds, turtle-gramophones, the little magical Martian guy…  Actually, you know what?  I’m feeling pretty good with stopping right here.  It’s been a lot of reviews of TV shows and things.  I might just go outside for a while.  Maybe take a little walk.  Get some fresh air.  Maybe drink a little booze.  Grade:  B

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FOOTNOTES:

1)  By the way, how much longer will “Brokeback Mountain” jokes be funny for?  A year?  Two years?  ..Forever?  …Ah wish…  Thet I knew how to quit yew! I’m making fun of a movie that I’ve never even seen!

Speaking of which, an unspecified friend of mine went on a first date with a girl and took her to see…  ”Brokeback Mountain.”  I’m trying to think of a worse date idea that doesn’t involve, say, deadly contact poison.  ”Okay, Amy.  I’ve filled one of our Heinekens here with cyanide. Before our date is over…  I need you to guess which one.”  And I’m failing.  By the way, I am also officially drunk and writing Reviews now…

2)  But who would have thought that appearing on an episode of “The Muppet Show” would have been Mark Hamill’s second-biggest role after “Star Wars”!  Nah.  Too little, too late.

3)  Special bonus fun fact: Only twenty-four original episodes of “The Jetsons” were ever made before it was cancelled!  Which explains why I saw the one where Astro was on trial and had to “‘Rhose ‘Reorge” over his other family approximately 1,546 times.

4)  P.S.:  Remember the episodes where Tom and Jerry wore bowties and were supposed to be friends?  Those were bullshit!

5)  As a weakness, I’m putting “Can be defeated by your own reflection” ahead of “Can be defeated by drinking coffee or by brushing your teeth in the morning,” but behind “Can be defeated by hearing a word with a vowel in it,” in terms of weaknesses that I personally wouldn’t want to have.

]]> http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2009/10/30/review-of-even-more-tv-shows/feed/ http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2009/10/27/review-of-candy-snacks-and-cereal/ http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/2009/10/27/review-of-candy-snacks-and-cereal/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:11:04 +0000 Oliver Miller http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensereviews/?p=602

M&Ms: “Melt in your mouth, not in your hands.”  So true.  But do you know why they don’t melt in your hands?  Because this candy was specially designed for the U.S. Military during World War II.  Allow me to break it down:  sugar and chocolate  =  gives you energy; non-sticky fingers =  you can keep firing your gun at those damn Germans without having to pause to wipe your hands off.  By the way, in case you were wondering, this is all 100% true.

Frankly, I think the secret military nature of M&Ms could be played up a little more in the current ads, instead of using, say, those computer-generated talking candies that creep me out.  “Whether you’re in the mood for shooting terrorists, insurgents, or your own Army captain, M&Ms are the candy for you.  …M&Ms:  because it’s time to kill.”

Plus, eating the green ones means that you’re a virgin:  “Ha ha, you’re a virgin!” Or eating the green ones means that you’re a slut:  “Slut!” I can’t remember which.  But I think I can resolve the debate.  Let me put it this way; if you’re spending excessive amounts of time worrying about the color of candy that you eat, then you’re a virgin.  Grade:  A-minus

Kool-Aid: I was in the store the other day, and I saw that they have introduced a new flavor of this called “Clear Kool-Aid,” formerly known as “Sugar.”  Hurray for marketing!¹

Anyway, Kool-Aid rocks!  Who didn’t love “the Kool-Aid Man”?  Nothing could stop that motherfucker; not walls, not brick walls, not even more walls.  And in addition to “the Man” himself, Kool-Aid is also the drink of choice for crazy South American cultists who want to commit mass suicide via poisoning.  Oh Yeah! …This information affects my admiration for Kool-Aid not a whit, but still, good to know.² Grade:  A

Good n’ Plenty: According to my mom, this used to come in a box that you could then fold into a whistle, which you could then blow to create a “Choo-Choo” sound.  Well, that sounds fun!  But they changed the box because of fears that it could be easily tampered with by candy poisoners.  To which I say:  Motherfucking candy poisoners!  Can’t we have anything good and fun in this world without you trying to ruin it?  How long?  …For how long must we sing this song?

…So, as for the candy itself:  I like it!  But everyone else thinks it’s gross.  Must have something to do with the licorice aspect.  Plus, they look like pills, so when you were nine, you could “down” a bunch of them, and pretend that you were doing a whole lot of Quaaludes.  You drink some Kool-Aid, you do some Good n’ Plenty ‘ludes, and then you can see through time, my friends… Grade:  B-minus

Cheetos: Yuck!  Plus, what is it with the yellow crap that becomes eternally stuck to your fingers?  It’s a battle to the death between unremoveable Cheetos crap and accidentally inhaling a bunch of powdered sugar from a jelly doughnut, then choking and coughing on it for fifteen minutes for the title of  “Most unpleasant side-effect of a food that was already, by itself, gross.”  Grade:  D-minus

Baker’s Chocolate: I think that this stuff was just created solely to mock little children.  My mom baked a lot, so we always had some of it in our house.  So…  mom’s out of the kitchen for a while:  Chocolate!  We have chocolate in the house!  Let me just pull it down from the shelf, open the box, and…  EW!  AGGH!  BITTER!  NON-SUGARY!  GROSS! And then, two weeks later, I’d stupidly try it again:  “Maybe it won’t be so bad this time…  EW!  AGH!  BITTER!”

I even tried sprinkling sugar on the top of it before I ate it, but no, that doesn’t work either.  Save your time and money, people, ’cause Baker’s Chocolate gets a grade of:  F

Trix: Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids.  But why?  Are rabbits allergic to Trix?  Will eating Trix cause them to lose their glossy pelt and become rabid?  There must be some compelling reason, right?  To deny a desperate rabbit breakfast cereal for so long?  But no…  it just turns out that kids are assholes.

But, if you’re an aging hipster like myself, you might remember that in the early 80s, Trix actually had a phone-in contest to decide if the silly rabbit should be able to finally have some goddamn Trix.  I instantly dialed the 1-800 number and voted “NO!”  However, the final results of the contest — which I actually had to go and research in order to write this review — were:

99% - YES, give him some cereal already.

1% - NO, cereal is bad for rabbits.

…I believe that my single phone call constituted the entire ”negative one percent.”  …And so, we were treated to a commercial where a bowl of Trix was finally placed in the rabbit’s trembling hands, and he got to desperately wolf it down.  I think he may even have wept in gratitude when he finished the bowl.  …Of course, by the end of the commercial, the kids went back to telling the rabbit to fuck off, and returned to pushing him down and setting him on fire so that he couldn’t reach the cereal box.  Mean!

But see, the reason that I voted “No” was… isn’t this just plain meaner than never giving him any “Trix” at all?³  To be denied a glimpse of paradise for so long, and then to be allowed one fleeting taste of it before having it all rudely yanked away … well, you decide.  Is it better to touch perfection, even if only for a second… or is it better to be allowed to dream of it forever, never truly knowing it, without the coarse interference of so-called Platonic “reality”?  …Pretty deep, and kind of a good question, eh?  (“…Oh, silly rabbit!  …Advanced epistemology is for kids!”)

ANY-way.  As for the cereal itself, I never ate it.  Is it any good?  Grade:  C

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FOOTNOTES:

1)  So… I would like to pause here and take a moment to apologize for the vague and — let’s face it — inaccurate title of this entire Review column.  Kool-Aid is neither a snack nor a candy.  It is a “drink.”  And Baker’s Chocolate is not a snack or candy either.  Allow me to do you the courtesy of being blunt:  I just wrote down some stuff about food items that I wanted to make fun of, and then threw them all together.  I got lazy.  I am sorry.  I HAVE REGRETS.

2)  Although it is a little creepy that the Kool-Aid Man is carrying around a small pitcher of himself in the drawing.  This is the equivalent of me running around being like:  “Hey, do you guys want to try some of my nice delicious blood plasma?  Here, it’s tasty and fantastic!  Have some!”

3)  Actually, this is not 100% true.  The real reason that I voted “No” on giving the rabbit Trix was this — as a kid, I was a big stickler for tradition.  …Seriously.  I was like, “But if he gets to eat some Trix, then that ruins the integrity of the entire concept!”  Seriously.  I am in no way making this up.

Double Dragon: At a certain point, video games and I began to part ways.  I think “Double Dragon” was the original trigger for all of this.  For some reason, I could imagine myself as a yellow guy eating ghosts, a brick smashing other bricks, even a frog running across a highway.  But somehow, I couldn’t imagine myself as a street-trained martial arts ninja capable of going into “the hood” with my brother and annihilating an army of gangsters using only my fists and a couple of garbage cans.  Maybe it was the graphics.  Look at these guys…  they’re tough!  Their arms are like….  nine pixels wide.  I’m not buff like that!

As a side-note, “Double Dragon” was one of the first video games where you could put more quarters into the machine in order to “Continue.”  This was a shocking development, often leading to the annihilation of my entire weekly allowance within a period of 25 minutes.  For some reason, it took video-game developers a while to catch on to the fact that us kids were all crack-addicted zombie-ish quarter monkeys capable of standing in a single place for hours so that we could jam pieces of silver into a machine which was then programmed to tell us that we weren’t good enough.  But we were…  oh baby, we were.  Grade:  B-minus

Star Wars: Video games, like movie sequels, often had to be tougher than the original.  For example, if the game “Star Wars” had been like the movie “Star Wars,” you would have blown up one “Death Star,” then gone home and slept with your sister.  Clearly, this wasn’t going to work.  Instead, the game “Star Wars” posited miraculous infinite universes filled with Death Star after Death Star that you would then have to blow up.  This always tickled me, because within the context of the game, blowing up each Death Star was supposed to have the exact same excitement level as destroying the original.  “Luke…  use the force.”    “Yeah…   yeah…  ‘Use the force,’ old man, I’ve got it.  I’VE BLOWN UP 59 DEATH STARS ALREADY TODAY.  I need a glass of bourbon now.”

Also, I just plain like the idea of infinite universes, and the attendant infinite possibilities that come with infinite universes.  Did this mean that there could be a universe where Luke was Darth’s father?  A universe where Jedi brothers and sisters could legally get married?  A universe where Yoda spoke with perfect diction?  A universe where the Star Wars prequels didn’t totally suck?  See… this is why you don’t actually want me reviewing video games, as I will start to delve into horrifyingly nerdy questions such as these.  Grade:  B-plus

Combat: This was actually for the Atari 2600, which I owned.  There is only one thing to say about this game:  INVISIBLE TANK PONG!  INVISIBLE TANK PONG!  INVISIBLE TANK PONG!  Sweet.  “Combat” wasn’t really much of a game, but it made up for not being very fun by having approximately 1,354 variations of the original not very fun game.  And one of those variations was…  you guessed it.  I’d like to be an army drill instructor, training my soldiers on the eve of a massive Invisible Tank Pong war…

“The first thing yew must remember…  is that yew will NOT be able to see your own tank when it is invisible!  DO YEW GET ME, SOLIDERS?!”  “SIR YES SIR!”  “…The second thing… yew must remember…  is that tank pong bullets ARE capable of ricocheting so as to destroy your own tank!”  “SIR YES SIR!” Grade:  A!

Paperboy: See, there are some things that I just don’t want to recreate in video game form.  Having a boring, menial, low-paying job is one of these.  Other things that I don’t want to recreate include…  STDs (“Gonorrhoids:  2038″), girls breaking up with me (“Super Dump-Man”), my father’s alcoholism (“WhatthehellreYEWlookinat:  The Revenge”), the presidency of George W. Bush (“Bush v. Kerry:  Street Edition”), and oh man I’m starting to run out of jokes about video-games…  Grade:  F

E.T.:  The Extra-Terrestrial: Hey, remember the part in the movie where “E.T.” fell into a pit for five hours and couldn’t get out no matter what you did until you screamed and threw the controller at the screen in frustration?  Um, me neither.  Okay, seriously…  Did anyone play this video game but me?  …Anyone?  Grade:  F-minus