Saturday, May 30, 2009

New Late Night Doritos



Featuring Erik Steinmeyer and Jason Teresczenko.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Oxfam Signature-Watch or be Eaten



My buddy Nick's 48 hour YouTube Cannes Lions submission. I don't even believe in global warming and I support this. Great job!

The Crisaurus

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Nerd Fest: Lost Finale Observations

*Disclaimer* Very Spoilerific if you are not completely up to date. If you're not a Lost fan, don't bother reading this. It would most likely give you a brain aneurism.
My thoughts exactly.

As I mourn the season end of my favorite show, I once again find myself wondering how I am going to survive until next year. I guess it's going to be even worse after it's over. While it will be awesome to know all the answers, what the hell will I watch to fulfill this addiction. Anyway, lets start with the two new players that appear to be running the show. 

Alright were finally introduced to the long talked about island big wig Jacob. We also have the pleasure of meeting his nemesis in black who I will refer to as Anti-Jacob. It seems that they both have godlike powers and have clearly been around the island a few times. We see them awaiting the arrival of the Black Rock to the Island, which pegs them around 1845. My guess is that Richard Alpert will arrive on this ship. This would explain the reasoning behind him building a model of it an episode or two ago. 
By the end of the episode, I feel very confident in saying that Anti-Jacob is the smoke monster. While we have been hearing about Jacob for seasons now, we might have to forget most of what we previously know about him. I believe that everything that we have witnessed in the cabin relating to Jacob has actually been a show put on by Smokey. There was a gap in the ashey circle of protection around the cabin, which would allow Smokey to get in there and have some fun. It appears that the cabin did used to be Jacob's home, but something must have forced him to flee to the foot. I am going to ignore the heavy religious undertones, and present what's been given to us at face value. There is clearly a heavy egyptian influence on the show, which has been apparent since the hatch counter went below zero in season 2. The statue where Jacob resides appears to be none other than the egyptian god Sobek.

According to many of their myths, it was Sobek who first came out of the waters of chaos to create the world. Based on the evidence provided to us so far, one can make a strong argument for Jacob being Sobek in human form. While we know that Anti-Jacob is Smokey, it's hard to say exactly what god he would end up being. Many are speculating that his human form will be named Esau, which is the brother of Jacob in the Bible. More evidence to show that Jacob is Sobek was seen before Ben was judged by Smokey.

If Anti-Jacob is the monster, could this be a picture depicting the life long battle between the two? Or is this simply Anubis bowing down to the smoke monster? Ok so maybe Jacob is Sobek. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Knowing that Anti-Jacob is Smokey really makes sense of a lot of the things that have happened throughout the show. Remember Adam and Eve from the cave in season 1? They were found carrying black and white stones. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being Jack and Kate. Remember that crazy dream Claire had in season 1? 
Was this early foreshadowing of Locke being the ultimate weapon? I don't think we have seen the last of Claire and Aaron. After all that crap we have had to sit through about how special Aaron is, I will be pissed if he doesn't have a bigger role than crying and being stolen all the time. I think they will have some part to play in season 6 for good or evil. 

Throughout history, it appears that Smokey has been searching for his loop-hole to fulfill his ultimate goal of killing Jacob. We know that Smokey has the ability to manifest himself as dead people. But what are his limits. At first I was inclined to believe that he could only become dead people who arrived to the island, such as Locke, Christian, and Yemi (Ecko's brother). But more recently, we have seen him manifest himself as Ben's daughter Alex. Anyways, I believe that Anti-Jacob's original choice to kill Jacob was Jack. This would explain his choice in manifesting himself as Jack's father Christian. However, at the time, Jack was still the man of science, and would have never believed all that mumbo jumbo. This could have caused Smokey to turn his attention toward Mr. John Locke. This explains why Smokey never tried to kill Locke in Season 1. Clearly, everything Smokey has done up to this point has been to further his master plan of killing Jacob. I don't really know where I am going with this, other to say that I believe John Locke is the ultimate weapon to be used for either good or evil. However, once Locke was killed, it becomes clear that he could only be used for evil. Keep in mind that the people telling Locke he would have to die, were all influenced by Smokey. 
Damnit Flocke (fake Locke)

So enough about the gods, lets speculate on what happened with the hydrogen bomb. There have been two big themes throughout the show. Free will vs. Determinism has been apparent since Jack and Locke represented the opposing sides. What if most people have a pre-determined life, while a "special" few have the ability to create their own destiny. I think it's important to note that in the flashbacks where Jacob visited our main characters, the writers made an effort to show us that he touched all of them. What if he was bestowing on them the power to make their own choices? 

The newer theme that has surfaced this season is that "what is done, is done." "whatever happened, happened". Despite anyone's best efforts, they have been unable to alter the past. However, before his recent demise, Daniel Faraday predicted a way for them to alter the course of the future. Jack eventually convinced everyone that the right thing to do was detonate the hydrogen bomb, and stop the Swan incident from ever happening. Theoretically, this would mean that Oceanic 815 never crashes and everyone lives happily ever after in LA. 

So skipping ahead, Anti-Jacob achieves his long sought out goal by using Locke as a puppet to train Ben to do his bidding. At the moment it appears that Evil has destroyed Good. Wait Evil never wins. What's going on? Oh wait there is another season. What lies in the shadow of the statue? He who will save us all. Is this referring to Jacob, the carcass of Locke, or something new we haven't even seen yet? 

So Juliet miraculously survives falling down an abyss and sets off the hydrogen bomb caveman style. Now we are forced to wait a year and speculate what the hell happened to our beloved Losties. On a personal note, I hope being that close to the hydrogen bomb vaporized Juliet's soul. I wouldn't mind if that was the last I saw of her. Anyway, I believe that Faraday will end up being correct and that the bomb prevented the Swan station from ever being built. I mean seriously, if the bomb just kills everyone, that would mean Season 6 would be a shot for shot remake of Season 1. I think the new season will either open on Jack sitting on 815 in LA or with all the Losties together on the island in 2007. If they are still on the island, that would mean that oceanic 815 purposely came to the island, which is an entirely different blog post. Now that the past has been altered, none of the losties will know each other. But I think this our chance for Good to triumph over Evil. By rewriting the past and creating their own destiny, they will have a chance to save Jacob and make sure he never dies. Oh no! but no one knows each other. I believe that someone will once again convince them all to go back to the island. It sounds repetitive, but I don't believe that we have seen the last of Mr. Desmond Hume.

So if they can get everyone back to the island, I believe they will be in good shape. An important observation. Remember the experiments that Faraday was performing while at Oxford on the rat named Eloise? 
Well he was exposing her to radiation, causing her to see the future and know how to quickly solve the rat maze. What if when the Losties return to the island, the radiation from the hydrogen bomb causes the Losties to also see the future and remember everything that has previously happened. Who knows, it's just a theory. All we can be sure of is an impending war between good and evil. This war has been alluded to for awhile now, but we have been lead to believe it was between Linus and Widmore. Clearly, this is a much bigger war than anyone predicted. Hopefully not so big that it ends up being two aliens playing backgammon. I believe that Linus will end up redeeming himself and playing a huge part for the good guys. With redemption being such a major theme of the show, it only makes sense for the most evil character to end up making the sacrifice that saves everyone.

I hope some of that rambling makes sense. I need to stop thinking about this stuff for a bit. This can't be healthy. I trust that the Mr. Cuse and Lindelof will make sense of everything for us in the end. Matthew Fox stated yesterday night in his Kimmel interview that he knows what the final scenes of Lost will be. He said that we will be very satisfied and that it will end in the coolest of ways. All I can guarantee is that the writers are going to have an "incident" of their own if it doesn't.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Why I stay away from malls.

This is a short clip from my recent Dane Cook style monologue. 


Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Friday, April 10, 2009

Dave and Busted

Every once in awhile you see an ad that just reeks of something you would do. The thinking behind this ad is literally identical to my Monster campaign from last quarter. This doesn't mean I would actually go to D&B, but at least they moved up a couple brand points in my book.

 

If I'm gonna gonna go anywhere to drink and play video games, it's gonna be Chuck E Cheese. They have great beer, pizza and music provided by a in-house live country bear band. But I applaud anyone who successfully incorporates midgets into a campaign. Sometimes I wonder what school would be like if we had one. He would definitely take over Julio's spot as biggest ad slut. Maybe someday...


Sunday, April 5, 2009

Faster and Furious...er

I was planning on writing this deep rant about my passionate hatred toward the fast and the furious franchise. However, due to lack of sleep and unmeasurable amounts of alcohol consumption, that will not be happening. We definitely turned Memphis dry. More on the bachelor/birthday festival in the future. Anyway...

The Fast and the Furious = entertaining

2 Fast 2 Furious = hilarious

Tokyo Drift = Slam my testicles in a car door.

Fast and Furious = ? (Unfortunately I'll have to wait to answer this until it takes over The Replacements on TBS every other day.)


Seriously? On my birthday? Is this a movie or a flavor of 5 gum?

My two favorite quotes from the franchise:

"If you win, you get my car. If I win, I get respect." An emotionally charged scene where Paul Walker challenges Vin to their first race.

"Pockets ain't empty cuz." Paul elegantly reveals that he stuffed drug money down his pants to keep the FBI from keeping it all. Being the perfect best friend, Tyrese Gibson also reveals to have been stuffing his pants the entire movie.

I can only hope the movie inspires a new generation of Civics with underglow and minivans with NOS. Joel Mchale's new Soup clip accurately sums up everything I have been saying about the new movie. Enjoy.





Monday, March 30, 2009

The Monday Fossil - 90's Board Games

Remember the good ole days when wealth and power were measured by the number on your Super Soaker? You always hated that kid who was wielding the dual plasma rifles set to hollow point water spray, fueled by the 5 gallon backpack full of H2O.
 
Fuck this kid.
Well if water guns were dominating your backyard, it was board games that had a healthy market share of your basement. But not that crap where you plop on your couch and pop in a DVD. The "board games" of today require a lot of thinking, and that really defeats the purpose of them in my mind. Sure it's fun to recall how Arnold Schwarzenegger only had like 5 lines of dialogue in the original Terminator. But you know what's way more fun? 

Racing the clock to avoid a large, plastic, mechanical shark.

Or torturing playdoh made grapes.
The Squish'Em, Squash'Em, Squoosh'Em Game!!!!

Or picking the Sorry card when your opponent is one space from the mother ship. You weren't sorry. You were NEVER sorry. They need to rename that game Miserable. It took like 5 hours for someone to win. Life was so much easier when tough decision making was solved with the role of a dice. "Finally I rolled doubles! I can get out of this filthy jail cell." "Thank god I rolled an even number, I just missed being pummeled by that massive plastic cage from the sky."
That's not to say there were not disappointments.

Someone got me Mouse Trap one time. Sure the Rube Goldberg contraption was fun, but does anyone have any idea how the game is played. What the hell were those cheese slices for? 

Does anyone remember Domino Rally? The commercials depicted these jubilant children orchestrating this massive scene of events.
Apparently you were supposed to play in a black hole.

Dominoes falling perfectly, branching off to cause car crashes, huge motorcycle jumps, or even rocket launches. Sounds like a nice little saturday night? Yeah well the commercial failed to show that the game gives a new definition to the phrase, "Some assembly required." The worst was that after the 30+ hours of finger shredding construction, if you made one mistake, it's over. I remember having the first minute or so going perfectly according to plan. Smiles lit across our faces as the hard work was being rewarded by this evil knievel-esque display. But suddenly one domino went arye and cancelled the finale spectacle of the rocket launch. Those smiles quickly faded to anger as we came to the realization that Milton Bradley had betrayed us. I wont get into specifics, but lets just say that I was like a young Michael Bay directing that destruction.

The best board game commercial by far was the original Crossfire spot. I will post it once I figure out how to embed videos. It features all the essentials from 80's hair metal vocals to the losing kids spinning off into strange unknown galaxies. Unfortunately the game was a piece of crap.

Friday, March 27, 2009

"I Eat Pieces of Shit Like You For Breakfast!"

Let me begin by apologizing for any abnormal anger that shows in my writing. Last night was a rough one to say the least. If you know me, than you know exactly what I am talking about. I recently woke up on a small couch that I don't believe
 I have ever even sat on. It was exactly like Lost when Jack wakes up on the island. For that brief moment, I had no recollection of where I was or how I got there. Thankfully a polar bear didn't eat me.

That being said, I made an interesting observation the other day that I feel compelled to share with the world. (or the three people that will read this). As I was waiting for Lost to begin, I was blessed with the opportunity to watch 15 minutes of American Idol. Disclaimer: Please don't confuse me with one of the freaks that actually follows this show. Anyway, I became particularly fascinated with the contestant known as Scott. It's not his dreamy vocals or his magestic ability to stroke the keys. Or even the fact that he is doing it will without the use of his eyes. 

It's that he looks exactly like SHOOTER MACGAVIN!


BANG BANG
How awesome is that? There are a lot of great movie villians out there, but how many of them are avid golfers? How many of them eat pieces of shit for breakfast? Probably no more than 10-20. But seriously! Look at those eyes. The chiseled eyebrows. The stupid grin. The aura of anger that surrounds their every facial feature. I love it. I wish this kid the best of luck in this worthless competition. Not enough to physically vote for him. But I mean well. I'm voting for him on the inside. So if his dream is to follow in the footsteps of superstars like Taylor Hicks, Ruben Studdard, and Clay Aiken, I say shoot away. And even if he doesn't win, at least he knows he has the opportunity for a successful film career. Look at that chump Justin Guarini from season 1. He went on to star in the hugely successful film From Justin to Kelly! That gem is currently sitting pretty at number 30 on IMDB's worst movies of all time. I would consider rewatching Troll 2 before punishing my self with this.
9% on Rotten Tomatoes!

If you happen to run into Scott, make sure he knows who is real father is. Just don't pull a Seacrest by trying to give him a high five. I'll stop ranting now. My brain is not exactly functioning at full capacity. Stay tuned for my thoughts on the fast and the furious franchise.
My thoughts exactly.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

What You Should Be Drinking


As you read this hung over from the cosmos you consumed last night, I encourage you to think about the mistake you've made. By following my simple recommendations, you can live the lifestyle of your wildest fantasies. 

Speaking of wild fantasies, I have been a die hard Bond fan my entire life. I remember going to see the debut of Brosnon in Goldeneye with my dad in '95 like it was yesterday. The best part of the holidays for me was curling up on the sofa every night and enjoying the 15 days of 007 on TBS. I promise to dive down to the deep end of this obsession at a later date, but as the title dictates, your looking for a thirst quencher.

Seeing as the newest Bond film Quantum of Solace debuted today on DVD, it's only fitting for you to be drinking like a British Spy. So destroy every coffee mug in sight and empty the rest of the milk into the cat's bowl. It's time to mature your palette.

The Vesper
3 oz Gordon's gin
1 oz vodka
1/2 oz Lillet wine

It's time for you to drink like the successful creative director you desire to be. Simply drop these bad boys into your mixer and shake (obviously) until ice cold. Strain into your best cocktail glass and drop in a large thin slice of lemon peel.  But please cease the lil wayne your currently listening to and tune into your local smooth jazz station. You don't want to draw attention from yourself or your beverage. And there is no better soundtrack to life than a smooth jazz number. But you need to play the part on your end. There is a grand tradition of awesomeness behind this beverage, and it would be a travesty to tarnish the legacy. So squeeze into your newest Tom Ford suit or just pretend like you even know what I'm talking about. It's a complex lifestyle, and it's completely natural for you to be confused. Try to visualize the Complex level from Goldeneye. You know there is a shield in that yellow corridor, just like I know there is a part of you that wants to drink something vintage. Find your quantum tonight by drinking like a true gentleman. It sure beats stirring up even more controversy. Because if your like me, you're much more accustomed to shaking up the drama.

Monday, March 23, 2009

The Monday Fossil

I will begin each week by reheating an old nugget from the past that I deem worthy of discussion. I can safely assure you that nothing you read on here will benefit your well-being in any manner whatsoever. Enjoy.

Fossil of the Week: Treasure Trolls


Remember treasure trolls? Of course you do. They made ugly fashionable back in the 80's and 90's. For some reason these ridiculous dolls obtained commodity status. If garbage pail kids were the paper bills, these guys were those vintage silver dollars that your grandpa gave you. But it was never enough to have just 1...or 5...or 50. For some reason it was necessary to own hundreds of them. I remember having some event in first grade called 100 day. The daunting assignment required me to bring in 100 of something. Like a fool, I brought in something like 100 marshmallows. I was probably hoping to squeeze in a round of Chubby Bunny afterward. (The idea of this popular game was to see who could fit the most marshmallows in your mouth without asphyxiating. Genius.) 

Anyway, some clown decided to upstage everyone by bringing in shopping bags full of large, naked, androgynous trolls. That one stuck with me. What a jerk. There is no way I could possibly sleep knowing there is a small army of glossy-eyed mutants staring at me from across the bedroom. (Shiver). I have to hand it to their stylists though. They did have sweet hair. Unless one unfortunately found its way into the washing machine. It then becomes a tangled fro of an enigma that you could spend the rest of your life trying to solve. Kind of like when you got your Sega Genesis controllers all tangled together, only times a trillion.

no thanks 

Am I the only one who was thinking, "Why aren't we euthanizing these trolls and surgically removing their precious stones?" I mean did you see the size of that emerald on his chest? That would have made a lot of money for a kid at that age. With that kind of loot, I would have never had to worry about settling for the Spaghettios without meatballs ever again. I can only hope that one day these miracle monstrosities return to inspire a new generation of nude geology. And a big FU to whoever made the claim that rubbing his gem would make your wishes come true. Jalapeno cheddar flavor blasted Goldfish still do not exist. :(

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Welcome!

Namaste and welcome to my little slice of internet. I'm a long time lurker but a first time blogger. I'm still in beta at the moment, so cut me some slack while I figure this thing out. Some of the features to look forward to will be: The Monday Fossil, The Inspirational Movie Moment of the Week, TV show reviews, What You Should be Drinking, and maybe a little advertising commentary. Don't really want to pigeon-hole myself too much.

That's all for now. I've got a fine cigar and a sifter of cognac waiting patiently for me downstairs. Tune in tomorrow for the Monday Fossil.