Till Bits Loves You
It's been 13 days since Jorn went Olbermann on Cox Bloc? Damn, time flies. In 1993, Neil Young released Lucky Thirteen, a collection of a decade of music so baffling and unpopular that his record company had earlier sued him for not making records that sounded like Neil Young. The release was Young's final work for Geffen before he fulfilled his contract.
In that spirit of 'more of what you probably don't want', here's 13 bits, one for every day we've been away. Don't expect anything as genius as 'Mideast Vacation' though (sample lyric: 'I was Rambo in the disco/shooting to the beat)
1. Although this comes close. I've long known that anything, no matter how traumatic, can be turned into zany laffs with the addition of a little 'Yakety Sax'. Thanks to the Benny Hillifier, you can now enjoy Bryan McCabe in a whole new way! Post your efforts in the comments.
2. The idiocy and illogic of Howard Berger's "I don't watch the Leafs because doctors don't watch ER" was well-skewered over at Pension Plan Puppets. But the real shocker to me was the evidence of Working Class Howard's bourgeois decadence. Identifying with doctors and lawyers? Professing a love for Strauss, Mozart, and Handel, not Skynryd, Springsteen, and Toby Keith? Look out for next week, when WCH is posting recipes for citrus crusted mahi mahi from his iPhone.
3. Help settle a discussion Jorn and I were having. You know that Tim Horton's commercial, where office zombie #1 is bragging about his Tim Horton's mug and gift certificates? Even though there is no present that conveys less thought or knowledge of the recipient? "Uh, I guess you drink coffee cause everyone does so here you go." Christ, why not spring for a bag of air and make it a holiday to remember?
4. Anyways, (you see what I did there?) at the end of that commercial, when office zombie discovers that everyone else got his mug and card combo of skull-crushing boredom, is he acting pissed? What the hell?
5.Who makes worse commercials, Tim Horton's and their unctuous attempts to worm their way into every single goddam experience that happens to a Canadian anywhere in the world, or Rogers and their awful Getalong Gang of frosh leaders? McCain used to be the undisputed champ in this category, but I don't remember them even making a commercial since that one where the guy played spoons while the girl played a green violin.
6. One of the great things about the Internet is how easy it makes to reassure yourself that the fans in other cities are idiots too. Caught some of the Detroit sports radio station. Sandwiched around one assertion that the Tigers need John Smoltz cause he's "an ironman" (28 IP in 2008!) was agreement between callers and hosts that Chris Osgood was a no-doubt Hall of Famer. 400 wins! Two Cups! Andy Moog and Chico Resch must be excited about their forthcoming inductions. Kidding aside, it's interesting to hear the take of other fans. I've always thought of him as a journeyman, but he's certainly a hero in Detroit.
7. Some friends and I were emailing back and forth about the perfect Toronto Sun headline. It had to be one that captured the four wheels on which the paper runs: Leafs, tits, crime, and right-wing opinioneering. My effort?
'HERO HARPER BLASTS STAJAN-HOMOLKA NUDE PIX'
8. Speaking of hackery, irony fans got an early Xmas present today: "Media Show Lack of Empathy For Families of The Dead" was the headline. Can you guess who wrote the article?
9. Kim opined via phone tonite that the Leafs just won't pull off Tavares unless we get a miracle. You never know - Atlanta and New York got where they were by being run very, very, badly, but I think he's right. Especially now that RW has sorted the PK and Toskala has stopped channeling Raycroft. Sigh. And apparently I'm having the same brainwaves as Bill Watters, cause we were both wondering about getting Avery and a first from Dallas. Kill me now. Oh, and the Silver Fox confirmed the Sundin for Grabs-Higgins-1st and Kaberle for Carter-1st tonite. Kill me and keep my ashes in a Tim Horton's mug.
10. Mats Sundin has a simple choice. He can go to New York, and I will be pretty indifferent, or he can go to Vancouver, where there is a non-zero chance I end up hating him.
11. I'm watching The Third Man while writing this, and it is a fantastic movie. Orson Welles' second greatest performance, just ahead of Citizen Kane and just behind his masterwork.
12. Funny, the same thing happened to me last year when I tried to surprise Andrew Raycroft.
13. You know when you watch movies you thought were funny when you were younger, and you go "What the fuck was I thinking?" Seriously, stay away from Black Sheep. Trust me.
Tell me something good....
In that spirit of 'more of what you probably don't want', here's 13 bits, one for every day we've been away. Don't expect anything as genius as 'Mideast Vacation' though (sample lyric: 'I was Rambo in the disco/shooting to the beat)
1. Although this comes close. I've long known that anything, no matter how traumatic, can be turned into zany laffs with the addition of a little 'Yakety Sax'. Thanks to the Benny Hillifier, you can now enjoy Bryan McCabe in a whole new way! Post your efforts in the comments.
2. The idiocy and illogic of Howard Berger's "I don't watch the Leafs because doctors don't watch ER" was well-skewered over at Pension Plan Puppets. But the real shocker to me was the evidence of Working Class Howard's bourgeois decadence. Identifying with doctors and lawyers? Professing a love for Strauss, Mozart, and Handel, not Skynryd, Springsteen, and Toby Keith? Look out for next week, when WCH is posting recipes for citrus crusted mahi mahi from his iPhone.
3. Help settle a discussion Jorn and I were having. You know that Tim Horton's commercial, where office zombie #1 is bragging about his Tim Horton's mug and gift certificates? Even though there is no present that conveys less thought or knowledge of the recipient? "Uh, I guess you drink coffee cause everyone does so here you go." Christ, why not spring for a bag of air and make it a holiday to remember?
4. Anyways, (you see what I did there?) at the end of that commercial, when office zombie discovers that everyone else got his mug and card combo of skull-crushing boredom, is he acting pissed? What the hell?
5.Who makes worse commercials, Tim Horton's and their unctuous attempts to worm their way into every single goddam experience that happens to a Canadian anywhere in the world, or Rogers and their awful Getalong Gang of frosh leaders? McCain used to be the undisputed champ in this category, but I don't remember them even making a commercial since that one where the guy played spoons while the girl played a green violin.
6. One of the great things about the Internet is how easy it makes to reassure yourself that the fans in other cities are idiots too. Caught some of the Detroit sports radio station. Sandwiched around one assertion that the Tigers need John Smoltz cause he's "an ironman" (28 IP in 2008!) was agreement between callers and hosts that Chris Osgood was a no-doubt Hall of Famer. 400 wins! Two Cups! Andy Moog and Chico Resch must be excited about their forthcoming inductions. Kidding aside, it's interesting to hear the take of other fans. I've always thought of him as a journeyman, but he's certainly a hero in Detroit.
7. Some friends and I were emailing back and forth about the perfect Toronto Sun headline. It had to be one that captured the four wheels on which the paper runs: Leafs, tits, crime, and right-wing opinioneering. My effort?
'HERO HARPER BLASTS STAJAN-HOMOLKA NUDE PIX'
8. Speaking of hackery, irony fans got an early Xmas present today: "Media Show Lack of Empathy For Families of The Dead" was the headline. Can you guess who wrote the article?
9. Kim opined via phone tonite that the Leafs just won't pull off Tavares unless we get a miracle. You never know - Atlanta and New York got where they were by being run very, very, badly, but I think he's right. Especially now that RW has sorted the PK and Toskala has stopped channeling Raycroft. Sigh. And apparently I'm having the same brainwaves as Bill Watters, cause we were both wondering about getting Avery and a first from Dallas. Kill me now. Oh, and the Silver Fox confirmed the Sundin for Grabs-Higgins-1st and Kaberle for Carter-1st tonite. Kill me and keep my ashes in a Tim Horton's mug.
10. Mats Sundin has a simple choice. He can go to New York, and I will be pretty indifferent, or he can go to Vancouver, where there is a non-zero chance I end up hating him.
11. I'm watching The Third Man while writing this, and it is a fantastic movie. Orson Welles' second greatest performance, just ahead of Citizen Kane and just behind his masterwork.
12. Funny, the same thing happened to me last year when I tried to surprise Andrew Raycroft.
13. You know when you watch movies you thought were funny when you were younger, and you go "What the fuck was I thinking?" Seriously, stay away from Black Sheep. Trust me.
Tell me something good....
How about some Toronto Star headlines? Only problem is they have soooo many socialist causes that it is hard to fit them into just one but here goes:
"Lack of diversity on Leafs due to child poverty and institutional racism report finds."
Socialist? I always thought of the Star as a big L liberal paper rather than small L. You know, after the Liberals are done campaigning to the left and start governing on the right, the Star is still right there behind them...
There has to be an update on Godwin's Law...labeling everything to the left of Mike Harris as socialist surely has to be an auto-out.
But I guess when the three of the four local newspapers have a right-of-centre editorial policy, people are going to have to get upset about the Toronto Star if they want to keep railing against the liberal media bogeyman.
Kim. Sorry the Toronto Star leans very hard left.
their editorials so closely mirror NDP talking points as to be often indistinguishable.
Notice however I didn't say they were Communist I said Socialist. So can the godwin's law crap.
BTW I would not call the Globe Right of Center any more. They used to be many years ago but now they are pretty much center to slightly left of center. In fact the Globe is pretty much a more centrist version of the Star wrapped around a business section.
I have to disagree. Why is this hard-left NDP editorial position of the Toronto Star not reflected in their endorsements? I can't remember an election when the Star did not endorse the Liberal candidate. You would think that if the Star was in the tank for the NDP, they might actually use their power to try and get them elected.
Whether you said that the Star was socialist rather than communist doesn't really change the point. The Star is most definitely not a socialist newspaper, unless they canned the business section when I wasn't looking and replaced it with a Labour section. The Star, LPC or NDP are not socialist organizations, but if you want to paint them as far-left, I think it fits into some sort of bizarro Godwin`s Law.
Come on Meat, you were one of us once! Its time to dig out those Clash records and remember what it was like to agitate for social justice and make fun of the Toronto Sun`s comedy headlines. Join us. One of us. Join us. One of us...
Hey Meatriarchy,
I forgot to mention that the Star already ran a headline similar to yours, except it was about baseball and didn't have a report to support it...just the wildly inflammatory conjecture of Geoff Baker and Richard Griffin.
I remember the "white jays" headline I blogged extensively about it when it occurred. Trouble with trying to make fun of Star headlines is that they have already done them all.
That particular piece was pretty typical of the whole paper though.
Kim any party whose basic premise is that profit is evil is socialist. That is the NDP they used to say that in their party platform - I don't know if they have secretly removed it lately - I don't read their crap that much any more.
As for the Star's co called business section it could easily be called the labour section. IT has always been comprised of two types of stories: some sort of consumer fraud piece about how business is ripping people off, and some story about how some workers got laid off or didn't get hired because of their affiliation. YAWN.
Well, I guess we'll have to agree to hate the Toronto Star for totally different reasons.
What's with Till not responding to any of the comments on his posts? Is this some sort of nod to Cox and Berger? What is going on? George Bell was a deserving choice for AL MVP in 1987.
You are banned.
And what's with freaking Hannity and Colmes part 2? Doesn't anyone want to bitch about Timmy's commercials? Did anyone follow the links?
I followed the links. The Benny Hill one is fantastic.
So, with the addition of Adam Everett, do the Tigers now have the best offence in the history of baseball? Will they score 1000 runs? Was Steve Phillips one year too early?
Tim Horton's: their coffee takes like it was brewed in the carburetor of a 1973 Plymouth Fury that ran on fully leaded gas and hasn't had an oil change since '74. The only redeeming quality of Tim Horton's is that their price is their price. Doesn't matter if it's an off ramp in Barrie, admist the gougers at the ACC or in an international airport - a cup of their horrific coffee is always the same price. For that, I applaud them (I still don't want to drink their brown swill though). Oh, and they usually give my kids a free timbit when we stop in on the way to the cottage.
On commercials: my rather addled and generally confused brother in-law thought Cialis was a memory drug. Why else would that couple have burned the turkey, left the tub running and forgotten to let out the dog?
The Third Man freakin' rocks.
I have no headline for you, but the Ottawa Sun ran a photo of an adorable Asian child on Santa's lap in December of 1991 or '92 with the cutline "Cute little Nipper"
Blazing Saddles didn't live up to the memories I had of it as a nine or ten year old. At least Airplane still had that magical scene after the quivering jello.
My main complaint with the Rogers commercials is the one where the one kid is going back to school. All his friends are hanging out in his room (which looks like a classroom), but none of them know his mom's name is 'Ellen'?
Pike - great points about Timmy's, but my biggest product-related beef with them is that they have sold out the traditional donut store in favour of shitty bagels and chicken stew in a freaking bread bowl. I haven't seen an honest cherry cruller in years.
And that headline is tremendous. I would love to see a copy of that.
Ray-Exactly! Especially as knowing your friend's mom's name is a STAPLE of making mom jokes. The one where the guy prefers some shitty Blackberry to getting a dog is also fist-bitingly awful.
I actually think that Touch of Evil is better than the Third Man. A lot better actually, although I acknowledge that this is a minority opinion.