Aqua Teen Hunger Force
You may or may not have accepted the doctor’s offer to arm you to the teeth with an assortment of painkillers. If you turned him or her down, viewing Aqua Teen Hunger Force may lead you to suspect that the pharmie-soaked hospital air may have precipitated some pretty wacky meds into your ginger ale. This animated series stars three gigantic, anthropomorphic fast food menu items (Meatwad, a honey-filled meatball; Master Shake, a milkshake; and Frylock, an order of French fries) who have supposedly come to earth to fight crime. They reside on the Jersey Shore next to a dude named Carl whose automobile sports the decal “2 Wykyd.” The three get visits from some pretty trippy villains each episode. My favorite installment involves a pair of frat boy aliens who crash their spaceship into the heroes’ front yard. One constantly proclaims, “Dude, my dad totally owns a dealership.” Then there’s the one where Shake rewrites the birthday song and subsequently gets visits from Zack Wylde and Geddy Lee (who lands his bass guitar-shaped jet on their front lawn). So, the funny thing is, I’ve read interviews with the creators; they claim that there is no drug intake involved in the writing of the show, aside from caffeine. I suppose I believe that, considering Zappa was drug free.
theonion.com
In every workday, there comes a time when the caffeine wears off. The day’s tasks…suddenly hit a stretch….of blurry tedium. Haze sets in. At this point fully functioning individuals can bipedally make their way on down to the neighborhood caffeinery and thus gain a needed pick-me-up. Unipedal individuals who have a staircase or two to contend with are left with few options for late afternoon brain stimulation. This is when I dial up theonion.com. The humor featured on this fake news source is wickedly sharp. Most headlines warrant at least a giggle. (Ex.: “Kitten thinks of nothing but murder all day.”) Plus they’ve got video and audio news. (Ex.: “Cindy McCain claims that she’s just like any other female human.”) My favorite Onion story ever was titled “Bush executes 253 New Mexico Democrats.” It ran shortly after the 2000 election, when Gore had won New Mexico by an extremely slim margin. Yet while I’m drawn to its political “coverage,” The Onion is pretty damn clever in every arena, from the featured columnists to the spot-on sports news satire.
Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail
It’s actually been a while since I’ve seen this one…last time it was wintertime my freshman year of college in New Mexico. My best friends Josh and Rowyn and I were drinking Carlo Rossi with Mike and Ikes dissolved into it. Hey, we were a classy bunch. Now that I am essentially immobile it may be time to revisit this classic. I have a lot of spare time these days. Of course much has changed since my last Grail viewing: this time I’ll be watching it on DVD instead of VHS, I’ve graduated to mid-range pinot noir and I wouldn’t run over a box of Mike and Ikes with my shitty minivan. This flick’s appeal for the temporarily incapacitated lies in its taking place during a time when there was little medical care beyond bloodlettings and allowing leeches to crawl on you. Thus those with fractured metatarsals simply had a limp for the rest of their lives. Then again, few women of the Middle Ages lived far beyond 24, so at 26 I’d be doing pretty well if a broken bone is my only complaint. MTW
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