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Budweiser, Condoms and Cigarettes, Oh My!

2011-04-27T14:32:36Z

While walking near work in Minneapolis, I encountered the following items in the following order. They tell a story...

First, I came upon an empty twelve-pack of Budweiser, "The King of Beers." In reality, I understand that Budweiser is actually "The Ford Taurus of Beers." By this I mean that it is widespread, readily available, thoroughly unimpressive, and what you buy when you're simply settling for something to get the job done in the most pedestrian manner possible. Whoever drank this did it in a rapid, no-nonsense, workmanlike manner. And it worked, because twenty feet later I found this...

Yep. Durex "Bare" condoms...when Trojans are just too extravagant. We have The Ford Taurus of Beers and the Stephen Baldwin of Condoms. This litter is the by-product of the romantic atmosphere that can only be created by a night in Uptown, a twelve-pack of Bud, and the warm, sensual glow from the Super America. Not only that, but notice that whoever was using these was thoughtful and sensitive enough to spit out their chewing gum. That's the type of love Teddy Pendergrass would sing about. And apparently it all worked out, because this was just a few feet away...

His and hers cigarettes. Good night, Uptown. Stay classy.

When Stock Photos Go Wrong Pt. 3: The Final Conflict

2011-04-25T02:09:41Z

I promise this is the final installment of this series. I just felt there were still some unanswered questions. If you haven't seen them, you can check out When Stock Photos Go Wrong and When Stock Photos Go Wrong Pt. 2 in order to get up to speed on what these abominations are.

"Our planned community will be entirely populated by families assembeld from kits sold by Ikea."

Yes, when they're not modeling for the cover shots of Baby Bjorn boxes, these poreless, alabaster automatons will be a constant reminder of your shortcomings.

"Every day when you awaken, you will be paid a tribute of eight gingerbread men whose genitals have been frosted by local prom queens."

Because that's the American dream!

"Construction would be finished already, but we hired this guy, and it's obvious he's never used his tools even once."

Look at him. Everything he's wearing is brand new. For some reason, he put his tools in his tool belt handles down, so when he needs them, he's going to pull them out by the wrong end. He has two adjustable crescent wrenches, which is ironic because the adjustable crescent wrench was designed so you wouldn't have to carry a multitude of non-adjustable wrenches--much less two different adjustable ones. He is carrying a tape measure over his crotch. And on top of all this, he only owns a four-step step ladder, and the top one is not a step. This guy is single-handedly responsible for every single construction delay in North America. He is actually a less realistic representation of a contractor than Handy Manny.

Thus ends our exploration of Calhoun Square's horrible stock photos. I actually had aseveral more, but I fear this series may be over-staying its welcome. I hope you have enjoyed it while it has lasted.

When Stock Photos Go Wrong Pt. 2

2011-04-22T18:24:30Z

If you missed the previous post, you can find it here.

The series of pictures below is devoted to the awkward and forced depiction of diversity in corporate stock photos. Let us begin...

"Once completed, our urban shopping center will attract non-threatening African American families in search of fibrous gourds."

I have spent roughly three hours of my life searching for one thing in this photo that makes sense. Here are just a few of the questions the above photo raises:

1. Why did they pick out the single, smallest pumpkin in the whole patch?

2. Who puts on business casual attire to shop for agricultural goods?

3. Why is the woman "Ricky Bobby-ing" with her left hand?

But wait, because this one is a two parter...

"We will offer flowers so beautiful, they will make you forget your children."

This photo was just mere steps away from the last one. The two pictures tell a story...the story of a couple that found out they loved plants so much that they traded their only daughter for some easy to maintain ground cover. Hemingway once said his favorite story only contained the six words, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." I believe this is the sequel.

Also, this couple apparently bursts into flame if they aren't smashed up against each other at all times.

"At our new restaurants, your food will be prepared by the finest underage Asian labor that Craigslist has to offer."

Apparently this situation occurs enough that someone actually manufactures child-size commercial aprons and chef hats. Also, I don't care how good a baker this kid is, she needs to wipe that smug smile off her face. Don't get cocky! If you throw around too much attitude while you're cooking, your parents will trade you for a nice box of azaleas.

I have another round of these which I will probably post on Monday. Until then, enjoy your sterile representations of idealized cultural commerce.

When Stock Photos Go Wrong

2011-04-21T04:16:32Z

I was walking past Calhoun Square, a shopping center in Uptown Minneapolis, looking at the various remodeling projects that are underway. Calhoun Square has always been a development with serious identity issues, and it seems it is about to be "transformed" once again. To signify this, the developers have dozens of stock photos on the temporary walls covering the many closed shops--one of which was once a designer pajama store--that "seemed like a good idea at the time." These stock photos seem to be sending mixed messages about what is to come for Calhoun Square's new shopping, dining and residential experiences.

Here is how I interpret said photos:

"Once completed, you will all rejoice--although one of you will not be having as good a time as everyone else."

Yes, it appears the earthbound "Get-Me-Someone-Vaguely-Reminiscent-Of-Julie-Bowen" type on the right was clearly told this was a no-jump shoot, which is why she didn't wear flats ("They make me look squatty!"). She looks like she just got kicked in the back.

"My new condo has Wi-Fi! Too bad I can't afford a damn chair!"

I have actually seen this same stock photo used in at least two other places. Whoever she is, she sure dressed up to sit on the floor. It also makes me wonder what the hell she's celebrating. Here are some possibilities:

1. "I just got my corn watered on Farmville!" (Or whatever. I don't play Farmville. I find it ridiculous that there are more Americans who play Farmville than there are actual farmers. Also, I have done work on a farm. It sucks on a Grapes of Wrathian level.)

2. "I booted! They said I couldn't use a computer because I'm a girl, but they were wrong!" (There is something ironically girl-power about this image. For her to be celebrating whatever she is to this exent, it could only mean that no one thought she could do it. Thus, her victory only reflects the inherent sexism of the image. Deep enough for you?)

3. "Thirty-three messages from J-Date!" (I have no reason to believe she is Jewish or lonely, I just like the specificity of the reference. Smile to yourself if you did, too.)

4. "Someone is following me on Twitter!" (She will be crushed when she finds out @frontierjusticerobot3000 is her mom.)

5. "Express is lowering the waistline of their Editor pant!" (It bothers me that I know what this means.)

"Enjoy shopping at our many, nameless shops with their logo-free bags, and bring the children you obviously kidnapped from people of other ethnicities!"

Look at that little girl in his arms and tell me she isn't looking for an escape route. She is mentally texting an Amber Alert even as the United Colors of Benetton continue their unmotivated laughing spree. She desperately needs to get away, as she has to get the shard to the Crystal before the Great Conjunction, otherwise the Skeksis will rule forever. (Bonus points to anyone who actually gets that little gem from my childhood.)

"Come experience the romance that only our restaurants and Jason Schwartzman in a wig can provide."

Come for the hair, stay for the Beatles boots.

"The new fitness center inspires me to work out...but, obviously, not enough. I'm so lonely."

Look at the forced smile, the layered workout gear, the prominent use of black clothing with a contained white silhouette to provide an illusory waifishness. This is a woman who is not happy with herself, and now she is not happy with herself for all eternity in a public arena where she must speak for women like her everywhere. Godspeed, stationary bike woman. Godspeed.

Check back soon for more of these. Believe it or not, they get much, MUCH more bizarre.

Bryon Russell = A 6'10" Ball-Handling German

2011-04-10T04:04:52Z

In the realm of completely random, I just discovered that I am being followed on Twitter by Bryon Russell, former Utah Jazz, Denver Nuggets and Washington Wizards swingman. This has to be some completely random, automated Twitter-followbot that has led to this situation, as there is no way Bryon Russell would care what I am ordering at Chipotle. This is why I love the internet--because this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. This is exactly the type of random six-degreeism that will eventually lead to world peace or the complete annihilation of the human species. I would rank this particular coincidence as slightly more likely than being drunk-dialed by Vladimir Putin or poked by Jessica Alba, but it's still pretty weird.

However, I was a huge Jazz fan during Russell's tenure, so I checked out his Twitter feed. When I did, Twitter's "suggestions for you" listed Detlef Schrempf as "similar to Bryon Russell." You have to be a true NBA fan to understand how both incredibly accurate and incredibly inaccurate that statement is.

The "similar to" algorithm embedded in Twitter is either a huge NBA fan, or it randomly has a spot-on sense of humor. Either way, this random occurence just made my night.

I Review Sucker Punch Without Actually Seeing It

2011-03-25T00:31:34Z

I have a wife, two kids and approximately thirty-seven jobs. As a result, I see 0.5 movies annually. I really want to see Sucker Punch for all the wrong reasons, but I probably won't be able to until well after Chris Brown has mellowed. To make myself feel better, I am going to review it based on what I have gleaned from the above trailer and the advertising Blitzkrieg that has assaulted every aspect of my conscious and subconscious.

Apparently one night while free-basing Frank Miller comics, Zack Snyder got high enough to ask himself, "What would happen if Michael Bay directed a Lifetime original movie?" The resulting nerdgasm genetically fuses Burlesque and Sailor Moon in a sepia-hued boss battle of seizure-mongering. At the center of this non-stop onslaught of onslaughtering is a young woman empowering-ly known as Baby Doll.

Baby Doll has been committed to an insane asylum, presumably after being driven mad by constantly being forced to walk in slow motion. As opposed to a normal insane asylum, however, she has been placed in Wuthering Heights, which has become a repository for over-sexualized orphans who constantly re-enact the B-roll footage from Annie's "Hard Knock Life" number in the most seductive way possible. Actress Emily Browning, who originally thought she was auditioning to play bait for NBC's To Catch a Predator, endures the tortures of institutional life through a strict regimen of pouting and mouth breathing intended to distance herself from her performance in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events while remaining attractive to Jim Carrey.

Faced with the threat of lobotomization, Baby Doll retreats deeper into a fantasy world not of her own imagining, but of a committee of thirteen year-old boys. There she is advised by Scott Glenn's slightly more jagged but much less dead turn as David Carradine that she must find five objects: a map, a knife, fire, a key, and a fifth object that is a mystery--presumably the outline of the plot. (Note: If I were a betting man, I would put it on the button that hits the floor in super slo-mo in the trailer. Probably wrong, but a possibility.) These items must be found in a video game mission format in order to put the enigma of femininity into a digestible format for the target audience. To complete these missions, Baby Doll recruits a mix of sultry ethnicities so that sexuality may be presented buffet-style. They do so while wearing costumes designed by Christina Aguilera after she did ecstasy in an army surplus store. Each of these fetching warriors represents an archetype of fanboy desire: doe-eyed schoolgirl, Asian dragon-lady, ginger vamp, and Carla Gugino. Even Vanessa Hudgens navigates the screen in a glycerin-soaked slither, ensuring the movies ongoing success on Blu-Ray played in windowless vans behind Circle-Ks throughout the nation.

Together, the femmandoes form an efficient fighting force driven to violence after Suicide Girls rejected them for being too hot. They launch an all-out assault on a world where anything is possible--except a conventional camera angle. Apparently all normal sized tripods are being used for machine guns, as Snyder's camera's are either low enough to capture the rain of spent shell casings or high enough to delve into the depths of cleavage. In the meantime, the Boo-Ya Sisterhood is attacked, oddly, by a series of other movies. Dawn of the Dead, The Lord of the Rings, I Robot, Kill Bill and The Baby-Sitters' Club all converge on the heroines. While the melange of images is confusing, one thing is clear--all blimps are evil and must be destroyed.

Baby Doll and her metaphorical mechanical bunnies battle their way through their foes, occasionally using actual mechanical bunnies. In the end she discovers the truth that sets her free. The secret to female empowerment is looking, dressing and acting exactly the way men have wanted you to all along.

I give it seventy-seven stars.

There you have it. Will someone with a life please tell me how accurate I am after they see it?

Minneapolis Foregos Snow Emergency, Announces Snow Surrender

2011-03-23T18:46:22Z

Much to the chagrin of unrealistic Midwestern martyrs, it is snowing like hell in Minneapolis-St. Paul today. As I was commuting this morning, it seemed that the municipality had decided to clear the roads using a concentrated strategy of inaction and denial. Finally, late in the morning, I saw snow plows at work.

Although I have lived in the Metro area since 1995, I don't think I have ever seen the Hennepin County logo until today. When you see it, you suddenly realize why we were so unprepared for today's snowfall. Any government that would approve a logo so easily mistaken for a graphical representation of a reservoir-tipped prophylactic obviously doesn' have much foresight--which is ironic, since the logo would make you think they're all about prevention. In any case, when I see one of these logos plowing past me, I choose to believe it is just the county's way of saying, "Practice safe driving." And remember, when you're plowing a road, you're also plowing everyone who has ever plowed that road before.

I Think I'm Freaking Out my Netflix Account

2011-03-23T03:11:50Z

The Netflix Distribution Center, where your entertainment is packaged and sent by the most efficient means known to man: middle-aged Asian women.As far as Netflix goes, I was late to the mail-order party. I live a few blocks from a Blockbuster, and I have always been able to just walk and get a movie any time I wanted. But now that store is vying with Charlie Sheen and the giant panda in a contest to see who wants it the least, and my hand has been forced. So far the experience has been great, as Netflix has a better selection and the price is more reasonable, and I don't have to deal with those things they have in all video stores--what do they call them again? Oh, yeah! People.

Now, however, I have to deal with the smug little self-satisfied algorithm that tells me what it thinks I will like based on my choices and ratings in the past. Here's the problem: I share the account with my wife and children. Thus, Netflix Instant is faced with the dilemna of what to recommend to an entity that gives five stars to Chan-wook Park's Oldboy, Sissy Spacek's Coal Miner's Daughter, and The Backyardigans' Super Secret Super Spy.

I am not a movie snob. I will go see the next Transformers installment simply because I enjoy seeing robots whomping on other robots. I will leave the theatre cursing everyone involved with the production, but I will have enjoyed it on the same robot-whomping level as my four year-old. That being said, I also enjoy foreign films, indie darlings, and the occasional romantic comedy. The one thing I can't stand about movies, however, is predictability, and this is what leads me to watch foreign films and some of the more obscure things floating around out there. As I have said before, the difference between an Asian film and an American film is that in an American film, a baby may be tied to the railroad tracks, and the hero will swoop in at the last second and save the baby. In an Asian film, the baby is sitll tied to the railroad tracks and the hero still swoops in and saves it, but then he sharpens it and uses it to stab another baby. You never see that coming.

This need to be surprised combined with the preferences of my wife and kids leads to a bit of a conundrum for the movie suggesting computer at Netflix. I assume this is why all it ever tells me to watch is season four of Monk.

For some of my past posts on movies, click here, here, here, here and here.

I Thought Nothing Could Make Me Dislike Dr. Pepper

2011-03-16T02:40:32Z

I just saw the Dr. Pepper Cherry commercial starring Fergie of The Black-Eyed Peas. I can only descirbe her wardrobe as the Elvira, Mistress of the Night Maternity Collection. It seems the core message of the commercial is that Dr. Pepper Cherry causes bloating and jowliness.

Apparently, someone showed her a photo negative of Gwen Stefani circa 1999 and she just decided to run with it. All I can say is that if Mr. Pepper truly is a doctor, this ad must somehow violate the Hippocratic Oath. Somehwere, Josh Duhamel is cowering in a corner, praying for the nightmare to stop.

This actually might have been more appealing if they had gotten Taboo, but apparently he can only appear in physical form if you first watch a black and white video tape that ends with a glowing ring.

Show me any scenario where you wake up and see the thing pictured above at the foot of your bed and you do anything other than soil yourself and start reciting the rosary. I dare you.

How could you, Dr. Pepper? How could you? I'm not mad. I'm just...disappointed.

Let's Take a Deep Breath and Think About This, Taco Bell

2011-03-07T02:44:36Z

I have always loved Taco Bell. While I occasionally might not be in the mood for a burger and fries, while I have always considered the dining experience at Subway to be akin to eating out of a friend's refrigerator, and while I want to slap anyone who offers me a panini, I have always been easily persuaded to make a run for the border. When others were criticizing Taco Bell's beef content, I was simply ordering three times as many tacos to make up the difference. Indeed, in my mind the taco was not 64% empty, but rather 36% full.

My devotion has been steadfast. I once listened to a story from a restaurant sanitation specialist that detailed the invasion and complete conquest of a combination Taco Bell and KFC by an enormous and apparently very determined and well organized colony of rats, and all the while I was thinking to myself, "I'm going to go through a Taco Bell drive through on the way home." I did, and I didn't regret it. You could Secret of NIMH the hell out of my local Bell, and I would still dine with Nicodemus.

I have persisted even in the face of strong evidence that Taco Bell wasn't as committed to the relationship as I was. They have consistently done away with my favorite menu items. They insist on trying to make their sauce packets humorous rather than readily available. They even found a way to make Charles Barkley not awesome. On top of all of this, I once went through a drive through in Dayton, Ohio and was asked what I would like to order. I told them I wanted a Big Beef Burrito Supreme and a Beef Meximelt. The disembodied adolescent voice on the other end of the intercom responded, "I'm sorry, we're out of beef." Take a moment and contemplate the series of epic failures necessary to create that situation.

Nevertheless, I have kept the faith--until now.

Tonight, I saw an ad for this:

Behold, the Pacific Shrimp Taco.

"Six succulent shrimp, marinated in spices, topped with crisp shredded lettuce, creamy avocado ranch and fiesta salsa, and served up in a taco."

Let's be honest with ourselves, Taco Bell: just because you can acquire and sell shellfish doesn't mean you should. Your reach has exceeded your grasp, and just as Alexander tasted bitter defeat as ambition overextended him in the Asian subcontinent, so will you taste bitter defeat as greed overextends you into the undiscovered country of Crustacia. When I look at the genetic discards firing sour cream out of a re-purposed caulk gun behind your counters, I rarely think, "These are the people I want preparing my seafood delicacies."

Also, I have a number of firm beliefs. Among these, I believe seafood should cost more than a Snickers. I fear that Taco Bell may test this belief, and they will pay the price. The streets will run orange with the puke of the non-believers, and no amount of caramel apple empanadas will cleanse their mouths of the taste of shrimpstank. I will laugh heartily from within my hip-waders of judgment, and they will rue their choice of fourth meal. And who gave them the false-confidence to believe they could handle the preparation of a food that requires de-veining? I blame you, Top Chef.

Taco Bell, take my advice: make sure you're well stocked with partial-beef, and stick to what you know.