Monday, August 29, 2011

New sport gets off on the right foot


Pogs. Cabbage Patch Kids. Troll Dolls. Furbies. Auto-erotic asphyxiation. Tickle Me Elmo. Auto-erotic asphyxiation of Cabbage Patch Kids. Silly Bandz.

All of these trends have swept the nation and with good cause—they exist. With that knowledge, I'm quite a bit excited www.breakmentaldown.com can tell you about some great news afoot. I can reveal to you the latest and greatest trend that every schoolyard child will be playing this fall, Boomerfoot.

Anyone who hasn't heard of this game obviously wasn't isn't the biggest sports enthusiast. Basically the game is played like any boomerang-based game, but instead of using a boomerang, the players use a foot, generally their own left foot. It helps that when squinted at correctly, a foot vaguely resembles a boomerang.
One of the early great of Boomerfoot tradition. He hit
seven people with the foot before gangrene did him in.

For example, wallaby hunts are pretty boring, because boomerangs are boring, but swap out that 'rang for a 'foot, and you've got yourself a sport. I don't even need to get into the transformative effect this sport has on rupee collection.

For those sitting there saying “Sooooo, you're expecting schoolyard children to cut off their right foot and use it as a boomerang in some weird take off of Ultimate Frisbee,” I want to reassure you, this is NOT my intention. These kids must cut off their left foot, the air foils inherent to the southpaw side give it much better returnability. But yes, that is the general idea of what I want them to do.

Boomerfooting got its start during the Great Depression, and only now will it do like its namesake and return to popularity. Sure, many of the original players died of sepsis, but with modern medical technology, that should no longer present any problems.

How exactly is this game played? The answer to that is simple, the hell if I know. With all these trend things, nobody knew what to do with them, they just knew Johnny Trendfollower had them and therefore they needed it for themselves. I used to babysit for a kid who had well over 100 Beanie Babies. As he pulled each individual one out of the duffel bag where he kept them, I asked what purpose they served.

“They fit in the bag,” was his only response.

So to fit my feet in a bag (metaphorically), all I need to do is show the children how funny it is to hit a classmate/relative/interdimensional space leprechaun with a foot. I'll highlight the bonus point garnered when said foot has a pus-filled in-grown toenail.

Like its namesake, Boomerfooting is making a glorious return after nearly dying off in the Great Depression. Some might claim most of the participants back then died of sepsis.

The big question with this game is how do we monetize it? It's well known that Silly Bandz snap on a daily basis and Pogs always get stolen out of my fourth grade classroom by Randy. And since Randy became a cocaine addict in his later years, lord knows he's never giving back these items, so kids must buy more! And more! And more!

Monetization can therefore come from the sales of accessories. Imagine a Boomerfoot branded hacksaw, or as I like to called it, a “footsaw.” And since it's highly unhygienic to share hacksaws (even worse than insulin needles) I can sell one to every kid in America. Even better, the really stupid ones might buy two of them to cut off both feet! Sure, they'll be incapacitated for life, but I'll make an extra $19.99 plus applicable state tax.
We'll probably need a factory dedicated
solely to Buscemi-foot production.

Another reason these trends are so popular is because of all different depictions of pop culture on the items. From the Silly Band shaped like the titular character of “Human Centipede” to troll dolls with green hair, there's a fad for every taste out there. If kids are just cutting off their own feet, there's very little collectability in the endeavor. Don't worry, I have it all thought out—celebrity feet.

Getting hit in the head by a normal foot is annoying, but getting hit in the head by Steve Buscemi's foot would be a conversation piece. Suddenly I can claim the bump on my head isn't a birth defect, but it's where Mr. Pink stashed the diamonds or maybe it's where the talent he wastes appearing in Adam Sandler films hides.

With that said, I encourage everyone to suit up, chop off and have an amazing time playing the trend of tomorrow, boomerfoot.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Top 52 Moments Where BreakMentalDown Broke Me

In celebration of my 50th post, I have decided to highlight some of the 52 greatest tidbits I've had to cut from BreakMentalDown.com postings. I really wish they could have made it into the original ones, but you know, the man and all.

1. The North Star only points true north on Groundhog's Day and the third Sunday of every month. When those times overlap, it's a sign you need to get a new calendar.
2. Nobody likes Monopoly, either the concept or the game. Especially the game.
3. VHS tapes represent the pinnacle of home video entertainment.
4. The secret in Pop-Secret? Heroin.
Sprinkle a little Tylenol PM on it and you have a wonderfully cheesy snack.
 5. Boxes of cereal open just as well from the bottom as they do from the top. It's the closing that gets affected.
 6. Dogs aren't allowed to ride on planes, because airlines don't want to have to keep giving out frequent “WOOF” miles.
 7. Qat is a valid Scrabble word. I don't care if you don't know what it means, the official Scrabble dictionary does. See also, qafir, xi and Kevinrulz.
 8. I could never tell Huey from Dewey on “Duck Tales.”
9. One of the good things to come out of the Cold War was toenails. The Russians invented the toenail clipper and needed something to use it for. Only after a ghastly eugenically-inspired experiment, did we find a use for the keratin cutters.
10. Mick Jagger wrote “You Can't Always Get What You Want” as an FU to Keith Richards when Richards suggested they should make “A Rolling Stones song that's actually good.”
11. You're never too old to play on a swing set. You're always old enough to be deemed a pedophile.
12. If drivers' licenses were made out of chocolate, everyone would want one.
13. Free samples are like “Trick or Treats” for adults.
14. Humans and chipmunks are the only species capable of using cell phones.
(Sigh) For the millionth time, I
can hear you now.
15. The Ultimate Warrior, former WWF superstar, was elected as prime minister of French Guiana after a joke went viral in 2005. However, his initiatives on dropping African debt and nuclear weapon disarmament have won him unprecedented support and will likely lead to his re-election.
16. If you're ever lost, just look for an evergreen tree. The shape of it forms an arrow, so you always know where the sky is located.
17. When a group of children is describing what different clouds look like, the only correct thing to do is tell them they're wrong, and explain all clouds look like condensed water droplets.
18. Water covers 2/3 of the Earth. The remaining portion is divided equally amongst landmass, ants, McDonald's grease and aunts.
19. Hey, you have some updog on your shoulder. Oh, not much, how about you?
20. George Foreman calls it "The Me."
21. Nachos represent the most perfect food source. There's a reason entire civilizations rise and fall based upon access to “Nacho Typical Eatery” franchises.
22. If I could time travel, I'd go back to November 12, 1955. I could then link up with Marty McFly and go “Back to the Future,” all the way to 2010. A 2010 with hoverboards!
23. It's purely a coincidence that trees have bark, while dogs also bark.
24. Turn signals are a myth.
25. Popular people are popular because they're really really really neat.
26. If cats ran the world, all commerce would be based upon access to yarn.
27. Whenever “My Favorite Martian” comes on the TV, I indignantly shout “That’s an outright lie! I love the Royal Commander Zebluncon so much more!”
28. One of the secret ingredients in Dr. Pepper is “crap... literal crap, like from a donkey or small child.”
29. You can see Brad Pitt's penis if you pause the Blu-ray of “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas” at the 29 minute, 32 second mark.
Only problem, it may or may not
be animated.
30. The original name for Apple Computers was “Dr. Steve's House of Hubba Hubba Sex.”
31. Pickle relish makes a surprisingly effective toothpaste.
32. Athlete's foot medication gets rid of invasive fungi like portabella and truffles.
33. One time one of my friends accidentally used a fork instead of a spoon. True story, from that day forth we called him "Johnny Spoonless." And then one of my friends who worked for the city was actually able to legally change that to Johnny's name! It got him a couple jobs, because he'd be interviewing and the interviewer would say "I've got plenty of spoons here, we can bond over this!" Oh, if he just hadn't been a homicidal maniac, he would have kept those jobs too!
34. If you heat up gazpacho, you get soup.
35. The Dewey Decimal system is inherently racist.
36. The male form of a chicken is a turkey.
37. The porno XXX version of “Charlotte's Web” should be required reading in all middle schools. It taught me... lots.
38. “DeGrassi: The Next Generation” is one of the few sequels to surpass the original.
39. Candy corn makes a surprisingly good pizza topping.
40. Do not put snap bracelets in the microwave.
41. All ice cream men come from the horrific ice planet of Schmee. You'll note they never eat their own product, because that would be cannibalism.
42. People once used America On-Line for something other than launching the spam empires.
This work should have also won the
New Zealand FX house an Oscar.
43. The sun is not created by Industrial Light & Magic.
44. Zombies are as warm and cuddly as they seem.
45. One day the 29th amendment to the Constitution of the United States will outlaw use of the letter M. It will be a very controversial and confusing aendent.
46. “Wheel of Fortune” was invented in 1952 in Boca Raton, FL as a way of deciding which death row inmates would next receive the electric chair.
47. “The Sound of Music” inspired a 14-year-old James Cameron to pen the scripts for both “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “Sneeze,” the season six episode of “Smallville” over the course of a weekend.
48. The original martini was created by the Aztecs who used a CuisinArt to combine chocolate, tequila and the brain matter of their most feared enemy/best friend (two brains).
49. Throughout history, messenger bags have only been used by actual messengers four times.
50. You'd think Boogey Man attacks would mainly focus upon children. This is true, he's taken over 5,000,000 souls of children, and only three adults.
51. Bitching sauce is bitchingness distilled down to its purest form.
52. Pepsi Throwback actually has seven times as much cocaine as the original Pepsi formula.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Speed bumps cause bump in idiocy


Oh my! I almost went through that thing that's merely intended to slow cars down! I need to come to a complete stop—for the safety of humanity! No, I'm not talking about stop signs, because those actually work, I'm talking about the lowly speed bump. Oh yeah, I'm also being sarcastic.

Speed bumps are supposed to instill a weird sense of fear in people. And people do take them to heart and make certain to stop at the “slow down” bump—counter to the bump's intentions. They take the “bump” aspect far too much to heart and do not realize how much they're annoying the people behind them—me.

The other day I was driving through the parking lot of a community college, I got behind a guy who SLAMMED on his brakes right before a speed bump. He then proceeded over it at a snail's pace. This registered as a tad annoying, but then it got strange. The parking lot had a stop sign about 100 feet away from said speed bump. I expected Mr.-by-the-book to again nail his brakes when he got to that intersection. But nope, he blasted right on through it. I, being the dutiful person I am, stopped at the stop sign and avoided getting slammed into by a bus roughly 18 times the size of my car. It was one of those rare times where following the rules saved my life, or at the very least a $500 deductible.

The math is quite simple.
People really need to learn how to use speed bumps. If they were called stop bumps, I could understand, but they take it to a ridiculous level, bordering on crazy. When someone comes to a complete stop at a speed bump, sure, it does live up to the mission of the bump, it does makes people slow down. But by similar logic, dying is a fantastic way to drop a couple pounds (although that last 23.1 pounds is an absolute killer).
Some might claim speeding over a speed bump could wreck up the alignment of the tires or the tilt of the earth upon its axis, or do absolutely nothing. I'll admit, those are all scary fates (particularly the last one), but I think we should just rely on the only driving advice my brother gave me “the faster you go, the less you'll feel.” While this also holds true for sex, it's fits even better for speed bumps. I'm not sure about its relation to “speed humps” though.

Speed bumps do create the rather large problem of people rear ending idiots, and in that case, the idiots are legally viewed as in the right, despite their extreme idiot-dom for stopping at something that doesn't need stopping. Geez, what idiots.

Just imagine this times several tens of thousands.
There's really only one solution—make the bumps bigger. I don't want a mere speed bump, with its three to four inches of clearane, I want a “Speed Everest.” If you make something as tall as the highest peak in the world, people aren't going to come to a stop before mounting that 29,000 vertical feet. They will do what you should do at a speed bump and floor it. The only problem with this solution is it might kill off a staggering amount of people trying to climb the dreaded “Mile Marker 57 Bump.” But not everyone can be Sir Edmund Hillary, and they're just collateral damage in this speed bump concept renovation.

Once this idea gets off the ground (ha!) everyone can feel free to get out there and drive safe, no longer will the fear of rear-ending an idiot weigh heavily on drive time thoughts. Although there might be an increase in thinking along the lines of “I hope this atmospheric pressure doesn't crush my Smart Car.”

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Introducing the toast of the town... toast!

You see that button right there? Press it. But don't press it again, just wait, it will all work out. With a little patience, we're seconds away from entering flavor country—better get your passport out. Don't rush it, please do wait. With my excellent advice, soon the toast shall rise. Soon you'll be happy.

I go through this ritual every time I bring heat to bread. The reason it brings such happiness should be obvious—toast is delicious.

Many people don't realize the insane bump in flavor of toast compared to bread. They're kind of like entry-level toasters. They'll create toast just to have something to go with their bacon and eggs, but they'll do little else. To them, a toaster is merely a way to get Eggos from the freezer into the belly in a somewhat less animalistic fashion.
The cuteness of this toast almost makes
me feel bad for consuming it. Almost.

Here's where I become brutally honest. I actually lived as one of those people for an entire year. No wait, I did far worse than just not using a toaster, I didn't even have one. No, it wasn't blasphemy 9or the far worse uber-blasphemy), at the time, I just didn't realize the foolishness of my actions. I might have been tucked away in a studio apartment with a thimble kitchen that could only fit an oven, stove, microwave and roughly 19 gallons of vodka, but I should have known better. I might have been able to make the drunkest of baked Pasta-Roni, but little developed in the toast department.

Only when I moved in with a roommate did I acquire a toaster (his). Suddenly a whole new world opened up. Bread became toast. Pop-tarts transformed to haute (hot) cuisine. String cheese became something that could destroy an appliance, no matter how good the concept of toasted cheese sounded.

Anything toastable, we toasted.

That experience enmeshed me into the world of toasting and I absolutely fell in love with them. The best part about them, they cost like $9. With the amount of toasting I do, I'd pay somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars range. But I didn't, my roommate paid $9.

An investment in a toaster is not just an investment in taste, it's a lifesaving endeavor. Did you know that nobody who has recently eaten toast has died from any major diseases? Seriously, check with the CDC, no cancer, no AIDS, no Nacho Related Sad Face Disorder (although NRSFD is somehow tied to nacho consumption).

I've never taken a “Theory of Toaster” class, but I have ascertained the philosophy behind toasting. Bread goes in, delicious comes out. Not only is it delicious, but it's warm, which when butter is applied, makes it even more gooey and delicious. But this isn't news to anyone. From eating cake, everyone has realized the gooey-delicious connection. It's frowned upon to eat cake every day, but toast is perfectly acceptable, perfectly deliciously acceptable.

Even my cat, Rio, knows the benefits of toast. She already loves bread, but when she hears the pop of the toaster, she'll run into the kitchen and start rubbing up against the cabinet below where the toaster lives. It's kind of her way of saying “Sure, anything I eat that isn't specifically designed for cats gives me explosive diarrhea, but this definitely won't. Toast is far too good—it always pops up and everything.”

Rio and I have certainly talked up toast quite a bit, but I realize it's not world's most perfect food. There's one problem inherent to all things toast. Crumbs. There's no way to eat toast without spattering them everywhere, even into places where you never thought you'd have em (your duodenum).

While you're not supposed to stick a knife into a toaster, but I did it myself last week, and there's nothing like a good electrocution to add to the toasty flavor. Plus jam and butter. Electrocution, jam and butter, and you have one of the most perfect combinations in the world.

Monday, August 15, 2011

When it comes to the apocalypse, the best offense is a good tower defense

Bloop Dooeh! Bloop Dooeh! Blooo blooo bloo bloop Dooeh!

Look! Those creeps are doing the wave!
Anyone who knows that sounds knows what Tower Defense is. Anyone who doesn't know that sound is quite the opposite, because once the apocalypse hits, they are pretty much screwed. That's right, play tower defense now, and survive the end times later.

But what exactly is this “Tower Defense” I speak of. Not only have I established it as your ticket into post-apocalyptic society (date TBA, probably sometime after the apocalypse), it's also a really fun genre of game where you try to prevent bad guys from getting up a screen by building mazes that shoot blobs of ink at zombies, robots, kittens or some sort of demonic hellspawn like pink bubblegum or pencils. Consider it a reality simulator for something that will never come to reality.

And for those of you who have played Plants vs. Zombies, Grave Defense HD or (appropriately enough) Desktop Tower Defense, you know the extreme life and death situations afforded in this genre. You know your creeps, your know how to create a maze, you know how to juggle vicious waves. And luckily, these skills are all quite useful if that alternate reality I decried as not real in the last paragraph becomes real.

So while your friends and/or loved ones are busy being feasted upon by the unholiest of unholies, you're free to kick back and relax, because you play a pointless genre of games. Stephen King fans might even call this Dark Tower Defense.

I realize the real world and the video game world are two completely different realms, and I've taken that into consideration in making these statements. I know in one you can totally flip out and kill anything that contemplates moving, while in the other you need a power-up to do that (lawyer ATTACK!). These different places have different rules, but there's one rule that trumps them all—survival. Thus, tower defense applies to the real world.

To defend off the hordes of zombies/blobs/Steve Guttenberg films, you're first going to need a tower to defend. However, seeing as how this is not medieval England, and we're not all dying from plague, getting a tower might present quite the tall order, because towers are tall. Don't worry though, tower defense can also apply to fort defense, and forts are easily obtained with properly placed sofa cushions.
That steely snare is enough to defend this tower. The broom helps though.

How do you set up defenses on your super sweet cushion fort? Unlike in the games, you can't just wave a magical mouse and bring about ink-blasting enforcers. You need a bit of creativity to bring that part of the tower defense fantasy to life. My resolution is to just procure a bazooka and blast away from inside your fort. A broom also works.

Now I'm barricaded in and protected if any non-do-gooders approach me. Zombies? Blammo! Corn dogs? Boom! Potted meat food product? You'll wish you were real food, bang! See how much fun blowing shit up in a tower defense-esque fashion is? And double bonus, you will not always die at pretty much the exact same spot, and you'll never have to “juggle creeps.”

Oh, what's that you say, police officer, it's a crime to fire a bazooka in a residential area, no matter how certain I am of the apocalypse having already occurred?... that one I might believe him on, because no mutant freak could be that articulate.

Climb the tower and get on this defense platform. Although that police officer seemed doubtful of my apocalypse claims, he'll soon wish he had my tower defense skills.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

This is a stick up--Stickers, that is


Everything seemed so much simpler as a child. Tell the truth, get a sticker. Go to the bank, get a sticker. Hop in a stranger's car, get multiple stickers. Get an A on the spelling bee, that's a gold star sticker. Avoid mutual assured destruction with an Iron Curtain country, ensuring the safety and survival of the entire planet until the next time someone—in a sticker reduced rage—tries attacking the world, get a sticker.

Gold star for recognizing the awesomeness
of sticking light adhesives to things!
But things have changed in my adulthood. No longer is sticky paper a valid form of payment. Go to the store, buy something, anything and try paying with your vintage Yellow Ranger becoming White Ranger Power Rangers sticker, while the clerk might point out this runs outside of canon, they definitely will not accept it as legal tender.

At this age, stickers go back to fulfilling their original purpose—serving absolutely no point. Never has anyone said “I sure wish I had a picture of Boober from Fraggle Rock that I could easily affix to my stationary and/or children.” It just never happens, because 1. Fraggle Rock and its associated sticker items faded out years ago and 2. The internet exists, you can type in “Fraggle Rock” or basically just “Fraggle” and get loaded to the gills with pictures of Boober (both G-rated and NC-17 Boober on Tosh action).

I suppose bumper stickers are stickers that decrease the value of a car, so I guess that is doing something.

Sure, when I used to give blood, I'd always take the “I Gave Blood Today” sticker and affix it to my face. This allowed people at the bar I'd inevitably go to that evening that the alcohol would hit me harder, and we'd all be in for a good time. I'd also do this on election days.

But those were very special circumstances, and I try not to do much of either nowadays.

Now I no longer have my meticulously organized sticker books. The ones with entire pages dedicated to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or “Ways Charlie dies on the hit TV show 'Lost'” or pictures of erotic vegetables (the radish section alone took up three pages). The purpose of these are now lost on me.

But I am left with a bigger mission, I must make stickers relevant to a largely sticker-proof society.

Just imagine how amazingly a sticker
like this would cover areolae.
When I collected those bushels of Captain Planet stickers, I only focused on them as fun depictions of Ma-Ti getting a tad too friendly with his monkey pal. What I didn't think is how excellent of star pasties they'd make. As an adult, I can safely realie this without seeming like a creeper (… as much). I can realize star pasties are overdone, but Captain Planet Pasties are a wholly untapped market. Not only would he cover up nipples, he'd put forth a very important dual purpose of the power of mullets when it comes to fighting pollution.

However, this untapped market really only applies to victims of abuse and those falsely claiming female empowerment, and where's the money in that? I need to keep looking for ideas.

All right, how about this. Go out and collect some scratch-and-sniff stickers. I mean a lot of them—at least a gross, probably more. Take them, spread them out on your bed and then roll around in them naked. How does this make you feel? For many respondents, they'll probably comment on how it's odd to have the rear end smelling like strawberry hard boiled eggs mixed with scorpions. But that's exactly the sticker loving audience I'm looking for!

So go out there, get some stickers and stink up the place with your new unique odor. You're not going to do it on your own, the power of the stickers will.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Pitch Black hits a sour note on the Mountain Dew scale

Hey, where'd all the light go? I can't see in here. It's so dark, so dark in here. Maybe that's because it's... MOUNTAIN DEW PITCH BLACK out there. Fueled by the light of fanboy desire, the lights come up, but can the beverage live up to its hype, its reputation and its ability to save mankind?

It can't. It's just not very good.

When the initial Mountain Dew Pitch Black train rolled through in 2004, I didn't actually drink pop, I never got the chance to try it. But in the following seven years, I did relapse back into the sugary goodness of pop. And so, for seven years, I waited, patiently plotting the demise of various Mountain Dew related executives if they didn't bring Pitch Black back. I kept thinking things like “Brett O'Brien, marketing director for Mountain Dew, you better bring it back, or I'll be the one who Does the Dew, if you get my drift.” (That meant I would kill him).

This proof is a little easier to solve
than Fermat's Last Theorem.

My vaguely illegal thought crimes seemed to have worked, as Pitch Black recently hit store shelves again. But there's a problem. You see, Mountain Dew plus grape, should be an easy equation for awesomeness. On one side, there's a highly caffeinated beverage (Which I love), and on the other, there's grapes, which are quite possibly the world's greatest fruit.

I love grapes. I love them to the point that as a kid, my friend's dad called me “Grape Ape.” With that grape-earning cred stated, I must say Mountain Dew Pitch Black, with a “blast of black grape” is not grape. The closest flavor I can describe it as is honey dew melon. And since I cleverly call that fruit “Honey EW Melon,” I found my satisfaction with the beverage severely lacking.

I suppose I can't really blame the company, I mean the honey dew melon lobbying groups are ones with extreme power, and they probably held massive sway over the entire Pepsi corporation, but they should have just made a honey dew melon drink. They could have even called it “Pitch Crap” to let everyone know it should not be consumed by humans.

But merely tricking people into consuming the equivalent of a disgusting fruit was not enough for the Pepsi Corporation. They chose a variety of other ways to mess with rational people's senses.

Pitch Black's messed with my vision, because it's not actually black, or anywhere close to it. When I heard the name, I thought it would be black. And therefore, the deepest, darkest of blacks. I wanted it filled with ring wraiths, Johnny Cash and should be like the Rolling Stones' only good song. I wanted a black hole that had eaten another black hole, making it into some sort of irradiated super black hole.

I got purple.

Ideal coloration of something with the name
"Pitch Black."
Purple isn't black. Black is black. Purple is purple. There's no mathematical proof that can change that equation. I realize this might sound petty, but when they've already messed up the flavoring of something that should taste good, I can freely bitch about minutia.

It also smelled like chili cheese dip. A very un-grapelike smell... it actually doesn't, but I wouldn't put it past Pepsi to do that on future iterations of this accursed drink.

To recap, Mountain Dew Pitch Black, with grape flavoring is neither grape, nor is it black. And it's debatable if it's actually Mountain Dew. That right there is the utmost in naming failure, because nothing holds up even after cursory consumption. Unless they were going for irony.

Luckily, Pitch Black is a limited edition, it will soon be gone from the shelves (and according to Wikipedia Wikipedia has already vanished, except in New Zealand). So if you see that misleading, bad product sucking up the shelves of your local grocer, don't worry, it will soon be gone. And until that time occurs, you can find solace in creating your own Pitch Black with separate purchases of 1. Mountain Dew and 2. Actual grapes. It's not the most complex of recipes, but it tastes a heckuvalot better than that melon-y abomination.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

The only thing alien about them is why we haven't destroyed the visitors!

Whenever the topic of alien invasion comes up, I always laugh to myself and say aliens exist, but they've never come to planet Earth. It's just far too big of a galaxy, and extraterrestrials won't care to come here and learn Ashley very incorrectly chose JP Rosenbaum over Ben Flajnik on the season finale of “The Bachlorette.” I thought they'd just pick up a satellite feed of it. That is... until the incident happened.

No, nothing abducted me, and all my anal glands remain thoroughly unprobed. But instead, while hiking, I found this image.

Not only is this picture alien to the rock, it's alien to our PLANET!
Obviously this is a depiction of the stereotypical depiction of a visitor. But who could have put it there? I forgot to mention, but this hike was quite the tough one. While the path I took stretched 3.6 of the most hellacious miles ever, it also went UPWARDS nearly half a mile. And keep in mind, I did it with a bum knee (and cane!).

Would any normal graffiti artist brave that treacherous task to draw a crude depiction of an alien? Nope.

My conclusion is aliens must have drawn it. Keep in mind, these visitors are known for their space-flying abilities. It's no problem for them to just hop down, slap out a silly picture of themselves and then blast away. Hell, they could probably even stop off by Taco Bell on the way home and grab a Cheesy Gordita Crunch. Or stop by and see their friends at Area 51.

Sure, I also saw the remnants of other things along my never-ending journey. A dog footprint, a cow exo-skeleton, a wood carving of Sasquatch, and more cobwebs than I knew what to do with (I hit them with my cane), but nothing stuck out to me as damningly as this visitor leave behind.

Where does this leave us? Obviously the ball is in our court now. We must make contact with them. Sure, I realize ALF has already shown a decent amount of give and take between our species, but A. ALF wasn't real. He sprung forth from the mind of Tom Patchett (who then went on to create AMC's “Breaking Bad”) and B. Even if ALF were real, my rock-based depiction does not match up to his cute muppet-esque mug, which would totally destroy my point.
Sprocket sez "I will destroy you aliens! Just like I did this
chair... which is awfully comfy... and I will nap... what's
this about aliens?"

Luckily, my point remains intact.

As a result, we must go to their home planet. We must leave a depiction of us before dining upon their astronomical space fast food. But we can't leave a depiction of a human as a human. In their race where big eyes and thick foreheads are the norm, we'd look like some sort of hideous ear monsters. We can't have our new potential overlords/underlords have this flawed perception of us. Instead, we must raw pictures of my cat, Sprocket.

That might give the impression that we're all hairy, and quite a bit stupid, but Sprocket is also undeniably cute. He gets stuck in things and has a perma-perplexed look on his eyes. It would totally lull the alien life forms into a false sense of security. Not only that, it would also make Sprocket quite a bit cocky. Oh yeah, but the false sense of security would then translate into compliance and then our domination and then the complete occurrences depicted in the 2010 box office smash, Skyline.



Keep in mind, in this analogy, everything is reversed. We'll be the horrorific invaders who triumph against the peaceful indigenous ones! (I assume, haven't seen the movie)

Once Project Sprocket goes into effect, the aliens will no longer be inky self-portraits alienating our national parks. Instead, they will become a disenfranchised race, and will probably move to national parks out of having nowhere else to go. And on that day, we claim victory!

Monday, August 1, 2011

Bending Knees Sideways--Painful, not "The Bee's Knees'

Knees are great. I really really like them. Love the way they bend and allow mobility to happen too. I know it sounds weird to say that, but it's true. And the way they move forward AND backwards just truly represents the human spirit at its finest. However, when that knee decides to move sideways—bending the way they don't bend—the whole machine breaks down and suddenly what allowed such grand movements causes such great pain. The love quickly sours and turns to hate.

While playing in an Ultimate Frisbee game last week, I got completely juked. And as jukings go, it was rough, because my legs said “Hey, this way looks fun,” while my head said “No, this diametrically opposed path will work way better!” But that's the problem with diametrical opposition—something always snaps. Be it whichever political party I currently dislike, polar covalent bonds or my knee, it always happens.

Brace yourself for how awesome my knee looks!
I also love Rice Krispies, but when the Snap, Crackle, Pop occurs in somewhere that's not my breakfast bowl, it's a bad thing. I went down hard and started alternatively letting out strings of four letter words and biting my sunglasses. My teammates helped me hobble off to the side of the field. Another victim of Ultimate Frisbee.

I hobbled away from that game not only with a victory under my belt (15-13) but an anti-victory below my belt. That's right, I now walk with a grand ole limp. But don't worry, as long as I keep my leg at a good 36 degree angle, there's absolutely no pain, I can frolic and live life. However, move even a radian off of that angle, and there's jarring pain that crumples me to the floor.

Luckily, I have purchased a knee brace which helps to keep me in the good angle range. But even with the brace, even with the knowledge that movement out of the safety range will hurt like crazy, my knee decides to express independent thought. A lot of the times it goes “Hey, I remember when I bent all crazy like, I'm going to do that again! It was really fun!” and shifts in some non-knee-esque fashion. This results in a five-minute throb, but those times have been reduced as my brain has finally realized a mass of cartilage and bone probably shouldn't be calling the shots and has started overriding many of my knee's thoughts.

After this whole experience, I cannot ride a bike for the foreseeable future, but as a certified limper, I CAN commiserate with other limpers. We can tell horror stories like “Your leg bent what way? Well, MINE bent this way.” “Oh yeah, well, did you ever see Terminator 2, that was a documentary shot in real time, and I was one of the guys that former Governor Schwarzenegger shot in the knee.” … One-upmanship is a big deal in the limping world.

Another benefit of knee injuries comes when someone describes something as “the bee's knees.” In this situation, you're allowed to openly weep. Although weepage could also come from the fact that you hang out with people who would use a phrase as archaic and lame as “the bee's knees.” I apologize for the headline.

The final conclusion I can make after my knee's journey to the land of pain, it hurts. It really hurts.