Karma's a Bitch, and God's an Asshole

"BWA HA HA!! What else can we do to JP? Let's blow up his tires!!"

Before I left Morgantown about two weeks ago, my car's battery died. It's like the electrical system farted and hiccuped at the same time, couldn't handle it, and gave up. Not eager to electrocute myself or blow up my car, I called AAA to handle the problem. A tow truck arrived that night with a man and his wife (I assume) inside. The man told me, "Yep, your battery's shot," and then informed me that their battery truck would arrive the next morning. Several beers, a night's sleep, and a hangover later, the battery truck guy runs some tests and surmises that "yep, it's your battery." More importantly, the man says that my alternator and starter are fine.

See my post from two months ago to learn more about how much I know about cars.

About a week later, my car's battery light turns on. I bring this to the attention of my dad, but a few days later the light turns on again, so I dismiss the problem.

Last night I was on my way to Pittsburgh for a night of drunken revelry when I saw that the light had come on again. At about this time I tell my friend that I'm convinced that there must be something wrong with the light. "After all," I crowed, pleased with myself that I remembered a few car terms, "the AAA guy said that my alternator and starter were fine!"

Karma has big ears and a helluva sense of humor.

After watching the Patriots game, the Pens game, the Penn State game, and the Pitt basketball game all at the same time and then spending about an hour trying to figure out why my friend's new HDTV wouldn't show anything in HD, we headed out to the bar. I was, by default as the only sober one, the DD.

My car made the trip to the bar just fine. But then after picking up my friend's girlfriend, my car started acting funny. Then "acting funny" became "a slow descent towards mechanical failure." First the headlights dimmed. Then my CD player lost power. Then the windshield wipers slowed to a crawl. My speedometer suddenly dropped to zero even as we traveled back to my friend's place.

It was actually kind of exciting. We were playing Beat the Clock with my car's battery. Every minute or two, some feature of my car would lose power. I was getting an object lesson in exactly what a car's battery controls. At one point, my friend Joe was getting excited and yelled out, "ONLY ONE MORE TURN ON YOUR LEFT!! PUT ON YOUR TURN SIGNAL DAMMIT!!" And I yelled back, "THERE IS NO TURN SIGNAL!!"

The car finally gave out about 30 yards from my friend's house. We were all disappointed, but we pushed the thing the rest of the way. My friends and family all agree that the problem is definitely my alternator... you know, that device that Slappy from AAA told me was working just fine. Maybe the guy was actually looking for AA and stumbled into the wrong job.

So my car still sits in front of Joe's house awaiting a new alternator. There was maybe three hours between the time I praised my sturdy alternator on my way there and when my car died.

I swear, I only believe in God when I think he's mocking me.

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JP's Car: Serving as a subject for countless blog posts since 2006.

Reel Ruminations: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

It's almost pointless to make fun of this movie, but I'm going to do so anyway. If you can spend only 99 cents this holiday season, instead of going downtown to get food stamps, head up to Walmart to buy Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

The title pretty much says it all. There's nothing that I can do to this movie that Mystery Science Theater 3000 hasn't already done.

Premise: Martian children no longer have fun. To boost their spirits in the wintry month of "Septober," the Martian King goes to Earth to abduct Santa Claus so that he can make toys for the Martian children, who spend all of their time watching "silly Earth programs." The Earth program in question is some sort of low-budget news broadcast that blew its entire budget to bring its viewing audience a genuine interview with a pipe-smoking Santa Claus.

Remember kids, Santa loves cookies, milk, and high-quality pipe tobacco. Ho Ho Ho!

The Martian King does have a point. There's something about the Martian kids that screams "childhood trauma." Maybe it's the fact that their parents use a "sleep stick" to force them to sleep every night and a "tickle stick" to torture their slave-servant when he's asleep on the job.

"I'll bet she gives great helmet."

The slave-servant, Droppo, is some sort of "special" Martian that the Martian King abuses for his own purposes. Droppo is clearly the comic-relief character, and his WACKY AND ZANY antics provide relief from the dramatic tension of Martians plotting against St. Nick.

Now now Droppo! That was just a candy-cane in my pocket.

Providing a villain for the movie is Voldar, the asshole Martian who likes children to be miserable. The only way he could be more like Dick Dastardly is if he twirled his moustache at regular intervals. He does everything possible to interfere with the Martian King's plan. What I love is that the Martian King wants to ABDUCT FUCKING SANTA CLAUS and the man who wants to stop him is the bad guy!!

HAHAHA!! Only the fly Martians have the 'stache to go with our helmet bling. Fo-shizzle my space nizzle!

Once they arrive on Earth, the Martians see thousands of Santa Clauses on the street. Despite the fact that they saw an interview with Santa Claus at the North Pole on one of the "Earth Programs," the Martians kidnap two dimwitted children to lead them to Santa's workshop. With the help of Droppo and an often-used Radar Box (which looks suspiciously like a toy box), the children escape and attempt to warn Santa.

Oh kids, don't worry about me. After making toys for 200 years, I pretty much want to die.

The events at the North Pole are, without a doubt, the best parts of the movie. For whatever reason, the creators felt that the North Pole action was a little slow, so they decided to have the children encounter a vicious polar bear... or is that the Penn State Nittany Lion mascot painted white?

Umm... snarl, growl, roar! I'm a vicious bear! Pay no attention to my plastic eyes and fur-seams.

The bear makes a half-hearted attempt to maul the children and then gives up. That would have made for a helluva Christmas movie... small children mauled by a man in a polar bear suit. But my disappointment was short lived, because the Martian King sends TORG, the killer robot, out to re-capture the children.

BEST... ROBOT... EVER!!!

Once the Martians recapture the children and then kidnap Santa Claus, the Earth papers have a field day with this news.

Obviously, The Daily Tribune is using the Martian spelling of the word "Kidnapped."

The whole group heads back to Mars (a trip that consists of Voldar attempting to assassinate Santa Claus and the children by blowing them into space - ah, family entertainment!). Once on Mars, an oddly compliant Santa agrees to make toys for the Martian children. Instead of using an army of slave-elves, the Martians provide Santa with a machine that makes the same out-dated shit toys that the elves made: baseball bats, dolls, rackets, teddy bears, etc.

Santa, in a moment of introspection, laments that automation has taken all of the joy out of making toys. Santa, at heart, really enjoys working those elves to the bone.

Meanwhile, Droppo has become quite smitten with Santa Claus and wants to be just like him. He puts on the extra suit that the Martian Queen made for Santa (along with an extra beard??) and starts prancing around the Martian palace.

Also meanwhile, Voldar (whose attempt on Santa's life got him exiled to the Martian caves) sabotages Santa's machine and kidnaps Droppo (who he mistakes for Santa Claus).

The resemblance is uncanny... if Santa were jaundiced and riding the short bus to school.

Needless to say, Droppo escapes, the machine is fixed, and Voldar is captured. Droppo becomes the new Martian Santa Claus, and Santa and the kids return to Earth.

Ho Ho Ho!! I haven't laughed this hard since I gave that blind girl a Rubik's Cube.

How this movie even got past the title stage is beyond me. Apparently, the movie was forgotten shortly after its 1964 release, but it gained a newfound cult following after it was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The entire MST3K episode is on YouTube, divided into ten parts. The links are below:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, and Part 10.

You have to put up with the fairly un-funny skits between the actual movie portions, but otherwise this is the best way to watch the movie. If you're bored, looking for a good laugh, or just incredibly baked, you'll have a blast.

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"All this trouble for a fat little man in a red suit." -- Voldar

Reel Ruminations: Star Trek V

In the blue universe, the evil prophet look is totally making a comeback

I've seen quite a few terrible movies (including one that I'm planning to blog about for Christmas), but nothing really sticks out in my mind quite like Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. It's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but given my love of all things Trek, it's definitely the one I know best.

In this movie, Kirk's camping trip is interrupted when Spock's crazy half-brother cult leader named Sybok takes over the Enterprise and takes the ship to the center of the galaxy in order to find God. Meanwhile, a renegade Klingon captain chases the Enterprise because, as he claims, "If I kill Kirk, I will be the greatest warrior in the galaxy!" Seriously, that is this guy's sole motivation.

When I couldn't become a backup singer for Poison, I decided that 'intergalactic road warrior' was a good career move.

What I must mention at this point is that the movie was written and directed by William Shatner. The implication of the Klingon's flawless logic is that Kirk must be the current master galactic warrior if killing Kirk will give him the title. In fact, the whole movie revolves around how awesome Kirk is. You see, Sybok decides to lure the Enterprise into an EVIL TRAP by taking over Nimbus III, the Planet of Galactic Peace (which is apparently the full name of the planet).

A lesson in the word "irony" from William Shatner, the greatest warrior in the galaxy!

Taking hostages in the Star Trek universe always requires some major bullshit because of the transporter. Any janitor on a passing garbage scow could beam the hostages off the planet with no problem. But Starfleet asks, nay DEMANDS, that Kirk take the Enterprise to rescue the hostages. The admiral even says, "I need Jim Kirk." I'll bet Shatner jerks off to the image of ten alien space babes saying that every night.

The problem is that the newly-commissioned Enterprise is a bucket of shit, so the transporters don't work. Most Star Trek episodes will say something like, "Oh the bullshittium radiation from the buttermilk quasar is blocking our transporter beam." This movie doesn't even try. "Oh right, the transporters are broken." Shatner, you genius!

I've got my blue horse, my scurvy-ridden lieutenant, and a horde of sand people. Nothing can stop me now!

Oh, by the way, Sybok and his ragtag horde are holding the Federation, Klingon, and Romulan ambassadors hostage. Kirk doesn't get out of bed for anything less than an ambassador. Your average space-janitor is lunch for the sarlac as far as Kirk's concerned. But Kirk goes down to rescue the hostages. Kirk's military strategy truly demonstrates his galactic warrior status. Uhura, who is about 60 years old in this movie, distracts some guards with a nude fan dance while Kirk and Spock steal some blue horses. Nothing says good cinema like seeing someone's grandma give a space-henchman a boner.

Needless to say, the rescue attempt fails despite Kirk fighting a three-breasted cat-woman stripper (not even making that up), and Sybok takes over the ship. He uses some weird Vulcan shit to brainwash the crew into following him into THE GREAT BARRIER, which is this huge energy field that surrounds the center of the galaxy - where God lives. During the whole movie, everyone is shitting themselves about THE GREAT BARRIER!! "It will stab you in the eye and then rape your mother!" "It's so big and powerful that it split the space-whore in two!" Then they get to THE GREAT BARRIER and pass right through. They didn't even bother to shake the camera around or anything. I think the ship bounced once, but that might have been Scotty taking a dump.

The rest of the movie is summed up thusly: Kirk finds God. Kirk fights God. Kirk kills God.

Turns out God is actually blue, and he may or may not perm his beard.

Okay, so it wasn't really God. It was actually an energy being that was imprisoned. And I suppose God was actually killed when the Klingons blasted him. But the basic premise remains valid. Actually, there were supposed to be some rock creatures in the movie that spring up to fight Kirk after he kills God, but apparently the costumes were too cheesy to be taken seriously. For Star Trek, that's saying something.

And the Klingons? Yeah, they just kind of give up when one of the ambassadors pulls rank on the Klingon captain. Turns out his shit was merely a brown dwarf in the toilet of the universe. Kirk didn't even have to fight him to prove his superiority. Kirk pwns God + Klingon. I would expect no less from the GREATEST WARRIOR IN THE GALAXY!

No, Sybok is my half-brother. Those are pictures of my half-sister Charlene. We don't talk about her much."
"Are those green nipples?"

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William Shatner: Kicking God's ass since Stardate 5467.3

What About a Future Boyfriend?

About a year ago, I got an IM from this guy who lives in my apartment complex. Apparently, he found my address on Facebook and wanted to make friends with someone in the complex. This seemed reasonable enough, and he's a nice enough guy, so I talked to him. But soon the conversations were making... interesting digressions. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but there was something odd about his interest in me. He seemed very intent upon being my friend.

I have yet to meet this guy face to face, and he still messages me. I'm not a particularly nice person when dealing with strangers, so I couldn't figure out why he wanted to talk to me so much.

Today, I got my answer.

I'm talking to him again this evening and the conversation goes like this (his name has been changed):

ApartmentGuy: btw, whats ur relationship status?
Me: single. but always on the lookout for my future ex-girlfriend.
ApartmentGuy: what about a future boyfriend?
Me: nope. afraid not.
ApartmentGuy: fuck buddy?
Me: nope

Suddenly it all made sense. This guy was hitting on me. I've never been hit on by a gay guy before. I was actually kind of flattered. I didn't want the poor guy to feel bad, so I said:

Me: I don't swing that way. Not that there's anything wrong with it if you do.
ApartmentGuy: I love pussy...... but nothing wrong in gettin off
Me: Ah! So the door of [his name] swings both ways.
ApartmentGuy: it has.......... discretely......... depends on the situation

Given the guy's penchant for joking around (looking back on it, it was probably flirting), I thought he might have been pulling my leg again, so I decided to Google his screen name. What came up was a personal ad for "OurGayborhood.com," which is, quite frankly, the BEST name for a website ever! He describes himself as "heteroflexible."

The guy has never met me in real life, so I can only assume that he decided I was bi-curious based on my Facebook profile. Is it the distinct absence of anything sports-related on my Interests list? Is it the degree in English? Is it my flowery but lovable prose style? I don't think I wrote "I've always loved the taste of hot man-juice" anywhere on there.

I got nothing against the guy (literally or figuratively). It's got to be a ballsy move (pun totally intended) to hit on a guy who may or may not be gay - especially in West Virginia.

I know you may read this Apartment Guy, and you may not like that I shared the tale (anonymous though it may be), but it was just too choice to pass up.

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JP: Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.

The Best Bar in Morgantown

I used to think that the best bar in Morgantown was The Sports Page. They have the cheapest and most generous Long Island Iced Teas that I've ever had. The female bartenders are also cheap and generous - but not really in the same way. I soon discovered a better place!

Late last night, after having a few drinks downtown to celebrate being done with our papers, Vivek and I decided to check out a bar that he'd heard of but never been to. All we knew was that it was right next to the strip club. The strip club, which is about 30 seconds from my apartment, is in what appears to be a remodeled barn, which gives me pause. I've never been brave enough to check it out; what if one of my students (or even worse, one of my fellow GTAs) is up on stage? That would just be awkward (or perhaps oddly erotic) for everybody!

So we get to the bar next to the strip club - it's called "Leo's Bar," and it looks like a dump. It looks like it could be the setting for From Dusk Till Dawn 4. I was beginning to have second thoughts, but through the front window, we see the bartender staring at us, so we figure we have no choice but to go in now. Looking back on it, I don't know what we thought he was going to do. You'd think a year and a half of West Virginia would make me immune to such concerns.

When we go in, I'm amazed at how nice the place actually is. It's a pretty cozy watering hole. There's plenty of space, some good music on the jukebox, and a pool table. But the BEST feature by far was their Star Trek: The Next Generation Pinball Machine!!

That alone makes it the best bar in Morgantown! This Podunk bar with a clientèle that has maybe 12 teeth among them has this pinball machine prominently displayed. The bartender even bragged about his high score. I suck at pinball, and I don't even really like it, but I certainly enjoyed playing this one. I even beat the "Q Challenge" and defeated the Borg Cube. Kiss my fat ass, Worf!

When we came in, the bartender was very excited to see us. He hollers, "Welcome to the best bar in Morgantown!" Then he thinks for a few seconds and says, "Well... it's at least the cleanest bar in Morgantown... according to the health inspector anyway." That either says a lot about this bar or a lot about the other bars in Morgantown. I don't want to know which.

There's only four other people in the place. Three of them are on the upper level playing pool, and then there's this old man sitting at the bar. He introduces himself as Leo, owner of the establishment. The man is 61 years old (as he was happy to inform us) and looks like a shorter Boss Hogg with glasses and a speech impediment. He was even wearing a cowboy hat. We talked with Leo for about 15 minutes, and as he mumbled at least four or five times, Leo spent most of his life working for the post office. I told him that I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life yet, and over the next ten minutes, he told me about the importance of health insurance. The only reason he stopped was because his arthritis was acting up. I think I want to be Leo one day.

We didn't stay long since it was getting pretty late (and it was awkward being the only ones in there after everyone else left), but I fully intend to go back. The drinks were reasonably priced, the pinball machine rocked my world, and Leo amused and enchanted me.

And the bathroom was spotless! It probably was the cleanest in Morgantown.

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Leo's Bar: A refuge for redneck Star Trek fans since Leo's midlife crisis.

The Infinite Sadness

For the last couple of weeks, I haven't been able to get the The Fray's song "How to Save a Life" out of my head. It's a good song, and it's on my "Current Favorites" list on my iPod, but it's about as feel-good as a movie about the Holocaust and 9/11 combined.

I've looked at the lyrics a few times and can't come up with a positive interpretation. According to Wikipedia, lead singer Isaac Slade says that it's about mentoring troubled teens at summer camp. Others think it's about drunk driving or the Dissolution of Czechoslovakia (easily my favorite possibility). I'm convinced that someone ends up dead by the end of the song. Look at the chorus:

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life.

Any way you slice it, someone ends up kicking the bucket. Actually, since the chorus is repeated six times, it could be a half-dozen deaths. Maybe it's actually about Jack the Ripper.

It gets worse. A few weeks after I first got the song stuck in my head, I sat down to watch a rerun of Scrubs, and it happened to be an episode called "My Lunch." It's a stellar episode, probably one of the best that I've seen. Dr. Cox becomes obsessed with getting organs for three dying patients, but after getting the necessary organs and getting them in the patients, they discover that the person that the organs came from had rabies. As you can imagine, the ending isn't exactly positive, and guess what song is playing!!

Did you watch it? You feel like shit now don't you? So not only do I have the song itself trapped in my head, but now I have this depressing ending lodged in my head with it. Every time I hear this song now, I think of all kinds of sad things like drowning puppies, genocide, ten grandmas dying, terminally ill children, and just about every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

I get lots of songs stuck in my head, and usually I don't mind (though sometimes people glare at me for humming them in line at the store). Most of the time it's either some 80s gem or an extremely embarrassing girly song, so I can just rock out privately in my car as passing motorists look on in confusion and disgust. But I swear to your God, if I can't get this song out of my head soon, I'm not only going to slit my own wrists, but I'm going to come over to your house and slit yours too.

The Fray proves that even the most cynical asshole can be manipulated by a man with a piano and a catchy tune.

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9 out of 10 readers are pissed that JP has depressed them when they were looking for a good laugh. The last reader thinks JP is never funny anyway.

Entering the Home Stretch

In the Matrix movies, whenever Neo does some sort of ninja, reality-bending moves, the film slows down to what is called "bullet-time" so that the viewer can see what's happening (specifically so that you can see the bullets zipping past him). For the last 15 weeks, I feel like I've been living my entire life in bullet-time.

This is the LONGEST semester that I've ever endured. I can barely remember I time when I wasn't enduring the mental wrist-slitting that is Old English and 19th Century Magazines, and I feel like I've been dealing with the same bitchy students for 12 eternities.

But now I've only got one more week to go. The nice thing about grad school (a positive comment???) is that unlike the undergrad, the stress actually gets lower during finals week. My Old English paper was due on Tuesday, and my Magazines paper, which is actually half done, is due next Tuesday. I practically feel like I'm on vacation already.

I actually liked Old English by the end of the semester with the exception of the final test. I've never been raped by a man-ape, but I imagine that this test was the emotional equivalent. Aside from that (and the mid-term that was actually more painful), I liked the atmosphere of the class. There were many laughs to be had (often "with" or "at" the professor), and translating Old English wasn't really all that difficult with the book that practically translated everything for us anyway.

19th Century Magazines was a like a needle in the eye from beginning to end. I never really understood what the class was supposed to be about. Slavery was a big issue, but there's only so long that 12 white grad students can talk about the trials of black slaves without sounding like pompous assholes. I think the time span is about two weeks. Fortunately my final paper is shaping up nicely. I'm working with 19th century Christian magazines. Longtime readers of the blog should understand why my paper may contain some asinine and scoffing comments. (Anonymous Assholes should read my "Stormin' Mormon" entries from about a year ago to understand this and other previous references.)

My two English 101 classes have been a mixed bag. I let them do message board postings instead of short writing assignments, which totally bombed as an idea. Ninety percent of the students posted about two hours before the deadline each week; you can imagine the clusterfuck that resulted. By the end, everyone realized that the whole thing was a failure, but we all muddled through it because they didn't want to write short papers, and I didn't want to grade them.

My second class was actually pretty good. There were a few really lousy students in that class, but they were all pretty colorful people. It made for entertaining classes. More importantly, they thought I was comic genius. As you can imagine, I loved them.

My first class never laughed at my jokes. Assholes. Even when I gave them gold. Yesterday, they were filling out course evaluations, and I told them, "Don't write anything that could be interpreted as inappropriate by the social justice department. Lines like 'He's touched me in ways I've never been touched before' don't go over too well." I got maybe two chuckles. I was also telling them how stellar writing quality won't necessarily get them an "A" if they haven't met the basic requirements of the course. I said, "If you show up to work and give the boss 110% and do a great job, but then at 5:00 every day, you take a big dump in the office wastebasket, you're still going to get fired." They all stared at me. The douchebag who wrote on his evalution "His jokes are cheesy and he has a poor sense of humor" back in my first semester would have been right at home in this class. My A-material is wasted on them.

Only one week left, and then I can enjoy four weeks of watching TV and movies, playing Super Mario Galaxy, and drinking at the Kittanning bars as I belittle everyone that I graduated with.

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Christmas Break: Long enough to unwind, but too short to get a real job. It's a lazy man's paradise!

An Apology to Dora and Diego

Last week I was sure that Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go were the worst children's shows on television. This week, television proved me wrong. I was surfing through the channels yesterday morning, when a yellow robot and blue cat dancing caught my attention for a moment. I was curious and stopped on the channel. Suddenly a black guy in an orange afro and matching jumpsuit popped out yelling YO GABBA GABBA!!!

I couldn't turn away. Thus I was introduced to the show Yo! Gabba Gabba!

I've never dropped acid in my life, but somehow I imagine the experience being something like watching this show. The show just needs to be seen to be believed.

What is even going on there?? Why is there a wizard and a cowboy seen briefly? And a man with a mustache drawn onto his face? From the episode I watched, that has nothing to do with the show. On YouTube, the comment below the video from a man identifying himself as "kungfuabuse" reads, "The only people hating on this show are people who hate fun."

The premise of the show, as I understand it, is that this highly excitable black guy shows up with his puppets. Once he shouts, "YO GABBA GABBA!!" the puppets come to life and sing and dance. The orange-adorned black guy is seen as their god apparently, because all the puppets look to him for adoration and guidance. It seems like a strange conglomeration of Eureka's Castle and Pee Wee's Playhouse. That alone should scare you.

The messages this show teaches are terrible. The one song yesterday encouraged kids to "keep your hands to yourself." Apparently, touching is only acceptable for hugs and high-fives. The show is obsessed with high-fives. This show needs to be addressed on Law & Order: SVU, I felt so unclean after watching it.

Here's a classic that I found on YouTube:

The monster just ate the sentient food, and the other sentient food is sad... not because their friends were eaten, but because they want to go to the tummy party!

I don't think I can summon a big enough "WTF" for this.

I couldn't imagine what kind of twisted mind made this show, but then Wikipedia made everything crystal clear.

Here is the creator:

His name is Christian Jacobs, but he is better known by his alias, "The MC Bat Commander." But the absolute best part is that, according to Wikipedia, he's a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

He's a MORMON!!

[JP leans back in his chair and lets loose a belly laugh that scares the neighbors]

I just can't do anything to this show that it hasn't already done to itself. Compared to this, Dora and Diego are upstanding role models of sanity. I almost feel bad for blogging about this because it's such an easy target.

I think I should just review children's shows every week. With what's on TV these days, I fear for the sanity of future generations. Thank god I won't be teaching them.

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Yo! Gabba Gabba: Causing one-year olds to fear reality since August 2007.