5 Things I've learned Turning 30 Years Old.

I recently turned 30 years old.  With the realization that I'm not in my twenties anymore, came sadness, then denial, regret, fear, sadness again, itchiness, acceptance, anti-acceptance, fear again, forgetfulness, then I found my keys.  It was an emotional 7 minutes. 

What I also realized was how life changed, or in some cases, didn't change.  These are the things I learned turning 30.

30.  Also known as the year of the Riddler Mardi Gras.

1.  Everything hurts more and heals slower.

Have you ever injured yourself while sleeping?  I have!  Don't ask me how because I don't know.  Somehow my neck popped and that was it.  So off to the emergency room I went, to explain how I injured myself....in my sleep.  And by explain myself, I mean tell a doctor how my neck went boom-boom while dreaming about my crotch getting boom-boomed by a video game character, no, I'm not going to tell you who.  Or, uh, what it was.

I expected my body to hurt more as I got older, I just didn't expect it to this degree.   I feel like my wisdom teeth are growing in despite not having any wisdom teeth.  My left knee feels wonky after that old football injury I totally never had.    My ass feels sore from all that shitting I've done in my life.

I...I guess you didn't really need to know about that last one.  Okay, I'll make it up to you.  Fine.  It was Tali from Mass Effect. Happy?  Oh?  You dream about her too huh?  Wow.  It seems like a lot of you have.  Must be the mask.  At least it wasn't Ms Pac-Man, although, you can't find a woman with better curves than a woman who is basically a circle. 

2.  Most of my references are outdated.

The other day, I made a reference to a 16 year old kid about the celebrity jeopardy skit on Saturday Night Live, which began airing 16 years ago.  Of course, he had no idea what I was talking about.  How could he unless he was one of those baby geniuses I keep hearing about?  Infants are not well known for staying up on Saturday night to watch Dean Hammond's Sean Connery talk about fornicating with Alex Trebek's wife.  Actually, there is a good chance a teenager wouldn't know who any of those people are since I'm pretty sure none of them post "Haul" videos on Youtube about what they bought at the mall.

54,500 teenage girls with too much self esteem.  They need to be taken down a peg.

There was a point in my life where 75% of my brain was used to store Simpsons quotes.  I still remember some, so when I pull these references out, people start looking for a straight jacket.  They think I'm talking about random nonsense I learned from reading Chernabog's diary.  Even people in my own generation may not get a Simpsons reference since their is more Simpsons episodes than stars in the galaxy.  It's sister series, Futurama, is getting difficult to use for quotes too, mainly from the series first run on Fox since Comedy Central has taken a machete to those old episodes when re-airing them, sometimes cutting entire scenes.  When I tell people my only regret is "Bone-I-Tis", they think I regret boning somebody named Itis.  That sounds like the name of a Hillbilly and 80's guy don't whip it like that.

3.  I still don't give a shit about "adult" things.

Whenever people in my generation start talking to me about finance, taxes, 401K's, and, uuuuugh, stock options, my eyes glaze over and I begin to envy the dead.   This is especially bad with people I knew when they were younger.  In my head, I cannot comprehend how some guy who used to do keg stands and break bottles over his head, now talks about how his stocks dropped 0.00001% today as if this information is interesting and not, for example, the most boring shit ever.  I think this is exactly how mid-life crises start.  These people wake up one day, realize the only thing they have talked about for the last 15 years is fucking spreadsheets, and they immediately max out a credit card buying a Camero so they can cheat on their wife with their 22 year old administrative assistant. 

"Maybe now my stock portfolio will blow me."

I expected my interests to change, and they have, but I thought I might care more about this stuff at 30 years old than I actually do, which is none.  Actually, I care a negative amount about this stuff, so much so, that I will actively deny their existence.  Hey, I'm pretty sure I saw Olympic boxing on CNBC a week ago so my thinking can't be that weird.

4.  I still enjoy escapist fiction a little too much.

I already mentioned Mass Effect above but it's one of the best among modern escapist fiction.  The thing is, I don't half ass it when it comes to these sorts of awesome since that requires restraint.  No, no, no, I've read the entire codex about the Mass Effect universe....several times.  And if the answers to my bizarre questions about a totally fake universe are not in there, it bothers me like Bill Clinton trying to understand what the word "is" is.  

For example, if two members of the all female Asari race mate, does one grow a dick?  This is important information for the hopelessly nerdy.  I really need to know this right - no.  No they do not.  Okay,  but I am left to wonder how the aforementioned Tali, the Quarian with a super weak immune system, eats anywhere that isn't sterile.  It's basically everywhere she is in the game.  Wouldn't she have to take the mask - no.  Again, there is an answer.   See, those of you laughing at me, especially my girlfriend, these are legitimate questions. 

 I love you.

My other recent obsession is Game of Thrones because 1. shut up, 2. I know it's basically The Lord of the Rings: The Soap Opera, and 3. shut up.  I have spent more time on HBO's interactive Game of Thrones map than I've spent on fighting my contempt of court charges the city keeps pestering me about.  And if there is a nerdy thing for an adult to get really into, it's this.  The levels of nudity and violence in this show rival even the ballsiest Dora The Explorer episodes.

5.  The world at 30 is not what I hoped.

Not in the "my life sucks" kind of way, (although I could make an argument for that, but couldn't everyone?) but in the "2012 is nothing like the Sci-fi awesomeness I thought it would be when I was a kid" way.  Smartphones are really the only Sci-fi like thing to exist compared to my 10 year old mind, and although I'm sure there is some crazy, top secret gadgets the military has like invisible missiles and teleporting tanks, my 30 year old self is left wanting.  And as much as I want my goddamn hoverboard, the thing that annoys me the most is the lack of space travel. 

Why am I not living on Mars right now eating pork chop flavored paste in a tube while terraforming the atmosphere with oxygen lasers?  Why do I not have a kick ass space jet that I can fly around and shoot lasers at space pirates with (also known as pirates, in space)?  Why am I not writing this very blog posts with laser fingers that just shoot the letters at the screen with lasers?   Why isn't everything lasers?  Just, just an obscene amount of lasers.  I have yet to find a problem that couldn't be solved with "more lasers". 

.....It's a start.  Via Geograph.

But no, in 2012, I am not the daring space cavalier I thought I would be.  Instead I'm doing everything that isn't pew pew pew pew, vvvvrrrrrrrrooossshhhh, pew pew, KRRRAAAAARRRUGHGH.  And that, is the biggest disappointment of being 30 years old.  Well that, and the lack of visiting space strip clubs to see alien boobs that I have no idea if I would like or not.  I would certainly have more confusing boners in my life, that's for sure. 


Disclaimer:  This blog post was not nearly as sad, "Bahhhhh, I'm not in my twenties anymore", as I thought it would be.

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Why Are There No New Popular Superheroes?

Why aren't there any newer superheroes to reach the same level of popularity as Batman, Spider-Man, etc.?  The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises are undoubtedly the two most popular movies of this summer despite having to compete against movies featuring Rihanna on a Battleship and magic rapist teddy bears.  There was also The Amazing Spider-Man, which everybody kind of forgot about because it rebooted a franchise that only finished it's trilogy yesterday (source needed).  All of these superhero movies feature superheroes created decades ago and whose ages can only be accurately described in Geologic time.

An era when wearing your underwear on the outside seemed like a good idea.

If they aged in real time, these superheroes would be spending most of their time fighting the kids on their lawns.  The Avengers (1963) and Spider-man (1962) could have stopped Jonestown from happening while freaking Batman (1939) may have been drafted to fight in the Korean War.  Sure, the people at Jonestown may have still been killed by The Hulk getting really angry over a bee sting rather than poisoned Kool-Aid, and sure, North Korea may have tried to create a superhero named Ratman due to a poor translation to counter Batman and the conflict could have still ended in a stalemate, but you know what I mean.  It just seems odd that older superheroes are still popular and newer, hipper superheroes have failed to take the spotlight.  That only happens in every other form of media ever created.

There would be a lot more statues of Batman hugging Koreans I can tell you that.  Via Flickr.

It's not that people don't like newer superheroes, it's just that they are not nearly as popular.  Spawn (1992) had a movie in 1997 but that was worse than sitting on a railroad spike and featured Spawn doing a lot of things that didn't include killing demons.  (And it featured some of the worst CGI outside of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus).  Spawn also had a dull as drywall cartoon on HBO that also didn't feature Spawn killing demons.  Huh, It's like these producers didn't know anything about Spawn.  That's weird.

Hey.  Remember The Phantom movie in 1996 starring Billy Zane?  Of course you don't.  Nobody does. The only thing anybody remembers about that movie is the skin tight purple leotard Zane wore that somehow created a crotch bulge with it's own zip code.  Oh and he had like a Green Lantern ring that I don't think did anything. The Phantom is mostly just a Batman rip-off anyway since he's like a ghost and stuff and fear and okay....I don't really know much about him.  But I do know that purple is probably not the best choice for a superhero to look dark and scary.  It's a much better color to make him look like a clown or a Teletubby.

"Slam Evil"?  Was this movie written by a WWE producer?

Not every newer superhero has shitty movies though.  Hellboy (1993) has two good movies, and supposedly a third in development, but it admittedly feels like a fluke or Ron Pearlman owing somebody a lot of money.  Guillermo Del Toro can make anything look good though and anybody who has seen Pan's Labryinth knows that.  (Seriously go see that movie if you haven't.  It's awesome.  Cheek knifing!).   I guess Watchmen sort of counts, the comic being created in the 80's, and that movie is arguably good despite being confusing as Maj Jong.  That movie seems to be hurt more by it not reaching it's impossible expectations more than anything else.  "What do you mean it's not the greatest movie of all time?  The best comic of all time requires it!  Alan Moore is a god!  A...crazy god who just does porn comics now but a god nonetheless!"*

*Though he is not nearly as crazy or outright idiotic as Frank Miller is now.  I swear Miller spent the last 10 years drinking paint thinner and eating lead based Chinese knockoff Legos.  But who am I to complain about Miller?  I mean, am I dense?  Am I retarded or something?  Who the hell do I think he is?  He's the goddamn Batman....er, Frank Miller.  He's the goddamn Frank Miller.

Is...Is that a mummy with a bowie knife?

The most likely explanation for the lack of new superheroes getting popular is the decline of comic books as a major media form.  Actually reading comics is a lot more niche now and can really only brag about being more popular than ham radio enthusiasts.  Think Comic-Con is too crowded?  Just go to the comic book section, the least important part of Comic-Con.  You might actually see the ghost of Frank Miller's sanity hiding in one of those booths.

1930's Batman had to compete mostly with books, newspapers, radio, and costumed lunatics on the street claiming to be actual bat men.  There were movies then too of course, talkies were less than a decade old, but they required a trip to the theater.  Today, comics have to compete with seemingly 15,000 forms of entertainment, all of which are on the Internet and a lot of it is free.  Why pay for a real Batman comic when you can read some weirdo's web comic featuring a guy who looks suspiciously like Batman sodomizing a clearly underage Japanese Supergirl?   No wonder comics have to resort to publicity stunts like making the Green Lantern gay.  Well, not THE Green Lantern, which would be newsworthy and noble, but one of the dozen alternate reality Green Lanterns because DC is ran by cowards.

Not sure which Green Lantern this is.  I assume it's the turtleneck existentialist version.  Via Smugmug.

I doubt a new comic book superhero will ever get as popular as Batman, Spider-Man, and The Avengers, but what about a new superhero from TV or an original film?  Maybe they tried that with Hancock, but he was just a drunk, asshole Superman.  So, basically the angsty Earth One Superman.  The TV show Heroes also tried that until they had so many alternate time lines from their moronic time travel plot device that even a 1.21 gigawatt defibrillator couldn't keep it alive.  Also, the show created a hero whose power is ALL THE POWERS.  He's essentially God, but he doesn't know if he wants to help anybody because he has emotions and stuff.  So, basically the angsty Earth One Superman again.

[An aside - I guess you could make the argument that the Jedi's from Star Wars are basically superheroes and supervillains since they have super powers, but it's too removed from the real world.  You know, with it literally taking place on fake worlds.  And what kind of superhero name is Luke Skywalker?  I never once saw him walking on the sky!  I did see Darth Vader vade some darths though.]

As older movies, music, and TV are slowly forgotten to make room for new properties, old superheroes just keep plugging along with new adaptations.  They are practically the benchmark for the reboot and remake trend in pop culture.  And I like these old superheroes, but I wouldn't mind seeing a new one get a big budget movie.  Where the superhero is going to come from, I have no clue.  Maybe my idea for Dr. Laser JumpKick-Man will take off......


Disclaimer:  I don't know how to end blog posts.

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Pointless Gripe Special Edition: Hitting on a Baby Boomer

One of my customers tonight, probably 65 years old or more, was taken aback when I called her "honey".  She responded by claiming, "that's my husband over there" while pointing to a man who thinks denim is the greatest fabric of all time.  While they were leaving, the old man supposedly whispered something about me hitting on his wife, which makes me really, really wish a complaint is filed with corporate about me hitting on a baby boomer.  Nothing would show my disdain for THE MAN more than getting a complaint over me hoping to get into some granny panties.

You might be asking, "Why did you call an old lady honey?" and to that I say, "Of course I fucking didn't".   I asked her, "Would you like anything else?".  How she got "honey" out of that is something only old people with limited hearing know, or possibly Dementia.  Plus, I think my girlfriend might have something to say about me hitting on a woman who probably remembers watching the moon landing on TV. 

Besides, if I was going to hit on an old lady who remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis, I would be a little more discreet about it.  I have some class, thank you very much.  I'd probably go to some weird old person dating site and create myself a profile (assuming they know what the Internet is).  But what would a woman born in the 1950's look for in a man....

Profile Name:  JFKlikeBONER6969

Age:  29.

Height: Patriotic American.

Weight:  Ideal Muscle Type.

Sign:  Leo (Rawwwr).

Hobbies:  Hiding under desks during nuclear war drills and being confused about modern technology. 

 

 

Turn-ons:  Cold War, McCarthyism, segregation and pregnant women who spend all day baking me a pie in the kitchen.

 

Turn-offs:  Communism, Ho Chi Minh, Negroes, Orientals, Mexicans (basically anybody who isn't white because that's why we fought the Krauts) and Womens rights (because I'm sexist too).

 

Pick-up Line:  I want to draft you into the military (of my heart).

 

What I'm looking for in a lover:  I want somebody who remembers the "good ole days" when presidents were white, women couldn't vote, and gays didn't exist.  I want you to want 7, maybe 8 children, a white picket fence made out of American wood instead of that shitty Australian wood, and for you to remember your place because I am the man of the house.

 

If you're interested, how to contact me:  Preferably by telegraph.  This site says "E-mail" (???) is best but I don't know what that is.  I think it means "European Mail" but my father didn't fight the Japs to let them run my mail.  And don't be like these young kids who keep telling me, "Japan isn't in Europe" because I know it is, right next to Canada.  

Disclaimer:  This article is VERY satirical and I'm sure not every old person is racist, sexist, and poor with Geography.

Follow on Twitter, like the blog on Facebook, or contact me at robothookerparty@comcast.net.  Unless you're an old person than don't.  Then again, that probably all looked like gibberish anyway.   

Rush Limbaugh Thinks The Dark Knight Rises is Promoting Obama

Sentient bag of mayonnaise and radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, thinks the villain in The Dark Knight Rises is named Bane to brainwash people into voting for Obama because it will remind people about Mitt Romney's time running Bain Capital.  Limbaugh said this on his radio program yesterday to his legion of fans from real 'Murica (fuck yeah). That happens to be the same time the company closed a bunch of factories and shipped jobs overseas while Romney simultaneously became even more filthy stinking rich while maniacally laughing over blueprints for his weather machine.

 "Mitt Romney is my homeboy".  Via Fotopedia.

I don't know Rush, that seems like a stretch.  Then again, maybe Obama knew this was going to happen in 1993 when the Batman villain was created.  Yeah, it just makes too much sense.  Obama's team of secret communist psychics planted the seed of a mudslinging campaign 19 years before said campaign even got started.  They created the villain, pulled strings to make sure the Satanists at Warner Bros. hired Christopher Nolan to reboot Batman as a gun hating democrat, and bribed Nolan with three Hawaiian islands to make Bane the villain in the third movie.  That must be why the movie includes a line from Bane saying, "When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die".  He was talking about Gotham factories to hard working factory workers that Mitt Romney in no way laid off!  No sir, not that true American.  He's so American, he doesn't even know what a soccer ball is.  But if he saw one, he would instinctly hate it.

 Moments before the ball caused the BP oil spill.

Sarcasm aside, is Rush Limbaugh that out of touch?  I know he is a racist, sexist, homophobic, pain killer addicted, hateful bigot the size of Pluto, but does he actually believe the things he says?  The connection he thinks is there doesn't exist.  It's about as likely as the Avengers brainwashing us into hating special ops military units because Nick Fury assembled a team that includes a scientist who probably believes in evolution and is also a dangerous rage monster who can destroy a city by himself.  Plus, that movie makes us think America's enemies are lead by a demi-god with an elaborate hat!  It's a ploy to make us hate the Pope!  I bet Captain America was born in Canada too!

Actually, the Avengers analogy isn't very good.  Limbaugh obviously knows America's enemies are gay sex and women who leave the kitchen.

 "If only I stopped Loki before he gave that lady an abortion."

The funniest part of this is that even if there was a connection between the Batman villain Bane and Mitt Romney, Limbaugh is just upset that the connection was made.  The fact that Nolan would be calling Mitt Romney a villain indirectly in this case?  NOT AN ISSUE.  He's okay with that I guess, but this is a guy who probably thought Christians were the good guys during the Crusades.  The connection wouldn't even be an issue if, you know, Mitt Romney didn't take inspiration from comic villains while working at Bain Capital.  If only Romney would have replaced all his employees with penguins, then Limbaugh could complain about Batman Begins instead and how that movie did not accurately portray Romney's platform of "more penguins with back mounted rockets for everybody".

The Dark Knight Rises has absurdly high expectations (so high that I think the movie will come up a little short for me) and is expected to rival the Avengers in box office sales.  However, if the movie has even a slight influence on the presidential race, I will eat a light bulb.  Rush Limbaugh is insane, this is not news, but this opinion on a Batman villain seems crazy for even the craziest of "Obama is an alien from the planet SocialistTaxTopiaVille and his healthcare law makes George Washington cry" crazy people.

Even the Joker thinks Limbaugh is crazy, although when he heard of what Limbaugh said, he nearly laughed to death.  Laughing at what he says is probably the best option though.  Rush Limbaugh everybody!  Making the Joker look sane.  


Disclaimer:  This article is satirical and Rush Limbaugh isn't nearly as relevant as people think he is.  He has to keep saying crazy things for people to pay attention.  It's the only way a Gamorrean from Star Wars can have a job on the radio.  

Follow on Twitter to become as cool as Batman.  Like the blog on Facebook to receive +5 patriotism.  Contact me at robothookerparty@comcast.net to learn how Spiderman promotes taxing the wealthy. 

About the Starship Troopers Reboot

Starship Troopers is just another brainless, overly violent, action movie.  The lead actors wouldn't land leading roles in a high school play of "Romeo & Juliet Versus Harold & Kumar".  The aliens are just generic bugs whose motivations range from "What's that bright light?" to "Don't eat the larvae or the queen will eat me."  The movie includes one of the dumbest romantic subplots to ever exist outside of roughly 2,000 romantic comedies.

Also, this is one of the most brilliant movies of all time.

Do your part!  Die for the stupid, stupid cause!

 
That's right.  This movie is perhaps the most subversive war movie since Hollywood still made war movies that were subversive.  It's a satire with a merciless anti-war, anti-militarism, and anti-fascism message.  Its' satire is so good in fact that many people didn't get it when it first came out, including self proclaimed fans of the movie and I assume the lizard people who made the straight to DVD sequels.  I'm not sure HOW people missed the point considering the movie was pretty overt with its' in film propaganda reels, white super models living in Argentina, and a war strategy reminiscent of Zapp Brannigan from Futurama (do the bugs have a maximum kill limit?).  The movie even has a scene where a guy claims that the very idea of a bug that can think is offensive.  Uh, why?  How?  We know chimps are pretty smart but I don't see anybody claiming offense to be compared to chimps - oh right.  

It's with the brainless action movie theme that Starship Troopers stands out from modern movies with similar styles.  Now days, most action movies are just military recruitment ads.  Take Battle: Los Angeles for example.  That movie said the word "Marine" more often than the Avengers movie had scenes where the characters worried about the Hulk wiping out a civilization.  That movie had the main character name an 8 year-old boy a marine only minutes after his dad died because Marines don't cry soldier!  Pull up your Osh-Kosh B-Gosh pants, put on your Spongebob sweatshirt, and lets go kill some fucking alien fucks!  Actually, I think at some point during that, subtlety died.

 Aliens are attacking.  Please take this detour to the nearest armed forces recruitment office.

Starship Troopers ramps all the brainless action movie cliches up to prove the point, war is stupid.  The characters are bad actors because a good actor might submarine the whole intent of the story.  You're not supposed to root for the main character.  And it's not because the main character is a bad guy, it's because he's stupid.  Like, Charlie Sheen stupid or Casper Van Dien stupid.  The romantic subplot is supposed to be trite.  Verhoeven purposely jacked up the volume of the terrible Mazzy Star song "Fade Into You" during the two rival love interests fight scene as if they should make out instead of poorly fist fight like two drunken frat brothers named Chaz and Geoff.  The romantic subplot doesn't matter when you're all about to horribly die in some pointless war. A war that the humans probably started (the reporter argues about humans encroaching on the bugs natural habitat) because how in the hell can bugs launch an asteroid at a planet?  Also, why would they do that?  Earth is on the other side of the freaking galaxy.  This seems like the best excuse for war since weapons of mass destruction.  Actually, it's the same excuse only the bugs actually used theirs (supposedly).

It's just a great, great movie.  One that many people didn't even realize is great or why, but the subversive satire just rips up the very idea of war so satisfactory that we would have peace on Earth if everyone watched it and understood it.  The end.

 And that's that.  Nothing more to see here.

Huh?

Oh right, nevermind.  Lets forget all that, remove the satire, make it more patriotic, aka; make a straight adaptation of the novel the movie is based on that is very pro-militarism and very pro-fascism without a hint of irony, and even tone down the violence because they probably want to make this reboot PG-13 holy fucking shit I hate everything.  What goat blowing, mule punching, snake licking, chick dicking, tick flicking, sick kicking, mother fucking sack of cunt shits thinks this is a good idea?  Goddamnit.  Where's the asprin?

This is the worst idea since Hollywood thought turning board games about putting pegs into holes and somehow....ALIENS would be a great movie.  Actually, no, this is worse.  At least Battleship isn't ruining the legacy of a great movie that already exists.  This is taking a great movie that may have been a little ahead of it's time but a cult classic now, and tearing out it's soul while taking a shit in it's bloated, mutilated corpse.  Just thinking about rebooting Starship Troopers with a pro-fascist message should qualify as a war crime.   

Don't believe me?  The douchebag trying to make this movie, "if you cut him he bleeds money and cocaine" producer Toby Jaffe (Nice name, Toby.  Shouldn't you be a 1980's ski instructor or something) actually said, haha, he actually fucking said, and I quote, "Y’know, one man’s fascism is another man’s patriotism."  No irony.  No sarcasm.  Straight up bullshit, like, as if I'm being punk'd.  Am I...being punk'd?  Is Ashton Kutcher producing this too?

 Please.  Don't do this.  Via. Fotopedia.

If there is justice in this world, this movie will not be made.  I'm sure this movie doesn't have the fan base for an uprising but that wouldn't matter anyway.  It's never worked before.  Ugh.  I need a drink.


Disclaimer:  This article is satirical and I'm not all that angry that they are rebooting, oh who am I kidding, yes I am.  Worst idea ever!  Stop this madness Toby, stop it.  

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