Month: November 2013

Fifty years ago today John F. Kennedy was shot. There, I have filled my legal requirements as a writer to mention that fact today. I realize it’s a significant anniversary of a course-altering moment in American history, but relating every article to it is a bit much. Mark my words, this weekend you will read an article asking which NFL quarterback has the leadership style closest to that of JFK. If you were busy being surprised by the results when you searched for “magic bullet” this week, odds are you missed it.

You’re now free to rack up roaming charges
This week, the FCC proposed new regulations that would allow cell phone calls and data usage during flights, except when the plane is taking off or landing. It’s just a possibility, and there are a lot of steps that have to be taken before something like this could happen, but it’s creating quite a buzz. After all, when you paid $100 for your luggage, you’re on a flight that charges for food, the guy in front of you reclined his seat into your lap and there’s a crying baby in the row behind you, the one thing that can make your flight better is everyone else around you shouting over each other on their phones.

Are you depressed? Maybe you’re wife’s not hot
Ladies, if you’re not happy in your marriage, maybe it’s time to stop looking frumpy. A new study has found that men are happier in their marriage if their wives maintain their attractiveness. This, in turn makes the wives happier, because they are feel good about a satisfied husband. The study followed 450 newlywed couples and followed them for four years. The ones with hot wives were happier. Men, tread carefully, but remember that you’re armed with science.

Jose Canseco owns goats
Former juicing baseball player and noted douche Jose Canseco was pulled over this week by police for some reason or another. In the back of his SUV were his fainting goats, all wearing diapers. No amount of context could possibly keep a cop from letting him off with a warning, right?

If you saw a shark, capable of eating a moose, in trouble, you wouldn’t help it. Not just because you’d be aiding the enemy, but because a shark that eats moose should be exterminated. But that’s not the case in Canada.

Two Newfoundland men saw a Greenland shark in shallow water choking a big chunk of moose hide stuck in its mouth. According to reports, the shark was about 2.5 meters long and weighed 115 kilograms, which considering the conversion rates in this economy probably means something like 18 feet long and 400 pounds. The men rushed down into the water, pulled the moose hide out of the shark’s mouth and pulled it into deeper water.

The shark then swam off, free to terrorize the coastline once again. Nice going, hosers.

In a story surprisingly not originating from Florida, a woman in a Wisconsin grocery store armed herself with a frozen turkey for a brawl taking place near the meat counter.

There are few ways I could have a bigger smile when writing those words.

Frances Ha does what Sex and the City and Girls can’t do: make a story about a young woman making her way through upper class New York City while in her twenties be compelling and far from worthy of you rolling your eyes.

That’s pretty damn amazing.

And then they meet Frances, a character fully realized in her weirdness and selfishness and shamelessness by Greta Gerwig, and the film itself, co-written by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, which is as sharp and meticulous as anything Baumbach has ever made, but infinitely more optimistic and generous too.

That’s even more pretty damn amazing. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Frances Ha’

If it means we finally get a smarter crop of kids, I couldn’t be happier. No matter the cost.

Dr. Martha Rivera of White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles sums it up best: “It burns when it goes down, it burns when it comes out.”

Caleb Kaltenbach, pastor of Discovery Church, lived up to his church’s name when, lo and behold, he did discover blasphemy in his local Costco. The chain of wholesale retailers had labeled the Bible as fiction on its price tag!

Kaltenbach and his congregation did not remain silent. Using the almighty twitter and then by speaking directly to the priesthood at Fox News, he was able to drum up a frenzy of holy spirit and righteousness, generating threats of a boycott. As members of his church, like Shellie Dungan put it, “I was completely offended. It’s wrong, and I believe that the Bible is real.”

Ultimately, Costco apologized and relabeled the books, resolving the issue. After all, none of Kaltenbach’s parishioners have a problem with the Lord’s word being sold for profit in a large warehouse that closely resembles their own mega-temple. They just want to make sure the moneychangers use the right terminology before selling their holy book by the pallet.

Ah, 1998. It was 15 years ago. Everything was much easier back then. Viagra was helping old guys get boners, Cameron Diaz put spunk in her hair for our amusement, and U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed. It was a simpler time, indeed!

But 15 years later, one symbol of that bygone era is calling it quits. It was announced this week that Winamp, a media player among those who knew better than to use Window Media Player, will cease to be. It was once the program everyone used to play the MP3s they just downloaded from Napster over their modems. Now, it belongs to the ages.

However, another relic from 1998 is still going strong. Yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the International Space Station. Sure, it’s still being pieced together even now, but we’re sure that it has that cool retro feel. We imagine it runs on Windows 98 and even runs an old version of Winamp, probably rocking hits like “…Baby One More Time,” “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” and “Just the Two of Us” on repeat.

No, you’re not crazy. Men really do have proportionally larger noses than women. Don’t you feel better for probably never noticing that?

But, now that you can’t un-see this difference, you’re probably wondering why.

It’s all so that we can steal all the air for our bigger muscles. Research suggests that larger noses help men collect the larger amount of oxygen we need to fuel our lean muscle contractions.

So, yes, that does make women the economy-sized model for being more fuel efficient, yet able to do just about anything the modern gamer male can physically.

You can walk into a store intoxicated. You can commit the cool crime of stealing (which we don’t necessarily advocate). You can even apply for a job at a store.

But whatever you do, don’t go for the fabled Triple Crown. Especially if achieving the goal involves an adult store, an adult toy and cameras. Especially if cameras are involved.

People of Chicago, be careful on your commutes. The temperature is cooling down and things are getting weird.

A few weeks ago, a baby alligator was found waltzing around the baggage claim area of Chicago O’Hare International Airport. The gator wasn’t talking, so authorities were forced to go through surveillance footage. They found that a woman riding on the train to the airport was playing with the creature in the middle of the night, now they’re looking for her.

Then on Saturday, another woman got on another transit authority train line completely naked. Naturally, she called herself the “goddess of the train” and as any vengeful goddess would, she yelled at and slapped the mere humans in her presence until the police took her away.