I am often very amused by informercial products and my latest discovery is not an exception. Advertised as "The Greatest Blanket Ever!",behold The Snuggie

My initial thought was that it is very reminiscent of monk attire. I have some problems with how the functionality is misrepresented. It begins with a general comparison to blankets, one of the cons of blankets being "your hands are trapped inside". It goes on to show you all the things The Snuggie enables you do to with your hands: talk on the phone, use your laptop, hold your baby close, read a book, and many more. I don't know about anyone else but if I'm in a cold environment, having my hands exposed...not helpful. My other problem area is my feet. It seems The Snuggie provides length to cover my feet, however, I can also walk around. This seems rather dangerous considering I can also hold my baby close as suggested earlier in the commercial.

I also feel that the senior citizen demographic may be mislead as well. An elderly gentleman sitting in a recliner used his remote earlier in the commercial as an example of things you can do with your hands. Later on in the commercial, he is able to eat a snack, in this particular case, popcorn. I do not believe popcorn and dentures reconcile well. Perhaps popping a Centrum Silver or having another person eat the popcorn would reduce the potential denture disasters the current portrayal could cause.

The one size fits all manufacture of any article of clothing is generally restricted to accessories, particularly hats. An article of clothing that is advertised as marketable to adults and children, should not have a universal size. A one size fits all manufacture negates all the advantages The Snuggie claims to have.

The Snuggie is not attractive, at all. Other terrible colors are available, sage green and royal blue.The sage green is more of an El Camino green, and the royal blue is more of a 1986 Speedo blue. We later see that The Snuggie can keep you "cozy and warm at sporting events", evidenced by a mother, father, and young girl cheering in bleachers outside. It seems like it is a sporting event for an older child, although we never see children playing, it seems logical. If my family came to one of my soccer games all dressed in matching Snuggies, it would probably either increase my visits to a therapist or encourage a preteen Drew Barrymore lifestyle. It is also "ideal for those drafty dorm rooms", we are shown a young girl doing homework on her bed in her Snuggie. She has a psychedelic "PEACE" poster from Spencer's as the lone decoration on her dorm room wall. I just want to say to her "The Snuggie and that poster aren't the best ways to make friends and/or get laid hun".

The Snuggie is only $14.95 plus $7.95 shipping and handling, this includes a free booklight. There is also a possibility for buy one get one free if you call at the end of the commercial. I wonder if Sarah Palin has The Snuggie, it is awefully chilly in Alaska.

I decided to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze because it had been years since I've seen it. There are several points of reflection throughout the course of the movie.

Keno, the pizza delivery boy/martial arts master is the first Asian mullet I have seen in a movie. The Mullets Galore website does not have a Asian mullet classification, stylistically I think his mullet resembles the Euromullet.

Keno, however, would rank higher on the aggressiveness and mulletude than the typical Euromullet...specs can be found here

Early in the movie, we get two movie chiches close together. April is coming back from grocery shopping carrying a paper bag with a baguette(or batard) sticking out, all grocery paper bags in movies have a baguette(or batard) sticking out of the bag. The next and a cliche that maintains itself throughout the movie is "If a character uses martial arts rather than a weapon, his opponents will always face him one-to-one. Spare bad guys may dance around the fight taunting our hero, but none will engage until his predecessor has been disposed of." The first use of this cliche also brings me to the conclusion of the opening fight, a pile of foot soldiers, oddly reminiscent of some Abu Ghraib photos.

All it needs is for some American soldiers smiling photoshopped in and you couldn't tell the difference.

I also thought it was interesting that Raphael had a thick New York accent, perhaps Queens, yet the other turtles do not have a regional accent. He is as flamboyant as possible with his Queens accent, yes I know this sentence has an almost double entendre. Speaking of voices, Shredder's voice has a very voice over quality to it, he sounds like the poor man's James Earl Jones.

As the title connotes, mutagenic ooze is a major plot point. Why is ooze in movies always pastel colors, in this case green. The ooze was pink in Ghostbusters 2.  I believe the ooze in this movie is an inorganic compound and it's possible that there is chromium(III) oxide in it (that would contribute to a green appearance), but highly unlikely. I suppose it's just the semiotic approach to the term "ooze".

I think the finances are somewhat sketchy. Where do the turtles get money to buy pizza, perhaps Splinter has a small fortune saved. Splinter looks more like a ferret than a rat by the way. They were staying with April, so she may have been funding their operation. She has an apartment which is way too nice for a local news reporter. The apartment is HUGE and it seems she may live in Manhatten, so I can't even imagine how much it is. Splinter and the turtles were supposed to move to another apartment, yet they were supposed to stay incognito. I guess April would cosign for their lease. Obviously, the turtles and Splinter would have some issues on the application I would think. Apartments usually don't like to recruit rats for dwelling, even if it is Yoda Mr. Miyagi rat.

There are other things I would have liked to discuss about this film but alas I am running out of time. The end of the movie, we are treated to what may have been the highlight of Vanilla Ice's career..."Ninja Rap". Only Vanilla Ice would have the composure to improv in the presence of mutated animals having a kung fu showdown. I did stumble upon this lovely official music video for "Ninja Rap"

I read an article online regarding a prediction made by evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry about the divergence of the human species. Humans will peak in the year 3000 and over the course of 10,000 years, physical appearances will dramatically change. He thinks humans will split into two species, "an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures", similar to the Eloi and Morlock of "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells.

They will be 6-7 ft tall and live for 120 years. Reliance on technology will weaken the immune system and cause child-like features. He also notes the differences in the sexes and race being obsolete.

"Men will have symmetrical facial features, deeper voices and bigger penises.Women will all have glossy hair, smooth hairless skin, large eyes and pert breasts.Racial differences will be a thing of the past as interbreeding produces a single coffee-coloured skin tone."

It seems that Dr. Curry modeled what he considers to be the final evolutionary stage of humans on porn. Watch any mainstream porn and you are looking into the window of the future of humanity; however, in the future, cable men and plumbers may have a financial arrangement for services rendered rather than the barter system of sorts as seen in those movies.

If porn isn't your thing then another window of the future is the movie "Twins".I haven't seen it in years but I do remember the premise, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the epitome of human perfection and Danny Devito is the "leftover crap" (I swear that is a direct quote from the movie). I think they were genetically engineered. If you recall Danny Devito as Penguin in Batman, the goblin-like creature image is not that far off.

It seems the final evolutionary stage of humanity is full of Arnold Schwarzeneggers (hopefully with better teeth), Danny Devitos, porn stars, and hopefully Guitar Hero (Guitar Hero III comes out today btw )

When you select a song to play, a loading screen appears with a cassette tape with wings boucing up and down. According to the etiquette book of Emily Post, a bouncing winged cassette tape is delightfully complimented by pearls of wisdom and game tips. I have compiled these pearls of wisdom which took awhile.

Smell the new cassette tape. This is the scent of rock.

Encore? They needed to ask? Like Duh.

A proper modern hard rock solo requires 3 whammies per note. Minimum.

Your singer is correct, "Night" is the best word that rhymes with"night".

It's not how WELL you sing, it's how HIGH you sing.

Always re-tease your hair before the encore. ALWAYS.

Playing a long set can make you tired and mega-grody. Drench your drummer in soda before the encore.

General rule of encores: First on the cassette, last in the set.

TURN IT UP!

Don't stand too close to the flash pots.

Beware: country bands, too, wear fringed jackets.

If your hair still moves while you're headbanging, you aren't using enough hairspray.

Live the life. Stonewash your underpants.

Before the internet existed, people expressed their love for heavy metal in the bathroom stall.

The crowd will never tire of the lyric, "Oh yeah".

It's ok for the drummer to buy, like, the hugest kit ever. No one wants to see his bad make-up anyway.

My favorite is: If your neighbors keep complaining about the noise, turn up the volume until they move away.

Attention: Harmonix game developers and interested blog readers,
In regards to the entire Guitar Hero collection, I have always thought "Still of the Night" by Whitesnake would be an excellent choice. Whenever I hear it, I think "wow, that would be an amazing song to play on Guitar Hero". I thought about releasing additional information revealing how seriously I am committed to this idea, but it is too embarrassing to put in a public arena.

My final point uses the power of what is considered the greatest film of all time, "Citizen Kane". I think if "Citizen Kane" had a Guitar Hero subtext, Orson Welles, well his character would have whispered "Whitesnake" on his deathbed instead of "Rosebud".

While waiting for the premiere of the new Fantastic Four movie to start, Tih and I were talking about random things as usual and the topic of Stephen Hawking and RoboCop came up. For those of you who are unfamiliar with either of the two, I will provide some brief information.

Stephen Hawking is one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists of our time. He suffers from Lou Gehrig's disease and is confined to a wheelchair. He also uses a voice synthesizer.

RoboCop is a cyborg cop. The body of a cop who was massacred by a criminal gang was put into a robotic device. He galavants around Detroit in a beat-up police car fighting crime and searching for his killers.

Both Stephen Hawking and RoboCop are half-man, half-machine. They sound very familiar. I would think if RoboCop and Stephen Hawking were roommates and you called their house, you wouldn't know who answered the phone. They both have mobility issues. Stairs are not very compatible with either. Apart from the mechanical aspect of both Hawking and RoboCop, there are clues in Hawking's "The Universe in a Nutshell".

1) He discusses the possibility of time travel using wormholes. Why such concern unless you wanted to go back in time to stop your untimely and violent death?

2) The idea of the universe having multiple histories in imaginary and real time. That's kinda like having a past as a cop and a family that you sorta remember bc your memory as erased. You have that history and you have a new life as a cyborg cop.

3) There is a chapter devoted to biology and technology. How convenient an interest especially if you wanted to reconcile the two as a cyborg.

4) He discusses predicting a particle's behaviour outside a black hole supposing it had fallen in a black hole and lost some of its wave function, basically predicting the future. This particle function quandary parallels RoboCop's desire to come across the criminals who killed him, where are they, how does he find them, etc.

There are many other interesting similiarities, but I think I have provided enough information to have a strong argument. On a unrelated note, isn't the girl that becomes Murphy's partner before he gets killed and later helps him, the Danny DeVito of Maggie Gyllenhaal twins. You know it's true.

During the course of the past few days, Christina and I have semi-discussed the merit of a mattress made of twinkies. It has been a source of amusement and curiousity. I decided to perform a twinkie comfort experiment. Constructing a mattress made of twinkies would be really time consuming and expensive, so I decided to start small...a pillow. After work today, I went to the Harris Teeter near where I live and bought all the boxes of twinkies they had (3). I asked an employee if they had any more boxes and she checked in the back and they did not. She told me she would call another Harris Teeter nearby and see if they did and if so ask to hold them up front for me. While she is on the phone, I am starting to feel like a crazy person and could only imagine what she thought. She got no answer but told me where the Harris Teeter was. After looking for that Harris Teeter for a little bit, I decided to go to the one near where I used to live. I wandered around that Harris Teeter for awhile until I got over my pride and asked an employee if they carried twinkies. She showed me where they were, and I got 3 more boxes. I could have gotten more but I wasn't sure. I bought a total of 6 boxes of twinkies, 10 twinkies per box. It also was around $20.

When I got home, I emptied the boxes of twinkies, found a pillowcase and began to unwrap and put the twinkies in the pillowcase. I discovered after all the twinkies were in the pillowcase that I should've bought more twinkies. Alas, a spacial misjudgement on my part.

Behold the majestic twinkie pillow

I plan on sleeping on the twinkie filled well almost filled pillowcase and seeing if it is comfortable or not. If it is very comfortable, a blog of twinkie accolades will follow. If not, I have 60 twinkies in a pillowcase. I have also determined I'm a strange person.

I was watching Voltron the other morning, which I haven't seen in years and years. Now that I am older, I can put things in real world context. Anyway, I was quite concerned with the character of Pidge, who is the pilot of the Green Lion. Pidge is around 12 years old. Anyway, Voltron is known as the Defender of the Universe and fights evil King Zarkon and Prince Lotor (who's kinda hot by the way). Pidge being the pilot of the Green Lion which makes up the left arm of Voltron, is participating in these battles and violence. A strong argument can be made that Pidge is a child soldier. Pidge is too young to drive a car, yet can pilot a robotic lion which can travel quite fast. I'm not sure the maximum speed that each lion can achieve individually, but I do know that when Voltron is formed, it can achieve Mach 10.

Pidge's circumstances are seemingly different from the child soliders in Africa. Pidge graduated from an academy, whether or not he was "forcibly recruited" as is the case with many child soldiers, is unclear. It does not change the fact that Pidge serves in a military capacity. Interestingly enough, there is no mention of Voltron or Pidge on Amnesty International, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Human Rights Watch, or UNICEF websites. Poor Pidge, he fell through the cracks of international human rights concerns.

On a side note, I really like tulips. They are my favorite flower, yellow doesn't really do it for me though. They have a very smooth form and a sort of elegance and sophistication. There's the tulip shout-out i promised someone.

While visiting Christina and Beth in New York in August, we stumbled upon an infomercial of fabulous proportions. Those of you who have read my blogs probably notice that infomercials are quite entertaining to me. Anyway, what makes everything better (most of the time)...alcohol. We decide to turn the infomercial into a drinking game. Peter Popoff is an evangelical minister. You know the touch the forehead and magically nerve damage and paralysis disappear kind. His big thing is Miracle Spring Water. Apparently drinking some makes your problems disappear through prayer or something. Anyway onto the important stuff.

Every time you hear the words "Divine Transfer", "Miracle Spring Water", or when someone is blessed you drink one.

Whenever the creepy white guy with glasses tries to prove he's not really a cracka, by calling people "brother" or "sister", you drink three.

Whenever Peter Popoff throws a disabled person's cane away or someone in a wheelchair gets up and walks for the first time in 30 years, you drink five.

By the end of the infomerical, you are drunk enough to call the toll free number on your cell phone and order some miracle spring water. Apparently, in order to work after you receive it, you must send money. I guess whenever they receive the money, they spiritually activate your water kinda like a credit card.

On a side note: Peter Popoff also has the Neil Diamond hair thing going on. If you would like to visit the website for tv listings, my benevolence is providing you with the link http://www.peterpopoff.org/

Most of you are probably familiar with the "who came first, the chicken or the egg" conundrum? Arguments for both sides are reasonable. It seems not too many evolutionary theorists have commented on it though. By the way, the egg came first. The easiest explanation is that it developmentally makes sense, ask Tiffany, she said this and was/is my facilitator. How plausible is it that the chicken would come first, unless there is a big bang chicken theory that i am unaware of, my guess is not very.  Perhaps that is why chicken is very popular fried, a sort of homage to that hot, dense state it was in during the chicken Planck epoch. I digress. Chickens evolved from reptiles i.e. dinosaurs. Reptiles lay eggs, chicken lay eggs, mutant reptile hatches and reproduces passing on that genetic mutation, and enter chickens. The best example of the reptile-chicken connection is the Archaeopteryx. By the way, Panamarenko's work "Archaeopterix IV" is a great little contruction of wood, strings, electronic chips, and solar cells. You should look it up. Anyway, Aracheopterix had both bird and reptile anatomy. It lived during the late Jurassic period. It had wings, flight feathers, and a wishbone. It also had interdental plates, long chevrons in the tail and other bone characteristics associated with reptiles. And now the most damning evidence of all...why is it that every meat that isn't from domestic animals tastes like chicken?

Again, a big thank you to Tiffany.

Last Tuesday (Dec 26) I went to see Evil Dead: The Musical, a delightful off Broadway show. It combined parts of Evil Dead 1 and 2, mostly Evil Dead 1. For those of you unfamiliar with the Evil Dead series, it is zombies attack people in secluded cabin series. Evil Dead came out in 1981. Instead of being scary like its parent, the musical was very funny and poked fun at the genre.
The first two rows were deemed "Splatter Zone". At the end, there was a zombie massacre and fake blood was everywhere. The audience on those first 2 rows were given plastic rain ponchos. People in several rows behind them were holding their hands up for some raincoats, most likely a result of the intense desire for something free. You could tell who sat there after the show by looking for the fake blood on people's faces. I saw a few guys who didn't wear the raincoats provided for them. They were very proud of their clothes and chests splattered with fake blood.

Two of my favorite lines from it which are also the only ones I remember, are:

Ash (after decapitating his zombie girlfriend): This isn't the kind of head I was planning on getting this weeked.

Annie: Do all zombies speak in bad puns?

I swear in the "Do the Necronomicon" number, some of the choreography was from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video.
I heard about this production via myspace actually, you can view it at http://www.myspace.com/evildeadthemusical
If anyone is in the new york city area and would like to see a fabulous production, i recommend Evil Dead: The Musical.