Category Archives: You Stupid Dick

Cars Poo

Celebs and Media, You Stupid Dick 3 Replies

Who can forget the first ten minutes of UP, where a kid’s movie emotionally punched you in the nutsack so hard you woke up at the talking dog scene?

Or how about the feeling of longing brought about when a little robot, alone for 700 years and surrounded by garbage, dreamed of just holding someone’s hand by clasping his own two together while watching Hello Dolly?

Who could forget the look of calm defeat that flashes across the faces of life long toy friends when they realize they’re going to die a fiery meltyplastic death, and with no rescue coming, one by one accepted their fate and stopped struggling?

Pixar has taken some big risks in the past. Literally they’ve reinvented movie making (arguably by re-hashing European film techniques with solid scripts – see Ratatouille) and created some incredibly beautiful, striking movie moments like the ones above. They boldly and successfully play with their audience using themes thought to be taboo in kids movies: death, loss, alienation, nostalgia, etc., and in the process have created the best American cinema in the last decade.

Cars 2, from what I am understanding from all the reviews, does nothing to help that last statement. When Pixar set out to make Toy Story 2, fanboys worried that they were selling out to the monster Hollywood cash machine, but were surprised when they got a solid, touching story that was just as good as the first – and then outdid themselves with a third movie. Pixar proved that you could continue a franchise without selling out.

However, I can glean not one thing from the reviews I’ve read, or from the trailers I’ve seen, that this movie is nothing but “oil=pee” and “muffler=fart” jokes.

This is why I’ll not see Cars 2 in the theartre. I don’t want to tarnish Pixar’s stellar reputation. Sadly, however, Cars 2 exists, like a steaming pile of cat puke, left carelessly from a loved one, outside your bedroom door. Eventually you’ll step in it.

Bah! I was in a horrid mood all morning until I saw this:

Shattered Pride

I'm going to tell you what to do, Toronto, You Stupid Dick 4 Replies

Poor Pride Toronto.

It seems everyone is out to get you.

There’s that whole Middle East problem that somehow has become a sword for any yokel who dislikes a few hundred thousand people getting together to celebrate diversity. Hey JDL and QuAIA – Thanks for bringing your fight to the mix and stop me if I’m wrong, but a festival about sexual freedoms is not a place for airing out your Forever War, even if you tack on the word “Queer” to your cause. Pride is now officially like a high school house party for theatre fags where the chess club shows up and insists on taking the B52s off the stereo and putting on Nana Mouskouri. ZZZ.

Meanwhile, at city hall…I imagine the mayor and his right winged goonsquad are melodramatically twirling their mustaches, thinking up ways to defund you. Like setting public opinion upon you by ramping up buzzwords like “hate speech”, painting you as being dis-organized, therefore not deserving the dollars. Seriously Pride Toronto, watch these guys. They’ve shown in the past they’d be happier if you didn’t exists at all, let alone being forced to give you money.

And at the Sun (snicker) newspaper, some hack awful reporter (who has her nose quite far up the mayor’s ass) is going behind your back telling religious leaders to lean on city council reps to de-fund you due to hateful messages in your parade.

Remember when you had to deal with naked people? Good times…

So what do you do?

I’m going to tell you what to do and you can do what you like:

Cancel Pride.

Hear me out: I’ve always thought the best advice for dealing with children who are throwing fits is to calmly stop, let them run their course, then punch them in the face.

Okay now I’m dead serious about this. Please cancel Pride for one year and let the city wonder where the couple hundred million dollars in tourist money went. Let these petulant whiners wonder how the city came up a few hundred million dollars short in the budget because of all the product placement, transactions and advertisements suddenly stopped flowing from business to business. Let the businesses who lose out without Pride deal with the mayor and the right-winged reporters and religious goons. Money has a funny way of shutting people up.

Coming Into Focus

Tech, You Stupid Dick 4 Replies

Last night I got to sit in on my first focus group, 2-way mirror and all.

I went to an office somewhere downtown where I sat in a room with 5 other guys and talked about cleaning products. Guys plus cleaning products can only mean one thing: this was a research panel about cleaning gadgets. And gadgety they were.

It seems everyone is trying to re-invent the Swiffer, like so many have tried in the last couple years. This company was charged with trying to bring new design/product ideas to the table that would stimulate men to purchase cleaning supplies and we were the guinea pigs. I can safely say that out of the 30 or so product treatments we looked over, 3 only got me interested. The rest were variations on a Swiffer theme. Here’s a glimpse of the cleaning future: know that “UV lighting” plays big.

When I got there the first thing I noticed about the other panelists was that all except for one guy had dirty hair. Seriously greasy. One guy was well groomed but he was a bit run-on-the-mouth, negating his cleanliness and making him the know-it-all. One guy kept his sunglasses on until the woman running the show asked him if he had a medical condition. No, they’re just cool. Thanks Corey Hart! One average joe kind of guy (who I would match opinions on things most of the time) had such an angry grimace on the whole time looked like he wanted to murder us all just because. And finally there was Monseraat. Yes. That’s his name.

Monseraat wanted to talk in depth about how awful all the products were. While I gave my opinion honestly and said opinions that came from my consumerist heart, Monseraat just wanted to have his bitch on. I was convinced that he was a bit drunk because he could not follow the simple instructions the group leader was laying down. First, we were instructed to talk about the positives about the product, if any, to which Monseraat would ignore and start into a diatribe of how horrid this new thing was: “Why would I want to have different types of cleaning heads? Can’t I just pick up a sponge if I need a sponge?” Monseraat hated everything they threw at us because it didn’t have steam cleaning power. When one hand held steam cleaning prototype came across the table, he went apeshit with happiness, until I said: “I’m not too comfortable using an electrical, plug in device to clean a bathtub.” Then with daggers shooting from his eyes directed to me, he changed his product score one point lower. It was then I realized I could counter his opinions with logic and I went to town.

“Why would you use something that looks like an oven mitt to clean? It’s awful.”

“Well you use your whole hand, it gives you more coverage and more control over the size of your wipe. More area equals faster cleaning!”

Dirty daggers.

In the end Monseraat was a ball of confusion when it came to choose our top three favorite products at the end of the evening.

Would I do it again? Absolutely! Would I want someone like Monseraat in the group? YES!

The Thump

You Stupid Dick 2 Replies

At 12:45am this morning I’m pulled from sleep like a Cylon from an airlock to the inky depths of awakefulness (finally getting to my BluRay collection – like the simile?). I lay on my side, eyes closed wondering what just happened. Did I dream something?

Memory reboot.

As my brain comes online I realize I was woken by a thump above my head. I pieced together the noise and the plaster falling from the ceiling as being two parts of a memory puzzle that had just happened.

The neighbour has fallen…

I lay there silent, wondering what the hell I should do next. My primal sleepy brain instantly thought that if the neighbor upstairs had fallen and because the noise was so heavy, so meaty, there was a good chance he hit his head on the way down. It did sound like a 210lbs watermelon bouncing off hardwood. And if that was the case I was going to start feeling his blood drip on my face soon.

Stupid sleepy primal brain.

“Marfgkl,” I hear, muffled though the floorboards.

Another thump. Not as shocking, threatening, hits the floor. His arm?

After ten minutes, the sleepy primal brain changes to the uncaring, heartless brain, hoping he’ll bleed out and we get a new neighbour who doesn’t fall down at 1am for liquid reasons.

Twenty minutes pass and I hear what could be crawling to the bathroom. The shower turns on.

I fall asleep to images of black and white blood, swirling down the drain, a la Psycho.

Yeah, I’m That Guy

You Stupid Dick Leave a reply

Me: (Speaking into my iPhone mic on the ear buds as I walk along, said with gravity) Hello.

SharkBoy: You almost home? Should I come down stairs and meet you outside?

Me: Yes.

SharkBoy: Okay See ya!

Me: Byeeee!

 

————–

What was taking place around me during that short exchange:

Me: (Speaking into my iPhone mic on the ear buds as I walk along, said with gravity) Hello.

Guy walking towards me, not 4 ft from me, looks up. “Uh… h–”

Me: Yes.

Guy Walking Towards Me: I… hi?

Me: Byeeee!

 

 

Work With Me, TTC

The Bad, Toronto, You Stupid Dick Leave a reply

Non-Torontonians may gloss over this rant, but here goes.

The TTC is having another public relations melt down. Photos of bus drivers texting while they’re driving are flooding into newsrooms (okay as of today, only 3 so far in as many days). Of course these are getting posted all over the web.

You may recall the initial blow up where the Teet and the Internet came to blows over the Sleeping Ticket Taker (rest his poor soul).

Well The Teet has released the brilliant statement that the public should stop taking pictures of their staff to try to stem the flow of “bad imagery”. How very Egyptian.

To be fair,they aren’t saying “stop reporting our drivers” because they have either video evidence or phone record access of their staff (do they?!) which can correlate with the complaint. That, to me, sounds lame. To me, it sounds like they know they have a problem and just want it to go away.

The union pres for the Teet, Bob Kinnear, has verbal instructions for riders who want to confront drivers who are TXT while driving. He suggests: “I’d say, ‘Do you mind not texting while you’re driving from point A to point B?”

Uh. How about “PUT DOWN THE FUCKING PHONE!” It’s against the law to drive with an electronic device. Or did your drivers not get the memo?

I say take their picture. As long as it doesn’t obstruct what minimal vision they might be reduced to, depending on the driver’s infraction. Safety first, people!

Voice, So Over

You Stupid Dick

Play yeeng songs that embarrass you...

“Play Album Tangled

“Play yeeng Album Rudebox…”

Press. Hold.

“Play. Album. Tangled

“Play yeeng Album Sugar Tax…”

Press. Hold.

“PLAY. ALBUM. TANG-GELED”

“Play yeeng Album BluePowderMilk…”

Grrrrr

Press. Hold.

“PLAY! ALBUM! TANGLED!!!”

“Play yeeng Album I, Robot…”

Okay… different tactic.

Press. Hold.

“Play. Album. SOUNDTRACK DISNEY TANGLED

“Play yeeng Album Soundtrack Kill Bill Voleone…”

Press. Hold.

Ad infinitum.