I’m off work today. And I was bored.

More on the subject of my previous post.

Bratty children remind me to keep my sperm to myself

So, I was buying condoms at Target the other day and debating which ones to get.

The activity had become commonplace. Jimmy hats, a grocery store list item as obvious and inevitable as milk or toilet paper. Just something you buy.

As a person who never wants to have kids (Like never never ever), I think I often don’t consider what my life would be like if I didn’t use a sperm-to-eggs blockade.

Fortunately, while I was debating which condoms to purchase in this Target aisle, a nice Midwestern family of four and their shopping cart full of school supplies and fruit rollups rounded the corner.

Evil kittens and free Tetris: These are a few of my favorite things

Today’s subject is another new study:

This one comes from the Pew Research Center, which found that nearly 50 percent of Internet users are now using search engines on a regular basis. That’s up from only about a third of Internet users in 2002. Not really all that surprising or interesting, but it has forced me to question my own search engine use.

Just how much has searching pervaded my own daily existence? How regular are my searching habits and what things am I searching for?
I decided to seek answers to these queries by tracking my search history through one “typical day” of screwing around on the Web.

And the results were telling about how much of a helpless little infant I am without Google.

Search: “micah mertes”
I usually do this once a week or so. Still haven’t found any pictures of me naked or using cocaine (knock on wood), though I’m not optimistic about those photos staying under wraps forever. Did find out I work for the Lincoln Journal Star, though.

Search: “the wire season 5 reviews”
Came out on DVD this week. Best show ever. I’m probably watching it as you read this.

Search: “sacarine”
Couldn’t remember how to spell the word. Never can. Turns out it’s “s-a-c-c-h-a-r-i-n-e.” Thank goodness for Google. How else would we remember to spell words?

Search: “sounds like ben folds”
Needed music to listen to and download. Felt whimsical.

Search: “evil kittens”
Can’t explain.

Search: “free tetris”
Self-explanatory

Search: “dog years calculator”
Also self-explanatory.

Search: “last comic standing barack obama john mccain”
A friend told me I had to see these NBC promos starring the two presidential candidates. Both videos are painfully unfunny and kind of make you wish for a strong third-party candidate.

Search: “georgia russia conflict”
Wanted to understand what’s going on with these two. Still don’t quite get it.

Search: “traveled”
Oh, it has two L’s?

My city has the ugliest people in America!

I often scour Menshealth.com for its METROGRADES page, where it offers lists of the “Most” and “Least” something metro areas in the U.S.

The city with the greenest drivers, the best cities for dogs, the city at most risk for skin cancer, etc. The METROGRADES usually compile the lists based on government data so it seems pretty legit.

For months, I’ve followed each new list with maddening curiousity and the hope that maybe, just maybe, my current stomping ground, Lincoln, NE, will show up as the No. 1 something. Then, perhaps I can find some official qualification to be proud of, some justification for why I’ve made this city my temporary home.

That day has come.

In their feature, “Capitals of Cosmetic Surgery,” Men’s Health ranked U.S. cities with the most and least number of cosmetic surgeries. San Fransico go under the knife the most. But who’s’s the most underbotoxed city?

Lincoln, NE.

My city.

If you’ve ever seen a Lincolnite, you could probably deduce that we’re not a people all too concerned with our faces or bodies. We’re more concerned with the stuff that matters, like church or kitschy mudflaps or being able to cheer really loud at football games.

We might have crooked teeth, protuberant guts and wide-rimmed noses, but at least we’re OK with it.

Hello again. And Demo Derbies

For my two and a half consisent readers, I apologize for the two-month hiatus. It was truly an egregious lack of respect for you and yours. I hope this above picture of a giant kitten will appease you.

In those two months, a friend and I were setting up a new movie Web site, PUNCHYOUINTHEHEART.com. So, if you want to help us score some ad revenue, click that link. Note: We’re up to 68 cents!

OK, so that’s out of the way.

So I went to the Lancaster County Demolition Derby the other night for an LJS assignment. Don’t know exactly why, but I love demo derbies, I love them retarded. I have no interest in engines, cars, county fairs, country music, ’80s rock, livestock, chaw, Natural Light or really anything masculine, but demo derbies strike some kind of chord in me. Perhaps there’s really a primal beast beneath my effeminate exterior, a champion of mannish pride. Maybe I’ll meet him someday.

“Today the Pond!”: The Happening and 5 other funny eco-horror films

                   M. Night: I know you think you’re a good actor and everything, Paul, but if you don’t stutter and stammer the way I want you to stutter and stammer, I’m going to throw you in the fucking pool and let Bryce Dallas Howard get at you. Are we fucking clear? 

M. Night Shyamalan’s latest opus, “The Happening,” hits theaters on Friday, and the early word ain’t good. Shyamalan’s work started to head south after “Signs,” but some critics have deemed this his worst yet, no small claim for the man who brought us “Lady in the Water.” 

“Happening” stars Mark Wahlberg as a biology teacher who must lead a group of survivors through some kind of “happening,” in which everyone starts acting strange and killing themselves. 

As with most any Shyamalan flick, the trailers and promotional material have shrouded the plot of the movie in mystery. 

If you don’t want to know why everybody’s killing themselves in the latest M. Night film, quit reading this. If you do want to know or just don’t care, please read this spoiler for a hearty Friday chuckle:

In “The Happening,” people are starting to harm and kill themselves because all the trees have evolved to emit a neurotoxin that causes a person to lose control of their body and punch their own ticket. You see, mother nature is angry with humanity, so it’s decided to kill it. It’s like Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” but with ficas as the villains. 

Keep messing with mother earth, and she’ll mess back, M. Night warns in this film, which was originally called “The Green Effect.”

As insanely original (insane being the key word) as Shyamalan’s premise is, “The Happening” owes a lot to many other films. His pic falls into a narrow little genre that really got going in the ’70s: eco-horror —

a type of scary movie in which nature gets tired of taking humanity’s shit and decides to seek revenge.

To celebrate Shyamalan’s continuous descent down the rabbit hole of his own warped mind, here are 5 other noble, bad-funny, environmentally conscious horror movies:

 

 

1. “Orca: The Killer Whale” (1977)

Just two years after Spielberg wowed movie audiences with “Jaws,” there was this, a hilarious tale of revenge with a killer whale as the wronged. A flipped “Moby Dick” for the creature feature era. 

Oscar-winner Richard Harris plays Captain Nolan, a seaman sans scruples who decides to capture a killer whale to pay the mortgage on his ship. But he haplessly kills a mother whale and her offspring in the process. This spurs the grieving, spiteful daddy Orca to stalk the sailor.

Environmental lesson to be learned: If you’re going to kill a killer whale, make sure you kill the rest of the family. Or they’ll stalk and kill you.

 

2. “Long Weekend” (1979)

This delightfully campy Australian horror flick pits a silly, selfish couple against the beasts of the Outback. 

A camping husband and wife offend nature after they litter, fire their gun without purpose and kill a kangaroo. Attacks from snakes, possums, whales, spiders, bats and one terrifying eagle ensue.

Environmental lesson to be learned: Don’t litter or an eagle will attack you. 

 

3. “Deep Blue Sea” (1999)

A group of scientists in an offshore submarine facility discover the cure for Alzheimer’s disease: big fat shark brains. The team genetically engineers sharks to have extra gray matter so that more of the supposed Alzheimer’s cure can be extracted. But the sharks’ brains get too big. They become too intelligent. And they decide to overtake the humans. As a result, Sam L. Jackson gets chomped in half, and LL Cool J finds the best way to fend off the supersmart devils: hitting them with a big frying pan. 

Environmental lesson to be learned: Don’t tamper with shark brains in the name of an Alzheimer’s-free world.

 

4. Frogs (1972)

“Today the pond! Tomorrow the world!” boomed the original tagline of this fine piece of cinema.

Oscar-winner Ray Milland plays a nature-hating millionaire who owns his own swampy island. But his continuous pollution of the ecosystem has made its other inhabitants angry. Soon the pond life, led by a supernaturally intelligent cadre of killer frogs, starts picking off the humans one by one. Best scene: A lady is murdered … by a turtle. 

Environmental lesson to be learned: If you pollute, amphibians will explode into a murderous rage.  

 

5. Night of the Lepus (1972)

When a rancher finds his land overrun by rabbits, he enlists the help of a buddy at the local university for a solution. A university zoologist tries to disrupt the rabbit reproduction by injecting the rabbits with mutant blood and hormones. But one of the lab rabbits escapes, mates with the general population and creates a race of giant, mutant, carnivorous bunnies. The bunnies ravage through the countryside, killing horses, cows and men until the National Guard intervenes. 

Cutest villains in the history of the movies.

Environmental lesson to be learned: Don’t, um, inject rabbits with mutant blood. 

What I watched in the last 24 hours: The Signal

• An episode of “The Sopranos” Season 4.
• 10 minutes of “The Other Boleyn Girl”: A tedious 10 minues.
• The first hour of Doug Liman’s “Jumper.” Pretty big missed opportunity. And Hayden needs to quit being in movies.

But the best viewing I’ve had recently, in fact probably the best DVD I’ve seen so far this year, is a little indie horror movie called “The Signal.”

I didn’t really know what to expect with this movie. But somehow it managed to be a scary, gory, hilarious, romantic, touching film with a somewhat “Rashamon”-style structure.

Here’s my favorite description I’ve read so far, from Buzz Wallick’s DreadCentral.com review:

“The best way to describe The Signal is to imagine Pulp Fiction got loaded up on cocaine one evening and decided to go jogging. While on its jog, it came across a wandering 28 Days Later. Being that 28 Days Later was alone, Pulp Fiction decided to rape it. The bastard child that came out of that situation is, and I say this with most affection, The Signal.”

The Signal focuses on three people trying to survive what might be the end of the world. In the city of Terminus, a signal is going out on phones and TVs and Internet feeds, a feed that’s making one out of every two people go crazy and try to kill their neighbors or family members. The premise is similar to Stephen King’s book, “Cell.”

While I expected those afflicted by the signal to start acting like Romero-zombies or the raging maniacs of the “28 Days” movies, “The Signal” does something much more interesting. The feed causes a sort of mass psychosis in people. And what makes the premise truly interesting is that the signal affects people in differnet ways, causing them to react with different behaviors. For some it’s murderous rage. For others, it’s a high level of suggestibility (like in one hilarious scene where one man believes a decapitated head is talking to him, a la “Re-Animator”). The signal just makes one guy really horny, influencing him to make perverted statements like, “Are there any sluts around, cause I’ll pee in their butt.”

The movie’s not hurt by it’s exhilarating can-do indie filmmaking spirit, which mixes chronology of events up, giving the viewer as disoriented a perspective as some of the characters.

“The Signal” broken up into three parts, all from the perspective of the three main characters: Ben, Mya and Lewis.

The first section plays like a straight-up, albeit wildly original, horror movie. The second section takes a wild turn to absurdist comedy. And the third act takes the viewer further down the rabbit hole and takes on a deep poignancy. The final moment in this film, which explores the ever-healing power of a Walkman, is one of my all-time favorites.

Oh, and the score’s terrific. And the cinematography’s beautiful. And the acting is superb (especially by AJ Bowen, who’s like a stockier Ryan Reynolds with a mean streak). 

The special features of the DVD are great, too.  A commentary by writer/directors David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry, who all wrote and directed their individual section alone, is hilarious. And the making-of doc are some of the best and most illuminating you’ll find on a DVD.

This is such a breath of fresh air and hands-down the best movie I’ve seen this year.

Father’s Day is almost here

Father’s Day’s coming up, and let’s face it, Dad. You probably aren’t the best father in the history of the world.
But you’re pretty good, and you’re certainly better than these guys.

Woody Allen
Sure, your husband has probably made a few mistakes in your marriage, maybe even a few deplorable ones. But did he ever take nude photos of your adopted daughter?
Though Allen would continuously deny that he was Soon-Yi Previn’s stepfather, his relationship to her was still a little unnerving.
Previn is, after all, the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow, who was with Allen throughout the ’80s and raised three children with him. After Farrow discovered some nude pictures, Allen had snapped of her daughter, the couple went through a nasty child custody battle, leaving Allen with little visitation rights to his adopted and biological children.
He then started his publicly open relationship with Previn, who is 34 years his junior.
While he might want to reiterate his “to each his own” worldview, Allen certainly can’t make claim to being a very good family man. 

Carlos Ray Norris
The mechanic and truck driver wasn’t there much during his son Chuck’s formative years. In the titular texas ranger’s autobiography he said his dad had a terrible drinking problem and left Norris to raise his younger siblings with his mother.
Let this be a lesson that not all bad fathers yield bad sons. Were it not for Norris’ rough life, would he be the man he is today?
Oh, and did you know that Chuck Norris lost his virginity before his father did?

     

Darth Vader
He came through for his son Luke in the end, but for the most part, Anakin Skywalker was a pretty awful father.
He killed his son’s mentor, sought desperately to bring his son to the dark side and even cut off Luke’s hand.
Plus it’s got to hurt a little inside to know that underneath all the cool, dark armor, your dad looks like Hayden Christensen.

Jack Torrance
The angry patriarch of Stephen King’s “The Shining,” immortally played by Jack Nicholson, had one important rule of parenting: “spare the ax, spoil the child.”
Although, you’ve got to admit: it’s sometimes easy to see traces of Jack Torrance in your own father. Did you ever accidently wake your dad up from his Sunday afternoon nap? Didn’t that crazed look in his eye make you fear that maybe, just maybe, he was capable of murdering you with an ax?

Joe and Michael Jackson
The strict disciplinarian who reportedly sometimes beat his sons when they didn’t perform well for their outfit “The Jackson 5,” helped rear a goofy, talented little boy who would later become the strangest parent ever.
His earlier child molestation charges of kids who weren’t’ his aside, Michael was just not fit for fatherhood. Whether dangling his son off a balcony or saving and freezing his daughter’s placenta, Michael’s made sure this next generation of Jacksons doesn’t stand a very good chance of living a normal (or even normal-ish) life. And did I mention the kids’ names are Prince Michael, Paris Michael and Prince Michael II.
Thanks, Dad.

“I loved many whores”: A brief interview with birthday boy Adam Smith

              He looked like he had to pay for sex. 

The Scottish Philospher who wrote “The Wealth of Nations” in 1976, turns, um … carry the two, minus 15 … the ripe age of 285 today. And though he’s long dead, Mr. Smith’s ideas on the economy remain strikingly relevant, even today. Indeed, his most famous writings were the basis for the founding fathers’ creation of the American market.

To get a better grasp on our current economic state, I sat down and had a conversation with Smith about the free market, the perks of self-interest and what it takes to have a stable and expanding economy.

MM: So, how is America doing as an economy?

Smith: Well, it’s not as laissez-faire as I would prefer, but that’s just me?

MM: Could you explain what you mean by that?

Smith: In my writings, I often discussed “the invisible hand” of the market. This was essentially the idea that if people were allowed to chase their own economic self-interests, they would in turn help the greater market, with this invisible hand steering the economy in a positive direction.

MM: How do you feel about the increasing number of government regulations that have been placed upon the economy in the last three centuries?

Smith: Oh, it’s not good. I always preached that the market was best when you left it alone. As long as an individual isn’t infringing upon anyone else’s basic freedoms, he should be left to his own devices. Outside forces butting their heads into other people’s business, that doesn’t help the individual, and it certainly doesn’t help the bigger picture.

MM: Could you give me a modern example of how the American economy has been hurt by increased regulations?

Smith: Well, whores, for instance.

MM: Could you elaborate?

Smith: Back in my time, good sir, you couldn’t turn a street courner without running into at least a dozen whores all competing for your dollar. They were a growth industry, and they symbolized the free market in its most pure form. And all the whoring was good for the individual, also. Take me for instance, I was an ugly fuck, I had to pay for sex. I loved many whores. But now, your government has made it illegal to be a whore or buy a whore in many states. I’d kill myself if I lived in your time. 

MM: And who are whores hurting, really?

Smith: Exactly

MM: Any final words, Mr. Smith?

Smith: The self-interested pursuit of wealth may not be individually satisfying but leads to an aggregate increase in wealth that is in the best interests of a nation. For individual satisfaction, I recommend a dirtly little thing named Maureen, who can be found at any bar on the south side of Glasgow. Thank goodness for sweet little whores.