Blog Archives
What I’m Dreading Most About Season 3 of The Walking Dead
The Magic Woods Ninja.
Sunday, October 14th. That’s when it’s back. The show I love to hate, full of the most dysfunctional group of addle-brained survivors of all time, comes back after an entire season spent on a farm agonizing over morning-after pills, religion, suicide, a woman’s proper role in life, love triangles, and where the fuck Carl has disappeared to and who’s gonna die because of it. Every now and again they put a zombie in it. It was not a good season. Most people agreed that it was slow and awful and dull, until the last episode seemed to make everyone forget about the horrible pacing and stupid arguments and ridiculous thought processes. Zombies! Guns! Impossible headshots and shotguns that never need to be reloaded! And then the big part, the last scene, where everyone seemed to have a collective fangasm and couldn’t stop gushing about what next season would bring. ZOMG the prison! And Michionne! Michionne! MICHIONNE!!!!!!!
Smoke Detectors Can Kiss My Ass
This is my brand of smoke detector. I hope it dies in a fire.
“Smoke detectors save lives”. So says everyone and everything on the internet. Every day, a smoke detector saves umpty-bumpty lives while simultaneously providing a much needed ornamental flair to the otherwise drab ceilings of our homes.
I hate them ever so much.
By Popular Demand: The Aravan Guide to Parenting
God I fucking hate kids.
A few weeks back, I provided some really awful parenting advice as part of my series about weight loss (sample: “Show your kids the back of your hand”). I included the caveat that no one should listen to any of my advice about anything ever, but then a weird thing happened. People, people with children, people with actual living human beings under their care and guidance, thought that I should write the parenting guide I’d jokingly referred to.
Well, OK. Let’s do this thing.
Because why the hell not? I’m a parenting expert, because I don’t have any squealing little brats that I constantly coddle and gloss over the sociopathic and demented shit they do. I mean, I was a kid once, I HAD parents, so I’m as much an expert as the next guy. I can see the forest for the trees and all that shit. Actually, I’m probably more qualified to be an expert in bee-eating than parenting, but whatever. As long as you don’t actually listen to a single thing I say ever, you’ll do fine.
And Now, A Rant About Cupcakes
This is a cupcake.
I love me some cake. I mean, I love it like a fat kid loves redundancy. My whole life is littered with the cakes I’ve seen and tasted, from my grandmother’s Red Velvet cake (with vanilla frosting. Seriously, people, cream cheese frosting? Are we in Communist Russia? Am I to begin standing in line for beets next? Cream cheese frosting is ONLY acceptable on carrot cake. Nothing else. UPDATED: I let my rage get the best of me. Cream cheese frosting is delicious on pumpkin or other spiced-cake product. I stand corrected.) to the cherry cake pops my wonderful wife made a couple months ago. I fucking love cake, just to be clear. Love it.
This includes cupcakes. Ahhh, the sweet, glorious cupcake. It’s a mini-cake all its own, a piece of heaven made for one hand, allowing a cake lover like me to eat a cake without having to use a fork and plate. From EZ-Bake ovens to school bake sales to after-game treats to something to make a bunch of goddamn kids shut the fuck up for 5 minutes, the cupcake has a well-deserved legacy as a beloved American treasure. Like so much of our precious heritage, however, this glorious symbol of utter deliciousness is being denigrated and desecrated before our very eyes. If we don’t act soon, the cupcake as we know it will be gone, tossed carelessly in the compost heap of forgotten culinary treasures like so many crumb-lined paper wrappers.
For fuck sake, people, LIVES ARE AT STAKE. Possibly.
Rise of the Ricktator: Walking Dead S2 Finale Review
Because using the sights is a total pussy move.
It’s been a long slog through Season 2, one that began with such high hopes and ended with, well, this season. When a show about a zombie apocalypse spends more time on domestic drama, gender roles, and the ethics of becoming pregnant during Doomsday, it makes for slightly less compelling television. Anyway, I’m glad the season is over. If Season 3 began tomorrow, I’d be completely unable to watch it. Maybe having some time and perspective will open my eyes to the creative team that is layering such subtext and melodrama into a rich tapestry of… yeah, uh, we’ll have to see.
Here we go. When last we saw Carl and his stupid hat, the kid had wandered off and watched his dad shiv Shane after talking him down from shooting him. Then the zombies came pouring out of the woods. Remember how last week I said not to worry about where this magical horde came from and why they were milling around 300 yards away from a house full of their favorite meal? Well, the show didn’t listen. Instead, they decided to show us where they came from. Atlanta. See, they were eating something when a helicopter flew by. Apparently the meal in front of them was lousy, because they immediately left it behind to follow the helicopter that soon disappeared from sight. I guess other zombies saw them moving and were like, OK, I’ll see what’s up. Somehow, they managed to avoid getting distracted by anything while swelling in numbers, until they arrived in the woods where they waited around and heard Carl shoot his gun and that made them come out of the trees. They were better off not showing us where they came from, because it’s not like their explanation makes any sense.
Bye, DaleFace: Walking Dead S2 Episode 11 Review
Can't beat my, can't beat my, no you can't beat-a my DaleFace.
I’ve begun the laborious process of catching up on past Walking Dead episodes. It’s harder than I thought it would be, and this episode is a perfect encapsulation of why that is the case. I think this show is coming down with a serious case of Heroes syndrome: a strong start followed by a realization that the writers have no idea what they want to do.
But anyway, when last we followed this group of absentee parents who nevertheless think it’s best to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, Shane and Rick were going to try to leave the kid Rick rescued, patched up, and decided he couldn’t live with, after which the two got into a brawl that nearly got them all killed, all of which could have been avoided if Rick had just let Shane kill the kid. Rick, however, insists on it being his choice and that he has to sleep on it.
So, of course, the show begins with Rick deciding the kid needs to die. Sigh.
Welcome to the Blog Home of Tabula Rasa, Indie Author
Welcome to my blog. What you see is what you get.
Anybody that reads my blog with any frequency knows what an eclectic mess of random subjects and styles and curse words it is. Everything is just strewn around everywhere, making my blog a hoarder’s living room. Exercise reviews lay piled up on NFL season discussions, writing “advice” tossed all over a collection of Walking Dead reviews so filled with vitriol that a puddle of green ooze is slowly spreading from them, all with an occasional sprinkling of excerpts from my work like rat droppings behind the cardboard boxes of everything else. It’s a mess. And like any committed hoarder, I refuse to clean it up. I don’t care how many experts tell me I should. I am going to remain here, squatting in the fetid morass of my own filth. Well, filthy collection of random thoughts, rants, reviews, and bouts of whining.
Oh, and it’s all my opinion, just like this piece here. It might be wrong, but it’s wrong with a string of eff-words splattered all over it.
Of course, this means I’m Doing It Wrong.
Roger Goodell, Pink Slime, and How They are Related
First off, apologies for no reviews for the last 2 Walking Dead episodes. I am still in full Mass Effect, so I have watched exactly 1 television show since last Tuesday (Archer, of course. How you say, push the rope?) so I am behind. Avoiding spoilers for Walking Dead and Mass Effect 3 hasn’t been easy, and even averting my eyes hasn’t stopped me from seeing little bits and pieces I wish I hadn’t. So anyway, hopefully I’ll get those episodes down and digested and reviewed soon. I do know this: based off the little I’ve heard, those two reviews may be the most bile-filled spewing of hate of them all.
Back to the news.
You probably don’t care about what I’m about to talk about. It involves professional football bargaining agreements, salary cap discussions, the Washington Redskins, and the NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s big ole swingin’ dick. There are other fun subjects after that, including fanboy gushing over Robert Griffin the Third as well as some scrumptious and delectable ponderings over ammonia-washed “beef” “trimmings” that get turned into goo and added to ground beef to make meat cheaper. It’s a fun-filled potpourri of goodness!
Winter in Derenemyn 