Tag: Misc

I’m a really big fan of comedian-singer Stephen Lynch. I’ve been a fan ever since I saw his Comedy Central special.

Lynch is known for his well-crafted songs, which will make you laugh, and sometimes they’ll also make you wince and grimace.

If you don’t like songs about superheroes, best friends, Dungeons & Dragons, the Special Olympics, foreign taxi drivers, killing kittens, ulgy newborn babies, or priests who REALLY like altar boys, Stephen Lynch may not be for you.

Recently, he released a live performance DVD called, Live at the El Rey and it’s much better than the Comedy Central special. It’s better because unlike basic cable television, with DVDs there are no FCC regulations.

As inmate #55170-054 in West Virginia would say, “It’s a good thing.”

Besides his live performance, the DVD also contains the mandatory bonus material, which consists of more performances in other comedy clubs, skits, and a video tour diary. One of the great things about the DVD is the abundance of previously unreleased material. There are six songs on the DVD that weren’t released on Lynch’s two albums, A Little Bit Special and Superhero.

Now comedians like Lynch, Adam Sandler, and Jimmy Fallon, inspired me at one point in my life to become a singing comedian. Unfortunately, there were some slight problems with that idea. (1) I don’t own a guitar. (2) I don’t know how to play guitar. (3) I have a tremendous fear of speaking in front of people. (4) Whenever I attempt to sing, my voice cracks like I’m going through puberty again.

However, before I realized that I didn’t have a musically inclined bone in my body, I actually ended up writing a song. Below was my attempt at comedic stardom.

Beer Goggles

I see a beautiful girl from across the bar.
I feel compelled to find out who you are.
I’m nervous, afraid, and not of your league.
Could you be the woman of my dreams?

I slide across the room to get a closer view.
It took awhile because I had more than a few.
I sit so close that I could smell her perfume,
She’s got to be the hottest babe in the room.

What’s your name? What’s your sign?
Or shall I just use some lame pickup line.
But when you turn around and look my way,
I try hard to keep in the feelings I want convey.

I thought I would be your Romeo, and you’d be my Juliet.
My beer goggles hid from me a face I’d like to forget.
You were good from a far, but far from good,
My beer goggles made me think you could,
Be the one I’ve been searching for all my life,
But your breath doesn’t smell quite right.

Your fake eyelashes look like Venus Fly Traps,
Is that hair coming out from between your rack?
Your three nipples are pointing in different directions.
Are you scratching because of STDs or yeast infections?

Your mole made you look like Cindy Crawford I guess,
But now you look like the Wicked Witch of the West.
I didn’t notice the mustache you have until now,
But I guess it really goes well with your unibrow.

Is that a gap or are you missing your front teeth?
Why does it suddenly smell like sweaty feet?
Is your wooden leg the reason for your crutch?
Why did that guy just ask you how much?

I thought I would be your knight in shining armor,
But you looked much, much better when you were farther.
You were good from a far, but far from good,
My beer goggles made me think you could,
Be the one I’ve been searching for all my life,
But I don’t have $50 to take you home tonight.

You’ve been a wonderful audience. Thank you and good night!

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Item: Stephen Lynch-Live at the El Rey DVD
Purchase Price: $10.49 (Amazon)
Rating: 5 out of 5
Pros: Really funny. Many unreleased songs.
Cons: Never became a singing comedian, which maybe a good thing. If you are easily offended, this is not for you.

Throughout my teen years, the “popular” and “cool” kids called me various names. These included: nerd, dork, dweeb, lame ass, weirdo, doofus, and freak. But the one name I didn’t mind being called was “geek,” because it sounded less harmless than the others.

Today I still consider myself a geek and I’m proud to be one. So to all those “popular” and “cool” kids, all I want the say is: Look at me now, beeyatch!

I’m the editor of a kind-of-popular not-so-popular quasi-review blog. What do you got?

Great kids, a loving wife, a low mortgage, a steady paycheck, and regular nights of sex?

That’s all?

Tell me, who’s the lame ass doofus now?

(tear)

Sometimes it’s hard being a geek, so I was excited when Amazon.com recommend Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton. In case you don’t know or don’t remember, Wil was Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation and also starred in the movie Stand By Me.

I instantly bought the book hoping that it would be about becoming a better geek and how to cope with being a geek. I was also hoping there would be a section of “You might be a geek…” jokes, like these:

You might be a geek, if your wedding was performed by an ordained Vulcan or Klingon.

You might be a geek, if your kids’ names are Fortran and Pascal.

You might be a geek, if you find pleasure in bringing down a website by Slashdotting it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t read the product description before buying, so I was surprised when it didn’t contain any of the above.

Despite not having chapters devoted to such things as the snacks you should have for a successful Dungeons & Dragons gathering, Just A Geek was a great read. Wil gives you a look into his personal life and his difficult journey to find himself.

This book was so entertaining that it was the first book in a long time I did not want to put down.

The last book I did not want to put down?

Green Eggs and Ham.

Although I did not want to put that book down because I was trying to beat the class record for spinning a book on a finger.

From reading Just A Geek, you find out that despite being a great actor and a wonderful writer, Wil is just a normal guy with basically the same problems we have all faced at one time or another, except we probably don’t have the shame of being on the cover of Teen Beat magazine.

Just A Geek is a funny, smart, and honest book that I would highly recommend.

Although I REALLY wish there were “You might be a geek…” jokes.

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Item: Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton
Purchase Price: $14.95 (Amazon.com)
Rating: 5 out of 5
Pros: A fun and quick read. Wheaton is a talented, funny, and creative writer.
Cons: Not a guide to becoming a better geek. No “You might be a geek…” jokes.

It all started last week when I woke up with a bad sore throat. According to my body, a bad sore throat guarantees a cold. I don’t know how I got the sore throat, but it could’ve been the extremely late night karaoke or the make out session with my pillow.

When the Impulsive Buy staff gets a hint of someone in the pre-stages of a cold, everyone suddenly becomes Howard Hughes. They put on surgical facemasks, break out Costco-sized bottles of waterless hand sanitizer, start opening doors with paper towels, and play the movie Outbreak starring Dustin Hoffman over and over again, just to give that someone a subtle hint that he or she and his or her germs are not welcome.

Because of this, I was forced to find a solution to prevent the sore throat from becoming a full-blown cold. Usually, tackling this problem would include almost illegal amounts of NyQuil (or its generic counterpart), but due to my love of operating heavy machinery, that was no longer an option.

Marvin, a sporadic habitual Impulsive Buy reader and my self-proclaimed gay evil twin, was the one who suggested I use Airborne Effervescent. However, because he’s evil, I thought he was making up the existence of Airborne. But the next day at the checkout stand, which happens to be right next to the pharmacy, I saw a few dozen boxes of it. So I picked up a box.

At a slightly expensive $7.69 a box, Airborne better prevent me from getting sick, get rid of bad breath, and also give me the confidence I need when I’m around women.

The instructions for Airborne sound simple. When you get the first sign of a cold symptom, plop an effervescent tablet into a small glass of water, let it dissolve (which takes one to two minutes), and then drink it. However, the drinking part wasn’t simple.

There were two things that scared me about drinking Airborne: (1) The Airborne flavor I bought was orange, but the color of the liquid was not orange, instead it was green (see picture above). (2) I was drinking something that was bubbling like a witch’s potion.

Despite these issues, for five days straight I drank the not-bad-tasting Airborne and my pre-cold never materialized into a full-blown cold.

I could say it was just the Airborne, but I don’t want my self-proclaimed gay evil twin to gloat about how he knows everything. Plus, I think that the 10 hours of sleep I got each night and the 5 gallons of orange juice I drank probably helped.

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Item: Airborne Effervescent (Orange Flavored)
Purchase Price: $7.69
Rating: 3 out of 5
Pros: I think it worked. It was fun watching tablets dissolve. Can finally eject Outbreak DVD.
Cons: Orange flavor should be orange, not green. Looks like a witch’s potion. Slightly expensive.

Do your remember the times when your parents would read you bedtime stories, like the Three Little Pigs and Sleeping Beauty, to help you fall asleep early so that they can do the horizontal mambo in their bedroom, in the kitchen, or in the bathroom?

It was great because you didn’t have to worry about turning pages, remembering where you left off, or paper cuts, and sometimes nine months later you ended up with a brother or sister.

Today we still have some of those luxuries thanks to audiobooks.

Besides, who has time to sit down and read a book? Not when there’s a Punk’d and Pimp My Ride marathon on MTV and I have to play a season of Madden 2005. However, one of the great things about audiobooks is the ability to multitask. It’s hard to multitask when reading an actual book. There’s no possible way I can read a book, download porn, and play Madden 2005 all at the same time, but with audiobooks I can.

Besides I’m too lazy to flip pages. Have you seen the size of books today? It may look like I’m reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but what I’m really doing is working out my arms with those 255,000 words.

We at the Impulsive Buy are avid fans of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, because it’s where we get our world news. So on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, when the Daily Show isn’t on, we have no idea what’s going on. But then again, we are too stoned to care what’s going on.

America (The Audiobook) takes a humorous look at the history of American government in a textbook format, with classroom activities and discussion questions at the end of each chapter, which we didn’t do because…Um…Our dog ate our answers and then our computer crashed.

The audiobook may lean a little to the left, but whether you’re left-wing, right-wing, or one of those crazy Nader supporters, we think you will find this audiobook humorous. If you don’t, you have no soul or you’re legally deaf.

We were disappointed to find out that the audiobook was an abridged version of the best-selling hardcover book. We were also frustrated we couldn’t see the picture of the Supreme Court naked, which is in the actual book.

On second thought, not seeing that picture may have been a good thing.

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Item: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents America (The Audiobook): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction
Purchase Price: $15.95 (iTunes Music Store)
Rating: 5 out of 5
Pros: It’s downright funny. Read by Jon Stewart and the other Daily Show correspondents. Right-wing or left-wing, or Nader-loving, there’s something for everyone.
Cons: Abridged version. Didn’t get to see Sandra Day O’Conner’s boobies.

I remember the days when it was so easy to get the music I wanted. Jump on a PC at school, start up Napster, and download songs to my hearts content. Unfortunately, I now have to worry about lawsuits from the RIAA, which by the way is slowly becoming the second scariest acronym behind the IRS.

Now that I’ve gone legit, I get my music from CDs and the iTunes Music Store. However, recently I noticed one of the online music stores called eMusic was offering 50 free MP3 downloads, so I decided to give them a try.

eMusic is a little different than the iTunes Music Store because their catalog only consists of musicians from independent labels. That means you won’t find Britney Spears at eMusic, which is good thing. Also, with the eMusic Music Store, you can’t purchase individual tracks, instead you must sign up for monthly plans which allows you to download a set number of MP3s. Their cheapest plan at $9.99 allows for 40 downloads, which comes out to about 25 cents per song. So cheap that it’s like I’m stealing…I mean, downloading from the old Napster again.

It’s a great deal, but unfortunately, I’m not too familiar with groups on independent labels.

Fortunately, I got a few recommendations from occasional Impulsive Buy browsers, Kari, a former college radio DJ and Gabriel, a sleeveless taiko drummer. While looking through their lists of groups, I thought they were making up names, like The Postal Service, Interpol, Burning Airlines, The Impossibles, Slow Reader, The Music, Hot Hot Heat, Massive Attack, The Shins, and Morcheeba.

However, after searching through the eMusic catalog, I found out that they weren’t messing with my head. Although I didn’t find all the groups, so maybe they were messing with me a little.

While downloading their recommendations, I thought about how easy it must be to create a band name. As a matter of fact, it’s so easy that I created an equation for you boys and girls to remember so that you can create your own band names.

T + A + N = BN
(The + Adjective + Noun = Band Name)

With this equation I’ve created the following names: The Blue Quick, The Liberal Reporters, The French Fliers, The Rejected Credit Card Application, The Empty Wallets, The Stupid Presidents, and The Hyperactive Elementary School Kids on the Playground.

Many of the groups that Kari and Gabriel suggested were really good and it was great to hear something different than the 2,346 songs that were already on my iPod.

After downloading my 50 free MP3s, I decided to sign up for the $9.99 monthly plan, so I could download other groups I’ve never heard of.

(Note to RIAA: All songs downloaded during my misguided college years have been erased from the computer I was using at that time.)

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Item: eMusic Music Store
Purchase Price: 50 Free Downloads + $9.99 for 40 Downloads
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pros: Monthly plans are a very good deal. Good source for music from independent labels, with over 500,000 songs. No Britney Spears-type crap. Uses MP3 format, so no DRMs.
Cons: Bad deal if you don’t use up all your downloads during each month, which expire. Sometimes downloads are slow.