Reason #7,342 I love European football

The Dutch go up 4-1 in the 91st minute against (a much higher ranked) France.

Announcer (yelling): "It's a Dutch oven, and the French are toast!"

That is the best thing any sports announcer has ever said.  

Best. Sport. Ever.

Strawberry Shortcomings

Noooo!  This is what the terrible people who own Strawberry Shortcake are doing to her:

She is skinnier, freckle-less, and her hat now boasts a trendy bill.  The worst part?  She isn't even wearing an apron!  Blasphemy! Apparently, toy companies want to turn little girls into sassy bitches who constantly talk on their cell phones instead of playing with their adorable (and delicious-smelling) friendly cats.  Where has all the cuteness gone?  

Just keep your hands off Rainbow Brite! 

Dumb dub

I was recently watching the TV edit of 40-Year-Old Virgin, and although most of the bad words were just bleeped out, sometimes they opted for a dub.  Most of them were just ridiculous (I think one was actually "mother butter"), but there was one scene where the phrase "Fuck me in the asshole" was replaced with "Fudge me in the rathole."  I'm not sure exactly what "Fudge me in the rathole" means, but it sounds a whole lot dirtier than the original phrase.  

It reminds me of an edited version I once watched of Good Will Hunting.  While Matt Damon and Robin Williams's characters are hugging it out, Damon says something to the effect of, "Does this violate the doctor-patient relationship?" The original reply: "Only if you grab my ass."  The edited reply: "Only if I turn around."  I think that elevates things a bit, no? 

Oh, American censorship.  How futile and ineffective you are.

To: Women From: God

I was unfortunate enough today to come across this article in Elle magazine, which masks itself as a feel-good article about unconventional beauty, but quickly turns into a self-righteous diatribe by the author in which he expects to be congratulated on his ability to be attracted to "average-looking" women.  

The intro goes something like this:  He sees two girls in a bar.  One is "pretty."  One is not.  He goes for the one who isn't pretty because she doesn't throw up after meals (like the pretty one must). The pretty girl gets mad and the not-pretty girl falls all over herself with glee that she has finally upstaged her genetically gifted friend.    

So many things about this article bother me that I can't list them all here, but there is one thing in particular that many of the reactions to this article have seemed to leave out (google it--feminists are pissed): Kirn basically says that all pretty girls have terrible personalities.  According to him, pretty=vapid, shallow, and anorexic.  While he makes similarly unfounded generalizations about the non-pretty girls, at least they're making a good impression.  These ugly girls are interesting.  They eat pasta.  They are happier because they don't worry about the way they look.  But not only do the "pretty" girls that he talks about get automatically overlooked by him because they must be incredibly uninteresting, but they are also jealous and spiteful.  Obviously, when Kirn chooses the average girl over the pretty girl, the pretty girl doesn't know what is happening. There is a shift of power.  In short, the pretty girl gets pissed.  She probably pouts.  And then goes for a run (you know, so that she can still be skinny even if she didn't get hit on at the bar last night).

Mr. Kirn basically boils down the female population to two categories: Pretty (i.e. boring, dumb, and obsessed with appearance) and Not Pretty (i.e. interesting, intelligent, and happy). 

Thank god for you, Mr. Kirn.  I wish I could meet you so you could instantly judge me based on my appearance and then make me feel grateful because you like me better than my pretty friend. *Swoon*

Tom Shady

Being a recent transplant to Boston, I don't pretend to have any 

sort of deep alliances to sports teams.  I have always liked the Celtics, so now I have an excuse to cheer for them, and I love the New England Revolution, even though the rest of the nation seems to have forgotten that the MLS even exists, but the buck stops there.  I am almost entirely indifferent to the Red Sox, or to be more specific, to the sport of baseball in general.  Interesting, then, that this recent incident would bother me so much.

The incident being Tom Brady, the pretty-boy supermodel-whipped "quarterback" of the New England Patriots, wearing a San Francisco Giants hat at game 7 of the Celtics-Cavs playoffs.  Like I said, my home-town sports pride is only 9 months deep, but Brady's blatant disrespect for one of the most revered aspects of the city of Boston just upped his douche-factor about 100%.  I get it; you were born in San Francisco.  I was born in San Diego, and I have much more of an alliance to the Padres than to the Sox, but I'm not going to sit courtside at a Boston Celtics game and wear a Padres hat.  It's Boston for Christ's sake.

Congratulations, Tom.  Not only did you lose what was meant to be a sure-thing win at the Superbowl this year, but you have now elevated your douchebag status to the level of that one football player who was on The Bachelor.  

Also, nice Stetson ad.  Nothing says "manly" like shearling.

I'm so ahead of the curve.

Jezebel also finds the current trends at Urban Outfitters to be disgusting.  Hey.  You guys want to give me a job?  Yeah, thanks.

Plagiarism!!

Having doubts about carpet?

I think every person that has some level of quick wit or sarcasm at least once in their lives will be told, "You should really go into advertising."   My parents have told me that on numerous occasions, usually after I have just recounted a particularly funny story or postulated on how to improve the Bud Light team's marketing tactics ("This would really be more effective if they used green jell-o").  How that qualifies me for advertising, I'm not quite sure.  Every time it is mentioned, I flash back to the famous scene in The Graduate  concerning the word "plastics." But today, while procrastinating and watching Oprah interviewing the cast of Sex and the City (sidenote: I would do anything to never hear that Fergie song again) I thought, "Yes, maybe I should go into advertising."

Why the sudden change of heart?  It was a carpet commercial for National Floors direct in which a woman, without any explanation or background information (it was, in fact, before the ad even stated which company it was advertising) proclaimed, "I'm a skeptic, but I needed some carpeting."  Apparently, skeptics don't like carpeting?  Carpeting causes gullibility? Did you know the word "carpet" isn't in the dictionary?

Now, I'm all for the occasional low-budget commercial (can I get a Head-On?) but really, this just comes down to not making sense at all.  Whether the nice 50-something lady in the red turtleneck is a skeptic really has no bearing on whether or not she needed carpeting.  Maybe her feet were cold; maybe she spilled some red wine; maybe that pagan animal slaughter ritual got a little out of hand the other night; the point is, ma'am (I am addressing you directly now, pagan turtleneck lady), it's OK to be a skeptic and install new carpeting.  It is not OK to allow this kind of idiotic advertising to continue.