George Lucas Thankfully not Directing Next “Star Wars” Movie.

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I like Star Wars.



I’m not a Star Wars nerd, but I do like Star Wars. I’ve seen the original trilogy multiple times and saw all the shitty prequels in the theater the day they were released. I own a plastic lightsaber. I read the Thrawn trilogy in high school and for an english class group project we made a film spoof of Camelot and I played Mordred in a Darth Vader mask. Also I walked around high school in this t-shirt –

I was getting so much pussy in high school that it was distracting from my studies so I threw this t-shirt on and joined marching band to give me a moment's peace.

I was getting so much pussy in high school that it was distracting from my studies so I threw this t-shirt on and joined marching band to give me a moment’s peace.



All this and I’m still not a Star Wars nerd.



Star Wars nerds have read the hundreds of Star Wars novels, comic books and guides available. They read and edit the nearly 101,000 articles on Wookiepedia, the Star Wars wiki where even the types of trees on the planet Chewbacca is from get their own six paragraph article. Those are Star Wars Nerds and I am not one of them.



I do enjoy Star Wars, however, and have an opinion on JJ Abrams directing the next film.



I’m for it.



I’m for it because I’ve enjoyed other stuff he’s directed but I’m mostly for it because he’s not George Lucas.



Want to know why the prequels sucked so bad? George Lucas wrote and directed them.



Think about it. Empire Strikes Back was written and directed by other people, Return of the Jedi was directed and co-written by different people. The two best Star Wars movies were made by people who weren’t George Lucas. Sure, he hit a home run with the first film but he came back and re-released the original trilogy 20 years later and made them all worse! He’s a madman who will go back and ruin his own good movies!



Frankly, keeping George Lucas as far as possible from the new movie is probably the best thing for it.



What’s weird is that I’ve seen a lot of people online commenting about Abrams directing it but nobody’s talking about who’s writing it. Not George Lucas.



George Lucas is being credited with writing the “characters” but the actual writing credit is going to Michael Arndt. Know what else Michael Arndt wrote? Toy Story 3 and Little Miss Sunshine.



So I’m not a Star Wars nerd and I’m sure there are Star Wars nerds out there who are furious about the new movie but I’m looking forward to seeing it.

The Things You Weirdos Type Into Search Engines Volume 473: Toe Sock Sex

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Many of our regular readers know that occasionally I’ll plumb the depths of our site stats to find out what people are typing into search engines like bing or blekko that lead them to this site. It’s been a while so let’s take a look at what you pervs are asking Jeeves when nobody is looking!



Toe Socks Sex
We’ve actually had two hits from this. Somewhere out there there’s two people who are searching for porn involving this-



Almost all toe socks are multicolored or rainbow striped. It's impossible to find normal toe socks because there's no such thing as normal toe socks.

Almost all toe socks are multicolored or rainbow striped. It’s impossible to find normal toe socks because there’s no such thing as normal toe socks.





Two people (at least) with this very specific fetish. Call me a hopeless romantic but I think these two people could possibly be soul mates. I think this could make for a great movie.



Start off with a lonely divorced guy wandering the mall looking for something to fill the void in his heart that his wife left when she took the kids. He stumbles upon some toe socks in a Gadzooks window. He immediately falls in love with them and works up the nerve to go in and buy a pair but the last were just sold to a quirky twentysomething artist that’s using them for a kooky sculpture or something. She gives him a flyer for her art show and heads out.



Frustrated, he crumples up the flyer, shoves it in his pocket and goes home to find pictures of toe socks on the internet to drool over. He eventually finds a pair of toe socks that were worn by Zooey Deschanel that were worn on the set of New Girl up for auction and knows he must have them! He enters a fierce bidding war with somebody but loses it at the last minute.



Eventually he finds the crumpled up flyer for the art gallery show “Fuzzytoes” and decides to go and check it out. There on display he sees the rainbow striped Zooey Deschanel toe socks right in the middle of the gallery. While he admires the prize he lost the artist comes up to him and says “Beautiful, aren’t they? I almost lost the auction. Whoever “SockSlut69″ is he sure wanted to own these. Can’t say I blame him, though. Toe socks are really sexy.”



They lock eyes and kiss. The remaining 45 minutes is just them banging in toe socks. Tastefully, though. This isn’t some gross toe sock porn. It’s an R-rated toe sock fetishist romance film.

Good Grief, Peter Robbins

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Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts creator and super cartoonist of doom, was born and raised in St. Paul. Being one of the most exciting things to happen to St. Paul ever (being a state capitol is boring), the city launched the “Peanuts on Parade” tributes to Charles. These “parades” were a different character every year. The first year, 2000, featured Snoopy. I know this because after my son was born, my Baby Daddy posed with one of these statues on display at the hospital where I had just spent the past 12 hours in back labor.

Not the actual picture respecting BabyDaddy's privacy. But this is the statue.

Not the actual picture respecting BabyDaddy’s privacy. But this is the statue.

There have been other characters in years to follow. Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus… and Snoopy’s dog house. Do you know who wasn’t featured? Charlie Brown’s crush. The little red-haired girl.

We hear about her all the time in the animated cartoons. That little girl that Charlie brown has a crush on. Everyone knows except her. And you have to think that if EVERYONE knew, she probably did too. She probably had no interest in Charlie Brown, and just kept making herself unavailable, meeting up with other friends when it looked like he was getting close.

He tried, poor Charlie Brown. Trying to get up the courage to talk to her. Manipulating events around him just to get closer to her. Not actually saying anything to her… just, you know, being near her.

It’s a little creepy. Like he’s stalking her.

In a completely unrelated note, Peter Robbins, the voice of Charlie Brown, was arrested on charges of stalking.

I wonder where he learned that from?

New Year’s Resolution Update: RESOLUTION X (Don’t give up!)

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Alright, kiddos. It’s time once again to take a weekly look at all those promises I made January 1st and see how they’re holding up. Let’s just look at the ones I’ve broken this week.



Work out every day I’m not working my day job.
This one’s probably the one I want to accomplish the most but has been the hardest one to get into a groove. I’m looking to lose some pounds and tone up so I can conquer the mocking island of fat failure. Jena even bought me a pull up bar to help me out but I haven’t even installed it in the door frame (who even owns a drill these days, right?). I did go for a walk yesterday but came back after 15 minutes because it was too cold.



No more junk food
I’ve been doing okay with this one for the most part. There have been some setbacks (damn your convenience and affordability, fast food!) but I’ve been eating healthier overall. Except for Sunday. Sunday there was a pumpkin pie.

There’s been an entire pumpkin pie in the freezer since Thanksgiving. I decided that some freezer space needed to be cleared up so I brought it out and ate some pie with the wife. Here’s a pie chart to show how that went down.

Ladies and gentlemen, here are the limits of my ms paint abilities.

Ladies and gentlemen, here are the limits of my ms paint abilities.

RED: How much pie I cut for myself
GREEN: Additional pie put on my plate because I cut the first slice all sloppy and there was just loose pie bits hanging around in the tin.
BLUE: Jena’s slice.
YELLOW: Thought it was safe but I totally came back for it like ten minutes later.
BLACK: Remaining pie. Currently in fridge. Going to ask the wife and boy to eat that soon because I CANNOT BE TRUSTED.

So yeah, pumpkin pie is delicious and I’m an awful glutton.



Quit playing stupid flash games
This has been the hardest one of all my resolutions to kick. I don’t think I’ve even strung two days together on this one. What the fuck is wrong with me?



Actually meet all my writing deadlines for this website and my sketch comedy stuff.
Well, this was supposed to go up yesterday so…



Stop biting my fingernails.
This has been the second toughest thing to kick. No clue why, just can’t get enough of that sweet, sweet keratin.



Get more standup comedy work in 2013.
Hasn’t happened yet. I don’t know why not. I haven’t tried to get any work. I guess the only thing I can do now is to actually try to get work. Hopefully doing something will yield better results than doing nothing.

Hard to tell, though. I’ve never tried doing something before. First time for everything, I guess.



More resolutioney goodness next week!

A Warm Greeting in a Cold State

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For the readers not in Minnesota, it’s cold outside. I mean, really cold out. I mean, it’s holy shit balls cold outside. The temp is -9°F with a wind chill of -31°F. There are severe wind chill warnings and suggestions in red to limit outdoor exposure.

Look, Canada. We get it. You’re tougher than us. You’re so tough that you had nothing to prove and named your towns things that sound silly in English but mean things like “majestic eagle” and “dancing doe” in other languages. You’re so tough that Wawa, Ontario (Ojibwe: “wild goose”) has the same exact temp and windchill, and historically speaking, today is “a little on the chilly side.”

The town of Wawa, as seen from the other side of Lake Wawa.

The town of Wawa, as seen from the other side of Lake Wawa.

But to the rest of America, Minnesota right now is the frozen wasteland that we imagine Wawa to be. Minnesotans cultivate this “tough as nails” persona because it’s the only way we can justify staying here. While California today is complaining about 33°F, Minnesota is shouting Minnesota nice (there’s seriously a wikipedia article on MN nice) at them, like “do you need us to bring you a sweater?” secretly hoping they say yes so we have an excuse to go to a place where the temperature is above freezing.

Minnesotan’s also have a habit of saying the phrase “cold enough for ya?” It’s like we’re daring each other to give up and go back to nicer climates. And because we’re stubborn bastards, we’re all still here, on a bet that we can’t hack it.

If you can't take the cold, get out of the freezer!

If you can’t take the cold, get out of the freezer!

I used to live in North Minneapolis. It’s known as a “bad neighborhood” which is unfair to the good parts of North, but there are some pretty scary pockets. I was living in one of these scary pockets, possibly the worst (Jordan neighborhood, for those in the know) and one particularly bitter winter day, I needed to go grocery shopping. So I went to my local store, purchased the needed items, and headed towards the exit. On either side of the door were two urban youth. And by that, I mean young men dressed in the kind of clothes you picture when I say “gangsta rappa.”

And only one of them was black. Way to be racist on Martin Luther King Jr day, asshole.

Anyway, I see these two guys, and I’m thinking “well shit. I’m about to get harassed.” Not because they’re men, or even that they’re urban youth. But because they are dudes in that particular neighborhood at that particular store where I had been harassed by dudes 100 times before on exiting. Somehow they always seem to know that I have a sweet ass, even under my 20 layers of winter clothing and knee-length winter coat.

So I brace myself. I walk out the door, and sure enough, I get hailed by one of the urban youth. “Yo,” he says, and as I turn to look him in the eye, he adds “cold enough for ya?”

Slacking on the Job Taken to a Whole New Level

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My job isn’t very easily defined. I’m 1 part homemaker, 1 part learning coach for an online student, 1 part YoungNotions managing person, and 2 parts Fearless marketing director.

As a marketing director, I spend a lot of time online. On our website, on Facebook promoting events, on Twitter. For YoungNotions, I’m doing the same, but only promoting 1 company, not 7. On top of writing half the articles (ahem). As a learning coach, I log on to my son’s online school to record attendance and keep up with his classes. Even as a homemaker, I’m online looking up bread recipes.

My point is, I have found ways to spend the majority of my time on the internet that I love.

I made it myself!

I made it myself!

What I have NOT tried in my quest for more internet time is to outsource my job.

ABC (which is fast becoming my favorite in wacky news) reports that a man (ABC calls him Bob) was caught personally outsourcing his job to China. He was getting rave reviews from his managers on his incredible work. All the while, some dude in China was getting a 6th of this guy’s paycheck for doing all his work.

It was going so well, Bob started doing the same thing with a couple other companies. So when he got caught at this one, several other dudes in China lost their jobs.

And what was Bob doing with all that free time? Stellar reporter Julie Gerstein from “The Friskey” found the answer:

9:00 a.m. – Arrive and surf Reddit for a couple of hours. Watch cat videos.
11:30 a.m. – Take lunch.
1:00 p.m. – Ebay time.
2:00 p.m – Facebook/LinkedIn updates
4:30 p.m. – End of day update e-mail to management.
5:00 p.m. – Go home.

This is absolutely deplorable. He should be ashamed of himself. All that free time, and not one minute of Twitter or Steam.

The First Annual Minneapolis Winter Carnival!

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Long ago King Boreas, lord of the four winds, stumbled on a charming little town in Minnesota. The street layout made no sense and almost everything shut down at 8PM. Their downtown was a barren wasteland, devoid of any activity which was probably a blessing because if more than 12 people were there it was almost impossible to find parking.

Boreas took pity upon the little hamlet, with it’s statues of Snoopy and pathetic attempt to make LaCrosse look like a professional sport people care about. “I shall make a carnival in Old Saint Paul!” Boreas exclaimed. “There will be ice carvings and a parade and buttons. People like buttons, right?”

Year after year Saint Paul was temporarily revitalized by Boreas’ generosity. The streets were filled with dozens of people as they frolicked in a winter wonderland and all was good. There were two parades! One during the day and one at night but not too late because people still had to get to bed. A giant ice palace was erected! People hunted all over parks searching for buried treasure! For ten days out of the year the streets of Saint paul were not ruled by the wandering homeless but merry revelers! King Boreas looked down on the celebration he created and called it good.

Eventually, though, Boreas grew bored at the late hour of 8 PM when everybody would go to sleep. The residents of Saint Paul were not used to such merriment and all this activity tuckered them out even earlier than usual. King Boreas looked around for anybody to join him in winter fun but all the residents slumped away, mumbling something about having to get up at like 7:00 for work. He wandered up to St. Paul’s highest hill and cried “Isn’t there anything to do around here?!?” He then looked to the west for the first time and saw a bustling metropolis filled with skycrapers, lights and activity. He crossed the river into Minneapolis and declared “THIS! This shall be the site of my new Winter Carnival! The Minneapolis Winter Carnival!”

King Boreas planted his flag into the frozen ground and proclaimed “and Denson & Young shall headline our first carnival!”

Come see the show that made Boreas cross the Mississippi. Come see Denson and Young present The First Minneapolis Winter Carnival Opening Ceremonies (on ice)!

Urquhart

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This is Kate.



kate1



Kate’s a buddy of mine. She’s a stand up comic and has a couple of podcasts, The Podcast of Comedy and Waiting for the Pizza. I’d usually see Kate at open mics and I’ve been on Waiting for the Pizza a couple of times (check out the episodes here!). She’s nice. I like her.



Kate and her partner Barb have been having a bit of trouble lately. Kate was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She went through a round of treatments, all documented about on her blog and seemed to beat it but cancer is a sneaky little fucker and found a new home in her liver. Shit went south for the treatments for that and she’s now in the hospital clinging to life. Barb has been updating all their friends via facebook and while she may turn around and recover, she may not.



All this time Barb has been at Kate’s side she hasn’t been able to work much and money was going to become a concern. To help out, some comics around town started a online charity drive to help her out. When I first thought about doing a post about this last night I thought I could help out by pimping the campaign on the site here but when I woke up this morning they were already less than $100 away from their goal.



The campaign was posted less than 48 hours ago. How fucking cool is that?



On top of that, the House of Comedy is putting on a benefit show for Kate and Barb next Tuesday and Maria Bamford is headlining!



They deserve no less. This site actually owes some of it’s readership to Barb since she emailed my “It Gets Better” letter to Phil Hinkle to Savage Love and they reposted it on their blog. I hate seeing shitty things happen to good people but it’s wonderful to see so many people rally around them in their time of need.



That’s really all this post is about today. Showing support to people who have brightened our lives. Jena and I are pulling for Kate and I invite anybody reading this to pray to their preferred god if they have one (I’m currently placing burnt offerings before a Voltron made from Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha and Krishna) to get Kate through this. You can also donate to the campaign and attend the benefit show with Maria Bamford next Tuesday. The Comedy Corner Underground is having a charity show this Friday as well and I’m sure more events will pop up the next week or so because Twin Cities comics are the fucking best.


Rural Urban Legends

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Cow tipping. You’ve all heard the stories about some southern rural yokels, drunk and bored, going out late at night to tip over some poor, unsuspecting cow for their amusement. In fact, it’s such a well-known story that Pixar did a parody of it with a pick-up truck and a bunch of tractors in their tear-jerker “Cars.”

Tear jerker? Well, *I* cried. I mean, I had just gotten back from either the doctor or the dentist and was on some very good medication, but I bawled like a baby. Don’t judge me.

I asked a friend of mine who grew up on a farm if he’d ever been cow tipping before, and here’s his response:

Never tried myself. Only folks I know firsthand who claim to have witnessed or participated are not folks whose stories I trust. The physics always seemed dubious to me. Cows ain’t particularly precarious. If they really slept that deeply, and if their physical response to such startling was to either lock up or buckle… then okay, sure, it’s at least feasible. But none of my experience with cows inclines me to expect any of those conditions.

And he’s right. Turns out that cow tipping isn’t a real thing. According to the article, some scientists at a Canadian University did the math, and it is impossible for one person to tip over a cow. In fact, it’s incredibly unlikely that you could find *three* people who could do it. Four incredibly well built people could conceivably do it, *if* the cow didn’t move for some reason.

Cows

And even if 4 people could somehow sneak up on a cow without their knowing it and tip it over, it would just get right back up again. Don’t believe me? Here’s a video of a truck full of cows tipping over. Watch as the cows spill out onto the road, and, totally unfazed, get up right and start wandering around.

All those stories about people tipping cows? Made up by rural folk to make us city folk look dumb.

But just because you can’t tip over a live cow, doesn’t mean you can’t tip over a fake cow. Two students from University of North Carolina tipped over a cow sculpture. The art piece entitled “Cow House” for the house the cow was carrying on its back (to show how cows support humanity, according to the artist) was anchored to the ground by a 400 pound concrete block.

But these two art critics tipped that sculpture over. They tipped the hell out of it. They showed that cow who’s boss. Proving that you can do anything you put your mind to.

As long as your standards are low enough.

New Year’s Resolution Update #2: Now With 60% Less Failure!

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As some of you may know, last week I started tracking the progress of my New Year’s Resolutions. It had a bit of a “>rocky start but this week I had no cold to keep me down so I only broke three of my resolutions instead of seven!



With no illness as an excuse, I can really look at last week as an indicator of which of these resolutions will be the hardest to overcome. These are the ones that will take the most willpower and work on my part. These are the mountains I have to climb, the demons I have to slay. These are –



* quit biting my fingernails.
* work out every day I’m not at my day job
* stop playing flash games



Wow. I get having a hard time with the workout thing. That’s pretty common. You tell somebody that you’re having a hard time getting to the gym everyday and they’ll probably nod in agreement or provide emotional support or whatever. Tell somebody you can’t stop biting your nails and you don’t get quite the warm reception. It’s just harder to explain because you really gain nothing from it. It doesn’t make you feel good, it’s not a drug, it’s just a thing some people do for some reason. Half the time I don’t even notice I’m doing it until the nail is in my mouth. My friend Brody once bought some clear nail polish that tasted like ass to stop biting his cuticles. Maybe I’ll get some of that.



The flash game addiction is slightly different. People get why you’d play stupid games on the internet but they just think you’re a loser. Nobody gives a shit if you give up playing free online games.



Thinking about it, I really should have started some serious addictions before the New Year to make it more interesting. Quitting heroin and prostitutes would have been a lot more compelling than “throwing my hands up in the air and saying ‘YES’ when I fart in the living room.”



By the way, I’m proud to report I haven’t done that all week. It’s been really hard.