Who do I Have to Stealthily Assassinate to Get Some Ninja Training Around Here?

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Bill

I guess not enough people in Egypt died today or something because one of the front page stories on CNN was about a guy who lost a bunch of weight.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s very inspiring. The story talks about how this guy was over 300 pounds and had a wake up call when he couldn’t ride a rollercoaster with his kids so he committed to losing over 120 pounds. Stories like that are always inspiring but this one was deceiving in it’s title. The headline read “From 300 pounds to 175-pound ‘ninja'”. When I read that headline I immediately thought “oh man this guy underwent ninja training to slim down? Awesome!” Imagine my disappointment when after reading almost the entire article and the only mention of him being a ninja is a little snippet at the end –

At his job, he’s noticed a change as well. He’s always had to be on his feet all day, but because of his weight, he used to avoid tasks involving standing on ladders and leaning or reaching — he was scared he would fall.
“Now, I’m like a little ninja up there,” he said. “I can reach over, and I don’t care about falling no more.”

This is bullshit! I’m glad the guy was able to make such a positive transformation in his life but CNN has no right in calling him a ninja when his only ninja skill is being able to walk up a step ladder without having to worry about going all Humpty-Dumpty.

He didn’t even do ninja training. He just jogged and worked out at a gym. The gym, however, was a huge part in his transformation because it was a gym specially made for overweight people. The trainers and equipment were personalized for him so he could get the maximum benefit. Personalized workouts and themed fitness programs are becoming more and more popular and that made me wonder if there is an actual ninja fitness program out there? There’s gotta be some sort of Ninja gym out there for fat nerds like me who would love doing that, right?

A quick google search has turned up nothing.

There’s plenty of hits when you enter “ninja fitness” or “ninja gym” but it’s either a fitness program that’s supposed to help you “get ripped like a ninja” or smartphone apps where a ninja avatar just tells you to run a mile or do some pushups or whatever –

YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO. YOU’RE NOT A REAL SENSEI.

These people don’t seem to get it. I don’t want to look like a ninja. I want to fucking be a ninja. I’m sure the training that is involved would get me into shape. Why isn’t there a gym out there that offers these workouts –

Dramatic katana fights in bamboo forests
Not only does it look cool but those extra swings to dramatically slice through the bamboo is probably great for the heart rate.

Jumping from rooftop to rooftop
…okay, that’s just Parkour. There’s plenty of places that offer Parkour.

Throwing stars
Probably not that physically intensive but essential and maybe a good cool down exercise.

How to make a proper ninja smoke bomb
Okay this one doesn’t burn any calories but I need to know how to do this. When I was a kid I bought smoke bombs from a fireworks store and was so excited to get all ninja but when I lit it it just belched out a piss-stream of colored smoke that did nothing to conceal my exit.

Where the hell is that gym? I’ve tried to undergo independent study but the wife won’t participate and I can tell Jared’s heart isn’t in it.

Also the neighbors stare at you when you swordfight a 13 year old in your front yard.

Fuck Off Friday. You Feeling Lucky?

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Bill

Bill here. I’m taking care of the FoF post today since Jena’s getting ready to roll around in the mud in Shakopee for 7 weekends in some strange pagan ritual called the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. There’s only one problem. I’m not sure what to write about. I guess the point of these is to find fun internet time wasters but all I do while Jena’s gone to the Ren Fest is eat Little Caesar’s pizza and watch shit on Hulu. A list of links to my favorite shows isn’t going to make for much of a post and nobody needs to know how much anime I watch (way too much).

Not a problem. I’ll just google some shit and do the “I feel lucky” option. Maybe do a post about the shit I find doing that.

Alright. Slight problem.

Everytime I start to type something into the google search bar it autocompletes and the “I’m feeling lucky” bar disappears. I wonder what’ll happen if I just hit “I’m feeling lucky” without even typing anything into the search bar. Has anybody even done that? Where will the internet take me?

Huh. When I mouse over the “I’m feeling lucky” button it does a slot machine reel into another word. What happens when I click “I feel wonderful”?

Neat! What about when I click “I’m feeling trendy”?

Well how about that? There seems to be plenty of choices when I mouse over. “I’m feeling artistic” will take you to the Google Cultural Institute which I didn’t even know was a thing –

There’s tons of more “I’m feeling” choices, too. I’d say I could do this all day but once the wife and kid are gone I’m going to get a Little Caesar’s pizza and watch stuff on Hulu and Netflix until my eyes glaze over.

WWE Superstar Comes Out as Gay

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Bill

Darren Young (no relation), WWE Superstar came out out of the closet in an impromptu TMZ interview at Los Angeles International airport. After the announcement, he ripped off his shirt, picked up three suitcases with one hand, looked around and said “anybody got a problem with that?” Everybody in baggage claim just silently shook their heads. Even the guy in the cutoff flannel with the confederate flag hat.

Young is the first person to identify as gay while actively in a sport where you think you’d see a lot more of that. I mean, this is a sport full of guys that oil themselves up and barely wear anything. When they do wear clothes it looks like this –

Flaming spandex and leather boas. FLAMING SPANDEX AND FEATHER BOAS.

What more do you expect from a guy named Rick Flair?

…okay that’s just Liberace.

This is a huge step for widespread acceptance of homosexuality in places where you don’t normally see it. While he certainly is a trailblazer in his sport, I doubt he’ll come across any bullying or harassment. I certainly wouldn’t give him shit about it. He looks like he could rip snap me in half –

Maybe that’s what the equality movement needs, more intimidating looking queers. If the WWE had more hulking, roided-out gay men on their roster then homophobes would stop using “fag” as an insult to denote weakness or femininity and start using it as a warning towards agressive macho men.

Congratulations to pioneer Darren Young. I’d say it takes guts to be the first to come out in your field but honestly you could tell TMZ you have sex with trees and I don’t think anybody would question you about it.

Seriously What the Fuck is Going on in Egypt?

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Bill

For those of you that haven’t been paying attention, Egypt has been a complete political shitshow since forever. They have a rich history of political upheaval and things have really picked up in pace over the last two years. Here’s what happened in just a short amount of time.

pre-2011
Hosni Mubarak, vice president of Egypt, was appointed as President in 1981 after president Anwar Sadat was assassinated, most likely by Mubarak. In his nearly 30 years as president corruption ran rampant and civil liberties were trampled. Fed up, the people of Egypt held massive protests and Mumbarak stepped down from office and free elections were held.

2012
Sick of social inequalities and limits on free speech, Egyptians use their first free election to create a Theocracy because they’re new at this. They elect Mohamed Morsi, head of the Muslim Brotherhood and one intimidating looking motherfucker.

Sometimes when you’re new at democracy you just vote for the biggest guy you can find.

After just a few months in office. Morsi grants himself new judicial and legislative powers that he said were just to protect the new constitution while it was being drafted. The people of Egypt wiped the sweat off their brows, took their protest signs which they just set down, crossed out “Mubarak”, wrote in “Morsi” and wearily took back to the streets.

2013
Protests against Morsi grow and grow. Eventually, the Egyptian military issue an Ultimatum to the government to meet the demands of the people. Morsi publicly rejected the ultimatum because have you seen the guy? The military intervened and removed Morsi from office.

2013 (like two days later)
There’s massive protests against Morsi’s removal because this country just can’t make up it’s fucking mind. Supporters of Morsi clash with people who are glad he’s gone, the military intervenes and everybody in Egypt wonders how a military coup could have become so violent. The protests and violence have only grown and now the military has issued a State of Emergency and the Huffington Post is losing it’s fucking mind –

Jesus, HuffPo, you’re a news organization. Calm down.

The crazy thing is that Egypt was in a constant state of emergency when Mubarak was in office so they’re back to square one.

Hopefully they’ll get everything sorted out and they’ll finally be a true democracy where the government is not run by the military or the church, but by the rich.

We’re Running Out of Things to Make Expensive.

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Bill

A couple of weeks ago I saw a story on my facebook feed for a restaurant in L.A. that has a 45 page water menu and a “water sommelier”. I put quotations around “water sommelier” because that’s just a thing they made up and not a real profession.

The same restaurant came up on my newsfeed today with a different article and I wanted to write about it but what do you say? Obviously it’s bullshit. There was even an episode of Bullshit! dedicated to bottled water. A Norwegian news station reported that Voss water is basically tap water and a writer for Jezebel did a $12 “water flight” and reported that two of the waters tasted like water and the third tasted like shit.

This is nothing new. Bottled water has been fooling consumers and cluttering landfills for over a decade, some guy just figured how to increase the profit margin on it. The problem is I’m having a hard time thinking of a parody thing to compare it to. Like, what cheap thing could you jack up the price on to satirize this? My first thought was air but Oxygen Bars was a fad that died out years ago. I once knew a lady that threw birthday parties for dogs and made a ton of money off of it. Shitty jeans cost more money than sturdy ones. Rich idiots will pay for anything if you market it correctly and we’re running out of things to “expensify”.

The only thing I can think of that hasn’t been done is garbage. Like, charge people a bunch of money to buy garbage food.

Stay with me, here.

The first instinct is to market it as homeless chic but that won’t attract people. You have to convince them that food being in the garbage actually makes it better. You could say that pairing different foods in different garbage cans produces different taste combinations. Much like European cheese with maggots is considered a delicacy, the more flies that have had their way with your food, the better.

The garbage will be all locally sourced and is, by default, 100% recycled.

Okay this started as a joke but if I can get an investor in on this we could become insanely rich (almost went with the “filthy rich” pun but decided against it).

Eat my trash!

Security Flaw in Google Chrome Discovered.

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Bill

The Huffington Post recently reported it’s much easier to get somebody’s passwords than you think. All you need to do is go into their google chrome settings via chrome://settings/passwords and all your saved passwords will be displayed. Personally, I never have Chrome save my passwords anyway since I only have one easy to remember password (pissparty69) but this could spell trouble for people who save sensitive passwords on chrome and let people they don’t completely trust use their computer.

This is just one of the many security flaws that have popped up for Chrome over the years. Here’s just a few of the flaws that it’s had in the past that google has since fixed.

Pressing alt+f7 with browser open turned webcam on whenever adult content is playing and sends a link to the streaming video to everybody in your gmail contacts.

Any 16 digit number copied onto clipboard set to default paste.

All twitter DMs sent from verified accounts forwarded to Gawker.

Google+ showed google search history during the two weeks everybody used google+

ctrl+shift+b posts to every social network that you’re logged into that you’re totally searching in incognito mode.

Googling “pressure cooker” would send police to your home to question you (oh wait that actually happened).

When questioned about fixing the flaw, a representative from google rolled his eyes, made a jerking motion with his fist and said that they were going to get right on that because they really feared losing users to Internet Explorer.

Newly Unveiled Lab Grown Hamburger is Single Greatest Threat to Humanity.

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Bill

Scientists have recently grown a batch of hamburger meat in-vitro. If production could be scaled up and cost driven down, lab grown meat could replace beef from cattle altogether. This could potentially be great news for the environment as the 1.3 billion cattle on the planet use a lot of water and produce tons of greenhouse gases through the production of methane.

That’s right. Cow farts are killing this planet. True story.

While this could be a great sign for the environment this could potentially spell disaster for humanity. We, as a species, need to keep eating cows if we’re to survive.

Cattle were one of the first animals to be domesticated by humans about 10,000 years ago. Why were they among the first species to be domesticated by early man? Because they were the greatest threat.

People knew the danger posed by cattle if they weren’t tamed. These are 1500 pound beasts with horns we’re talking about. By keeping them docile, penned and full of antibiotics we’re safe but once the need for old fashioned meat dies out these cows and bulls will be released into the wild. With nobody to keep them penned up and fed they’ll have to wander further and further for food, all that walking turning fat into lean muscle. Without careful, supervised breeding taking place different breeds will reproduce. Individual traits from the breeds will mix making stronger, more resilient offspring. After just a few years the gentle giants we so graciously released into the wild will turn from this –

aaawwwwwww.

to this –

Holy shit!

These reawakened beasts will storm our cities, remembering the millennia of torture and confinement we’ve inflicted on them. They’ll tie up the testicles of the men and ride around on their backs while squeezing the milk out of the women’s breasts. The only people who will be spared will be the Hindus who have been kissing the cows’ asses, knowing this day may very well come.

Please. Eat as many hamburgers as you can. For the love of God, eat meat if you want humanity to live!

Five Fringe Shows I Would See Based on Title/Image Alone

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Bill

With 176 shows to choose from and limited time and budget, it can be hard to choose which Fringe shows to go see. Do you wait a couple of days for reviews to start rolling in? See shows from people you’ve seen before and trust? Only go to shows that have the nudity warning? Buy a five show punch card and see my show five times?

you can see our show as many times as you like. I won’t stop you.

Why not just judge a book by it’s cover and pick a show based on how interesting it sounds from it’s title or if it has a cool show image on the
Fringe website? Here’s my pics –

Professor Hotrail and the Time Travelling Meth Lab!

you had me at tweaked-out puppets and time travelling meth lab

The Vindlevoss Family Circus Spectacular!

Nothing to see here, just a zombie carrying a bearded lady

To Mars With Tesla or The Interplanetary Machinations of Evil Thomas Edison

Hopefully they have one of those things that shoots electricity between two antennae. Probably not but fingers crossed!

Centipede! The Musical

The one thing that was missing from Human Centipede? Songs.

Yelling at Bananas in Whole Foods

I’m sure that there’s more than just a guy yelling at bananas but I’d totally see a show of just this guy yelling at bananas.

Happy Fringing!

Gay Marriage: A Slippery Slope

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Bill

Minnesota has now had a full day of Gay Marriage and frogs have not rained from the sky. While God has not rained immediate destruction I do need to warn you all that gay marriage is a slippery slope. A slippery slope to what, you ask?

Global thermonuclear destruction.

It’s true. I wrote this piece a few years ago but decided to dig it up and repost it because I feel it’s still relevant as ever, especially with marriage equality gaining traction around the nation.

It starts off innocent enough. The government will eventually cave and gay marriage will be written into the constitution. For the first six months or so humanity will breathe a sigh of relief when no biblical apocalypse arrives when society allows two people of the same sex who love each other to marry. That’s when they come.

Thousands of mountain men from the Appalachians and Ozarks will come streaming down from their shanties demanding their god given right to marry their only true companions in their lonely mountain life. Their pets. The stench of moonshine will envelop Washington D.C. as thousands of grizzled, suspender clad men march in protest. Congress will ironically shout “get off our land!” but their cries shall fall upon deaf ears. Public opinion will sway in favor of the animal betrothed rednecks when networks begin airing hip, cosmopolitan mountain bestiality friendly sitcoms like “Oakie and Whiskers”. Celebratory musket fire will be heard all around the country as Congress amends the Constituion to allow the union.

Seeing the trend and deciding to save time, Congress stipulates in the bill that animals can also marry each other. Dogs begin marrying cats. Cats begin marrying mice. Police stations all around the nation are flooded with domestic dispute reports as hunting instincts are proven stronger than marriage vows. With the police occupied, over 100,000 registered necrophiliacs (source: 2010 U.S. Census) take to the graveyards with shovels and engagement rings.

Martial law is declared as Anarchy rules the streets. High ranking military officers, stressed and frustrated by the lack of support from their wives, petition to marry their nuclear arsenal. Six months later another amendment is passed and every honeymoon hotspot in the world is decimated by accidental triggering of nuclear missles.
This, my friends, is why we must never allow two people of the same gender that love each other to get a piece of paper that says they’re married.

For a list of my sources, please read the Bible.

Denson and Young Preparedness Level: Mostly.

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Bill

The Minnesota Fringe Festival starts this week and Denson & Young’s show Dick & Fart Jokes in the Key of F opens this Friday at the Rarig Proscenium theater! It’s been a long road of hard work and preparation since we started writing the script in 1993 but we’re finally prepared. The lines have been memorized, places are blocked, set pieces painted, the costumes are bedazzled, the city officials have been bribed, the cards have been strewn across theaters around the twin cities, the instruments are oiled, the alligators are trained, the actors have been tazed, the witches have been burned, the little people have been apologized to, the elder gods have been awakened and the steroids have been injected!

In case you’re wondering what the show will be like, here’s a little preview we did for the Fringe for All –

and here’s the director’s notes we just dictated to our secretary to be put in the programs –

We would like to personally thank you for coming to our show but we’re much too busy so hopefully this note in the program will do. This show you’re about to see (or had seen all those years ago if you’re sifting through that shoebox in your closet that has the words “fond memories” written on it) is largely inspired by true events and mainly adapted from the Denson & Young Japanese manga. Some slight changes had to be made due to the limitations of the Fringe Festival’s insurance and our own budget restrictions. While those who know the story may be disappointed that the elephant jousting and flamethrower duel had to be cut, the spirit of the story remains the same. If you would like to learn more about Denson & Young, there is a little music store in an alley off of Rue Nationale in Congolin, France. In the music store is an old bowlback mandolin. Break the mandolin open and inside is a copy of our autobiography. This autobiography is also available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com.

What else can you expect? I’m not exactly sure, I’m not off book yet! Come on down, see the show and let Denson & Young give your soul a Swedish massage with music.

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