a nice break to remind myself theres still laughter in the world...

I am writing from the cesspool of anxiety and tension that is the university library right now, where I am studying for my exam tomorrow and finishing up a few other projects. I've found a break is much needed; so here are some things coming up in the comedy world that I am particularly excited about.

1. Kristen Wiig's upcoming film "The Comedian" -> As furious as I am with Wiig for leaving SNL last year (why couldn't you have stayed seven more years!!!), my anger won't deter me from keeping track of this hilarious actresses career. This film is still in pre-production according to it's imdb page, but it's directed by Sean Penn and will also star Robert de Niro. Not much is known about the film's plot other than it is described as a "romantic comedy drama". Not much info to go on as of right now, but with such fabulous people working on it, it's sure to deliver!

2. Larry David's upcoming TV movie Clear History -> Again, not much is known about Larry David's upcoming film (whose brief plot synopsis is "A disgraced former marketing executive plots revenge against his former boss who made millions from the electric car company the once owned), but the fact that it's written by David should be enough to inspire excitement. Further more, the cast is so prime as to be unbelievable: Kate Hudson, Eva Mendes, Michael Keatan, Amy Ryan, Jon Hamm and Bill Hader are all joining David for this made for TV movie.

3. Stephen Colbert's Hobbit Week -> Due to the outstanding work of my blogmate Shannon, I'm sure none of you are unaware that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first film in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy comes out on thursday. Funny man and conservative pundit impersonator Stephen Colbert is a fanatic Tolkein fan, and so last week he devoted his show The Colbert Report to "Hobbit Week". He commenced the week with Jackson himself as guest star and then interviewed cast members Andy Serkis, Martin Freeman, and Ian McKellen. It's fun and endearing to watch Colbert geek out with the stars of his favorite series. Incidentally, Jackson is so appreciative of Colberts shared Tolkien love that it has been announced that Colbert will make a cameo appearance at some point in the story, although it won't be in this first film!

4. Guess! -> Of course, I would never make a list of upcoming comedy events without talking about the upcoming continuation of Arrested Development. According to recent announcements, shooting of the upcoming fourth season will take longer than expected. This crushed my hopes that the vague release date of 2013 would mean January 1, 2013, but I cannot really despair, because the reason it will take longer is the season will actually be longer than expected! During shooting, writer Michael Hurwitz came up with unexpected plot lines that would not fit in a mere 10 episode season. As much as fans of the Bluth family are anxious to see the new episodes (which will air on Netflix exclusively), we cannot complain that there will be more episodes in the long run, and everyone seems confident that the show will still be ready to air in the spring (so like February 1st? Thats spring RIGHT!?!?!?). What this news means in terms of the proposed movie, I'm not quite sure.

Musac mublin's

This post is a little different from my usual ones, but it is meant as a manifesto about something that is very important to me. It's built on this piece of advice:

Stop bitching about contemporary music. In fact, stop bitching about music in general and just enjoy what you love and ignore what you hate.

Perhaps in your internet explorations, dear reader, you've stumbled across this gem:

My response to this is:

Sugar,
Oh Honey Honey.
You are my candy girl.
and you got me wanting you. ("Sugar Sugar" The Archies 1969)

I provided this example to show that inane, silly lyrics are not a recent invention, . In fact The Archies were part of a music genre from 1968-1972 called "bubblegum pop", a genre devoted to preteens and teenagers that inexplicably swept adults up in its path- so basically the 70s version of bieberfever. Now tell me all music was better “back then”.

I want to make two things about what I'm advocating very clear:

1. There is obviously nothing wrong about listening to older music. In fact, by all means, listen to old music! Listen to the Velvet Underground! Listen to Michael Jackson from when he looked like a human! Listen to Bob Dylan from when he didnt sound like an asthmatic toad! Listen to Janis Jopin! Hell, take it back further! Listen to Beethoven! Listen to Chopin! Listen to Hildegard von Bingen!

2. There is nothing wrong with "shitty" music. You don't have to call Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" your guilty pleasure just because it's not amazingly poetic or intellectually stimulating. According to it's Wikipedia page, it's one of the best selling digital singles of all time, so you are not alone!

It just angers me to see people my age who rant about how music was so much better over 40 years ago. First off, enough reminiscing you weren’t even fucking alive then. Second, why do you have so little faith in our generation to produce innovative and revolutionary music? Is it really fair to judge our entire generations musical taste by what's on Billboards Hot 100? Think of every person whose musical taste you ever respected and ask yourself if they spent most of their time listening to the mainstream radio.

Yes, mainstream music of today has very little merit. Sex, drugs, drinking, and pathetic love songs dominate the radio stations and it's all pretty much the same. so you know what you do? turn off the radio and find GOOD music… trust me, if you open your mind a little your itunes library will thank you. Theres lots of resources to find it too…

Go on the websites of local music venues. Most places will have a pretty extensive list of shows well in advance, and lengthly descriptions of the bands in question. Find ones that look appealing, and find a way to check them out (hint- youtube). This way, you not only get introduced to a new band, but you're all set to go to see them live!

Music to me is a very social thing, so if you want to expand your library, get out and talk to people about it! Ask them for favorite bands or tracks or albums and check them out! They might even allow you to take tracks from their libraries through cd’s or flashdrives. Music’s a great way to bond, so not only will you get great tunes, you may actually make a friend, perhaps one with whom you can go to concerts with!

If you read this last paragraph with a sense of terror at the prospect of being social (don’t worry my interweb friends, i know we tend to be a shy bunch and I don’t judge) NEVER FEAR!!! The internet is a beautiful thing and there are lots of ways for you to discover new tunes without any sort of awkward social interactions. You can creep on peoples facebooks, tumblrs, or twitters for music they like. Theres also pandora.com, where you can get introduced to music based on tracks or artists you already know and love. Finally, there's my little secret. There are websites called video 2 mp3 converters that allow you to take youtube or other online videos and convert it to mp3 files that are combatible with itunes… so pretty much any song you can find a video of is yours to own!

The trick is to remain openminded. I never really listened to much hiphop/ rap or electronic before coming to college, as the only stuff I was exposed to was mainstream on the radio. However, after being introduced to certain rappers and artists, I found myself really loving it. Same thing with electronic/ rave music.

It's irritating with all the resources to find great stuff at our disposal to hear people bitch. What's the point of it? If you really genuinely feel that no music produced after 1975 is worth listening to here is my advice: lock yourself in your house with your record player on Stairway to Heaven on repeat, burn incense, and cry into the tie-dye pant suit your hippie great aunt wore to Woodstock to lament the tragedy of being born in 1991. Just make sure your window is also closed and locked to make sure no openmindedness can work its way in!

Senioritis

           It's the last day of classes, and I don't have twelve substantial blog posts. Oops. My senioritis is hitting me hard, and it’s not even my last semester. I still got one more of these, and I if I keep up this steady decline in motivation, then I’m going to get to the point where I not only never leave my bed, I actually have fused with the bed itself, and we have become one.

I’m not actually a huge fan of my bed, it’s small and kind of uncomfortable, so I would prefer for this not to happen. I’ve been brainstorming some ideas to help me get excited about school again.

1.                    Pretend that every essay I write is some important document that needs to be drafted for the president in order to save the world from an alien invasion and/or zombie uprising. Why would a thoughtful look on the role of hope in the Divine Comedy have anything to do with keeping the undead at bay? Let’s leave the particulars to the president, shall we?

2.                    Make my bed even more uncomfortable. Ensuring that there is no comfort in my house makes the prospect of going to class or studying at the library an inviting one indeed.

3.                    Take classes where the homework is to look at cats online. That’s the most foolproof option I can think of.

That’s what I got so far. I would think of more but eh, I’m just so tired. I’m going to go sleep for fourteen hours and then watch an episode of Lost while pretending to study. 

Vlog: Our Generation is Cold.

Hey there,

I made a vlog that was inspired by my research for my current events post (see below). Here 'tis. Enjoy. 

Some Current Events

In case anyone has an insulated house that they haven’t left for the past few days, or if they have an incredible amount of body hair, I’d like to make it clear that it’s been FREEZING IN BURLINGTON. It’s been absolutely, blood-chillingly, cryogenic levels of cold out there, and the stunning thing is that, comparably, this is not even that bad. Global Warming’s made us all soft.

In fact, according to the NOAA, the most recent year that Burlington was the coldest it’s ever been was in 1979. 1979. That was over 30 years ago.

So we can’t be blamed for being wimps. We’re young; we don’t remember when it was so cold that you couldn’t step outside without being frozen in place. Our winter last year was one of the warmest on record! Until last month, it had been a year and half since a month hadn’t been above average temperatures. Our blood has effectively thinned.

But this year, it’s going to be cold. According to the Farmer’s Almanac it’s going to be colder than usual, drier, and have less snow. So it’s basically just going to suck. If you’re hyperventilating right now at the prospect of having to warm yourself, check out these lifehacks that can help. Drink lots of tea and hot chocolate. Be active. We’ll get through this together.

But I do want to give one last important word of advice, and that is that if you lose your clothes at the naked bike ride, the dorms will not let you back inside. So make sure you hold onto those, or have someone you trust hold them, or have someone you trust where layers that you can then borrow. Please, please don’t get stuck outside. It’s making me cold just thinking about it. 

A look back at what Twilight has done for us.

Let's take a look-see,

Successfully sullied the reputations of Dracula and Nosferatu.

            These iconic vampires did nothing wrong. They couldn’t have known how disgraced their species would become. But now, thanks to Stephanie Meyer, when I hear “vampire” I think about Robert Pattinson’s hair.

Turned Cedric Diggory into sparkly nonsense. 

            I can’t see Harry Potter now without thinking about Cedric ripping his shirt off and glittering in the sun like a Kindergartner’s art project. I do not like this.

Taught our young girls that abuse is romantic.

            Here’s the kicker. This is what shifts Twilight from being an annoying fad to being downright dangerous. Stephanie Meyer has an incredible amount of influence, influence that most of us could only dream of, and she is not using it responsibly.

            First, let’s look at how she managed to get that influence. Twilight’s popularity baffled me for a while. Why should a glittery undead kid from Washington suddenly capture every tween heart in America?

            The answer is actually quite simple. Bella Swan, Meyer’s klutzy, self-conscious protagonist, has absolutely no personality. There is nothing to her that is unique or out of the ordinary. In fact, she could basically be any girl in America. Which is why it is so goddamned easy to project your own personality onto her. Bella becomes her reader, and the reader becomes Bella. The reader falls in love with Edward. The reader thinks it’s romantic for Edward to sneak into her room to watch her sleep. The reader thinks it’s ok for Edward to steal the engine out of her car when he doesn’t want her to go to Seattle with her friends. The reader would readily alter her entire being for a man.

            So now that the reader is fully immersed in Edward’s sparkly arms, they start to take away values. Tweens are extremely impressionable, which is why I was absolutely horrified when I saw the latest Twilight movie. I don’t want to give away any spoilers (I lied I totally do) but in the end, Bella and Edward live happily ever after. A bit too happily ever after. Literally nothing sad happens. Jacob’s love for Bella is abated when he realizes that he’s actually in love with her newborn daughter (apparently there’s nothing wrong with that), Eddie and Bells have their happy little family, and no one, not even one person that they loved got killed. Or even hurt in any way. Even though the existence of the insane bloodthirsty monster baby was dangerous to absolutely everyone, everyone walks away without a scratch.

            I take issue with this.

            Let’s compare it to Harry Potter for a second. In Harry Potter, the characters are forced into situations where they must fight for good. They do not have a choice in the matter. They must make decisions, decisions that have consequences, and if they make the wrong decision, they must learn from their mistakes. In The Order of the Phoenix, Harry acts without thinking and his godfather dies. And he doesn’t come back. This is something that Harry must accept and grow from.

            In Twilight, Edward and Bella are not forced into anything. They choose that they want to be together. They choose that they want to keep the child when it turns out to be a monster. Bella decides that she wants to become a vampire. All of these decisions should have consequences, but Stephanie Meyer decided that they actually don’t. Bella and Edward can be as selfish as they damn well please, and absolutely nothing negative will happen because of it.

            This concept terrifies me. The fact that young girls can read this and think that this is how the world works and that they can follow their heart with no regard to the people around them, means that this up-and-coming generation might be the death of us.

Just some food for thought. 

Out of boredom and curiosity, I decided to look at the coding for my favorite internet webcomic The Oatmeal, and was pleasantly surprised!

Kewl!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

As you fill yourself with delicious food today, here is some food for thought, a wonderful video of Stephen Fry explaining the difference between American vs. British sense of humor!

Invisible monsters on weekend update!

This post takes the idea from this amazing article by Ben Branstetter and applies it to one of my favorite contemporary authors. Hope you enjoy!


Seth Myers: It’s Halloween, and families all across the country are planning visits to the city. Here with some tips on the best locales is Weekend Update’s City Correspondent, Chuck Palahniuk!

Chuck Palahniuk: This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time.

SM: Ohh… Okkkay. So do you have any advice for things to do for people flocking to the city for Halloween?

CP: The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create.

SM: …Alright. Do you have any more concrete suggestions of things for people to do? Like things that should not be missed in the city for Halloween?

CP: No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention.
Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day.
This is all practice.

SM: Uh, so what are maybe some concrete ideas for things tourists can do here in the city if they aren't sure what they want?

CP: If you don't know what you want, you end up with a lot you don't.

SM: Chuck Palahniuk everyone!

This.

Barack Obama "I'm sexy and I know it" Mashup

"Ted Talk" Write-up

The number for the learning co-op (to make appointments for the writing center) is

(802)-656-4075!

Quick recap:

REASONS TO GO TO WRITING CENTER:

1. Free Candy
2. Get ideas/inspiration
3. Get praise on your paper
4. Get fresh insight on your paper
5. Improve your paper
6. Prattle on about writing with someone else who loves writing
7. Give Gabbie something to read!

REASONS TO WORK FOR THE WRITING CENTER:

1. Free Candy
2. The class is awesome
3. Sue is awesome
4. Learn about writing in general
5. Improve your own writing style/process
6. Tutoring is an enriching experience
7. Read AMAZING papers!

A Write-Up of my "Ted Talk"

I’ve had a smartphone for four years now, and last week, I lost it. I was phoneless for five days while I waited for my replacement. And during those five days I realized that I’m terrible at talking to people. I’m terrible at saying, “hey what are you doing tonight?” I’m terrible at asking, “wanna hang out this weekend?” I’m terrible at coming home at the end of the day and telling my roommates about how my day was. I’m so used to having something happen to me, texting about it, and then forgetting it. I never give an event time to process, I never think about it, let it develop into a story, let it develop into anything: maybe self-reflection, maybe realizations about the world, maybe ideas. I’m not used to retaining my observations.

It’s very hard to reflect in the digital world. Everything happens so fast.

Today, you can express happiness with a colon and a parenthesis. 

:) 

When you see that do you know just how happy I am? Do you know anything about me? 

What if I make it a D.

:D

Does that help? The answer should be no. That is punctuation. You can’t know the intricacies of a human person through punctuation.

I’ve been noticing a trend lately, of people posting statuses on facebook, and, either as their whole status, or to augment their status, they also post a link to a meme, a gif, a video, a song, a comic, in order to better express themselves. I am no enemy to sharing art. If I find something on the internet I like, you better believe I share it. What bothers me is when people start to replace their own expression with other people’s. It bothers me when people spend a long time searching the internet for something that will help them say what they want to, rather than creating it themselves.

So the reason I’m giving this presentation is to convince you to create. In this class we’ve been creating so much: redesigns, mashups, nameplate pages, web comics, blog posts, product sites, you name it. And all I want to say is keep doing that. Because through creating you find yourself. I’m an actor, a filmmaker, and a writer, and I am very happy to say that I know who I am. I didn’t before I began creating. I was diagnosed with OCD in seventh grade and for about a year it consumed me. I was not Shannon Ward I was OCD. But then I began writing I began playing saxophone I began singing and acting and I found myself. I discovered my identity, and my identity is stronger than OCD. I overcame my mental illness through creating.

But in order to create in this digital age we have to resist the easy way outs. Resist letting your observations melt away with your texts. Resist only expressing yourself through punctuation. Resist rushing everywhere and not giving yourself time to think. Resist using other people’s words more than your own.

  

It doesn’t have to be art: you can create business, you can create political platforms, you can create organizations, you can create movements.

You can create anything, just make sure that you do. 

delayed post; "the room" took longer to digest then I thought

I apologize, dear readers, for this post being a week later then I promised. I could give some legitimate reasons about how busy this past week has been for me, but I that would be a misleading as to the real reason of why it's late. The true reason is a fact that has made me question my faith in myself.

This movie was just that bad.

Watching The Room, written, directed, and starring Tommy Wiseau, is like watching a movie made by aliens who are able to adopt a humanoid physical form and who base their impressions of humans of shitty soap operas. It's actually shocking that enough people working in the film industry were desperate enough to attach themselves to this project. Wiseau, claims that the film was intended as "a black comedy"; a claim that is universally seen as a way to justify why audiences laughed through initial screenings. Certain cast members and crew members have publicly confirmed this suspicion.

This film is a hot mess. It has more scattered plot lines than Wiseau has luscious locks on his head. In the first half hour alone there are three lengthy and very very awkward sex scenes all set to horrific 80's music. Scenes with dialogue seem as though they are taken from multiple conversations and were then spliced together with complete disregard for any coherency. An outlandish percentage of lines were dubbed over and sounded like they were added in by a seventh grader working on a video project for class.

There are many scenes that seem to have no reason to be included. Why do we need to watch Wiseau's character Johnny buy flowers and make brief inane small talk with the florist for his adulterous fiance Lisa? What does it contribute to include Lisa ordering pizza?

These anomalies are not limited to banal moments either. Scenes of heavy emotional weight are featured and then never mentioned again. For example, early in the movie Lisa's mother, Claudette, tells her daughter she has breast cancer, which she inexplicably brushes off with indifference. This is never again mentioned.

The question you may be asking is why this film, released in 2003, has not completely disappeared? Why do people watch it?

It's because this is not just that this movie is bad, it's that it is soooooooo bad that it's terribleness has given it a staying power it would not have achieved if it was just another mediocre, or perhaps even thoughtful, drama. Nearly two decades later, viewers continue to marvel that a movie this bad could actually be made.

The film has attracted a cult fan-base both in the United States and internationally. It is still screened in certain theaters in the US, the UK, Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand. A la Rocky Horror Picture Show, fans dress up as characters, and yell out certain prime lines. It has gained the respect of certain celebrities who publicly and privately endorse it, including David Cross, Will Arnett, and Paul Rudd. Wiseau, far from feeling ashamed, relishes any popularity the film achieved and encourages his cult of fans by setting up screenings himself.

I think that there is an important lesson here about embracing unintended responses to our creative work. Perhaps Wiseau is more wise then he is a good filmmaker, and recognizes that had this film been any better, it would not have the same hold on audiences! So the moral of this movie is clear even if everything else about it is indecipherable. If you're going to do something poorly, do it soooo exaggeratedly poorly that it is so awful as to be awesome.

for those of you who love ....

....horribly made movies that become cult classics:

THE ROOM

I'm getting my hands on a copy and will post a review by the end of the weekend. Stay tuned.

It's All Hallows' Eve, Brah!

Everybody stay safe, have fun, and enjoy this mashup. NOW. 

Some Blogs Shannon Likes

Without any ado, here are some blogs I like. 

Texts from Bennett.

This is basically just screenshots of this guy’s iPhone showing texts from his cousin, Bennett. Bennett is 17, has a girlfriend named Mercedes, and is (according to his cousin) “one of the most unintentionally funny and brilliant souls on the planet.”

This one is personal favorite of mine.

This blog claims to be entirely real, but I have to say that I find that more than a little suspicious. This blog is pretty famous now, which means that this Bennett character must be aware of it, meaning that his texts would undoubtedly become skewed by his mere knowledge that they could end up on the internet.

Also the fact that this kid can’t actually exist in real life. I just can’t believe that.

Listverse:

This one is less funny than it is interesting and educational. But no one should ever turn their nose up at interesting education. 

This blog is basically a collection of lists. Everyone loves a good list. They make for excellent internet literature because the reader can scroll through easily to find the important stuff. (surfers of the internet don’t have time for lengthy reading, what with all the lolcats to see.) Some examples of the lists on listverse are: 10 Catalysts for World War Three, Top 10 Fascinating Wine Facts, and 10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Amish.

Listverse breaks the lists up into categories, so you can easily search through subjects that you like, or search things that aren't really your cup of tea and maybe gain a new interest! So go out there and learn something! HOORAY!!

And on a decidedly less educational note:

What the Auto-fill!?!

You know when you type a search into google, and it tries to finish your thought for you? You know how sometimes google can be ridiculously wrong? That is what this blog has captured. It consists of screenshots of google searches, in which the search suggestions are hilarious, offensive, or downright bizarre.

Par example:

So that's all for now. Stay tuned. 

MASHUP!!!

After hours of hard labor, I have finally finished.

Here is:

"So much beauty in F Minor (String Quartet in Dirt)"

By Ludwig van Mouse (ft. Modest Beethoven)

An Extremely Brief Blog Post

I made a redesign of the Cult of Done Manifesto.

Click here to see the original.

Click here to see my redesign!

The end.

Here's a tip:

The next time you want to use the word "possibilities" in a sentence, try saying "pastabilities" instead. This will surprise and delight your listener, while also honoring a very important and often underrated food group.

The more you know.

Arrested Development? Her?

My fabulous and intelligent blogmate has recently posted about the reboot of the amazing television series, Arrested Development. The blog she linked to has on-set pictures of the currently filming season and it made me RIDICULOUSLY excited. But, as a lover of the show, I feel that I need to play devil’s advocate for a sec.

So far it seems that the announcement of a film and a miniseries in the works has been met with unanimous, almost hysterical approval. Everyone has been eagerly awaiting this since the show’s cancellation in 2006, myself included. But after the movie rumors were confirmed, I started to have my doubts. Will this movie be a huge success? Or will the cast and crew of Arrested Development be saying, “I made a huge mistake”?

Arrested Development was a perfect show. It was genius writing, genius casting, genius use of puppets; but, inexplicably, it was cancelled after only three glorious seasons, a life span that most fans feel was way too short.

I disagree.

Arrested Development was cut off in its prime. The three seasons are a masterpiece. It never got a chance to decay, as all shows do inevitably, to the point where cancellation becomes an act of mercy. We can see examples of this now, as when The Office tried to continue post-Steve Carrel. The show floundered, leaving a bad taste in the mouth of all its fans. But Arrested Development never did that. It never “jumped the shark”. Or the flesh-eating seal.  

But now, with the promise of a miniseries and a movie on the way, Arrested Development is in danger of jumping the flesh-eating seal. The show is picking up five years after the last season ended. What has happened in those five years? Will the cast dynamic be the same? Will the same writer’s be involved? Will Michael Cera be able to handle this role now that he’s lost his baby fat and spent some quality time with a pervy mustache? 

No one can know for sure what the future holds. This reboot of the series could forever mar our appreciation of Arrested Development. And though I would love to see what happened to the characters after the end of last season, I’m not sure it’s worth the risk.

That being said, I will absolutely watch every single episode of this miniseries and attend the midnight premier of the movie, painted blue, doing a chicken dance as I stand in line. 

Mash-up till you crack-up

Been looking at lots of mashups of various types as inspiration for my own project; heres a hilarious one I found of video footage of running chickens set to the Chariots of Fire theme song.

I now present: Chickens of Fire!!!

There's a blog I felt guilty about excluding in my post of blogs to check out, and so to be fair to it, I'm devoting an entire lengthily post to it. This blog gives me an opportunity to babble about my absolute favorite sitcom. We've known each other for a while now, dear readers, and you've probably picked up on my love for Arrested Development.

The Bluth Company

For those unfortunate souls unfamiliar with the Bluth family, they are the stars of the show Arrested Development. AD was a sitcom that first aired on FOX in 2001 that only lasted for three seasons but has since gained a huge cult following. The shows opening credits describe it as "the story of a wealthy family, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together". The show boasts a stellar cast, including Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, and Portia de Rossi. Because of its cult popularity, and the fact that it was cut wayyyy before it jumped the shark, last spring it was announced that nine more episodes will be released in early 2013 (as a Netflix exclusive) to develop a plot for a movie.

I could probably write a novel listing all the reasons you should watch Arrested Development if you never have, but if I can convince you to check out this blog and the blog doesn't convince you to watch Arrested Development, you are clearly destined to live a humorless existence (just kidding... not like you would know).

The Bluth Company is dedicated to Arrested Development and posts everything form funny screenshots to news about the upcoming season. The blog is on tumblr so it has a tumblr feed to scroll posts in chronological order, but at the top and left it has a menu of a multitude of useful links that will allow you to peruse the site in other ways. The first link on the top bar, ABOUT THE SHOW, gives a lengthily description of the show and lists awards, nominations, cast and crew members. THE FAMILY gives long bios for the family members along with the picture of each member from the opening credits. The other links include Q&A, MERCH (as in merchandise… for all your AD related products), FAN ART, and NEW SEASON UPDATES, but the most awesome of them, in my humble opinion, is HIDDEN JOKES.

This link takes you to all posts that fall under the category of explaining any of the innumerable subtle, carefully thought out jokes that make this show so repeatedly watchable. These jokes span the range of subtle red herrings (foreshadowing) for things to happen in the future of the show, references to the cast member’s past work, or even occasionally breaking the fourth wall. I wouldn’t recommend scrolling through this section if you haven’t yet seen the show, as there’s quite a few spoilers, but here’s a hidden joke that won’t ruin anything for you.

The sidebar allows you to scan the site by posts based on characer or individual episode. It gives you links to twitters of some of the major cast members and a link to it’s own twitter.

So, if you’re already an avid AD fan this blog will provide endless entertainment, and if you’re not yet, this blog is sure to get you hooked!

Mash-up Artist Showcase: Nick Bombicino

A couple of years ago a friend of mine took is upon himself to create a new mashup every Monday. He got super good at it. He's had to since stop due to the amount of time they would take to make (if you watch just a few of them you'll see how intense the filming/editing is as well as the actual mashing up of the music) but he managed to make a whole bunch.

This is one that I mentioned in class and was then requested of me to post:

This is another one of my favorites:

And this:

Enjoy!

Click here to see his channel and peruse his other work.

SHAMELESS PLUG:  you may be excited to know that Nick is also an actor! Here's a short horror film that he starred in this summer (produced by and also starring yours truly!)

What Not To Wear: Halloween Edition

Well it’s the first of October, y’all. And you know what that means, right? Time to start doing something you should have been doing for the past twelve months: planning your Halloween costume. And while I don’t know what the perfect costume is (and if I did I wouldn’t give it away), I can tell you what to avoid this season.

   1)   Bulky Costumes. It’s Halloween weekend, people. This is the weekend when even those who don’t party, party. Kitchens, living rooms, hallways, and creepy murky basements are going to be jam-PACKED with literally everyone. So don’t be the douche who goes as a centaur and has a whole horse sticking out his ass. You’ll make some enemies.

   2)   “I’m a nudist on strike”. This one is just lazy, unoriginal, and trivializing to the Nudist Strike efforts. 

   3)   Costumes that are too cold. The end of October signals the end of temperatures where you can wear nothing but a strapless mini dress and live to tell the tale. And while you may look smoking hot in a backless halter and Daisy Dukes, your hypothermia-blackened fingers and the deluge of snot flowing out your nose will drastically lessen your appeal.

   4)   Costumes that are too hot. Yes, this goes against number 3, but think about it. Houses will be absolutely crammed with hundreds of dancing, jumping, excited college students. It’s gonna get toasty. How to balance between the freezing tundra of the outdoors and the uncomfortably moist sauna that is a party basement? LAYERS.

   5)   “Slutty” versions of specific people. Take any occupation, make it slutty, and you have yourself a perfect Halloween costume. It’s when you get specific that you get into trouble. Going as “slutty Helen Keller” won’t make you any friends.

And on a related note…

   6)   Costumes that will get you punched. See above.

   7)   Group costumes that don’t make sense by themselves. My friends and I once went as one potato two potato three potato four. We each wore big brown t-shirts filled with stuffing, bearing the numbers one through four. Inevitably, at many moments during the night we were not directly next to each other, and I just looked like a giant third base. Not what I was going for.

   8)   Expensive costumes. Chances are, you will not find another context to wear your Halloween costume until next Halloween, and you don’t want to be the loser who wears the same costume every year. So do yourself a favor and don’t empty your bank account buying yourself a boa constrictor so that you can be Britney Spears. This is Vermont. Go into the woods and catch your own snake. It’s free!

But worst of all…

   9)   No costume. “Dressing up is so immature.” Ok, buzzkill, you can stay home with a vinyl of Bach’s symphonies on the record player, while reading Hawthorne novels and sipping a glass of scotch. The rest of us will be acting like five year olds and having a fucking great time. 

YE OLDE BABBLES OF BEAST

Beautyful portraits of ye olde majestique animals, desecrated with nonsense.

Flirty Bertie tries to get laid: Issue II

Flirty Bertie is back! Enjoy.

By Shannon Ward

I now present.... BEAST BABBLE!!!

Beautiful pictures of majestic creatures....
desecrated by inane babble!




(click on the expand button in the right hand corner to see the comic in it's full glory!)

3 (and a half) BLOGS TO CHECK OUT

1. MITT AND ROB: This tumblr takes the spleen sprainingly hilarious @MittRomney tweets of stand up comedian and twitter overlord Rob Delaney and makes corresponding illustrations. The comedic genius of this blog is many faceted. First, the tweets themselves are prime material for hilarious imagery. Like, how can you read this:

without picturing something so bizarre and off-putting as to make you laugh through the queasiness?

Every picture shows Delaney (with only a green speedo on his outrageously hairy body, of course!) tagging along with Mitt on his campaign trail. The pictures sometimes correspond directly with the content of his tweet, for example this is the picture for the aforementioned tweet:

What I like about this artist is that they don’t always concern themselves with drawing literal interpretations of Delaney’s bizarre thoughts. Sometimes the tweets are just set to random pictures of the two of them together on the campaign trail, such as this one:

I like this because it’s funny to think of Delaney, a very funny yet very progressive and intellectual human being, wandering through the clusterfuck that is Romney’s campaign alongside him.

(Actually, upon reflection, Romney getting advice from an irreverent weirdo with a liberal agenda may actually explain a shitton about his campaign strategy. I mean, how else would he have thought getting a spray tan to meet Latino voters was anything other than a seriously misguided decision? Think about it.)

2. MEME-Y BLOGS

This next recommendation is not actually a single blog but a number of blogs with a similar concept. The internet is nothing if not redundant, and these blogs all show there is beauty and humor to be found in repetition. There is a genre of blogs that devote themselves to a single meme by adding a single picture (or gif) in other pictures. While it might seem silly, there is a tremendous amount of creativity in choosing a picture that would be an appropriate background.

Some of my favorites of these include these two:

• Mo Farah Running Away From Things
• Lana Del Rey Dancing

But my all time favorite of these HAS to be One Tiny Hand.

Such finesse! A concept that is truly elegant in it’s simplicity! Take photos of celebrities and shrink one of their hands! It creates pictures that are just the perfect amount of WTF that you may not immediately notice what’s wrong with the pictures. It has the added bonus of making even the most cool, beautiful, and graceful celebrities look totally ridiculous. Look at this picture of the president:

Although the concept is always the same (it’s never a tiny foot or tiny nose) the altered pictures throw me off guard and make me giggle every time.

3. I TOUCHED YOUR DRIFTWOOD

Before you freak out, that’s not a link to a marine themed porn blog. The creator of ITYD started this blog when they found a lost digital camera on the beach of Montauk NY. There were a bunch of pictures of a group of 20 something’s aquatic vacation. The pictures themselves were a banal combination of group selfies, but the author of this blog decided to invent characters for each of the members of the photos (with ridiculous names like “Peaches” and “Sarlaac”) and label each photo with rather lengthy descriptions. The camera had a ton of photos, of which the author added several per day.

Don’t get too excited though. The blog exploded in popularity, and someone was able to locate whom the camera belonged to. Unfortunately for us, the owner of the camera was less then enamored with their pictures being made fun of by a stranger and viewed by over 50000 other strangers on the internet (who knew?). The original photos are not up anymore, but you can see the remnants of the blogs former glory. Someone sent the author a SD card of another lost digital camera to have them help find its owner. I’m hoping this becomes a trend and the creative and funny author is given even more material to work with. If you or anyone you know found a lost camera that you don’t know what to do with, this is a viable solution! If not, enjoy what the blog offers and spread the word.

AND THE HALF

I did not really feel right including this website as an actual entry on this list, because I’m not sure the format constitutes a blog. It’s a compilation video site called Wimp that is updated with 5 new videos every day. The videos vary in length from seconds to 30 minutes, but they are all AWESOME and fairly obscure (yay hipsters!). But seriously, these videos come from all over the world, and range in content from hilarious and inane to breathtakingly beautiful. There are videos about all topics, including clips from really informative science/technology documentaries or just cute videos of cats.

There have been many videos I’ve seen on Wimp that I can’t even find on Youtube or Google video (but all the videos are embedded on Wimp itself so it’s not taking you to sketchy/dangerous websites). It’s a great site to check everyday or to just go on once in a while and watch a ton at once (it keeps everything all former posts archived). It also has a search bar to find videos from a specific topic or to find one you saw before. This may seem like a basic aspect of any website, but I frequent some websites where finding something you saw on the site hours ago is an impossible task (I’M LOOKING AT YOU REDDIT!)

So blog or not, definitely worth checking out.

THE ONLY THING

more off-putting then having to constantly degrade myself by proving I'm a human when commenting on blogs is knowing that it is someones job to write/code them (and presumably photograph random numbers). My deepest sympathies.

GRANT ME YOUR WISDOM, INTERWEB FOLK

So I am also creating a webcomic, but unfortunately I lack any of Shannon's artistic skill. Luckily opportunity presented itself in the form of about 600 fantastic and beautiful photographs of animals taken by a friend of mine while she was studying abroad in Botswana. Thus, Beast Babble was created.

This is a very rough first draft of my first comic. It certainly needs a lot of improvement but being as aesthetically hindered as I am, I would greatly appreciate some advice as to how to go about editing it!

Please don't hold back. Make me cry if you have to. tell me it's stupid. tell me it's ugly. tell me it looks like I vomited all over pictures of beautiful creatures. My grades on the line for this.




For some reason Pixton changed altered the format and I can't figure out how to have it publish correctly at this time so here's the link.

Flirty Bertie tries to get laid

So, for my class, I'm supposed to make a web comic. This is the first in a series to come. So without further ado I give you: Flirty Bertie tries to get laid. 

By Shannon Ward

The Hobbit Trilogy: Ideas for Space-Fillers

There’s this trend right now of making two movies out of one book. Boy wizards, murderous teens, and sparkly boyfriends are all over this craze. So the makers of the Lord of the Rings came along and, not to be outdone, decided to make THREE movies out of one book. One 250-page book. Three FULL LENGTH movies. So, since Peter Jackson is attempting the near impossible task of spreading out a 2-ounce book into nine hours of cinematic majesty, he’s going to have some time to kill. I, being the film production genius that I am, have compiled a list of ideas of things that Peter Jackson can do to fill the time he has promised the world he would take up.

1.    A lot of really long panning shots of New Zealand. You know in Family Guy when he fights that chicken, and it goes on for a super long time, and you start to just feel really uncomfortable, and you just wish it will end, and then it starts to be funny again, and then eventually you start questioning your place in the world, and the meaning of life, and by the end of it you’ve achieved enlightenment? That’s what I want except with some hills.

            2. Repetition of names. There are thirteen dwarves who travel with Bilbo to the Misty Mountain. Their names are Thorin Oakenshield, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Ori, Dori, Nori, Bifor, Bofur, Bombur, Balin, and Dwalin. I want, by the end of the trilogy, to not only be able to remember all of those names off the top of my head, but to be able to distinguish which name belongs to which dwarf. This is your charge, Peter Jackson. Make it happen. Maybe include a scene where they all play a name game.

          3. Riddles that weren’t in the book. Anyone who is familiar with The Hobbit knows that arguably the most famous chapter of the book is “Riddles in the Dark,” in which Bilbo and Gollum play a riddle game in order to determine if Bilbo will be allowed to live, or if Gollum will eat him on site. And while Gollum’s acting like a Middle-Earth version of Two-Face, and Bilbo’s trembling in his metaphorical boots, some fantastic riddles are being thrown around. I, for one, know almost all of them by heart, as they are the riddles that I whip out if ever I’ve landed myself in a battle of wits, but I’ve found that some of the riddles do not always read well with a modern audience. Perhaps, to be more relatable, Gollum should cry out, “What was I doing last night? YOUR MOM!” and Bilbo will retort with “Yeah, well…fuck……fuck you.” These are the sorts of riddles that the brain of the modern audience can handle.

            4. The darker side of long-distance travel. Bilbo and his dwarf friends are going on a journey. On foot. No cars. No hotels. No 24-hour Denny’s to stop and get an omelet any time they’re feeling peckish. They’re roughin’ it. And since there is going to be so much extra time to fill, I’m hoping we get a deep and disturbing look into exactly what “roughin’ it” truly means. I want to see what happens when they hit day 108 of not showering, or when Bombur gets food poisoning from a poorly cooked squirrel, or when the sexual tension within the group can no longer be ignored. Go on, Jackson. Surprise us. 

           5. Montages. The makers of the Twilight Saga faced similar time-filling difficulties when they stretched out Breaking Dawn into two hellish movies, and their brilliant strategy was to include as many stupid, ridiculous, painfully long montages as possible. So you can take a leaf out of Twilight’s book and add a series of clips of Bilbo touching his face in awed wonderment, or of Gandalf running through the woods in an emo temper tantrum. Your choice.

           6. Seventy-four false endings. You’ve done it before, P. Jacks. You can certainly do it again. Have Bilbo wish goodbye to each of the dwarves in turn, and then realize it wasn’t enough, and have him wish goodbye again, except now with prepared speeches specific to each of them. Have this scene take place at the Misty Mountain, then in Rivendell, then in the Shire. Have Bilbo then sit down to record his adventures, then look up ponderously and go for a walk. He meets Gandalf. They share a meaningful look. No words are spoken. They move on. Then they come back and words are spoken. Then Bilbo goes out for some drinks. He comes home. He makes some toast. He eats it. All this time, Howard Shore is tearing at our heart strings with the sentimental, nostalgic music, that will swell at random parts, making us think the credits are coming soon, then come back down, and crush our dreams with a new modulation. This is child's play, Pete. You got this.

       7. All of the songs. There are so many songs in The Hobbit! SO MANY. And everyone knows that musicals are longer than non-musicals. My Fair Lady is three hours long for Christ’s sake. All you have to do to add some time is throw in a full music and dance number any time there’s a song in the book. And then maybe add in a couple that aren’t in the book. Kind of go for a Moulin Rouge feel. Yes. This is a good idea.

       8. Back stories for every single character. There about a million and a half characters in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, and some of them are only present for one scene or maybe even one line, and some of them are just mentioned by other characters but are never actually seen. But that does not mean that each one does not have a rich story to tell, and this movie can be their opportunity.

             9. Any time any character says another character’s name; they use their full title. Bilbo Baggins son of Bungo. Thorin Oakenshield. Gandalf the Grey. Fili the Financially Responsible. Bifor the Bicurious. Dwalin the Douche-bag. Be creative with it! Once you’ve assigned all the characters titles like these it will take forever for anyone to talk to anybody. Mission accomplished!

      10. Hint at a little scene at the end of the full credits (but then never actually have one). This new fad of having little important scenes after the end credits means that people actually stay and sit through the ENTIRE thing. They see EVERYONE’S name. And if that can’t make a movie feel like it’s hella longer than it actually is, I don’t know what can. You could probably get away with a 35-minute film that took 75,000,000 people to make, and, granted the audience sat through the hour and a half of credits, they would not feel shortchanged. So, lightly hint that there’s a scene at the end. When there isn’t, people will just assume they heard wrong, then leave and tell all their friends about the wonderful full-length movie they just saw. You will have successfully messed with their heads, you crazy mofo!

So, I really hope you take this advice to heart, PJ. With these ten simple tips, you can stick to your guns and make three long-ass movies out of a book that’s as thick as a slice of bread.

Movie Magic.