The Truth About Rebecca Black’s Friday

Rebecca Black has made it as an artist.  I have no clue what she previously did in her teenage life or what she tried to release after her song “Friday” gained instant internet meme fame surely spanning the globe by now, but she has accomplished a goal that all musical artists consistently strive for.

Your local band has nothing on this worldwide sensation (disclaimer: sensation may be a loose term).

This girl made a song assumingly with her no-talent friends, in comparison to the unlikely superstar herself (whose friends also didn’t have the courage to tell her, “No.”), on an issue she saw dear to the heart of every able-bodied American.  What to do on this fine, fine Friday?  There have been others that have previously discussed the intricacies, twists, turns, moral decisions of her lyrics, like which car seat shall be the most enjoyable, so my purpose today is to discuss her achievements.

As I mentioned before, there is one ideal that all musical artists hope to attain and that is that their song will get stuck in the listener’s mind whether it before for five minutes, years, or indefinitely (ring ring ring ring ring ring ring, banana phone).  I firmly believe that no one would purposefully create music if they didn’t think that at least one person on the face of the Earth would want their carefully crafted notes bouncing around through the neurons of the brain after the music has stopped.  In other words, no self-disrespecting artist would

Walking Through Life With Your Eyes Closed (Not A Deep Metaphor)

Have you tried this?  As I’ve said before, I have a tendency to start my “book” chapters such as these with semi-rhetorical questions; get used to it because I won’t be stopping anytime soon. Really, isn’t asking the audience a vague question near the beginning a writing tool used to hook them in?  Maybe I read that somewhere else when they started out with a question to me.  Who knows.  Not I.

Again, “walking with your eyes closed” is not some deep psychological nor philosophical insight I’m trying to bring out, although this title is quite catchy if I do say so myself… which I do.  If you haven’t tried this yet, then get off your ass.  Go stand in the middle of an open parking lot, close your eyes, and walk forward.  I’m willing to bet that after you’ve journeyed a few cautious steps you will open your eyes to see if you’re about to hit anything.   When you’re aware that there’s absolutely nothing in your path for at least 100 feet, having your eyes closed will betray the trust in your other senses.  You’ll innocently take deliberately slow baby steps being sure to keep your hands feeling the air out in front just in case… because as soon as your twisted friends realize you’re blindfolded and vulnerable, they’ll revel in the opportunity to place hazards in your way.  Bastards.

We lose our trusted sight-given ability to track distance when we walk with our eyes closed… which is an obvious statement of fact even though some pompous ass will have some postulate argument against my logic.  Now that I think about it, if depth perception already gets shot to hell after a few strong Long Islands

Velcro Kitty

“I want to cover a wall in Velcro and then wrap my cat up in Velcro and throw him at the wall… but I would never do it in anger, so the cat would be cool with it.” – The Yeti

It's cool, man, it's cool. Just let me down in an hour and I'll try not to claw your eyes out.

It Was A Celebration

Why do you have to take Christmas lights down once the holiday is over?  Is it unacceptable to want ice-sickle lights hanging down from the edge of my roof in the Summer?^*  The spirit of Christmas is allowed to start in early Autumn when we begin our endless pre-shopping-shopping with holiday tunes already blaring on the radio to my dismay.  So why is it that we can start planning four months early, but these festive lights have to be taken down and packed away back in the attic by the middle of January?  I’m a catalyst for change and it’s time that it becomes social practice to leave them up year round… especially if you have the lights where you can select the colors; this way you can turn them to green say around St. Patrick’s Day and so on… or just leave the multicolor on without care.

Christmas

St. Patrick's Day

Easter

Independence Day

I will admit that the houses flaunting their gigantic blow up Santa’s and snowmen need to be deflated; we don’t need those competing with the Easter Bunny blow ups that will surely be displayed.

A giant blown up Frank creeping out children one by one

Now on the lighter side of life,

The 2am Christmas Letter

(a late night attempt years back at simple Christmas humor)

2:00am December 25th, 2006

Twas the night before Christmas
and wrapping presents down there
was the son who waited
til parents slept upstairs

 

Elephants are not red and green
as you all very well know
that’d be really hard to believe
like if I told you we had snow

 

The puppy hears a *CLANG*
and becomes quite restless
but the sound is just me
because I ran into the table

 

I’ve wrapped some gifts
with cows printed on brown

Tree Hungry

Trees eat birds when nobody is looking; like the Christmas tree that ate Elizabeth’s mother.

Om nom nom mother

(Ear-bleeding) Holiday Traditional Songs

There haven’t been any new Christmas/holiday songs that have caught on and become part of the winter traditional song family since Mariah Carey’s 1994 hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”

Why is that?  With thousands upon thousands of new songs being written every year by artists, groups, orchestras, shitty boy bands, drunks, and goofy teens, does nobody feel enough holiday spirit anymore to write the next uber-popular^* (and each year soon to be more annoying) Christmas song?

"Cash Rules Everything Around Me" I can't wait for hip-hop caroling, seriously.

Unlike most people, or at least unlike all of the women I’ve tried mentioning this around, I can only stand to listen to these holiday songs on Christmas Eve and Day; anything more than that is simply excessive.  Do you listen to Valentine’s Day songs for a full month before the red lover’s day?  Are you patriotic enough to willingly listen to the Star Spangled Banner every day leading up to Independence Day without starting a new revolution?  I rest my case.  In fact, this year I proactively avoided turning on the radio in November to avoid any chance of hearing a Christmas song before Thanksgiving.  I proactively refused to visit any store lest they be decorating a Christmas aisle before Thanksgiving.  I sat huddled in the corner of my room talking to myself (and growing a wicked beard) until I was prepared to re-enter the winter festive world.

By the time you’ve

HOKIES: L.T. “The Steamroller” T-shirts

For all the loyal Hokie fans, I’m taking t-shirt orders for my original concept art of our QB, L.T. “The Steamroller”.  Our 2011 football season is fast approaching the biggest game of the year, the BCS Sugar Bowl, so show your continued support of our team with The Steamroller!  But as the season comes to a close, we’ll be looking forward to the annual Spring Game to signal the new lineup in the 2012 season once again led by The Steamroller.

Each original tee is going for low-price of $15 (S, M, L, XL, and possibly larger sizes).  FREE SHIPPING INCLUDED!  Act now by sending me a message to forbettergenius@vt.edu to reserve your shirt.

Follow The Steamroller’s lead; put a shoulder down and flatten the defense!

The Steamroller

The Steamroller (long-sleeve version) as seen at the 2011 ACC Championship

Malèna, Better Known As Monica Bellucci

In a very impromptu moment, a short blog post must be delivered.  Inspiration of a different sense is calling, and a quote from years past is rustling in my mind.

I present to you, Peachez discussing the movie Malèna (2000) staring Monica Bellucci:

KerLady – “So the main reason you got the movie is because she gets naked?”

Peachez – “No… that’s the ONLY reason I got the movie.  There’s a big difference.” (2006)

this is the story of a boy getting a boner... in Italian

Stoplight Racing

If pop culture has taught us anything since the days of rickety horse and buggy carts and chariots, there can only be one Highlander on a particular stretch of road.  History dictates that the awkward moment when a driver meets the adjacent eyes of another at a stop, the situation must be resolved by a high-speed street race that is declared finished when one of the two drivers backs down, crashes, or dies (typically not in this much of a dramatic fashion).  The winner of the stare-initiated vehicular contest is praised with fame, cred, and two slutty-looking broads that attach  instantly like leeches to anybody in the dim limelight as the winner is allowed to gloat about “doing it longer and harder” than the loser.

How our streets would look on a daily basis if people actually followed my made-up history claims.

The sixth sense of the human body is, in fact, not seeing dead people, but knowing somebody else in another car is intently looking at you.  You’ve been that person.  You pull up next to a magnificently rusted station wagon at a red light and instinctively turn your head to see who could possible be in command of that tetanus-waiting-to-happen death-mobile.  As soon as you begin mindlessly studying the side of their face, they get the tingling Spidey-sense and turn to look back at you.  With an obviously unprepared and delayed reaction your head whips to the front to avoid their gaze, but in the process there exists the inevitable millisecond of eye-lock.