Do You Really Love Lamp?

Pantyhose: the one article of clothing no man should ever have to wear.  The physical torture a man would have to endure simply while putting them on would be unbearable to begin with, as countless leg hairs would be torn out, and that combined with the psychological torture one would undoubtedly have to face from their friends as a result of wearing them would be enough to drive Ted Bundy insane.*

Anyway, it is once again blog post time!  I want to thank you all for your patience in waiting for this post, and would like to explain why it took so long for me to post again.  I've been busy.***  Also, and I kind of hate to admit this, I have been short on blog topics recently.  I know how fun and entertaining reading these blog posts are, but you must understand that it is not as easy (although just as fun and entertaining) to write it or to come up with topics to write about.  And now we move on.

So, how 'bout them Panthers?!  I know that it's still way too early to tell, but I'm thinking Super bowl, guys!  Oh man, I can't wait to watch our playoff game next week!  14-2, baby!!††

Have any of you randomly flashed back to an event that happened to you years ago?  I do this periodically and end up reliving a bunch of moments of my past.  Sometimes I flashback to boring moments,††† other times I flashback to some embarrassing moment‡ that occurred way back in the day, and sometimes I'll flashback to an interesting event.  Recently, I flashed back to an event that doesn't fall under any of those categories.  I flashed back to a time when I wanted to play the game Connect Four.

I don't know what your history with Connect Four is, but when I was a kid it ranked right underneath God as being the greatest thing ever created.‡‡  It was especially admired worshiped at my church among the elementary school students, which was probably blasphemous.  If you wanted to hang out with someone, you discussed the deeper meaning of life played Connect Four.  If you were bored and had nothing else to do, you read your Bible played Connect Four.  If you wanted to learn about God, you sat and had a deep theological discussion with your incredibly hot college-aged Sunday School teacher who I'm going to grow up and marry one day‡‡‡ played Connect Four.  So there I was one Sunday, bored with nothing to do.  My usual friends weren't there that day, so I asked some random kid if he wanted to play Connect Four.  He said yes, which is good because I would have had to kill him and eat his liver if he had said no.††††

Once he had agreed to a game, I turned and ran to the box as fast as I could.  I did this because whoever reached the box first could call what color they wanted to be.  I found it odd when I got there that he had not rushed over at all.  I called being red because, as was stated by the Universal Unspoken Law, red went first.  We set up and I excitedly popped my first red chip in.  Much to my surprise, this demon child moved the little blue thing at the bottom of the game, knocked my chip out, and then put one of his black chips in.  I was confused.  Perhaps, I thought, this poor social outcast doesn't have any friends and has never been asked to play a game of Connect Four.  I'll enlighten him to the rules so that he doesn't have to go through this again.

"Red goes first," I explained.  Then, in the dumbest accent I've ever heard, the kid responded with:

"Charcoal makes fire."  Or at least that's what he meant to say.  Due to his accent and his uncanny need to say everything obnoxiously loud, what heactually said was "CHAR-CO MAYKS FAR!"

I was taken aback by this.  Not only did I have no idea what he had just said, I still couldn't understand why he was trying to go first when he clearly wasn't red.  It actually wasn't until my flashback that I realized what this kid was trying to argue.  He was arguing that charcoal, which is black (ie his chip color), makes fire, which is red (ie my chip color).  Therefore, because charcoal (his color) made fire (my color), he should go first.  I know, what a loser, right?  Anyway, like I mentioned, I had no clue what he had said, so I responded with "What?" and he responded with (no surprises here) "CHAR-CO MAYKS FAR!"  I still had no idea what he was talking about.  Now, when we are children and we are attempting to argue something with someone using logic and they are arguing back using stupid, we are unsure of how to respond.  As my friend Shannon Daniel pointed out, adults usually have the same predicament.  So I, being completely confused and not completely sure how to respond, repeated myself.

"Red goes first," I explained, hoping he would get it.  He looked at me for a moment, and then, in his infinite logical prowess, came back with...

"CHAR-CO MAYKS FAR!"

At this point, I very frustratingly gave in to his stupidity and proceeded to hate that game of Connect Four.  Freaking kid ruined my day.

When I flashed back to this recently I realized that this would have gone over quite differently had it happened to today.  After trying to argue with me that CHAR-CO MAYKS FAR, I would come back with something similar to the following:

"Okay, look.  One, red goes first.  Red always goes first. Red always has gone first and red always will go first.  It's like a law of the freaking universe or something.  So, red goes first.  Two, we're not at a freaking campsite, we're playing a game of Connect Four.  Red goes first.  Three, charcoal in and of itself does not make fire.  Charcoal is the fuel for the fire, but the fire has to come from flint or matches or a lighter or something.  If charcoal did spontaneously burst into flame as you are suggesting, making a run to the supermarket for a bag of charcoal for a barbecue would be a much more harrowing and life-threatening experience.  So red goes first.  And four, since you're apparently stupid, I know that the last three points have gone way over your head.  So I'm going to bring things down to your level for a second.  Using your logic, I could just as easily say 'FAR BERNS STUF AN' MAYKS IT BLAK!'‡‡‡‡ and therefore, red would go first.  So.  Red goes first."

Punk kid ruining my game of Connect Four.  I should have slapped him.  Or killed him and eaten his liver.

*This paragraph on pantyhose and why men shouldn't have to wear them is brought to you in part by Fox News.**

**Not true.  It's pretty much just something that came to my demented mind while in the mountains of NC.  Jake, Shannon, and Laura: yes, it is that one time you're thinking of.

***Don't believe me?  Check out http://movies.interventionproductions.com/and http://www.interventionproductions.com/ for proof.†  Yea, I've been busy.

†What shameless plug?  By the way, feel free to subscribe to the movies blog for updates on recent Intervention Productions projects!  Hooray!

††This entire paragraph was written as a result of severe denial.  Please don't crush me by pointing out any slightly exaggerated statistics.

†††These flashbacks are kinda boring.

‡These aren't fun, either.

‡‡Absolutely contradictory to the Bible and everything in it.

‡‡‡Believe it or not, this sentence is completely fabricated.****

****Her name was Julie.

††††Part of the Connect Four Code that we wrote up.

‡‡‡‡For those who don't speak stupid, that is "Fire burns stuff and makes it black."

Sir, I Wanna Buy These Shoes....

This is long, I know. But it's worth it. Read or perish.

Ah, yes. Christmas-time. The time of the year where everyone's a little friendlier, the stars seem to shine a little brighter, and when we get a bunch of presents to celebrate someone else's birthday.* One of the greatest things about celebrating Christmas are the songs. November rolls around and people all start bickering and arguing about when playing Christmas songs is appropriate or moral.*** In the end, however, the result is the same: Christmas music being played through every speaker in America. While there are some Christmas songs that are just stupid and obnoxious,† most of them are bearable. The one song, however, that drives me insane each Christmas is, you guessed it,†† "Christmas Shoes." Even after watching Patten Oswalt's stand-up sketch about this horrible song, I still find some other things in this which are inexcusable.†††

The cashier mentioned in this song is a MASSIVE jerk. Think of the absolute worst person you can think of. Hitler? Hussein? Your mother-in-law?‡ All of these people look like Jesus compared to this cashier.‡‡ I'm going to take you through this song to show you how completely twisted and evil this cashier is and when I'm done, you'll be asking yourself the same question I've been asking myself for literally a year or two: how on Earth is this stupid song so popular, and how has no one noticed that this cashier is pure evil?! Okay. Verse 1:

It was almost Christmas time, there I stood in another line

Tryin' to buy that last gift or two, not really in the Christmas mood

Standing right in front of me was a little boy waiting anxiously

Pacing 'round like little boys do

And in his hands he held a pair of shoes

Okay so, using our powers of observation, the first thing we notice is that this boy is pacing. He's nervous about something. It won't take long for us to figure out what it is that's freaking him out, but for right now we have a little innocent boy (who's probably adorable beyond all reason) holding a pair of shoes. The jerk has yet to enter the story, but there's no doubt that the putrid pile of repulsive flesh has noticed the boy at this point and is already concocting his evil scheme. In fact, from now on I'm referring to the cashier as PpORF (Putrid Pile of Repulsive Flesh‡‡‡). That's how seedy and low this guy is. Here's bridge 1:

His clothes were worn and old

He was dirty from head to toe

And when it came his time to pay

I couldn't believe what I heard him say

As the songwriter continues to use his powers of observation, we notice that this helpless little lamb is wearing old, worn clothes and that he's "dirty from head to toe." So not only do his parents not have money to pay for new clothes or (apparently) running water, his entire family is so stupid that they aren't using the showers at the hospital his mother is staying at to keep clean (we learn about the hospital in the chorus). How much more helpless and innocent could this poor child be? He can't help that he's dumb...he's just a kid! So this poor little blue-eyed, blond-haired angel has a dying mother and a very stupid man for a father! *Begins tearing up.* We continue with the chorus, where the hapless child comes face-to-face with Satan himself:

Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama please

It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size

Could you hurry sir? Daddy says there's not much time

You see, she's been sick for quite a while

and I know these shoes will make her smile

and I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight

Let's continue to analyze, shall we? The first two lines shows that this kid, who doesn't have enough money (or a father with enough brains) to shower is spending the only amount of money he owns on a pair of shows for his mother. This obviously means that he loves his mother very much.

"Could you hurry sir? Daddy says there's not much time." His mother is so sick that she is literally about to die. She could die at any minute, so the poor unintelligent father tells his son to hurry and get the shoes before his motherkicks the freaking bucket.

"You see, she's been sick for quite a while." His mother has cancer. And is dying from said cancer as he speaks.

"And I know these shoes will make her smile and I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight." Theological inconsistencies aside,**** this poor child has nothing to look forward to anymore but the fact that his mother will be meeting Jesus if she happens to breathe her last that night.

Alas, the poor dear has no idea who he's talking to. Anyone...and I meananyone with even a fraction of a heart would melt into nothing but a pathetic puddle if this adorable little angel sent from heaven said this to them. Not PpORF:

He counted pennies for what seemed like years

The cashier said "Son, there's not enough here"

He searched his pockets frantically

Then he turned and looked at me

PpORF counts out the coins†††† that this helpless innocent lays before him and, upon seeing that there isn't enough there, he gives an evil little grin as he begins filling up with the warmth and joy of knowing that this child won't be able to give his dying mother a goodbye Christmas gift. He turns and gleefully tells the child "Son, there's not enough here." He even mocks the boy by throwing in the word "son", as though he's on the child's side! Let me ask a question here to anyone who hasn't given up on reading yet: what, in all of the universe, could this demon be saving up for that is so important that he can't lay down a few bucks to help this kid out?! This evil, slimy, slithering demon from the depths of hell probably even smiled to himself as he watched the pure and blameless child before him begin frantically searching his pockets in a panic as he realized that he wasn't going to be able to give his dying mother even one gift.

What a sick, sick man. Thankfully, the writer of the song wasn't possessed by Satan himself, and he was able to help this spotless child out by giving him some cash. Hopefully, the child was able to get back to his mother before she ceased to exist to give her the shoes. Cuz we all know that if he didn't, and then tried to return the shoes, the cashier wouldn't have allowed him to return them. Stupid PpORF. Seriously, though, why is this freaking song so popular? Does no one see how horrible of a human being this cashier is? This guy probably watches the Discovery Channel just so he can revel in watching helpless bunny rabbits being eaten alive by leopards. I understand that good prevailed because the songwriter was there to help the child out and all that, but this isn't the story everyone seems to focus on. Instead, they ignore PpORF and the battle of good and evil that takes place completely.

So anyway, that's my beef with this terrible song. And, seriously, how have we gone 10 years without anyone mentioning this? Not okay.

*Yea. That's where my mind is. Strangers getting friendlier? Nope. Stars shining brighter?** Nope. Jesus? Nuh-uh. Getting presents? Yup. But wouldn't you agree that getting presents on everyone else's birthday would be so much cooler than getting presents on our own birthdays? I think yes. Agree.

**I'm pretty sure I made this one up anyway...

***Fundamentalists.... *sigh*

†I.E. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oOzszFIBcE

††Or at least if you're smart you did (see title for this post).

†††Note: "unexcusable" is not a word. Neither is "uncorruptable." Thanks to Chrome for pointing this out with it's friendly red underline.

‡To my future mother-in-law: I love you. The only reason I can think of for why everyone seems to hate their mother-in-law is that they don't have you as their mother-in-law.

‡‡I know this is borderline blasphemous...if it's taken seriously. So chill, crazies.

‡‡‡The second, lower-case, "p" is silent. Thanks to Tim Albury for this terminology.

****I.E. The fact that his mother isn't taking anything with her when she dies. His father's dumb, the poor child can't know the difference. If his father were intelligent, or read his Bible once in a while, they could have used the money on something more useful. LIKE A FREAKING SHOWER FOR HIS SON. Either way, the incorruptible††† child is buying his mother the only gift he will ever be able to buy her and this is adorable.

††††That's right. Coins. Which means he's been collecting for this gift for a long time now.

And, as usual, the picture has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the post. But it's still funny: