I’ve written before about how Grace and I both want a cat, but we’ve yet to take the plunge for various reasons…feces being the biggest reason of the bunch.

Well My Faithful Readers, fell free to get excited (assuming any of you give a rat’s ass), because we’re getting closer and closer to making it happen.

We’ve been talking a lot more about it lately and it feels like we’ve definitely taken the initial steps on the road to cat ownership.

The cat discussions have begun.

We’ve agreed that we both want to get our cat from a shelter.

We’ve agreed that we both dig American short-haired cats.

We’ve agreed that neither one of us really wants a white cat (they’re so hard to keep clean).

We’ve agreed that we both want a cat that will pay his/her portion of the rent and poop gold coins. Oddly enough, we haven’t found any listings for cats matching this description.

After that we’ve started to run into some issues.

Grace wants one cat.
I want ALL THE CATS.

Grace wants a chill cat to lie on her lap.
I want a cat that’s jacked-up on Adderall and Red Bull.

Grace wants a cat that doesn’t require her attention 24/7.
I want the cat’s attention 24/7…and Grace’s too…and probably yours as well.

Needless to say, we’ve run into some obvious roadblocks as we continue our slow march toward cat ownership.

Grace would like a cat that is less like me (read: needy, ADD, over-the-top energetic, in need of constant attention, Iowan, etc.) and instead is drastically more mellow and easy-going.

It’s hard to fault her on this. If you’ve already got one large animal you’ve got to handle that fits all those descriptions, why would you want a second one?!

Personally, I want a cat that is somehow just a reincarnated version of me from a different time and dimension that was magically transported to an animal shelter in present day Boston.

I can’t help but think we’ll work through this one. There are always those middle-of-the-road cats that can be both hyper and chill depending on their mood.

I want ALL the cats!!

One sticking point right now is that I want two cats.

I want to name them Turk and JD and frolic about our tiny apartment with them whilst dressed in my Batman costume.

Grace has drawn a line in the sand at one cat.

Her logic is that I am JD, so we can get just Turk and he’ll be all set. Also, I believe no one will be wearing a Batman costume in her scenario. This displeases me.

In the end, she’s probably right.

Scratch that, she’s always right.

She has a much better track record for “logical thinking” than I do in situations involving super cute cats.

There’s probably no good reason to jump into cat ownership by getting two cats for one tiny apartment that’s barely big enough for the two people who already live there.

Anyway, I’ll keep y’all posted as we go, but rest assured, the cat discussions have begun!

I get the best interoffice mail.

In my time here I’ve received the following items via interoffice mail:

• a baseball
• a hand-drawn greeting card from Louisiana and Mardi Gras beads
• a squishy whale wrapped in gold tinsel
• a stress pig
• a cute kittens calendar
• three broken GI Joes
• parts of various Mr. Potatohead dolls
• two issues of Sports Illustrated from the late ‘90s
• a sealed envelope labeled “private” with nothing in it
• a bevy of lids from plastic Coke bottles
• sixteen highlighters (all of them dried up and dead)
• a ransom note from a garden gnome
• half a case of PBR

I’m sure there are plenty more awesome things that I’ve received, but those are the ones that immediately pop into my mind.

This week I received yet another awesome surprise that came from the one and only DGobs!

When I opened the envelope, this is what I found first:

This is a pretty inviting message right off the bat.

It could have been a total sting operation or someone trying to serve me some court papers, but it would have worked.

In fact, something like this is probably the best way to sucker me into any sort of otherwise undesirable situation.

Seriously, if you put a note on cage full of angry, underfed, coked-out otters that says “stick your hand in here to see Katy Perry in a bikini!” I’d probably go ahead and jam my arm right into that cage, all the way up to the elbow.

Anyway…I unfolded the paper and what did I behold:

That’s right folks, exactly what was promised.

No court papers. No swarm of vicious killer bees. Heck, no paper cuts. Just a pretty lady frolicking in the waters of Hawaii on Christmas day whilst her marriage falls to shambles around her.

That’s good stuff right there.

My Faithful Readers, the battle for internet supremacy is over.

Dubstep Cat has officially pulled the sword from the stone as it were and is now your new god. Deal with it.

Who is Dubstep Cat you ask?

Well, by golly…let me show you:

There is very little I can add to the discussion here to try and make this video more awesome than it already is.

Luckily, the fine folks over at Jezebel hit on this earlier this afternoon and pretty much summed it up perfectly:

Ok, folks. It’s been a good run. Pack it on up. There’s no use trying to accomplish anything else as a human species. Dubstep Cat is the apex of billions of years of evolution and innovation and thousands of years of human creativity, and after this, we should all go home and congratulate ourselves.

Personally, I don’t know what the hell dubstep is or why on earth anyone would listen to it—seriously, it feels like my ears are being raped by a robot constructed entirely of sadness and the old dial-up internet noise—but I do know that watching this cat made me laugh so hard that I may or may not have peed myself in my office this afternoon.

And that’s enough for me to go ahead and tip my hat to this fantastic feline.

Dubstep Cat – 1
The Rest of the Internet – 0

Taco Bell is at it again.

The Mexican(ish) fast food giant is getting in on the breakfast game and already they’re taunting me with new additions to the (sketchy-at-best) menu that they know I can’t get my grubby, cholesterol lovin’ mitts on.

Just last month I wrote about my long overdue discovery of the Doritos Locos Tacos and the unfortunate fact that it is pretty much impossible to find anywhere but a few select markets.

As a result, I’ve yet to encounter one of those neon orange suckers to see if it’s actually worth the hype, but Taco Bell has already pushed it to the backburner of my “crappy fast food must-have” list with this new breakfast creation…the Johnsonville sausage and egg wrap.

I know, I know…it looks absolutely disgusting and it probably tastes worse than it looks, assuming that’s possible.

To be perfectly honest, I’m actually quite frightened of the damn thing.

Yet…I must have it.

Taco Bell just rolled out their new breakfast menu today and it is only in limited locations for the time being, so I guess I can’t get too pissy about this sucker being unavailable for my immediate consumption; especially when you consider that its elusiveness figures to garner me an extra working artery for the foreseeable future.

This bad boy is the flagship item on the new breakfast menu—that also hosts the usual suspects like breakfast burritos and hashbrowns—and I will do my damndest to sample one.

Granted, if it really does taste as bad, or worse, than it looks this whole Taco Bell breakfast experiment will probably be dead and gone by this weekend.

…and really, that would probably be best for everyone.

It was such a simple game—unlike Jeopardy—that it often caught my attention whilst channel surfing after school.

I could spell.

I could scream out words.

I could play Wheel of Fortune like a champ.

Jeopardy required me to actually know things and I wasn’t down with that until, like, well after my college graduation.

Wheel, however, won me over for the longest time.

There was a brief period—something like three weeks or so—where I thought Vanna White was the prettiest lady on the planet. She was always wearing a new dress and smiling so pleasantly. She always knew which letters were hiding behind the blocks. It was hard not to like the gal.

Granted, I also thought she was mute, because Pat Sajak did all the talking. Seriously, he was one chatty mofo.

Today he let out an interesting detail that helps explain why.

Apparently it had a lot to do with how he and Vanna spent their lengthy, two-and-a-half hour lunch breaks:

“At NBC in Burbank we had a place called Los Arcos across the street — which is Spanish, as you know, for ‘The Arcos’ — and they served great margaritas.”

“Vanna and I would go across and have two or three or six and then come and do the last shows and have trouble recognizing the alphabet.”

There you have it, folks. Good ole Pat Sajak was three sheets to the wind whilst filming a number of episodes. This more than explains why he was such a Chatty Cathy.

We should have known!

I don’t really know how you could get away with something like that, but that was back in the ‘80s and I’m pretty certain the world was a lawless society wherein there were no consequences for any action, no matter how ludicrous.

That’s gotta be why Sajak went on to say that no one ever mentioned the whole “drunk on the job for a nationally-televised program” thing to either White or himself.

It’s that or the producers realized that no one—save for young children and old people—were ever actually watching the show and it probably wasn’t a big deal if the hosts were toasted.

Now if only this explained why Vanna never talked. I can’t think of anyone I know who has ever gone mute after multiple margaritas.

That gal is an enigma.

We live in a very weird time.

I say this today because I just got wind of a story that combines the following: toilet paper, Moby Dick, and e-commerce.

Now, I thought there was probably a good chance that I’d live my entire life and never encounter a situation where all of those things came together.

I was wrong.

There is a listing on eBay right now for six rolls of toilet paper that have the entirety of Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick typed out on ‘em.

Here is the dude’s official product description from the listing:

My friend and I once joked that toilet paper should have instructions printed on them for certain people.

One day, the conversation grew from there and turned into a wager that I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) be able to type out a novel on toilet paper.

Yes, we did have some time on our hands but, as you can see from the photos, I won the bet.

There are four full rolls, one roll (epilogue) is about 1/5 of a roll and one half-roll

All of the rolls of TP came out of a brand new — clean — package of 2-ply Cottonelle.

They’ve been handled very gingerly and infrequently.

As you’ll see in the following photos, one or two rolls have a tear at the beginning.

This is where I was trying to pull the paper through the typewriter.

I’ve kept this mod oddity in a box in a cool, dry place for the last 10 years and have only broken it out to prove to doubters that I actually did it.

Considering what it’s been through, it’s in amazing condition.

Ten years.

Ten freakin’ years this dude has had this thing just lingering in a box?

Is there any chance this guy isn’t a complete raving psychopath?

We’re talking about a dude who took a bet that he could type an 800+ page novel on toilet paper and he won that bet.

This nutter butter typed every word of the—undoubtedly copyright infringing—epic about Ishmael, Ahab and the Pequod on freakin’ two-ply doo-doo paper for no reason other than to win a bet!

This is not the behavior of a sane person.

Then he kept it hidden away all this time until he suddenly wants a cool grand for some decade-old toilet paper with ink all over it? I can’t imagine that’s even remotely hygienic!

It’s old and inky.

Is there a worse combination?!

Dude is straight-up crazy, but do you know what’s even crazier? Someone is probably going to give him that thousand bucks he wants.

It’ll probably be some rich English professor or a Melville enthusiast or Charlie Sheen or something, but I tell you who it won’t be. It sure as hell won’t be me.

You see, I’ve got a pretty firm policy against spending big bucks on anything I’m going to smear poop on in the near future.

It just makes good sense, right?!

If you don’t have a similar policy and you’re just ALL ABOUT bitter revenge stories involving aquatic life and amputees, you should zip over to eBay while you still can because time is running out on this (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime deal.

Holy hell.

Look at that thing—the claw, not the dude—and try to tell me that’s not the most redonkulous thing you’ve ever seen.

Seriously, look at it. Look at it hard and really let it marinate.

How messed up—and yet simultaneously awesome—is that thing?!

Awesome enough that you should certainly buy me the (take a deep breath, this is a long one) “Zombie Gear Demon Bones Tri-Bladed Fantasy Hand Claw” today!

I’m not big into the X-Men or anything, so I could give a rat’s ass about this being some kind of blatant rip-off of Wolverine or whatever.

I’m more intrigued by the fact that this thing is available without any sort of requirements (ie: age, mental health, crime fighting alter ego, etc.) listed on the website. Also, let’s focus on the fact that this is available on freakin’ Amazon.com…and for less than $30.

What the heck is going on here?!

This whole thing feels like some sort of elaborate sting operation, right?!

This has to be the same way the feds trick burnouts into buying old coffee cans full of Vicodin and Xanax. It’s just too good to be true, right?! There’s seriously no way this is on the up-and-up.

I mean, if the dude selling this thing (and it’s gotta be the guy in the picture, right?) doesn’t run some sort of psych evaluation or criminal record check or half-assed Google search before shipping this sucker out, he’s basically an accessory to the inevitable string of murders that transpire as a result of this purchase, right?!

Although, I suppose if you want it for the same reason I do, maybe you’re not some sort of total whacko who is all but guaranteed to go on a statewide killing spree.

You see, I’m interested in this sucker because they seem to be pimping it as some sort of zombie defense tool. Personally, I think this thing looks pretty useless as a zombie killing device, because you’ve gotta be all-up-in the zombie’s grill to use it.

It does, however, have an enticing list of product features:

Now, I don’t know what the hell 440C Stainless Steel is, but a cursory glance at Google—and a quick glossing over of the first result—indicates that it is a pretty bad-ass metal that can hold up to the most extreme of zombie stabbing tasks.

I don’t know if the idea of a Velcro wristband excites me the way the seller was hoping it would, but I suppose it’s better than if it had one of those annoying charm bracelet clasps. Those things are damn near impossible to get hooked, let alone when you’ve got a set of 8.75” razor sharp claws attached to one hand.

Don’t even get me started on the weird, skull-thingity-thing design going on here.

Long story short, I’m intrigued.

I don’t know if it’ll do me any good against zombies and I can’t see a practical purpose beyond chopping veggies and stabbing homeless people for kicks and giggles, but I think I want this and I want it now.

So act fast, before my child-like attention span zeroes in on something else.

Unless you’ve been hiding from the internet and television for the last couple of days, you’ve undoubtedly heard that Heidi Klum and Seal are getting a divorce.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to assume that Ms. Klum—nicknamed “The Body” for very good reason—will have no shortage of potential suitors lining up to play the role of “rebound guy.”

The thing is, I can’t help but think that might be a very, very bad idea.

The reasons for this are two-fold.

First, there’s the fact that the major reason for their divorce is reportedly Seal’s temper:

Heidi Klum is divorcing Seal largely because she has had it with his volcanic temper … TMZ has learned.

Sources directly connected with the couple tell us … Heidi’s decision to divorce Seal has nothing to do with a third person. There is NO issue of infidelity.

But Seal’s inability to control his anger has become too much for Heidi to take, in no small part because it’s affecting their children.

Obviously all of Klum’s potential paramours are likely to blow this off thinking that he won’t be around to get his crazy on, they’re gonna be divorced and living apart.

No worries, right?!

Well, that’s where the second of my reasons for passing on that “get back on the horse” date with Heidi Klum comes into play.

You see, Seal—the guy with the terrible temper—is still wearing his wedding ring and saying things like this:

“It’s just pretty much a token of how I feel about this woman.”

“We have eight years, eight wonderful years together. Just because we have decided to separate doesn’t necessarily mean you take off your ring and you’re no longer connected to that person. We will be connected in many ways ’til the rest of our lives.”

“But right now it feels really comfortable on my hand so I have no intentions of taking it off anytime soon.”

Obviously he was going for “sweet” or “romantic” or something there, but to me that came off as drastically more creepy and unnerving than anything else.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I’m pretty certain Seal is going to kill anyone and everyone who even makes wayward eye contact with Heidi Klum anytime in the near future, let alone the first poor sumbitch who actually tries to take her out to dinner and a movie.

Seriously, the dude is going to be dumping bodies into the ocean with reckless abandon for weeks on end.

Dang near every report I’ve read has said that Klum is the one who initiated the divorce. I guess that’s why it’s not overly surprising that he seems like he’s not quite ready to move on yet.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you shouldn’t give Heidi a call and a “what’s up girl, how you doin’?”

I just think it might be wise to let someone else be the first dude to give it a whirl, you know, just in case.

They suck because they break up your favorite show. They suck because they’re insanely repetitive and boring. They suck because you couldn’t give a rat’s ass about whatever product they’re pitching. They suck because they contain some of the worst plots and scripts this side of daytime soap operas.

I mean seriously, who among us hasn’t spent an entire commercial break asking themselves “people actually get paid to make this garbage?”

Commercials annoy the crap outta me and, admittedly, I think it’s because I’ve often thought that I might be pretty good at advertising. Heck, there have been times where I’ve cooked up ideas subconsciously that I thought might make fine commercials.

What I haven’t done, however, is come up with something as completely genius as the latest advertisement from CCAA, a Brazilian-based language school that is pimping the importance of learning English.

CCAA’s latest commercial features two dudes who have survived a plane accident, which appears to be the result of a previous commercial starring Bruce f’n Willis.

The two dudes wash up on the shore of mystical Megan Fox Island, an island inhabited by a veritable plethora of scantily clad Megan Fox clones.

To see how it all shakes out, peep the video:

I know, right?!

That’s how commercials are done!

Don’t get me wrong, it has nothing to do with the abundance of Megan Foxes, I’ve made my personal opinion of Megan Fox pretty clear in the past. Rather, it’s the simplistic idea behind the commercial.

If you know another language, you get to live in paradise with one of the hottest chicas on the planet and a bajillion of her clones.

If you don’t know another language, you get trapped on a rocky, less-than-inviting island with Mike f’n Tyson, but not just one Mike Tyson—which would be bad enough—but a whole freakin’ army of Tysons and they all seem like they’re just ready to fight.

If this commercial had come out back when I was in high school and it had Jennifer Aniston or Jenny McCarthy or Britney Spears or any of the hotties of my youth in Megan Fox’s place, I’d have been signing up for foreign language classes so fast it’d make your freakin’ head spin, especially if they’d replaced Mike Tyson with Carrot Top.

Honestly, I really wish someone had done something like this related to learning more about computers or math or something that would serve a dude well to make money as an adult.

If an army of 10,000 Christina Aguileras (note: we’re talking “Genie in a Bottle” era Christina here) had told me to learn all about computer programming, I sure as hell would have listened. I’d probably be making gobs of money and living on a unicorn farm with buildings made of gold.

Alas, there was no hottie army and here I am, a lowly library worker dude who blogs about the awesomeness of commercials from other continents.

It’s unfortunate that such a simple and funny commercial is only going to be hitting the airwaves in Brazil.

Meanwhile, we’ll be getting a lot more of these:

Um…yeah, those were definitely WAY better than the Brazilian commercial. American ingenuity and creative all the way!

USA! USA! US…ah to hell with it. You win this round, Brazil!

But watch your asses, because if Will Ferrell and Old Milwaukee go national with their ad campaign, we’ll be coming for you.

Movies kinda suck right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that The Artist or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo aren’t any good. There are plenty of movies in theatres right now that I’m sure are abundantly entertaining, but they’re just not movies I’m real interested in seeing.

I’ll admit that I’m kind of a pain in the ass when it comes to hitting all the right buttons with movies, which is probably why I only go to half-a-dozen (at most) movies a year anymore.

I like action movies (see: Die Hard and The Dark Knight), but I have zero desire to see about 97% of the action movies and/or comic book movies that come out.

Seriously, one of my best friends from back home is hooked on all those comic book movies and he was absolutely shocked to learn that I hadn’t rushed out to see the big-screen adaptations of Iron Man, Captain America or Thor.

I’m not real big into the artsty-fartsy type of movies. I’ll occasionally go out and hit up a Black Swan or a Young Adult or something of that ilk, but usually it’s about one or so of those a year that I can sit through without getting super fidgety.

I like comedies, but I also find that most of the “comedy” put out by Hollywood isn’t real funny anymore. It seems to be Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill trying to out-crass one another and that’s not really my thing.

That having been said, it looks like I’ve got another bleak month or so ahead of me before anything I’m actually interested in hits the theatres.

With that in mind, here’s a quick rundown of seven movies I’m pretty stoked for in the next six months or so.

Let me hear it in the comments if you think any of these look interesting or if you think I’ve just got horrendous taste in movies.

Wanderlust

Release Date: February 24th

Starring: : Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd

Plot Summary: Rattled by sudden unemployment, a Manhattan couple surveys alternative living options, ultimately deciding to experiment with living on a rural commune where free love rules.

Why I Want to See It: Jennifer Aniston. Paul Rudd. Quasi-formulaic romantic comedy. What isn’t to like? These are the types of movies that are manufactured just to draw in peeps like myself who are crushing on one of the leads and/or simply suckers for a good rom-com. Since I fall in both categories, it’s pretty much a given that I’ll be catching this one on opening weekend.

Being Flynn

Release Date: March 2nd

Starring: : Robert De Niro and Paul Dano

Plot Summary: Working in a Boston homeless shelter, Nick Flynn re-encounters his father, a con man and self-proclaimed poet. Sensing trouble in his own life, Nick wrestles with the notion of reaching out yet again to his dad.

Why I Want to See It: I’ll admit it, since I moved to Boston, I’ve become a bit of an obsessive with movies related to and/or taking place in the city. I want to see ‘em all and see how accurately they portray my adopted home city. Toss in two great actors in (non-cash-grab) De Niro and a redonkulously underrated Paul Dano and a very interesting plot based on a book that is—from what I hear—one helluva read and you’ve got me sucked in.

American Reunion

Release Date: April 6th

Starring: : Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan and Seann William Scott

Plot Summary: Jim, Michelle, Stifler, and their friends reunite in East Great Falls, Michigan for their high school reunion.

Why I Want to See It: I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’m a tad ashamed about how excited I am for this movie, but the thing is the original American Pie came out just as I was entering high school and I can safely say that I watched this movie (along with some Freddie Prinze Jr. classics) well over 50 times before my own graduation day. I thought the follow-up, American Pie II was solid and was a great segue into my senior year of high school. The third installment, American Wedding—and the subsequent spin-off, cash-grab versions that I never saw—seemed to lose the heart of the original movie. I’m excited to see where these cats are all at in life now that I’m coming up on my ten-year high school reunion.

The Five-Year Engagement

Release Date: April 27th

Starring: : Jason Segel and Emily Blunt

Plot Summary: A comedy that charts the ups and downs of an engaged couple’s relationship.

Why I Want to See It: This falls right back into my rationale for wanting to see Wanderlust. I’ve got a crush on Emily Blunt (but who doesn’t, right?) AND the gal who plays her sister in this one, the lovely Alison Brie. Toss in Jason Segel with whom I shall always relate thanks to his wonderful portrayal of Marshall on How I Met Your Mother and another kooky rom-com plot and you’ve got me hooked. We can go ahead and print the tickets now, because I’m there.

Men In Black III

Release Date: May 25th

Starring: : Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin

Plot Summary: Agent J travels in time to MIB’s early years in the 1960s, to stop an alien from assassinating his friend Agent K and changing history.

Why I Want to See It: The rationale for this one harkens back toward the American Reunion rationale. I loved the first installment of the MIB-series when I was in high school. I’ve always thought Will Smith was awesome and I fully-intend to have him play the role of Jeremiah Graves in the biopic about my life. I thought the second MIB movie was kind of “meh” and I’d really like to see ‘em make up for that in this one. Will I rush out to see it? Probably not, but it’s probably fodder for an afternoon matinee or at least a rental when it hits Red Box.

The Amazing Spider-Man

Release Date: July 3rd

Starring: : Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone

Plot Summary: Teenager Peter Parker grapples with both human problems and amazing super-human crises.

Why I Want to See It: Growing up, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about Spider-Man. I was a Batman guy all the way. When the original Spider-Man movies with Tobey Maguire came out, I was all “pffffffffttttt…whatevs!”…because I was super cool like that. One weekend, however, some friends and I were bored—as is often the case in Northwest Iowa—and it was pretty much the only thing playing at the theatre so I gave in and watched two hours of Maguire CGI-ing his way around New York and was completely enthralled. By the end of the movie, I was trying to climb the walls of the theatre like Spidey. The follow-ups in the Maguire trilogy were less-than-awesome, but still entertaining. I’m very intrigued to see if this version captures my interest in the same way.

The Dark Knight Rises

Release Date: July 20th

Starring: : Christian Bale, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine and Liam Neeson.

Plot Summary: Eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, the terrorist leader Bane arrives in Gotham City, pushing it and its police force to their limits, forcing its former hero Batman to resurface after taking the fall for Harvey Dent’s crimes.

Why I Want to See It: It’s f’n Batman.