Thursday TV Beej: The Office (BBC)

While I, as well as millions of others, thoroughly enjoy the American version of The Office, it was impossible to start watching it without immediately comparing it to its earlier BBC counterpart. Because of growing pains that included doing the first few episode almost verbatim the same as the BBC show, I never really got into the American Office... Over time it became apparent that Steve Carell's Michael became a totally separate character from David Brent, Dwight became a completely different foil than Garrth Keenan ever was. Jim, however, has spent the entirety of the show's run doing a second rate Tim Canterbury impersonation.

I guess the biggest problem I have is that since the American version has become so popular, no one new to the game appreciates the BBC version. People either complain: "I can't understand what anyone is saying", or that "it's too similar to the first American ones", or "I'm a stupid fuck who doesn't appreciate greatness." David Brent is so much more awkward than Michael and about a hundred times funnier because of it. When I first started watching The Office, I felt an embarrassment for his character in the same 'almost need to stop watching' vein that you can get watching Larry David.

Ricky Gervais knows how to keep 'em wanting more, wrapping it up with a touching Christmas special after two seasons that totalled twelve episodes (He recently did the same thing with the equally great series Extras).

In honor of this beej worthy show starring that fat little toad, here are some choice clips(there is so much to choose from this is tough):

Christmas Dinner Joke


The Oggmonster


Free Love on the Free Love Freeway



"If you want the rainbow, you've gotta put up with the rain - do you know which philosopher said that? Dolly Parton. And people say she's just a big pair of tits. "

Oldies but Goodies: Fun Town Auto!

This is a commercial for Fun Town Auto, where they encourage you to come down but gentley remind you that you should bring your check book. (some NSFW Language)

Wednesday's Unsung Hero of the Week: The Map!

Every episode of Dora the Explorer goes the same way. Dora has something to do, some place to go, someone to see, whatever. She has no idea how to reach said destination. She then begs the audience to say "Map", so that the map can show her the way to achieve her goal of bringing boots his doll or whatever the hell. The Map, excited as ever to help, breaks out into his brilliantly penned theme song, which consists of him saying that he is the map no less than five thousand times. He then presents us with the three legs of Dora's journey. The first two are generally challenges (river, bridge, , trees, crips, jihadists, Spain, dinosaurs, etc) and the last bit is the destination itself. He has provided Dora and Boots with incredible amounts of information, and yet he then quietly slinks back into her backpack... A backpack who, when receiving other items says "Yum yum yum yum yum... delicioso!" Therefor the map is ostensibly eaten each episode after providing Dora with the most important information she could possibly need.

I'm going to interject a little something here. In the more recent episodes I've seen, Dora's parents have shown up a pretty great deal. I guess my question is this... Before Dora sets off to bring some magic frog back to a volcano or whatever, shouldn't one of her parents give her the sort of guidance the map provides? I mean, picture her coming home,
Dora: Ay Mami!
Mrs. Marquez: Hello Dora! Thank goodness you're alright, where have you been?
Dora: Oh mom, we just rescued a turtle from the mouth of a snake that was wrapped around a missile!
Mrs. Marquez: Oh my! However did you find the snake? I thought he was beyond the burning bushes, across the ocean and under the tree of doom?
Dora: Oh, the live children shouted map and the talking map jumped out of my backpack and provided me detailed instructions on how to reach him.
Mrs. Marquez: ...

I guess my point is this: Shouldn't she be getting that kind of important information from her parents, rather than a magic talking map who is then eating by her backpack for his kind deed? This map is a better parent to Dora than any of her actual family has ever been. And to boot, she probably needs some better schooling on top of the lackadaisical parenting already in place. Without fail, each episode, after the map tells her exactly where to go. She will then say "First we need to go to the jungle (or whatever). I don't see the jungle, do you see the jungle?" Guess what jackass, it's like, directly behind your head. Jaysus! Seriously, the map tells you EXACTLY where to go, and you're off to a rocky start every single time because you cant move your head slightly to the right or the left?! Come on!

So here's to the Map. If there's a place you need to go, he's the one you need to know. If there's a place you need to get, he can get you there, I bet. He's the map.

As an added bonus, here is a Dora product that I am certain has to be one of the top 10 greatest children products ever designed.

Amazin' Birthday Gift: Santana to the Mets!

See what I did there with that headline? Get it? Amazin'?

Anyway, my insane lameness aside, reports abound that Johan Santana is going to be a New York Met.

Considering we went from being an after thought, dark horse, long shot, etc etc. in the Santana sweepstakes, as it were, it is completely unbelievable that we actually landed him. Our rotation just got incredibly formidable, and the only real important prospect we gave up was Carlos Gomez.* Pitching prospects turn out to be busts so often it's hard to be too upset about losing Mulvey and Humber.** The fourth prospect I hadn't even heard of, so who cares about him?*** We will now be presenting Johan Santana, Pedro Martinez, John Maine, Oliver Perez, and some combo of Mike Pelfrey or El Duque. If Pedro stays healthy, that has to be one of the best rotation in the NL this side of Arizona.

My brother called me to wish me a happy birthday and then told me the news, I told him cruel jokes do not equal birthday presents and that we were no longer friends. I have since apologized.

Though now that I think of it, I am pretty sure that he was convinced that telling me Santana was coming to the Mets was "a heck of a birthday present" as in, his birthday present, to me. Oh well.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go masturbate furiously thinking about the Mets, and then take a little cat nap.

*I'm sure that statement won't come back to bite me in the ass.
**Fuck you if you thought "Scott Kazmir" as you read that, asshole.
***Will definitely end up a superstar now.

Oldies but Goodies: The Joy of Cooking

Meet Merrill Howard Kalin. *


I have absolutely no idea what the story is behind this video is, really. All I know is that I cry laughing every time I see it. Then I tell Jesus that I'm sorry, and then it's all good in the neighborhood!

*not sure that it's actually the real guy's myspace page.

Why Are Wii's Still Hard to Come By?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I've wanted a Wii since I heard they were making them a couple of years ago. I've also come pretty close to buying one on a number of occasions, and I think I can now say that I am thankful that I have not.

Let me backtrack. I am a lazy man. One of the laziest I know. I have been good at exactly two video games to the best of my memory (Ninja Gaiden and MLB 2005 - both for the xbox). I have played the Wii exactly twice. Both times I was inebriated past the point of being potentially decent at anything, let alone a game that requires hand-eye coordination. I own an xbox that is mod'd and has every nintendo, genesis, and super nintendo game made (as well as a ton of weird porn versions of several games, which is so weird and disturbing I'm going to stop thinking about it now thanks). I have played Super Mario Brothers RPG (for SNES) to completion. I can admit this with a straight, anonymous face. I have beaten Super Mario Brothers 2 - the complete anomaly that wasn't supposed to be a Mario game at all. The one that ended up being a fucking dream!

I have a problem with sporting video games. There is always a create a player mode, and I, without fail, create a player with a 99 overall rating. Then I put him on the Mets/Isles/Jets. His name? Same as my name. Why do I do this? Well, there's bound to be at least one player on any one of those teams I feel alright losing, plus I have an insanely large insecurity issue and serious inferiority complexes working themselves out through monster home runs and 200 goal seasons.

I am bad enough at most video games that I don't bother becoming a competitive asshole while playing them the same way I do when me and my friends do anything competitive.

I thought a Wii might change all these things. I might get exercise and play video games! I can teach my daughter and we can wii bowl together!

I put it off for a long while because of baseball season - which takes up just about every night after work for several months. Why spend that money when it's going to collect dust? Baseball season blends into hockey season blends into football season. This fall I moved and have had a ton to do. It's all been very good in terms of keeping my mind off the Wii I could be playing. But now with the writers' strike, the end of football, and 2 months till pitchers and catchers report; I have no idea what to do with myself. I have seen every episode of every show on the Food Network at least a hundred times, I have rewatched almost every season of every tv show I own on DVD, and I have been exercising. EXERCISING. I no longer know what to do with myself in the evenings.

All that being said, I am glad the wii is still hard to find for whatever reason it is still hard to find. This is because I know that it will absolutely consume me, it will ruin all of my weekends, and it will be useful for a maximum of 2 months, when pitchers and catchers report and I got apeshit berserk bats bonkers for the Mets.

This is all a lie. I want a Wii so badly. I want all the sports games and I want Mario Galaxy and if I don't have one when the new Smash Brothers game comes out I don't know what I'll do with myself. Why are they still so insanely hard to come by? It's been over a year and half (has it? at least a year anyway...). There is still a line outside Nintendo World in Rockefeller Center every gottdamn morning! every morning! I don't understand this shit anymore! Are they made by hand? One at a time by sloths and turtles and other typically slow creatures? FUCK.


Post Script.

Ziller, I know you have one of these at your disposal, so fuck you for laughing at me, which I'm certain you were. Just remember this: I know where you sleep. (in a bed!)

Collecting Things: I Wish I did.

I've always kind of wanted to have some sort of interesting collection of something, but I think in large because I'm incredibly lazy, and also because I have no money, nothing I've ever wanted to collect has ever seemed to take.

Now, I don't mean books or DVDs or things like that - I have a pretty decent collection of both of those things, and that's great - but those are both pretty basic and boring. Do I keep Anna Karenina and Immortality and Infinite Jest on higher shelves than say, The Davinchi Code in the hopes that they'll be noticed by the imaginary guests I have in my home? Of course. But what I'm talking about here is a collection of something a little bit odd, quirky, fun! When people talk about you after your imaginary house party, you don't want them to say "Oh yea, he's alright, he has a lot of books and all the Twin Peaks DVDs and every season of Homicide: Life on the Street...and also alot of Dora and Diego shit". That stuff isn't impressive or memorable. There have been a number of things I've decided I wanted to collect, then promptly gave up on, with a varying number of items to show for it..

Here are some of the things I've wanted to collect:

Bobble heads

More specifically, interesting Mets bobble heads. I have exactly one Mets bobble head, David Wright. His head no longer bobbles, thanks to my daughter breaking it. What I really wanted, was a set of bobble heads consisting of my favorite Mets players from the 2006 season, capping it off with the Endy Chavez bobble catch doll. This collection would have also included Jose Reyes, Jose Valentin and his pink panther mustache, and of course, Paul Lo Duca. I gave up because ... well... I don't really have anything to fill in that space with. I stopped bothering to try for no particular reason other than it require an amount of effort I was not willing to put forth, and an amount of money I was not willing to spend. ( The money part is a total lie - if I was anywhere near that shit I would have bought it up. I have to nip it in the bud or I have no self control. But whatever..)

Rare Items by Favorite Bands

I realize this category is kind of vague, but I want to give you an idea of the extent of how badly my desire burns out. Way back in the day, Dinosaur Jr. released albums under the name Dinosaur. They were eventually sued over the name and to fix the problem, simply tacked on Jr. to the end of the name. Problem solved. However, there were LPs of their records Dinosaur, You're Living All Over Me, and Bug that just said Dinosaur on the cover, instead of Dinosaur Jr. HUGE collectors item! I knew I had to have them. I decided then and there I would be a sort of collector and completest for my favorite bands (in large because I was in love with Lou Barlow) and have this awesome collection of rare stuff to show off and it would totally get me laid. (my sense of logic was pretty flawed back when I was 17). Anyway, I actually went ahead and procured these three LP's, as well as the following rare items by Sunny Day Real Estate: The Thief Steal Me A Peach single and the How it Feels to Be Something On single. I was proud, I was excited. Could this be the interesting collection I've been waiting for? The one that makes me interesting to others and proud of myself? Alas, it was not to be. I think I lent these albums to a friend or something, and have no clue where they might be, not in like 6 years. They might even still be at my parents house somewhere, I really have no idea. This may very well be because drinking got top priority over any collection I may have had during college - records, toys, friends, etc.

Baseball Caps
This one still kind of exists, but its more half assed than anything else, but I have my reasons. I am one of the few people who tries on hat after hat and looks idiotic in every single one. My head is oddly shaped or hats are stupid or whatever the reason, every hat either makes me look like a train conductor or a mentally deficient person who is so dumb he can't even put on a hat that fits his head correctly. As such, whenever I pass by a store that sells baseball hats, I'm always tempted and excited to see if I can find a hat that fits my head nicely. It also means that if I find a hat like that, I'm going to buy that fucker. And I'm going to wear it. Then I'm going to decide three days later that it too, makes my head look stupid and vow never to wear a baseball hat again. Then I'm going to repeat the process until I own every hat ever... As it stands right now, I own over 10 Mets baseball hats, a few Jets baseball hats, and a couple of Islanders baseball hats. I wear maybe 2 and hate the rest with a passion. Every time I walk by a Lids I need to fight every instinct in my body to go into the store. For the time being I'm sticking to one of the maybe five winter hats I own (2 Mets, 2 Jets, 1 plain grey).

The other stuff I was super into wanting to collect is too embarrassing to recount here right now (aka its almost time to leave work), but the list includes: X-Men Action Figures, X-Men Action Figures unopened in their boxes, Star Wars action figures and snow globes. And now I'm off to hang my head in shame.


IMPORTANT EDIT: If I had known Anna Karenina was currently an Oprah Book Club book, I would have said Kierkegaard or something instead.