My Advice for Teens is 2 Fast 2 Furious

Best high school movie documentary ever

Every year Rolling Stone asks rock stars and other idiots what advice they have for that year’s graduating seniors.  I did one of these last year, and since it’s around graduation time again I thought I’d impart some more pearls of wisdom.  If you’re older or younger than a high school senior you still might find some wisdom in the words of a man that drinks a case of beer every week.  I assure you I'm at least as smart as what passes for a celebrity these days

Kim Kardashian: millionaire; role model; porn star

No one likes a brooding loner:  It’s easy to confuse dark and weird for deep.  I certainly did when I was at my teen angstiest.  Worse still, I thought it will make me seem mysterious and cool.  Nothing could be further from the truth; acting like a glum weirdo makes you seem as such.  Part of the problem is people like Jim Morrison.  By all accounts Jim Morrison was a pretentious drunk that wrote bad poetry, and yet 40 odd years after his death he’s still considered a sex symbol.  I don’t deny that his dark persona contributes to his lasting appeal, but Jim Morrison was also: A.) Rich B.) Famous and C.) Strikingly handsome.  Unless you got one of the three, or really just the last one I’d leave the leather pants at home.

As a point of contrast, everyone likes decidedly non-dour Bill Murray.

Say that you killed two people in self defense:  I don’t care if it’s a first date or a job interview.  There is nothing in the world cooler than killing someone in self defense, except killing two people.  Killing someone and being acquitted by the laws of God and man says that you are a badass but also chivalrous; a man of principle that is not to be trifled with.  Don’t make up an elaborate story.  In fact, the less said the better.  When pressed for details say “I just did what anyone would do” or “all I’m going to say is, I was raised to believe that a man shouldn’t hit a woman.”  Let their imagination do the work.  If you have to elaborate any more than that make sure you say that the guys you killed were white or most people get really uncomfortable.

Vigilantism is the only way to recover from the faux pas of bringing Cybill Sheperd to a porno theater

People don’t change:  If you take nothing else from this blog post take this one to heart.  The reason they make movies about people changing is because it doesn’t fucking happen.  I’ve seen people ruin their lives waiting for someone to change.  Like Cube said, “a bitch is a bitch.”  If a person is an asshole or a lying cunt there is close to a 100% that they’ll stay that way.  Avoid at all costs.  Even if the person does get help, in my experience a drunken asshole is usually still an asshole when they’re sober.  Don’t get me wrong; you can change yourself.  Self improvement and personal growth should be everyone’s highest goal: I used to spend all my money on CD’s and DVD’s, now I just steal them on the internet.  But whatever you do don’t wait for someone else to change.

Sometimes not changing is a good thing, especially when you're Snake Plissken

Some people are pretty on the inside:  Don’t be so superficial.  That nerdy girl you see everyday might actually be the hottest girl in the school.  A lot of the so-called “nerdy” girls are actually smoking hot babes in disguise.  I know it sounds hard to believe but if a girl has a smoking hot body and pretty face she just might be a knockout when she takes off her glasses and shakes her hair out of a bun.     

I know it's hard to believe but this girl is actually quite attractive

Don’t use a motorcycle in the event of a zombie apocalypse:  From Dawn of the Dead to the Walking Dead one of the iconic images of zombie movies is a man riding his motorcycle through the undead hordes, which makes sense.  In popular culture motorcycles represent the freedom of the open road, plus it’s a great excuse to wear a badass leather jacket.  There’s just one problem: two guys riding a motorcycle together look totally fruity.  Imagine you find another survivor; you’re not going to be able to ride him back to your base unless you’re okay with it looking kind of like he’s doing you in the butt.  If movies can be believed there will only be one or two decent looking chicks that survive, and the last thing you want is your awesome leather jacket taking on an unintended context.  A beige Volvo might not be sexy, but if she’s smart she’ll value you for your practicality.

Dawn of the Dead rules

Buy your girlfriend a webcam:  If you’re joining the army or going to a different school nothing will keep you closer together than being able to talk face to face every day.  Even better: your girlfriend can also put on sexy little shows for you, possibly with her roommate.  As a side bonus, if your webcam doesn’t save your relationship and you break up, you can always post the video on the internet for all the disgusting perverts out there.  Not me, I think that kind of thing is gross.

I am shocked and appalled

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Ed Hardy Premium Beer

As Heidi Klum is fond of saying, “in fashion, one day you’re in.  And the next day you’re out.” I don’t know if that’s true, but I tend to trust pretty blondes with large breasts when it comes to fashion.  It’s served me well.  As a matter of fact, I dressed like it was 1998 until my wife took over my wardrobe around 2005.  Between that and my lengthy post about a roleplaying game you guys can probably infer that I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of American fashion.  I do however have my finger on the pulse of cheap American beer, and when I saw fashion designer Ed Hardy’s* beer marked down to $5 for two six-packs I dove in dick first.

Fashion plate Danny O'D wearing a shirt with a naked lady impaled though her vagina.

I may greet the world dick first, but I’m not exactly green (“green” being a synonym for “cool” in the major motion picture “The Fifth Element.”)  So I didn’t hear about Ed Hardy until I heard people making fun of Ed Hardy for being passé.  Nowadays, the only people I see that still wear Ed Hardy are obese black women and the cast of the Jersey Shore.  The former I’ll refrain from making fun of because I think most fat black women could beat the shit out of me.  The latter I’ll take a pass on because making fun of The Jersey Shore is more rubbed in the ground than making fun of Ed Hardy.  All Jay Leno has to say is “Snooki” and my grandma is in stitches, which means that a woman who lived through World War II and doesn’t trust computers is still hip enough to know that a character from a show on MTV is worthy of ridicule.**  I on the other hand, think my readers have come to expect a certain level comedy writing on this site.  Did you catch that joke earlier about jumping at things with my dick?  Hilarious.

Also, I don't care what anyone says, I think Jwoww is hot.

I don’t know if it’s a frequent topic on “This American Life” or what, but Ed Hardy, like The Jersey Shore seems to really piss a certain type of grad student person off.  For what it’s worth, I agree that an overpriced T-shirt with a picture of a tattoo of a giraffe with flaming skulls and glitter coming out of its pussy is kind of lame; I just don’t get butt-hurt over it.  Approaching Ed Hardy Premium Beer with an open mind I was happy to discover a decent beer at a lower price than Buck Range Light.  It has a light flavor with a bit of hops.  It tastes almost like one of the lighter premium beers.  Granted, I wasn’t blown away or anything, but it didn’t taste like it was fermented with dead animals floating in it, which is always a bonus.

We can all agree this sucks, but who fucking cares.

Unfortunately for Ed Hardy and his Premium Beer, the kind of person that gets their panties in a twist over Ed Hardy or the Jersey Shore is the same kind of smug asshole who reviews beer on snooty websites.  I’ve complained about that kind of elitist bullshit plenty of times, but after reading the reviews of EHPB on beeradvocate you’d think Ed Hardy was a collaborator in Nazi occupied Europe.  I do have to admit that the lack of a twist off cap comes across as kind of pretentious and leads me to believe that EHPB was originally marketed as a “craft beer,” which in addition to the abysmal reviews from the internet explains how it ended up in the discount bin next to the Polish language VHS tapes.  Especially if they were charging craft beer prices.

I don't care how cheap it is.  You should be buying beer.

I guess there aren’t enough guidos and obese black women in this part of the country willing to pay a premium price for a beer that’s only okay, but their loss is my gain.   It might not be the best beer I’ve ever had, but it’s better than a lot of what I review.  Until next time, I’ll be catching up on Project Runway.  I suggest you all do the same.  Auf wiedersehen.   

As a side note, do you think Tim Gunn and Tommy Gunn from Rocky V are related?

*If I was a gay porn star my name would be “Hard Eddie.”

**Also I don’t think that Jersey Shore is anywhere near the worst show in the history of television.  Do you guys remember Small Wonder?  It was about a guy that worked as a robot inventor, built a little girl robot, and had to keep her secret for some reason.  Wasn’t that his job?  Did it bother anyone else that she had to be the family’s maid?  That’s kind of fucked up, right?  Also I find it hard to believe that any normal guy that could make a lifelike robot wouldn’t make a sex robot, unless maybe he did. 

Dress up for daddy.

Favorite Video Games: Fallout 2 (PC) 1998

If you haven't seen the Road Warrior stop reading this right now and go do it.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ve no doubt surmised that I love beer, sports, beer, and skinny girls with large breasts.  You’ve also probably noticed that I’m kind of a nerd.  One of my all time favorite nerdly pursuits is playing good ol’ fashioned Pen and Paper Role Playing Games.  Unfortunately I don’t get to play them as often as I’d like because I, ya’ know, have a life.

Livin' large and in charge.

Probably the best representation of a PnP RPG I’ve ever experienced was my favorite video game of all time: Fallout 2.  If I was doing a top ten list of my favorite video games, as was my original intention, this would be the end of my video game reviews.  But since I’m doing a series of blog posts I can kind of just do what I want because I’m the John McClane of bloggers.  I play by my own set of rules. 

Different game, also awesome.  I would appreciate it if from now on everyone imagined my blog was being read to them by Alan Rickman

Fallout 2 (PC) 1998

Muscle Beach is now Pork Chop Hill

Fallut 2 takes place in a post-apocalyptic future as imagined by America in the 1950’s (reel-to-reel computers, radiation zombies, and giant mutated insects.)  The setting was a radical departure from the wimpy Unicorn and Pegasus worlds of most RPG’s; especially at the time the game was released.  In other words: that Fallout 2 used to fuck guys like Final Fantasy in prison.  I loved it immediately.  Growing up in the shadow of the Cold War, I’ve always had a bit of an obsession with nuclear war.  Also, the Road Warrior is one of the single greatest movies of all time and any game in that tradition is alright by me.

Also, as I understand it all women will dress like this in the post-apocalypse

As good as everything that is even slightly associated with The Road Warrior is, I would say that it was even more important to me that Fallout 2 played much more like a PnP RPG than any other video game I’d ever played before.  At their best PnP RPG’s allow Sex Commando the Barbarian bi-cleave skeletons with his chainsaw/electric guitar.  Fallout 2 is a bit more structured than that, but not much.  You can do drugs, become a fluffer for a porn studio, or get married and pimp your wife in a seedy brothel (as if there’s a lot of non-seedy brothels.  It’s not like anyone walks in and says, “Oh, this seems nice.”)

It should be noted however that some brothels are much worse than others.

If my description makes Fallout 2 sounds kind of Gran Theft Auto-esque, it’s not.  Any actions you take have consequences.  If you do something that most people find off putting/morally reprehensible (killing a child, becoming a slaver) most NPC’s will thereafter refuse to talk to you.  If you want to go through the game indiscriminately blasting people with a laser mini-gun you can do it, but you might game-breakingly kill an NPC.  For what it’s worth I always play as a good character, because that’s how I see myself in real life: a little rough around the edges but basically a good guy; deadly but not aggressive.   A hero…  But what’s a hero?  I am, and so is my character Dixie Nourmous.      

R.I.P. Peter Steele

Dixie Nourmous is a beacon of hope for the people of the wastes; fortunately for the poor devils I discovered this game in college.  In college I would frequently be playing Fallout 2, look out my dorm window, see the sunrise, and say, “Oh shit, it happened again.”  It’s true that at the time I could stay up all night playing video games and drinking beer with almost no negative consequences, but it was the writing in Fallout 2 more than anything else that frequently put me in that situation.  The game had a great plot, interesting dialog, meaningful choices, and most importantly well rounded characters that I actually cared about.  Some have even gone so far as to call Fallout 2 the “Downton Abbey” of roleplaying games, and by some I mean me just now.  Actually the more I think about it Fallout 2 is more the “All Creatures Great and Small” of roleplaying games.

Don't pet the radscorpians Dixie Nourmous!

I could keep going, but fortunately for you dear reader, I edit my work.  Anyway I could write a book about Fallout 2, and I still don’t think I’d be any closer to capturing the experience of playing the game.  You really just have to play it yourself.  Of course if you’re anything like me playing with yourself isn’t something you skip out on very often.  Updating your blog with one hand isn't a skill, it's a gift.  Speaking of...

I've been waiting months to use this picture.

I know they re-released it a year or two ago, but if you need help playing Fallout 2 on a modern computer check the tech forum at No Mutants Allowed.

Stuck?  Check out Per Jorner's comprehensive walkthrough.