The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Achewood => Achewood => Topic started by: theinevitable on October 16, 2007, 06:14:31 am
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I remember the days when occasionally I'd wake up to find that no one had made a thread for the day's new comic. Am I imagining that?
This is moving rapidly towards funny. (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=10162007)
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Gratuitous squirrel abuse is always funny.
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Y'know... the idea of Martha Stewart in the shower as portrayed by a teddy bear in a body stocking is pretty funny?
But, man, there ain't nothing funny about Jack Nicholson impressions. Not even ironically. Played out on every level of funny imaginable. Even if your joke is specifically that Nicholson impressions are terrible things, it's no longer funny.
Jokes ABOUT Nicholson can be funny. The idea that he is immortal and is pictured throughout history on cavepaintings and carvings at Pompeii and such could be funny.
But impressions of him... no. Nuh... no. No. Sorry, no.
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However... carcinogenerosity does it for me so good.
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Y'know... the idea of Martha Stewart in the shower as portrayed by a teddy bear in a body stocking is pretty funny?
But, man, there ain't nothing funny about Jack Nicholson impressions. Not even ironically. Played out on every level of funny imaginable. Even if your joke is specifically that Nicholson impressions are terrible things, it's no longer funny.
Jokes ABOUT Nicholson can be funny. The idea that he is immortal and is pictured throughout history on cavepaintings and carvings at Pompeii and such could be funny.
But impressions of him... no. Nuh... no. No. Sorry, no.
And they're twice as unfunny when aired in the form of constant TBS promos.
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The baseball playoffs left me wondering... who do I hate more, Dane Cook or Frank Caliendo?
I always knew that I hate Dane Cook, it is impossible not to hate Dane Cook...
But I used to just be slightly annoyed by Frank Caliendo. No hate whatsoever.
Now I am not so sure.
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The baseball playoffs left me wondering... who do I hate more, Dane Cook or Frank Caliendo?
I always knew that I hate Dane Cook, it is impossible not to hate Dane Cook...
But I used to just be slightly annoyed by Frank Caliendo. No hate whatsoever.
Now I am not so sure.
Is that the "you been here 4 hour" guy or the "John Madden says a lot of obvious stuff" guy?
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The baseball playoffs left me wondering... who do I hate more, Dane Cook or Frank Caliendo?
I always knew that I hate Dane Cook, it is impossible not to hate Dane Cook...
But I used to just be slightly annoyed by Frank Caliendo. No hate whatsoever.
Caliendo does Madden better than Madden himself. Now, if you hate Madden...
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"John Madden says a lot of obvious stuff" guy.
I think his stuff would be less annoying if, like, he did impressions on albums or on a radio show or something. Something audio-only.
As it is, he seems to make no attempt to look like any of the people he's doing impressions of. At all. Except for John Madden who he kinda naturally looks a little like already.
But that might be giving him too much credit. When your main impressions are people EVERYONE has a goddamn impression of... Nicholson, Generalissimo W, Robin Williams (for fucks sake), Madden, Al Pacino... you probably don't deserve any credit at all.
Who doesn't have a bad Williams or a bad Pacino?
Blah.
But then again, Dane Cook is so smarmy and frattish and unfunny and not only steals everyone else's stuff but then ALSO waters it down until Topeka gets it... AND will defend himself and his unfunniness to the death on the merit of the fact that he "has a lot of fans" but half his act is sucking up to his fans to a disgusting degree.
Aggggggh.
I guess I gotta hate Dane Cook more than Frank Caliendo for the same reason I gotta hate Springsteen more than I hate Billy Joel. At least Billy Joel seems to kinda know/admit that he's a total fraud... not taking your crap too seriously DOES get you tie-breaker points.
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Man, I was totally with you on everything until you got to the Springsteen part.
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"John Madden says a lot of obvious stuff" guy.
I think his stuff would be less annoying if, like, he did impressions on albums or on a radio show or something. Something audio-only.
As it is, he seems to make no attempt to look like any of the people he's doing impressions of. At all. Except for John Madden who he kinda naturally looks a little like already.
But that might be giving him too much credit. When your main impressions are people EVERYONE has a goddamn impression of... Nicholson, Generalissimo W, Robin Williams (for fucks sake), Madden, Al Pacino... you probably don't deserve any credit at all.
Who doesn't have a bad Williams or a bad Pacino?
Blah.
But then again, Dane Cook is so smarmy and frattish and unfunny and not only steals everyone else's stuff but then ALSO waters it down until Topeka gets it... AND will defend himself and his unfunniness to the death on the merit of the fact that he "has a lot of fans" but half his act is sucking up to his fans to a disgusting degree.
Aggggggh.
I guess I gotta hate Dane Cook more than Frank Caliendo for the same reason I gotta hate Springsteen more than I hate Billy Joel. At least Billy Joel seems to kinda know/admit that he's a total fraud... not taking your crap too seriously DOES get you tie-breaker points.
I've only heard Frank Caliendo on the radio because he was at the Improv that weekend or something. What connection does he have to baseball?
When Dane Cook's first Comedy Central special came on I would always confuse him with Nick Swardson. I think just because they aired close together and have similar body types.
Dane Cook would have to try really really hard to be the most hateable "name" comic, though. I think Mario Cantone has that title pretty much locked up. He's got the annoying-voice/obnoxious-style/not-even-one-funny-bit trifecta.
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Frank Caliendo has a new show coming up on TBS. Since the baseball playoffs have been shown on TBS, they've been showing a shit-ton of promos for his show. These usualyl amount to quick 15 second impersonations of predictable celebrities. His Madden one is eerily good, his GWB is okay, but the rest are pretty bad. Especially the Robin Williams and Al Pacino numbers. Yikes.
Also, what I hate about Dane Cook is that there's just no substance whatsoever to his comedy. There's no risk. It's always just "have you ever noticed how some people do this? haha! they do!"
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Frank is starting some sketch show on TBS and, since TBS had part of the baseball playoffs, basically every third ad was him doing a really really bad impression of somebody to promote the new show.
It got tedious and painful.
Another third of the ads were Dane Cook ranting about how awesome October is, screaming out names of players and teams that he'd clearly just been told by the lady holding the cue cards but completely pretending to know and care.
The other third were your usual crappy beer ads and the like.
Never before was I looking forward to crappy beer ads.
And... Mario Cantone doesn't count because he's only appreciated for his camp value whereas...
Some people swear that they appreciate Dane Cook on a straightforward level.
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His Christ Chex bit is amusing. Apparently much of his popularity stems from the fact that he personally replies to every single e-mail he gets. Or at least did when I first heard of him 7 or 8 years ago.
Mario Cantone has no camp value. He has needing a swift kick to the head value. Gilbert Godfried and Bobcat Gothwait (sp?) can both pull off horrifying voices, why can't he? Lack of any redeeming value whatsoever, that's why.
I thought baseball was done already. Because The Simpsons is new and they usually don't start the new season until after the baseball season is finished. Which is why I always root for whichever team is leading because sweep=Simpsons before Thanksgiving
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some people = every person on my college campus. yeesh.
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The schedule for the playoffs was modified, partly to go up against the NFL less, so the Simpsons... being on Big Football Day... were spared many of the delays this year. TBS taking one of the LCSes helped too.
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The schedule for the playoffs was modified, partly to go up against the NFL less, so the Simpsons... being on Big Football Day... were spared many of the delays this year. TBS taking one of the LCSes helped too.
Ah. Football sucks more for making me miss the entire last season of Futurama. Because after football season was over they never re-ran the preempted episodes. Instead they put on King of the Boring or a 2nd hour of American Idol or something.
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Shut up and wait for the first movie next month, Zoidberg!
Hey mister! You don't tell me what to do! I have my dignity and I... are you going to finish that candy bar wrapper or can I eat it?
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Back to disturbing with a bite of funny. The hope of a squirrel whacking just adds zest.
Maybe last winter (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=11092006) whetted Teodor's appetite for squirrel scallopini.
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Zoidberg is basically the best television character ever created.
How he doesn't get his just propers, I'll never know.
He's a lobster monster, he's the universe's poorest and least-competent doctor, he has huge self-esteem issues, wants to be a comedian, he speaks with heavy Yiddish accentation despite being a lobster monster from the future.
What the fuck is there not to love?
He is like the "large breasts" of television characters, there are no sane arguments against him.
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He is like the "large breasts" of television characters, there are no sane arguments against him.
Not even back pain?
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You still have Zoidberg. YOU ALL STILL HAVE ZOIDBERG! (runs out of room sobbing)
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Oh, there are probably things wrong with HAVING large breasts... just as there are many problems with BEING Zoidberg. I mean... for lookin' at. They're both perfect for lookin' at.
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so... you like looking at Zoidberg the same way you like looking at large breasts?
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Wow... this is depressing. In this topic, people have ripped Dane Cook, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, John Mellencamp, and football. All things that I love.
Does this make me less of a man?
I don't dislike Frank either, although I wasn't watching the playoffs much so didn't see a lot of his ads.
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Well, you must just suck, then. But seriously, it is Okay to like things that other people don't like. (Unless the thing you like involves rammstein, then you just suck.)
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Well, you must just suck, then. But seriously, it is Okay to like things that other people don't like. (Unless the thing you like involves rammstein, then you just suck.)
I... I... I own two Rammstein CDs.
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Well, you must just suck, then. But seriously, it is Okay to like things that other people don't like. (Unless the thing you like involves rammstein, then you just suck.)
The air force base in Germany?
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The fact that this thread quickly wondered and never really returned to the daily strip, demonstrates how lame are both this story line and today's strip. Our only hope for redemption is some pithy dialog. I guess our advance signal of weakness was when "Ray pretty much bailed on this whole thing."
Hey, there is a new Perry Bible Fellowship strip today and it is a good one: http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF234-Finneas.jpg#217
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Dude, sMets! Back away from the Springsteen brink of doom, man.
You'll have an unpleasant visitation of small mammals and/or reptiles, is all I'm saying.
How's the novel going, LFM?
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Three chapters in, actually.
Like, twenty-one pages. Doing the Vonnegut-style many short chapters thing.
I'm tryin', tryin' my best at a medium I got no training in.
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Oh good!
I actually felt bad about needling you and went and voted for your radio show in penance... but I am glad you are making progress.
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That was a needling? Man, I must not get Subtle Things, I thought you were just askin'.
How was it needling? Was it like "hey, work on your book instead of pickin' on The Boss!"?
Huh.
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It was a needlin' like it might make you think "Oh god, I am never going to get to work on that book, I am such a Failure, and who I am to pick on someone who is successful and has a large body of excellent songs when I am just sitting around writing messageboard posts all day."
It is good that you did not realize this. That is very well-adjusted for a creative type in my opinion. Hey, do you also not do that thing where, when someone says something nice about your work, you pick it apart to try to figure out what they really mean?
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So what exactly is Martha singing about, anyway?
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womb@:
Honestly? The only person's criticism who I listen to is my own. If I really believe in what I'm doing, I don't care what anyone says.
My problem is that I'm deeply-deeply-deeply hypercritical.
I don't need anyone else to break my confidence in a thing I'm doing because I'm so riddled with self-doubt. I hate everything I've ever written, even the stuff that I think is good, because it isn't perfect. I hold myself to my own personal standard of perfection and so I never succeed.
I like when people say something nice about my work, it is a small nice thing, but I am so arrogant and such a perfectionist, that I assume they are either just being nice to me out of pity (rarely) or they're just not knowledgable enough about writing things to know that I suck (usually).
Basically, I think this is because my mother had me pegged as a lawyer or a college professor from birth and I could never be one of those things. I would get A-minuses and she would make me feel guilty that I did not get an A. My mom is deeply disappointed that I am trying and thusfar failing at being a professional writer.
I am 28 and I am still in "a phase".
My dad just wants me to not be broke and be happy.
I... have longer phone conversations with my father.
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Basically, I think this is because my mother had me pegged as a lawyer or a college professor from birth and I could never be one of those things. I would get A-minuses and she would make me feel guilty that I did not get an A. My mom is deeply disappointed that I am trying and thusfar failing at being a professional writer.
If I got a 98 on an exam, my dad would ask why I missed that one question and tell me to study harder on the next one.
If I got a 100, he would say, "see? you did it this time, you should do it every time."
This did not get better when I went to college.
I feel for you, LFM. I share your pain.
I love my dad, but...basically I feel like my entire life is lived in order to make him proud of me someday.
People with kids, don't do this to them. It is...damaging.
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Ah, man. It is bad to know that you went through this too and yet.. it is good to know that I'm not alone in this.
Interesting thing, of course, is that my dad loves everything I write. Loves it. I mean, I write from the point of view of the books and movies that he turned me onto as a kid, of course I'd be good at writing for him.
My mom just tells me that I swear too much and nobody cares about the kinds of stories I tell and... it wouldn't sell and if I'm GONNA try and write, I should write something like Tuesdays with Morrie because at least that would make some money.
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My mom just tells me that I swear too much and nobody cares about the kinds of stories I tell and... it wouldn't sell and if I'm GONNA try and write, I should write something like Tuesdays with Morrie because at least that would make some money.
I infer from this that you actually let your mom read stuff? I feel this is pointing out the obvious but.. if so, STOP.
I was fortunate to have a really excellent dissertation advisor who taught me where to draw the line between wanting something to be perfect and, as he always put it, 'getting product out the door.' I'm not really sure how to pass this wisdom on, unfortunately...The best way I can explain how I look at it is - Look around you - in general the standards are so low. I mean, how many movies do you see, or books that you pick up, that are total crap? You can fall short of your idea of absolute perfection and still be a lot better than half the stuff that gets published. So why shouldn't you get published too?
But, the thing is, you really have to internalize this attitude. I am not sure how you get this to replace an internal hypercritical attitude. The only thing is that I suspect that an internal strongly hypercritical attitude sometimes is really a cover for a fear that other people will think it is crap. You claim that you don't care what other people think of your work if you believe in it. But I wonder if it's really, you decide your stuff isn't good enough not because it falls short of your standards, but because you're really afraid that the rest of the world will react like your mom.
Of course, this is a snap diagnosis made without consulting your full medical history...
And yeah, people, don't do that to your kids.
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Another third of the ads were Dane Cook ranting about how awesome October is, screaming out names of players and teams that he'd clearly just been told by the lady holding the cue cards but completely pretending to know and care.
Wait... that was Dane Cook in those commercials? I guess I should be thankful I haven't had enough exposure to him before to have recognized him. Apart from the general knowledge that he is a douchebag, and does douchebag things, I basically only know about his "somebody shit on the coats" routine. That alone is enough to draw my ire. Never mind that it's not funny. Normally I'm not such a pedant about this kind of thing, but I just can't hear or read that phrase anywhere without thinking, "'Somebody shat on the coats,' you imbecile! Shat! Past tense!"
Now I have even more reason to hate the commercials, anyway. People like that are annoying enough when they actually are die-hard fans of a team. On the other hand, I actually like that one Budweiser advert with the two guys at the opera. It's the ones for Quiznos that get to me - I guess I still haven't forgiven them for dropping those singing rodents.
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Oh come on, the rodents were advertising gold and you know it. Incidentally, the word shat annoys the shit out of me. I don't think it should be a real word. If you're all set up to cuss, a little disregard for proper grammer should be in order.
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Incidentally, the word shat annoys the shit out of me. I don't think it should be a real word.
Amen to that. The past tense of "quit" is not "quat," now is it?
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But... but "shat" just sounds so... so Anglo-Saxon. And isn't that what cussing is all about, really?
lprkn - I'm mad at them for dropping the ads, not for running them in the first place. Apparently they've moved on from sandwiches to bacon that can hover (http://www.rathergood.com/bacon/), but it's not quite the same. You can also buy the plush doll (http://www2.printshop.co.uk/RatherGood/Shop/Toys/Spongmonkey_Soft_Toy/Product.html), which disturbs me on a level I can't describe in writing. Can you imagine going to sleep with one of those things?
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I don't let my mom read my stuff anymore but... anytime she hears any detail of my stuff from anyone, Lord knows she's down for ripping those things apart. And I should go back to school and become an English professor. "You'd still be working with words" she says.
Oh yeah, the voice in the back of my head that tells me I'm shit is my mom's voice.
It's not about impressing her anymore, persay, but yeah... she's the one who planted that seed in my head.
I'm fightin' it, I'm fightin' it.
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And I should go back to school and become an English professor. "You'd still be working with words" she says.
Your mom may or may not know anything about writing but damn, she sure doesn't know anything about the job market. That is seriously lousy advice.
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She's a nurse. She's worked in the public or semi-public sphere her entire life. She worked as the head of a floor of nurses until I was a teenager then she moved on to be one of the supervisors for the local county health. Steady jobs, stable jobs. Fields where there aren't enough people to fill all the needed positions to begin with.
She just... I guess she sees academia as equivalent, maybe it WAS when she was young I dunno, and she can't be talked out of it.
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For the sake of us with office jobs, keep her in nursing. At my job we have lots of former nurses and former RTs and they suck in an office environment. They always want to bend rules and extend deadlines to "help people out." Which royally sucks ass for those of us who have to deal with the wreckage after some nice RT chooses not to fail a place for failure to meet deadlines.
It's such a problem that our new software next year will automatically fail people without intervention.
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Fields where there aren't enough people to fill all the needed positions to begin with.
Academia is the absolute opposite of that. On this planet, anyway.
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My mom thought I should be a teacher or -- get this -- a novelist. Seriously.
My dad is a teacher. He doesn't want me to be a teacher. He wouldn't be disappointed or anything, but he thinks I can do better. I mean, my brother's a teacher and Dad's down with that. He just hates that Bro has to deal with the bullshit of teaching Dad knows so well.
He's cool with me being a prof someday, though. Basically he just wants me to do well for myself. And keep having babies. He's big into grandkids now.
Still hell of nags me about graduate school, though.
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my parents basically have always assumed that I will enter a career which I really enjoy, which will not earn me very much money, and which will not really be something which accomplishes anything for society at large. Something pretty insane and illogical? I don't know.
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The "You been here 4 hours" guy is John Pinnette.
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The "You been here 4 hours" guy is John Pinnette.
Ah. I did a Google image search on Frank Caliendo and he looked sort of how I remembered John Pinnette looking. But clearly they are different people.