Monthly Archives: January 2008

Super Bowl…Super Let Down

Posted on by patrickhmorris
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When I was 11 years old, I was a football star. I played quarterback, running back, wide receiver and punter (although, the team I played for never had to punt). I won every game by 40 and every touchdown I scored involved me diving into the end zone. Unfortunately, I’ve never played football against anyone. It was always me, a nerf football and my parent’s garden as the end zone.

Sure, there might be some people out there who see a kid running in his backyard, screaming at the top of his lounges “I’m open! I’m open” and think “that kid needs some friends.” However, the real truth is that if I had had friends, I sure wouldn’t want to play football with them.

Football is my least favorite sport. Maybe it’s because my high school was too small and couldn’t afford to have a football and a soccer team (of those two, which is the one that 3rd world countries can be good at?). Maybe it’s because I secretly know that if I had played, I would have been something lame like the field goal kicker holder. And maybe it’s just because I’ve heard a few player interviews and don’t buy the whole “it’s a chess match” argument.

This weekend is the Super Bowl. For some it’s the most exciting game of the year. For some, it’s the only time we feel advertisers are really trying (which, if anything, we can count on the wonderful fact that the Super Bowl will surely be too expensive for us to see an IO digital cable commercial 5 times every half hour).

I’m a Red Sox fan and a Celtics fan. Therefore, because of my ties to Boston, I should be a Patriots fan. However, when I was younger, I hated how hard rooting for the Red Sox was and the Patriots stunk. It’s for that reason, when I watched football, I rooted for whoever was winning and jumped off their bandwagon whenever they were behind by more than a field goal. I didn’t care who was celebrating on the field, as long as I was celebrating at home. This complete soul selling lack of loyalty has haunted me in recent years as the only team I would have personal ties to has become the most hated winners.

One of the most magical aspects of sports is the hope of “we can win it” mixed with the fear that “we might not.” Somehow this has eluded the Patriots and their on their way to having a perfect 19-0 season. What happens if they lose? No one’s even suggested it and, therefore, everyone hates the Patriots for it.

It’s tough to root for a team like that.

On the other hand, it’s almost impossible to root for Eli Manning. First off, as a little brother, I don’t root for little brothers. It just feels desperate. They should have found something else to be good at. The other thing about Eli Manning that makes him as enjoyable to root for as a pillow is is his “did I do good?” attitude. Any picture of Patriot’s quarterback Tom Brady will show you this guy knows what he’s packing in his pants and isn’t afraid to whip it out and ride it through the streets. Eli Manning looks like he might stand in front of a fire extinguisher saying ‘excuse me’ for 40 minutes before decides to get money at a different ATM.

So what’s my ideal Super Bowl? It’s always nice to have a close game where one team digs down deep to be triumphant. It’s even better when the entire game rests on one guy’s shoulders (more typically his foot) and he chokes. Chokes like a man eating hair. However, that’s not how I want a Super Bowl to go. For me, the best Super Bowls are the ones where one team scores on every drive, picks off the other team 7 times in the first half and the phrase “he’s sacked for a big, big lose” is the only consistent thing about the other team’s offense. In other words, a blow out. Big time, blow em out, never had a shot, rout.

It’s the closest thing that mimics my experience diving into my father’s lettuce patch after ANOTHER record setting interception.

Since the Patriots have the best shot of running up the score then I’m all in for New England. Run everyone deep, don’t bother running the ball and if they need someone to run a lettuce patch route…I’m open! I’m open!

Benefits of Freezing

Posted on by patrickhmorris
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Baby, it’s cold outside. And I love it.

Even though the cold weather reminds me I’ve made a horrible decision by living in an environment that is unbearably cold in the winter and obtrusively hot in the summer, I can’t get enough of it. Yes, every time I walk down a street getting a strong gust of icy air slapping me around I think, “aren’t there places where civilizations exist where you don’t have to be cold!!!” but I really can’t live without the cold.

For instance, each time the barometer drops below 30 and the wind cuts through whatever warm garment you’ve bundled on for protection, my Jacuzzi Suit inches closer to reality. I haven’t invented a prototype yet, but I would if I had a greater engineering background or ANY devotion to ideas that require money, because this is a number one best seller. Imagine walking through a cold street immersed in hot bubbling water. If you can think of anything better on a cold day, then invent it already, sucker.

Since there isn’t a Jacuzzi Suit (yet), there are other benefits to the cold weather. I enjoy the allusion 4 layers of sweaters creates. It gives every guy a thick, solid and “don’t worry about punching me, I can take it” feel. It also makes a guy look sweet, sensitive and like a teddy bear who can be trusted to share a bed with just about any of his female friends. Trust me, sweaters are the antithesis of gold chains.

Women also bundle up. They get to wear jeans with dresses, leggings, tights, leg warmers and big old grandma panties. Girls love any excuse they can find to wear grandma panties. And yes, I’m aware how little girls like me referring to any underwear that doesn’t make them look like cheap hookers as grandma panties.

The trip into work each morning is more enjoyable when it’s cold too. Everyone’s wearing puffy coats and thick layers. Instead of being pressed against someone’s hot, sticky and “why do you smell like cat food” body, you bounce around from person to person as if you were playing a video game designed for children. If nothing else, it alleviates the stress of wondering at what point you should apologize to someone for how much you’re touching them.

Of course, when you get into work, it’s hard to go from Wampum the Snow Monster to “Patrick, the put together worker.” After shedding about twenty layers, you look like a puppy that’s been born minutes ago. Your hair is flat and a little wet. Your face is all red and puffy. It’s an ugly site, but it’s better than in the summer when you come in and have a sweat drenched shirt at 8:30 in the morning.

Another bonus of cold weather, coffee has one criteria – hot. All coffee snobbery goes out the window and all of a sudden, 15 cups of coffee in one day doesn’t seem that odd.

Speaking of drinking, the best benefit of the cold weather is that one of the best remedies is to drink your way through it. As the temperature drops, the number of people in bars increases. As the wind speed increases, the number of people having a glass of wine by themselves doubles. It’s science, really. Weather and family are the two most common reasons for drinking.

So bundle up, enjoy the chill and try to make it to spring.

Wait! On second thought…being cold is miserable. You’ve got snot frozen to your face, you drool randomly, you wear dumb clothes that don’t really keep you warm, there are only two tables in every restaurant that are remotely protected from the draft that sweeps in from the front door and everyone’s depressed and angry.

I wonder if they’ve colonized New Mexico yet.

Weekend Report

Posted on by patrickhmorris
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How many times have you heard this conversation on a Monday:

“Hey (so and so), how was your weekend?”
“It was okay. How was yours, (such and such)?”
“Not too bad.”

I personally have been a part of this conversation more than a million times, but I’m still trying to figure out what the point of it is.

What have we learned from a conversation like this, besides the fact that two people DID have a weekend? No one divulged information as to the activities that took place. No one even went as far as to express a definitive opinion on how their weekend went. It’s almost as if each person is asking about the other person’s weekend because they’re not sure if they should have been away from the office the past two days.

Is it an issue of common courtesy? Should I feel insulted knowing that the guy whose name is either Rod or Todd and works on the other side of the floor doesn’t care about my weekend? Would it be inappropriate to answer his question of “how was the weekend” with “I’ll tell you if you can tell me my name”?

What I’ve concluded is that asking about someone’s weekend is office talk for “look, I know you think I’m a robot, but I’m not. I’m trying to figure out if you’re a robot. What happens to you when you leave this place?” That’s why it is important to understand what you are really telling people when you talk about your weekend.

More often than not, people will skip the description of their weekend and give you a summary judgment. They’ll say things like “it was a pretty boring weekend.” What should you think when someone says this? Most people will think they are talking to a boring person. However, you should be careful in assuming that. A boring person will describe their weekend using as many vague activities as possible. They will say “ran some errands” or “did some things around the house” to mask the fact they spend 6 hours on Saturday flipping through 4 channels.

Someone who can’t find anything interesting to spout off about their weekend might just have an interesting set of standards. For instance, they might think their weekend was boring because they were hoping their TV would come to life and they would have to fight it to the death. Maybe they evaluate their weekend by how many times they had to run from the police or hide a dead hooker’s body. Either way, when someone tells me “it was boring” I take two steps back.

Another way people will talk about their weekend is as if they’d left work on Friday only to report on their weekend the following Monday. These people are exaggerators and love blabbing on about how they did so many FABULOUS things. How can you spot an exaggerator out of a crowd of people who actually did interesting things?
  1) Details – these people add details to every aspect of their weekend. They didn’t go “out to dinner,” but went out to dinner “at Spitzol, which has this incredible ship wheel hung from the rafters and these small cheese dumplings that are incredible when dipped in the cilantro, citrus sauce that comes with.”
  2) Met a celebrity – Seeing a celebrity is different than meeting one. Would you say “I had steak” when someone on the other side had it?
  3) Gallery openings – these ALWAYS sound great. Wine, cheese, art and cool people instantly sounds like a great time. However, I’ve been to a lot of gallery openings and each had plastic cups of cheap wine, too many people and art I can’t afford. This is a good time how?

So what’s the best way to describe your own weekend if being vague means you’re hiding something and being detailed means you’re lying? Here’s how I do it:

Co-worker: “Hey, Patrick. How was your weekend?”
Patrick: “It was good. I didn’t set an alarm, thought about getting into something I didn’t know much about, didn’t talk to my parents on Saturday night, sent or received one incoherent text message, ate a bagel, my girlfriend’s not pregnant, my permanent record is still clean and I’m pretty sure there is still some money in my bank account.”

Now, fitting this all in while on the elevator might be a challenge, but don’t worry about coming across as creepy. They asked you.

Jury Duty

Posted on by patrickhmorris
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A good friend of mine told me they had been summoned to jury duty. Reminded me of when I went. This post was written some time last year…

A few weeks ago I received a questionnaire in the mail from the Brooklyn court system. Now, no one has accused me of being overly attentive to details, but I distinctly remember reading “this is not a jury summons. If you fill out this questionnaire, you will not be summoned for jury duty.” I filled it out, placed it in the mail and congratulated myself for dodging my civic duty.

About a week later I received something that looked similar to the questionnaire. However, this time it was lacking the word “not” in reference to being summoned for jury duty. Had the court system lied to me? Was I being punished for my timely response? Either way, there was no avoiding it now…I had to serve jury duty.

The night before jury duty my mother suggested this would be a great opportunity to serve this great country’s judicial system. When I told her that was a load she said “well, at least you’ll get one or two good stories out of this”. I decided not to let the situation go to waste and decided to keep a running diary.

8:48 -
I arrive at the court and sit in a large room with roughly 80 other people. Not one of these people wants to be here and everyone is formulating ways to get dismissed early.

9:14 -
A woman wearing a blue blazer that is roughly 8 sizes too big comes out of some closet and pushes play on a VCR behind the clerics desk. The video starts with a dozen dirty peasants dressed in medieval garb standing by a river. After everyone watching the video is sufficiently confused the narrator says “Back in 14th century Europe, the law was settled by methods that were cruel and unusual.” This is when someone who is tied up gets thrown into the river and the narrator continues “If he floats, he is guilty…if he sinks, innocent”.

9:23 -
The video ends without getting less weird. Having three hundred people tell me how important jury duty is doesn’t make me feel any better about sitting next to some fat guy eating a danish the size of my head.

9:45 -
More instructions. I notice the guy sitting to my right is wearing a suit that looks like it’s made out of carpet.

10:13 -
The guy with the carpet suit starts talking to me about anything he can think of. He shows me pictures of his family, tells me about the competition his son won for having great abs and even tells me that in his native country, Russia, his wife is considered very attractive.

12:11 -
I notice a sign that says “If you are experiencing a problem, i.e. broken pay phones, untidy restrooms, etc., please contact…” I’ve already read this sign about 300 times, but then I notice that “untidy” is written on white tape and is obviously covering something. What is it covering? Poopy?

12:32 -
Things are starting to move now and I get to see my fellow jurors in action. I watch this conversation in horror:
Girl – “you have to sit in the second row”
Guy – (pointing to the second row) “Here?”
Girl – “Yes”
Guy – “Thank you” (goes and sits in last row)

1:02 -
Lunch. I have yet to get out of my chair since I sat down this morning. The only effort I have given was in trying to ignore the Russian guy wearing the carpet. I’m feeling sorry for myself. How can I tell? Well, that seems to be what’s going on whenever I get nothing for lunch but a root beer and listen to guilty pleasures like Abba, Boston, and Kylie Minogue on a bench somewhere!

2:38 -
My name is called into a juror interview room. I’m sitting there with 7 other people and we are being asked questions to see if we are suitable jurors. The first person questioned admits that he has been sued three times for beating the crap out of people. Dismissed.

2:42 -
When asked “what do you think of our legal system” I reply “I think getting thrown into a river would save all of us a lot of time”.

4:37 -
Somehow I make the final cut and am asked to come back tomorrow. I was pretty sure claiming to have no faith in our judicial branch of the government would be a good way to raise the “don’t pick me” flag, but somehow they liked me more than the woman who said she was surprised only one of the lawyers was jewish.

5:43 -
On my way home I buy one of those huge 1/2 gallon containers of ice cream and BBQ chips. Hmmm….I wonder if I’m still feeling sorry for myself?

Day 2:

8:12 -
I never really considered there being a day 2, but here it is. I feel refreshed and have a new attitude. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I’m feeling invincible. When I walk into the court room, I’m the only one who can’t be wrong. The lawyers are kissing my ass, the judge is kissing my ass. If I want to set a criminal free, who is going to stop me?

9:43 -
I don’t know how it happened, but the Russian guy with the carpet suit is on the same jury as me. I spend the next thirty minutes having a conversation with the guy where I’m saying things like, “You have a Toyota? No way?” and “That does sound like a big breakfast”.

10:57 -
I feel depressed seeing a guy walk up and down the isles because he’s wearing this tight black t-shirt and has a large enough gut where 3-4 inches hangs out at all times. I’m thinking either this guy put on his son’s shirt this morning by accident or he’s in total denial about this gut that he’s growing.

1:43 -
We’re told to go home because the attempt at a settlement has failed and the case will go to trial. I mentally make note that this waste of time wouldn’t have happened down by the river.

Day 3:

9:21 -
The woman in the oversized blazer is repeating the same speech for the third day in the row. She sounds more depressed today than usual and I’m half expecting her to stop half-way through, tip over the desk and walk out.

10:12 -
A woman sitting near me asks me what my hobbies are. I say, “Jury Duty”.

12:37 -
We are taken into a small room without windows. There we are told to sit, be quiet and wait till someone comes to get us. The court officer locks the door behind him and I start looking around to figure out who we should kill to preserve oxygen.

1:21 -
The court officer returns and tells us to go to lunch. I’m not sure how good his sense of humor is so I refrain from saying “thanks for letting my practice my homicidal thoughts”.

2:14 -
While waiting in the lobby for the elevator I notice a sign that says “Save Water”. I have no idea why the sign is in quotation marks.

2:31 -
As we start opening statements I realize there is going to be a problem. I can’t take my eyes off the stenographer. I obviously don’t understand short hand because he seems to be keeping right along while looking completely bored. Somehow I convince myself that I will be able to figure out short hand by watching him.

3:49 – After both councilors give their opening statements we are ushered back into our bomb shelter for a recess. As we are sitting in silence, one of the jurors claims the plaintiff has “selective retardation”. When another juror asks him to explain the first juror says “you know, it’s like, you can be retarded when you want to be”. This leads me to think times in my life I would WANT to be retarded.

4:10 -
The plaintiff calls his first witness. It’s a neurologist who is unbelievably well spoken. I feel like i should interrupt the proceedings to inform the witness of the conversation we just had about selective retardation.

4:13 -
The first objection!! Granted, it’s not as heated and the judge’s response isn’t as swift, but I can’t help but get excited whenever someone says objection.

4:53 -
Time to wrap up for the day. Tomorrow promises to be a full day and there is a pretty good chance it won’t be the last. The price of justice costs roughly 4-5 days of my time.

Day 4:

9:21 -
We jump right into the second witness. It’s the guy who was in the accident. He seems nervous – nervous enough to forget the names of his children. I guess when his lawyer suggested he “start him off with something easy” he should have started with “is this hot or cold?”.

9:22 -
The second question is “how old were you at the time of the accident”. Witness answers “I was turning 40 so I guess I was 29″. After a few minutes of confusion it is resolved when both councilors concede the witness is an idiot.

9:23 -
The third question is “How old were you when you first started getting treatment”. Witness answers “well, I’m almost 50 now so I was…younger”. The Plaintiff calls for a recess and we are ushered into our room.

9:32 – While we are in our room, one of the jurors points out that the lawyer for the defendant has a large head…like a pumpkin. I try to read my book while three of the jurors have an animated discussion over whether he should be called “Mr. Pumpkin Head” or simply “Pumpkin Head”.

10:45 -
The witness has become emotional on several occasions when describing the pain and anguish he went through because of this accident. I feel for the guy, I really do, but when he lists “Dominos” as an activity he can’t do because his knee hurts, I want to push the guy out of his chair.

11:21 -
Plaintiff rests. The defendant calls a neurologist of his own. The doctor starts by stating “I come from a country that some people call Ghana”. I’m eager to stop the trial and ask “what do other people call it?”

1:11 -
As I walk by the supreme court house I notice a big production crew. Must be shooting a movie, I thought. I was right. I saw Adam Sandler and that fat guy who isn’t funny and has a wife that’s way too hot for him on that show “King of Queens”. In front of the court house is a staged protest with signs that say “It’s Adam and Eve, NOT Adam and Steve!!”
As I’m watching this scene two rotund ladies walk by and have the following conversation:
Chub 1 – Oh look. A protest!
Chub 2 – It’s the homosexuals!
Chub 1 – Isn’t that Adam Sandler?
Chub 2 – Oh shit! He’s gay?!

2:10 -
When we get back from lunch I see that the juror who came up with selective retardation is still joking about how the judge has peed in the water we have provided. Somehow, this is still getting laughs.

3:23 -
After the final witness we are sent home to prepare for tomorrow which will entail closing arguments and the verdict.

Day 5:

9:12 -
I notice that both the lawyers have been wearing the same suit for the past four days. Not today, however. Today they have on what I’m sure they refer to as their “lucky suit”. Well, I’m going to go on a limb and say the guy with the green suit might want to think of buying a new one.

10:32 -
Closing arguments are done and we are sent into our room for deliberation.

11:53 -
We have come to a unanimous decision. No damages rewarded to the guy who doesn’t remember his kids names and who can no longer play dominos.

12:43 -
We have to fill out some paper work even talk to the lawyers for a few minutes to give them pointers and let them know how we arrived at our decision. I can tell that the lawyer who lost is questioning the legal system when one of the jurors said “If he hurt his back, why wasn’t he in a wheel chair”.

1:21 -
I’m on the subway back to my apartment. I’m trying to figure out what this whole experience has really meant to me. Was it profound? Was it supposed to be? Did we make the right decision? Was there a RIGHT decision? The thoughts of meaning keep cycling through my head, waiting for their true meaning to emerge. Meanwhile I’m considering a law degree that specializes in medieval justice practices.

The Actor In Me

Posted on by patrickhmorris
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What’s the difference between an actor and mechanic? One of them fixes cars, the other one is worthless. That’s an original joke I just wrote and don’t really believe. I respect actors and think acting is really hard. Don’t agree? Try getting up from your computer, going into your boss’s office and saying “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Do you want one?” without sounding like a robot. It’s hard. Just a few minutes ago I tried to lie to someone about why I couldn’t get drinks with them after work, but it came out as “I’ve really got the busies.”

When I was in 7th grade, I thought I could act. More accurately, I liked attention and acting seemed like a good way to get it.

The play I auditioned for was called Aesop’s Fallables. Not “fables,” but “fallables.” Basically, it was the Tortoise and the Hare, but more wacky.

I was convinced I would get the part of the Wolf because he was obviously the coolest character, but instead got the role of the Narrator. Not just any narrator, but the jack-in-the-box narrating clown. Sure, I was a goof in school to get attention, but I wasn’t about to be wacky on someone else’s terms. I asked the director if I could rewrite the jack-in-the-box’s lines to make them more “true to my humor,” but he wasn’t into it.

I was thinking of quitting, but my mother pressed on me how important a role I had. She said, “You’re the narrator. The one who moves the story along. Without you, the story drags.”

I decided to stick it out because she made me feel important.

Actually, the real reason I decided to stick it out was because I didn’t have to learn my lines. The character of Jack-in-the-box had to spend the entire play in a giant box waiting to jump out to deliver his lines. This meant I could sit in the box with a script and a flash light and just read my lines right before it was time to deliver them. Call it laziness, call it cashing in on an opportunity; either way, I win.

Unfortunately, my perfect plan was slightly derailed by the fact that I couldn’t hear the other actors on stage very well. Everything sounded like a Charlie Brown cartoon when the grown-ups were talking and I just waited for an uncomfortable pause before coming out of my box. I was supposed to spring out and bounce around with the same frantic energy a normal Jack-in-the-box does, but instead I creeked open the top, looked to see if the actors on stage were staring at me and stood up slowly in case I had entered too early. I didn’t move the story along as much as continually ground it to a halt.

At intermission, I stayed in the box because I was afraid of facing the question “what the hell was that?” The only person who came to see if I hadn’t smothered myself with the pillow I was sitting on was the props girl. She was delivering a bag of snowflakes I needed to throw out in the 3rd act while saying “It’s winter!”

As the play resumed, I decided to put in my best effort and knock my part out of the park. What followed was about three interruptions, four overtly awkward silences and me announcing winter had arrived by saying “It’s Wiiiiiin-niny-niny-niny-niny-ninter!!!”

After throwing the snowflakes into the air as high as I could, I slunk back down into my box, planning how to graciously accept my standing ovation.

While I was contemplating whether to throw my hat into the audience while they were cheering me on their feet, I heard the Wolf enter on his pogo stick – Reason 512 why I felt I should have been cast as the wolf was because of my superior pogo jumping skills.

After a few jumps there came a giant crash, a gasp from the audience and a very long pause. I didn’t think it was my line, but I had conditioned myself to stand whenever there was I pause, so I stood out of the box. On stage was the wolf laying face down. When he lifted his head a stream of blood fell out of his mouth. He whimpered. He cried. And he bubbled out the line “I can’t reach the fruit.”

Recognizing this as my big chance I blurted out, “Can’t reach the fruit, can ya, Wolf?! Maybe we should stick you in here and let me show you how it’s done.”

I began to climb out of the box when the director came on stage, pushed me back in and announced we would take a short break. As soon as the curtain closed, the guy who was playing the tortoise said, “He slipped on your stupid snow flakes you threw out. What were you trying to do? Kill him so you could take his place?!”

The entire cast got behind the tortoise’s theory and while I tried to defend myself, no one listened. I was guilty. I had ruined the play.

After a few paper towels were applied to the Wolf’s face and his lip stopped bleeding, we resumed. When it was over, the Wolf received a standing ovation for his courage and commitment to “the theatre” by continuing.

Had they not noticed he could barely talk the rest of the play? Didn’t anyone else find it absurd how he pronounced “difficulty” as “did-a-dult-ty”? How could they be cheering, I thought.

At the cast party, I announced my retirement from acting. No one seemed to care.

Now, almost 15 years later, I watch actors with a sense of brotherhood between us. Sure, they stuck with it a little longer than me, but we both know what it’s like to seek the audience’s love and try to act natural in an unnatural situation. Could I have been great? Yes. Is that true? No.

New Year – Funnier Posts

Posted on by patrickhmorris
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It usually takes me 3-4 weeks until after New Years for me to figure out a resolution. This year, it only took me two. For the first time since I can remember, the thing I needed to improve on was obvious – write funnier posts for ThePatrickRules.com. Actually, this is probably the least important thing for me to focus on, but since I don’t feel like addressing my real shortcomings, I might as well focus on something a little more gratifying. Hell, it’s better than the year I decided to start smoking so I could quit the next day.

When I was thinking about “how to write funnier” I kept running into the same problem: there isn’t a formula to follow in order to write funnier. Surprised? I was. This frustrated me to no end so I decided to brainstorm ways to write funnier and then publish my findings here so others could capitalize on my efforts.

1) Buy new notebook – notebook should be small and when people see me writing in it on the subway they should think “Oohhhh…I bet that guy’s a writer!”

2) Buy a new pen – preferably something that feels funny, but looks like a rocket ship or shark.

3) Identify funny words:
- Sponge
- Felt
- Glandular
- Khaki
- Inconsolable

4) Funny names
- Ruderford
- Brutus
- Tib
- Andy
- Juniper
- Buttbun
- Flabosack

5) Top funny themes of 2008
- The U.S. and China relations
- How spoiled rich people are
- How stupid kids are
- Putting the letter “i” in front of anything and pretending it’s an apple product (iDong, iTripe)

6) Find common emotions and match them to metaphors and similes:
- Happy: I was happier than a boy in a gumball machine
- Sad: It was like I had forgotten to clean a load from my pants I had made that morning
- Angry: Like a snake had entered my rectum and issued my colon my parent’s divorce papers
- Confused: Like a Chinese boy being forced to pee on a banana
- Eager: As if a casket were made of tits

7) Find things you hate and explain why
- Lines: All you do is stand there and watch dumb people do things
- Loud talkers: It breaks my pattern of only thinking about myself
- Liars: Cause you never hear about people who failed for being honest
- Paying more than $3 for anything: I like 5 dollar bills and change
- Traffic: Cause I REALLY have somewhere to be
- People who are smarter than me AND do drugs: There goes my excuse
- Whoever thought of hash browns: That should have been me
- Australia: We get it. Warm, English, exotic, no blood tests to visit and no diamond trade gang wars like in South Africa

8 ) Compare things that aren’t alike
- Dancing is like wearing pants – ladies don’t care if you do it well…they just care that you do it.
- Watching sports with your girlfriend – it’s like eating peanut butter and celery. The best of both worlds are now ruined by being together.
- Having a 3 foot grandmother – like having a dog who randomly attacks people. None of your friends want to come over.
- Sleeping in a chair is like sleeping with a fat girl – your first thought is “uh-oh”.

9) Find right level of weird
- only wear cashmere (odd)
- only eat cashmere (weird)
- made fake cashmere nipples and listen to Burl Ives while you try to catch fish out of your sock drawer (too weird)

Pan’s Labyrinth vs Pan’s Rebels

Posted on by patrickhmorris
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It’s not often I get an emphatic movie review from a friend. So, when one of my dearest friends told me they had seen a movie that was “a beautiful fairy tale for adults” you know I’m going to see it…eventually.

A few months ago, Pan’s Labyrinth came out on DVD. Remembering my friend’s recommendation, I slapped it on my Netflix queue, moved it to the bottom of my list and hoped I’d never get it in the mail. Even with my friend’s recommendation, something about the movie made it seem less interesting than a documentary on Benjamin Franklin.

When it finally arrived, I conned my girlfriend into watching it with me by promising I’d make dinner and we’d watch a “beautiful fairy tale for adults.”

While I was adding the final touches on dinner (sprinkling Cheerios on noodles so it would look “eclectic” and “purposefully distasteful”) my girlfriend decided to watch the Message From The Director.

Most of the time, these messages involve the director thanking a faceless viewer for watching their movie. Maybe they do it so they can be seen on TV. Maybe they’re really sincere. The director of Pan’s Labyrinth, however, thought this would be the appropriate time to deliver this message (allow me to paraphrase):

You are about to watch my movie. This movie almost killed me. The stress was beyond bearable. I was so sick. There were times when I asked god to kill me, to rid me of this creature gnawing at my heart. He would not. I was forced to continue the plague of pain and suffering. Enjoy.

“Ummm…did he just ask us to watch his movie out of pity?” she asked me. “That’s not a good sign,” I said as I shrugged my shoulders.

The first thing that should be mentioned about Pan’s Labyrinth is the term “fantasy” or “fairy tale” is misleading. Why? The movie is 2 hours long and roughly twenty of those minutes involve anything remotely magical. The other hour and forty minutes are filled by a militant captain and his mission to rid the rural Spanish mountainsides of rebels.

Rebels? I don’t remember seeing anything in the trailer about rebels? This would be like renting 3 Men and A Baby and finding out most of the movie is about the Viet Kong. The trailer I remember for Pan’s Labyrinth involved a little girl and some goat looking thing. How was I supposed to know the main characters were some rebels and a captain who makes Darth Vader look like Hello Kitty?

Speaking of the goat thing, who I think introduced himself as Pan while I was saying “uggh…I know I’m going to hate this guy, he acts like he’s done a lot of theater,” isn’t so magical. The most magical thing about him is that he keeps randomly creeping into this little girl’s bedroom while she’s asleep. Where I come from, you have to go door to door and apologize if someone catches you doing that. Ain’t nothing magical about it.

While the goat thing isn’t creeping around the little girl’s room, he’s telling her to do pointless tasks that are equivalent to “go to the book case, get a book, turn to page twenty, close the book, put it back on the shelf” to prove she’s the chosen one. Even when she fails these mindless tasks she’s giving a second chance. Pan’s like the teacher you had in 7th grade who gave extra credit questions of “Who is your favorite teacher” and gave you the extra points even when you called him “Mr. Buttface.”

Even though the movie is oddly divided as ¼ fantasy and ¾ rebel manifesto, there is one thing that blankets the entire feature – extreme violence. That’s right. Within the first 10 minutes of the movie you watch the captain smash a bottle into a man’s nose 30 to 40 times, crushing it down into his skull, and send the innocent man into a spastic seizure. Yeah, this is exactly how I thought this movie would go.

There’s also a scene where someone’s leg gets sawed off, a stuttering guy gets his hand split in half, a girl chomps through her finger to draw a drop of blood, a woman bleeds out of her vagina (twice), a man getting ripped apart by a knife small enough to be brought on a plane, 300 people getting shot and then shot again in the head to make sure they’re actually dead and a quaint little scene involving a knife in someone’s mouth.

I thought there would be puppets! I was picturing golden eggs, trees that talked and foods that made you bigger or smaller. Not brutal murder shown from three different angles!

Of course, the violence in Pan’s Labyrinth is what makes it a fairy tale for adults. I kept thinking about why that term didn’t sit well with me and then it hit me – no one needs a fairy tale for adults. Fairy tales should be inherently childish. It would be like making a porno for children or having a wine list at McDonalds.

Why do we need an adult fairy tale? What, the Dark Crystal wasn’t scary enough for you? The Labyrinth wasn’t an accurate portrayal of a peyote trip? Should I expect a movie to come out soon which depicts how hard Santa’s trip on Christmas Eve REALLY is? Or about how the Tooth Fairy is actually this meth addict who gets high by snorting children’s teeth?

I wish my friend had told me to watch Pan’s Labyrinth because it was “a movie that feels like two weak movies shoved together to create some juxtaposition or conflict in order to make the product as a whole more powerful.” At least that way I wouldn’t be so pissed about the lack of puppets.