Why Do All Guys Obsess Over The Lord of the Rings?

Seriously.  I'm not judgy, but a bunch of little men with pointy ears chasing after jewelry for 3 hours?

Every time these movies come up in conversation, every guy in the room freaks out over how awesome they are.  And it makes me feel like Ben Wyatt from Parks and Rec, when everyone in Pawnee is flipping out over Lil' Sebastian--the miniature horse--and he has no idea why.  "It's kind of a small horse.  I mean, what am I missing?"  My thoughts exactly.

I know everyone has their thing, and I respect other people's interests and all.  But these LOTR-loving guys don't just love the movies.  They get mad and angsty towards anyone that has less than the highest level of LOTR enthusiasm.  My own brother looked like he wanted to set me on fire and throw me into a volcano yesterday when I told him I thought The Lord of the Rings was silly.  (Which I do.) (Because it is.) (Sorry Steve.)

In conclusion, please enjoy this clip from Clerks 2 which expresses a lot of my thoughts on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in much more colorful terms.  Thanks to my wonderful brother-in-law for sharing this gem with me!  Young readers beware, the below is pretty much wildly inappropriate.

KLM Meet & Seat

Just read about this in my marketing textbook and can't decide if it's super awesome or slightly creepy. (Leaning towards super awesome!)  KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has a program called Meet & Seat that passengers can opt into, where you can view the Facebook or LinkedIn profiles of fellow passengers prior to your flight, allowing you to choose who to sit next to based on shared interests, networking potential, etc.  You have up until 1 hour before departure time to look through the pictures and bios of your fellow travelers--provided they have also opted into this program--and choose your seat accordingly.  So cool!

KLM defends that this program is geared towards encouraging networking opportunities among passengers... Cards on the table, I would be totally tempted to use this for scoping out hotties and orchestrating inflight "meet-cutes."  At the very least, it would be a nice tool to help me avoid being seated next to an older gentleman who alternates between sniffing his snuff box, hitting on me, and informing me of all the ways his Kindle is superior to my Nook.  (That was a long flight...)

And this isn't the first time KLM has put other airlines to shame with crazy cool social media programs.  Back in 2010 they ran a "Surprise" campaign to reward passengers for using Foursquare to check into KLM terminals at Amsterdam Schipol Airport.  Once they identified a passenger who had checked in and was waiting to board, the KLM Surprise team would research this person by reviewing their social media profiles, then find a gift catered towards their interests or travel destination, and give the gift to the passenger at boarding time.  Delightful!

Jet Blue and a few other American airlines are known for being responsive and helpful to customer inquiries through Twitter, but the Dutch have really set the bar high with these awesome social media programs.  I may have to book a flight to Amsterdam soon. :)

The Onion's 2008 Miley Cyrus Predictions--Spot On

They don't call it "America's Finest News Source" for nothing.

Back in 2008, The Onion posted the below video--a hilarious look at the probable trajectory of Miley Cyrus's career.  Keep in mind that 2008 was the height of the Hanna Montana craze--before the creepy teddy bears, salvia, and twerking--when Cyrus was still an innocent Disney tween.

However, The Onion News Network predicted that by 2013, Cyrus's entertainment value would be drained, pushing her towards a bleak fate of wild behavior and public stunts seen by many former teen starlets, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan among them.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that The Onion is in possession of an actual working crystal ball, but this prediction was pretty scary accurate.

I Hope They Serve "Weird" in Hell

I realize I'm about 7 years late to the party, but I finally started reading I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.  And I have to say, I was decently horrified at first.  Yes, Tucker Max is sometimes hilarious, but he's also kind of a disgusting and terrible person.  I'm not the easily offended type.  In fact, offensive humor is usually my favorite kind. (i.e. Daniel Tosh, Family Guy, Always Sunny, etc.)  But Tucker Max stretches beyond my offensive comfort zone--something that, until reading his book, I thought was impossible.

So, I found myself sitting on the train home last night, 70 pages in, when disappointment reared its ugly head.  I sort of hate this Tucker Max guy.  I don't think I can get through another 200 something pages of him.  I can't believe I spent $14.99 on this.  I hope the guy sitting next to me doesn't have good enough eyesight to see the sexcapade I'm currently reading.

However, being the granddaughter of a depression-era Irish woman who can stretch a dollar from here to California, I realized that giving up on the book midway through wasn't an option.  I dropped significant cashola on this bad boy (mind you, I'm a student--$14.99 is significant) and dammit, I was going to get my money's worth and soldier on through this monstrosity if it killed me.

The fates must have smiled upon me for my thrifty thinking, because suddenly, something wonderful happened.  As I resumed my reading, the mental image I had been carrying of Tucker Max while I read--an arrogant, weasely tool--transformed into an image of someone far preferable.  Enter: Adam Devine.

 

Whenever I read fiction, I--like most people--create my own mental picture of what the protagonist looks like, and that's who I picture while reading.  Sure, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is nonfiction (allegedly) so the protagonist is a real person, but why not apply the same concept and create my own mental image of the protagonist?

Replacing Tucker's face with Adam's has turned this whole book around for me.  I love Adam Devine--he's so goofy and charming that he could say or do the most offensive thing in the world, and I would still probably find him adorable and want to pinch his cheeks.  Reading Tucker Max's stories, but picturing Adam Devine instead of Tucker, has transformed the book from a pile of piggish and depraved acts, into a charming and hilarious series of misadventures.  It basically reads like one epicly long episode of Workaholics now, and I couldn't be happier.  Now that's what I call money well spent.  "Let's get weird!"

Jon Stewart's Interview with Malala Yousafzai

This is an awesome interview.  How Malala Yousafzai didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize is beyond me.  She is brilliant--and only 16!  Totally makes me want to time travel back to 2006, find 16-year-old me, grab her by the sidebraid, and suggest she spend a little more time hitting the books, and a little less time Googling shirtless pictures of Chad Michael Murray.  Ah, youth...