Mint In Box

Considering my past, saying the following feels at once terribly hypocritical yet experientially undeniable: the worst thing that can ever happen to any franchise or industry is catering to fucking professional collectors. I myself am guilty of gobbling up the Exclusive Limited Platinum Collector’s Criterion Special Edition bullshit versions of any number of things in my past, and it just fucking ruins everything.

Not everything in this world should be a goddamned financial investment. Some things are fun BECAUSE they’re cheap and disposable. And there’s no room for fun in the OCD ruled world of collecting. Trading cards are SUPPOSED to be cheaply printed cardstock rectangles a kid can keep in his pocket and lose without caring much, not little high gloss, foil embossed portraits that cost $7 a pack, that you place immediately into a plastic storage sleeve so they don’t get fingerprints and the corners stay perfect. What kid can afford that? And even if they can, who the fuck would want to? Toys are SUPPOSED to be fun and interesting to play with, not overly packaged so they look good sealed away on a collector’s shelf 15 years from now. Ever open a McFarlane Toys “action figure”? They’re $20 statues of what should be $10 toys. They only look good as long as you never open and play with them. No kid’s going to want to play with that shit. Yet companies will redefine their businesses to produce this crap.

The new Ghostbusters board game looks like a lot of fun, until you realize that it costs FUCKING $85. FOR CARDBOARD. Vinyl records, comic books, magazines, food packaging, even our goddamned money is being manufactured with the idea that it be secreted away in mint condition in the hopes that it will be worth selling in the future for a small fortune. It almost never works, and it ruins all of it. It drives prices up, reduces profits, alienates consumers, dries up markets, and, worst of all, it financially excludes young people, preventing them from forming the very fond memories and nostalgic associations which make things worth collecting in the first place. It’s an idiotic, parasitic, scumbag business model that ultimately eats itself, but always, ALWAYS takes something once great with it when it goes. It’s like building a Wal-Mart next to the corner store of your soul.

WTFWJD?

I know a number of “good Christians” who have no clue what’s in the Bible, and don’t seem to really care. In fact, they get strangely angry when you tell them. So just in case you haven’t bothered to actually read the fucking thing and are curious about this Jesus fellow you get so moony eyed about, I’ll just leave this right here. It’s not just what Jesus would do. It’s what he already DID…

The Truth Is Ridiculous

There comes a point in any franchise that makes a true fan wince. A Ghostbusters II, a Star Trek V, a Transformers: Armada. But you dust yourself off and carry on, because you love the franchise, and overall what happened wasn’t really all that bad. The franchise speaks to the core of you, and you can forgive its occasional stumbles.

But sometimes a franchise takes the sort of fucked up, out of nowhere, balls-out stupid detour that forces even the most die hard fan to say, “No. I’m not having it.” Last night I was shown an X-Files in which the aliens were not only not evil, but were actually the good guys all along. For nine years and two movies those scheming, treacherous, evil, horrifying bastards were the good guys. Good guy aliens. ON THE FUCKING X-FILES. And what’s even worse is that we were shown a Fox Mulder that accepted this with pretty much no evidence nor any real investigation whatsoever. Fox Mulder accepting good guy aliens. ON THE FUCKING X-FILES.

They specifically said the aliens had come here to help us. Guide us away from destroying ourselves. Which is very much the opposite of what they were doing for every single second of every episode and movie up till now. Well, I say no. No, sir. Absofuckinglutely not.

TALES FROM NEWPORT!

Tonight’s episode: “Gasholes”

Dear troglodytes at the Newport Kroger gas station: it’s only gasoline. It’s not special. It’s not even on fucking sale. Do you think they’re going to run out? Maybe you don’t know this, but gasoline is not hard to get. Our country has a specialized infrastructure in place to help ensure that you can buy yourself a big wet assload of gasoline, in your choice of octane, pretty much anywhere, at any time of day. So why the ever loving FUCK are you dickbags jockeying for positions around the pumps like wildebeests around the summer’s last mudhole? It’s fucking gasoline. They’re not rationing it for the war effort. Did you bring your gas stamps? You gonna do your part to help beat the Kaiser? No. Because you are buying gasoline in Kentucky, and you’re acting like the one inch of snow we’re about to get is the fucking End Times. You live in northern Kentucky, assholes, you goddamn well know that one inch of snow is nothing. Nothing! We don’t even stop wearing shorts for one inch of snow, you cowardly fucking lemmings. What are you, Ohioans? You’re from Kentucky. Fucking act like it.

This has been another angry episode of…

It’s Always Shitty In Pittsburgh

When two different coaches – not players, but COACHES – on the same team are willing to commit such bold, egregious displays of unsportsmanlike conduct, you have to question the professionalism of the entire organization. Win or loss, were I the owner, manager, or head coach of that team, both those men would have been unemployed as of this morning.