Weekly Selects #16

This one's embed-heavy near the end. Enjoy:


-Via Email from Ring-dawg:

I think you will appreciate this.

An article titled "Bacon Gets Its Just Desserts" from NPR, with some recipes. Bacon is King.

Bacon has really experienced a meteoric rise in the last half decade, I feel, and based on the declining influence of the US dollar as a universally accepted currency, I'm predicting that 20 years from now we will be trading in bacon. Mobsters will be making shady deals exchanging briefcases containing stacks of rubber-banded strips of bacon; robbers will be seen fleeing banks with bags rendered semi-transparent from soaked bacon grease; bacon-bits will be the equivalent of pennies -- technically worth something, but disregarded and viewed with open disdain. Mark my words.


-Via Gchat from JMill:

I found your blog competitor
http://chopstika.blogspot.com/2009/12/whats-in-blog.html
your nemesis
seriously, she stole your blog

JMill has a much stronger vindictive streak than you would give her cheery personality credit for. Once, when Einstein's Bagels didn't make her breakfast sandwich the way she wanted it, she FLIPPED. I don't want to go into details, but let's just say that the manager of that particular Einstein's got the worst of it; that a taser, 20 yards of saran wrap, and a bar of Irish Spring soap in a sock were involved (don't ask); and there are currently arrest warrants out on JMill effective in three northern VA counties. It wasn't pretty (and neither are her mugshots hanging up on the WANTED posters in the local post office. /shudder/).

Or maybe she just wrote a letter to Einstein's corporate headquarters voicing her complaints about service received and got a $25 gift certificate for her troubles? I can't remember the details.

Well, regardless, if I have future ambitions to corner the internet market on sarcastic Asianism I'm sure I could get JMill to issue some sort of menacing message to this girl; in the meantime, I'll just let those vengeful thoughts of her's ruminate on some other scheme.

-Via various Emails, Google Reader shares, referrals from friends: I openly (and proudly) acknowledge my complete lack of firsthand experience when it comes to the Twilight movies and books (I'm afraid, like George Costanza, that THERE IS NOT ENOUGH VOLTAGE IN THIS WORLD TO ELECTROSHOCK ME BACK INTO COHERENCE [3:30-mark] were I to view/read any portion of them). And while many fans would equate my criticisms as ignorance, I have numerous credible and intelligent sources telling me that they're no good.

Here are some of the parodies I have viewed over the last few weeks:

-A hilarious rejected screenplay from Eric Snider.

-A "How it Should Have Ended":




-An SNL Parody:



-A 1-minute recap of the movie, showing nothing happens, plot-wise:



I actually think this is the ideal way to view a movie you know you will dislike: Watch and read all the related parodies you can find, THEN watch the actual movie. The movie will instantly become a comedy, and EVERYTHING WILL BE FUNNY (this will also make you insufferably annoying if viewing the movie with actual fans).