Dear Linkedin:

First off, congratulations, it’s “open Letter” week here at The Correctness. Way to make the rant list!

Now then: I understand you are a social networking site of some kind. I understand that such things are important. People need them for things and stuff, and to date businesses and poke plenty of fish. Social networking also helps us maintain pointless and chilly friendships by “liking” something. By the way, facebook, it’s essentially the least you can do, to “like” something. It is the penultimate least. It’s like complimenting someone on a coffee table book that was a gift, but less effective.

In any case, LinkedIn, thank you for sending me FOUR emails to each of my two personal email addresses (that’s 8 so far) to inform me that my ex girlfriend wants to be my friend on your site. You don’t know my ex girlfriend like I do- though, you may know her a bit- like, I’m guessing you know her date of birth, and her supposed line of work. In any case, I know her pretty well, and I can assure you, she doesn’t actually want me to join linkedin.

For a few tense and panic-attack-inspiring seconds, I thought my ex might have actually hand selected me to be buddies on LinkedIn. Now without revealing too much about this relationship, I spent mere instants in this delusion before the truth struck me: While she was signing up, you popped up a helpful pop up window that asked if she wanted to email everyone in her address book. She of course clicked yes, because she is illiterate. Her illiteracy is also the reason that I am still a part of her address book.

LinkedIn, I just wanted to let you know that you can stop sending me reminder emails about my ex girlfriend. She doesn’t actually want to be my business super pal, or whatever the specialization of your ballsucking social network is. I’m sure she would rather get chlamydia- again. All that happened was that she absentmindedly clicked “sure, okay” to emailing her whole address book. I do not need to receive biweekly reminders that she has sent me this personal invitation, because she hasn’t.

And don’t correct me if i’m wrong on this assessment, or I will never sleep again.

Sincerely,

RobieRobTown.

The Correctness correspondent RobbieRobTown is the unmarried 1/3 of thecorrectness.com staff. He used to be quite nice, but years of terrible relationships have turned him into an asshole. He complains publicly about his personal life, but his blog reaches a larger audience than most. He lives in purgatory.

(Note: This is a repost of the original).

Dear Seth,

I am a big fan of your show (note the singular there. American Dad just okay…and we will not discuss the Cleveland show.) and watch it as often as I can. You seem to be under some sort of internet backlash at the moment where it has become cool to hate Family Guy. Sometimes when South Park says “Jump” internet losers like me will say “How high?”. But I have always defended you. But lately it has become harder and harder to do that. I guess what I’m saying is:

You are coming across like a huge misogynist douche. Cut it out.

Let’s rewind the clock a little. I watched your show right from the beginning, and I was one of the ones who was delighted to hear that the network came crawling back to you on their hands and knees. And I continued to enjoy the new episodes. I didn’t care that there were too many cut aways.That’s what the show was about. I always said it was less like a sitcom and more like a sketch show with a loosely connected thread of plot. I liked it that way. “Manatee” comments be damned. When I heard the phrase “This is worse than the time I…” I actually perked up. I liked how you play with the fourth wall, I like the Stewie Brian dynamic. I liked how you put the whole “Kill Lois” thing to bed once and for all, and moved on. I even liked the random and wanton acts of cruelty toward Meg. At First. Because that’s her character. It’s been established, Meg is a punching bag. Chris is an idiot with moments of clarity. Peter is irredeemably stupid and obnoxious. Stewie is a flamboyant genius infant, Lois is the feisty suburban sexpot, and Brian is the voice of reason.

I get that.

But then you started doing your other shows, and they were..okay. But they just seemed like watered down versions of this show. And mark my words, That variety special you tried? THAT will be your Star Wars Holiday Special. That thing is several different kinds of awful and it will haunt you to your grave. It was Biblically bad. and by that I mean If I was Pharaoh and I had Jewish slaves, and then Moses showed me that variety special, I would let them go. (Passover Joke yo! Hello Jewish Correctness readers!)

But I digress.

As your attention went to other cartoon sitcoms, bad vanity projects and a You Tube Series (Seriously? You don’t have enough to do in a day?) the quality on your flagship lessened somewhat. You began to coast on shock. And to generate your shock, you have decided to have at least one joke about the raping, beating or humiliating a woman per episode. More often than not, you manage to hit all three. And not just Meg either, although Meg’s mistreatment has escalated dramatically.

The last full episode I saw looked to be clear sailing until Robert Mitchum slapped a woman so hard her ear bled.

My wife not only leaves the room in a huff every time I put it on, she hurls invectives at the television from all the way upstairs.

Now I’ll digress again for a moment to discuss my wife and her sense of humor if I may. (Hi Amber! Love you) She doesn’t like cruelty in her comedy at all. She gets satire, she just doesn’t like it. Despite my desperate soap boxing about how Blazing Saddles is actually an ardent ANTI racist film, she is put off by people behaving in a racist way.

That’s how I started to justify all of the violence toward women on Family Guy. The Blazing Saddles argument. “They are satirizing the douche bags that beat the women, they aren’t suggesting it’s cool to beat women” but more and more I am starting to see her side of things. It’s off putting in both its frequency and it’s intensity.

Even if it wasn’t violence against women, even if it was something else entirely, even something non controversial, the fact that you keep going back to the well like that is just lazy. It’s funny in an episode, where the repetition is the point (I still laugh whenever I hear “Bird is the word”) but stretched out over a whole couple of seasons, again and again someone is beaten, or raped…it’s lost its initial shock value and has drifted into the realm of creepy.

So…here is what I suggest.

Cancel The Clevland show, it’s derivative crap and you know it. It’s also the LEAST interesting character you could have made a spin off from. Forget the Internet, all your stuff will end up on there eventually anyway, don’t worry about it for now. Take some time and FOCUS on saving Family Guy from itself. Roll up your sleeves and bring the funny…WITHOUT the beatings and the rapings. Challenge yourself. See if you can go one season without a woman getting the pimp hand. This will force you to be WAY more creative in how you deal with Meg, at any rate. I’m not saying you have to be nice to her, that’s out of character, just find less obvious ways to make her life miserable.

AND NO MORE VARIETY SPECIALS!!! I Mean it!

Sincerely,

Tony Binns

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Comments (15)

RobbieRobTown said on 30-03-2010
RobbieRobTown

I second that, I have had to walk away from quite a few episodes of Family Guy. And occasionally South Park. That’s satire, you can’t please everyone.

SeriouslyAGeekGirl said on 30-03-2010
SeriouslyAGeekGirl

So…could you please actually send this to him?

KevinK said on 30-03-2010
KevinK

Here’s an idea, albeit one only slightly related to your post. Make Family Guy two 8-minute plots with random sketches peppered throughout. I’m tired of seeing Family Guy develop a plot for the first third of the show only to completely abandon it for another with very little connection. I’m not even talking about subplots, the show will literally just jump from plot A to plot B half way through. Why not just go the whole way, make two distinct half-episodes, and save us a minute or two of pointless connecting exposition. That and rampant soapboxing are probably the shows two biggest flaws.

1/4 20 said on 30-03-2010
1/4 20

family guy has gone the way of the simpsons. they can no longer provide humor and should be shitcanned. now if i am in the mood for some cartoon humor i will most always turn to southpark (for the damn good social commentary) or looney tunes (for the damn good violence).

Ringo said on 30-03-2010
Ringo

I would normally throw in some Beatle related story, but today, I won’t.

You’re right on the money. The violence toward women is not funny.

It was, in fact, the Robert Mitchum cut-away-straw that broke my back. The whole season came crumbling down.

Yes, Tony… see if you can’t get this to him.

Peace AND LOVE DAMN IT!!

Ringo,

p.s.

I do love American Dad. It really hit it’s stride after a pretty shaky take off. The cruelty is psychological and spread around nicely.

Tyler Hawkins said on 30-03-2010
Tyler Hawkins

I thought the last episode was where Stewie got knocked unconscious. Anyway, yes we need less violence towards women, and if I wanted to see that I could always watch CSI:Miami, starring stuck up, self righteous douchbags. I second or fourth, what Tony was saying. I think though that the Simpsons and Family Guy are still great!

Keith said on 30-03-2010
Keith

The Southpark ep had the opposite reaction in me. It was so critical of the core comedy of Family Guy (requiters) that I started thinking “but what are the jokes about Southpark? Anti-Semitic jokes, fat jokes, irony and cynicism”

I still watch Family Guy but haven’t watched a Southpark since.

and boy howdy does the Cleveland Show suck.

The M-Daddy said on 30-03-2010
The M-Daddy

I actually walked away from “The Cleveland Show” on Sunday. I’ve never walked away from a prime-time cartoon I started watching in my life (even ‘Family Dog’) That was a new low.
What am I? Fifth? I Fifth or whatever what you say, T.

Cormac said on 30-03-2010
Cormac

This is what happens when you give a guy a 100 million dollar contract to make shows for your station. Eventually the start coming up with crap to keep the network bigwigs happy.

Like the old saying says, you can lead a horse to water but can you make Seth step back from the brink?

Lisa said on 31-03-2010
Lisa

Bravo, Tony! Beautifully written. I hope your letter gets to the dude!

inmate said on 31-03-2010
inmate

A self righteous, semi oblivious man has family issues related to his speaking non-human friend who lives with him while his sexually repressed wife attempts to liberate herself and the children do things inappropriate for those twice their age.

Worked once. Twice was noticeably worse, but still not bad. I refuse to watch the Cleveland Show.

The Simpsons have gone downhill, but not (just) because they don’t have game anymore. We are used to it. South Park has just started down this road and is obviously running out of original material (e.g. Tiger Woods episode).
We liked Family Guy because it promised to never get old. The cut-away gags gave an excuse for entirely unrelated jokes to keep an episode fresh and expand the repertoire of the writers infinitely.
Now it is all about the rape and abuse jokes that are only effective when used sparingly.

We deserve new material from new writers and new drawing styles.

Or we could abandon television all together and go to text. Whatever.

1/4 20 said on 31-03-2010
1/4 20

I agree that we should abandon the tube. i must disagree that southpark is running out of original ideas. maybe early in its life the vulgar/shock tactic worked, but southpark is maturing as a show. the tiger woods episode is proof of that. no longer do we swear and imitate others (shows), now we see how screwy real life is and take full advantage of it. the dolphin/whale episode is another wonderful example.

Saywha? said on 02-04-2010
Saywha?

Weighing in as a woman who catches the shows (Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, and King of the Hill) in gathering infrequency; due to my young child, I too must concur with the men folk. Family Guy has changed from the “Wow can anyone be that stunned?! HA HA ha…” to “That is truly awful. What else is on?”

Specifically I would address the treatment of Meg. She is the show’s punching bag. I get it. I understand the joke. Mel Brooks can be quoted as stating that a gag is only funny if it is used 3 times during the routine.

You’d think her mother, at the very least, would try to love her considering how much the rest of the cast, with the lone hold out being Brian, demean her.
I turned Family Guy off the night I saw Meg face down her mother after the confession that Lois was making a play for Meg’s new boyfriend. I was sickened to watch Meg rip a tooth from her head, the hate-filled words thrown at her mother (who deserved some of it) and the lengths that Meg would go for “love”. Amazing, look at how her family failed her. That Meg felt that she had to go so far simply for someone to care for her and not treat her like dogshit.

I realize it is satire; makes you think, makes you squirm, makes you laugh. However I must point out that Meg’s soliloquy was an evidentiary act proving how damaged she has become and broken her grasp of self.

Dear readers of the Correctness, we should voice our concerns and you, Seth, creator on high should listen. We the watchers, we the consumers, we the folks on this forum and the reason you are making money, are not amused.

Continual abuse of women is not cool nor is it funny. The pedophile living up the street and whistle-talking at Chris is cute because we think Chris is safe. Trust me, if Chris’ tender flesh was violated on air no one would laugh when Old Man pedobear is chasing him.

Well just as I don’t want to see some limp dick trying to cop a feel on a underage cartoon character, I don’t want to see one more woman, Meg included, treated like a punching bag, rape joke and generally the doormat at the exit of the cow barn.

Tomass said on 31-03-2010
Tomass

Send him the fucking letter!

Caleb said on 03-04-2010
Caleb

Don’t know if Family Guy lost a key writer (see the Simpsons progressively getting worse after Conan O’Brian left the writing staff) or if they are just getting rich and bored, but I have not liked it for a few seasons. Moments of genius now and then, but mostly recycled jokes. South Park is genius all the time, much more original, funny, and better thought out. Perhaps it helps Trey and Matt to be working for Comedy Central and not have the right boot of Murdoch planted up their ass. (Like how I used the “right” boot for that line? Now that’s social commentary!)

Here at The Correctness SportsishNetwerkkz, we offer our be-all-end-all absolutely correct answers on which supervillains would win in a fight. Lex Luthor has bankrolled the competition.Which of the 8 will come out on top? The playoffs continue this week in the Pengrowth Deathdrome. It’s brutal, ugly, violent, and soul rending…and that’s just the comment section!!!

The Rules, and the Bracket were laid out in advance, in this post. Two days of prep, battle is held in the stadium, and it’s to the death. Game on.

THIS WEEK: Sinestro vs Magneto. For our purposes, Sinestro has yet to become some weird White Lantern, and Magneto is his normal self, but speaks in Ian McKellan’s voice, cuz that’s pretty badass.

DAVE:

When I considered this battle in my head, there was no possible way that the winner could be anyone but Sinestro. He has one of them there power rings, and they can do pretty much anything. In fact, as Yellow Lanterns use Fear as a weapon, I had constructed a scenario in which Sinestro uses Magneto’s memories of the concentration camps, in addition to Magneto’s fear of becoming irrelevant within the mutant community. This results in an easy win for Sinestro.

But then I started thinking about Magneto. In addition to being able to control magnetic fields, and therefore anything with metallic content, he can also create an almost impenetrable field around himself, and (this is becoming a weekly thing, where I educate our readers) can create a wormhole. Really Marvel? A wormhole. And yet, people can’t stop babbling about how overpowered DC is, Marvel has every single character all healing factored up, and able to create wormholes.

So, here it is. Sinestro attacks, Magneto shells up. Sinestro continues to attack, using fear and giant yellow hammers. Magneto uses various parts of the stadium to bounce off of Sinestro’s sheild. This goes on for a while. Magneto figures out the frequency of the Yellow Ring’s power, and dissipates it for a moment, and grabs the iron content in Sinestro’s blood, draining him instantly. Or (for those of you who claim his alien blood is non-ferrous, he bounces an i-beam off Sinestro’s head.) A third option is to dissolve the electromagnetic force holding Sinestro’s protons to his electrons (Really Marvel?).

Any way we slice this thing, a fancy power ring can’t beat almost 50 years of retconning.

Winnner: Magneto

Tony

Ugh. This one makes my head hurt.

There are so many “Ifs” in play here that as of right now, I have no idea who my choice is going to be.

Let’s just count the ways this can go together, shall we?

IF Sinestro’s ring is in the least bit ferrous, Magneto immediately crushes it, along with Sinestro’s finger. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth follows. Magneto makes fun of the size of his head.

Winner :Magneto.

IF it is not ferrous in any way, Sinestro can easily get the drop on Magneto. It takes awhile to bring a building down on someone, or at least it takes more time than it takes to point your fist at someone and think about crushing them with the power of a nice festive Easter yellow.

Winner: Sinestro

IF Sinestro’s power is in fact a MENTAL power, and I think it can be argued that it is, seeing as how it is fueled by a mental state of being…would Magneto’s helmet protect him from said power? IF yes, than Sinestro is once again screwed.

Winner: Magneto

IF Sinestro’s power is in fact just a manipulation of the light spectrum, and not based on a mental attack, then there is NOTHING Magneto can do to stop it. He has shields to block many kinds of attacks, but to actually stop LIGHT from getting in? I don’t think so.

Winner : Sinestro

IF Magneto is in fact the master of all metal, as he’s sometimes known, it wouldn’t matter if the ring was ferrous or not. Some of my research claims Magneto has dominion over every single metal in the known universe. Scenario one happens, crushed finger. Or he just pulls the ring right off Sinestro’s finger. You want to generate some fear? Give a power ring to Magneto and watch the audience shit itself.

Winner Magneto

IF the ring runs on fear, all Sinestro has to do it throw a fright into the crowd, and he will have a TON of energy to run off of. Possibly enough to overcome ANYTHING Magneto can throw at him…

Winner: Sinestro

IF the ring recharges by battling the green spectrum, all Magneto has to do is go on the offensive and wait him out. Magneto can throw a lot of shit his way to keep Sinestro trying to save his own ass until he runs out of juice, then moves in for the kill.

Winner Magneto

Apparently both of these guys have been known to GO BACK IN TIME. IF they chase each other through the ages trying to find the other guy in the crib and kill him, only to be foiled by the other guy and forced to go back even further to kill off a relative. Sinestro gets the drop on Magneto, when Erik takes a quick break from the battle to try and kill Hitler. I guess. No,not really.

Winner: I haven’t got a fucking clue.

So you see the dilemma I’m in here. This is predicated on a whole lot of very debatable “ifs”

So here is what I’m going to do. I’m going to pause and count the scenarios up there and see who ends up winning more….Apparently Magneto does 4-3.

I’m going to take a deep breath then and give this one to Magneto. However this is SO close that if anybody can present me with a good argument for Sinestro, I’m fully prepared to flip flop on this.

Winner: Magneto

ROB:

Ahh, okay nerds. Out of my depth. Fortunately, I trust my fellow Correctness pals to bury my opinion at the bottom of the article. If for any reason my article remains near the top, you can be sure it is because Dave or Tony didn’t read my post.

Those of you who read our Superhero Smackdowns might recall an incident in which, because of my limited expertise, I went on, what I felt at the time was, a long comic ramble. Many of you fine people then accused me of betraying the only series of articles which drew hits to our website. Many of you accused me of “phoning it in”. Some of you said that my comments were purposeless and largely antithetical to the concepts of comedy in general. Far be it from me to get defensive because we run a comedy blog, and we simply do not claim to be expert, and that the purpose of these smackdowns is to foster an amusing debate, and not to be some kind of authoritative canonical resource for you to rely on during your post and then pre masturbatory refractory period.

Here are some facts, which in case you did not read the above paragraph, you cannot dispute because they are absolutely inarguably correct. Both Sinestro and Magneto both have the all powerful “o” at the end of their names. Any supervillain with an “o” at the end of their names is extremely powerful. Just think of the long list of villains with end-in-o powers:

Sinestro

Magneto

Electro

Apocalypto

That’s quite a list, and considering one of the supervillains mentioned above is actually a Mel Gibson film, that’s all the more reason to agree with me.

Magneto is magnetic, and can do impressive magnetic stuff with metals, I guess, except for some metals, assuming he is ferromagnetic. Similarly, Sinestro is sinister, and controls sinister stuff, like ferrets and ice cream mini-truck drivers, assuming he is ferretmagnetic.

The supply of sinister stuff to hurl through the air is entirely dependent on the environment Sinestro is battling in- in an arena full of supervillain fans, I’m sure he could probably find a metric tonne of moustachioed weirdos who he could manipulate using sinestric fields. Magneto, on the other hand, as long as he is not antiferromagnetic, could probably rip the seats out of the stadium- well, the expansion seats, not the concrete boxes- but the rebar in the concrete boxes, and smash them into Sinestro.

Now, as you know, Sinestro got his powers when he was bitten by a radioactive lantern, and this is relevant because I goddamnwell say so, and I all I have is this blog, ALL I HAVE ON THIS FUCKING EARTH IS THIS GODDAMN COMEDY BLOG, AND THIS IS ALL I HAVE TO LOOK FORWARD TO, AND I AM SO FULL OF FASHIONABLE SELF LOATHING THAT I HATE WRITING HERE, so Sinestro might use his awesome powers to float fat guys and ferrets into Magneto. Magneto would fly some lipstick tubes and passenger trains into Sinestro. In a climactic Akira-esque battle in which blobs of flesh and metal and fur fly hither and yon, the eventual winner would be Magneto, because his hat is cooler.

Please send me your hatred.

Winnner: Magneto

Call us names below!

(Note: This is a repost of the original).

I believe the topic of aging has been brought up in this forum before. I myself turned 40 in October. I don’t feel aged. Apart from my asthma. Oh, and arthritic and gout ridden feet. and my back issues. But apart from that I am spry as can be.

On the way into work today, I stopped at a pedestrian crossing where a very attractive young lady in an extraordinarily tight shirt was crossing in front of me. And instead of appreciating this lovely young thing and her assets as God intended, my first thought was “Jesus Christ, Girl it’s minus seven put a damned coat on!”

Only later did it occur to me that my opportunity for my own patented brand of lechery had long since gone

(Side note, 40 year old men check out teenage girls. We can’t help it. It’s a biological imperative. It’s only creepy if you stare for too long, or approach the girl, or act on it in some other way. Or describe it in a public forum, like say, a comedy blog. ahem.)

When I thought about it some more, it occurred to me that I have been exhibiting behaviors attributed to the elderly for some time, and merely applying them to nerdy pursuits. I even have a pair of “Old man pants” which I used to wear to torment my wife, and now I wear because they are comfortable. Pissing her off is just kind of a bonus.

Some examples:

You know the old “We used to walk to school 5 miles to school, you kids today” shtick? I find myself doing that with Role Playing Games.

“You kids today and your World of Warcraft. When I was your age, and I wanted to pretend to be a dwarf, I’d use a little something called my IMAGINATION! You wanted to kill something? You rolled for it, on dice! I didn’t even HAVE a 12 sided dice. I used to roll 2 six sided dice. Didn’t have 20 sided dice either…used 4 six sided dice and everything over twenty was critical. Then when we DID get dice, you couldn’t read the damn things unless you colured em in with a CRAYON!! BY HAND!!! Didn’t have any fancy maps. Graph paper is what we had! What’s a character sheet? I created Eldwich The Winterborn on LOOSE LEAF!!! Painted his LEAD figure by HAND I did! You little punks.”

Then there was the release of the Tron Legacy Trailer which prompted me to run around the office squealing like a 13 year old girl at a Twilight convention. When asked why I was so uncharacteristically not impossible to be around, I told my boss about the upcoming Tron Sequel.

“What’s Tron?” She asked

I gasped.

Her office mate looked at me blankly and gave a shrug, as if to say “I too will register my complete ignorance of something that used to be awesome and therefore negate your relevance.”

The words “I can’t believe you have never heard of…” came to my lips, but I simply turned around and left before I made matters worse.

I’m hesitant to get an Iphone…because I’m worried about NOT BEING ABLE TO FIGURE IT OUT. I had trouble getting the voicemail up and running on my last phone…That’s the telecommunications equivalent of the Flashing 12:00 on the VCR our parents perpetually had.

My pet name for anyone under 20 is “Puke” as in “I don’t want to go to Subway for lunch, all the little pukes from the High school will be swarming the place” Doesn’t that sound like something Clint Eastwood would say in his Oscar winning movie about a grumpy old man who (Teaches someone to box, learns not to be a racist, whatever)?

The only reason I listen to Modern bands like Muse is because they remind me of significantly less modern bands like Queen and ELO. And even then I watch one of their videos and think “The lead singer was probably not alive when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out…much less Star Wars.”

That, by the way, is the great age line for nerds. It’s not B.C and A.D, it’s BSW and ASW. It counts off from 1977. Hence the following sentences

“Raiders of the lost Ark dates back to the year 3 ASW” or “2001 and was a great leap for special effects especially when you consider it was released way back in about 7 BSW”

I suppose someone with a toy shelf of epic proportions in both his home and work office, and eagerly awaits sequels to his favourite PS3 games can’t be all that out of touch, but be warned. The day will come when I will be in the old folks home laughing my ass off the first time you pukes catch yourself saying “When we went and saw Avatar, all we had was 3-d Imax, and we were happy to have it. You kids and your dumb, loud holgraphic piece of crap movies.”

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Comments (13)
spcMike said on 25-03-2010
spcMike

Wait, what’s a VCR?

Tbinns said on 25-03-2010
Tbinns

At least you didn’t ask what a DVD was.

spcMike said on 25-03-2010
spcMike

Though to be honest I was born only 6 years ASW (just in time for ROTJ).

By the way, what are those old people doing to each other?

The Boss said on 25-03-2010
The Boss

Crap, I still don’t know what Tron is!!

Tbinns said on 25-03-2010
Tbinns

Respectfully…If I were you…namely a Duran Duran fan, I would be more concerned about my own irrelevance rather than making fun of someone elses.

Wait, now that I’m thinking about it…How can you be a Duran Duran fan and NOT know what Tron is?

The Boss said on 25-03-2010
The Boss

I don’t even know how I can sleep at night…… PS Duran Duran has way more talent than those 4 bowl cut prefabbed band members a.k.a The Beatles!

It’s really too easy to get you riled up, it’s like taking candy from a baby

Tbinns said on 25-03-2010
Tbinns

Someone else want to Take this…? Ringo? Where are you buddy?

Ringo said on 25-03-2010
Ringo

I’m angered beyond the capacity for rational thought.

(And there is another cool reference you’ll never get)

Oh… another?

“You are going to die angry and miss everything cool.”

Peace &.. Nope.

I can’t do it because the Dude abides (yes, a reference to Jeff Bridges who was in the original Tron movie & will be back for the sequel – and we come full circle. TADA!!)

All right, Duran Duran versus the Beatles. Well, if you look at anyone’s (even Duran Duran’s) top anything list about anything, the Bealtes will occupy 5 of top 10. The Beatles are referenced when talking abut music. ALL MUSIC. Start off with Bach, Mozart, Stones, The Who… it doesn’t matter, the Beatles will come up and we will all sigh like we’ve just tasted a warm cup of compliment from our mothers. “You’re a very good boy, I’m proud of you”. Thanks Beatles & mom. Duran Duran gets mentioned right after the phrase like, “like, OMG, like, weren’t the 80 fucked up. Regan & spandex & valley girls and Duran Duran. Thank, like, jeebus (another cool reference) that’s over!!”. Timeless versus forgotten. Talent versus pants. Duran Duran can make us dance. Nice. The Beatles, to quote a friend of mine, had control of our smiles & our tears all those years ago AND they never let go. They effect us. The Beatles will never, ever stop being relevant. They were a small step for four young lads and a giant event for all mankind. Duran Duran is flattened, dirty unwanted popcorn on a theatre’s sticky floor, stepped on by the crowd that has already forgotten the film they just saw because they are rushing to get out as soon as the credits start. Yes, they must hurry to the nearest TV to find out what Radio ga… er, sorry, Lady Gaga is up too.

Beatles forever!

The Boss said on 26-03-2010
The Boss

Hi Trevor! I knew it was you at “like, OMG, like, weren’t the 80 fucked up. Regan & spandex & valley girls and Duran Duran”….great effort though
The office mate said on 25-03-2010
The office mate

Yeah, we still don’t know what Tron is… we couldn’t even bring ourselves to watch more than a few seconds of the clip he sent us.

NotVictoria said on 25-03-2010
NotVictoria

No you will be like a village elder…me and my other pukes would gladly sit in front of you and listen intently as you pass on the knowledge of when Sega made consoles and when the dark knight was once known as ”batman” who had a side kick names “robin”. We will marvel at these facts.

Cate said on 29-03-2010
Cate

Man, I love Tron, I can’t operate an iphone to save my life and I love ELO. You’re making me feel prematurely old…

Tomass said on 31-03-2010
Tomass

First the text on this site is too small.

Second, I don’t know what and ELO is. Is it like EMO and is EMO like Emu only new and what those god dam kids are into? Is it just a prefix thing the “E”? Like “i” is to Macintosh products.

And where the hells the Consumers Distributing catalog gone to? Bring it back!

“I use to be with it then they changed what it was. Now what it is strange and weird…” – Grandpa Simpson

We here at The Correctness have listened to our fans, and we know we couldn’t design a superhero or supervillain smackdown to please everyone. In fact, we couldn’t design an article to please everyone, and I particularly can’t please anyone with anything for any reason. Mind you, somebody decided to make the film “Extreme Ops”, so I don’t know how any human could be pleased with that either.

Today’s undercard smackdown cage match pits two wily wizards against a flying rocket turtle. Our regulars know that I have certain prejudices against rocket skateboards, but a rocket turtle is an entirely different kind of rad. In fact, the right kind of rad. I very much want to be a rocket turtle when I grow up.

So, where do we begin? Let’s begin with asking why it is that Rufus Sewell is in “Extreme Ops”? It just keeps making less sense. Just radio the police for God’s sake, Interpol can make it to Switzerland. Why take the gondola down? Just ski! Oh, I see, the gondola was so that the Russian terrorists (Russian terrorists?) could stop it, so the good guys would have to do a 200’ drop from the gondola car and Xtreem-sports-you like Blueshie.

Competitor Powers:

1. Gargamel:
Gargamel has a big pot, and a pet cat Azrael. He hates/eats/needs smurfs.

2. Daedalus:
Daedalus has a hat he sometimes borrows, and a pet cat Dydo. He hates Hercules. He eats hummus, presumably.

3. Gamera:
Gamera is an overgrown turtle with a rocket ass. He is a pet. He also has either fire breath, or plasma breath, or Japanese schoolchildren love him. Japanese B and C cinema is very confusing. Anyway, he is a turtle, and he eats giant radioactive lettuce, and he has a rocket ass. He hates when he gets flipped upside down.

4. Rob:
I sometimes get a rocket ass when I eat too much greasy food, but I rarely get more than a couple of centimeters of lift. I can’t shoot fireballs out of my mouth, or plasma balls, but I do have balls. I also have a pot. I am allergic to cats. I eat hummus, and I am open to being flipped upside down by the right lady.

Let us assume that Daedalus, the bane of Hercules, has stolen the Mask of Vulcan, and he becomes invulnerable to the attacks of Gamera. This could be quite a battle, as Gamera attempts to crush and set Daedalus alight, and Daedalus furiously punches a giant turtle in his invulnerable shell.

Meanwhile, if Gargamel could be torn away from his, frankly, fetishistic obsession with smurfs, he could watch as the battle raged on. This cage match is going to come down to paper rock scissors. Gargamel has a pot. Turtles can be made into soup. Gargamel just has to wait as the fight between Gamera and Daedalus wearies them both, and Gargamel may then cook Gamera.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking “Rob, Gamera is powered by heat, and Gargamel’s pot is very small.” Furthermore you are also thinking “Daedalus has healing factor, and he could fight a really long time, especially with that crazy hat on.” , but you are thinking incorrectly. Daedalus does not have healing factor. But you know who might have it? Gargamel.
“Gargamel with healing factor?”, you ask incredulously. But you have not taken one important thing into account. Gargamel was originally trying to capture smurfs (or the plural “smurves”) to turn into gold, in the quest for the Philosopher’s Stone! Yes, not just invented by JK Rowling, The Philosopher’s Stone was the original writer’s cop out! I’ll do some googling to see whether or not Jesus was the first dude with healing factor, but I’m kinda thinking he wasn’t. Anyway, the Philosopher’s Stone might not be the absolute original writer’s cop-out, but it is the penultimate writer’s cop out. And just like healing factor, it allows your otherwise vulnerable heroes to be invulnerable, and it allows you otherwise inflammable heroes to become flammable, and your otherwise disgruntled heroes to be gruntled quite thoroughly.

So, while the battle rages on between Gamera and Daedalus, Gargamel is slowly making turtle/weirdo soup. Assuming he has a pot big enough. Which he might not have, unless he stole Galactus’s hat.

For those not in the know, I’m pretty sure Galactus was invented in 1991 to sell an unending series of summer super-specials and cross-overs in which there was a glove, and some rocks, and I had to read a 96 page Daredevil comic because there was mention of what Spiderman was up to. Anywho, Galactus had a hat. And his hat was pretty big, and one could probably cook a turtle and a dude in it.

I know what you are thinking. “How come Gargamel has access to Galactus’ hat, but he doesn’t have access to something more awesome?” Well, I don’t know. Anywaysies, Gargamel wins this battle, and makes rocket assed turtle soup.

Winner: Gargamel.

NEXT WEEK: Robin vs Aquaman vs. Darth Vader maybe.

Here at The Correctness SportsishNetwerkkz, we offer our be-all-end-all absolutely correct answers on which supervillains would win in a fight. Lex Luthor has bankrolled the competition.Which of the 8 will come out on top? The playoffs continue this week in the Pengrowth Deathdrome. It’s brutal, ugly, violent, and soul rending…and that’s just the comment section!!!

The Rules, and the Bracket were laid out in advance, in this post. Two days of prep, battle is held in the stadium, and it’s to the death. Game on.

THIS WEEK: Mystique vs Catwoman. The ladies duke it out to see who survives. For our purposes, Catwoman is her normal self from DC continuity, and Mystique is herself from standard Marvel continuity.

Rob:

Last smackdown, there was some concern about my homophobic disregard for the efficacy of particular mode of transportation. I would like to first apologize. I referred to the Green Goblin’s hovering jet scooter as a “Gay Rocket Skateboard.” This was unfair, and I am sorry. What I did was substitute the concept of homosexuality, rife with easy jokes, for the true intent of my dialectic, which was to suggest that anyone who rides a “Gay Rocket Skateboard” in not, in fact, necessarily, or even at all, gay (though it is possible statistically). Rather, I intended to convey that the act of flying around on such a device is less derisively “gay” and more utterly and impossibly emasculating in every conceivable way, and that gay and straight men alike feel a penis shrivelling, ball shattering, dick limpening, sack tightening horror at the idea of such a ridiculous contraption having any capacity for status-enhancing terror. On the top ten list of “Things Which Do Not Strike Fear into the Hearts of Men, and Women, and Kittens”, number one with a bullet is “Floaty rollerskates”, followed by “cloudmobiles”, and “cuddleplanes”.

Not only that, but men all over the world of any type of persuasion, queer, strait, transgendered, understand on an implicit and genetically pre-programmed level that a rocket sled of any kind is not going to get you laid, by man, woman, hermaphrodite, or compliant donkey. Your fantasy of having a hover board from Back To The Future dies when you realized driving in a multi seat motor vehicle, one often including a radio, is a far more effective method of attracting the ass of your particular orientation. Finding rocket skateboards a stupid thing for super villains to own and operate is not a choice. We are all born with an opinion on aerial sleds of all kinds, and on this matter we stand united: Nobody is scared of the dude on the NASA surfboard- in fact, this is why we think the Silver Surfer is so, not gay, or retarded, but rather cockpunchular, or if you prefer, douchetacular.

As for the matter of the fight between Mystique and Catwoman, I will not tarry long in a ridiculous straight-male fantasy that they will discover themselves suddenly very bisexual, extremely exhibitionist, and too aroused to fight. I will not describe, in any juvenile level of detail, the reflection of soft blue skin on milky white, in the low, low light of a steamy stadium. I will not elaborate on the possibility of Mystique taking the form of any beautiful woman, least of all Erin Cardillo, who, I will not go on to explain, plays the schoolteacher on the appalling “Suite Life of Zack and Cody: On Deck” and who is much, MUCH, too funny and beautiful for that show, as well as much too compelling of a performer to be in swiffer ads. I will not imagine Mystique and Catwoman drinking wine, agreeing to dress up, in no particular order, as a maid and a Catholic sorority girl, and I will not suggest the sound of two of the most extraordinary orgasms ever witnessed by humankind would render the sense of hearing forever purposeless, and make the music of the Beatles seem like the music of Yoko Ono’s diarrhea.

Mystique takes this one, despite the compelling and conflicted character of Catwoman, and despite the fact that Catwoman has sometimes outsmarted Batman. You nerds can talk all about how powerful Mystique is, or how wily Catwoman is. I’m pretty sure this catfight is over before it is done. Unless the make out thing happens.

Winner: Mystique
Runner Up: Michelle Pfeiffer’s awesome Catwoman
Honourable Mention: Erin Cardillo

Dave:

Some weeks we get many comments pointing out how wrong we are, and providing alternate arguments on why person X should beat person Y. We love this. This week, i’m thinking we’re going to see a near unanimous comment section. Why? Because this fight is so incredibly one sided, I’m questioning why we ever thought it would be a good idea. Well, there is the fanboy lesbian thing. Yes, I remember why now.

The fact is, I can’t think of a single clever way that a former prostitute turned jewel-thief with some acrobatic skills and no powers beats a 100 year old shapeshifter who has a limited healing factor (What, a Marvel character with a healing factor?????), is pretty much immune to poisons, and extremely agile.

Mystique’s main weapon is usually deception, and the ability to surprise and throw opponents off-guard due to looking like someone else. She might be able to end the fight in the first few seconds by pretending to be a guard taking Catwoman to the arena, then drop her like a rock. But assuming they both get to the ring without event, this one takes the guise of a standard slug-fest, albeit one with bikinis and oil. Wait, what? Well, I like it better that way, sue me.

It goes like this: Catwoman does some fancy flips, jumps on Mystique’s back. Mystique uses any one of 100 combat techniques she’s picked over the last 6 decades, and slams Catwoman to the ground. Catwoman jumps up, attacks, is beaten back. Rinse, Repeat. At some point, Mystique gets tired of the game, and advances, breaking Catwoman’s leg. As Catwoman staggers around, Mystique systematically breaks the remaining limbs, and eventually, snaps Catwoman’s neck.

Game, Set, Match.

Winner: Mystique

Tony

It’s been 3 hours and the crowd is getting restless.

Catwoman showed up on time, and has been pacing restlessly back and forth waiting for her opponent to show.

The audience knows Mystique could be anywhere. She could be sitting right beside them. For all they know, they could be sitting on her.

They start chanting “Start the fight, start the fight”. Catwoman shrugs, and does a few whip tricks to try and keep the crowd interested.

There is a fairly large number of sweaty men with their hands buried in their trench coats right up front who look particularly eager for this to start.

1 hour later, still no sign of Mystique. The announcement comes over the P.A.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your winner, by forfeit….”

“WAAAAITT!” screams Catwoman.. She motions to someone off to the side…he brings her a microphone.

As she takes the mic, her skin tight cat suit turns blue, she shakes her thick red hair free and laughs diabolically.

“Curiosity didn’t kill shit.” She says contemptuously…” I killed the cat. Last night. (She changes into Batman) For some weird reason she didn’t expect me to have a gun on me. (She changes back to Mystique) I’d ask for my money back if I were you.”

She gives the booing crowd the finger as she strolls out of the arena.

Okay, so that’s how I think it would go, but some of you might feel a little like the poor saps in the arena audience. You came to see a show and you didn’t get one. Well, let me just add a post script and say that if Mystique had decided to “Play fair” she’d still be the winner. In combat, I’d say they were pretty evenly matched. Catwoman can go toe to toe with Batman, but she has the advantage of her “Feminine wiles”, the Bat is basically wrapped around her paw and she knows it. No such luck with Mystique, who I would imagine would employ a strike and hide strategy, luring Catwoman into the audience and then…

shape change…wait…punch,

shape… change…. wait …kick.

If Catwoman decides “Fuck this” and heads back to the open arena, I wouldn’t put it past Mystique to pick her off from there. She does use guns, and certainly has no compunction about killing people.

Winner: Mystique.

I’ll be in my bunk.

Decision: Mystique

And so Mystique moves on to the Quarter-Finals. Tune in next week to see Magneto vs Sinestro. Magnets, or things made out of yellow? Sounds like science class!

Call us names below!

( Note: This is a repost of the original).

Dear Local Restaurant/Lounge:

I drove past your street sign the other day, its flourescent letters still arranged in their original message- a tantalizing offering to the urban teens with time to spare. How many words contain the necessary letters for “Ass Rods on Your Nuts”, I wonder? In any case, your sign, confoundingly, said the following:

“We have one of the best burgers in town!”

Where do I begin?

If you had simply claimed to have THE BEST burgerS in town, I would have understood you were attempting to promote your burger(s), which, subjectively, and according to no system of scientific standards that I am aware of, is (are) very tasty. No need to qualify your opinion by saying that you have, though not in a legally binding way, a competitively delicious burger. It’s an ad, I get it. In fact if the advertisement had said “we have the best burgers in the goddamn universe”, I would have still understood your signage , no matter how much hyperbole you chose to employ.

But, you did not say “we have the best burgers in town.” You said “We have one of the best burgers in town”.

Did you simply craft, in a perfect moment, one of the best burgers in town? If so, well done (no pun intended), but how long will your single masterwork burger be the best one? I’m going to hazard a guess that after about 30 minutes, I can get a hotter, more fresh burger at the A&W.

Did you go to another restaurant, and procure JUST ONE of the burgers from the best restaurant in town, and you wanted me to know that? As in “We have ONE of the best burgers in town.” ? Are you going to put this burger in the mix? Might I receive this burger instead of one of your own? Again, I bring up the shelf-life issue. And if it is from a fast food joint, I bring up the half-life issue. Eating fast food burgers is how people get bitten by radioactive lanterns and become Sinestro.

Or, did you want to threaten me? Did you take a burger hostage, and do you have a forthcoming list of demands? “We HAVE one of the best burgers in town, and if you don’t release the secrets of the burger, we will kill one Guatemalan immigrant every half hour. Bring mustard.”

Do you have no confidence in your burgers? Man up! Grow three extra dicks and scream it loud: “I have the best burgers and town, and shit yeah motherfucker, I have something to confess: I have four dicks!”

Oh, Local Restaurant/Lounge, high school is for everyone, and education is virtually free. Learn words or grow additional wangs.

Sincerely, RobbieRobTown.

*Note: Today’s motivational picture was taken behind the scenes of the very popular Vaticanland ride “It’s All Your Fault After All”

You have no idea how much it pains me to admit this. Trust me, I don’t like it any more than you do. But last night I found I could deny this no more and I had to come right out and say it.

Alyson Hannigan, adorable though she may be…

(sigh)

is not such a great actress.

This hurts me deeply, One of the reasons I first asked out my wife was that she reminded me of Alyson Hannigan. I am not debating cuteness at this juncture. But I feel I must state once again that Alyson is to acting what Dane Cook is to comedy, which is to say very successful in spite of not being very good at it.

I never watched Buffy, I’m sure it was awesome that her character turned into a bi sexual witch. I only ever saw American Pie once. Most of my exposure to her is through How I Met Your Mother, a show which is Legen (Wait for it, I hope you are not allergic to milk products because the next word is ) DERY.

But like Jerry Seinfeld before her she is consistently out acted by a talented cast her own show. Even Ted, the straight man gets more laughs out of me than she does. EVERYTHING SHE SAYS comes off wooden and artificial, like she’s reading a script. Every emotion seems forced, every moment canned. I was in denial for ages…”Awww but look at her” I’d say “She’s adorable! No, she’s not a bad actress, her lines are awkward, it’s not her fault…she’ll find her rhythm.” We are in season, what, 5 now? She still comes off like Keanu Reeve’s slightly less wooden sister.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s not January Jones on SNL bad, but she is the weak link in that cast without question. She’s got charisma to spare, but something about those line readings sound like …well…line readings. It kind of works when playing an uber shy nerd girl in American Pie, but as a confident adult it just rings false.

Maybe she would have went to Drama Camp instead of Band Camp.

Awww you see? I feel like a complete asshole for saying that, like I’m kicking a puppy.

You know what, I take it all back. She’s great. I’m sorry Alyson, I’m just a huge jerk.

Go Ahead. Say something mean to that face. I dare you.

—————————————————————-
Comments:

admin_rock said on 16-03-2010
admin_rock

No, a huge jerk would have posted a picture of Ted, or Marshall. You’re doing juuuuust fine.

Ringo said on 16-03-2010
Ringo

I know exactly the amount you wrote there about her. However, LOOK AT HER!!!

Shame.

Peace & Love,

Ringo

NotVictoria said on 18-03-2010
NotVictoria

Sorry I have to disagree there Mr.Binns I am in the middle of a huge Buffy craze right now and she is doing just fine in the year 2002. As an Avid hater of sitcoms I ask you when has a woman ever been funny in a sitcom? Never, they are always hot with forced lines…not to mention she is working alongside NPH.
Very few women are hot and genuinely funny…(I am a rarity) and if she is “make you laugh” funny it is scientifically proven her hotness stats go down.

Tbinns said on 18-03-2010
Tbinns

I will counter all of your arguments with two simple words: Tina Fey

I want to go to there.

NotVictoria said on 18-03-2010
NotVictoria

Sketch Comedy doesn’t count…I am going in the world of sitcoms here…and when I mean sitcoms I mean terribly bad sitcoms with a laugh track….cause I totally have a girl-crush on Jamie Presley.

Barroness said on 31-03-2010
Barroness

You are correct, sir! Her performances always leave me wanting more. Not more of her, just more substance. Something. Anything! But, no. Not quite as appalling as Andy McDowell (who should be relegated to acting in shampoo commercials), but still unnecessarily vapid and 2D. Not being a Buffy acolyte, I normally wouldn’t have taken not of her at all save that I have a certain soft spot for the “gingers” of this world.
See M. Roach’s “Roots of Desire: The Myth, Meaning and Sexual Power of Red Hair” http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=2-1582343446-1