a quick ten while he's away

1. It's always a good idea to periodically check on recently released movies to see how easily they can be retitled into pornos. For instance (in increasing order of absolute stupidity):

The Curious Cock of Benjamin Button (The Curious Case of Benjamin Butthole?)
Cumdog Millionaire
Gran Whorino
Quantum of Phallus
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skullfuck
The Spiderdick Chronicles
Pole Models
Rim's Island
Revolution Load
The Breastler
WALL-Eat Me
Marley and Pee

Keep 'em coming.

2. On BJL's recommendation, I took a few online ADD diagnostic tests. To my complete non-surprise, they all came up screamingly positive, as in, dude, go find a mental health professional in the next fifteen minutes. I told my wife about this, who thinks "yeah well maybe but really you just need to learn better habits." I am inclined to agree -- I think 90% of the people I know exhibit strong ADD symptoms. But I don't want to go on Ritalin or anything, so I guess I'll lump it with the rest of you losers.

3. Going to see Knicks v. LeBron on Wed. night with my ex-boss. I hope LeBron goes for Kobe's garden record. And I hope Ray Williams plays within the team concept.

4. I am looking for a signature dish that I can make for my wife/kid. It needs to be:
a) simple
b) not completely without nutritional value
c) kid-friendly
d) easy to make in a big batch and refrigerate/freeze

5. I miss my moped.

6. Super Bowl was great. I kind of just wish they had taken an extra minute to confirm that Warner's arm was not moving forward on that last fumble. I think they got it right, but I really wanted to see one final heave to the endzone with Fitzgerald jumping against the whole Steeler defense.

7. I am still reeling from the choice of Biz Markie for next year's halftime show, but in the end I think it is wise.

8. I think Hugh Jackman will be an affable but totally forgettable Oscar host. Next year, Biz Markie, goddammit.

9. Just a reminder: you're going to die. Sooner than you expect. And the vast majority of your waking hours will be spent doing some douchebag's bidding. By the time you are out from under the douche's command (band name?), your body will be a broken down husk of what it once was, full of mushed-up bones and failing organs, and 75% of life's pleasures will no longer apply to you.

The good news: drinking will still get you all kinds of fucked up.

10. HIATUS countdown: 115 days. Is that too soon to start a countdown.

***BONUS ARCHIVAL MATERIAL: After creating this post, I was feeling vaguely nostalgic for times that never existed, and I decide to take a stroll through the verbungle.com archives to see how far we've come. Here is what I found. What I think is interesting is 1) That I actually seemed to know about this smutlaw, or at least pretended to and 2) That five years ago, I was busy making up bad porno titles, just as I am today. Oh well.

2/4/4: The 60% Solution

No matter what your views on pornography are, it's hard to feel 100% happy about what's happened in Times Square over the last six or seven years. For much of his tenure, Mayor Giuliani crusaded to get rid of the seedy-ass sex shops that helped give the neighborhood its delightful hellish appeal. Eventually, in one of those weird compromises that pleases nobody, adult stores within 500 feet of residences, schools, or churches were only allowed to stay open if 60% of their business was devoted to non-pornographic merchandise. Now that didn't mean that 60% of their revenue had to come from non-smut, just that 60% of their floor space had to be devoted to "legitimate" stuff. A lot of businesses simply had to close down, or move to desolate areas where it would be hard to make ends meet (do you really want to go out to Staten Island just to pick up that fisting video your mother-in-law's been clamoring for?). But porn purveyors are not stupid, as a rule, so what some of them did is load up their shops with 60% of the most ridiculously unbuyable merchandise you'd ever come across, in an effort to meet the requirements. Now it doesn't make a lot of financial sense to own a store that's mostly filled with stuff you don't ever intend to sell, but it starts to add up when coupled with the fact that so many porno shops had to shut down. If you're one of five sex shops within a ten block area, instead of one of fifty, you can do some serious business even while offering a ton of shitty old mainstream movies, schlocky souvenirs and low-end electronics. So you wind up with places like the aptly named "Mixed Emotions," which to anyone who's got a brain is clearly catering to smut shoppers. But to appease some non-existent segment of the population that wants to hide the porn in plain view, they offer up crappy stuff like "Seven Years in Tibet" (not to be confused with "Seven Queers in Tibet" or "Seven Inches into Beth," which are located in different sections). So I guess the anti-porn people consider it a victory because they've considerably sterilized Times Square, and the pro-porn folks are OK because they can still get their hands on the goods, but shouldn't the human race have arrived at a place where we can be honest about who we are and what we want? If anything, the 60% rule has removed some of the stigma of entering a porn shop -- "Oh Hi Ralph, I was just here to pick up one of those hilarious fake Simpsons 'I Love NY' T-shirts. You too, huh?" -- which kind of takes the bite out of the law. You could argue that the rule has created a less seamy neighborhood without really sacrificing our ability to buy "dirty books" and the like (which may indeed be true), but it seems to me that it's up there alongside "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in that it forces us to pretend to be something we're not, because it's impossible to make us become something we're not. In all these years of struggle, haven't we earned the right to step forward and choose what we want for ourselves without being told what that is? And has Times Square really become any less nauseating, or has it just changed the manner in which it sickens you?

P.S. Before Giuliani left office, he was pushing legislation that would get rid of the 40% rule and make it legal to close down ANY shop that sells pornographic material. Does anyone know what happened with this?