Miserable Retail Slave

by RFP

If you haven't seen The Expendables yet, then clearly you are a flimsy girly man, afraid to bask in the unadulterated testosterone and overwhelming machismo of several manly men doing manly things.

After seeing all the explosions and gunfire and computer-generated blood, only one word floated in my otherwise vacuous head: awesome. You tend to block out the horrible dialogue and paper-thin plot and focus on the carnage. If I wanted to think, I would've have went to Inception. I tried to find out how many blank shells were used during filming, but my search came up empty. (1)

It's not going to be an Oscar candidate, but it's everything you would want and expect out of the greatest action heroes of the last 30 years. (2)

It would've been a mess of a story and completely impossible due to rights issues, but wouldn't it have been great to see the greatest badass characters in film history team up?(3)

For the record, my dream team would be: Conan the Barbarian, Rambo, Mad Max, Lee (Bruce Lee from Enter the Dragon), James Bond (Sean Connery style, please), Leon the Professional, Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson style, please) and special consultants, Indiana Jones and Walker, Texas Ranger.

Why, Walker, Texas Ranger? Because Chuck Norris could still kick any of our asses. And when you're in Texas, look behind you. Cuz that's where a ranger's gonna be. (4)

In keeping with the equal rights movement, women should get their chance to kick ass on the big screen as well. I've drafted up my version of an All-Woman Expendables. The rules for inclusion on this team are as follows:

• The woman must have kicked sufficient ass on the big screen.
• The woman must have a certain amount of sex appeal because I am a shallow pig like that. I wouldn't kick any of these ladies out of bed for eating cookies. 
• The above statement applies to all but one of the ladies on the team. It's sad that I have to state this explicitly, but I do. One of the ladies on the team is a 12 year old girl. Don't be gross. Again, she is exempted from Rule #2, but none of the others.
• We're going with fictionalized characters here, like the "dream team" I presented a few paragraphs ago. Although, even these women presented as themselves as new characters could carry an all- female Expendables squad.

The List.

Red Sonja (Brigette Nielsen)

The Red Sonja Brigitte Nielsen is a far cry from the monstrous old woman who pounced on Flavor Flav. Even before she was Ivan Drago's bride, she was swinging a sword and vanquishing evil. Despite the fact that Red Sonja's world was the same time period and world of Conan the Barbarian and DESPITE the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger was in Red Sonja and played Conan in two previous movies...his character was not Conan the Barbarian. How disappointing. Again, probably a pesky rights issue.

While looking for this picture of Nielsen as Red Sonja, I discovered that she took a few promotional pictures dressed up as She-Hulk, the Hulk's cousin. At the time, Marvel Comics had turned the popular Incredible Hulk TV series (starring Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby) into a series of made for television movies. 

The Bride (aka Beatrix Kiddo) (Uma Thurman)

Could you do this list without Kill Bill's main protagonist? Beatrix slashes her way through the gang that left her for dead on her wedding day. (6) She can fight AND she knows the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. (7)

Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter)

Not many people could pull this costume off. Lynda Carter sure does. Wonder Woman is super strong. She's an Amazon and lived with women the majority of her life. Hot.

She also has bracelets that deflect bullets, which seems rather useless. Like, couldn't you use that same material to cover her whole body? Thank God, they didn't. Like I said, that costume.

Wonder Woman also has a lasso, which is basically truth serum in rope form. That lasso gets ahold of you, you cannot tell a lie. That makes her impossible to date, but still fun to look at.

Based on my knowledge of "Super Friends" cartoons, she had an invisible jet, which seems pretty useless. "Look, up in the sky! It's Wonder Woman! Look out, she's squatting down like she's going to poo!"

That's what someone sitting on an invisible seat in an invisible jet would look like. Hopefully, that jet's been vanquished from current Wonder Woman tales.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Sarah Michelle Gellar)

As stated before, I am not a big fan of vampires these days. 

She's got the standard fighting skills to take down vampires, werewolves, demons, and all sorts of supernatural creatures of the night.

Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton)

If she can survive Schwarzenegger-skinned, metallic exoskeletons and dripping liquid cyborgs that look like Mulder's replacement on The X-Files, then she can survive anything.

Except leukemia. ( 8 )

Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver)

Predators hunt the Aliens for sport because they are dangerous and formidable, or so the Aliens vs. Predator series would have you believe.

Ripley can take them out all by herself. That makes her a tough broad and she makes the team.

Catwoman (Michelle Pffeiffer)

No offense to Halle Berry, but Pffeiffer is my current day Catwoman of choice. Something about that costume. I know that the leather and whip theme makes it seem like some S & M fetish, but c'mon. What male that grew up in the '80s and '90s didn't fantasize about this Catwoman?

Xena, Warrior Princess (Lucy Lawless)

She's got razor sharp frisbees and a battle cry that comes straight from mid-coitus. She tangles with gods (like Ares, god of war) on a regular basis and beds Hercules like it's no problem.

That's my team. There's probably a few more I could have included, but I will let you do that in the comments section.

-RFP

by RFP

(with an assist from Steven Lince)

It's the halfway point in the Major League Baseball season, which means it's time for the All-Star game, "the mid-summer classic," if you will.

Being a devout Detroit Tigers fan, I eagerly await to see which players make the all-star squad each year. And if one of those Tigers happens to make the annual Home Run Derby that precedes the actual All-Star game, so much the better.

This year MVP candidate, possible Triple Crown threat, one of the best players in baseball, and a feared hitter in search of redemption, Tigers' 1st baseman Miguel Cabrera has entered the contest.

We'll see how it goes. The Tigers have been well represented in the Home Run Derby over the past few years and the results have been mixed. Cabrera, who is a few HRs behind the league leader, plays in one of the biggest ball parks in the league, but his size matched with a perfect swing makes the dimensions of Comerica Park look small.

Past Tigers in the Home Run Derby have not performed extremely well. Here are their results:

1990 - Cecil Fielder: 0 HRs ("Big Daddy" hit 51 homers that season)

1991 - Cecil Fielder: 4 HRs (The reigning HR champ lost to Cal Ripken, Jr., who hit 12)

1993 - Cecil Fielder: 7 HRs (One time future Tiger, Juan Gonzalez won the event in a playoffwith Griffey that year)

1998 - Damion Easley: 2 HRs (Easley had a career high 27 home runs and 100 RBI that year)

2005 - Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez: 20 total HRs (Pudge was the first Tiger to play in the tournament style HR Derby. He lost in the finals in his home stadium at Comerica Park to Bobby Abreu)

2007 - Magglio Ordonez: 2 total

2009 - Brandon Inge: 0 total

Cabrera participated in the 2006 home run derby and came in 3rd with 15 total homers.

All this All-Star nostalgia got me so drunk with memory that I've decided to resurrect an All-Star team that myself and former co-worker Steve discussed at length when we should have been working. It's a team of players culled from TV and movies.

The only rules as to what players could be selected are as follows:

No cartoon characters. Bugs Bunny can play a mean game, but nope.

No animals. None of that Air Bud shit is allowed. Neither is Ed, a movie in which your Friend and mine, Matt LeBlanc, finds his swing due to a friendship with a monkey. That movie sucked.

No real life players as played by actors. However, real life players who played characters are allowed. That means no Babe Ruth as played by John Goodman or Ty Cobb as played by Tommy Lee Jones. Etc.

The Line-Up

1st Base: #5 Jack "Mr. Baseball" Elliot (as played by Tom Selleck in Mr. Baseball) from the Nagoya Chunichi Dodgers by way of the New York Yankees.

Jack Elliot was traded to Japan to make room for a young character played by Frank Thomas. The Yankees lost a veteran player who was on the verge of rediscovering his stroke. While in Japan, Elliot recorded 7 consecutive games with a home run. Power hitting 1st basemen are where it's at.

2nd Base: Tony Micelli (as played by Tony Danza in the TV sitcom, Who's The Boss?) from the St. Louis Cardinals.

After injuring his shoulder, promising young player Tony Micelli becomes a domestic housewife under the employ of Angela Bower, an icy frost bitch and successful executive. Before that, Micelli could play some ball. Besides, there's not many 2nd basemen represented in pop culture.

3rd Base: Josh Exley (as played by Jesse L. Martin in The X-Files episode, "The Un-Natural")

A negro league player based out of Roswell, New Mexico who could hit towering moonshots and had the ability to play in the major leagues. Mr. Exley didn't want the spotlight, however, because he was being hunted by the Ku Klux Klan. In reality, Exley was an alien and the Klan member hunting him was an alien bounty hunter. Ah, The X-Files. Meanwhile, Mulder came close to the truth because it was out there and Scully rolled her eyes and refused to believe.

RP: Sam "Mayday" Malone (as played by Ted Danson on the TV sitcom, Cheers) from the Boston Red Sox

Depending on which season of the show you watch, Mayday was pretty decent (the earlier seasons) or the pits (later seasons). I choose to believe he was somewhere in between. He did have his "Slider of Death" after all. Then again, he did give up 4 home runs in one game. He's beaten his alcoholism (without the aid of his trusty bottle cap), so Sam gets another chance. 

RP: Kenny Powers (as played by Danny McBride on the HBO series, Eastbound and Down)

by RFP

You're walking through the woods or near a tree line and you hear the slight rustle of leaves and branches being pushed aside. You stop in your tracks, look intently into the woods, but you never see anything.

It's my hypothesis that those noises are always caused by a Predator using his cloak technology.

The only reason you're not slaughtered on the spot is because you're not armed and Predators hunt for sport. There's no sport in unarmed prey. Yet another reason not to have a CCW permit.

I always worry that my pop culture references will be dated at some point, but then I remember Hollywood is fond of recycling concepts and tickling your nostalgia bone. 'Predators' starring Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, and Topher Grace is set to be released this week. It's based on a script that Robert Rodriguez wrote 15 years ago about a group of the best assorted fighters and killers from Earth being taken to a planet of Predators to be hunted.

I am hoping that with a planet of Predators, we will see a little diversity. Thus far, we have only seen the redneck hunter types. They are a race of advanced creatures. I mean, they have all these fancy weapons and they're advanced enough to build spaceships to fly them across the galaxy. I want to see the nerdy Predators with glasses and pocket protectors. I want to see the nagging Predator housewives (1). I'm probably the only one.

So. Suppose your walking down this path and your carrying a rocket launcher that you just bought at Wal-Mart(2) and you hear movement in the woods. Suddenly, you see three little laser pointer dots, which is a tell-tale sign that a Predator has you in his sights and is about to blow a hole in your head.

But, you're not alone. You went to Wal-Mart with your friend, who wanted to buy a microwaveable pizza. Of the two Predator slaying heroes (3), which one would you rather have by your side in the moment when you have been targeted.

You're options are:

• Major Alan "Dutch" Shaeffer (aka Arnold Schwarzenegger from the original Predator) - Dutch (like the oven) is the leader of an elite team tasked with rescuing some hostages, but end up getting hunted by a Predator. Members of his team include Apollo Creed and Jesse 'The Body' Ventura, who chews tobacco because "This stuff'll make you a goddamn sexual Tyrannosaurus." Dutch rallies his troops with pearls of wisdom like "If it bleeds, we can kill it" and "Get to the chopper!" (4)
• Lt. Mike Harrigan (aka Danny Glover from Predator 2) - Supercop Harrigan bursts on the scene in the opening moments of the film, taking out a gang that had held an entire police force at bay. He doesn't mess with the politics of police work and does what needs to be done to keep the public safe.

Dutch may have biceps, literally, the size of most people's heads, but when he starts shouting orders could you keep a straight face? C'mon. With that accent? It's hilarious. And could you put up with those one-liners while you're dodging fire from a vagina-faced manhunter?

by RFP

When Captain America debuted in December 1940 (a year before Pearl Harbor and America officially joined the war), he was shown on the cover of the premiere issue of Captain America Comics punching Adolph Hitler in the face.

America was completely un-PC in the 1940s when it came to matters of war.

Daffy Duck was shown in cartoons smashing Hitler over the head with a hammer. Bugs Bunny tangled with Japanese soldiers. Batman and Superman pimped the purchase of war bonds and stamps on the covers of their comics.

Wouldn't it have been great to see Spongebob throw dynamite down Kim Jong Il's pants? Who wouldn't want to see Captain America bounce his shield off Osama Bin Laden's nasty bearded face?

Everyone apparently

I really wish America was still like that sometimes. We're so careful about offending each other these days. All it takes is two people writing a nasty letter and the entire nation has to be bent and shaped to match the wishes of those two people.

The only cartoon characters to respond to the attacks of the Taliban after 9/11 were Stewie Griffin and Toby Keith. That's shameful really. An attack on America in one of the world's most famous cities and we can't even show the Powerpuff Girls tossing some al Queda into a tarpit or something.

Maybe my ideas are wild. Certainly there are some drawbacks to rampant propaganda. A lot of times the posters and cartoons of the '40s crossed a line, turning enemy soldiers, particularly the Japanese, into inhuman monsters.

However. A person like a Hitler or an Osama Bin Laden really cannot be turned into more a monster than they are/were in real life.

by RFP

As the 12:01 start of NBA free agency draws nearer, speculation continues to grow regarding where superstar Lebron James will play next year. Will he remain a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers or will he bolt to a more promising franchise?

Naturally, this question raises an even bigger one: who would win in a game of one-on-one between Lebron James and Godzilla?

Yeah, Godzilla can ball a little bit. I remember in Jr. High, back in the glory days of NBA Jam, there were rumors of a Godzilla cheat code. It would've be tops to play as the big, rubber irradiated lizard. Sadly, we had to settle for playing as Hilary Clinton.

I can't definitively answer the question of where James will ball next year, but I can tell you which global icon would beat the other in a pick-up game on the street.

For the purposes of this question, let's assume that Lebron James has grown to around the same height as Godzilla using the growth ray from Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1), which, you might say, is ridiculous because Rick Moranis (2) hasn't been seen in years. But c'mon. You're reading an article about Godzilla playing Lebron James in basketball. You've already suspended disbelief.

So who wins this game?

Godzilla has faced many opponents over the years. Mothra, King Kong, Mecha Godzilla, that 3 headed dragon thing. He's used his tail, fire breath, and brute strength to ensure victory. But, you can't do that in basketball. Setting Lebron on fire would just send him to the free throw line. 

So, in a straight up basketball game, Lebron James wins. We are all witnesses.(3)

In the only other game of hoops that Godzilla had ever played, he was dominated by Charles Barkley. No defensive skills whatsoever. As good of a player as Barkley was, Lebron is much more dominant. 

The big lizard doesn't stand a chance. 

Footnotes:

1. When I was a kid, I didn't realize that "Honey, I Blew Up The Kid", the sequel to "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", referred to Rick Moranis' character turning the kid into a towering monster. I assumed "Blew up" meant "explode". I couldn't believe a dad would make his own kid explode like a stick of dynamite

2. I think Rick Moranis is hiding out with Dana Carvey and the chick that played Janet on Three's Company at some sort of hippie commune. They play tennis and checkers all day long whilst sipping on margaritas. That's what I choose to think

3. What a ridiculous slogan. Especially when it was released a few years ago during the playoffs. As if Lebron was destined to rampage through the playoffs, straight to the finals, his first championship, a finals MVP trophy, and all the bodies that he ran over to get their laid strewn about in his wake. And we would all be witnesses to that. It never happened though. Too bad.

by RFP

Poor Edward Cullen sits in his tragic room, running his hands through his large, messy hair, while a playlist filled with Death Cab for Cutie and Muse cycles on repeat over iTunes.(1)

He frantically clicks "refresh" over and over again as he waits for Bella to update her status on Facebook. With his free hand, Edward scribbles  the words "Ed + Bells = 4evr" all over his Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper and bemoans the fact that he's different and the world would never approve of his and Bella's scandalous love.

This is the sad state of vampires in pop culture today. 

When a person is bitten by a vampire these days, they are filled with the virus EMO.(2) After they change, the EMO virus gives the infected superhuman strength, an insatiable thirst for blood, the desire to stare meaningfully at a bare wall while pondering the meaning of life and the ability to cry on command after thinking about the end to Marley and Me.

These days, vampires are counting all the ways they could fall in love with you, rather than counting all the ways to horribly maim you. They'd rather love you to pieces than rip you to shreds. 

It used to be that vampires couldn't walk out into the sun because they'd burst into a ball of hellfire and die a horrible, fiery death, similar to what happens to gingers (red-heads, if you will) when they are exposed to sunlight. The pompous vamps of today simply refuse to walk into the sunlight because they're shiny. People would quietly judge the vampires if they were to be seen in public on a sunny day. Body glitter is so 2004, after all.

For decades, vampires were portrayed as little more than animals who used their mojo to seduce women to feed their blood lust. Check out this scene from Near Dark. That is a real vampire.

But, all it takes is one version of a vampire - a version that makes a country-full of money - that uses a can of Axe body spray in order to seduce a woman into cuddling on the couch and watching 'The Notebook' on a Friday night. All of a sudden, the copycats start popping up. 

Now, all vampires are reborn emo children with big hair and somber dispositions.

The same thing happened a few years ago with another supernatural horror genre that has been experiencing its own wave of niche popularity in recent years.

Two words: Fast. Zombies.

28 Days Later introduced the world to zombies that sprinted at you instead of slowly shuffling around. Suddenly, every zombie had to be a world class Olympic sprinter.

See also: Scream. After Scream made a ton of money, every slasher film was extremely self aware. The potential victims in the movies were well versed in the "rules" of the slasher genre (for example: teens that do drugs or sneak off to have sex always get killed). 

It would be bearable, if Twilight stood alone. But everywhere you look, vampires are lurking around looking to date all our human women. The Vampire Diaries, The Gates, True Blood. Adorning my Burger King bags is Robert Pattinson's glassy-eyed stare. Snoop Dogg's making rap songs about his love for True Blood. 

Why would a person want to date a vampire? Where there's a vampire, there is usually a werewolf. If you were allergic to dogs, this would not be ideal. Ever been around someone who drinks coffee all day long? Their breath absolutely reeks. I imagine a vampire drinking rabbit blood all day would give off a similar stink.(3)

Can you imagine a human / vampire couple moving in next door? There goes the neighborhood. 

I'm not usually one for mass genocide and the extinction of a species, but vampires are evil, demon possessed agents of hell. In this case, I think it's warranted.

Before I go any further, if you happened to get to this article via a search engine whilst searching for Twilight-related news, I'm sure you are counting all the ways that you could tell me that I suck and Edward Cullen is hotter than I will ever be. (4)

If this is the case, you probably 14, female, and not someone I want to mess with. 

The fact is you young ladies will one day rule the country (or at least lord over the men that rule the country) and I am fairly certain that the Democratic and Republican parties will be dissolved at some point in favor of Team Edward and Team Jacob.

I don't need bounties on my head. Teenage girls hold grudges. They NEVER forget. So Edward is spared. The rest must go.

The list of the targeted vampires can be found below in the footnotes.(5)

The crack team of vampire exterminators, which I have carefully selected, are as follows:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: She's cute. Her ass ratio is 50% smart, 50% bad. Only problem is she might try to sleep with most of the vampires. Hussy.

Blade: But only if he isn't taxed for his services.(6)

Bon Jovi (aka "Derek Bliss" from Vampires: Los Muertes): Those vampires are "livin' on a prayer" if they think they can escape from the "bad medicine" that Jon Bon will dish out when he comes riding in on his steel horse. 

Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman): On second thought, that movie sucked and he's some sort of werewolf, if I remember right. Forget him. Jackman can still come along, but as Wolverine.

Simon Belmont (from the 'Castlevania' video games): Theme song = "Whip it" by Devo. Lame joke = yes it was.

Abraham Lincoln: I mean, obviously.

Once the pop culture universe is completely purged of all traces of vampiric activity, maybe we can start from scratch and usher in a new age of more violent, deadly, scarier vampires.

Then we can start on the werewolf problem that has started to crop up lately...

-RFP thinks that the "give me an effin' break" news that he heard earlier in the week that some genealogy website traced the heritage of both Robert Pattinson and Stephanie Meyer back to the bloodline of the real Dracula is a fantastic piece of publicity. And also a load of...well, you know.

Footnotes:

1. Muse has contributed some of the most overwrought song titles in the history of music to the Twilight soundtracks. 'Supermassive Black Hole' from the original is joined by 'Neutron Star Collision (Love is Forever)' on the Eclipse soundtrack. In between, is 'I Belong to You' from New Moon. The songs form a trilogy of emo douchebaggery. Starting from being an empty nothing without love to possession to sparks flying. Give it up to Muse for being featured on all three coveted Twilight soundtracks. They know how to cater to the tween audience by pretending to be a real rock band.

2. EMO is a virus that infects millions of Americans on a daily basis. Vampires seem to have a higher concentration of the virus that normal human beings, but humans can catch a strain of it at any time. One of the main carriers of the EMO virus seems to be soundwaves, primarily those waves that are emitted from music. Famous bands that have been known to transmit the sickness include: The Cure, Morrissey, Eliot Smith, Counting Crows, Hootie & the Blowfish, Dashboard Confessional, and many more.

3. Yes, I know vampires do not have "breath" because they do not "breathe" therefore they cannot have "bad breath," which is why I used the word "stink" instead. My asshole doesn't breathe, but it still stinks.

4. While trolling the web for 'research' and whatnot on Twilight, I stumbled upon a page where fans used to send in questions to Stephanie Meyer, author of the series, and she would answer their questions. Very cool thing to do. But, after reading a few of these, I realized what a scary people these Twilight super fans actually are. Questions were asked about, I shit you not, how Edward could possibly get a boner because he has no blood flow. She came up with some answer involving "venom" flowing through vampire's veins and mimicking all of their regular body fluids. Meaning Edward Cullen shoots out venom when he ejaculates. This disturbed me even more. I really wouldn't want to see that money shot.

5. The following vampires must be eliminated from pop culture memory due to their impact on vampire culture: Count Von Count; Dracula, Bela Lugosi style; Maximillian (Eddie Murphy) from Vampire in Brooklyn; the Countess from Jim Carrey's first (horrible) movie, Once Bitten; Count Chocula; Selene (Kate Beckinsale) from Underworld, even though she's super hot; Spike and Angel from the TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer;   Satanico Pandemonium - Click on the link. So hot. (aka Salma Hayek) and her snake in From Dusk Till Dawn; Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) from 30 Days of Night; Dracula, Duncan Reghr style from The Monster Squad; Max Schrek aka Nosferatu (Willem Dafoe) from Shadow of the Vampire; Bunnicula, the vampire rabbit; Lestat (Tom Cruise) and Louie (Brad Pitt) and hell, Christian Slater (just because) from Interview with the Vampire; Elvira; Blacula (William Marshall); Dracula, Leslie Nielsen style from Dracula: Dead and Loving It; The entire casts of True Blood, The Gates, and The Vampire Diaries; Dracula, Christopher Lee style; The entire town of 'Salem's Lot; The Lost Boys, specifically Kiefer Sutherland's Billy Idolesque vamp; Anne Rice; The Jerry Maguire kid's -the one with the useless factoids about the weight of the human head - best friend from The Little Vampire. Any other relevant vampire that you think needs to be added to this list, please add them in the comments section.

6 This is a Wesley Snipes joke. He doesn't like to pay taxes. Like millions of dollars worth. Allegedly.

by RFP

Geek Question: Which Karate Kid Would Win in a Fight?

It's Friday night, it's been a long work week, and it's time to sit back and enjoy life with some close friends.

At some point, after the fifth beer of the night has been cracked open, one of your friends will inevitably ask the most important question that you have been asked all week.

That question is this: "If you locked all three of the Karate Kids in a steel cage and made them fight in a triple threat, no holds barred, death match, who would win?"

Most of the people in the room with you two, the ones that do not roll their eyes and question why they are friends with such unbelievable losers, will quickly answer either a) Daniel Larusso b) Ralph Macchio or c) That kid from the first one.