Things I find Awesome

So Not Chill

jakehurwitz:

I’ve been on vacation with my family in Nantucket for the last week. You see a lot of people dressed in really obnoxious clothing out here, which is fine, it’s just their style. But among all the seersucker pants and boat shoes there’s one thing that I really take offense to. Popped collars.

The thing about popping a collar, first and foremost, is that it’s out of style. Even when it was popular among assholes and posers, it was not cool. Now, however, it’s not cool and also dated.

I think the thing that gets me most about it though is that it’s a conscious effort to look like a dick. It’s taking an otherwise perfectly normal shirt and sabotaging it. It’s not as if you bought a pair of pants that have since gone out of style, only you still wear them when you haven’t done laundry. That fashion crime would be like manslaughter. Popping your collar is murder one.

I'll show you how crazy I am, just give me a pencil

I’ve been sitting on this for a few days, but I cannot contain myself any longer.  I believe that the Joker’s “Pencil Trick” is the most psychotically shocking display of violence that I have ever seen.

At an assembly of mob bosses, with their retinue of flunky body guards and trigger-men, a slight, solitary man walks boldly, if quirkily into the room.  Being in the presence of the most dangerous men in Gotham (if not the world) does not seem to faze him at all.  In an entourage of highly priced, well tailored suits, this man has a cobbled together uniform that evokes the image of a poor vaudevillian performer.  His hair is greasy and unevenly dyed green, bringing to mind toxic waste, or runoff sludge.  His face is painted white, but distracted application and sweat have made cracks appear in his visage. His mouth is a crimsonly painted and much distorted smile that, while barely covering scars, does nothing to hide the uneasiness that his bizarre mannerisms inspire.

His speech is simple, his tone eerie.  He respects nobody at the table, he barely acknowledges their presence as he describes his plan:  To Kill the Batman.

Nobody takes this offense more personally than Gambol, who sends one of his men to go “escort” the clown outside.  This is the setup for his great trick.  “I want to show you a magic trick boys” he says in his slower than normal cadence, as if every word is handpicked out of a chaotic jumble in his mind.  He already knows what he wishes to do, he simply needs to present it properly.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls a pencil out; he slowly and deliberately places it standing up on a table as the intimidating bodyguard draws closer.  “I am going to make this pencil disappear” he says not watching the gangsters.  He is focusing intently on his pencil, waving his hands over it, as if willing it to dematerialize.  The bodyguard is now withing arms reach, and lunges menacingly at the macabre magician.  It is at this moment that he becomes the unwilling assistant to the execution of the trick.

With a speed and agility that we have not seen from him yet, the made-up menace deftly evades the brawny thug.  With the poise and control of a ballet dance he grabs the doomed enforcer by the back of the head and drives him, eyeball first into the up-turned pencil.  Over as quickly as it has begun, the pencil fully embedded into the bodyguard’s skull, the center of attention gazes up proudly at the now shocked Mafiosos. 

“TA-DAAAAAAAAAA!” he exclaims satisfied by his trick.  We as an audience have now been properly introduced to Batman’s greatest foe:  The Joker.

The switch from quirky to killer happens quicker than the eye can follow.  The genuine pride in what is, admittedly, an impressive trick is sickening.  His presence is frightening, his aura is eerie.  Now that Heath Ledger is gone you cannot see this character without feeling the spectre of death.  It is almost too perfect.  This is what the Joker is.  He is a sadistic clown with an aura of death.  He frightens everyone around.  If you do not feel intimidated by him, then you are truly in his realm of psychosis.     

samreich:

It’s my birthday!

 Happy birthday dude.  Keep up the good work at CH, your direction is adding some serious skill and focus to the mad-cap hilarity of the people around you.

Sure I can break the rules....they're my rules

This site is called things I find awesome.  Basically the point for me to write this was as a piece of cosmic balance to the other blogs I have seen out there.  In a society where everyone tends to create a blog to make fun of someone/something, I wanted a blog that celebrated the things in life I enjoy.  Basically this is the universal if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all.  I have to break that rule, because I need to vent a frustration I have.

I hate cell phones.

I have a cellphone.  I have had one for 7 years.  Most of my family has a cellphone.  The ones that don’t either spend all of their time by their home phone, or at Work.  I believe that everyone of my friends has a cellphone, and if they don’t, I haven’t spoken to them since the last time I saw them.  I’m pretty sure they all have phones.

Everytime I switch phones I live in a technological diaspora, because I rarely remember to transfer my numbers from one phone to another before getting rid of my old phone.  This is actually a good thing because it validates who my true friends are, because I am more in touch, and thus more likely to get calls from them, thus re-adding them to my phone.

I run around a lot. I work long hours for long stretches at a time.  If it wasn’t for my cell phone, I wouldn’t be reachable.  It also acts as my home phone, because why spend money if I don’t have to?  When I am on vacation, I rarely look at my phone, because I usually am seeing the people I want to speak with.

My phone records show that with the exception of my sister Cynthia, none of my phone conversations last longer than 2 minutes, unless I am on hold.

So my cell bio is out there.  I hate cells, but more than that I really get peeved at the people who use them. Here are some cell antics that annoy me.

Other people Text messaging during a movie or play distracts me, and annoys me.  We paid to see this.  If you didn’t want to see it, why did you come?

People talking on their phone while walking down the street annoys me.  Life is beautiful, enjoy it.  Talk to your friends when you see them, think to yourself while you walk.  An exception to this is if you are lost on the way to meet your friends somewhere.  These calls should last no longer than 2 minutes.

People talking about nothing on the phone.  I understand a “hi, how’s it going” is customary when starting a phone conversation, but Christ there have been many occasions where I have heard people discussing their supper to people on the phone.  Is it just me, or is that really a waste of time that could be better spent thinking of something better to talk about?

I think worse than all of these things put together and multiplied by 10 though are people who don’t know what their own phone sounds like.  These people sit oblivious to the sound of their phone ringing, only realizing after 10 rings that they have just annoyed everyone around them.  It’s aggravating when the person is unapologetic about their being annoying, but It frustrates me worse when they apologize about it.  It doesn’t change what just happened, it won’t change the next time you’ll be annoying.  Stop apologizing and start being smart enough to remember your own ringtone.