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02/16/12--13:38: Top Chef Finale Recap: The Stupid Olympics (chan 2293677)

It’s Part One of the Top Chef Season 9 Texascouver Finale, entitled Culinary Olympics, and let me just begin by saying, many people have incessantly complained about this season (most notably my mothers’ texts at 11:01 every Wednesday), saying that it’s the worst Top Chef season yet. I haven’t totally agreed, as I believe peoples’ reservations are more a factor of just Top Chef fatigue in the show’s 9th season mixed with a largely uninspiring cast (with one head-and-shoulders favorite who should’ve been named the winner six weeks ago). The challenges, on the contrary, have actually been very good this season, as they’ve mostly bypassed gimmicky themes (Bi-Parti-Sandwich, or “Cook something a penguin would eat!” “I think a penguin would love this braised shortrib”) and arbitrarily-restricting challenges in favor of challenges that showcase the chefs’ actual ability and give them more creative freedom (the “Pee Wee bikes” was a rare gimmicky exception, but at least it wasn’t the Finale). Last night’s episode, however, was the complete opposite. It was the most gimmicky challenge imaginable, running the chefs through numerous obstacles that 1) Had nothing to do with actual cheffing, 2) Were not the least bit interesting to watch, and 3) Had NO BEARING on the dishes they ended up presenting. It was, in a sense, a betrayal of this season’s most redeeming aspect: Letting the cooks just cook and not having them lose because their sweet pea risotto wasn’t an accurate thematic encapsulation of what The Luxor Hotel is all about. Anyway, with all that being said, let’s DO SOME RECAPPING! Here are some dumb photos and words: The Finale opens with the chefs all reconvening in British Columbia at the famous, picturesque Vancouver Park And Ride. They’re not happy that they’re stuck on the first-ever freezing-cold Top Chef Finale destination, but sorry, you kind of deserve it. We’ve sat through this season, so just shut up and mention ‘Toyota Time’ and let’s move on. The chefs drive to a ski area in Whistler, a prominent location during the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010 (topical already!), where they’re met by Tom, Padma, and Olympic snowboarding silver medalist Gretchen Bleiler (no offense to her, but Bravo clearly tried and failed to book Lindsey Vonn, Shaun White, Apolo Ohno, Bode Miller, Dan Jansen, Michael Phelps, Jessie Owens, or the remaining cast of Snow White And The Hunstmen – snow!) For the first challenge, the chefs will have to cook in ski gondolas, because a Bravo producer just looked over and saw gondolas and was like “Alright so that’ll be our placeholder challenge til we think of a real idea” then it was time to shoot and he was like “Whoops!” Paul is a very nice sport about having to go through these motions before winning: The chefs each go into their gondolas, which are set up with ingredients and appliances and it’s not hard for them at all. But it is stupid! The chefs present their dishes to the judges and snowboard person, and all four dishes are good. Gretchen Bleiler says of Paul’s dish, “I would’ve never known you cooked this in a gondola.” Really? You’re just being modest. I’m sure if you got that in a restaurant you’d be like “I know this sounds specific, but this dish tastes like it was cooked in a skiing gondola” (table instantly nods in agreement). The chefs write down their scores like Olympic Judges: Lindsay wins the Regularspeedfire for her Seared Salmon over Red Quinoa “Risotto” with Chorizo. Once again her love of quoted things comes up right. Congrats Lindsay, you’re in the Finals! You may now go play on Rockhenge: For the second challenge, Padma explains “This…is your pantry” and the chefs look shocked then it goes to commercial! WHAT IS THEIR PANTRY! Hopefully something not stupid! Wrong: That’s right, for this challenge, the chefs’ ingredients are FROZEN IN GIANT BLOCKS OF ICE, because that happens sometimes when you are a chef. The chefs must crack the ice to get the ingredients out, then cook them outside. Apparently, IZ TOP SEA OTTER, NOT-AH TOP CHEF! The chefs chip away at the blocks of ice with icepicks to get their ingredients, and it is some riveting television. As I said above, not only is this part completely random and unnecessary, it also ends up having NO IMPACT on the eventual meals; yes, they struggle to chip through the ice to get a limited number of ingredients, but then they all just prepare those ingredients and it’s fine so what was the point of that first part? Padma introduces the guest judge for this Second Event: Actually the second guest judge is Jon Montgomery, the Canadian Gold Medalist in Skeleton. At least they straight-up just introduced him, they didn’t have the chefs go “We walk in and Skeltonist JON MONTGOMERY is standing there! He is THE GURU of Molecular-Fusion Skeletonning. I’m so nervous – this could totally change my Skeltonning career…” Jon Montgomery says “Through my efforts on the ice, I was able to win my country an Olympic Gold Medal,” and now it’s time for the chefs to use their effort on the ice. That’s great, Jon, but your sport literally requires ice, whereas cheffing literally requires not being on ice, and what are we even doing here at this point? Paul wins Challenge 2 for his Brown Butter Poached King Crab and Mango Chutney, setting up the predictable Beverly / Sarah showdown – you knew the show wasn’t gonna have Paul and anyone else in the Bottom 2, cause we’d all have known the other person was getting eliminated. Paul earns a spot in the Thrilling Three, making his grandfather proud: And finally, just when you think things couldn’t get more arbitrary, Padma announces that the Final Elimination will be a “Culinary Biathlon,” where Sarah and Beverly will have to cross-country ski their way to a bunch of targets, and each target has the name of an ingredient on it, and they’ll have 10 rifle shots to shoot the targets for the corresponding ingredients they’ll be able to use. Neither chef has any skiing experience, so THE COMPETITION IS INTENSE: AsspenGet More: SOUTHPARKmore… Like last week’s blindfolded ingredient-grab, the cross country skiing part is basically an excuse to have the chefs flail around wildly and make us laugh at them: Beverly reaches the rifle range first, and she instantly nails her intended target: (#RIPTerhune) Beverly shoots some ingredient-targets, then Sarah’s like “I’m from Texas, we have guns” and misses a bunch of targets but then hits a bunch of targets so hooray, they both now get to cook with ingredients. Good challenge! As they head into the final stretch, Sarah says “There is no room for error,” causing my frustrated roommate to yell out, “Except for the six rifle shots you were allowed to miss and it didn’t matter. You had exactly that much room for error.” Sarah and Beverly prepare their potentially-final dishes and present them to the judges: Beverly makes an Arctic Char with Onion and Beet Compote, Celery Root Truffle Puree and Fennel Salad, which the judges enjoy, but Tom says that the earthiness of the vegetables and other components overwhelmed the underseasoned fish. Sarah counters with a Braised Rabbit Leg, Cherries, Cabbage Puree and Hazelnut Sauce, “With a little rabbit heart on top” for sadness. Tom calls the dish “well thought out” but adds “the rabbit could’ve been cooked more or cooked less,” which is technically true of all dishes and I’m not sure what it means. Even though Beverly’s dish was criticized more harshly, I thought she’d still ride the “We want to play up the Last Chance Kitchen redemption story another week” wave into the Final Three, but the judges appear to make the fair choice based on the dishes and eliminate Beverly for a second time. Beverly cries: Padma cries: Robert De Niro cries: Sarah wins $10,000 from Terlato wines for being the third-best chef today, aaaaand WHEW! We’re done. With Part One of the three-part tribute to Paul. Yipeee! Another episode before the Finale!!! Hopefully this time the ingredients are trapped in FIRE. Top Chef Season 9, I wanna give you a great big passive aggressive hug: Top Chef Finale Part 1 Thoughts? Feedback on the Culinary Olympics? Favorite / least favorite parts? More Finale predictions? Leave ‘em in the comments.


02/16/12--14:18: Big Bird Hunger Games T-Shirt May Be The Last Thing (chan 2293677)

Behold, the Sesame Street-ified Hunger Games logo t-shirt, entitled “I Am The Muppetjay”: That’s it, right? That’s the last thing. Let’s just pack it up and call it an internet. I know we have 45 quadrillion more Star Wars variants to come, but I think we should at least get a head start on packing things up here and moving on. You can always just hand me that Wedge Antilles Tropical Skittle Mosaic Porn Parody in person. Oh, and you can order the Big Bird Hunger Games logo t-shirt at Graphiclab. (via /Film)


02/17/12--07:41: “Seven Nation Army” Covered On Random Objects In A Science Lab (chan 2293677)

Here’s a cover of The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” (aka, the only song to be added to sports in the last 10 years) done entirely on random objects found around a science lab. It is called, appropriately, “Science Nation Army”. Now THIS is some science I can understand!!! (Actually I don’t understand how these objects are making these noises, so that joke isn’t even true.) These guys should start their own band and call it, like, STAMP! (Thanks, Megan!)


02/17/12--08:18: Pomeranian Puppy Refuses To Eat His Broccoli (chan 2293677)

Pomeranian Puppies: They’re just like us puppies! Here’s a 7-week-old Pomeranian reacting to a piece of broccoli on the floor with extreme suspicion and fearsome caution, much like any human child confronted with the same situation (you’re supposed to feed your kids on the floor, right? Definitely read that somewhere in a dream.) The only difference is, when Lil’ Pom over here goes wild and assaults the broccoli, it is frickin’ adorable. EXTRA DESSERT FOR YOU, cute thing that I can’t believe is an actual earthly animal and not a Tribble: (Daily Picks And Flicks, via The Daily What)


02/17/12--10:05: Jim Carrey Confirmed For “Unstoppable 2: Somebody Stop Me!” (chan 2293677)

Coming This Summer… No, not really, just a dumb Photoshop we made that we figured the world needed. Hopefully some of you liked that and the rest of you just clicked on another thing and moved on so we can all still be internet friends. Friday!!!


02/17/12--10:58: The “What Other People Think I Do” Meme To End Them All (chan 2293677)

Growing tired of the “What Other People Think I Do” meme? If not, you will soon, and when that happens, here’s the official “meta- backlash” version to end all “What Other People Think I Do” photos (via We Know Memes): Ahh… Unnecessarily mean, sobering, and ultimately, kind of necessary. Maybe not quite yet, but the meme’s getting there with rapid speed, and if this continues on like the Sh*t ______ People Say extravaganza (someone I know just posted “Sh*t Israel Advocates Say” on Facebook yesterday), then we’re gonna need this photo sooner than later.


02/17/12--12:40: Here’s That Radiohead Floppy Disk From 1997 You Left Lying Around (chan 2293677)

I truly believe that Hilarious Late-90s Computer Things are the new Hilarious Early 1900s Olde Timey Things. Today’s proof? This Radiohead OK Computer FLOPPY DISK from 1997: Awesome!!! You can also type in a code to let you play the game Scorched Earth during “Karma Police”. I’m not sure if this is even real, but I don’t care. I want it to be, and I also want it. I WILL be the first person in Brooklyn with a prominently-displayed collection of floppy disk albums. (Kidding, obviously! The nine-hundredth.) (via Retronaut)


02/17/12--13:40: “It’s A Snap!” Is A Very Stupidly Enjoyable Video About Magic Snapping (chan 2293677)

You know those fun educational videos where one guy’s like “I don’t know what I’m doing!” and a magical dude snaps and appears and explains everything to the first guy then keeps snapping and they keep warping from destination to destination, learning about things along the way? Of course you do. Well, this video is the best one of those. It’s called “It’s A Snap,” and enjoying it is, in fact, a snap. I can’t offer much more description or make a better joke without giving away the video, so we’ll leave it there (Semi-NSFW): (Thanks, Matt N!)


02/17/12--13:43: The 50 Most Ridiculous Outfits from New York Fashion Week (chan 2293677)

Off the heels of our highly necessary and Award-winning coverage of The 50 Most Ridiculous Outfits From Paris Fashion Week and The 1 Most Ridiculous Outfit From Rome Fashion Week, here’s the equally important third component of our “Whatever You Say, Fashion World” Trilogy – The 50 Most Ridiculous Outfits From New York Fashion Week 2012: 50. 49. 48. 47. 46. 45. 44. 43. 42. 41. 40. 39. 38. 37. 36. 35. 34. 33. 32. 31. 30. 29. 28. 27. 26. 25. 24. 23-21. 20. 19. 18. 17. 16. 15. 14. 13. 12. 11. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. RELATED: How To Sneak Into New York Fashion Week (Pics via Getty Images)


02/20/12--08:33: Happy President’s Day From The Olsen Twins And The Real Bill Clinton (chan 2293677)

I’m playing this video on a loop every President’s Day from now til the day I die:


02/20/12--09:27: Never Forget: The Animaniacs Presidents Song (chan 2293677)

Looking for something to do this President’s Day because you’re stuck doing work and/or forgot to plan a trip on the long weekend? Then why not honor our nation’s chief executives by learning all their names in order with this feverishly catchy “All The Presidents” song from Animaniacs. That is, if you don’t already know all the presidents’ names in order from having this song stuck in your head since the 90s. Then on Earth Day, we can learn all the countries. Or just bask in easy animated nostalgia. Hooray:


02/20/12--11:45: Who Wouldn’t Watch The Maya Angelou Prank Show? (chan 2293677)

Maya Rudolph returned to SNL this weekend for an episode with a number of highlights (including Amy Poehler’s “Really?” Birth Control Rant), but I particularly loved her portrayal of her fellow first-namesake in this ad for the Maya Angelou wacky prank show, I Know Why The Caged Bird Laughs. Seriously, who wouldn’t watch this Maya Angelou prank show? I’m not just killing time in the short writeup thing before the video, I’m serious – someone pick this show up. IFC? FUEL TV? Smithsonian Pranks? Just keep having more of it happen:


02/20/12--15:19: The Walking Dead Recap: Trigger Unhappy :( (chan 2293677)

It’s The Walking Dead Season 2, Episode 9 entitled “Triggerfinger,” a double-meaning on Rick & Company literally having their fingers on their gun-triggers, and the current, tightly-wound, “Who’ll shoot first?” mental showdown between Rick and Shane as their various group allegiances threaten to turn inward. Or it’s the name of Sammy Hagar’s next supergroup, we’re not sure. Either way, we WILL see some human faces falling off sooner than later. The episode opens with Lori unconscious in her upside-down car while a walker ominously paws at her windshield, not unlike a zombie puppy begging for a refill of its water bowl. (Blood bowl? Nah zombie puppies probably drink water, then just eat like flesh milk bones or whatever). This is a very cool scene, though clearly, the writers just really wanted to have Lori fend off walkers in an upside-down car but couldn’t think of an actual reason for this scenario to happen. Rick, Hershel and Glenn, meanwhile, are still holed up in the local bar after murdering Philly Dave and the Peeman (also a popular morning radio show), and they hear the voices of people who’ve come to look for their disappeared companions. After a tense, silent standoff, Rick decides he’s had enough death for one day and tries to reason with them very verbosely: Looks like everything’s gonna be alllllllll ri- NOPE everyone’s shooting at everyone! The companions start shooting at the bar and Rick & Co. duck for cover. Glenn goes to check out the back of the bar and Hershel joins him and says “Rick wants you to try for the car.” Glenn says “TRY??” Hershel clarifies, “Try and succeed.” Glenn’s like, “Thanks, Sh*tty Yoda!” Glenn breaks for the car, almost gets shot .0001 second later, and immediately freezes, thinking of Maggie: Hershel quickly shoots Glenn’s assailant, and as the man writhes on the ground screaming, tons of walkers begin to converge on the bar. Rick comes back and is all like, “What’d I miss?” No biggie! Just, Hershel just shot some dude and left him to get eaten in the most horrendously violent way possible. Yikes, talk about accelerated emotions – in one day, Hershel’s gone from believing his bitten-family is still technically alive, to watching Shane slaughter his undead family in front of him, to having an alcoholic relapse and realizing he’s been wrong this whole time about walkers’ humanity, to watching Rick pre-emptively shoot two living humans to save himself, to a grand finale of shooting a stranger and leaving him to get his face eaten by walkers to buy himself escape time. If Hershel keeps going at this rate, he’s just gonna be The Comedian from Watchmen in like two episodes. Just as Rick, Glenn and Hershel are about to escape, they see The OthersTM picking up their companion from the roof of a nearby building, but when the guy jumps down to meet them, he falls and IMPALES HIS LEG ON A FENCE and his friends instantly ditch him: Jesus Christ, can any act in this show not be the bloodiest thing ever? Is this the Monty Python Salad Days sketch? Rick switches back to “Compassionate Grimes” mode and declares “We can’t leave him, he’s a kid,” and he and Hershel race to amputate the man’s leg in time to rescue him from the converging walkers. Just when it looks like they’ll have to abandon him and make one of those “It’s us or them, the world’s so different now” choices that Rick was starting to love so much, Rick does one final desperation yank and just pulls the guy’s leg back off the fence, throws him in the car, and they speed away. While this is happening, Lori is stuck alone in the woods after her failed quest to go get Rick or whatever the f**k? Why did she leave the farm alone like ten minutes after Rick left, again? It really makes no OH COOL ZOMBIE FIGHT LET’S WATCH THE ZOMBIE FIGHT: COOL ZOMBIE FIGHT!!! Lori stabs a walker through the eye with a screwdriver and shoots another one in the brain from up close, and the show banks on this action diverting our attention from the fact that there’s no reason for any of this to be happening in the first place. Shane, meanwhile, finds out that Lori is missing and immediately leaves the farm on his own and also crashes and gets lost! OH MAN!!!! Nah, kidding, though that would’ve been a ballsy move by the show that I kind of wanted to happen, just to have every other character keep leaving the farm alone in succession and getting in separate car accidents until the farm is just Carl sitting there chewing a hayseed really maturely. Actually, Shane quickly finds Lori, and when Lori says she’s not going back until they find Rick, Shane fibs her up real nice: When they return to the farm and Lori learns Shane lied, he admits “I knew it was the only way to get you back here,” though Lori correctly notes that at this point, Shane just can’t stop lying. He also, on a more sinister level, wants to make sure Lori and the baby are protected as the #1 priority and kiiiiind of doesn’t mind if Rick gets killed in the meantime so they can be together? THE PLOT THICKENS. Actually this was the subtext of the episodes before the Midseason break, but stuff’s just more out in the open now. THE PLOT RETAINS ITS CURRENT THICKNESS. The plot does gain about 2 millimeters of thickness when Carol confronts Daryl (Celeb Couple: Caryl) about his decision to deliberately isolate himself from the group, as he appears to be using his own belief that the group doesn’t respect him as a defense mechanism to absolve him from having to make any group leadership decisions. It’s kind of like being a blogger and being able to criticize everyone’s tv shows but never writing your own show so no one can make fun of you. Haha! WHO WOULD DO THAT??? Stupid Daryl. Daryl responds in Maximum Defense Mechanism form by ruthlessly insulting Carol for no reason: The next morning, just as Shane is about to get around to saving Rick’s life (“I’ll totally go rescue Rick tomorrow, and I’ll knock out those dishes. Also I’ll hit the Chase on the way back and get you that $20 I still owe you from the tickets…”), Rick, Hershel, and Glenn pull up to the farm unharmed, with their blindfolded refugee in tow. How did it take all night for the trio to get back to the farm? Didn’t it take Glenn and Maggie like an hour to get there and back on horseback, including f*ck time? No big deal, because the far greater question is, what are they gonna do with this stranger whose friends just vengefully shot at Rick and Hershel hours ago? What if they let him go and he leads his companions back to the farm? But how can they live with themselves if they don’t let him go, or if they just leave him to die alone in the open? Lots of good questions! At least the blindfolded prisoner isn’t Stanley Spadowski: Obviously, Shane is completely against the idea of keeping the prisoner, lashing out at Rick again for failing to make the hard decision and ridiculing their plan to rehabilitate this total stranger: In the most cathartic line of the episode, Hershel snaps back at Shane with an angry reminder that it’s still his farm and that he’s still in charge, and Shane makes that closed-mouth “Fine, I See How It Is” Shaneface like seven times and storms off to go shave his head even further to symbolize his continuing moral descent. The episode concludes with Lori and Rick sharing a tender, naked moment: Cute! Except then Lori brings up her earlier conversation with Shane where he kept repeating that the baby is his and he and Lori belong together, and she believes he’ll stop at nothing to make that happen and no one can trust anybody and probably Rick or Shane will have to kill the other eventually. Oh well! Looks like we’re gonna have to settle this with a good ol’ fashioned STUBBLE-OFF… Walking Dead Episode 9 thoughts? Favorite / least favorite parts? Stuff we missed? Predictions for the coming Rick / Shane showdown? Leave ‘em in the comments.


02/21/12--07:30: Here Is Every Punch To The Face From The Movie Road House (chan 2293677)

Ahhh, the internet: always doing God’s work. This week, a charitable soul from Red Letter Media has taken the liberty of cutting together every single punch to the face in the Swayz’ of Glory that is Road House. They were initially going to cut together every punch in the movie Road House, but then that just would’ve been the movie Road House. This really is the violentest movie ever made. Besides Home Alone 2: I was gonna joke “I hope someone cuts together all the throat-rips from Road House,” but that’s in there already for good measure. No notes from me! Send it to theaters. (via @DVERandy)


02/21/12--08:45: Pixar’s Next Animated Short “La Luna” Looks Fun And Whimsical (FOR A CHANGE) (chan 2293677)

Here’s a brief clip from the next Pixar animated short “La Luna,” which is set to play in theaters before Brave in June. It may seem odd to post just thirty seconds of a thing out of context, to which I only respond, do you want to see thirty seconds of “La Luna” or do you not want to see thirty seconds of “La Luna”? Also, it’s thirty very cool-looking seconds, plus I enjoy things that are only thirty seconds long. I am on the internet. Do we have a word for short clips from animated shorts? Shortaroonies? Short Squared? Salute Your This? Just say all three in succession and we’re good:


02/21/12--09:54: Awesome Breaking Bad Credits Remix Helps Us Through These Tough BB-Less Times (chan 2293677)

As we continue pointlessly traipsing through these meaningless Breaking Bad-free months we call a life, we’re occasionally treated to a welcome internet respite when someone thankfully re-cuts something Breaking Bad related and lets us close our eyes and pretend for one glorious, fleeting second that another new Breaking Bad episode is less than 7 days away, God willing… My point is, check out this very expertly done Breaking Bad title sequence remix by jamesmontalbano Unrelated Sidenote: I would make a comment here about how I miss the artistry of lengthy, Sopranos-esque opening sequences (outside of HBO), but yesterday I just DVR Fast-Forwarded the four-second opening credits of Modern Family, so I’m pretty sure my attention span is long gone and ain’t coming back. Thank God for the internet though! I’m bored of this Sidenote. (via Onion AV Club)


02/21/12--11:11: Bret Michaels Poses With Big Furry Sloth While Flashing Devil Horns (chan 2293677)

2012 has already been a banner year for sloths, with the Baby Sloths Bathing Video, Kristen Bell’s Ellen Freakout, and the must-see Ultimate Sloth GIF Wall, but this week, Poison frontman and former VH1 sole-breadwinner Bret Michaels joined in the exslothvaganza with this jealousy-inspiring photo of him and Harry The Sloth: For the record, the 1 “ROCK” point scored by those devil horns is negated by the -800 “ROCK” points for holding a sloth at Busch Gardens while flashing said devil horns. I’m probably just jealous, but also concerned that after a few more photos like this, sloths might start very slowly crawling over the shark. Good thing it takes them months to get anywhere. (via Holy Cuteness)


02/21/12--11:56: Kids Re-Enact The Monty Python “Black Knight” Scene And It Is Violently Adorable (chan 2293677)

Here’s a video of two tykes re-creating the Black Knight scene from Monty Python And The Holy Grail, complete with childish taunting, swordfighting, and adorably brutal limb-chopping. The acting, fight choreography, and limb special effects on this video are all absolutely stunning. FYI, if anyone out there’s thinking “Are we kind of exploiting these kids for our own entertainment?”, I ask you, what good ARE kids if we can’t have them adorably re-create Monty Python scenes for our own entertainment? THEY ARE THE BEST: (via Rebecca E.)


02/21/12--13:08: BREAKING KARDASHIAN QUESDO DIP NEWS (chan 2293677)

We don’t often post Kardashian-related stories on BWE anymore, mostly because we all tapped out on Kardashian news and making fun of Kardashian news circa ’09 (1909, actually, somehow), but seeing as we are technically a pop culture blog and carry some obligation to keep you informed of the goings-on of America’s three somethingsest humans, we’ll make one brief exception today and check in on our ol’ Celebrity Gossip Stalwarts. Let’s just stroll on over to Us Weekly and see what the Kardahsians have been OH DEAR GOD: This officially concludes our 2012 Kardashian coverage. You may write your own ass joke in the comments.


02/21/12--14:12: The Pee Wee’s Big Adventure Porn Parody Hates Your Childhood (chan 2293677)

Here’s a trailer for the Pee Wee’s Big Adventure porn parody. I am not shocked by this, as we know that everything will at some point be turned into a porn parody, as surely as every living thing will someday die and decay unto the earth from whence it came, it’s just – this one’s a little extra-draining, childhood-wise. Next up, the Beauty And The Beast porn parody, followed by Newsies, Follow That Bird, Looney Tunes, then just a movie where Vivid goes back in time and punches 7-year-old me in the sternum repeatedly: Our reaction? The same as Large Marge’s: (Joe My God, via The Daily What)


02/21/12--15:03: 7 Pets Existentially Pondering The Universe In One Shed Pal Commercial (chan 2293677)

This infomercial for the “Shed Pal” grooming tool features an oddly high amount of animals blankly staring off into space while being groomed. Is it a wacky coincidence, or does the Shed Pal somehow cause pets to have deep, distant philosophical thoughts about the absurdity of our universe? Check out these stills and be the judge: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. BONUS: Affects Humans Too!


02/22/12--07:48: Internet Comes Through With Rick Santorum Portrait Made Out Of Gay Porn (chan 2293677)

Continuing the internet’s humorously relentless pursuit to keep Rick Santorum and gay sex inextricably connected, here’s a portrait of Rick Santorum’s face recreated mosaic-style from frames of gay pornography: The full NSFW-ish portrait is over at Unicorn Booty. You can’t really see too much though, even if you keep zooming in. This one friend of mine said.


02/22/12--08:49: The Worst Penalty Kick In Soccer History Is Your Childhood Sports Fears Realized (chan 2293677)

Here’s Amir Sayoud from the Egyptian club Al Ahly attempting a penalty kick against Kima Aswan (if you didn’t already recognize those teams’ jerseys instantly from that picture). In a word, the penalty kick does not go so well. Fortunately, Al Ahly still won 4-0 so they managed to laugh it off, but this is basically every reluctant sports-playing child’s worst fear (short of Michelle’s shoe coming off during that touching Full House ‘we all make mistakes’ episode). LOVE the announcer’s call at the :09-:11 mark: (Thanks, Rich!)


02/22/12--11:21: Watch This Hilariously Long Supercut Of Star Trek People Telling Worf “No” (chan 2293677)

As a huge Star Trek: The Next Generation fan, I didn’t even have to click on the following video to know that it completely confirmed the observation that every TNG watcher is already well aware of: EVERY EPISODE of the show involves Mr. Worf making a very cautious suggestion, Picard or Riker shooting him down, and The Enterprise getting sucked into a terrible situation that makes up the whole episode because they ignored Worf’s very simple advice. To prove this theory with hilarious, overwhelming evidence, someone has compiled this FIFTEEN MINUTE video of Mr. Worf being told “no”. Only very serious TNG nerds need to watch past the first couple minutes, cause you get the idea pretty quick, but the whole this is greatness: That is the most thoroughly-proven point in the history of logic. Can we get this supercut-maker onto the Supreme Court asap? Please don’t say “no.” (via Geekologie)


02/22/12--14:24: Celebrate 40 Days Of Lin-t With The 40 Best Jeremy Lin Signs (chan 2293677)

We’ve already enjoyed the past couple weeks of Jeremy Lin pun headlines, but now, as Linsanity overlaps with this period of Lent, let’s take a moment to give up not looking at awesomely terrible pun signs and celebrate 40 Days Of LIN-T with these photos of The 40 Best Jeremy Lin Signs: 1, 2. 3. 4, 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16, 17. 18, 19, 20. 21. 22, 23, 24. 25. 26. 27. 28, 29, 30. 31. 32, 33, 34, 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. (Pics via Getty Images, The Hoop Doctors, Business Insider, and College Poison)


02/23/12--08:04: Remixed BBC News Is The Best News (chan 2293677)

Here’s a pointless but hilarious video of multiple BBC news broadcasts re-cut by user Cassetteboy and stitched together in the most bizarre way possible. Either that, or news overseas is just way more entertaining. I would joke that “I wish all news were remixed news!”, but that’s gonna be a reality by like 2018, if not sooner. I’ll have too short an attention span by then to notice or complain (language semi-NSFW): (via The Daily What)


02/23/12--08:58: Watch Zac Efron Drop A Condom On The Lorax Red Carpet Cause He’s An Adult Now (chan 2293677)

Here’s Zac Efron arriving at the premiere of The Lorax and accidentally dropping a condom onto the red carpet. Not sure why he has a loose condom floating around his pocket at the Lorax premiere, but hey, a picture’s worth a thousand condoms. It’s also very hard to tell if that’s actually a condom, but it looks enough like one and that’s what the internet is saying and I ain’t got time to verify this stuff cause we got fifteen more wacky things to pay attention to today: My theory? This was a calculated move by the former elven-child to prove that he’s officially grown up, just like Daniel Radcliffe’s very mature condom-performance on Extras:


02/23/12--11:30: Top Chef Finale Recap: St. Paulmo’s Fire (chan 2293677)

It’s the Top Chef Season 9 Finale Part 2, entitled “Fire And Ice,” a devious move by Bravo to trick people into thinking Game Of Thrones is back on their viewing guide and accidentally recording it. Obviously, there can only be one guest judge for the “Fire And Ice” challenge: Just kidding! Prince Joffrey declined because he thought Sarah was acting too much like a spoiled child. The actual guest judge is this old flame: I love that they’re still chyron-ing Emeril really specifically, like we don’t know who he is at this point in the season/life. “I don’t know, I guess he wrote some book about pans? Doesn’t sound very qualified.” The episode opens with a pallin’ around driving segment where Paul explains that the three chefs are friends in real life but “you can’t think like that in the competition.” Really? You can’t be like, “I would like to beat these relatively nice people at this cooking competition?” You have to hate and destroy them? EYE OF THE COOKING TIGER, MOFOS. They arrive at a brasserie in Vancouver’s Chinatown where they’re met with three guest chefs for an Asian cooking challenge: The chefs will randomly pair up with one of the three master guests: Lindsay pairs with Top Chef mainstay Anita Lo, Sarah pairs with Masters Season 3 winner Floyd Cardoz, and Paul matches up with Takashi Yagahashi, which may or may not be the name of a cool ninja character I created during recess when I was in 2nd grade. The chefs will take turns switching off with their partners in 10-minute increments to prepare one “Asian-style” dish per team. To amp up the excitement, Padma adds that the winner will receive $20,000, and says it with very patronizing excitement: The Masters kick things off by conceiving and preparing their dishes (seems like a pretty huge component of this challenge is going to the Masters, huh?), and after ten minutes, the cheftestants take over. Everyone’s like “I hope they know what I was trying to do!” and the three remaining chefs are like “I hope I know what they were trying to do!” and it’s just like when you’re a real chef in a restaurant and you start cooking something then your wife goes into labor and you have to leave and can’t explain anything and the other person takes over mid-dish. Padma and Emeril watch the action from a small sliding window, because they couldn’t get one of those creepy mansion paintings where the eyes move: All the master chefs agree “They totally got what I was going for!”, even though the guest chefs probably weren’t gonna be like “WHAT THE F*CK WERE YOU DOING, partner of mine??” (unless Hubert Keller was here). It’s time to announce the winner, and at least this lil’ guy’s still excited: Sarah and Floyd win for their Seared Cod with Coconut Curry, Dungeness Crab Salad and Amaranth. Sarah wins $20,000, which is great because the show is clearly setting it up so it looks like Paul has competition and he can now win deservedly without it seeming as anticlimactic. If Paul had breezed through both challenges in this episode, I would’ve been worried that they’d pull some dumb shocker in the finale, but everything’s right on track for the Paul win. Paul did mess up in the Quickfire, though, by adding too much heat to his giant clam sashimi dish. It’s probably a mistake when your dish is too spicy for this guy: For the Elimination Challenge, the chefs will have to prepare a dish that symbolizes the concepts of “Fire And Ice,” because of course that’s the second to last challenge on this show about very skilled adults. “Here in Vancouver, some people have fireplaces, but also it snows outside…” Sure, fine, let’s just move on so we can make it look like Paul might not win then have Paul win. The chefs go off on their second-to-last shopping montage (awwwww, I’m gonna miss these! Our little redundant children are heading off to boring college…) A justifiably overconfident Paul even takes time to shop for edible glitter: The chefs prepare their dishes and explain the arbitrary connections to the arbitrary theme, and it’s exciting to the Sweet Genius guy if he’s watching. Sarah is making a dish she’s never made before, which is a classic TC red flag (or will it not be???) Lindsay is worried she didn’t take the challenge theme literally enough so she throws together a “tomato ice” at the last minute which sounds like a gross non-thing but the judges don’t hate it. Paul wants the broth of his dish to be poured tableside to create a “melting” effect, so he has lots of instructions for the team of server-magicians: The chefs also prepare a cocktail to pair with each dish, which I always love, because hearing food people talk about drinks that pair well or poorly with particular dishes is the most arbitrary and pointless exercise in cuisine, and they always sound like they’re unselfconsciously making stuff up. The drinks all look fine, even if their names are weird: Hey, if this show can phone in its challenges, I can phone in my Photoshops. Deal? So which chefs succeeded the best at putting fire and ice on their plates?? We are wide awake like Gail and Padma: The judges enjoy all three dishes to an extent, but have specific problems with each one (this sentence is true of every Top Chef finale ever). Sarah’s pasta-and-mousse gamble was a well-executed risk and the pasta was perfect, but the mousse was too frozen and difficult to cut through, which is the most common problem in the current worldwide hunger epidemic. Paul’s dish actually lacked heat for Padma’s taste (what is this, Goldilocks And The Three Paul Dishes’ Heat Bears?) and Tom was really hilariously offended by A PIECE OF ARUGULA Paul added as an afterthought. Maybe Paul won’t make the finale??? It’s not entirely clear what Lindsay did wrong with her dish, but the flavors weren’t as strong as the others’ and her tomato ice was kind of an afterthought, and she might’ve tried to do too much, or whatever, someone’s gotta go home and it won’t be Paul. We’ll find out after this ad for our favorite Socialist playland: The Elimination music kicks up, and Padma makes the dramatic announcement… OH SNAP! The first Ryan Seacrest psyche-out of the season!!! They even timed Padma’s “Sarah…” to the exact spot in the music when she announces the eliminated chef. Bravo, editing (literally and figuratively!) Now it’s down to just Paul and Lindsay. WHO WILL MAKE IT TO THE Paul will obviously. Just say Lindsay lost. Padma tells Lindsay to pack her knives and go. Beverly cries: So that’s it! We’re down to Paul vs. Sarah to see which Asian man from Texas will be named Top Chef. I CAN’T WAIT!!! Only four more episodes. Top Chef Finale Part 2 Thoughts? Favorite / Least Favorite Parts? Dumb stuff we missed? Predictions for the Finale? Leave ‘em all in the comments!


02/23/12--13:30: Pixar’s Brave Completely Rips Off Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves (chan 2293677)

Pixar just released a new extended teaser for the movie Brave which features two uninterrupted minutes of footage from the final film. In the clip, three male suitors vie for the main character’s heart in an archery contest, then the maiden herself shows off her own archery skills to the shock and dismay of her parents. The only thing is, the big climactic moment of the Brave scene is COMPLETELY IDENTICAL to one of many stupid parts from the 1991 Kevin Costner epic Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. Here’s the Brave teaser, queued up to the big moment: And here’s the EXACT SAME SCENE in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves: Really? Two separate “So good at archery, they split another arrow down the middle” scenes? Including a shot from the arrow’s point of view? I hope the similarities end there – I’ll be very upset if the Brave closing credits are set to Bryan Adams singing “Everything I Do, I Do It For Brave”. A quick Googling shows that I’m not the only one who noticed this. Fortunately, Pixar has stored up more than enough credibility for me to reserve any judgments until actually seeing the film (remember when the WALL-E trailers came out and we all made Short Circuit jokes then saw WALL-E and were like “Whoops, actually one of the best movies ever made!”), but this part, at least, seems uncharacteristically cheesy. Also, that’s exactly the dad from How To Train Your Dragon. And also, why is the third bullseye more dramatic than the first two instant bullseyes that she hits? GAH! Reserving judgement… C’mon, Pixar, please prove me wrong…


02/23/12--14:44: Oh Awkward Kristin, You Have Awkwardly Stolen Our Hearts (chan 2293677)

Here’s today’s Viral Internet Video Du Jour Dot Gov, a thirty-second out of context clip simply titled “Awkward Kristin”. It doesn’t need much more introduction than that, because like all truly great works of art, it speaks for itself. Like every video on the internet, part of me assumes this was staged, but also like everything and everyone on the internet, I don’t really care so let’s all ignore this sentence. She’s a natural! Truly our generation’s this guy: (via Like 7 Different People)