May 12, 2008
Always, courtesy of the Hazzards
Posted by Will at 11:55 AM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
May 8, 2008
This is the first movie I've ever directed that I'm not in
Go figure.
Also three posts in as many days. Double go figure.
Posted by Will at 12:40 AM | Comments (2) digg delicious reddit
May 7, 2008
My mustache finally came in handy, I got to play a police captain
Posted by Will at 3:51 PM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
April 19, 2008
This is a screenshot from Amtrak's website
Really, Amtrak? You can predict when your trains are going to arrive within two minutes?
Posted by Will at 5:40 PM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
April 9, 2008
A dull list of all the exciting things I did for ign
In 2006, I applied to be a reporter/critic for ign.com's film section. Much to my surprise, I got the job. And kept it for about two months. I was told that they had hired a new editor and he was bringing in a new staff. That's probably true, but I'll never be entirely sure of whether or not it was because I did a lousy job. Now you can judge for yourself. Here is the entirety of everything I did for them in my two month tenure in chronological order.
- A Wonderful Film
- An roundtable interview with the director and some of the cast of The Great New Wonderful. I want to note that I didn't come up with the title.
- Lady in the Water video interviews
- The Paul Giamatti one is the favorite out of all of the video interviews. It was my first one ever, and probably the best.
- My Super Ex-Girlfriend roundtable interview
- I remember this roundtable as one of the one of the most inane I had the pleasure of attending.
- My Super Ex-Girlfriend Review
- My first review, and the most positive one I'd give, which ain't saying much.
- Trust the Man video interviews
- I've actually never watched these, because I didn't think they went that well. I did a roundtable interview for this movie too, but I'm not sure if it was ever published.
- Trust the Man review
- I hated this movie so much, I had to tone down my review so people would believe how much I hated it.
- 10th & Wolf Review
- I didn't go to the press screening for this, I just bought a ticket. I got to expense it though.
- Crossover roundtable interview
- This roundtable was me, a room full of black people, and another white guy who would not stop saying "the n word." Not the word that the phrase refers to, I mean literally "the n word." It was embarrassing.
Posted by Will at 12:48 AM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
April 3, 2008
I hear you like funny videos
So check out my friend Ted's Funny or Die page:
I haven't watched all of them, but my favorite so far is The Joke.
Posted by Will at 1:52 AM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
March 30, 2008
A few pictures I've taken and brief commentary on them
$2 or $2.00. Make up your mind.
Really, Chase? Is it really? You need to take over the entire city so I don't have to walk an extra block to avoid a two dollar charge ATM charge?
I imagine there aren't too many of them, but there are probably real people named Sarah Marshall. I'm sure they realize it's just an ad for a movie, but it still must be a downer seeing these every where you go. If my name were Sarah Marshall, I'd stop wearing jeans for the duration of this campaign.
Update: Looks like The Daily News beat me to the punch on this one and found a real life Sarah Marshall.
Posted by Will at 11:26 PM | Comments (5) digg delicious reddit
March 19, 2008
Hey look, it's me on Comedy Central's website promoting Lewis Black's new show, Root of All Evil
Posted by Will at 7:19 PM | Comments (2) digg delicious reddit
March 11, 2008
I was eating some Sour Patch Kids and using my mouse and I think one of the bits of sourness got in it and now I can't scroll up on the scroll wheel
But it was worth it.
Update: Amazing. Next time I see Trevor, I'm buying him a bag of Sour Patch Kids, because believe it or not, his comment fixed the problem.
Posted by Will at 6:38 PM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
March 6, 2008
Sonic the Hedgehog gives you some important advice
about not climbing into a dryer and then somehow turning it on
My favorite part of this is that Sonic is a stickler for correct spelling.
Posted by Will at 10:46 PM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
There's a somewhat 8-bit album that my former coworker's brother made and I want you to know about it
His band is called 3-2-1 Blast and his album's called Choose Your Own Adventure and you can download the whole thing for free from last.fm here.
Posted by Will at 6:23 PM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
February 25, 2008
George Lucas is a racist and marcwitt2003@yahoo.com is all for it
Remember when I made a post about how racist Phantom Menace was, some five or six years after it came out? Well, marcwitt2003@yahoo.com came to the same conclusion some three or so years after that. After googling "george lucas is a racist", Marc (I'm guessing that's his name from his email address) found my post on Lucas' racism and had this to say:
Episode 6
George decided to put the required Chinese and the required black character
into the script.
Comically they lasted as long as it takes to say "she's gona blow" and "I'm
hit" THERE's equal oportunity at work! The funny thing is I think it was
the right thing to do. DID THE BLACKS OR THE CHINESE INVENT THE TECHNIQUES
OF ILM OR LUCAS FILMS....NO WHITE PEOPLE DID> So quit your whining! White
people rule cuz we have more to offer.
Wow, Marc. Congrats on being white. And congrats on inventing on those special effects techniques. Oh wait, I forgot, you didn't invent that stuff, or anything of note, and you never will. You're just some inbred hick that can't spell. I'll admit, you have more familiarity with Return of the Jedi minutia than I'd expect from the average racist, but you had nothing to do with anything any other white person or any other human being has ever accomplished, so quit trying to take credit for it.
Spammers, if you missed his email address the first couple times, it's marcwitt2003@yahoo.com. Have at it.
Posted by Will at 1:15 AM | Comments (2) digg delicious reddit
February 23, 2008
Someone has found a new way to improve Garfield
You may have already seen someone take out Garfield's thought bubbles, miraculously improving the strips tenfold. You may have already seen Garfield strips reenacted in live action and then turned into short music videos.
But have you seen garfield minus garfield?
And if you have, well, what can I say, you love the internet more than I do.
Posted by Will at 11:55 PM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
February 5, 2008
Harper's Bazaar features Lindsay Lohan going on a date with Robin
One might even call it a big date.
Posted by Will at 4:49 PM | Comments (4) digg delicious reddit
January 22, 2008
Alley Insider damns me with faint praise
Ignighter Launch Party: Fun. Next Stop: Growth.
You'll note that they say that I'm a part of "a much more attractive crowd than your average tech meetup."
Posted by Will at 10:54 AM | Comments (2) digg delicious reddit
December 24, 2007
Spreading Christmas Cheer
This Christmas, I'm going to spread some family love by giving you a link to a blog written by someone who I may or may not be distantly related to, John Carlough, aka Carlough Snakehunter from the Philippines.
I don't understand what he's talking about most of the time, mostly because the site's half in what I assume to be Filipino, but I've got to give the guy credit for beating me to the punch of giving himself the nickname Carlough Snakehunter.
Posted by Will at 1:07 PM | Comments (2) digg delicious reddit
November 25, 2007
The Best Hot Dog Ever
My netflix queue is long enough so that sometimes when I finally get a movie, I don't remember why I put it on the queue to begin with. Case in point, Lord Love a Duck. Below is a clip from the movie where a father and daughter enjoy a hot dog together.
I really have nothing to say about that clip, I just felt the need for someone else to have to sit through it too.
Posted by Will at 8:46 PM | Comments (5) digg delicious reddit
November 11, 2007
My correspondence with a domain name squatter
Last night, I came home and found this email in my inbox.
Subject: important domain names:questionparty.com.cn & questionparty.cn
Dear Sirs:
We have questionparty.com.cn & questionparty.cn and found
that the domain is pretty useful for you to explore China market.We
can really consider selling it out if you are interested in
it.Please get back to us with your kind offer.
Now, as you might imagine, I have no intention of bringing question party to China. I'd say the practice of domain squatting is morally somewhere above spamming, but well below pretty much everything else you can do on the internet, so I replied:
Fuck you, Ben Davis.
Will
This morning I got his reply.
Will:
Fuck you, and fuck your family too. Thanks!
Fuck you
Ben
His email is bendavisneo@gmail.com if you want to get in touch with him.
Posted by Will at 5:33 PM | Comments (3) digg delicious reddit
November 5, 2007
LOLvikings
My friend Annika created a new thing that's going to blow up the internet, and I got in on the ground floor. Check out:
Posted by Will at 3:48 PM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
October 30, 2007
Whether or not I like Chinese food
I got some Chinese take out for dinner tonight. As the guy behind the counter prepared my order, he asked me, "Do you like Chinese food?"
"Yes," I replied, not bringing to attention the fact that I had just ordered Chinese food and was presumably going to go home and eat it.
"I like Vietnamese food," he said.
"That's good too," I said before I shrugged and left.
Posted by Will at 7:31 PM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
October 18, 2007
I broke the NES Ice Climber world record
You may have noticed a lack of activity on this site lately. Well, things have been busy. I've been in training, and it's finally paid off. Twin Galaxies has verified my Ice Climber high score. Go see for yourself. Sadly, I don't have the video of the record breaking game. I sent in a vhs copy to be verified without making a copy for myself, but anyway, I'm the best Ice Climber player in the world, I'm just saying.
Posted by Will at 9:16 AM | Comments (4) digg delicious reddit
August 27, 2007
I'm still doing three of these and I don't think I'll be able to stop in time
60 Things A Man Should Not Do Past Age 30
See if you can guess which three.
Posted by Will at 6:54 PM | Comments (8) digg delicious reddit
August 13, 2007
You may not believe me
But I'm in this video.
Lunar One by Seventeen Evergreen
I'm the drummer.
Posted by Will at 3:11 PM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
July 27, 2007
Another post where I inexplicably link to youtube instead of embedding the video like everybody else
A friend of mine, Chioke, followed around the director of a movie called Delirious, and well, here's what happened: Steve Buscemi is pissed!.
Posted by Will at 11:32 AM | Comments (5) digg delicious reddit
July 24, 2007
American Psycho lolcat
This got rejected from icanhascheezburger, so I'm going to post it here for your enjoyment.
Posted by Will at 11:47 AM | Comments (2) digg delicious reddit
July 4, 2007
Happy Fourth of July, here is an unrelated link
If they built a computer to predict my likes and dislikes, this would make the computer explode. As no one has built such a computer, this is just one of those things that I feel the need to share with you, despite the fact that you probably won't be that excited about it. It's pictures of video game consoles as ducks.
Posted by Will at 10:27 AM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
June 30, 2007
Carlough Bros wrapup
Well, I'll say that the show was a rousing success, thanks to everybody that came out. I'll also say, that Warnock and I are looking for more venues to perform, so if you or your friends happen to host a comedy show in the New York area and have a ten minute gap in your show you need to fill, well why not fill it up with a healthy dose of Carlough Brothers? That's all for now, more as it comes.
Posted by Will at 11:37 PM | Comments (3) digg delicious reddit
June 17, 2007
Carlough Bros Live!
My twin brother Warnock and I are going to be performing our own special brand of comedy and family healing this Wednesday, so get ready. Here's what you need to know:
7:30, Wednesday, June 20th
At Two for the Show at Mo Pitkin's
34 Avenue A between 2nd and 3rd Sts
And it's like seven bucks, and they might make you buy a drink
My friends Maura and Rufus are hosting the evening and there's some other acts, but whatever, who cares about them. I mean, I'm sure they're going to be great and everything, but they can do their own PR. Hope to see you there.
Posted by Will at 1:58 AM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
June 15, 2007
I want to hate lol cats, but I can't
So, in honor of that conflict, here is...
diogenes club represented as lol cats
Posted by Will at 5:33 PM | Comments (5) digg delicious reddit
June 4, 2007
Christopher Lloyd, I'm almost positive you have better things to do with your time than doing a "spoof" of Back to the Future to shill for Microsoft
Then again, I've been wrong before.
Christopher Lloyd at the Tech-Ed 2007 Keynote Opening
Posted by Will at 4:49 PM | Comments (4) digg delicious reddit
May 21, 2007
Have you ever wondered why I don't post more videos of myself as a caveman?
Me too!
In an unofficial Fiona Apple video
Posted by Will at 12:37 AM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
May 14, 2007
In lieu of photo-blogging my second trip to LA, I'm going to let the girls from the Hazzards do it for me
The highlight for me is a French blogger saying that I'm full of charisma.
Posted by Will at 3:29 PM | Comments (2) digg delicious reddit
April 22, 2007
A stranger linked to diogenes club and it was on the subject of blogging itself so now diogenes club is kind of a real blog
Posted by Will at 3:55 PM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
April 19, 2007
The Witness spot that was too hot for TV
Continuing with my theme of vainly posting videos of myself that have almost never seen the light of day, this is an AMC spot for Witness that I did voiceover for a while back. A girl named Robin and I improvised it in the studio.
Once it was put on the air, someone wrote to the president of AMC asking that they stop showing it, which they did. The person who wrote the letter was not Amish, I assume.
Posted by Will at 1:08 AM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
March 5, 2007
Rogue Villains
Blink and you'll miss me, but I'm in this. I give you:
Posted by Will at 8:28 PM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
February 20, 2007
First! (Give or take)
I'll always be able to claim that I was the first person on the blogosphere to point everyone to the first episode of:
Unless someone else already has, in which case, forget it.
Posted by Will at 2:38 PM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
February 3, 2007
The forward thinking of the MTA
I like that someone in the MTA saw that busted elevator and said, I'm going to fix that. In five years.
Update: They fixed it already.
Posted by Will at 1:22 PM | Comments (8) digg delicious reddit
January 8, 2007
Everyone mourns differently
A decal on the back of a car I was walking by:
 |
On the front in the same font:
 |
Posted by Will at 11:04 PM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
January 5, 2007
Mini Comment Roundup
A new commenter has set the new record for most comments in the smallest amount of time. So I wanted to do a special mini comment roundup for the Club's newest friend, Tony Suriani.
He started off at 01:28 AM commenting on the old praying for the pope post:
Hey Valentina, we have the same last name......Cool?!?!
Posted by: TONY SURIANI at January 5, 2007 01:28 AM
I won't include Valentina's comments here, you can read them for yourself, but they were basically an angry rant against Christianity, and I'm fairly certain Valentina hasn't and won't ever come back to check on people who commented after her. So I apologize, Tony. Hopefully you'll find some other way to find your long lost relative.
Two minutes later, Tony's back for more:
Might as well plug my buisness while im here:
ANTONIO'S PIZZA & ITALIAN RESTAURANT
724 South Federal Highway
Dania Beach, FL 33004
954-923-5151
The best food in the world!!!!!!!!1
Posted by: ToNy SuRiAni at January 5, 2007 01:30 AM
Note the alternate capitalization of his name this time. At this point, Tony did what very few people who just drop into the site for a comment or two do, which is look at other posts. Three minutes later he commented on the post about Ford's obit in the Times:
Dont really understand that question, or sorry, comment.
Posted by: TONY SURIANI at January 5, 2007 01:33 AM
He may be replying to the original post, but I think he's replying to Eddie's comment about Ford having to fill Spiro's shoes. I usually don't explain other people's comments to people, but I'll make an exception just this once. You see Tony, Spiro Agnew was Ford's predecessor as Vice President. That's pretty much all you need to know. Also note that Tony's back to his all caps style on his name.
Two minutes later, he digs up this post about a dream I had in high school:
Oooffff, That was REALLY stupid.
Posted by: TONY SURIANI at January 5, 2007 01:35 AM
Ouch, Tony, it was just a dream I had in high school, cut me some slack. So, that's all from Tony for now. Hopefully he won't be like his cousin Valentina and come back and comment some more.
Posted by Will at 1:45 PM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
December 27, 2006
I don't want to say the Times is damning Ford with faint praise...
but one of the sub-headlines of his obit is:
Hard Work, Honesty, Punctuality
You can see for yourself here.
Posted by Will at 12:24 PM | Comments (2) digg delicious reddit
December 13, 2006
If you liked the post about She-Ra, you might be moderately amused by this one too
Did you know there's actually a pop singer named Jem?
I'm as shocked as I was when I found out there was a real band called The Misfits, but it was a whole different kind of shock. With The Misfits, it made me feel clueless that I didn't know they were actually a famous band from the seventies. With Jem, I feel like she's the clueless one, although clearly no one seems to care, so I guess she's not that clueless. Also, from clicking around on her website a little, it's clear that new real-life Jem hasn't decided whether her name is capitalized or not. Now you'll excuse me, I've got to go practice with my new band, The Archies.
Note: If you don't get this at all, read this and you'll think it's hilarious, just like everyone else.
Posted by Will at 5:48 PM | Comments (3) digg delicious reddit
December 8, 2006
I have something to say about another unimportant news item and I'm just as surprised about it as you are.
cnn.com is reporting on a new type of Diet Coke:
Diet Coke Plus, slated for a spring launch, will be the first nutrient-enhanced carbonated soda to be offered by a major brand... Next year, rival Pepsi will introduce a line of enhanced carbonated drinks called "Tava"
I've got a better name for your new line of enhanced carbonated drinks, Pepsi:
Yes, Pepsi Perfect. If you recognize that logo, you have a sharp eye and you've seen Back to the Future Part II more times than you really needed to. And if you've read the novelization (something else you probably didn't really need to do), you know that Pepsi Perfect is a vitamin enriched Pepsi that's sold in 2015. So we're a few years ahead of the game on this one. Still waiting for flying cars, a magazine-size sports almanac that has every college football game and horse race in the past fifty years and gas stations that talk like Speak & Spells.
The real question here is why it took Coke and Pepsi so long to come up with this. I mean, seriously Coke and Pepsi, what are you guys doing that's so important you couldn't stick some riboflavin or whatever in your sugar water and come up with a different name for it?
Posted by Will at 6:56 PM | Comments (4) digg delicious reddit
December 7, 2006
Continuing with my new thing of taking something from today's headlines and pointing out someone that no one else has seemed to notice or care about
Lars von Trier apparently wants to make a little game out of watching his movies. From Variety:
Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier has unleashed his latest bit of mischief: the Lookey... The Lookey is described as a "visual disturbance," which is placed out of context in the movie.
People my age might recognize this guy:
A character from She-Ra named Loo-Kee who would hide in the background of an episode, then at the end, show you where he was and then give you the moral of today's story, which was usually something like "be yourself" or "don't share prescription medication."
Can you find him?
(Hint: It's really obvious.)
Now, I've liked a few of von Trier's movies. So I don't want to bag on the guy too much, even though his last movie was less like a movie and more like somebody videotaping a rehearsal of a mawkish high school play, but I mean, seriously, the guy's ripping off of She-Ra. What's next? If I see somebody in that movie touch their earring and say, "It's showtime Synergy," I'm walking out.
Posted by Will at 10:31 AM | Comments (7) digg delicious reddit
December 4, 2006
This is probably the only chance I'll ever have at impugning the New York Times' accuracy
The Times put up an article yesterday about Disney starting to make theatrical shorts again, and you can read it yourself, but the important part is this:
After a hiatus of nearly 50 years, Walt Disney Studios is getting back into the business of producing short cartoons, starting with a Goofy vehicle next year.
If by 50 years, they mean 11, then they're right. Take for example:
Tummy Trouble (1989, in front of Honey I Shrunk the Kids)
Roller Coaster Rabbit (1990, in front of Dick Tracy)
Trail Mix-Up (1993, in front of A Far Off Place)
Runaway Brain (1995, in front of A Kid in King Arthur's Court)
One could argue that making these four shorts (there may be more that I'm unaware of) didn't constitute being in "the business of producing short cartoons," but the article is misleading, to say the least.
Update: I emailed Jerry Beck of Cartoon Brew who knows way more about cartoons than I ever will, and he had John Henry, Off His Rockers, and Redux Riding Hood to add to the list. I also wanted to add I've seen one of the shorts that the article doesn't count as being in the business of producing shorts, Destino, and it clearly has no commercial aspirations, but sticking a Mickey Mouse short in front of A Kid in King Arthur's Court probably wasn't a purely artistic venture.
Posted by Will at 1:01 PM | Comments (5) digg delicious reddit
November 28, 2006
This song has been stuck in my head for weeks, and I can't figure out where it's from
I whipped up this rendition of it in GarageBand in the hopes that some clubber out there will be able to recognize it. I've narrowed it down to either classical music, a film score, or something from a video game. Or something else entirely.
Posted by Will at 3:32 PM | Comments (7) digg delicious reddit
November 19, 2006
A list of things that people seem to find hilarious, but I either never did or have gotten sick of for various reasons
- Ninjas
- Monkeys
- Midgets
- Gratuitous use of the word "cheese"
- Gratuitous use of the word "pants"
- People in big theme park size outfits fighting each other
- Men running around in their briefs
- The Interweb (I'd put Internets here as well, but I recently found out GWB originated it, so I'll let it slide )
- Pirates
As a special bonus, here's a wildly unscientific graph of the distribution of results from searching google with each of those words and "funny:"
And as an extra special bonus, a pirate joke:
Q: What's not funny?
A: Pirates arrr not funny.
Feel free to add things that you don't find funny in the comments.
Posted by Will at 10:19 PM | Comments (10) digg delicious reddit
November 13, 2006
Monday links
You like that title, how it vaguely implies that I might do this once a week.
Anyway, my two time ex-coworker Dervala has some interesting things to say about passion (and it's not the kind of passion you're probably thinking of.)
In other news, British police made an arrest in Batman and Robin outfits. This is the second British real life Batman story I've seen in the past few years, the first being a news story that some guy just appeared out of nowhere dressed as Batman, beat some other guy up, and then ran off. What's it all mean? I don't know. Happy Monday.
Posted by Will at 10:11 PM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
November 8, 2006
A very Joust Halloween
You may remember last year's halloween, where I dressed as one of the guys from Primer. There were two problems with this costume. a) Turns out, not a lot of people have seen Primer. b) I just looked like a guy in a shirt and tie. This year I decided to rectify the problem and go as something that would made it look like I planned my costume more than a few hours in advance, and have an explanation for it that wouldn't elicit blank stares from everyone. I give you, my Joust Halloween costume.
I also want to give my friend Keith props for going as a kind of nightmare Scrooge McDuck.
I thought I had next year's costume all ready to go too. See, last Halloween, I saw this guy in this cheap, straight out of the bargain bin at the costume shop French maid outfit. Brilliant, I thought. A satire of the half-assed trashy costumes girls wear just to look sexy on Halloween. Then I realized that the guy I was looking at was actually a woman, and it probably wasn't satire. Even more brilliant, I can use the idea myself now. But turns out my friend Brian did it in high school. I suppose I'll have to come up with something myself now.
Posted by Will at 10:34 PM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
October 29, 2006
FedEx is passive-aggressive.
I ordered a cell phone from overseas, and it was delivered by FedEx. A few weeks later, I got a nine page document slipped under my door. I've posted the full document here with a few things blacked out, half to protect the identity of the sender (for no real reason) and half because it's fun blacking stuff out, but the main point of it is on page two:
They went to the trouble of coming to my house again to tell me over the course of nine pages that despite the fact that I technically owed them 88 cents, they were going to do me a solid and forget about it. Thanks FedEx.
Posted by Will at 8:09 PM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
October 15, 2006
The Adventures of Racist Segway Cop
Below are my poorly taken cell phone pictures of Racist Segway Cop in Penn Station.
I've only seen someone on a Segway once in real life before, so when I saw the cop coming, I stifled a chuckle. People look really stupid on Segways. Especially cops. I was worried that he noticed me laughing at him, but his attention soon turned elsewhere as he wondered aloud, "Hey, what's that amigo doing?" There was a guy sitting down on the floor, I assume he was Hispanic. "What are you doing, amigo?" he asked. I had a train to catch so I didn't see how it turned out. The end.
Posted by Will at 11:21 PM | Comments (3) digg delicious reddit
October 10, 2006
Comment Roundup
My friend Dan once told me, "Will, your blog is my favorite blog that's not about anything." He then reconsidered and said, "No, you know what, it is about something. It's about itself." That was at a time where I basically just posted about having a blog, listed weird search terms that got people here, and made fun of people who made stupid comments. So I've been letting random stupid comments slide for a while, but no more. I give you Comment Roundup.
The most popular post I've ever made was one sentence about Ashlee Simpson's latest album, I am me. There are a lot of great ones there, so I urge you to check them all out, but this is my favorite, because I think the person who wrote it actually thinks that this is Ashlee's blog:
acually
my comment is that your new album especialy track one and four and twelve are special. i really do like you
Posted by: reem at January 19, 2006 10:14 AM
Here's a comment that I got from someone who calls himself John when I wrote that Slate article about video game movies. I'll do a running commentary, his comment in italics, my own comments not.
No, no, no!
"Alone in the Dark" was a PC-game released in the early 90's. In fact, it was immensly huge at the time it came out. So when the article writer managed to proclaim this:
"What system did Alone in the Dark come out on, Atari Jaguar?"
.. he lost all the stock he had built up with me through an otherwise very amusing article.
Wow. I lost all the stock I had built up with some anonymous guy on the internet. What have I done. A lot of people were mad that I wasn't familiar with Alone in the Dark, and took it upon themselves to answer my (rhetorical) question of what system it came out on. And let me say, that if I had cared what system it was for (which, keep in mind, I didn't and still don't), I probably could have spent five seconds typing "alone in the dark" into a search engine and finding out for myself. He continues:
PPS! Having watched all movies based on videogames is nothing to brag about.
Neither is your expertise on the Alone in the Dark series.
Try having watched all movies based on comics too!
No.
This next one is probably the first informative comment from a stranger this site has ever seen. It was on the subject of a Bazooka Joe comic that didn't make any sense and whether the people who make Bazooka Joe comics care about anything at all.:
Actually, that comic is reproduced (and poorly cropped) from an earlier Bazooka Joe comic. In the original, Mort is indeed sitting behind the lady.
Posted by: Bazooka Bob at July 1, 2006 05:18 PM
Well, case closed then. The people who make Bazooka Joe comics do care about something, the people who reproduce them don't. You can check out his site, Bubble Gum Comics for more information.
This next one is weird. Remember the stuff about the grammar of the Trimspa ad? Well, here's a comment that showed up about five months after I first posted it:
Trimspa and Anna. What a perfect pair! Neither one is anything special, but with enough hype they both make plenty of money from the fat, lazy and bored. Be envied by whom?
Posted by: Paul at April 30, 2005 05:46 PM
Now, normally that post wouldn't be notable enough to make it to comment roundup, but then, over a year later:
Trimspa, or "Suckerspa", exists to make money for Alex Goen and family. Diet and exercise are the best ways to lose fat. Save your money and do what works!
Posted by: Last Voice of Reason at May 31, 2006 02:21 AM
That's the same guy, despite the clever new name. (He used the same email address.) Yes, a year went by, and he felt he had to find diogenes club again and share more wisdom about the ills of Trimspa. I googled the front half of his email address, nederpaul, and it lead me to a page where he brags about spells he can cast to win the lottery. I've copied the page here, because it'll probably disappear. I wonder if that's why he doesn't need Trimspa, he just magics all his fat away.
Speaking of magic, here's a comment from a post about everybody's favorite magician, the Pope! It's a long comment, you can read it for yourself, but here are some highlights:
I can no longer stand and see such disgusting comments. my dear Joe the post you posted on October 24, 2005 07:09 PM was very immature of you.... If you read trough history you will realise that it is th Catholic church that is the real church the rest I am sorry to tell you are indeed a fake... When a Martin Luther realised he should make his own church because he disagreed with the catholic priests doing this. He had no power from Christ to be a priest. because he was not given the power by the previous bishops! and Cardinals!!
It's funny, I always kind of assume that Christians have pretty much gotten stuff sorted out internally and have been able to focus all their damnation and stuff on other religions, so congratulations to 'Rev.Fr.James Marco' as he calls himself, for really bringing it back to the dark ages. He actually googled 'stupid pope' just so he could write all that.
So, we're getting near the end of the roundup, although there are some more good ones you can check out for yourself on that pope one and the Margaret Cho one, thanks to the fact that that post is number one in google's rankings for 'margaret cho sucks.'
The thing that ties most of these comments together is that they really don't even seem to grasp the basic gist of the original post, but this last one takes the cake, from my summary of an Insane Clown Posse message board argument:
Of Course There R True Los N Lettes Out Their....i Mean Their Is Tons Of Juggahos But The True Juggalos R Easy 2 Spot They Have Love 4 The Fam No Matter Wut N They Kno Their Psychopathic Shit Mmfcl Ninjas
Posted by: majick_ninjette at March 13, 2006 11:27 PM
Ninjette's right. There is tons of Juggahos.
Posted by Will at 3:01 PM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
October 4, 2006
It's still too sprawled out and disconnected -- The second half of my trip to LA
So the screening. It went well. Kevin Smith really packs em in. And he can somehow own a crowd without seeming like he cares about the thing at all, with his casual geek hipster panache. He drew a nerdy enough crowd so that they laughed at the one line I like that no one ever laughs at, "All dark and mysterious I hope." That said, the projection was a few frames out of sync, which really drove me nuts. When a screening happens, I'm really more concerned about technical issues than I am about people actually liking the movie. But it was subtle enough so that most people probably didn't notice. I hope, anyway. We didn't win anything, which didn't surprise me, but after it was all over, Kevin was mobbed by the crowd, and I realized I had about a half hour to wait before I'd be able to get in there and say hi.
Now let me say that I am very easily star struck. I'll give you an example. In high school, I had a distance learning American history class where the class and the teacher were on camera and broadcasted onto tvs in other schools. The other school only had two other students, Ed and Carissa, who we could see on tv as well. They didn't say much, and halfway through the semester, we found out that they would usually just turn down the volume of the teacher and just sit and do homework for other classes. But one day, I finally met Carissa in person. And I'll tell you, I was star struck, all nervous and stuttery and everything. Just from seeing Carissa all that time on closed circuit television. Of course, one might attribute my nervousness to my being a teenager and meeting a girl, but I like my explanation better.
Over the years, I've gotten better about this. Like when I was at Sundance, I saw Bob Odenkirk in the lobby of the hotel and I just went up to him, and started talking his ear off, despite the fact that I got a nagging sensation that he didn't really care about what I had to say. But I still get those butterflies, despite the fact that I know they're stupid.
So anyway, as I was waiting to for Kevin, I talked to a few of the guys I had talked to on the view askew message boards who worked for Kevin, and met a woman who told me she was a patent attorney. "Oh yeah?" I said. She responded with a bored nod, clearly expecting one of three questions that she probably always gets asked. "I used to be in a band called The US Patent Office, could we have trademarked it?" She seemed impressed, apparently that wasn't one of the three, and after thinking about it for a bit, she said that we probably couldn't have. Oh well.
I then chatted up Scott Mosier, who I had heard Kevin talk about in interviews as an irreplaceable collaborator on all his films. None of the mob really wanted to talk to him, and he seemed okay with that, but I decided to say hi and we talked about life in LA and driving and stuff. You know, the conversation I had with everyone in LA. But he was nice and wished me the best of luck. I heard he just got engaged, so congrats to him besides.
As the mob dissipated, I made my way on over to Kevin and introduced myself. I forget exactly how it went, but I don't remember being particularly eloquent. I do remember him asking me who's fault it was that the movie was out of sync, mine or theirs. I said it was probably theirs and he apologized. I then went on about a student film I made and how the projection was bad, which I quickly realized was a pretty dull story, so when someone else distracted him a question, I just waved good-bye and got out of there.
That night was about halfway through my stay, and the rest of the week went by in a blur. I moved in with Togo. I even got a trip to the CSI: Miami set and met a few other cast members and saw them practice a scene. Togo seemed very friendly with all of the crew too, although I'm sure it was just for my benefit, and after I left they went back to not being allowed to make eye contact with him and calling him Mr. Togo. I got to meet my editor at ign, who I had only emailed with and talked to on the phone before. Going to the ign offices was a lot like that episode of the Simpsons where Bart goes to the Mad office, and it's just a boring office until Alfred E. Newman comes out and asks for fershluggen pastrami sandwiches, only without the part where Alfred E. Newman comes out and asks for fershluggen pastrami sandwiches. Not that I was expecting much, but damn, couldn't they have a Wii prototype set up for me to play with or something?
I can't think of anything else super exciting that happened so I'll leave you with my trip home. As my readers may know, I'm very paranoid about being late for planes, so I ended up leaving for LAX about four hours before my flight. Leaving me at the gate about three hours before the flight. But it turned out, there was another flight to New York right there, so I just got on that one. Admitted, I didn't actually gain anything by being that early, I just cut my LA trip three hours short, but whatever. It was just good to get back home.
Posted by Will at 4:59 PM | Comments (2) digg delicious reddit
September 25, 2006
"It's too sprawled out, disconnected... "
"17 million people. This has got to be the fifth biggest economy in the world and nobody knows each other."
That's the quote that was running through my head the most of the time I was in LA, albeit slightly paraphrased, as I hadn't seen the movie in a while. I liked that line because it was a critique of LA that I had never heard before. Most potshots at LA are usually something like, everybody's fake (in every sense of the word), everybody's an actor/screenwriter, you've all heard the same stuff I'm sure. But to come at LA from a sort of existential city planning point of view, I kind of liked that. But Collateral's really not the subject here.
My experience there was very much like what I imagine foreigners coming to the US is like. All anyone wants to talk to you about is where you're from and how it compares to where you are. So I ended up talking about driving a lot, since it's rare to do it in New York, and it's rare to not do it in LA. I'm tempted to say that I talked about driving more than I drove, but really, I spent a lot of time driving.
When I got to LA, I went to the rental car place, having reserved a compact car. They gave me this:
Which I would later nickname "The Beast," although I don't think I ever called it that out loud to anyone. That was my own private on the road joke to myself. You have to keep yourself entertained in traffic somehow. I'm not the best driver in the world, but I like to think I'm not the worst either. Opinion on my driving ability differs greatly depending on who you ask, but there's one thing for sure. I suck at parallel parking. I think I've only done it once since I passed my driver's test (that's probably an exaggeration, but I defy anyone to prove me wrong), which basically meant that if I wanted to park, I needed two spaces to do it. Which usually worked out, somehow. I only really, really parallel parked the Beast once, and it took me about three tries.
Getting around wasn't that hard, thanks to a combination of Google maps, people giving me directions, and my by the end sort of having a vague sense of where certain things were. Google maps can be frustrating though. At one point, it told me to get on a highway, take the first exit to another highway, and then take the first exit off that, and then I'd be where I want. I knew there was a simpler way (friends later confirmed that to be the case), but I didn't know what it was. But it usually got me where I was going. Yeah, so suffice it to say, I drove a lot. At one point, I remember shutting my eyes at night and still seeing the road in front of me, like I had been playing Tetris all day or something.
For the first half of the week, my friend Phoebe and her boyfriend Rob were nice enough to let me sleep on their couch. They admitted they were a little perplexed as to what to do with me, since there's not all that much for a tourist to do in LA if you're not interested in going to theme parks. I'm sure someone will vehemently disagree with that, and to be honest, I'm not sure what I'd do with a visitor to New York for four or five days. But we had a good time, went to some nice restaurants and bars, including the Dresden, the bar they went to in Swingers:
My phone doesn't handle low light well, but you can take my word for it that I was there and I was drinking a martini. We drove around a bit, saw Sunset Strip, which apparently has a "no cruising" policy, which means if they somehow catch you driving on it twice within a certain period of time, they'll give you a ticket. Speaking of weird laws, jaywalking is enforced in LA! People actually don't walk when the sign says don't walk. Crazy.
So, as I'm sure your reading attention span is as short as my writing attention span is, I'm going to make this a two parter. Look out next time for the screening of Robin's Big Date and me exchanging a few nervous, inconsequential words with Kevin Smith. Until then, I'll leave you with this picture I took of an ad that seemed to be everywhere, this lady doctor nagging people and making a pun at the same time:
"Childhood obesity. Don't take it lightly."
Posted by Will at 12:19 AM | Comments (4) digg delicious reddit
September 12, 2006
I'm back from LA. I bet you didn't think I'd have a post up this quick, did you
That's because it's just a link. But it's a pretty good one, I think. My friend Phoebe works for a podcast called Nontourage and I did an interview them while I was out there. So check it out:
Nontourage with guest, Will Carlough
Posted by Will at 1:47 AM | Comments (9) digg delicious reddit
September 3, 2006
Being in LA and on an unrleated note, running into people and being jokingly accused of following them
So I'm in LA for the week for a Robin's Big Date (aka, the movie that will not die) screening. But I wanted to share a thought. You ever run into someone twice within a brief period of time? And then the say, "Are you following me, ha ha." I do. And the response I think but don't say, is "No. In fact, if it were possible, I'd like to know exactly where you were at all times just so that I could make sure that I wasn't there too." Thoughts on LA to come.
Posted by Will at 1:16 PM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
August 24, 2006
A short video that embodies everything that is stupid about youtube, and everything that's great about it
My call for suggestions for future posts is the most commented on diogenes club post ever, even counting the time a bunch of British teenage amateur rappers flamed me, so thanks to everyone who commented. That said, I don't think I'm going to use anything from it, so while I cull together the next post I give you:
Posted by Will at 11:11 AM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
July 3, 2006
Drug smuggling problems in space
From the New York Times: Crack Is Found in Shuttle's Foam Insulation
Haw haw. That joke was stupid.
Posted by Will at 11:54 AM | Comments (1) digg delicious reddit
June 29, 2006
My web film journalism career stumbles forward
I haven't seen the movie yet. That's all I have to say on the matter.
Posted by Will at 1:11 PM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
May 2, 2006
An interview and some housekeeping
So, that Sundance story kind of trailed off, I know. The money was the scam and the flu, after that it becomes, well, you know, going to a film festival. Anyway, I'll summarize the trip in a bit for those of you with unbelievably long attention spans, but in the meantime, enjoy this interview I did with my friend Kevin Maher for independentfilm.com
Posted by Will at 11:57 PM | Comments (3) digg delicious reddit
March 30, 2006
I went to Sundance and found God - Part Three
I'm still writing about Sundance? How long ago was it, like two months? But, I promised I'd give you the whole story, and I'm a man of my word, mostly, so here goes.
I really liked my shorts program. The programs were put together as to not have a theme, so we all had very different movies and very different personalities. There was Jacques, the fearless leader, Dan the tech expert, then there was the weird foreign guy who didn't come to the festival... I could go on and try to give roles to everybody, but who's got the time. If I had to give James and myself a role, it would probably be the two doofy guys who made a Batman movie with some famous actors. In every festival I've been to, there have always been a handful of movies that were clearly in there just because somebody famous was in them. I always hated them vehemently. Anyway, point being, I didn't get to hang out with my co-Shorts Program 3-ers as much as I would have liked to and I hope they thought more of us and our movie than I usually do of movies like it.
Our program was shown six times, I made it to four of them. (One was on the day I left, the other I ditched out on to go see Justin's feature at Slamdance, The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang.) I only actually watched the program twice. Yeah, I liked the movies, but come on. Q&A's were fun, although, as I guessed, we were only ever asked if DC Comics was going to sue us and how did we get Sam and/or Justin to do it.
Everything in Park City is kind of fake rustic, like a cross between Starbucks and a winter sports supply store. I figured out how to get around fairly quickly, or rather I learned that it was easier just to ask the volunteers they have everywhere how to get around than figuring it out for myself.
About the time my flu let up, James left, and I moved out of the hotel. I ended up running into an old friend of mine from college, Malcolm. He was in a few of my junior film partner's projects and also has the honor of launching my drumming career. I saw him and his friend playing guitar at the campus cafe, and I told him they needed a bassist (I had just started playing bass a few weeks before). He told me they didn't -- they did need a drummer. I told him I could play drums too (I couldn't). He told me they had a show booked for tomorrow night and wouldn't have any time for practice, and I was too far into my lie to back out, so we played the show as The John Wayne All-Star Heavy Metal Jam. I didn't do a terrible job, and he eventually invited me back to play a big outdoor festival after I graduated. But I digress, more than usual. He was staying with two lovely British documentarians and they had a couch for me. I took them up on it and spent the next two days with the three of them and wandering around by myself.
It's a funny thing when you're away form home with no one to talk to. You become a lot more social, or at least I do. I ended up chatting up whoever was around. There's a valuable lesson that my friend Josh taught me. When you're talking to a stranger for the first time, don't be clever. Most of the time, a simple statement of fact will do. I was over an hour early for Cargo, a movie that a total stranger in the hotel gave me a ticket to. And when you have a ticket, you really don't need to show up much before the show starts at all. A young woman was in line ahead of me. I leafed through a magazine for a little while and then I looked up at her and said, "We're pretty early." Probably the least insightful thing I said all day, but we became friends and chatted each other up for the hour and exchanged emails and whatnot.
Speaking of Cargo, I saw a lot of movies at Sundance, and there was one question asked at every single one: "How long did it take to shoot?" That is the most boring question of all time. The answer is always going to be more than two weeks, less than two months. It is impossible to give an interesting answer to that question. (Except for us, of course, three hours.) Most Q&A's were generally unenlightening although Cargo's was only because the movie sucked so much, people were asking questions like, "Why did that part happen?" and "Who killed the bald guy?"
Anyway, this post is getting long, so I'm going to wrap this up in part 4, where I run into a friend of mine I hadn't seen since high school, harass some celebrities, and move into a place with a hot tub. Seriously.
Appendix A:
You can see most of the movies in Shorts Program 3 on Sundance's web site:
Or just ask me for a dvd next time I see you.
Posted by Will at 11:41 PM | Comments (0) digg delicious reddit
February 24, 2006
I went to Sundance and found God - Part Two
Now you might be thinking, hey Will, how come you didn't write about Sundance while you were there? That would have been more exciting -- how long ago was it, like a month? Well, you'd be making a good point, but here in part two, we'll find out why that didn't happen.
We woke up in Salt Lake and got a ride back to the airport, because that was where we were going to be picked up. We ran into a friend of James', a writer for the Boston Globe, and we gave him a dvd and a card. He'd go on to briefly mention us in his Sundance write-up. We took the van to Park City with a nice British couple and some woman who kept talking about how she made a reality show but the network ruined her vision. How you could have a vision for a reality show is beyond me, but I took her word for it. The other people were dropped off at their hotels and condos and what have you, and we headed to our rented house, 1370 Woodside Avenue. But it turns out, there is no 1370 Woodside Avenue. It's the back of a fire house and a shack. We had been scammed. Well, not us, per se, we hadn't been involved in the renting, we were just the first ones to show up. So we went to Sundance headquarters and just sat there like bumps on a log, meeting the occasional filmmaker, including So and Brad, who offered us a place to crash and who made a great movie that won the special jury prize, In Between Days. We ended up not taking them up on it, because Sallie, the guest service coordinator, ended up getting us a hotel room.
So that was good that we had a place to stay. What was bad is that we had to move out of our room every morning and move into a different one at night. And normally that wouldn't be a problem, except that James and I came down with the flu. Now, when people have talked to me about the flu, I've always been dismissive. So, you basically had like a runny nose and a cough? Turns out the flu is some bad shit. At first I thought it was the worst hangover I had ever had. Although even in my freshman year of college, I couldn't get a hangover from three beers. Then I thought it was altitude sickness. It was really only after I had gotten better that I had the presence of mind to realize that it was actually the flu. (Made a lot worse, I'm sure, by altitude sickness and three beers the night before.)
There was a point where my whole body was numb and could only walk in very tiny steps. I could barely talk because I couldn't move my lips and I was just wandering around the hotel, looking for a place to sit down. I ran into a British filmmaker in our shorts program, Beck (you can see his film here), and he said, "Will, you look quite knackered." And I said, "I don't know what that means, but it's a very onomatopoeic description of how I feel." Although I doubt I was articulate enough to say onomatopoeic. He took me back to his place where I could finally lie down and then brought me a bucket that I threw up in. What a guy.
I didn't eat anything for about four days after that. I drank a lot of water and forced down a few bites of a muffin one morning. Since James and I were sleeping in the same room, he came down with the same thing a few days later. I did my best to attend movies and events, including a 'meet the press' brunch. I talked to a few press people, and the question I kept getting asked was, "What's wrong with you?" I took that as a cue to go back to bed.
Soon after that, my computer stopped working, which was bad because I had iCal'ed out everything we were going to do, and we were pretty much flying blind without it. That was when I found God. I realized that God really did exist and he was seriously out to get me. That night, James was a little worse than me, so I went to the 7-11 to get some stuff before we went to bed. He suggested I pick up a Tylenol PM, which I did, along with some cup of noodles that we cooked with our hotel coffee maker. Those noodles tasted awful but it was good to feel something in my stomach that didn't want to immediately come back up. And that Tylenol PM, boy. Lying in bed as I felt it kick in. I remember noting at the time that it was the best I had ever felt in my whole life. In retrospect, probably not my whole life. But definitely since I'd gotten to Utah.
To be continued...
Posted by Will at 1:15 PM | Comments (4) digg delicious reddit
February 18, 2006
I went to Sundance and found God - Part One
I know, I know. No one cares about Mr. Do or the Double Feature Finder, you want the goods. What went down at Sundance. Okay, here it is.
James, the director of Robin's Big Date, and I left for the airport together. In our excitement, we took some pictures of ourselves in the cab there. I think there were more pictures of us in the cab than there were actually at the festival, for reasons I'll explain later. So we got to the airport. We were going to stay in Salt Lake City for the night because the house we rented with a few other people supposedly wasn't going to be ready until the next day. But I called the guy, Alex Baldwin (that seemed odd to me too), to ask if we could come an extra day early. He answered his phone and said he was in a meeting, but we couldn't come early because the pipes had broken or something. Okay, it'd give us a chance to sample Salt Lake night life.
We ended up getting dinner at a place called The New Yorker (it was the only place that was open late), so Salt Lake nightlife remains a mystery to both of us. The one thing we did learn is that there's a rule in Utah that says you can't serve liquor unless you're a private club. So, to get around this, bars offer a temporary membership for a few dollars. Park City bars conveniently forget this during the festival (and most of Utah ignored it during the Olympics, I'm told).
We settled in relatively early (although I guess it was late by Salt Lake standards) and went to sleep, with no clue what would happen once we got to Park City.
To be continued...
Posted by Will at 3:52 PM | Comments (2) digg delicious reddit
February 14, 2006
Mr. Do and Double Feature Finder at the NYTech Meetup
I hope to have more later this week, but here's some stuff that you may or may not enjoy:
First, you remember Mr. Do? He had an arcade game in the eighties that was kind of like Dig Dug, but better? Well anyway, I drew a comic about him and Commissioner Gordon:
Page 1
And here's me talking about the Double Feature Finder at the NY Tech Meetup last week:
Video (17 megs, thanks to youare.tv for taping and encoding)
Posted by Will at 4:42 PM | Comments (4) digg delicious reddit
February 2, 2006
All right, I'm back
And sooner or later I'll collect my thoughts about Sundance and have some hilarious anecdotes, but until then:
Justin's first podcast -- (I had trouble getting this off of yahoo's site, so I'm just going to host it here)
Robin's Big Date on Entertainment Weekly's Must List -- I'll feign modesty here and suggest it was a slow news day.
We're mentioned here briefly at the bottom, putting the idea that there's no such thing as bad press to the test -- (the site might make you take survey first)
Posted by Will at