Monthly Archives: June 2007

So the reason my Mom found out about my blog is plain and simple. I am a competitive bastard. Let me preface this by saying that my Mom thinks the internet is the Devil. I think she’s afraid that at the tender age of 25, I am still at risk of being kidnapped by child predators. This idea may seem ridiculous at first, however, if someone pulled up and offered me candy if I drove around with them while they searched for their lost puppy dog, I’d be a goner. Mmmm…candy…

MOVING ON:

My Mom doesn’t even like the fact that I have a MySpace page. So I thought it was for the best that I not tell her about this little Puntabulous thing I had going on. When I would take pictures with Natalie Portman, my wife, I would explain that I was just sending them to my friends as a joke. Deception? My forte!

CUT TO:

My brother Adam found my blog. I’m not sure how he found it, but he did. I explained that Mom didn’t know about it, and that it might be best if she didn’t.

CUT TO:

My brother Adam started his own blog. HERE IT IS! Now I’m not sure why he did, but I can only assume that he was amazed and inspired by the wonderfulness of my blog, that he tried to emulate me by making his own. Right, Adam?

Adam, proud of his new blog, told my Mom about it. Did she go apeshit, you ask? No! She loved it! She even started leaving comments! COMMENTS! My mom, who never goes near the computer ever, and who needed me to talk her through checking her e-mail over the phone while I was away in college, and who severely questions the difference between clicking and double-clicking, was suddenly reading blogs and leaving comments!

Now don’t get me wrong, Adam’s blog is really funny. It’s a great contrast to Mommy Bloggers, but from a Dad’s perspective. But man, Mom just could not stop talking about how wonderful Adam’s blog was. “Did you read Adam’s blog today?” “Wasn’t Adam’s post funny today?” “Isn’t Adam a remarkable human being who is now my favorite child because of his amazing blog?” Okay, it didn’t go that far, but it was pretty close. Adam has the edge on me because he can blog about his children, my Mom’s grandchildren. Mom’s are suckers for grandchildren.

I held my tongue for as long as I could. It wasn’t until I posted a link to Adam’s blog and Antonio, a long-time Puntabulous reader (Hi Antonio!), made his way over to Adam’s blog and left a comment. My Mom almost died of joy. “Some guy named Antonio found Adam’s blog and left a comment! Adam’s blog is so amazing that random people find it and love it!”

I snapped. “I can’t take it anymore! I have a blog too!” I shouted. “And it’s better than Adam’s! And random people only found his because I linked to him!” My Mom was shocked. She was quiet for a second, thought to herself, and then finally said: “So you’re not just sending those pictures of you and Natalie Portman to your friends?”

So now both mine and Adam’s blogs are bookmarked on my parents computer for easy access. And the good thing is, Adam is all the way in Atlanta, so he can’t help it if I do stuff like this:

Okay, so maybe I’m a tad competitive. Sue me. Oh, and comments are back. Woo!

Dear Comments,

Hi. How are you? Where did you go?

I realize that my server sucks huge ass these days. But why did you disappear? The thought of switching service providers scares me because I would have no idea how to do so.

Please come back. And bring a normal functioning, 100% working server with you. This one sucks.

Love,
Craig

We all have them. We’re not proud of them, but we can’t help ourselves. They’re the movies we can’t help but hold near and dear to our hearts. Whether we hide them amongst our DVD collections or internally shout for joy when we come across them on television. They are our guilty pleasure movies. These are mine:

Halle Berry doesn’t even come close to the awesomeness that Michelle Pfeiffer reached when she played Catwoman in Batman Returns, but that’s part of the fun. At the very end when Sharon Stone is about to kill Catwoman, the following exchange takes place:

Sharon Stone: Game over.

Halle Berry: Guess what? It’s overtime!

And then they start fighting again. Awesome. I actually got my parents to watch this with me by convincing them that it would be “fun”. They still haven’t forgiven me.

This is by far the worst of the Batman movies. It’s so cheesy and over the top that you can’t help but love it. Bat nipples? You betcha! Alicia Silverstone? I’m there! Batman and Robin just happen to have ice skates built into their boots to fight Mr. Freeze? Sure! Uma Thurman at one point actually says “Curses!”. It’s genius. It’s a shame though because I feel like underneath the toy commercial, there actually might have been a good movie there. George Clooney could have been a really cool Bruce Wayne. Also, the tragedy of Mr. Freeze and his dying wife could have been really great, but instead, it’s glossed over like (dare I say it?) icing. Ugh. I hate myself for that.

Don’t even get me started on these movies. I love them. Yes, even the one where the dogs are talking! At the very end of Look Who’s Talking Now, when one of the dogs saves the day and Kirstie Alley shouts: “My dog is a genius!” is one of my all time favorite movie moments. People always say how John Travolta had his comeback in 1994 when Pulp Fiction came out. But Look Who’s Talking Now came out in 1993. He didn’t need a comeback!

I have three words for you: Supermodel Documentary Hour! This is my make-me-feel-better movie. It has helped me in many times of need. Bad test score? Superstar! Break up? Superstar! I don’t really feel guilty for liking it. I feel guilty for how awesome it makes me feel. It’s embarrassing.

What post about guilty pleasures would be complete without a mention of Showgirls? I prefer the VH1 version though where they paint on cartoon bras and panties (that’s right, I said panties!) on all the strippers to make it safe for television. It’s also great when they cut out key pieces of the plot (I know, what plot?) because they are unsafe for television, but then they reference those scenes in later scenes, and make absolutely no sense. I don’t own this on DVD, but if they sold the VH1 version, I’d be all over it.

What are your guilty pleasure movies?

1. I watched Planet of the Apes for the first time the other day. While I enjoyed it thoroughly, I’m disappointed that the ending has been spoiled for me through years of spoofs and pop culture references. It’s hard to be shocked by the final revelation when the picture of Charlton “Rigor-Mortis Hands” Heston standing by the Statue of Liberty has become such a part of our history. Same goes for the whole “Luke, I am your father” thing. Which, by the way, isn’t really what Darth Vader says. He says: “No, I am your father.” (See, Puntabulous can be fun AND educational!) But there is no way that anyone could be shocked by any of these revelations these days.

Going back to Planet of the Apes, I wonder if I would have been shocked by the ending had I not already known. They gave lots of clues throughout, and it seemed pretty obvious, but it could have just been obvious since I already knew what was going on. But then again, as movie watchers these days, we’re programmed to stay on the lookout for major plot twists in the last 5 minutes of the movie (Thanks M!) and after a while, the twists themselves can be predictable. Or maybe we’re just more sophisticated movie-goers these days. I mean come on, have you SEEN The Exorcist? People were throwing up in the aisles when it first played in the theaters. I watched it for the first time in college and it was ridiculously lame and awful. Pea soup? Not so scary. Crab walking down the stairs? Fun to try; not scary to watch.

2. Alias is rocking my world. I’m on the second season, and Sydney, Mom and Dad just went on a mission together. It was nothing short of amazing. While I’m on the topic of television on DVD (and I know I just talked about how I wasn’t going to buy anything else for a while) but what are everyone’s thoughts on Babylon 5? I’ve never watched, but I’m really intrigued by the idea of all five seasons telling a single epic story. Where my dorks at?

3. So who wants to go to the Creation Museum with me? The only problem is that you’ll have to drag me in there kicking and screaming (not terribly different from Joan Crawford’s wire hanger freakout in Mommie Dearest) since it pretty much goes against everything I believe in. The motto of the museum is “Prepare to Believe”. But I’m pretty sure if you’re going into this place, you’ll pretty much believe anything they throw at you. What can you see at the museum, you ask?

The state-of-the-art 60,000 square foot museum brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form, and placing them in familiar settings. Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

See the scaffolding, smell the freshly-cut timbers in the busy work site of Noah’s Ark. Delve into the belly of the Ark and imagine the stalls full of animals, in close quarters. Can you hear the sounds of, thunderous, driving rains—the pounding of water against the sides of the great Ark?

We provide a safe retreat for the dinosaurs at the Creation Museum. You’ll find our big-as-life dinosaurs living, in a sense, in our gardens and sauntering throughout our exhibit halls. Eye-blinking, mouth-chewing, tail-swinging creatures—part of our collection of animatronics—may startle just a few of our guests.

Wow, this sounds like an awesome learning experience! But I think I’d rather watch Evan Almighty and The Flintstones and gain approximately the same amount of knowledge. In fact, I think I’ll just stick with Evan Almighty based solely on the fact that it has Wanda Sykes. She’s so sassy and black!

4. So far Meg is the only one that followed my lead and picked herself out of a lineup. She did spectacularly!

5. In case you were wondering, Puntabulous is the number one Google search result for pregnant superheroes slave. I’m also still the number one Google search result for sock full of oranges.

6. I turned down a paying blogging gig. I figured I needed to dedicate what little time I have for blogging to Puntabulous and my adoring fans. Come on, adoring fans! Adore me!

7. So my Mom reads my blog now. Say hi to my Mom everyone! Turns out my whole family knows about this blog now. Some secrets just weren’t meant to last, I suppose.

So I definitely think experimentation is a good thing. I mean, how will you know what you like or don’t like if you don’t experiment right? Well, no, not really. But work with me here.

I have been trying to think of a blog that focuses mainly on user-submitted material. Seeing as though Passive-Aggressive Notes and Post Secret are so amazing, why not try something along those lines?

So I am happy to present Pick Up Your Bag. A blog for readers to submit pictures of lazy twits dragging teeny tiny bags behind them with no regard for the people walking behind them, or any other pictures showing how another person’s laziness makes your life annoying. Perhaps they’re leaning their whole body up against the subway pole so you have nothing to grab hold of, or even crushing your hand underneath them? Or maybe their enormous bag keeps bumping into you every half second? Anything really. The “Pick Up Your Bag” is just an analogy for a whole crapload of annoying stuff that goes on out there.

This will of course have no effect on Puntabulous since the new blog would be solely user-submitted and require little to no effort on my part.

I don’t know if those little bags annoy everyone else as much as they annoy me, but I figured this was worth a shot. Chances are this will fizzle out, but I’ll be curious to see if anyone sends me pictures. Also, no faces will be published, since that’s not very nice. So get those camera phones ready!

So what do you guys think? Worth a shot?