Funny, Funny Stuff.

We've got a taste for the irreverent over here at suddenlystruttin, and if there's one funny and wacked out show available on the internet every week that we make sure to catch it's Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Here's a clip.

The Cloverfield Post

I went to see Cloverfield last night at the midnight showing and if you like Monster Movies, like I do, than you'll probably realize that this film is really great. If you don't like Monster flicks you'll probably leave the theatre scratching your head and saying, "What's all the fuss about?" Plenty of critics will be praising the director for incorporating so many 9/11 allegories, fear of technology et cetera into the plot, however, for me it's simply a very satisfactory film that takes a tired genre and introduces a lot of very cool new twists to it. Now I'm not going to sit here and type away every single spoiler to the film,Minor Spoiler Alert but, if you know my taste in movies, you know I love it when the good guy does not win in the end and Cloverfield definitely did not disappoint in that regard. The monster that rampages through lower Manhattan, and presumably all of New York, is a real freak and I'm very curious to hear the backstory (if any) on the origins of it, that being said there are some very gratuitous and crappy looking close up shots of the monster that kinda made me want to laugh out loud. Go see it, and I hope you'll enjoy it.

Corn fed Caucus

In spite of this site's time-honored mantra/lifestyle of rampant boozing, mocking of floozies and sending out death threats to Cash Warren; the staff and I occasionally [and completely by accident, I might add. -Ed.] post a humorous, honest portrayal of life, such is the case today. One of my longtime cohorts has recently returned from the violent, bizarre hinterland known as "Iowa"* where he was working for one of the presidential nominees in the months leading up to the Iowa Caucus last week. Here is his story.

Full disclosure: I was roped into penning this blog post as rent payment for Tony allowing me to crash on his couch for the next few days. Let's just say it was preferable to the other option.

I write to you as a free man, someone who is thankfully a couple hundred miles on the civilized side of the Iowa border. For the past three months, I've lived in Des Moines and worked on a presidential campaign. I've been locked in a windowless building, endured miserable hours, eaten a shameful amount of pizza, smoked entirely too many cigarettes and endured miserable weather.

However, despite it all, I am still happy that I made the choice to move to Iowa. So, allow me to share with you the three things that you need to know about the Iowa caucuses so that you too can sound like an embittered, exhausted and beaten down campaign operative.

Iowa and Iowans are completely unremarkable.

You have most likely never considered the state of Iowa or the plight of Iowans and I implore you to continue to do so. It would be unfair to bash Iowans unnecessarily, though it would also be unfair to assign them mystical qualities that allow them to look deep into the souls of political candidates. You will often hear anecdotal evidence about how Iowans are better informed politically than the rest of the country. This is a complete lie.

Like every other state in the union, a few Iowans are extremely well informed politically, however the vast majority don't give a shit. The myth that Iowans are better informed was merely developed as a justification for allowing Iowa to hold the first-in-the-nation caucus. Given the fact that Iowa has few urban centers and even fewer minorities, it is actually ill suited to determine the presidential nominee (the same holds true for New Hampshire). States like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, with their excellent mix of urban and rural populations, immigrant populations and varying political views would serve as much better venues. However, you shouldn't fault Iowans for fighting tooth and nail to retain its status given the amount of money and attention that is directed at the state.

The fate of the free world is decided by children.

Campaign staff is largely made of people in the twenties. This is not just the field organizers and interns – this includes senior staff and managers. This leads to embarrassing drunken outings in which you witness coworkers and senior staff members drunkenly pawing at one another and engaging in reckless and awesome behavior. Personally, I applaud such behavior, especially given the stressful and lonely environment that people are forced to work. However, it is important to dispel the myth that old white men in suits are directing the ship. For those looking to relive their college escapades, there is no better place to go then a presidential campaign.

Caucuses are awful and undemocratic.

Given the unprecedented amount of money that was poured into the Iowa caucuses and the unusually completive nature of the race this past year, some light was shed into the bizarre process that is a caucus. If you still don't know what a caucus is, don't fret, because the vast majority of Iowans – including, I suspect many of last week's attendees – have no idea how it works. The most common misconceptions regarding a caucus were that is takes place in Des Moines, that you have to give a speech and that it costs money. While all of those are false, there is still enough silliness and absurdity that does take place to consider the entire ritual a farce.

In the Democratic party caucus, instead of casting a ballot, a caucus-goer must stand in a corner to support a candidate. (In fact, one does not have to caucus for a candidate and can instead caucus for an issue, like Darfur or ice cream) After the first counts are taken, people supporting other candidates can try to persuade others to move over to their corner. Now, despite the copious talking points provided by each campaign, the exchange would often go like this:

“Frank, what are you doing supporting Hillary?”

“Because I like her health-care plan.”

“Frank, come on. I shoveled your walk last week, come and stand with me in the Obama corner. Also, Debbie made some of her nice sugar cookies that everyone is enjoying over there.”

Much of the caucus is devoted to crowd control. That is, keeping other campaign's supporters away from your supporters. Finally, one can not absentee caucus. So, that means that senior citizens fearful of the weather – a contributing factor to Hillary's loss – those working at 7pm, and, perhaps most egregious, soldiers serving abroad can not participate.

The caucuses are over and done with to the relief of a great many, including myself. The process and the parties involved represent the height of absurdity and one is tempted to laugh until they realize that they this process will ultimately decide the next president of the United States.




*Native American for "Land of corn and fat, boring, pale-faces."

Quit Your Bellyachin'

Sorry, the staff and I have been working harder than a cat trying bury a turd on a marble floor the past few days. Crashing at the suddenlystruttin's official apartment/office is a long time friend who will have an exciting contribution to the blog in the next few days. Complicating matters has been our ongoing "job hunt" that has taken exciting BUT time consuming new twists in the past week. Hopefully posting shall get back to a quasi-daily basis later this week, in the meantime, amuse yourself with the "Apache" video.

Jackass of the Week

Head Colds

I hate being sick and getting laid low by some treacherous upper-respiratory infection is the worst. In any case, I've been outta commission most of the day. Hopefully, I'll get some content up over the weekend pertaining to the BCS Championship Game, so that y'all have reading material in your cubicles on Monday. Have a good weekend.

Spiked Balls

This is funny.

Chris Bosh: Totally Rad Dude

I love it when athletes make tremendous attempts at being humorous and displaying personality and when the athlete is my second favorite NBA big man (behind Andris Biedrins) all the better. Say what you will but I'm a huge fan of athletes making the extra effort and showing a sense of humor while still dominating in the arena of athleticism.

The Kindle Review

Let me say right off the bat, that the Kindle's primary function, to allow readers instant access to books, blogs, newspapers and magazines, is performed flawlessly with nary a hitch in the entire process. At any given time with this device in your hands you can look up anything in the Kindle store. Now, that being said there are some seriously awesome things about this lil guy and sadly, a few too many major but not fatal flaws with the Kindle.

Pros

The Display:
The screen and especially the electronic-paper appearance is startlingly crisp and extremely easy on the eyes. It has no backlighting and a very glare-free screen that affords you the ability to read this thing in any kind of lighting.

EVDO Connectivity:
Holy. Balls. is this fucking thing fast! Books, big books with thousands and thousands of words come to your finger tips in the time it takes to snap said fingers together.

The Obvious
Books showing up in your hand on an electronic screen that actually makes you forget it's on a screen at all.

The Coolness:
Not quite at the level of early-adapter iPod owners in ought one or early-ought two, but still the panache is intact with Kindle.

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The Cons

EVDO Connectivity + Impossibly Primitive Web Browsing
As wonderfully fast as "teh Internet" is on Kindle, the entirely lacking web capabilities render it practically moot, if not for the whole "download words real fast" thingy going for it. Seriously, Kindle with EVDO is akin to a '87 Buick Century being outfitted with a Ferrari engine. Amazon had best get some sort of circa 2008 web browsing on this gadget if they're hoping to be anything more than a speed bump on the highway to immediate information.

Interface/Design:
Look, I'm not asking for anything as groundbreaking and minimalist as the iPhone. But when the four buttons you have for navigating the electronic pages are "Previous Page," "Next Page," "Next Page," and "Back," you're not thinking hard enough. Yo, and that up and down click wheel has gotta go. I mean, shit!, fucking Centipede had a left-right-up-down trackball in 1980!
And if I may continue [It's your blog, have at it hoss. -Ed.] the coloration and hard angles of Kindle is more reminiscent of those box PCs from the 1990s than anything I've seen this century. I wanna be getting cutting edge, not a Dell!

Flawed Purchase Plans:
Paying for blogs? Excuse me, but eat a dick! You really expect me to pay any amount of cash to read the opinions of my peers, chirping chicken heads, frat boys and soccer moms? Yeah, Amazon's gotta do something about that. Also, ten bucks a month for the Wall Street Journal? Am I getting a handjob with that shit? Cause, at those prices I better be, what with the whole no images thing and you know the whole $79 dollar price tag for the web version as opposed to $120 annually for less pictures and worse site navigation.


Conclusion:
Love the idea and not a fan of the execution. I'll reiterate, the Kindle does it's primary job supremely well but it does need some well-thought out tweaking.

Happy Day After New Year's

The staff of dport left a comment to me on their website saying how they expected some sort of NYE revelry review, so I'll try to get to that in this post. More importantly longtime suddenlystruttin follower and fellow blogger, bella french, has updated and revamped her little corner of cyberspace like mad and it's looking good, check it out right here. And speaking of updated/risen like the Phoenix-type site updates, Uncle Urb has recently tossed his hat back into the bloggers ring, click here for, eventually?, hilarious content.

Onto New Year's Eve, as previously mentioned I don't really get the purpose of this holiday-- it's about college football games and hangovers, right-- but I do love the, seemingly, laissez-faire attitude that people embrace on this night, the "I've got work in two days and am up to my neck in credit card debt after the holiday, but Fuck It! I will buy that magnum of Moet and an eight ball" attitude. Suffice it to say, I went out with a bottle of Old Granddad to a house party a few blocks from my apartment and had a lot of fun drinking Boilermakers, dancing like a fool, --Scene Missing-- then coming home. The best part about coming home was waking up --Scene Missing-- and then waking up again much later, like around 6:30 am on my couch in my underwear and wearing my winter coat. Yeah, not sure what happened in a few spots. Hope everybody had a great night!