Snuggies: a comfort or a cancer?

Roamless Hudson: I'm not going to lie gang, it's been a rough time for the R-Dogg. However, the cure for my blues arrived in the mail Thursday. That's right, I got my Sage Green Sunggie and super-slim, totally portable Book Light! I know it's getting warm out, but I'm sure I'll be able to use my Snuggie year round whenever I want to watch TV or study on my bed. And that Book Light will come in handy when we have our next week-long power outage!


Bone Fresh: Oooh, Snuggies! I love Snuggies! They make it possible to easily and immediately identify the idiots living in our midst. Some of these people might otherwise go unnoticed, and you might regrettably find yourself engaged in, shudder, conversation with them. Snuggies offer a quick and easy way to avoid such mind-numbingly painful interactions. If you suspect that the person you've encountered might possess the mental capacity of an illiterate, heroin addict who is recovering from lobotomy surgery, then all you need to do is inquire if that person has seen a commercial for Sunggies. If their response is in any way positive, you know to flee as if a pack of rabid hell hounds were following close upon your heels.

wusspie: Ok, I can kind of see the reason for the Snuggie's existence from a functionality standpoint, but what really irks me is the stupid hipster adoption of it. “Hey, let's post a goofy Twitpic of ourselves wearing these! Everybody will think we are sooo cool!” Or, what's even more horrifying is the organizational efforts on "teh innernets” to manufacture Snuggie bar crawls in various cities across the country. If there was ever a justifiable need for an IED, it would be to take out a herd of unsuspecting, drunken, Snuggie-wrapped toolbags on a crowded street corner.

Roamless Hudson: Whatever, dudes. Next time you're laying on the couch at home and struggling with your blanket because it's got no sleeves, just know that I'll be kickin' it in style with hundreds of my best buds as we bounce from bar to bar in perfect comfort.

Bone Fresh: No one struggles with a blanket! Blankets are some of the most simple things known to man! They're almost as simple as you Roamless. The Snuggie serves no purpose, fills no need, and solves no problem. The fact that Snuggies are targeted at people too stupid to figure out a blanket should tell you something about the people who buy them. And if you really really need sleeves, get a robe.

As for the hipsters wusspie identifies, their tight pants must have restricted the blood-flow to their already addled brains. Otherwise, they would realize that something stupid and worthy of derision isn't redeemed because it is worn “ironically.” It's still just plain stupid.

Question from a reader #4

Fresh Fanatic Big Tony writes:

Hey Fresh, while I was at work watching a prostitution bust go down in the parking lot, I saw a very attractive female officer. How do you approach an attractive female officer without ending up in cuffs involuntarily?

-Big Tony

Bone Fresh: Well Tony, the important thing to remember is that female police officers aren’t any different than any other female, so some of the same basic rules and approaches still apply. You don’t want to come on too strong, subtlety is good. Also, you want to seem a bit aloof, there’s a reason girls like it when guys play hard to get. They figure that if you’re too easy, there’s not that much to you. Girls hate it when guys don’t show any initiative, when they can be directed and controlled like obedient little dogs.

So that means, if you’re interested in showing a female officer that you’re worth her time, don’t let her stern demeanor fool you. She doesn’t REALLY want a submissive. When she tells you to “Step out of the vehicle” maybe try asking her whether your pants should stay inside. Or, perhaps that instead she might want to get in…in the backseat. The rules of mating are universal: we pursue that which retreats from us. So it might help to remember the words, paraphrased for the situation, of Hunter S. Thompson “Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a female cop. A normal speeder will panic and immediately pull over to the side. This is wrong. It arouses contempt in the cop heart. Make her chase you. She will follow.”


wusspie: Yeah Tony, push her to her theoretical limit. Put your hands up when she asks you to put them behind your head. Keep telling her “you didn’t do nothing” when she obviously knows that you did, in fact, do something. Throw that little baggie filled with paraphernalia in the bushes when she’s got you in a high speed, foot pursuit and then deny its existence after she’s tackled you to the ground. And, if at all possible, do all of this without wearing a shirt. Keep pushing her buttons… and maybe you’ll get lucky and be popping the buttons on her uniform later that evening.

Roamless Hudson: While something in Fresh and wusspie’s advice seems a bit off, I’m not going to question them because – believe it or not – I have never actually had any interaction with a female cop (other than the stellar Thurston Moore song of the same name). I did, however, roll with a female paramedic for a while, and let me tell you, Big Tony, female paramedics are bad news. She constantly told stories about how she saved this or that person’s life the night before, and she never wanted to listen to me when I started talking about the sick band I had recently seen.

You would think she would have at least given me expert advice when medical situations arose, but she didn’t. One time I thought my friend was in a coma from having had bit too much to drink. I called her and she came over right away, and told me we had to rush my friend to the hospital or risk losing him. After the ambulance dropped him off at the hospital and the nurse took a look at him, I found out that he hadn’t, in fact, had a drop to drink all night, and that he was actually just in a really deep sleep from having taken a prescribed sleeping pill. Needless to say, knowing this particular chick paramedic has soured me on the whole lot of ‘em.

Bone Fresh: Uh…right.

Anyway, I have a question for you Tony. You say you were gazing longingly at this female officer in the midst of a prostitution bust. I’m curious, are you SURE the object of your affection was indeed a cop? Is it possible that you might instead have observed a member of the oldest profession who caters to people with a particular affinity for uniformed authority figures? Because if that’s the case, your question becomes infinitely easier to answer…a crisp clean $20 might be all the pickup line you need.

Just make sure you know ahead of time. You don’t want to make the same mistake Antonio Henton did.

Park my ride?

wusspie: Hey guys, wusspie here... I was riding my bike in the street the other day, sans shirt, and I passed this fancy schmancy restaurant called Lindy's. There were a bunch of young guys wearing the same colored shirt running around and parking people's cars for them. It was kind of neat because the customers were able to just roll right up to the front door without having to park and walk. However, it looked as if they exchanged this service for cold, hard cash. It seemed like a great idea, but the people taking advantage of it all seemed like they were rich, stuck up snobs. I struggled with whether or not I thought this scheme was something I'd actually take advantage of... if I could actually afford to own a car. Would you guys use a valet service or what?

Bone Fresh, seen here in this paparazzi photo, parking his "beater" for a power lunch at Club 185.

Roamless Hudson: I'm loaded. I also like spending my hard earned cash. Really, who am I kidding? I like burning my dough like there's no tomorrow. And you know what? It doesn't matter, because I'm rolling in hundred dollar bills.

One of the benefits of being so affluent is that I can make liberal use of valets. When you think about it, valets are pretty much the greatest thing known to man. It's totally awesome to be able to drop $10 or so to avoid the strenuous and mind-numbing process of having to drive my car, park it, and walk 50 to 100 feet to wherever I'm going. It's especially beneficial when I'm dining at Lindy's, which is in the German Village. Nothing's worse than having to drive around for an extra 30 seconds to try to find an open spot, parallel park my ride and walk a third of a block to the restaurant. Best of all, I get to feel totally superior to the dolt who's parking my car. God bless the man who came up with valet parking!

Bone Fresh: Unlike Roamless, I have nothing but contempt for valet parking and even more, for the people who ultilize the service. Valet parking is nothing but institutionalized laziness. Even worse, it's institutionalized laziness that caters exclusively to a crowd that would hire someone to wipe for them if such a service existed. It's absurd and classist, a divisive force that pits rich and/or egotistical patrons against people trying to live a peaceful life in their neighborhood. Just because you pay $5 doesn't mean that you get to clog up the streets while your overweight, can't walk a block to save my life, self slowly flops your whale-like body out of your land yacht. They're my streets, take your money, take your keys, and go home to the suburbs. Either that, or learn to walk.

Roamless Hudson: Stop calling me fat. And I know how to walk. Fresh, you're one of those people that guns for me as I'm walking in the middle of the street toward my car while my trusty valet boy holds the door open for me. I've got just as much of a right to be in the road as your car, so stop trying to run me over.

Back to the lesson at hand. Showing off how much money I've got isn't laziness. I work hard for my money, and I deserve every opportunity to let average joes know that I'm better than them. It's a doggie dog world, and class divides are inherent to it. Best fall in line Fresh, or me and my suburban homeboys are going to move in to the palatial villa next to your place and annoy the hell out of you.

Bone Fresh: You have no right to stand in the middle of the road, contemplating whether to hand over the keys to your Escalade to a pimply 18-year old who is just as likely to take it on a joy ride a la Ferris Beuller's Day Off as he is to deposit it safely in the open parking spot 30 feet from the door, which, by the way, you could have just as easily pulled into yourself. It's amazing, people like you willingly turn over your keys to some kid whose only qualification is wearing a vest, but yet, when I try to use the road for its intended purpose, then glare as I pass, concerned that I'm going to clip your door which is taking up not one, but TWO lanes of travel. I don't know how many times I've been stuck in a valet originated traffic jam because your kind needs to express your need to find one area in your life where you can exercise control and impose your will on others. What's the matter, didn't your mommy hug you enough?

As much as you might try to justify it as anything else though, ultimately valet services are there simply because you're afraid of a little physical exertion and have an irrational fear of breaking a sweat. After all, doing so might force you to confront the truth which you fear the most. That despite your delicately constructed delusions, you're no different than the common man.

wusspie: Gosh, I didn't realize I was going to spark such an ugly debate. At least I learned something though, Roamless should have no problem floating me a loan for my small business idea (Alpaca Farm!) and Fresh hates stuff. Then again, this whole discussion is moot for me, not only do I not own a car, I only eat mom-approved, home-prepared meals.

Who played that funky music?

Roamless Hudson: I had the worst experience last night. While enjoying a few beverages at one of my favorite drinking establishments, wusspie went over to the bar's internet jukebox. Next thing I know, the entire bar is suffering through a dreadfully agonizing 15-minute live version of Rush's “Working Man/Finding My Way,” complete with an interminable and even more self-indulgent than usual drum solo. Needless to say, it ruined everyone's night.

I can't say that I fault wusspie for his song selection, since I tend to view his lacking music taste as a disease of sorts. What I do blame is the jukebox, or, more specifically, the bar's internet jukebox. These internet jukeboxes are a scourge upon society. They've got their fancy animated displays that tell patrons they can “play any song” and “hear it now.” Gone are the days when what you can hear is limited by what records or cd's are physically in the jukebox. Now, people can “download” anything. And when you let people download anything, chances are they're going to download something horrible. I like the internet, but these internet jukeboxes have got to go.


wusspie: They call me the Working Man, Roamless... I guess that's what I am. How on Earth could you not enjoy that song?! Imagine a world where that song, segueing into Finding My Way, segueing into one of the most kickass drum solos in rock history, was not present on a jukebox at a bar where you were currently drinking a beer, at some random point in time. Is that a world you want to live in? I certainly don't think so. That's what makes the internet jukebox such an amazing tool. It allows me, the cultured and illuminated individual that I am, to exhibit my musical knowledge and prowess to the whole bar, forcing my will on everyone. Heck, if I wanna hear Bongzilla's “Weedy Woman” off of their masterpiece album Amerijuanican, I should have that ability... and again, who in the world wouldn't want to rock out to some Bongzilla whilst sucking down domestic beer and smoking USA Gold's. It's a symbol of freedom and individuality, liberating the masses from the stingy bar-owner and jukebox manufacturer's limited musical selections.

Bone Fresh: As for me, I feel sorry for the poor employees of such establishments. While I always have the option of leaving when crap music comes on, or giving wusspie a solid punch in the arm that'll leave a bruise for several weeks, the employees don't have either option. They just have to stand there and suffer. Night after night. It's one thing for me to have to listen once to some joker who hasn't seen a dentist in well, ever, play Toby Keith. But if I had to listen to it over and over again, night after night, I'd be one angry American. Plus, at least with traditional jukeboxes, if there's crap on there, the employees put it there; they deserve their fate.

Roamless Hudson: Right on. Jukeboxes should be something that enhance the character of a place and attract like minded people. When I go out, I want to go to a place where I can hear the Fall or the Dead Boys or Devo. I don't want to hear Creed or Marcy Playground or Static-X. I'm not unreasonable, though, so I know that a lot of people don't want to hear what I do. Traditionally, jukeboxes operate to enforce an equitable division of who goes to what bar. I can go to Larry's because I know that I'm going to like the majority of the stuff that people will play on the jukebox, and I know not to linger at a place where the entire Collective Soul discography is on the menu.

The internet jukebox has broken down this wall, though, and in doing so it has created a state of social confusion. Everything is upside down. I've now experienced a world where “Redneck Woman” leads into “White Light/White Heat,” and that leads into “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” It's not pretty, and everyone comes out of it a little broken.

Bone Fresh: You're right Roamless, internet jukeboxes are destroying the social fabric and what an evening out means. Not only have they torn places from their musical moorings, but now an additional “feature” creeping into these hell-boxes further threatens our favorite gathering places. Now, at certain locations, you can shop directly from the jukebox. Thats right, if the urge to purchase a lamp, mp3 player or pair of socks hits you while you're consuming a fine draft beverage, you can satisfy that urge by turning to the handy internet jukebox. Seriously.

What is wrong with people?! How is it possible that this can even be a remotely successful business model? And yet, it must be. There'd be no purpose to spending the money to develop the infrastructure to offer the capability if it wasn't profitable. So that means, somewhere, or many somewheres, sits a possession-obsessed maniac consumer, ignoring the fact that all around her life is going on. Friendships are being created, connections made and missed. But to her, the only thing that matters is the blue glow of the internet jukebox and the reassuring knowledge that in five to seven business days a new waffle iron will arrive on her doorstep.

Question from a reader #3

Loyal reader G-Money asks: Bone Fresh, whats [sic] the ettiquette [sic] 4 [sic] beach weddings?

Bone Fresh: Well, first off, it's appropriate to use good grammar. At all times. As weddings are formal events, it's important that you properly conjugate your verbs and refrain from peppering your speech with low vernacular. That means, avoid terms such as “ain't.” This lesson is especially important when it comes to beach weddings, just because the sun is shining and the crashing waves lull you into a relaxed mindset doesn't mean that you speak like someone whose primary education came at the hands of a shirtless guy on Cops.

At most weddings you'll have the opportunity to imbibe beverages that may contain alcohol. Feel free to do so with abandon. However, just because you're at a wedding and it's at the beach doesn't mean that the rule against consuming drinks with fruit in them can be relaxed. If a drink you receive contains such an impurity, it is appropriate to throw it at someone. When doing so, make sure the bride is not looking. For some reason, brides typically frown on other people having “fun” or “engaging in pranks” on their day. Also, by the time the end of the evening rolls around, if you've downed too many drinks on top of consuming too much rich food, you may feel nauseous. If it becomes necessary, you should blow chunks as close to the water's edge as possible. That way, the tide will wash away any evidence and no one will accidentally end up with a foot covered in your stomach acid.


Roamless Hudson: Great points, Fresh! I think it's also important to remember the particular ins and outs of picking up fine ladies at beach weddings. As opposed to traditional weddings, chicks at beach weddings might be dressed a little more casually. Optimally, this will mean the chicks will all be wearing bikinis. Bikini-clad babes definitely give you something to focus your attention on during the boring wedding ceremony. Unfortunately, it's rare when the chicks at a beach wedding will actually be wearing bikinis during the ceremony. Usually, they'll have some kind of beachy dress on, but often as soon as the wedding ceremony is over the dresses come off and it's bikini time.

But I digress. You asked about “ettiquette,” not what the gorgeous ladies will be wearing. You have to be careful when trying to pick up chicks who are wearing bikinis, because typically they'll be even more sensitive than usual. Any comments even distantly approaching “you look a little chubby” or “haven't been doing many crunches lately, eh?” are totally off-limits. Also verboten are attempts to give chicks food. Even if you so much as offer them one measly jumbo shrimp, they'll think you think they're fat, and lovin' time will be over for you before it even began.

You also should remember to try to make at least occasional eye contact with the lady you're talking to, so that she won't know you're only sizing her up. (This doesn't apply during the ceremony. The chicks will be too caught up in the wedding itself to notice you ogling them, so feel free to get an eyeful while the wedding itself is in process.) And don't forget to give her the occasional compliment. Often something dumb like, “Your bikini looks great – the color really matches your eyes” will get her to think you're sensitive and will put you on the express shuttle to lovin' time. Most importantly, feel free to mention how awesome of a surfer you are, even if you've never surfed before, because chicks will usually just believe you and think you're super-awesome without asking for any proof.

wusspie: It all depends on what kind of beach we're talking about here. An East coast, Atlantic Ocean beach wedding will probably be more proper and conservative while a swingin' SoCal espousal will have plenty of martinis and chicks with loose morals. Now, a Lake Erie ceremony might include walleye for dinner and chicks who might not be wearing underwear, not to sex up the evening, but because they just didn't have any clean laundry. So, I think it's important to take into account the body of water this beach abuts. I can speak from experience on this topic because I once had my own wedding on a beach. Granted, the sand had been shipped in from out of state and it took place along the banks of my uncle's fishin' pond... and my bride-to-be never showed up. Apparently she had second thoughts about marrying a guy who had his aunt Sally Joe cater the reception and who's second cousin LaVerne insisted on starting the ceremony with shotgun fire. So, uh... yeah. I guess just make sure you wear a tie.

Bone Fresh: Hopefully the wedding you'll be attending bears no resemblance to anything wusspie just described. I sometimes wonder about him. Did I say sometimes? I mean always.

A beach wedding almost assuredly means you'll need to travel. Once you fill your suitcase with swim trunks, sunscreen and the requisite leis (enabling you to make corny “getting lei-ed” jokes), it'll probably be quite full. And with airlines now trying to fool idiots into thinking that prices haven't gone up by charging for checked bags rather than increasing ticket costs, you might not have room to bring along less important things, like a gift. No fear. Some wrinkly old lady who has nothing better to do than tell people how to live their lives says you have a year after the wedding to deliver your present. I suggest an ice cream maker. They make great gifts!

Fresh Knows Book Club: The Da Vinci Code

It is now time for another installment of the Fresh Knows Book Club. This month's book: The Da Vinci Code.

wusspie: Can I just say “wow”? I guess I don't really care, I'm going to say it anyway. WOW!

Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has got to be the most suspenseful and thrilling read of my life. I was immediately immersed in this historically accurate novel from page one and don't recall ever putting it down. Mr. Brown had me thoroughly entangled in this finely crafted web of international conspiracy and intrigue. Truly a tour de force that rivals not only classical master's work, such as Charlotte Bronte's Wuthering Heights, but contemporaries like James A. Michener's Alaska. This page turner literally had me turning the pages with an unheard of speed. I went through this thing like Fresh goes through a copy of Foreign Affairs! I have to give this piece of amazing literature my utmost approval and charge each and every God-fearing American to buy a copy today. It's that good!



Roamless Hudson: Did we read the same book? The Da Vinci Code may be the worst book ever written. Dan Brown is a loser hack. Even the first page of this book made me physically ill, as if I had drunken an elixir of month-old milk mixed with habanero sauce. Really, the completely valueless quality of this book defies written description. I'm struggling. Fresh, help me out.

Bone Fresh: I must admit, in a perverse way, I'm pleased that wusspie and his ilk enjoy this book. I had originally written them all off as too stupid to know how to read. But I have to wonder, is 100% literacy a worthy social goal if all the morons out there do is consume pap like this.

The idiots who enjoy the book fall into two basic categories: 1) those who think that, despite its label as “fiction,” The Da Vinci Code actually contains secrets successfully concealed for thousands of years but somehow uncovered by Dan Brown and 2) those who think that the book is original, creative and enjoyable. As for the first group, they're the same type of people who lack even a semblance of critical thought and probably also believe the Large Hadron Collider is going to create a black hole that will swallow up the universe. That is, if they know what the LHC is. We'll write them off, any criticism is useless really, and they're pretty much too stupid to live.

It's the second group that really concerns me. They're the ones that have perpetuated the myth that it is worth reading even a single word of this manuscript. It's trash, pure and simple. The inability of so many people to recognize it as such makes me concerned. If they can't identify trash in this form, in what other instances are they similarly blind? Do they go rummaging around in garbage cans seeking sustenance, chewing like goats on discarded tin cans? It wouldn't surprise me.

Roamless Hudson: You're right, Fresh. No justifiable reason for reading or enjoying this book exists in the known universe. The plot and the conspiracy theories that inform it are all so absurdly stupid that any person capable of creating and retaining a rational thought in his or her mind has to recognize it as total, unmitigated bull-crap. Albino castrati crawling through ancient aqueducts on top-secret missions to kill any “symbologist” who crosses their path? Bootleg Indiana Joneses engaging in extended swordplay with members of Opus Dei? Leonardo Da Vinci throwing some puzzles written in disappearing-reappearing ink that takes 400 years to rematerialize? Flying monkeys firing ray guns at Louvre visitors? Realizing the Holy Grail is actually a chick? Mystic monks gazing at their omphalos?

People think this is intelligent fun? It all sounds like the makings of a 3,600-foot mountain of dung to me. And around that mountain of dung fly more than 60.5 million little gnats – one for each copy of this horrible novel in print – gathering their daily bread from the putrid pages of filth spewed forth from the base and vile mind of Dan Brown. If you haven't yet made the mentally crippling mistake of reading this historically horrible work of lowest-common-denominator fiction, don't do it, for the love of all that is holy.

wusspie: Um... uh... I can't honestly say that I understood much of what Roamless and Fresh just said. But, that should in no way be justification for the idea that Dan Brown and his fans are stupid. We just know that it's a good book and that's enough for us... oh, and the movie was fantastic too! Tom Hanks just seems like such a nice guy.

Bone Fresh: Although it's so blatantly and absurdly false that only someone who had been repeatedly dropped on their head as a child would ever think The Da Vinci Code references real events, I do find myself wishing that at least one truth was contained within. If only the assassins responsible for keeping everything a secret actually existed. They could have dispatched Dan Brown before he ever birthed this abomination.

Join us all next month when we here at Fresh Knows bring you another installment of the Fresh Knows Book Club. We'll turn our critical eye on The Secret. Will it be a page turner or a page burner?

Celebrity Gossip: Fresh or Spoiled Rotten?

wusspie: OMG, I can’t believe what’s happening in the world of celebrity news as of late. It’s really just gotten out of hand. Brad and Angelina, Tom and Katie, Flava Flav and that chick from Beverly Hills Cop 2! But I must admit, it’s really captivated my attention. I’ve always been a sucker for gossip, but celeb gossip is just so much more interesting. The sex, the drugs, the ungodly amounts of money… and of course, paparazzi crotch photos! It’s like regular gossip, but on steroids… sexy, sexy steroids. And what’s great about it is the insane accessibility of it all. From television shows (there’s a whole darn channel devoted to it!), to newspapers, to magazines, I have the ability to be plugged into this glamorous world at all times. I even have all the best celebrity websites bookmarked on my Samsung Instinct’s browser so I can check to see who the Bachelorette dumped on last night’s show while riding the #2 bus line down High Street on my way to the Gateway to buy Ed Hardy shirts at Au Moda. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I need celebrity gossip to fill some void in my otherwise dull life. I just like it, is all. Fresh, what do you think about Kelly Clarkson’s new hairdo? Is it too much?



Bone Fresh: I don’t have any thoughts whatsoever on Kelly Clarkson’s new hairdo. But you know what is too much? The level of triviality and inanity to which you’ve taken the discussion on this blog. I can think of no topic more worthless, more a waste of whatever remaining brain cells you might pretend to have, than that of celebrity gossip.

The amount of energy devoted to celebrity gossip is astounding. People like you pour over every new blip, rumor or imagined event. They have the capacity to store a seemingly endless amount of information and yet, and yet, if you ask them to justify their existence by showing they’re even remotely aware of the world around them, all you’ll get for your efforts is perhaps some mild sputtering of their lips and if you’re lucky the traces of a cold sweat.

Under no circumstances will they be able to tell you that Nouri al-Maliki is the Prime Minister of Iraq or be able to discuss whether the federal government will need to bail out Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. This despite the fact that both pieces of information have far more bearing upon their everyday existence than what Jamie Lynn Spears is going to name her kid. Good luck in even getting them to make that connection.

Roamless Hudson: This celebrity stuff has got to go. We’ve reached the point where we this crap pervades almost every aspect of life. I can’t watch a freakin’ football game without having Mike Patrick ask, “What is Britney doing with her life?” And I can’t read a Bill Simmons column without seeing him resort to using the word “celeb” at least four times.

While I’m at it, can we at least eliminate the word “celeb” from the English language? It’s a sign of how stupid celebrity gossip has made people. “Celebrity” – a four-syllable word – has become too hard for them to pronounce, and so now they’ve got to use this ridiculous two-syllable truncation. Saying “celeb” sends the world an enormous flashing signal that your life is so boring that you have to spend the bulk of it reading TMZ, looking at the pictures of Clay Aiken taking his trash out in US Weekly, and eating Cheetos while millions of other people are actually outside doing stuff.

It doesn’t matter whether Brad and Angelina vacation in Molokai or Montenegro. Nicole Richie’s pregnancy has no effect on the world. And Matthew McConaughey’s baby photos aren’t going to change your life. “Oooh, let me check Perez Hilton to see whether Zac Efron washes his hands after using the bathroom!” “Hey, did you see that VH1 special about ‘Top Celebrity Toenails?’” Stop being such an idiot and get a life. I hate to get all Fresh on you, but you should be locked up with Wesley Snipes.

wusspie: Holy crap, Roamless! You know more than I do! Molokai or Montenegro? I don’t know… who’s hotter?

Got the clap?

Roamless Hudson:I had a moment of great disappointment while at the theater to see the new Batman film recently. We'd reached the end of the riveting saga, and just as the credits began to roll, a loud majority of the audience erupted into ecstatic applause. Hearing this raucous show of approval startled and confused me

I jumped to my feet and looked toward the theater entrance as I queried the hottie next to me, “Everybody's going nuts, did Christopher Nolan just walk in or something?” She didn't answer, but to my disappointment, the C-man hadn't graced us with his presence. It wasn't even Eric Roberts. To my horror, I realized my fellow movie-goers weren't clapping for any human being. They were actually clapping for the film itself. Fresh, does it make any sense for people to enthusiastically applaud a movie?

Bone Fresh:No. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The best way to explain this bizarre behavior is through reliance on Occam's Razor, in this case, the simplest answer being: people are stupid. There is a lot of asinine behavior that occurs in the darkness of a movie, talking, cell phones, and we won't even get into Alanis Morissette's favorite activities. Most of these things are obviously unacceptable, and even the closest relatives to Cro Magnon men are aware that they shouldn't occur (even if the very same people ignore such knowledge). Clapping in movie theaters in a different class however, it's an insidious and growing trend that needs to be nipped in the bud.

The motivation behind clapping is to let a performer know you've appreciated their performance. That's why it's acceptable and expected to clap at the end of a solo, even if the rest of the piece is continuing. But such a justification does not carry through in the context of celluloid, a fact which escapes the grasp of the drooling movie going masses. These people need to realize that NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU! The only people that are there to hear you slap your hunks of meat together are the other members of the audience. So the only purpose clapping could possibly serve is to communicate to the entire rest of the theater that you liked the film. And I can assure you, they don't care.

wusspie: It's called “having fun”, guys. Something you too obviously don't know anything about. People clap at the end of a film because it's a spontaneous reaction to something enjoyable. They know the actors, director, and key grips can't hear them, but they show their appreciation regardless. Sure, they could go home and write a letter to the producers thanking them for orchestrating a brilliant piece of cinematography, but that's not a realistic response. Clapping, however, is. Personally, I clap after every great movie I see, for example, Starship Troopers 3, and I anticipate an uproariously loud applause for the forthcoming Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Heck, when I'm done eating a take-home Wendy's classic double from the drive through, I give Dave Thomas a hearty clap for a job well done. Come on, fellas, try and enjoy stuff that is good. But, don't do it for me, do it for yourself.

Bone Fresh: Don't mistake my normal, rational, behavior for an inability to enjoy movies. Just like Roamless, I thoroughly enjoyed the most recent Batman film. However, I felt no need to broadcast my enjoyment so that everyone else would be aware. I feel no need to publicly impart my stamp of approval upon things.

I will admit, there is one instance where I was pleased by the thunderous uproar once the credits began to roll. Perhaps blinded by childhood nostalgia, I sat through the most recent Transformers movie. A terrible decision in retrospect. At no point during its 144 minute long running time (and let me tell you, I was painfully aware of each minute) did I find myself enjoying or amused by the latest atrocity which Michael Bay has unleashed upon the world. It was only after it ended and the theater filled with the sounds of people releasing their grasp on over-sized sodas and bags of popcorn and then pounding one hand into the other that I felt any joy at all.

I at least was able to judge each person surrounding me, and find them lacking.