In an attempt to defibrillate this website that hopefully won’t be eaten by an internet tube snake, I present some shitty jokes about even shittier costumes. Don’t expect more than a couple jokes here as these costumes hang even lower than my prodigious gonads.

Halloween Express: I think these are the same people that sold the Dregolas costume last year with the dude that sorta looked like me. I still want to punch him in the nuts for that. I have had some really shitty jobs when I was poor but I have never sunk that fucking low. Modeling must be a tougher gig than I thought. The “Otis House of 1000 Corpses” costume reinforces my firm belief that Rob Zombie should be eaten by his namesake, sucky or sweet zombie, it doesn’t matter to me. “Cain the Vampire Tyrant” looks like it belongs in some goth’s fan fiction wank fest and the model seems to agree with me. These are supposed to be from classic horror movies but is House of 1000 Corpses really on the same level as Frankenstein or The Wolf Man? Is it even on the same level as Chucky? Oh god, I hope there isn’t a Chucky costume in the kid’s section.

The costumes in the Premium section look like they came off the set of the really shitty movies playing on the SciFi channel. The movies they don’t advertise. The lack of imagination in these costumes frightens me more than the “Out of Stock” symbols beneath some of them. What the hell is the difference between these two ghostly gents? They look like they walked off the set of the stupid episodes near the end of the original Battlestar Galactica series.

How about some misogyny? The Sexy Costumes – Fantasy ought to fulfill your yen for mind-numbingly pathetic costume ideas. The “Gold Digger” could have been called the “Bored Stripper”.

The “Cuddly Lion” will allow you to fit in at any anime convention for the next year, so it has versatility, but it will also attract people who want to have sex with you while wearing a giant bunny suit. Unless you enjoy being sodomized by the Easter Bunny, I recommend you avoid this one.

“Slave Princesses” would be better off shopping at Victoria’s Secret or Night Dreams and buying something that might survive your paramour’s grabbing hands. And by paramour, I mean every drunk guy at the party.

“Captain Booty” is probably the best costume idea ever and so clever. Did you know that pirates called their loot ‘booty’? I wonder how much digging it would take to get to her buried treasure? Depends on the size of your shovel. I had another joke about her chest but thought it was a little obvious.

“Princess” seems to have gotten herself confused with Snow White because I doubt she has ever seen the inside of a toadstool or been kidnapped by some sort of giant lizard-inventor-guy.

“Funky Cat” is actually better than Halle Berry’s Catwoman outfit which is no complement to this getup. If you want to be that one woman who wears the same costume as 47 other women in the bar, by all means, spend 45 hard earned dollars on this.

Ladies, unless you want me to hit on you until you punch me in the face, don’t buy “Indian Girl” or any of the other “indian”-themed costumes on that page. I may have said too much there.

“Bad Kitty” really says it all. The designer didn’t give a shit (and may have been forced to sit through that horrible movie) and the model wishes she had never left that job at Starbucks. I wouldn’t smile if I had to wear that either.

“Heidi Ho”, “Manhunter”, “Neverland Elf Chick”: The AG ICBM is being aimed at you as I type. Expect a firestorm of incoherent fury to land on you in approximately 90 seconds. I expect nothing but a large smoking crater after our patented Shenanigan-Class AG Warhead impacts your content factory.

As for the “300″ page under Current Movies, Snyder should fucking sue.

Under TV & Movies – Men, we find a trove of trash, a heaping helping of hellish mediocrity. “Batman” looks more out of shape than Adam West. Joel Schumacher called and wants his dignity back.

“Wolverine” looks about as threatening as a goddam Lolcat.

“Miami Vice – Tubbs” explains where that career went. Compared to the rest of these costumes, this one is spot on. Compared to reality, he looks like a Little Richard impersonator with twice the sleaze and half the style.

“Hulk Muscle Chest”: Don’t forget the frontispiece. The head piece looks like an Original Series Klingon or a really lame Frankenstein painted green.

“Animal House Toga”: Are you fucking kidding me? 35 bucks? Jesus Titty Fucking Chocolate Christ. A quick trip to the Salvation Army or even your building’s laundry room would get you a white sheet and then rip out some English Ivy from some chump’s yard on your way to the party. If I see anybody wearing this costume, I will give my love a chicken with no bones. Or dance with their dates.

“Batman 1997″: This is the costume for flashers. I would expect to see someone wearing this costume when I glance down an alley. The pervert would then show me what his miserable parents gave him. I can already hear him snickering and giggling behind a dumpster while masturbating furiously. Dude, when it is chapped and bleeding, its time to stop.

“Superman Supreme”: If this is their idea of supreme, I’ll take the Burrito Normal, thanks. This costume looks as cheap and ill-fitting as the rest of the drek. It isn’t even bad enough to be supremely awful. Pathetic.

“Aragorn”: You got this one mixed up, morons. Dumbledore is the gay one and he isn’t even in the Lord of the Rings. Aragorn is the last descendant of Isildur and also many generations removed from Elros Tar-Minyatur. He is the bearer of Anduril forged from the shards of Narsil and wears the Ring of Barahir. He is the king of both Arnor and Gondor. He is a ranger and warrior without equal, not some mincing medieval muttonchop. Have some fucking respect.

“Captain America”: You forgot the bullet hole.

“Spongebob Squarepants”: I didn’t think they could top the 1997 Batman costume for sheer creepiness but this one screams pedophile. How can you market this one to adults? The model has taken the ‘Removable Pants’ option to another level and simply left the pants at home. Warning: If you wear this outside and are over the age of six, you will probably be arrested and given lessons in Good Touch/Bad Touch by the other residents of your stay at Hotel Drunk Tank.

Ooooo heynow. What the hell is this? Ummm. I’ll be right back.

Moving on to other websites:

American Apparel: I respect a person that does not take themselves too seriously, but these costumes seems to cheapen a company that I really want to like, even more than their deliciously porny newspaper ads. I mean, I love their ads and can’t wait for them to just give up and start publishing with Flynt Corp or whatever, but these costumes take the fun out of Halloween. When you’re a sexy office worker all year long, does being a sexy office worker on Halloween really count ladies?

Sorry I drifted off into the other shopping areas of the American Apparel site. I was only checking out the ladies clothing because I was gonna get something for someone. Or whatever.

There we have it folks, the Well Rounded Nerds Halloween Costume Roundup.

On May 3rd, I gathered a stalwart crew and blazed a trail over to the Black Cat for the Onion’s DC Launch Party. The bill originally included Zach Galifianikis, (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope, Georgie James and Neil Hamburger. Well, Zach cancelled and Aziz Ansari was brought in for our funny time.

The evening started at the Brickskeller where I ate a fine sandwich, a Lindemans Framboise and three Leinenkugels Berry Weiss and was thoroughly ready to enjoy a fine blend of comedy and music. We few, we happy few, marched over and got in line. The line moved relatively quickly and the weather was grand.

The Black Cat does not have a lot of chairs and standing for a four to five hour show sucks, so we grabbed a table at the back. The Onion staff had tossed swag around the tables, buttons, bracelets and copies of that week’s Onion. We all grabbed some buttons and a bracelet or two and read the fake news while we waited for (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope to start the show.

The first sign of trouble was the Onion editor, Whatsisface, who came out to announce the band and the say hello. He was either terrified or bored out of his skull. He announced the band and shuffled off the stage. (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope were a band that I think fulsome would label a wall-of-sound band. It might be their thing, but I would have preferred a band that mixed their sound to the point that it wasn’t all a barely coherent mashing of noise with some added yelling. If this was their ideal sound, then I have to say they kick ass at it. If not, then they should beat the sound guy.* They played for a while and we continued to read the Onion and look around at the crowd of people that all seemed intent on not paying attention to the band.

After a twenty minute or so intermission, Aziz Ansari came strolling out onto the stage and immediately started talking about how the drinks were a lot stronger than he expected. This was not a good sign. Neither was the fact that the crowd refused to shut up and pay attention to him. The crowd noise kept getting louder and eventually Aziz was shouting into his microphone to hear himself. Aziz’s jokes were clearly suffering from the drink and the crowd, so it was hard to judge his set on its humor quotient. The jokes fell into three categories: I’m famous now, I have a TV show on MTV, I hate MTV. He had three bits that really could have been funny if his timing hadn’t been ruined by the unexpectedly strong drink and the fucking annoying crowd. His first bit railed against the MTV reality shows and what we could hear of it was pretty funny. His bit about being recognized on the street thanks to his new show and then realizing that half of the people were trying to tell him his fly was open might have been funny. He had a rambling screed against censorship because he wasn’t allowed to make a joke about a dinosaur rapist, but this was really hard to hear and was followed by a series of jokes about some kid on his show, but I have no idea what the point was. The crowd acted like he was an inconvenience in their overly-cool lives. “Hey, it’s only six dollars to go drink upstairs at the Black Cat and look cool while I text my friends about how cool I am!” Fucking yipsters.

Aziz then played a couple of clips from Human Giant, but I couldn’t hear any of the audio and there were some problems with the projector. I admit that by this time I had given up on him which isn’t exactly fair, but it is what it is. Some of my crew had ventured forward to get close enough to hear him, but they reported that it was worse up front because the yelled conversations were much louder closer to the stage.

After a forty minute intermission, Georgie James finally came on to lead us to aural salvation. I first heard of them when they opened for Camera Obscura in July 2006. I liked them and thought that the singer looked remarkably similar to Anna Faris. While, after the sucky experience with Aziz Ansari, I still liked GJ and she still looked like Anna Faris. I got closer and the crowd finally shut up. I was still annoyed about the last three hours of let downs, but stayed long enough to hear four or five of Georgie James songs. It was now after midnight and Neil Hamburger had been scheduled to come on at 11:15. I knew I was going to cab it back home but wasn’t thrilled with the idea of staying for the entire show. A friend offered me a ride home and I accepted.

The music was fine and at least the tickets were only six bucks. If I were Aziz, I doubt I would be willing to do another show at the Black Cat, or even the rest of DC.

(The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope’s myspace page

Georgie James’ myspace page

All of the photos used in this post belong to Liz Gorman, as far as I know.   If she or the Wonkette people don’t like this, I’ll take them off.

*Actually, just have some words with the sound guy/gal, they have enough to worry about without adding the threat of physical violence to their list of anxieties.

I finally got around to checking out Joe Mathlete Explains Today’s Marmaduke again this week and I have to admit it’s still hilarious.  It’s no Permanent Monday (which totally needs to start updating again) but what can you do.

Anyway, it’s definitely worth checking out for great comments like this.

Do you ever hear something and say, “That sounds like a clever idea?” then never follow up. Then when you think about it 6-12 months later and do follow up you find out it’s too late and it didn’t work out.

That’s how I felt about RiffTrax, a site by Michael J. Nelson a writer and later a star on Mystery Science Theater 3000. I heard about it a while ago and said “that sounds interesting!” but then never bothered to follow up.

Today I’m reading TVSqad and I see that a new RiffTrax has been recorded with special guest contributor Niel Patrick Harris. I’d assumed that RiffTrax had put out maybe a track or two or three and then quit. But when I visit the site I see that there are tons of tracks and that they put out a track almost every week and a half to two weeks.

They also have expanded to include the guys from MST3K (although they’re not ‘in character’ it’s clearly Tom Servo). I think I’m going to have to give this a try this weekend though. There are certainly more than enough movies on the list that I own or could get from the ol’ double B.

I’ve included a sample below so as to whet your appetite. Enjoy blog monkeys!

Ok, I just found this site, the Brushback, the other day. Of course, you all probably already know about it. At least that’s how it usually goes. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I think it’s quite humorous … perhaps even eliciting a chuckle or two. It’s like the Onion but for sports (and yes, I know the Onion has a sports page now but it’s just not that funny).

Even if you don’t like sports (::cough:: Chuckles ::cough::), I think you may still enjoy some of the articles up there. Now that the baseball season is over (for me at least …) I’ll have to find something else to do to fill up my time. Maybe the Brushback can start to fill that void.

Or perhaps I’ll just invest all of my emotional attachment in my second-favorite team: the Chicago Bears … nothing can go wrong there, right?