A hypothetical conversation with Michael Cera

I like Michael Cera. Pretty much any actor who starred or even featured in Arrested Development gets a lifetime pass from me. I don't care if he seemingly plays the same character in every movie he's in, I like the character. Hell, I wouldn't care if he literally played the same character in every movie. George Michael Bluth, wearing the Bluth's Banana Stand uniform in Superbad, Juno and what all else. Tell me that wouldn't be great. He'd be some kind of inter-dimensional traveller, only all of the dimensions would be really similar.

So, today I was thinking, "what if I ran into Mr. Cera some day?" What would I say to him? Would I compliment him on his work? Discuss how great "Scott Pilgrim" is? No and no. I would spend the entire conversation greeting him with a string of long and increasingly ridiculous puns on his name, not letting him get a single word in, then I'd say goodbye. Maybe I'd shake his hand the entire time, not letting go. Maybe not. Anyway, here's what I've come up with so far:

5 Nintendo franchises that deserve more love

I'm not as big into video games as I used to be, but I still like to play them when I can, and I try to keep on top of what's new even if I can't afford it. I was raised on Nintendo, and as such have had a massive bias toward their products and properties. Mario, Zelda, Pokemon and others are consistently some of the finest series. Nothing approaches their longevity.

This was the last one really worth playing and you know it, fanboy.

Still, with so many brilliant franchises, there are plenty of more or less equally brilliant games that have been forgotten in Nintendo's 30-year history. Let's finish this introduction and start naming them.

Ode to Stu Pickles, the greatest dad in television.

Stu Pickles, what a guy. Seriously. You want to know how to be an awesome father? Look no further than Stu.

Let's look at the facts:

• Stu Pickles takes an active role in raising his son. He works from home so he can be there for Tommy, while still making plenty of money.
• Just what is his job? He makes toys in his basement. His kids get to grow up in a toy factory. Sure, it led to one of the more horrifying "Rugrats" episodes where it nearly decapitated Chuckie, but as far as Dadjobs go, Toymaker is pretty darn cool.
• He called himself an "inventor," though. I wanted to be an "inventor" when I was little. Thanks for the inspiration, Stu! It didn't go anywhere. Turns out Ball State doesn't offer a "make an assembly line in your basement" degree, or even a single class.
• Stu never forgot how to be a kid. Even though he's a grown man with an infant son, he still watched the weather report whenever it snowed to see if school was cancelled, and ran through the kitchen cheering whenever it was. Seeing as I'm currently wearing a "Doug" T-shirt, own three Mr. Potato Heads, and am writing about a character from "Rugrats," I think the influence of his "grow up, but don't grow old" attitude is evident.
  

Breaking down the trailer to Toy Story 3

I was going to embed this, but mean old Disney won't let me.

Sheeeee-it, you guys, are you excited? I'm excited. Above is the latest trailer to Toy Story 3. I've watched it about a dozen times since it was released earlier today, and I've noticed a few things I think are worth mentioning. So click that link, pull that sucker up in another window, and follow along as I point out some bits of interest at various times in the trailer.

Pancakes I want to try to make some time or another.

I love pancakes, so very dearly. Breakfast foods in general are the best. They're all nice and fatty, carb-y, sweet, ultra-filling, and go good with coffee.

If things go well I'll have my own kitchen next year and will have the ability to make pancakes as often as I so desire, which will be a lot.

Plain pancakes are amazing, but there are really a lot you can do with them. I've had the basics - blueberry, pecan, banana, chocolate chip, butterscotch and other common toppings, but since the base is such a blank canvas the possibilities are endless. These are a few I want to make some time in the future:

Maple Bacon Pancakes - Take the pancake batter and add chopped bacon, brown sugar, and maple syrup straight into the batter, with more syrup on top.
Maple and bacon go fantastically together, and the combination is showing up all over in modern cuisine. You can get it in a latte in San Francisco and on a donut in Portland, and I want to try it in pancake form.

Pineapple Ham Pancakes - Plain pancake batter with finely-chopped pineapples mixed in. Served with a deli slice of ham between each cake, and topped with either maple syrup or maybe some kind of sweet and sour sauce.
This is another classic bizarre taste combination, a personal favorite for pizza and toasted sandwiches. I want it to work on pancakes. I will make it work on pancakes.

Mango Habanero Pancakes - Maybe it's just pancakes with a mango habanero sauce, or maybe it's pancakes with habanero and mango right in the batter, but it'd be spicy and wonderful

S'More Pancakes - Load the batter with honey and cinnamon or whatever else they make graham crackers from, plus some tiny marshmallows. Place bits of chocolate bar in between cakes while they're still hot. Dammit I'm getting hungry and this sounds amazing right now.

Orange and Cream Pancakes - Mix orange zest in with the batter, top with tons of whipped cream. Straightforward.

This article is falling apart, I know. Really I just started thinking about the delicious unhealthy bacon possibilities and decided to run with it because I couldn't find a suitable picture of Pepper Ann's mom for the article I wanted to write tonight.

Still, while I have your attention, I'd like to share a bit about a small project I have in mind Last week a few webcomic creators were asked to make hourly drawings of what they were up to that day all day. Those can be found here.

This got me thinking, "hey, I think I'm important, I like to draw, and things happen to me sometimes during a day." So I'm going to give this a try. Let's say... Wednesday. I'm awake the longest that day and the most happens. I'm going to get a few index cards, a reliable pencil, and scribble out silly things for a day to show you guys. It'll be fun, for me at least. You'll just have to watch.

Just in case...

Something's up with either my microwave or my eyes. At 12:03, I swear the numbers were dancing. The "12:" would jerk upwards while the "03" went down. It was twitchy, almost unnoticeable, and stopped at 12:04. Nothing else in the room seemed to move oddly, so I'm assuming it wasn't my eyes messing up.

I stared at my microwave, and have been staring since. I've got my Venture Bros. Season 2 DVD on, and not even the antics of Henchmen 21 & 24 can divert my attention.

Not tonight, boys. Sorry

I saw the clock change from 12:06 to 12:07 and it startled me. That's totally normal microwave behavior, I know, but still. I'm unnerved by 12:03.

Also, the massive amounts of snow on the roof are making the lights sputter and blink off every now and then.

Frankly, I'm spooked as shit, and I know my microwave's up to something. If I'm missing in the morning, and not on the way to Tennessee, I blame the microwave. It did something to me. Check inside. Check the buttons, make sure they all read as they should, and a picture of my terror-stricken face has not replaced the "popcorn" setting.

I kind of want to unplug it now.

The 1st Annual Academy Awards Predictions Blog Post

It's been said dozens of times before, but award shows are bollocks. Most are just the entertainment industry patting itself on the back whilst beautiful people show off their latest designer gowns, designer spouses and half-assed activist pet projects. There are maybe three or four even remotely notable, those being the Emmys (even though television is a dying medium and has less worth celebrating every year), the Grammys (even though they're always five years behind the latest developments in music), the Tonys (even though nobody outside of New York has ever seen the nominees) and the Academy Awards. I'm here to talk about the latter.

With nominations just released today, I thought it would be totally rad and not at all cliche to dedicate a post to my predictions. I'll stick to a familiar "will win, should win" format, with "shouldn't win"s wherever appropriate or wherever James Cameron is nominated. Let's go!

Musings on the importance of Twitter.

 Over Thanksgiving, I had the lovely task of explaining the concept of Twitter to my relatives. I doubt I did a very good job at it, but I covered some of my favorite things about the site. I explained its importance as a news source, as was seen in Iran this summer, as well as the glory of keeping up with Neil Patrick Harris, Pee-Wee Herman and THE_REAL_SHAQ. Twitter also provides a lot of really entertaining original material as well. Fake AP Stylebook is a must-read for any journalist or grammar nerd, shhdontellsteve is a humorous study of an oblivious douchey roommate, and DRUNKHULK is Hulk, but drunk.

One thing I don't quite get about Twitter is the follower/following count fascination. Celebrities evidently brag about having more accounts read them than they read. I myself have a relatively unimpressive follower count, and that's to be expected since I'm not particularly famous or clever. Of course, just because I don't quite understand the fascination, doesn't mean I don't concern myself with these things.

Recently I've noticed that Twitter has a lot of advertising accounts generated by corporations. If you happen to mention their product, somehow they find you and follow you. I've managed to get a VW dealership from New Jersey to follow me by saying "VW," not in reference to the car, and Gillette started following me after I shared a story of cutting myself shaving.

So, my mission for the next month is to see how many of these junk advertising accounts I can get to follow me, and see how long they keep following me (the VW guy stopped after a couple of days). What I intend to do is just tweet strings of brand names and see which ones stick. I'll keep semiregular updates here.

So, sorry, followers, most of my tweets over the next few weeks will be really annoying. Check back by March 1 at the latest.