Things I like this Week (Manly Edition)

-- Earlier this month, Tom Chiarella put together, for Esquire, a list of 75 things every man should know how to do before he dies. The list ranges from the practical (Tie a Bow Tie) to bold (Talk to a Woman out of his League) to bizarre (Understand Quantum Physics Well enough that he can accept that a quarter might, at some point, pass straight through the table when dropped). Take the unofficial test for yourself. My 40% would seem to explain why I can't get my beard to be anything but patchy. Maybe I can fill in some of those gaps if I can knock of some more of these.

-- While you're waiting for the DVD release of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, check out this mash-up of The Count from Sesame Street singing "Dracula's Lament," a ballad from the puppet musical with-in the film.



Not as funny or heart-warming as the original, but a fun diversion. For official Sarah Marshall viral marketing check out I Hate Sarah Marshall. It looks like Peter has let his blog languish a little bit, but the links are as funny as ever.

-- Ben Stiller takes on movie about making a war movie in Tropic Thunder. Featuring perfect casting with everyone playing into their type, Thunder looks like it could be the perfect antidote to the inevitable blockbuster hangover that sets in during August. How could any movie featuring Robert Downey, Jr. as a method actor so committed that he dyes his skin to play a black man go wrong? Tropic Thunder Theatrical Trailer

Things I Like This Week (Literal Title Edition)

An anonymous blogger catalogs the various things that excite white people at Stuff White People Like. The blog more accurately provides a tongue-in-cheek survival guide for interacting with affluent 20-somethings. If you're not white and ever wondered just why all white people live Michelle Gondry, wine, irony, pretending to like soccer, or Barak Obama, here's your chance to find out.

"Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?" claims the editor at at garfield minus garfield. Simultaneously funny and tragic, this new strip takes Jim Davis's beloved strip and removes all traces of Garfield. While Davis's original strip may now overuse the premise of a wacky Jon Arbuckle followed by dead space and a wry quip from his cat, garfield minus garfield requires Davis's wacky Jon but leaves us to provide our own quip or tears.

No longer young enough to laugh at anything or old enough to find the humor in the darndest things kids say, I wearied of The Family Circus a long time ago. The Nietzsche Family Circus makes the strip worth reading again. Seemingly relying on a random pairing from a set of both Family Circus and quotes from the German existentialist philosopher Frederik Nietzsche. Random selection fails to produce a winner every time, but there's an inherent irony in having educated dialogue- "When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back into you" and "The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception" - coming from the same child, who in today's actual strip retorts to someone doing their homework, "You did? When will your TV set be fixed?" Ah, kids.