The Loophole

That title should actually be, “The Loouphoule.”

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Did you know if you catch a real live Canadian they have to show you their Indentattoo which, in turn, reveals their true name and spirit animal? Once you can call a Candian by its true name, it must obey your every command. Unless you command it to commit murder, or be rude in public. Then IT CONTROLS YOU! The good news is, it will often express mild irritation at your capture and enslavement of it, but ultimately wish you well and attempt to find its way home. Canadians can always sense true north because of a naturally occurring magnet found in their skulls. Up until the late 1800’s, these “bone magnets” were highly sought after by American hunters, trappers, golfers and tennis players for their perceived effectiveness in pseudo-science carpal tunnel bracelets.

I am quite literally bursting with true facts about Canada. I’ve been there at least 3 times, which makes me an expert. I’m going back again next month for Calgary Expo and to get recertified as an official Canada Expert First Class. I’ll be at booth 925/1025 with Blind Ferret.

One more comic and this story bit ends. Game Of Thrones comes back this Sunday, and I’m struggling to remember who is dead, who is currently actively being killed and who is merely mortally wounded. I need to make a chart. A blood chart. My wife has read ahead in the books which has transformed her into some kind of fire witch with the curse of foresight. She isn’t to be trusted.

I need to go write a foreword for my friend’s book.

COMMENTERS: Have you ever been catching up on a popular tv or movie series while your spouse, significant other, friend, etc. has already read all the books? Did it augment the experience for you, or were they all, “OH MAN OH MAN OH MAN YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN OMGOMGOMG!!!” all the time? I made the ENORMOUS mistake of assuming I would never care about Harry Potter, so I forced my old boss to explain the entire plot to me, including who killed Dumbledore and that Harry was the final Horcrux, thus robbing me of the excitement of finding those things out for myself when I eventually fell in love with the series.

In Recovery

Wrapping up this short storyline this week, assuming Game Of Thrones premiers this weekend. I’m pretty sure it’s this weekend, but I was also pretty sure yesterday’s date was somewhere around the 20th (SPOILERS: it was the 26th), so I have apparently lost a little time due to staying up all night watching mediocre movies (moviocres) and thus I have become an unreliable judge of when things are and are not.

COMMENTERS: Have you ever purposefully deprived yourself of something that, while not life threatening, probably wasn’t that good for you? Did you succeed? Have you had any self-imposed restrictions that might seem silly to others? No Hot Pockets on odd numbered days? No dating people you met during a hostage crisis? No driving past the home where you murdered that transient? That’s just goofy. Transients can’t haunt you because they don’t have souls.

Emergency Protocol

Taxicab Confessions was one of those “awakening” moments for me as a young teen. Through those covertly mounted lipstick cameras I saw and learned things that I was not necessarily seeking out, and I was forever changed. The series filmed from the time I was in high school up until the early 2000’s. I’ve watched a few of the latter episodes since I’ve had the free HBO (acquired in anticipation of Game Of Thrones), and only now do I realize the answer to 14 year old me’s question, “Why are these people acting like this?!” was always, “Oh, they’re on drugs.” The over sharing, the lack of inhibitions, the… having sex in a dirty ass cab. Yeah. Drugs. I guess when I was 14 I thought only hardened criminals did drugs. There was this one episode where this couple get in the cab (I believe this was a Las Vegas episode) and the man played with his new magic light up thumbs (a ~~trick~~ illusion he had just purchased at a magic shop) while his lady friend took her boobs out and mashed them all over the place. He was transfixed on his thumbs and she was… well, mashing her boobs all over the place. If you don’t want young kids to experiment with drugs, don’t try to scare them straight. Just show them the video of the coked out wanna-be magician and his free spirited companion. That shit freaked me out.

COMMENTERS: TWO QUESTIONS! 1) Was there anything (a joke in a movie, a tv show premise) that just didn’t register with your younger self? I didn’t know the premise of Three’s Company, despite having seen every single episode when it originally aired, until I was in my twenties. 2) Did you have any movies/shows/albums/website (for you young-uns) that taught you about something in the world that you just weren’t ready to know?

A House Is Not A Home Box Office

Nearly everything Joel says in this comic is true, in so much as I got HBO for free (so I could watch Game Of Thrones) a few days ago and I’ve since gone on a “watching things that are bad for me” spree.

Here are some incredibly short reviews of the movies I have subjected myself to via HBO this week:

Battleship: 45 minutes into Battleship, the movie has just barely started. Everything before that is unnecessary exposition. Everything after that is unnecessary explosion. Liam “John Taken” Neeson is in it for maybe 90 seconds. This comic was 100% accurate.

The Matrix Sequels: There are levels on which I can enjoy some parts of The Matrix: Reloaded. The end.

Alien Resurrection: The first 30 minutes of this movie are like the lost original pilot to Firefly. The reasons for this are numerous and obvious. Despite that, the very first time Dan Hedaya (General Perez) opens his mouth you know that something is terribly wrong. He plays like the evil real estate tycoon in a made-for-TV Goonies sequel that never happened who’s trying to shut down the kids’ rec center because it was built on top of a vault full of pirate treasure. In this fictional film the asian kid has been replaced by a robot. The robot was built by the asian kid and only speaks in catch phrases. Oh yeah. Alien Resurrection. After whatever I just said happens, then everything else that happens is terrible.

I really shouldn’t be left alone with HBO.

Regarding Girls, it’s actually one of my favorite new(ish) shows. I stand by my generalization in panel 3 above, but it’s fantastically written and acted by an extremely talented group of New York hipsters. Essentially every single character is a deplorable piece of garbage, but… in a good way. Or at least in an interesting way. I feel like in real life people have maybe one person in their lives who’s as self centered and myopic as every single character on Girls. Any more an life would be entirely unbearable. In a Girlsiverse scenario, where everyone you know is as horrible as you are, everyone would immediately enter into a murder/suicide pact and the show would only last about 4 minutes. Does that sound like a resoundingly positive recommendation? Well, it is. Watch it. Good stuff.

COMMENTERS: Has a new service (TV, Internet, magazine, mail order or otherwise) ever taken you down a long, deep, dark rabbit hole of time wasting?

The Ruse

I just find it highly suspicious that two years running AT&T has offered free HBO exactly when Game Of Thrones starts for exactly as long as Game Of Thrones runs. It’s like they want me to… watch their channel and… enjoy it. Enjoy it so much that I decide to keep paying $16 a month to watch it AFTER the free preview is over. Those magnificent bastards. They nearly had the perfect plan. Of course they weren’t expecting to go up against my vastly superior intellect and unparalleled tightwadedness. Oh man, is my wad ever tight. I sure hope Veep season two runs during those three months. Pirating shows is just too hard these days.

COMMETNERS: What’s the best deal/worst deal you’ve ever gotten out of a “free preview/ no interest/ quadruple coupon” situation? Ever been given the world in order to keep you from canceling a service? Ever gotten the “Don’t let the ETF hit you in the ass on the way out!” routine?