Just a few hours left until midnight screenings of The Expendables and I would be failing my duties as a degenerate gambler if I didn’t set some prop bet lines and offer to take action on them. Betting windows close at 11:59pm EST.
Someone is killed in the first 15 minutes — 1 to 5
Arnold Schwarzenegger makes a pun to someone he’s just killed — 2 to 5
One of the Expendables mentions how expendable they are — 1 to 1
More than 2.5 bazooka blasts — 5 to 2
Less than 1.5 slow-motion kicks — 3 to 1
Jason Statham headbutts someone — 5 to 1
Jason Statham headbutts a mirror — 6 to 1
A bomb is defused with less than 5 seconds left on the timer — 7 to 1
A helicopter is brought down using an improvised weapon — 10 to 1
A prostitute is used as a human shield — 14 to 1
Zero explosions in the movie — 5,000 to 1
The Expendables soundtrack provided by Sixpence None the Richer — 9,000 to 1
It’s only a couple more days until the most testosterone-packed, nut-punching, shittiest movie of all-time arrives in your local theater. A steroid-driven film written and directed by a man driven by steroids (and by the failure of Driven). If you’re not ready for The Expendables, run to your car, drain the acid from your battery, drink it, and get pumped.
Holding the title of “most action-packed movie of all-time” also comes with the “most predictable movie of all-time” belt. Let’s see if we can’t guess a few lines of dialogue that will end up in the film.
“You’re not dreaming. You’re nightmaring!”
“I didn’t bring a can of whup-ass. I brought the whole case!”
“My father raised me to be a killer. I don’t know why he was so surprised when I killed him.”
“When I was six years old, a bunch of the older kids in the neighborhood took me snipe hunting late one night as a joke. They stood around laughing while I spent hours in the woods trying to find an imaginary creature. They laughed up until the moment I came out of the woods holding a snipe in my right hand. I mounted it on my bedroom wall right next to the chupacabra I strangled.”
“Who am I? I’m the guy that makes undertakers rich.”
“I’m not a rape and pillage kind of man. For me, it’s one or the other.”
“We’re the Expendables. You’re just expendable.”
“If I spare your life, then I have to spare the next guy’s and the guy after that. And that third guy? He’s a real prick, so I can’t let him live, which means that you’re definitely about to eat it.”
“You either live dyin’ or die livin’.”
"Some people go to acting school, I harness the power of migraines."
Time to mash up two enormously successful authors and wonder if Charles Dickens will ever be lucky enough to have his books made into video games!
LITERARY MASHUP
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, “What had gone wrong?” he asked himself again. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, were not his plays brilliantly subtle ones? It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness – had his country ever overtly threatened Siberia? No. It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. Did even the People’s Liberation Army’s leadership know what the plans were? We had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- but such people knew how to keep secrets, and if they talked to anyone… in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. And why had that Ryan fellow reestablished relations with the “Republic of China?”
Musical mashups were a bit of a recent phenomenon, due to the beautifully synchronized juxtaposition of different worlds coming together (Alice In Chains & Wynton Marsalis!!!). Last week, I had the idea of literary mashups and instantly wondered if this had already been done, so I looked it up online. Apparently, it both has and hasn’t been done. People have mashed up titles of books and poems, but no one has combined texts. So, here we go…..
LITERARY MASHUP
“Rhapsody on a Windy Night” by T.S. Eliot and “As I Grew Older” by Langston Hughes
Twelve o’clock.
It was a long time ago.
Along the reaches of the street
I have almost forgotten my dream
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Bright like a sun–
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
My dream.
And all its clear relations
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And then the wall rose,
And through the spaces of the dark
Rose slowly,
Midnight shakes the memory
Slowly,
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.
One of my stand-up students last night was talking about communion and eating the body of Christ and asked, “What part of Jesus is this?”
It made me think of the cow diagram that explains where different steaks come from:
Delicious.
But where’s our Jesus diagram? How can we consume the best part of our Lord if we don’t even know where it is? Allow me to introduce the Cuts of Jesus diagram:
Feel free to print this out and carry it with you to the next Lord’s Supper. Just don’t forget your can of spray cheese!
Posted in Religion, Uncategorized
Tagged body of christ, buddy jesus, catholic, chart, communion, cow diagram, cuts of jesus, eucharist, jesus christ, lord's supper, Religion
Hey, let’s have a coloring contest to show that our family diner loves kids! Nothing could go wrong here, right?
WHOA!
You don’t win a free vanilla bean cheesecake for Minstrel Duck, but we are willing to enroll you and your parents in racial sensitivity training as a consolation. The bowl of snacks on the counselor’s table should be referred to as, “Brazil nuts.”
A couple of friends and I like to play a game where we mess with strangers through text messaging. We’ll each give each other a phone number from our phone that the other doesn’t have, and start from there.
I was informed that this person was a veterinarian.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Nov. 12th. 11:06pm. 919 area code.
(11:06 pm) Greg: I just killed my neighbor’s dog, thinking it was a raccoon. I am freaking out, cause they just came over asking about it. Any suggestions?
(11:06 pm) 919: Sure. I don’t have this number, who is this?
(11:08 pm) Greg: Jason Whitley. I was given your number and was told you could help me. I’ll pay whatever.
(11:12 pm) 919: I really think that your friend gave you the wrong number.
(11:16 pm) Greg: You work with animals, right? I heard you can revive a dog with jumper cables. Is that true?
(1:06 am) Greg: Ok, that jumper cable shit didn’t work. Why didn’t you warn me?!? Now the other dog I hooked it up to died.
