Google links

I recently checked the sitemeter on this blog to determine if there were enough people actually reading this thing to make it worth my while and to see if my little steppitos might be reading, in which case, I'd have to do some serious censorship. As it turns out, VTK's been getting plenty of hits and none of them are coming from the region of the kids. Another interesting aspect of the sitemeter is that you can tell what google searches people were doing that linked them to your site. Here are a few of the searches that led people to VTK:

- "Viggo penis size" led someone to this archive page that had a post about Viggo Mortensen and a separate comical story about a, well, a misunderstanding.
- "alcoholic cerebralism" led someone to this post.
- "Jacoby Ellsbury’s girlfriend" - led 4 people to this post.
- "wild lap dance video" led someone to this post.
- "how to give a lap dance" led to it too.
- "hot dog keeper" led someone to this one.
- "trapper keeper unicorn" led someone to this one.
- "cisco liquor photo" led someone to this of course.
- and the name of a former employer of mine that rhymes with schmedelitee combined with "follies", a combination that probably has been googled quite a bit in the last few years, led someone to this archive page, listed as the second link, with my name and picture all over it. Not that I really care, but I feel a little bad about mocking the place/people (eg. Sharkhunter Guy. No offense intended, ShG. All in good fun.)

I can't wait to see how many people make their way to this page via google searches of various combinations of the above words. I'll keep you posted. I'd also like to encourage any alcoholic strippers who like hot dogs and cisco to comment. I could be good for you. I really could.

Caribou - Melody Day

Clearly, I am not "with it". Which of the many indicators specifically clued you in, Dan? I just now, right now, heard of this band. Unless one of you suggested them to me and I wasn't listening. For the others of you, who aren't "with it", enjoy:



Yet another quality band coming out of Canada. Has anyone else noticed the relation between the decline of hockey and the rise of great music from Canada? just sayin.

Blove - Round 6

Seems like we fast forwarded a bit on this reality blog show, doesn't it? Round 6 already? Regardless, the important point is that I'm still in the game. Here are the latest results. As you can see, I survived, but didn't garner any special mention. I may have to start coming at this thing from a different angle...




I'll come up with something. Anyways, all this blog reality stuff got me to thinking about my all-time top ten reality show list. Here goes:

10. Sorority House - straight up voyeurism on catty 21 year old hotties.
9. The Littlest Groom - politically incorrect? maybe. hilarious? definitely. Especially when they introduced the curveball of the "regular" sized chicks to try to entice the littlest groom away from the little prospective brides.
8. The Apprentice – seasons 1 and 2 - The first two seasons of this show actually knocked the mighty Survivor off its previously unassailable perch. Unabashed capitalism at its finest.
7. Joe Millionaire – season 1 only - I loved the scam on all the money grubbing harlets. Also, I saw Joe Millionaire in Boston the week after the finale aired and he looked all urban outfitter and cracked out at 8 AM on a weekday. He shot me a look like "yeah, it's me. now fuck off." What a clown.
6. Flavor of Love – both seasons - Too much great stuff to write in a couple of sentences. One of the greatest moments in reality tv came in season one, where Pumkin spit in New York's face. fantastic. One of the most confusing and shocking moments came in season two, when a contestant actually shit herself and the floor during an elimination ceremony. That's beyond reality.
5. The Real World MTV – first 4 seasons - The original. Got America hooked on televised voyeurism.
4. The Contender – season 1 only - ranked too high? Maybe. But there's something to be said for the fact that at the end of this particular reality show, two contestants beat the crap out of eachother and literally put their careers on the line (the bouts went on their professional records). That's hardcore. And if that's not hardcore enough for you, one of the boxers killed himself after losing and blowing his chance to get his family out of the hood. That would be reality right there. Also, Sly Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard took unintentional comedy to an entirely new level. Sly wasn't in the sequels and they changed the format, which made it much less entertaining.
3. Survivor – the first 6 or 7 seasons - Survivor really launched reality tv as we know it. It was a revelation in strategic entertainment with interesting twists, locations, bathing suits and cinematography. It took a long time for this show to get old.
2. Beauty and the Geek – season 1 - Must be pretty good to trump the mighty Survivor, eh? Pretty good? check. Beauty and the Geek was non-stop parody and hilarity. On the heels of scores of dating competition shows, BatG convinced a collection of hotties that they were going to be on a show of this type and convinced a collection of socially awkward dorky guys that they would be on some other type of show. When they brought them together, it was pure magic. The girls were dumb. The guys were nerdy. Nearly every person in America could laugh at one or the other. But in the end, they all figured out, and we too figured out, that each one of us is a beauty, and a geek, and an athlete, and a basketcase, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, Ashton Kutcher.
1. Man vs Beast - as previously documented. "The giraffe does not seem to realize that it's in a race!"

postscript: Many quality shows didn't make the cut. I hear Top Chef is great, but I've never watched it, so I can't include it in my personal list. Amazing Race is also highly acclaimed, but I've always thought it was incredibly lame that Americans are frantically running around the world yelling at people in their home countries. It's like exploiting people for our own amusement or something. Big Brother and Road Rules pretty much sucked. What else is there -- Holy Shit, there have been a lot of reality tv shows. Feel free to peruse and make your own lists.

Thursday YouTube Posting Frenzy?

It would appear so. I'm really procrastinating today. So, I thought I would check what's out there in a rare but popular VTK genre: the Japanese gameshow. (with a shout out to Jeannette, who is now immersed in the land of saki and sushi).

You're going to think you're done watching this after about 45 seconds, but power through that and watch the whole thing. It's more of the same, but it doesn't get old. Treadmill Madness:



Human Tetris:



And something you could never get away with in the US (twist at 2:40):

I just want to request a song!

A British radio prank on a caller (which I got from World Soccer Daily):



they talk funny.

The View

I have seen maybe a half dozen youtube clips of The View in my life and have never watched the show on actual television. Occasionally, while surfing through the top 5 pages of videos on youtube, one seems like it might be entertaining. It's always a mistake. It's always irritating. I always castigate myself for being lured into wasting 3 minutes of my life. Today was more of the same with the exception of one pretty mindblowing argument by Barbara Walters on the legitimacy of science. I got sucked in by the title "Sherri Shepherd The world is flat" and was starting to get that familiar feeling of self-loathing over having wasted three minutes of my life on their inane babble around the 3:30 mark, when B-Dub let fly with the type of analysis only she is capable of:



If you didn't catch that, it was:

"Look what we have now with internets, and and and and babies being born with fertility treatments, and babies being born in in in sperm."

This is the voice of reason on the View? Resume self-loathing at having watched that.

Blog of Love, round 1 - VTK takes an early lead.

The results of Round One of The Blog of Love are in, and the news is good for VTK. I placed first in the bee-spot side of the game. Now that there's a target on my back, I'm going to have to step up my game, and in my case that means I need to ratchet up the creep factor. I suppose I could stop by and watch some college football with the girls:

After all, I love them Sooners:



But I also love them Hawkeyes:



Or maybe I should just take bee-spot apple-picking again:



I was pretty good at spotting the ripe apples.

Eh. I'll figure something out.

Yankees.9.7

They say that Jacoby Ellsbury's the fastest guy in baseball. I say it's Clemens.



Back in May and June when the Bombers were really shitting the bed, I was just hoping that they could start winning some games to make August and September interesting to follow; I wanted them to at least be in a race (division or wild card). They've certainly done that in the second half of the season making it a very interesting summer of baseball. Despite winning 5 of the last 6 against the Red Sox and being only 4 back in the loss column, it appears that it would take a total Sox collapse combined with a 10 and 3 or better finish by the Yanks in order to take the division. Could happen; not likely. On the bright side, they are 3 up in the loss column against Detroit, so if they hold serve (to mix sports metaphors) they should win the wild card race and make the playoffs. Right now, Cleveland and LA are tied for the second best record, which would pit them against the wild card winner. God, please let it be Cleveland. LA just has our number.

Assorted hits: That at-bat by Derek Jeter against Schilling last night was about as good as it gets. Classic good (Jeter) versus evil (fat boy) match up in a key spot in the game: tied in the 8th, 2 on, 2 out. I particularly enjoyed the camera shots on Jeter's face when Varitek went out to the mound multiple times to strategize with Schilling. That little smirk was classic. I also enjoyed the home run. ... Too bad Joba had to give up his first earned run in Fenway, but I liked his reaction: eh. So what. This guy is a gamer. I can't wait to see him starting and using a regular rotation of all his pitches. Those two K's he got on nasty little curve balls following his high 90's heat were great. I think Pedroia may have started walking away from the plate before the ump even called it. My other favorite Joba moment of the weekend was when he reached into the crowd from the bullpen to snag a home run away from the Sox fans. This guy was born for this rivalry. ... Speaking of pitching though, I have absolutely no idea what to expect from our starting staff if we make the playoffs and that's what really concerns me about this team. Clemens looked great last night but how many cortizone shots can one guy get in one month. And everyone else has been inconsistent. I'm very excited about the future of the Baby Bombers pitching staff, but you just don't know how Hughes and Kennedy will fare in October. I'm excited to find out though. Especially after the way this season started.


___________________

Hammers.17.09.07

The Hammers' short 5 game season has been a bit of a microcosm of the Yankees' season: horrible start (2 nil home loss to a then mediocre sounding Manchester City side), loads of injuries (Faubert, Ljundberg, Parker, Dyer), then a strong resurgence recently (2 straight 3-0 wins, giving them 6 points and 6 plus on goal differential). They're sitting 5th in the Premier League with a game in hand. Of course, they haven't played any of the Big Four yet, nor have they played any of the preseason projected next four (Portsmouth, Everton, Tottenham, Blackburn), so we really know nothing about the team. But these are the games they're supposed to be getting points from, and they are, so that's good. Next weekend's game against Newcastle should be informative about how good West Ham are. Then Arsenal after that. That match should tell us if they're total frauds or not. I'm not thinking top 4 finish, but a UEFA Cup qualification would be awesome.

Just Two Regular Guys, Hanging Out In A Magic Shop

Assorted members of the Gang headed out to the Happy Valley this weekend for Kevtronic's bachelor party. The bp plan was to do a day long UMass nostalgia piss-up on Saturday. I hadn't been out there in a while so I decided to bus down to Northampton on Friday night to hang out with long time friend KAS. Fortunately, the AC on the Peter Pan bus was broken, so ... no wait - that's unfortunately. very. It probably approached 120 degrees inside the packed coach of about 75 people for the two hour ride. The windows were covered with condensation. Every five minutes or so someone would say something to the effect of "oh, this is ridiculous" or "it is so fucking hot in here I can't breathe". Thankfully, they have cold beer in Northampton, so everything worked out alright.

I was still a tad drunk on Saturday morning when J & J picked me up on their way into Amherst for the 10 AM tailgating party. Some beer and coffee kicked me into high gear for the UMass ass-kicking of Towson State. Which state is Towson? I don't know but they were in a state of disgrace by the time we got done with them. Go! Go U! Go U Mass! Go UMass! So anyways, blah blah blah we drank a lot and all of a sudden it was about 11 PM and we were hanging at one of the college bars in "downtown" Amherst. I don't know exactly how the conversation got here, but at some point our buddy was telling a story about the time he met Steve Martin:

"I was in Vegas at Ceasar's Palace and I was browsing in the magic shop, when I noticed Steve Martin was there too. I've always been a big Steve Martin fan. So then I'm thinking, here we are, just two regular guys hanging out in a magic shop --"

-- I stopped the story and asked him to repeat that last line. And that basically covers the rest of the night/weekend's conversation - variations on that line and unreasonable laughter.

Apparently, the story checks out. According to stevemartin.com, "after his family moved to Southern California from Waco, Texas, when he was 10, he just happened to move near Disneyland, where he started out in high school demonstrating magic tricks in the gift shop." Steve Martin, magician/regular guy.

Blog of Love, or Blove

I'm honored to have been selected as one of the contestants on the first season of Blog of Love, the exciting new reality blog phenomenon. Everyone knows how much I love the reality tv. And the blogging. So, this brilliant fusion of the two should be right in my wheelhouse. The experiment is being run by blog betties, bee-spot and dmbmeg, neither of whom I've met, but both of whom I've coveted excessively through the interwebs. I don't fully understand the rules, but see the links below for some sort of explanation of the experiment. I'm pretty sure bee-spot included me in the list because she figured I'd cry, boycott her blog, or write something snarky about her if she didn't. But I'll take it. Every reality show has a token this and a token that. It's likely that I'm the token creepy older man in this game, but again, I'll take it. I've already promised to play bee-spot like a recorder and DMBmeg like a fiddle. On second thought, that might not be creepy; that might just be sexy. But as I taught the world last weekend, "creepy is the new sexy", so the lines are going to be a little blurry. blurry and hott. Unfortunately, I'm going to be away in Northampton/Amherst for the weekend, too drunk to blog (yes. I know what I said), so I may be missing out on valuable creepy/sexy time. Hopefully the memory of how generally uncomfortable I can make people will be enough to hold me over until Sunday night. Here's a little teaser, which also happens to be 95% true: I'm wearing nothing but peanut butter and scuba flippers right now. crunchy.

VTK Alert

Official VTK Alert: the funniest show on television is officially back on the air on FX: It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. I just watched the double season premiere and it's as HI larious as last year. Get on it.

If you've never seen it, here's and exclusive preseason episode from myspace. Enjoy.

This is a bit much for a prank.

I checked out my sitemeter counter today and it seems as if hardly anyone actually reads this blog with any regularity, so I don't feel too bad about copping out and republishing another site's post, which was borrowed from still another site. This is a prank that a guy from collegehumor.com played on his friend, in which he put up a fake marriage proposal on the big screen at Yankee Stadium and the jokee's girlfriend said yes before either of them knew it was a prank. Deadspin ran the story and was convinced by the other pranks on the site and an interview with the joker that this was real:



harsh. but funny.

ah, Bill Murray

As in life, with Bill Murray, it's all in the details. In Groundhog Day, it was the little flash of his fingers as he steps in front of the truck trying to kill himself. There's a gem in this funny skit from Will Ferrell's funnyordie site, tipped by N-Lo (via valleywag). It's 9 minutes long, but worth it.

Guinness is good for you.

It's official! On a tip from lc, VTK has just confirmed what we all really knew anyways: Guinness is good for you. Take that, red wine. You suck! You too, Queen Elizabeth!

Fake Mustache Party

Yesterday was moving day at the 86 Norfunk Compound. A fond farewell to old roommate Paul. I'll miss the daily baseball etc chit chat. Good luck at your new pad. And a warm welcome to new roommate Becky. Welcome to the Compound (which you're already quite familiar with - but you're an official insider now). To break in the new household, Joel had the wisdom to bring over the necessary ingredients for a kicking fake mustache party: beer and mustaches. I, of course, was excited at the prospect of reprising my creepy mustache guy role from Jazzfest. The rest of the gang was into it too:




Jeremy went for "the square" and looked like a pedophile.



Joel went for "the hero" and looked pretty normal.



Becky went for "the hollywood" and looked shockingly like Peter Sellers.



After "the sheriff" turned out to be a dud, Sean went for "the weasel" and as I continued to tell him ad nauseum, he looked like a weasel.



VTK went for "the bruiser" and added another chapter to the creepy VTK saga.



The new staff at the Compound:



And one more of the Practical Slacker practically slacking up on the roof:



UPDATE: I forgot to mention that bee-spot stopped by in the early AM on her way to the OU tailgating party: