Have You Heard Of This Twitter Thing?

We have!

You should get involved with this shit, because even if it’s just a fad, it’s going be a fad for at least like, three more months.

The Mild Revolution

My brother’s band. Backstage at the Sad Cafe 16 January 2010. Dig it.

Site Recap for December/2009

This is going to take a while to write! Hahaha I’m not really going to link to everything we ever did EVER, that would be ridiculous. Awhile ago someone asked me to link to everything I was involved in on the internet, and I kept remembering blogs I’d started and abandoned and YouTube channels I have and it just got to be too insane. Someday I’ll be trying to get a job and I’ll suddenly remember something offensive I said about the Masons or something and I’ll search all over the internet for pieces of myself, trying to delete my former identity and it will be IMPOSSIBLE! I don’t remember the password to my Blip.TV channel for the McCain Truth Project, so fuck it! I’m never going to get a job anywhere! At least not with the Masons!

2009 was a big year for us! We went pro! Sort of! I mean, YouTube-partner pro! I don’t know much about YouTube, but I know we’re doing okay. How do I know it? Some of the videos I really like created by people I look up to have fewer views than even the least viewed RSR episode! I win! And we met (meaning Internet-met) all of the people who are now like, AFP regulars on the comment boards and Twitter. And that is very cool! We’re a (very) little community!

So what happened in DECEMBER?

I explored the wonder that is the website My Life Is Twilight. Subsequently, my life sort of became Twilight. I have been Blogging Twilight for about a month now. There are several very long entries at my personal blog.

I talked about that whole Climate-gate thing, which really blew over, didn’t it? The holidays tend to kill all news stories. Note to politicians: if your sex scandal is going to break, leak it around December 21st or so!

Then I got around to recapping the site for November. We actually wrote A LOT in November, so you probably missed a few things. Why not go check? We could use the site traffic.

I put a poll in the field for the best RSR of 2009, and I have to eventually tabulate those results. Don’t worry, I will!

Jory was ich ben ein Berliner. I don’t think that makes any grammatical sense, but I don’t speak German, so I’m off the hook.

I posted a cat video that gets exponentially weirder as it goes on. Seriously, it will mess you up a little.

In lieu of an AFO, I wrote a little brief on the news of the week. It’s kind of like AFO, only with text jokes instead of people saying them for you. Plus, I made a startling discovery about Ricky Martin and Eric Bana.

I told you to see Inglourious Basterds. Have you seen it yet?

I created a recipe, and I even made a penis out of cookie dough.

Jory continued to plan his own death.

The Rock and Sock and Robot gang was visited by Sock’s evil twin, Jeff, then spent two episodes discussing the state of popular magazines. RSR’s Thursday airtime landed it squarely on two holidays, so the gang celebrated Christmas and New Year’s Eve in their own unique way.

There was only ONE episode of Angry Films On this month, in which we discussed Sarah Palin. But Jory and I put together a nice holiday special for you, if you like your holiday specials kind of dread-filled and morbid. But good news! AFO comes back tonight at midnight!

So that was December! And now it’s a brand new decade, but we’re going to keep doing the same politics-and-dick jokes for you for the foreseeable future. Hooray! Go read Blogging Twilight now– it’s better than the book!

Site Recap Archive

Grizzly Bear Takes Me To Animation School, Again

So first of all, someone needs to tell Grizzly Bear that it is not 1996 anymore, and you don’t need to release singles every few weeks! That said, it is a pleasingly retro thing to do. I feel like a fifth grader, impatiently waiting for the new single off of the Puff Daddy and The Family album!

First we got “Two Weeks,” the second best song on the album (Veckatimest), followed shortly by the best song (and contender for song of the year) “While You Wait For The Others.” That video made me feel very small, as it was like a highly advanced version of a video I once made for Ivana XL.

Now they go and do it again! DAMMIT!

Now before RSR I spent a lot of time experimenting with various forms of animation, and most of those experiments are not online, but these videos below have a few of them. The faces expanding and contracting was something I tried to do in a way that was nowhere near as cool as the Grizzly Bear video. This is the animation equivalent of reading Edith Zimmerman. I am humbled. I bow down before this music video. Allison Schulnik is getting added to the heroes list. Her website is here, and I am off to explore it!

Update: OH DUH THIS VIDEO WAS ON YOUTUBE ALL ALONG. Sorry for screwing with you with that Facebook embed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ivana XL claims the Grizzly Bear video reminded her of a more expensive version of this. Her estimate: $20,000 dollars more. I’d say maybe $300 more? That’s a lot of hard work you are seeing in that Grizzly Bear video– hard work that I am not willing to do, hard work that you can’t put a price on. So you are left with pricing materials. And my videos cost about $5, because that’s about as much as I would be willing to pay for clay. Robot is made out of a box I found in my basement. I already owned that sock. And I had to risk my life to find the perfect rock for Rock– I actually called my dad as I was climbing on rocks along Boston Harbor and told him I wanted someone to be aware if I fell to my death. TRADE SECRETS!

Site Recap for October!

And then October was over! Wow! What is happening? I feel so old, but I actually just got healthy after a bout with the flu, so I feel like, alive and dead at the same time! This must be what it is like to be a member of the Cullen Family.

So what happened this month?

I wrote about how great and funny Edith Zimmerman is. If you have not visited her site and read all those articles you should go do that now. You deserve a laugh, you’ve earned it. This blog post will still be here when you’re done. Go. GO!

Jory wrote about this whole thing with the Facebook profiles for dead people, and basically left a living will right here on the website.

And then someone tried to kill him of a heart attack with these comments.

Jory and Josh masterminded a prank on Ryan. Then Ryan had some cleaning up to do.

We found out there is going to be a Rocky 7, which led to some speculation as to what the plot would be.

I talked for a moment about one of my brother’s bands. There was a video.

Once again we stared into the black void of DogPile’s SearchSpy and lived to tell about it.

One week (the prank week) we did not do an episode, so I wrote an episode in text form!

Oh then there was a funny poem!

I got stranded one night and wrote all about it! It is a long post, but the title is clever.

Jory got mad at YouTube and said “WTF?” and then it was all better.

The trailer for 2012 appeared, and almost ended the world by itself. By sucking.

I recapped the site for September!

As for AFO, we talked about ROMAN POLANSKI, and how he is a rapist. We talked about the moon, and about it deserved getting slapped around by NASA. We talked Net Neutrality, which I still don’t really understand but a lot of people are VERY passionate about! Then we all dressed up for Halloween, even though it was friday actually.

The RSR Gang continued to discuss GLENN BECK, and then upset Europeans again by making fun of the Nobel Prize. Then there was the palindrome episode.  Then the Halloween episode/4oth episode spectacular! 4o episodes! Wowza.

And that was October! Ha bisky!

We Should Probably All Just Stop Talking and Listen to Edith Zimmerman From Now On

There are two things you need to read right away.

First there is this, because TIMELY.

Second, there is this. A few things every girl should know.

Honestly, this woman is the funniest person alive right now. Sorry Jeff Dunham, but you are a horrible douchebag and you weren’t even in the running. I will echo what most of the internet has been saying for days now: Fuck you, Jeff Dunham.

But back to Edith Zimmerman. This series is one of the greatest things I have ever read. Here’s another installment! And a third! I haven’t read that last one yet, so it might not be funny, but I doubt it! I seriously doubt it so much!

And finally, THIS. Yeah, you laughed at that one, Jory.

Listen, you guys (I just got a message from a guy who called himself an AFP Fangirl, so maybe I will start calling you all Fangirls). I am very happy with the 40th episode of Rock and Sock and Robot, which will be airing tonight. The animation is a little warped, but that’s okay. I am a bad animator. But Christy made some great costumes, and even chopped up a skirt for the benefit of Robot. I am also very glad that I got the flu after I had recorded the voices, because you would have all been like, “why does it sound like they all have cars parked on their chests?” if I had procrastinated a little bit. But when I read this Edith Zimmerman stuff (oh, and she also has a website which stretches on ad infinitum hilaritum) it makes me want to sit down and shut up and never say words again.

Sorry for ruining your day, but it was worth it!

LATE UPDATE.

LATER UPDATE.

News Roundup!

Obviously, there was no AFO this week. Well, there sort of was. You might have seen me, and a curtain, for a second there. But we needed a week off, a week to blow up some balloons and not contemplate that madness that is, you know, EVERYTHING.

It is possible, however, that without our award-winning reportage– okay, well we have never won an award for reportage, so let’s deputize that adjective into a gerund and make that “our award-winning and reportage”– you might have missed a few things. So what happened this week?

This was the week where everyone was very weird. The Heene Family? Those guys are very weird. I’m not even going to link you to the “pussification” video, because you have seen it already. And those guys don’t deserve the traffic.  I’m all for people being to raise their kids however they want, even if that means driving into tornadoes in your makeshift Dolorean and making rap videos where you smear your own kids with fake excrement. Wait, nevermind. I’m not all for people being able to raise their kids however they want. I am all against that.

Then there was a guy who tried to kill a dog with a hammer and a machete and FAILED at killing the dog. So much of that sentence was unexpected, wasn’t it? Read all about it.

One of the basic fundamentals of Journalism is that DOG BITES MAN is the typical non-newsworthy story. A dog bites a guy? What do I care? I got kids, man. Why you wasting my time with this? However, MAN BITES DOG is totes newsworthy, as the kids say. I know, the kids do not say “newsworthy” they say “hip” or “jive,” but I’m Old School. The point is, people see MAN BITES DOG and they want to buy your paper. A man bit a damn dog? What? Gimme that paper! I want to read about that! And then advertisers are happy and print journalism is saved. So I’m glad this guy was doing his part. MAN TRIES TO KILL DOG WITH HAMMER AND MACHETE AND DOES NOT SUCCEED on the front page of the New York Times is going to keep a lot of people from getting laid off this year. This guy may be a total moron, but he saved Christmas, no way around it.

Slate Editor Jacob Weisberg is causing a ruckus, calling for journalists to ignore Fox News because they are oh so very biased. Old news, right? Did you hear about this, though? Fox got caught passing off a GOP press release as an original news story. That is not necessarily evidence of a bias, of course. It’s more like evidence of being lazy. Why write your own segment when there is one just sitting there? (It could have been any press release, though I doubt the Dems even bother sending their to Fox.) The bias was probably an afterthought. People are lazy. Like, one time I got a pizza, and I couldn’t eat the whole thing, so I just opened my window and put the box outside. It was winter. Just like a fridge, right? Then a squirrel ate my pizza.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE CAME OUT! Reactions seem to be mixed. It seems like a lot of high-brow types (looking at YOU, Slate) are angry that the movie is not more like a book. It’s too long, they say. An hour and a half? It should be more like 39 pages! For the record, critics, making a book out of a movie does not cause the original book to no longer exist. I haven’t seen it yet, I am going tomorrow. As I have previously stated, I fully expect to be literally killed by this movie and to die in the theater. It was nice knowing all of you.

Speaking of grumps– Troy Patterson at Slate got all angry about Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin slapping Jay Leno around on Thursday night. You’re calling 30 Rock smug and elitist? Tracy Morgan is elitist? Matthew Broderick and Alec Baldwin getting sprayed with a chemical that makes you gay is elitist? I think the lesson we should learn from this is that Tina Fey is ballsier than any of us will ever be. Start coming to terms with that, gentlemen. Also are you following Tracy Morgan on Twitter yet?

I carry a bit of a torch for actor Chris Messina. That’s what she said,  no homo, for real. The guy can act like he is really good at acting. He just got cast as the lead in a new movie called “Devil.” Win all around! Everybody share a high-five! OH BUT WAIT IT’S BEING WRITTEN BY M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN. I take back the win. Chris Messina is a good enough actor to survive this, I think. If Zooey Deschanel did, so can he.

Health care stuff continued to happen. I hesitate to say I am bored with all of this, because I worry my insurance provider will find out and drop me for having a pre-existing condition (proclivity toward boredom).  That joke was lazy. This isn’t the Fox newsroom over here! Call back!

Chris Brown and Falcon Heene walk into a bar. Chris Brown punches a woman in the face, but it’s okay because it was all a stunt to promote a reality show. Then Falcon Heene vomits all over everything.

Finally this week, Butterfinger rolled out the next phase of its viral marketing campaign. It’s a pretty effective ad. Take a look:

That baby better not have laid a finger on Seth Green’s Butterfinger!
Makes you just CRAVE that buttery, chocolaty goodness, doesn’t it?

#BeatCancer

CALVIN TRILLIN’s Roman Polanski poem, from THE NATION (SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE):

A youthful error? Yes, perhaps.
But he’s been punished for this lapse–
For decades exiled from LA
He knows, as he wakes up each day,
He’ll miss the movers and the shakers.
He’ll never get to see the Lakers.
For just one old and small mischance,
He has to live in Paris, France.
He’s suffered slurs and other stuff.
Has he not suffered quite enough?
How can these people get so riled?
He only raped a single child.

Why make him into some Darth Vader
For sodomizing one eighth grader?
This man is brilliant, that’s for sure–
Authentically, a film auteur.
He gets awards that are his due.
He knows important people, too–
Important people just like us.
And we know how to make a fuss.
Celebrities would just be fools
To play by little people’s rules.
So Roman’s banner we unfurl.
He only raped one little girl.

Can’t really put it any better than that! I take back all of my jokes!

The Letterman Thing

It will be too late for us to discuss the Letterman thing on AFO next week, because that story will be old and dead, and Thursday’s RSR is preordained to be part two of “Glenn Beck.” It kind of is old and dead news already, but here’s the bottom line, via The Awl:

You know what happens when you try to blackmail David Letterman with the old news that he’s slept with some women on his staff? He writes you a fake $2-million check and then you get arrested. That is because he is awesome.

I’ll give that one a Ha Bisky.

For MONSTERS, They Sure Are Polite

So I listened to the MONSTERS OF FOLK record (out yesterday) from beginning to end this morning, and IT IS GREAT. It is the INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS of music this year. I know they won’t hand out the Oscars and the Grammys for a while, but my mind is already made up. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE will probably never live up to my expectations– I’m giving the statue to QT and I’m like 95% sure of that. And I really never thought someone would put out a better record than Grizzly Bear this year, but THEY DID.

This video may not be up forever, so catch it while you can. This is the MOF playing “Say Please” on Conan. It’s sort of a drag that they copped out on doing the big harmony explosion at the end, but I don’t blame them, they didn’t want to blow it. Not that such a thing usual scares M. Ward. I saw him play with Conor Oberst on Austin City Limits once, and I swear he was playing along to a song he didn’t know, or was too drunk to care about playing correctly. The whole time there is this weird off-key resonator guitar in the background. It was awesome.

Did you hear them all saying “Thank you, sir” to Conan? Such nice boys!

So RIGHT CLICK THIS to download “Say Please” for free, via STEREOGUM.