Oh baby, hurt me! Hurt me!

1) So, after paying about $90 for installation of my cable and internet, I have since had to:

Buy a cable splitter
Buy an additional coaxial cable to go with the line splitter
Drive halfway across town to the lovely demilitarized zone also known as Northeast DC to pick up a new wireless internet router
Spent about 2 hours on the phone setting up the new router
Spent about another 3 hours fighting and yelling with Comcast people on the phone about the billing

So, now that I have replaced all the components that were originally set up, what exactly was I paying for when they "installed" my cable? I hate Comcast. When I called up to say my router wasn't working, then told him all the steps I took to try and fix it on my own, he just had me do all those things again. He then told me I needed a new one and that I needed to drive across town to get it. When I said, "well that fits", he started lecturing me about some stupid metaphor how not every car works when you buy it and that they didn't give me a defective model on purpose. Of course, I didn't believe they purposely gave me broken stuff, I just thought their organization was full of a bunch of cow-scat munching whorebaggers who couldn't find cellulite on a trucker's ass, much less properly install cable.

2) Found out yesterday that blogger.com doesn't like the words "c0ck" and "suckers" together, and instead posted "########" in its place. Nut-humpers, however, appears to be okay.

3) Wow, that beaning of Clement was scary. He seems to be doing well, and hopefully it won't affect his pitching. I do find it odd, however, that the two prominent NL free-agent pitchers from last year both took a ball off the side of the head this year (remember when that happened to Pavano?). Also have to say that Edgar "Don't call me the Latin Finding Forester" Renteria made a hell of a play last night.

4) Seeing as how yesterday's oppressive heat was followed by a War of the World's type thunderstorm, I spent a lot of time indoors. By the end of the day I had gone a little stir crazy, and decided I would listen to a "directory commentary" on a movie. For those that have never done this, I highly recommend it, but only if you pick the right kind of movie in the first place. For example, if the commentators are the script-writer, the director of photography, and the boom man, skip it. These people tend to be too technical, and just drop interesting tidbits about the film industry throughout the whole thing rather than be actually entertaining. Really, there are a few types of people to look for if you want to listen to a commentary:

A) a particularly dumb actor or actress, who most likely took his or her role in a bad movie way too seriously.
B) an extremely sarcastic or funny actor, the kind who would rip on the rest of the cast, crew, and plot. Especially effective when teamed up with an A-type actor.
C) a no-name actor or actress whose one big role was in the movie.

If you can get any one of those types to do the commentary, it usually bodes well. However, you also need to select the right kind of movie. If I were to sum up the genre that produces the best commentaries, I would have to use only one word: Bad. Bad movies are great for these types of things. Get a bad movie, especially one where the cast and crew commenting know it was a bad movie, and the things really take off in the commentary. Personally, I think that commentary tracks have singlehandedly saved the horror genre. In fact, keeping with the High Fidelity mode I've been in for a while, here are the top 5 commentary tracks to listen to when you are bored (note: they are even funnier while enjoying a few tasty beverages):

5) The Evil Dead II - This track has Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, et al talking about possibly the greatest "bad for the sake of being bad" movie ever. If you enjoy these guys' sense of humor enough to watch the movie straight, then add them ripping on the movie throughout the entire thing and you've got a winner.

4) Resident Evil: apocalypse - This is a combination of an A and two Bs from above. Take Milla Jovovich and the dude from deuce Bigalow cracking jokes with each other, throw in a British chick that took her role way too seriously, and the unintentional comedy just flows. The formula for the thing is as follows: deuce and Milla crack immature jokes for 10 or 15 minutes, then Sienna Giullory randomly launches into a 5-minute over interpretation of the motivations behind her character, including how she modeled her walk and her attitude and talking about the nuances of her performance. Once she finally shuts up, the other two are so stunned that they don't speak for several minutes. Repeat. Although the best part comes when Sienna suggests that, what with genetic testing and all, the best part of the movie is that it is a feasible side effect of these areas of research. Remember, this is a movie about the dead coming back to life and feasting on the living.

3) Return of the Living Dead II - This one is spectacular because it takes the supporting boy character (not the leading boy, but the supporting boy) who never worked in film again and puts him with the director of the film. It was really cool because the boy has grown up and is like a normal 20 something who is laughing at himself, and is incredibly sarcastic; the director is obviously still bitter that he had to do the movie, and is unbelievably pissed off that he had to make so many horror movies early on in his career. So basically, you have two guys who are ripping into the movie, with one making the jokes that a good buddy would normally make when you see it in the theatre while the other just slams everything about the whole process of doing the thing and really doesn't want to remember having any part in it.

2) The Evil Dead - Bruce Campbell track. It's Bruce Campbell critiquing his first movie and making fun of the people that would actually listen to his commentary track. What more could you want?

1) Cannibal! The Musical - inebriated Director Commentary track. This is the movie that Trey Parker (of South Park fame) made in college, rewatching the movie for the first time in a long time with Matt Stone and a few other guys that were in the movie. The twist? They are also drinking during the thing, and updating the progress of their drinking throughout. So what starts off as a mildly funny discussion of what went into the script process, as well as the making of and such (including Trey getting mad about an ex-girlfriend and including her in the movie as a bad character) turns into a drunken mess of flatulence, off-color jokes, and just general mayhem. Greatest commentary track ever. In fact, it is significantly funnier than the movie.

5) The following is a letter that was forwarded to me from my old apartment building:

Fletcher McGuffin
Old Address
Washington, DC

Dear Customer:

Please accept this letter as confirmation of your request to change the mailing address for your account(s) with Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company. As you have instructed, the address on the account(s) was changed from the one listed above to the following:

Fletcher's new address
Washington, DC

If you have any questions regarding this change, please contact one of our customer service representatives.

I knew there was a reason I was changing banks...

6) Am I the only one loving the fact that, ever since I said that the NRA sucks and that they very well might be misinterpreting the 2nd amendment, the google adbot has had a few links for gun nuts at the top of my screen? And did you realize that people who think that having mild controls on the ability to own and use a gun are considered "gun grabbers" (sic)? Meh. They can call me whatever they want, just so long as my ass remains capless.