bitterbuffalo

Some sitcoms are funny, at least some of the time. Community, 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother (sometimes) and The League come to mind.

Some sitcoms are funny to people that aren’t me. These include Two and A Half Men, the new one with the lady from Raymond, Growing Pains, Mike and Molly (probably) and anything else.

Here is the thing though, some of these shows were going to be funny. You can just see it, and they got fucked up.

2 Broke Girls is one of those shows.

Now I usually don’t judge a show from its pilot, but this one I did, because it could have been funny and I wanted to like it. It was unwatchable. The first 10 minutes featured a really bad joke about a vagina, hipsters being too hip, and lots of sweet sweet abs. I was giving it some slack because it was a pilot.

Then came the subway scene.

Main character standing on morning commute subway. Subway stops short and main character, not ready for it, is pushed forward to well braced, stout, African-American woman. Through sheer chance, their lips touch. Smooch!

This was funny. Nothing more needed to be said. I believe nothing was originally written for this. Instead, main character says “Well, I can cross that off my bucket list.”

Painful. First of all, it is confusing. Cross what off? Kissing a woman? Kissing an African-American woman? Kissing a stranger on a subway? It is borderline homophobic and racist while not funny at all. It is a joke that only leads to canned laughter, and the intro to a scene.

(More useless plot on subway with 3^rd party)

Toward the end of the scene, the subway is stopping and the scene is winding down. Just to make sure we got the first joke, the African-American woman comes back in the scene and gives main character a card and says simply “Call me.” Main character gives a facial look that is half “What a crazy world” and half “I just ate a vomit burrito.”

And it made it worse. It is so much worse than 2 and ½ Men because it had a chance.

Aaaaaaand….. SCENE

As you may or may not have read, I have a problem with Qatar. The first issue was already posted here: http://bitterbuffalo.com/2011/10/12/i-cant-believe-its-not-qatar/

More than anything though, the reason Qatar is bullshit is how we spell and pronounce it. Now I have never been to Qatar, but it appears they don’t pronounce it “Ka-tar” in Qatar, but more like “Gi-tar” or “Cutter.” So why is this a big deal?

Mainly because we are violating a fundamental tenet of English… Q is followed by U, and for no good reason. Note:

1. They don’t pronounce it like we do, and even if they did, who decided what sound “Qa” makes? Somehow with Qantas (which is an acronym for Queensland and Northwest Territory Aerial services) we imply a “u” sound. So who made the rule that Qa says “ka.” We already have Ka and Ca for that, no?
2. They don’t spell it like we do. They speak Arabic, which is a bunch of squigglies (no disrespect). They spell it قطر‎ So why, if we are going to Anglicize it, do we need to do this?
3. Even if we are trying to be sensitive and try to approximate what the Qataris do, why is Qatar so special. We could easily spell and pronounce Japan as Nippon, Germany as Deutschland, Italy as freaking Italia, Mexico as “Me-hico.” All really easy to say, spell, etc, but we don’t.

All I can think is that between the 2022 World Cup and this pronunciation thing, the Qataris have something on us.

This could be big. Now excuse me while I super-anonymize this blog for when the Qatari version of the Mossad comes looking.

I have a lot of opinions about Qatar.  I used to only have a few until they somehow got the hosting for the 2022 World Cup.  Evidently they are looking to spend as much as $138 billion to host the World Cup.

What the hell everyone?  Qatar?  And what is up with the balls here Qatar?  Do we want to rethink this in light of, you know, revolution and shit?  Just curious.

By the way, the World Cup is in the summer.  It is 120 degrees in Doha (Qatar’s capital you dumbshit) in the summer.  Said the Guardian: “

Members of the Qatar bid committee were immediately forced to go on the defensive as they faced questions about terrorism, the treatment of women and the blistering heat in what will be the smallest country to stage the World Cup finals.”

That is a hell of a quadrifecta.

But what is great is that they addressed the heat issue first, with, you know, ROBOTIC REMOTE CONTROL CLOUDS.   Seriously.  You can see it in action here http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/9435035.stm.  I love the background music.

The most ludicrous thing about this is that the clouds cost only $500,000 each, which sounds like what the hawker at the bazaar says he can make them for.  $500,000?  Maybe if you order like 1,000 and pay in advance.  And how much of the $138,000,000,000 is for clouds?  Why not just bag the World Cup and put clouds over the whole country?

Unconfirmed sources have alternately said that the clouds will look like “a bunny eating lasagna”, “the state of Utah”, and “Sarah Jessica Parker’s face.”

The biggest problem with Qatar in the next post.

I arrived at the gym yesterday to freebies.  I love freebies.  And not just any freebies, but Gatorade!

To be specific, the Gatorade fit series, which comes in 3 steps:

1) “Prime” – Also called “Gatorade 01″ – use it before you work out

2) “Perform” – Gatorade 02 – During workout

3)  ”Recover” – Gatorade 03 – You can guess when you use this.

Retail value?  A lot.  It would have been cheaper, but you know the douchebaggery that came with adding a 0 before each number doubled the price.  So great, I can get started for free.

I quickly threw away my water bottle.  Water?  Fucking water.  You can’t do 3 things.  You can only hydrate.

First, I grabbed Gatorade 01, which came in 4 individually hermetically sealed bar forms as “Banana Nut Chocolate.”  The pack encouraged me to eat between 1 and 4 pieces, depending on the intensity of my workout.  I got one out and it looked a little like one of those sesame sweet things with honey, wrapped on either side by bubble wrap.

This was confusing.  Do I eat the bubble wrap?  I decided to and got it down the gullet.  It tasted well, not bad exactly, but like a food unit.  Food of the fucking future!  I decided to up my workout to Intensity level 2 and downed another food unit.  My mouth was coated in aftertaste.

I grabbed an “02″ which may or may not be related to G2, also known as the Gatorade I give my kids so they don’t become diabetic.  Melon-pear flavored.  Clear.  But one thing they got right…. it was cold.  Dripping in an ice cooler.  This seemed refreshing.

I hit the ellipse machine and got the sweat going and started squirting the shit out of the 02 bottle, alternating between sucking and spraying my palate.  You know… pear and melon (a honeydew, the money melon) are a good team.  It tasted pretty good.  It would have been great if, you know, it quenched my thirst.  Unfortunately I was extra thirsty from consuming 2 food units earlier that had been completely desiccated.

Finished my 45 minutes on the machine and now I am licking my chops at 03, which promised to be the big reward.  A Berry flavored protein shake.  That sounds awesome.  Replenish. Rejuvenate.  Fill my hunger.

The taste?  I would say metallic bum-bum comes the closest.  I took a big swig and audibly gasped at the container which essentially did the equivalent of fart in my mouth.  My reaction frightened people.  I needed to get out of there, and right away.  I threw it away and made my way out of the gym.

Then, I turned around and grab 3 more of the food unit bars.

I am way into the nasty ass honeybadger.  That thing is fucking great.  And I can relate.  Today, for example, I am pissed off and don’t give a shit.  I just feel like grappling with a cobra, getting poisoned, take a nap, then eat some more cobra.

But guess what, fuck you honey badger.  I ain’t you.  Why?

1) Honey Badger can’t type!  Think you’re all that honey badger.  You are fucking stupid.  Don’t fucking get stung by a cobra.  You can eat some honey or a jackal.  Use your fucking brains for once.  On the other hand, I can type this blog.  I can even register a domain name!

2) Honey Badger can’t order the new iPhone.  Contrary to popular belief, Honey Badger simply can’t order the phone.  It isn’t that he thinks the 4s is just a facelift to the 4.  News flash!  He doesn’t own a phone or have the needed credit to get anything but a prepaid phone.  Down and out Honey Badger.  Dipshit. Meanwhile, I ordered a phone today and will have a nice shiny one this time next week.  Take that!

3) Honey Badger isn’t observing Yom Kippur.  Dumb ass.  Now how are you going to atone for the last year of killing cobras and stealing honey?  And it isn’t like Honey Badger is Catholic, either.  No excuses.  I bet he eats all fucking day.  Meanwhile, I am going to services tonight.  Gates of Repentance, motherfucker.

So there you go… Bitterbuffalo Blogger 3, Honey Badger 0.  A shutout.

Even so, it would be cool to bite the head off a cobra’s head.

After watching Andy Rooney’s last show last night, and deciding he should do the “Up” sequel, I had to quote my favorite parody of him.  Because SNL is greedy (and smart), I couldn’t find this Piscopo sketch of Rooney.  It is tremendous though, if only because of the line “Ever notice there weren’t many nazis named Steve?”

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/81/81arooney.phtml

Announcer: And now, “A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney.”

[Dissolve to Rooney sitting at a desk covered in shoes]

Andy Rooney: I’ve been doing some serious thinking about shoes. Ever notice shoes? Everybody wears them. Just look down. There’s so many different kinds. A lotta shoes sound like what they are. Oxfords, work shoes, loafers. I guess the good thing about loafers is you don’t have to tie them. Space shoes, boots! Ever notice there weren’t many Nazis named Steve? You know what’s annoying? When that little plastic thing on the end of your shoelaces falls off and gets frayed at the end, and you can’t get ‘em through the holes, and you gotta do this [licks end of shoelace] to do this. [pushes shoelace through hole in shoe] Ever notice what a weird name Morley Safer is? Morley, is that the opposite of Leslie? And Mike Wallace. Boy, what a jackass! I mean, if you did something illegal, would you tell Mike Wallace about it? I wouldn’t. Ever notice how annoying my voice is? Of course, you can turn it off. I can’t. Ever notice it gets dark at night? Where does the sun go? Nobody knows. Ever notice how much rouge I have on my cheeks? Of course, some people think it makes me look like a clown.