Brian: “I’m quitting. I’ve lost anyway.”

Mike: “Dude, don’t quit. Quitting is for girls.”

Brian: “Exactly. I’m going to go talk to some.”

Brian vacates the room, leaving only Thom and Mike continue to play.

Thom: “Brian went to look for girls.”

Mike: “Yeah. I know.”

Thom: “Any woman news with you?”

Mike: “Play the game.”

Thom: “Don’t be so touchy.”

Mike: “How about you then? Any women news with you?”

Thom: “Shut the fuck up.”

Note: Contrary to
the fact that Brian generally meets women at the bar, Risk is about the control of all the world’s women.

Continue reading Risk 2210 →

I just purchased a Presto Pizzazz Pizza “oven” because my regular oven isn’t working. So rather than do the logical thing and get my oven fixed I decided to buy even more gadgetry for my home.

I love my pizza and my pizza loves me – so I was anxious to try the Pizzazz. The Pizzazz claims to cook Pizza from start to finish in less time than it takes for most conventional ovens to pre-heat. I decided to see how true this claim really is so I brought out my Pizzazz and cooked away. I cooked a frozen regular crust Tombstone Pizza in 17 minutes from start to finish. That isn’t bad considering it use to take my working oven over 12 to 15 minutes to pre-heat! Now that it doesn’t work correctly it takes about 2 hours to reach 400 degrees and it sometimes smokes.

I have cooked two pizzas on the machine so far. The pizza cooking quality is great. It browns the cheese and crisp the crust perfectly. I would recommend this product to anyone who is a big pizza eater like me. I don’t like the name though, it’s a bit gay. But then again so is my bedroom. I would change the name to the Presto Pizza Producer X (aka PPPX).

This is just an initial report; I plan to write a follow-up later. I may change my mind when I cook a pizza made from scratch or a rising dough pizza or if it burns my house down. It says not to cook anything but Pizza on the machine due to fire risk. I plan to cook fish sticks on the Pizzazz this coming week. Happy eating Jabba.

-DJ Webb

As we saw our own DJ Webb partaking of the boob tube this holiday season, I also took rare look at TV programming this New Year’s Eve. I caught several movies that I’ve been meaning to look into. These are the first 3 installments of the Death Wish series of movies.

There are men. There are men we look up to, and there are men’s men. And then there is Charles Bronson.

This man’s mustache and overall ugliness could only be trademarked. While Hollywood girly-faced actors are revelling in this metrosexual era, Bronson only had one thing to say about his visage: “I guess I look like a rock quarry that someone has dynamited.”

The story of Death Wish is a simple fantasy to even the most liberal of us and one which probably started a vein of vigilante stories that, already cult classic, Boondock Saints continues with currently. That is, to issue justice as we ourselves see fit. Bronson plays an average New Yorker family man who stumbles on the misfortune of having his wife and daughter robbed, raped and killed by Jeff Goldblum and his gang of thugs. What ensues over 5 films and 2 decades of filming is Bronson exacting revenge not only on the personal perpetrators, but over hundreds of similar scum.

The height, for me, is in Death Wish 3, when Bronson, already in his 60’s by then, teams up a crew of senior citizens in low-income housing to take back their safety from organized gang members, including Bill S. Preston, Esq.. But Bronson has help from one more source. He has Wildey on his side.

A decade before there was the Desert Eagle, we had Wildey, which fires a .475 Wildey Magnum, a shorter version of the African big game cartridge. Shown above is the 18 inch barrel (I think Bronson -only- used the 12″ or 14″ in Death Wish 3). Fabled to resolve most fights without a shot being fired, the Wildey is said to reduce a cinder block to dust, having the main drawback of not stopping until it has gone through 2 or 3 human targets.

I think this post is done, but it doesn’t stop there. Maybe later I’ll talk about the Death Wish 3 Commodore 64/Spectrum ZX video game which revolutionarily allows you blow through thugs, cops and bag ladies alike with an RPG.

It appears nothing is sacred for men anymore. Women are now standing up to pee. Yes, that’s right… women are peeing while standing up by the tens of thousands! A new invention that is making its way through Europe called the “She Pee” is becoming very popular among female concert goers. Many of the large music festivals throughout Europe are using She Pees to cut down on the bathroom lines. The “new” technology allows many women to stand at the same time and use urinal trough to urinate into. Each lady is given a disposable paper/cardboard She Pee device that looks like a shoe. This is placed in the nether region and allows the woman to urinate standing up without any spillage. What next?

A week ago, last Wednesday, January 12, 2005 at 12:05 pm 99.1 WHFS was taken off the air. 99.1 WHFS played “alternative” rock for almost twenty-eight years in the Washington/Baltimore area. They now play Latino/Spanish salsa music! 01-12-05 at 12:05 WHFS abruptly and without any type of warning to its listenership changed format and fired all of its employees.

Unfortunately, ratings were the reason for this format change. WHFS had become a secondary station for many radio listeners in the Washington/Baltimore area. As a matter of fact I didn’t even have WHFS programmed into my radio anymore.

I was a religious listener of WHFS while in high school and college and it never left my dial unless I traveled out of range. After all, WHFS was one of the leading stations in the area to break up in coming band such as “The Flaming Lips” and “Oasis”. Without WHFS I would have discovered “new” bands months later than WHFS would debut them. Without WHFS I would have never made it through the all-nighters where I stayed up writing papers or my thesis. They also aired “Loveline” every week night from 10pm until 12am which I listened to routinely and gained an informal education while in college.

Though I never attended one, WHFS put on one hell of a music festival every summer. I would often hear the festival broadcast live and often wished I was there (except the summer when several people where killed and injured from the lightening strike). The festivals are what people will probably miss most about WHFS.

Why the downfall of WHFS? Only the management can truly answer that question but I have two observations. One, WHFS Disc Jockeys often seemed as if they were talking down to their listeners and not to the listener. It was often hard to relate to the Disc Jockeys as they seemed far removed from reality at times. Second, the type of music they played, “alternative” while in style in the 1980s and 1990s is no long alternative. Alternative music has now become so fashionable that its now really considered mainstream rock and pop.

Yes, it’s sad to see something that was once such a staple in people’s lives come to such a downward spiral and eventual death. Now the competition is smaller as 98 Rock and DC 101 are the last of the remaining true “all rock” stations. I do like 98 Rock and their Disc Jockeys seem to be fairly entertaining but the music programming has a little to be desired. This is why, like H. Stern, I am switching to commercial free satellite radio next weekend. It was either learn Spanish and then date a Puerto Rican woman so that I could continue to occasionally listen to WHFS or just switch to something such as satellite radio as an excuse to spend more money and purchase more gadgetry for my vehicle.

Two items: It appears the Mac product rumors I listed in last weeks post are all very true now. http://www.apple.com I am glad this is the case otherwise I would have been greatly disappointed.

Second, Committed (all new episode) comes on NBC tonight at 9:30pm. Please let me know what you think, post your comments!

Peak Ouch,

-DJ Webb

Last night at 8:30pm I watched the second installment of NBC’s Committed. Committed is a romantic comedy that NBC hopes will become its next “Friends.” I saw the promos for the show since the late part of November 2004 and I must say I was intrigued.

Josh Cooke plays the leading male as Nate Solomon while Jennifer Finnigan plays the leading lady as Marni Fliss. The pilot show that debuted earlier this week begins with Nate and Marni as 20 something singles living in New York trying to find the perfect mate. Nate and Marni accidentally end up on a blind date together where they hit it off. They soon realize that they are each on the wrong blind date and that Nate had accidentally picked up the wrong person, Marni. As stereotypical plots go you can kind of figure the rest out on your own… they each return back to their correct blind dates and hate the experience and then end up dating each other a few nights later.

The shows writers try to spice things up by making Nate very neurotic and Marni as very compulsive and awkward. This is cute and entertaining for the first five minutes of the show but then this is overdone. Somehow it’s become cool to be mentally ill in television; more like its cool, hip, and fashionable to be mentally ill in society! I’ve noticed a ton of shows have gone the mentally ill route – look at Monk, Seinfeld and Will and Grace to name a few. Committed seems to be just reusing some “Something About Mary” discarded scripts.

All is not lost though; the show has one edgy and entertaining factor: Darius McCray who plays Bowie James. Bowie James plays a black man that is friends with Marni. Nate is extremely uncomfortable around Bowie who appears as the only person of color in the show. So how is this entertaining you ask? Bowie is not only black but he is in a wheelchair. That is where the true raw and witty humor of the show comes in. The show has so many borderline inappropriate handicapped jokes that I laugh so hard I forget to breath. Committed has more handicapped humor than any show I ever seen! Though “Becker” was a show that had its share with the black blind gentleman, Committed takes things to a whole new level.

Tom Poston who is best known from “Newhart” plays a clown that lives in Marni’s closet. Newhart was one of my favorite shows and seeing Tom play the Clown gives the show a slight Newharty feel. The clown role does add an entertaining dynamic to the show.

While I am not completely into the Nate and Marni mental illness love, I am hooked into the show by the handicapped humor. I have already Tivo(ed) the show and hope that Committed continues to roll out the sharp situational handicapped comedy. I encourage everyone to watch it just once and if you like the show Scrubs I am fairly certain you’ll enjoy watching Committed as the style of humor is similar.

-DJ Webb

It seems Apple computer is poised to gain a stronger foothold in the PC market. Apple has maintained only a six to ten percent share of the PC sales market over the years. That is until next week when its rumored Apple will announce its sub $500 desktop unit and new office suite (iWorks). One of consumers’ complaints about Apple was in regards to the high price for Apple hardware. The other complaint is that Apple doesn’t have nearly the amount of software titles available as Windows based PCs. Well with the new economy-based Mac selling for a rumored $450 this should quickly end the Apple over-pricing issue. After all, the cheapest economy Dell system goes for about $450 too. That economy Dell comes with an operating system and the hardware basics while the new Econo-Mac is rumored to included iWorks and iLife. iWorks would include all of your typical office programs (spreadsheet, word processor, presentation application) and iLife would include your media applications (picture/media viewer and editor and music center). The choice would be quite simple for me if I was new to the PC market – buy a Mac.

You are saying “okay” but the Mac still doesn’t run or support the same amount of program applications as a Window PC. I must say I agree with you and that this is an issue that Mac owners have struggled with overtime. Many hope Steve Jobs may be able to change this drawback for the Mac.

In the mean time keep an eye out for Apple’s new 1 GB flash iPod player that should retail inexpensively. It’s nice to know that Jobs and his bots are finally getting the message that cheaper Apple hardware and software will attract new Apple branded buyers.

–DJ “Black Big Mac” Webb

My New Year’s Resolutions (in order of potential accomplishment)

1. Donate to the tsunami victims
2. Purchase beachfront property in Sri Lanka or Seychelles
3. Finish Dissertation
4. Get a girlfriend
5. Gain more weight
6. Save money to buy the new Apple ‘puter with the Blu-Ray ROM
7. Lose weight
8. Go to the Netherlands and Germany
9. Father a child overseas
10. Dump girlfriend once back home in US
11. Get excited about being single for Christmas 2005!
12. Beat Loki at Risk!