The Demonbaby Video Game Awards for 2007!

[Currently Listening To: Headlights - Some Racing, Some Stopping]



Better late than never, the video game awards are now up, with accolades for some of my favorite gaming moments of 2007, but mostly for a lot of things I thought sucked balls. Even if you're not into video games, you'll probably find something to laugh at here.

The Demonbaby Movie, TV, and DVD Awards for 2007

[Currently Listening To: Boy In Static - Violet]



The Demonbaby Awards for Movies, TV, and DVD are now up, highlighting some of my genuine picks for things I thought were great in the past year, but mostly making fun of things I thought were terrible. As before, a more extensive list of picks can be found in the Demonbaby Store's 2007 Favorites section.

In other news, the video game awards will be up tomorrow, and Mike Huckabee is a douche.

EDIT: Unfortunately the video game awards will be a day late, as I simply haven't had time. The good news is that Mike Huckabee is still a douche.

The First Annual Demonbaby Awards!

[Currently Listening To: Dirty On Purpose - Hallelujah Sirens]

It's that time of year when every website on the planet feels compelled to tell you what they think are the best and worst of the past year. I've always found the word "best" to be just a tad arrogant for these types of things, especially when dealing with highly subjective art forms like music or film. So, the other day when I decided it was about time for Demonbaby to leap shamelessly onto the "best-and-worst-of-2007" bandwagon, I figured I'd have some fun with it, and the First Annual Demonbaby Awards were born as an opportunity for me to honor the good, the bad, the really bad, and the ugly from the past year.

I've started with only one section, the Music Video Awards, which I guarantee is the only place you'll find the winners of the Best Performance Of A Klingon Hipster In A Music Video award and the Please, Punch Me In The Fucking Face award.

The other award categories - movies, TV, video games, etc - will be added over the next week, so check back on Monday for more, and in the meantime, you can peruse a ton of my favorites from 2007, and share your favorite music of '07 in the comments section of the Music Video Awards.

Weird Shit From Russia!

[Currently Listening To: Talking Heads - Remain in Light]



By now it's no secret that I spend a lot of time traversing the globe. I've been to a lot of countries, and seen the type of cool shit you expect to see in foreign lands - old buildings, exotic food, etc. But since I'm always traveling on business, finding myself in major cities with little time to thoroughly explore, my favorite way of discovering other countries has been to mine them for weird shit. The States have become such a wasteland of blandness, such a vapid expanse of corporate sameness, that any opportunity I can find to score some strange foreign crap is more than welcome. To that end, something I often find dismaying about the world outside of America (here's a handy map for those of you confused as to what that might be) is the alarming lack of weird shit. The angry beast of globalization has spread its red-white-and-blue blandness across the earth with insatiable aggression, ensuring that in exotic-sounding places like, say, Budapest, where I am right now, there's still a Burger King down the street, The Simpsons Movie at the local cinema (in English), Coke Zero in the vending machines, and "My Humps" playing loudly on the radio. Like cultural HIV, America continues to spread unfettered.

I love Japan because it's one of the few places I've been to whose uniqueness seems impervious to the American disease, managing to filter U.S. influence through its own bizarre cultural lens and present it as something entirely its own. And for the same reason, it was a pleasure to recently visit Russia for the first time, and find with much relief that there still is some weird shit in Europe after all (although the rest of Europe likes to exclude Russia from the precious title of "European," geography places Moscow and St. Petersburg firmly within the boundaries of the European continent).

To an American, Russia seems a strange and backwards place - a country struggling to get its shit together after centuries of chaos and turmoil. Things don't seem to work the way they should, no one seems to have discovered deodorant, and you are warned from the beginning that corruption is rampant: Stay inside the main cities, because more or less anything goes in the outskirts, and you're likely to be kidnapped. Keep your passport on you, because if you get stopped by the corrupt police and don't have it, they might kidnap you. Don't take taxis, because many of them aren't real taxis, and they'll kidnap you. We had to fly from Moscow to St. Petersburg instead of driving, because on the country highways, sometimes you'll find a broken down truck blocking the road. Stop and get out to help, and you'll be met by men with guns, who will kidnap you. Kidnapping is apparently all the rage in Russia. It's also, by its nature, a terrifying concept, mostly because it's so vague. The term "kidnapping" describes only the act of being taken away itself, and leaves the rest of your life after that point open to any sort of possibility. Will you get killed? Anally raped? Held for ransom? Sold into prostitution? The future is an open book! With all of that in mind, I stuck to the central parts of Moscow and St Petersburg, and found them to be refreshingly nice places, especially for a country that completely collapsed a couple decades ago. Sure, you can't drink the tap water, but come on - baby steps.

So now, sit back, and let me now take you on a wonderfully xenophobic tour of the strangest moments from my extremely brief and limited Russian experience. For your enjoyment, I've decorated this post with deliciously homoerotic stickers I found of this mulleted Russian pop star. Mullets, by the way, are still high fashion in Russia. Anyway, let's begin...

The People.................

There are a handful of stereotypes about Russian people, and at least one of them is true: those fuckers like to drink. As soon as they get off work - and sometimes before they get off work - they flood outdoor gathering areas and chug beer and vodka on the streets like there's no tomorrow. On my first night in Moscow, while walking through an underground passage near Red Square, my friend and I encountered an absurdly drunk Russian dude, dancing to terrible techno music and shouting loudly. He was wearing one of those big furry Russian hats, and his shirt was unbuttoned, exposing his pasty, sweaty gut, which jiggled as he danced. This is him:



He leapt in front of me and yelled something about Russia. He seemed to desire some sort of response, but I can understand Russian about as well as I can menstruate, so I was clueless. In a situation like that, what else could I do? I handed my camera to my friend, and started an impromptu Russian dance party. Homeboy put his big furry Russian hat on me, and for approximately forty five seconds, we partied like few have partied before. Scope the unbelievably hot dance moves:



That was pretty much the high point of my entire time in Russia.

The Food.................

I'm still not exactly sure what exactly constitutes Russian food, but expectedly, meat plays a heavy role. So how could I pass up a restaurant with an incredibly straightforward sign like this one?



As soon as we saw that, there wasn't really any other option for lunch that day. Inside, the waiters wore strange fur hunting outfits, and every wall was decorated eerily with dead animals and primitive weapons. The whole place was a sort of morbid celebration of carnivores where animals stared at you while you ate their relatives. Near our table were creepy squirrels on the wall, and a genuinely terrifying wolf:



The selection of meat on the menu was no less bizarre than the decorations:



I was going to avoid stating the obvious, but fuck it: "Beaver with cowberry sauce" might be the best new euphemism for a menstruating vagina since "muff marinara." And of course, I tried it. When it Rome, right? Bear was actually my first choice, but they were out. Big rush on bear. So beaver it was. You're probably wondering what cowberry sauce is, and I'm afraid that after eating it I'm no closer to having an answer for you. I can, however, assure you that beaver meat is without question the most nauseatingly awful thing I have ever had the misfortunate of putting in my mouth. I've eaten some gnarly shit in my time, and I have a seemingly iron-clad stomach when it comes to weird food, but this time I nearly puked before the meat even hit my throat. It was impressively terrible. It tasted like disease. Like pure, miserable death. Pretty much what I imagine rat meat tastes like. So, lesson learned: If you ever see beaver on the menu and you're feeling adventurous (or just want an excuse to make a sophomoric sexual pun), don't do it. You will be very sorry. Try the wild boar instead.

The Arts.................

One of my favorite things in Russia is how they've adapted the beloved tradition of the matryoshka - the Russian nesting dolls - for the 21st century. In Russian souvenir stands, the variety of hand-painted matryoshkas ranges from quaint and traditional to utterly, fantastically bizarre. Consider, for example, my new prized possession, the George W. Bush Russian Doll - complete with the "I'm a fucking tool" cowboy hat that characterizes our great President so very well:



That's just the beginning, though. Strangely, Osama Bin Laden has been immortalized in Matryoshka form, with other terrorists and dictators nesting inside him:



You can also find dolls for various Soviet dictators, British and French politicians, and even a Bill Clinton matryoshka with a doll inside for each of his many women. None of them, however, can compete with the selection of dolls from the music world:



The greatest compliment I can give the Russian artisans who created this unique masterpiece is that they have captured with alarming accuracy the spiritual essence of Freddie Mercury's overwhelming gayness. You can almost smell the butt sex. Here's another stunning masterpiece:



When I was a wee child, if a magical fairy had come down from the stars and told me that some day, my journey through life would somehow bless me with a genuine traditional matryoshka doll adorned with a hand-painted portrait of Jon Bon Jovi in all his trashy 1980's glory, and that if I cracked him open it would reveal yet another doll featuring Richie Sambora's stupid fat face, I would have said "No, magical fairy, you are a liar, for I could not imagine a life so good for myself." And yet, here I am. But alas, it gets even better. For even as I delighted in the glory of the Bon Jovi Russian doll, I knew not that my next discovery would be...

THE MANY FACES OF MICHAEL JACKSON RUSSIAN DOLL PLAYSET (OR: THE GREATEST THING EVER CRAFTED BY MAN):


Look at it! Feast upon its greatness!! My favorite part is how only the last and tiniest doll portrays Michael when he was still black.

If my funds had been unlimited, I probably would have bought every bizarre Russian doll the country had to offer. Some of the other ones I saw included Britney Spears, Elvis, Metallica, Kobe Bryant, Madonna, AC/DC, Depeche Mode, and many more.

Assorted Weird Shit................. Here are some miscellaneous photos of weird shit from Russia: These are some super cool Russian music dudes. Most importantly, check the terrifying guy at the top. He wants to eat your soul. It was really nice of Kevin Smith to lend a hand on the bongos, too.
Loosely translated, this Russian t-shirt says "I don't drink with gays." Tied with this for best Russian t-shirt ever.	Speaking of homophobia, it's ironic that the Russian police force, often criticized for violence and discrimination against gays, has "HOMO" written backwards on all their uniforms. LOL @ TEH HOMO PATROL!!!!1
I guess Jessica Simpson has fallen on hard times lately, as she's apparently been forced to take up work as a Russian escort.	This is my new favorite drink.
Here's a strange and incredibly unpleasant-looking trans-species stuffed animal, which I can't imagine has any effect other than to frighten children.	Look how tough this dude thinks he is with his Yoda tattoo.
This is a statue that was on the street. Children were getting their pictures taken with it.	Like Germany, there's a lot of highly questionable fashion in Russia. I saw more than a few women dressed like my Grandma's couch.

Well, that just about concludes our tour of Russia. I'm confident that it accurately represented all aspects of the entire country. If for some reason you want more, I took some arty tourist photos of Moscow and St. Petersburg and put them up here. They're actually very beautiful cities.

And before I go, please enjoy the unique musical stylings of an old Russian dude playing Celine Dion on a saw, interrupted by a strange dancing man:






EDIT: I can't believe I forgot about this - just a few hours after my tragic encounter with beaver meat, I saw this t-shirt at a souvenir stand. I have no idea what it says (my bet is on sexual innuendo), but it was so eerily appropriate I had to pick it up:

More Curiosities From Japan's Porno Shops

[Currently Listening To: UNKLE - War Stories]


Tokyo's Akihabara neighborhood is a sort of Mecca for consumerist nerds. Anyone obsessed, as I am, with toys and gadgets, electronics and video games, robots and action figures would be hard pressed to find a greater place to whittle away their life savings. Last month, I lost myself in Akihabara's endless neon labyrinth of awesomeness for many hours, dashing around wide-eyed like a kid in a candy store. Every corner I turned in every shop was a new discovery of some wonderful thing that I desperately needed more than anything else in the world, although I hadn't known it until then. I left that shiny paradise a much poorer man than I had entered - but I didn't leave it without another trip to the legendary seven-floor adult superstore I discovered two years ago on my last trip to Japan. And since the bizarre treasures I brought home from that trip proved so popular, I figured it's time for another round of show and tell from the the dark, horny underbelly of Tokyo.

It's unfortunate that the giant porn store doesn't allow photographs, because it's hard to capture the uniquely creepy atmosphere with words alone. I think most Americans feel a bit uncomfortable browsing any sex shop, but Japan turns the Weird-O-Meter up a few notches, especially in this store. As with any shop in Tokyo, space counts, so an impressive amount of merchandise has been Tetrissed into narrow little aisles. Any amount of foot traffic in the store makes it extremely difficult to move around, forcing you to silently negotiate an awkwardly physical passage with anyone in your way as you attempt to navigate the claustrophobic walkways. This means you'll have to acknowledge the Japanese businessman carefully studying a strap-on dildo far more intimately than you'd probably prefer.

To make things worse, the store is almost dead silent, except for the bondage floor, where the unnerving soundtrack is the signature high-pitched wail of a Japanese woman crying and screaming from horrors unknown. Unknown, at least, until you notice the television in the back corner, where said Japanese woman, her naked body dripping in hot wax, is being led around someone's basement on all fours by a leash. Her endless crying would seem to be the result of the thirty or so metal clamps attached mercilessly to exactly the last parts of one's body most people would ever choose to clamp. Behind the cash register, polaroid pictures cover the wall the way a New York deli would post pictures of celebrities who had stopped in for a bite to eat. Except, instead of pictures of the cashier giving thumbs up next to Jay Leno or Regis Philbin, these are pictures of the cashier tied up and ball-gagged, bent over with a leather-clad woman sticking various objects into his hairy Japanese ass. It seemed the photos were souvenirs from some sort of bondage party held by people who work at the store. I was never more thankful for the Japanese aversion to touching hands when exchanging money.

Unfortunately, most of the weird new treasures I found this time around were too expensive to buy, and I couldn't photograph them in the store. But alas, through the magical tubes of the internets I was able to find pictures and even links for almost everything I saw, so let's begin the tour...


The Plasma Sperm



The Plasma Sperm is a home microscope kit designed especially for men to view their little testicular tadpoles up close and personal. That's right boys - next time you blow a load all over your stomach looking at celebrity nip slip galleries, don't reach for that dirty gym sock - reach for the Plasma Sperm, and see how your little swimmers are holding up.



I actually bought one of these, but it was a gag gift for a friend, so I was sadly unable to personally test out this ingenious device. However, from the looks of it there seems to be nothing to differentiate it from any other home microscope, save the spectacular packaging.



Unable to read Japanese, I can't exactly tell you what their selling points are with this thing, beyond the irresistible novelty of seeing the would-be offspring you've sentenced to death by Kleenex. This website seems to be selling the Plasma Sperm as a cost effective tool for men with potentially low sperm counts who are trying to conceive a child. But since I don't know Japanese, I'll turn to Google's trusty translator for help:

"This actualizing price low with the contents which are the high function where also the professional is surprised! [sutairiishiyu] design the near future forum the [ku] the [ri] increases the intellectual search heart of the man immediately. In present! In experiment! In investigation! The door to the micro which participates with all scenes."

Ah, that explains it!


Strange Masturbatory Devices

Last time I told you (in way too much detail) about the popular Japanese "vagina-in-a-can," or Vagican, or Cangina as it was later coined. You can see a wide variety of Vagicans on this page. The Vagican is an unapologetically economical masturbatory solution, and thus lacks some of the bells and whistles of more elaborate artificial vaginas. That's where the Vagican Vibrator comes in:



Just insert your favorite Cangina into the machine, and instantly you have a vibrating Cangina! It's kind of like an erotic paint shaker. The translation calls it the "Electric Man," and the best part is that it's not just for Canginas - it's also for rubber hands, creating an amazing vibrating handjob machine:



Or if that looks a little too vanilla, try this uncomfortable-looking ball-grabbing device - I call it "The Clapper":




Anime Love Dolls

One of the more interesting new additions at the sex shop was a section of life-sized love dolls. Love dolls are a sex toy staple around the world, but like everything else, Japan adds its own creepy twists - like favoring plush dolls that look like pubescent anime characters:



The product page for this doll details its eerie face, which will be staring blankly through you as you make love to its unique interchangeable vagina. An interchangeable vagina, you say? How does it work? Once again, Google Translator explains:

When the underpants are made to disperse, the hole for hole installing opens. Because hole hole diameter 45×30mm is small, “the love body Kumi private hole” of selling separately is agreeable.

I see... But what I want to know is how do you wash something like this? It's plush, which is fabric, so there's going to be a certain amount of absorbency when it's exposed to, say, the various excretions of a profusely sweating overweight Japanese man crushing poor Kumi under his weight as he furiously pumps his hairy little ding-dong into her "private hole." It sounds like a recipe for something that doesn't smell very good after a few uses.

If you're looking for something more realistic terrifying, you might want to try this... thing:



This lovely armless lass and her friends (seen at the top of the page) come permanently fixed in a pose that never says no, and an interchangeable face only a serial killer could love:



It also is home to the world's least sexy artificial vagina:



This comic, from the detail page, explains everything you need to know about these high-tech artificial orifices:



These dolls are highly customizable, so if you want to channel your inner psychopath by taking off the doll's limbs, reducing its breasts to undeveloped nubs, dressing it in little girl underwear and giving it a face that says "please Daddy don't touch me there" - you're in luck!



Most terrifying of all is this thing, a doll that should be murdering people in a bad '80's horror movie, not being lusted after by lonely Japanese men:



This doll has, according to its translated page, an artificial hymen for you to break. They really did think of everything, didn't they?

All of the above dolls are fairly deluxe, and will run you into the hundreds of dollars. But if you're on a budget and still need something life-size you can desperately pretend is a real woman, check out the wide variety of weird blow-up dolls. Thankfully, they still retain the creepy anime face:



And, if you're on even more of a budget, you might just want specific parts - like a personal titty-fucker, or a grotesquely hairy rubber rear end vagina thing, or a pocket anus, or a curious little guy I like to call "The Pirana Plant".


Something For The Ladies

Fear not girls, Japan hasn't left you out, and it understands that your desire to masturbate can happen suddenly, where you least expect it. That's why you need to carry your vibrator discreetly - say, disguised as a zuccini, or better yet, an ear of corn:



No one will think it's weird if they see an ear of corn in your purse. Or a carrot, or a banana.

If vegetables aren't your thing, maybe fingers are. Not just any fingers - vibrating fingers molded directly from the hands of a famous Japanese actor - specifically, this guy:



Oh, and in case you were worried, Japan is still the leading producer of the world's cutest vibrators:




Capsule Figures

Toy figures definitely aren't just for kids in Japan. Like last time, I tried my luck in one of the adult-themed capsule toy machines. This time I got a tiny plastic tied-up girl, complete with a box of "accessories" (for size reference, those are laptop keyboard keys behind her):



As strange as it is, the attention to detail is impressive. The girl's box of fun includes what must be the world's smallest sex toys - several dildos, a butt plug, a speculum, anal beads, and the always useful bottle of lube:



All that's missing is a miniature butt funnel.

Well, that's all for this year. For more from Japan's dirty side, keep exploring this site, or just go here and cry yourself to sleep tonight.

P.S. - Even though it's better suited for my previous entry, I can't help but include this Japanese man wearing boobs on his nose. Because Japanese men with boob noses are always funny:

Demonbaby's Election-Day Hideous Patriotic T-Shirt Extravaganza!

[Currently Listening To: The Clientele - Strange Geometry]



Today is mid-term election day across the United States - a day where barely a quarter of all Americans exercise their most treasured right: Democracy. Well, sort of. Faulty voting machines, rampant propaganda, and rigged elections aside, the American freedom to choose our leaders at the very least sounds great on paper.

Democracy is also a key ingredient in that unique American arrogance that makes us so well-loved around the world. Americans love to tout their country as the best on earth - the ol' "USA is number one!" mantra has been a patriotic favorite for decades. The problem, though, is that the post-WW2 American glory has long since faded, and we're not number one anymore. At least not in anything positive. I mentioned this on the ol' MiniBlog a couple weeks ago, but it's worth re-itterating here: Despite Americans' firm believe that they're the best at everything, the facts tell a very different story. Let's see how the United States stacks up against the rest of the world in a variety of categories:

Literacy: #62, tied with superpowers Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. [source]

Belief In evolution: #33 out of 34 surveyed countries. OUCH! [source]

Unemployment: #45, lagging behind Madagascar. [source]

Reading, science, and math abilities of high school students: #24 out of 29 surveyed countries. [source]

Press freedom: #53 and falling. [source]

Infant mortality rate: 2nd worst in the world! [source]

If that's all a little bit defeating, fear not - there are still some categories we rank number one in: Obesity, national debt, waste production, and oil consumption, to name a few. So I suppose it's still okay to wear that "USA is #1" t-shirt - just be sure you know what it means. And I say all of this not because I hate my country, but because I love my country - the red state myth that criticizing America makes you unpatriotic is about as ass-backwards as anti-gay Evangelical leaders who like their crystal meth with a side of bung.

There's nothing wrong with a little patriotism, but blind patriotism is a scary and dangerous thing. There's far too much of it in this country, and for some reason, blind patriotism seems to be strongly united with bad white trash fashion. For Halloween I was going to get a fat suit and dress up as a typical apathetic overindulgent American: grease-stained American flag t-shirt, sports-related hat, sweat pants, McDonald's food, and one of those obscene new 7-11 X-treme Big Gulps (52 ounces?? are you fucking kidding me??). I ended up not having enough time to get the costume together, but while I was trying I happened upon a wonderful discovery. Come with me now, as we explore Amazon.com's overwhelming selection of terrible patriotic t-shirts. What you are about to see are all actual t-shirts found in the inventory of the world's largest online retailer. I'm not going to link to each individual product because that would be a pain in the ass, but if for some reason you would actually want to purchase one of these horrendous things, you can find them all via the link above. Now, let's begin...

The most common patriotic shirts you'll find are of the foolproof eagle-flag combo variety. At the end of the day, you really can't go wrong with a majestic bald eagle soaring over the stars and stripes when you want to say "I love America!" in the most gaudy way possible. And don't worry, you have a lot of options:




But here's something interesting about the American Bald Eagle: He gets really pissed off sometimes. Like when terrorists threaten America's freedom, or abortion doctors kill babies, or when, God forbid, fags are allowed to get married! The American Bald Eagle really hates that, and it makes him turn into the Angry American Bald Eagle:



Here's one I find peculiar:



It appears to be a massive bald eagle watching over the World Trade Center. Which begs the question... Where the hell was that giant fucking bird on September 11th? I'm thinking he would have come in handy.

But if a giant bald eagle isn't quite enough to say "Proud To Be An American," how about a shirt that actually says, "Proud To Be An American"?



Ah, there we go! But what if this is a t-shirt for your baby, and it marks their all-important first "Proud To Be An American" t-shirt of what will assuredly be many, many "Proud To Be An American" t-shirts throughout their life? Well then you need the "My First Proud To Be An American T-Shirt" t-shirt:



But then, maybe your American pride has something else mixed in with it... maybe a... Southern stride? Fear not, there's a shirt for you:



Nothing says "I'm a hick" quite like the ol' confederate flag. It's nice to accompany your patriotism with a not-so-subtle reminder that our great nation was founded on the blood of slaves.

Another way to say "I'm a hick" is with aggressive, testosterone-fueld, pro-America slogans on your t-shirt:



Or, even better, by celebrating the impeccable lack of foresight on the part of our founding fathers when they wrote the second amendment:



Here are some especially painful selections for the patriotic frat boy:



And here are some choices for those days when you want to cleverly remind the world that you love the American flag without actually displaying an American flag:



There's even an "ironic" American flag t-shirt - hipsters take note:



Now, you'd think the bald eagle would pretty much have the patriotic animal market all to himself, but apparently there are a lot of other animals who love their country. It would seem, for example, that adorable little kittens are as American as apple pie:





There is also a strange series of large, angry animals tearing through t-shirts with the American flag flowing behind them. Here are the Monster Gator and Monster Boar:



And here, amazingly... is the MONSTER COCK:



...Not to be confused with monsters OF cock, which admittedly has about as much to do with America as an angry giant rooster.

Ultimately, though, this may be the most appropriate patriotic animal t-shirt:



Last but not least we celebrate the increasingly less-separated church and state with some Christian patriotic t-shirts:



Ah, Jesus and the founding fathers - two great tastes that taste great together! Look at the flag in this one - scary:



Look, here's the twin towers with their useless giant eagle guardian again:



"In God We Trust - September Eleventh, Two Thousand One." You know, I would have to say that God really didn't have our back on that particular day. Why do religious people love to thank God when something good happens, but never blame him when something bad happens?

Here's a good one - "Support Our Troops WITH PRAYER":



Uhhh... I hate to break it to you, but that strategy isn't working too well. Maybe try supporting them with body armor. Or, for that matter, competent leadership.


After seeing how popular these God-awful patriotic t-shirts are, I decided I was going to try my hand at making some patriotic t-shirts of my own. But how could I improve upon such a fine-tuned genre? What could I possibly bring to such a very large table? Well, there's always room for Americans to be more ignorant and offensive, right? Of course there is!

My new line of X-TREME PATRIOTISM T-SHIRTS gets to the core of what the red-state dimwits who wear all this tacky shit are really thinking. Why say something vague like "These Colors Don't Run" when you could say this:



See? Right to the point! And do you know why Americans have such poor reading skills? Because why would we need to read books when we have TELEVISIONS, stupid!!



And why simply imply that God wanted us to invade Iraq, when you could show Jesus himself right on the front lines, ridding the world of evil-doers?



Now that is how you make a motherfucking patriotic shirt, motherfucker! Go America!

I also figured, while I was at it, I'd make some patriotic t-shirts that were a bit more honest in their assessment of American glory - and so I present the Realistic Patriotism t-shirt line:





And yes, thanks to the magic of CafePress, you can actually purchase these shirts! Get them while you still can, before CafePress inevitably removes them for being blatantly offensive. Click the images below to view the various colors and styles available for men and women. All proceeds go to the More Video Games For Rob fund, a non-profit organization devoted to helping me never get anything productive accomplished.






P.S. - Before you send me hate mail, please spend some time studying the definition of the word satire.

Investigating Lunchables' Alarming New Desire To Mess With My Mouth

[Currently Avoiding: Work]



For my entire K-12 public school career, I was a brown-bagger. While other kids lined up in the school cafeteria for wondrous $1.25 meals of macaroni and cheese, chocolate milk, chicken nuggets, and other lukewarm fat-kid-food delicacies, I dined enviously on my boring home-prepared sack lunch formula: ham sandwich, apple, juice box, and small treat. My jealousy peaked on pizza days, when those very fortunate school lunch kids were treated to the legendary rectangular pizza slices, topped with that curiously rigid layer of white cheese which could be easily removed as a single piece. Pizza for lunch?? To me it was an unfathomable luxury. After all, my family was hardly wealthy, and my frugal mother saw absolutely no reason to waste money on unhealthy school lunches when she was more than happy to prepare a sensible alternative for me every morning. So when the mighty Lunchables arrived in stores, and were marketed to children as being mysteriously more fun than regular lunch, it was beyond perplexing to my mother why I would persistently beg her to buy them for me, when she could easily and economically prepare the very same ingredients herself.

In case you live under a rock, Lunchables are little pre-made lunch packs which include crackers, slices of cheese, and slices of turkey or ham. At least, that's what they originally contained. Later, juice and candy were added, and in recent years the Lunchables line has expanded to include grotesque-looking tacos, chicken fingers, mini hot-dogs, and other high-fat snack foods that children really don't need.

I don't know what it was that made Lunchables so appealing to me. Perhaps it was how neatly arranged and packaged everything was, with the individual components of your eventual cracker sandwich stacked flawlessly within their own compartments. Or maybe it was the amazing perfect circles of slimy lunch meat - a shape that assured you nature took no part in their creation. Perhaps it was the delicious, high-fat cheese slices, brought to you by the crowned kings of processed foods, Kraft. Kraft's flagship cheese is so far away from being actual cheese that the box labels it "Kraft Pasteurized Prepared American Cheese Product." Whatever the case, I was somehow convinced that Lunchables were in all ways superior to any cracker-cheese-meat combination my mother could prepare, so when she occasionally gave in and packed them for me in my sack lunch, it seemed almost as exciting as rectangular pizza.

I ate Lunchables regularly, even through high school. By that point most of my peers had come to regard the little lunch packs as the disgusting, over-priced processed garbage that they are, but not me - I still loved them. I also discovered that those perfect circles of slimy lunch meat had mysterious adhesive properties. If thrown directly upward with a good bit of force, they would stick to the cafeteria ceiling and never, ever come down. Whenever I had Lunchables I would add another meat circle to the ceiling, as part of an ongoing art installation / science project which, as far as I know, is still there.

These days I don't eat Lunchables anymore, and I haven't tried their many off-putting new varieties. But the other day at the grocery store I noticed a particularly alarming new twist on the classic Lunchables formula that was simply too bizarre to pass up.



What you see above you is the new Lunchables "Mess With Your Mouth" line of lunch packs. Displaying an admirable dedication to new frontiers of disgusting, unhealthy children's food, Kraft has outdone itself by adding a packet of "Sour Tongue-Teasing Fizz" powder to the package, and directly suggesting that you pour it onto your turkey and cheese cracker stack. Here's a close-up, lest you doubt me:



Think about this very carefully: Kraft wants kids to pour what is essentially sour Pop Rocks onto lunch meat, and eat it. This is not some small notion on the back of the box - it's the foundation of a whole "Mess With Your Mouth" ad campaign, and the entire packaging is dedicated to this seemingly unHoly marriage of sour candy and processed meat. Oh yeah, they also want you to pour sour fizzing powder onto tacos and hamburgers:



Now, I realize children are much more, shall we say, "open minded" about what they'll eat than adults are, and most seemingly-disgusting snack foods are easily excused by being designed for the adventurous palettes of children. But this time, even with a child's interests in mind, it seems like Lunchables has gone way too far. That meat is nasty enough on its own, but with sour candy on top? EWWW. Still... I bought it. I just needed to know.

When I got home, I opened up my Lunchables pack with excited trepidation. The cheese squares and meat circles were as unnaturally perfect as I remembered them, and every bit as artificially delicious. Now accompanying them, though, was the much-hyped new packet of sour fizzing powder:



Determined to try it out exactly as the box demonstrated, I poured the powder out directly onto the turkey of a cracker stack, and it looked like this:



Mmmmm. Appetizing, no? Its appearance has nothing in common with the colorful popping confetti candy shown in the illustration - rather, it looks more like a pile of cocaine on top of wet turkey. But hey, Kraft is devoting a lot of marketing to this concoction, so maybe they know something I don't. Maybe, despite common sense's drastic assertions to the contrary, it's actually delicious. There was only one way to find out. Here's a grotesque close-up of my tongue teasing the powdered turkey before it went down the hatch:



As it turns out, the taste of Ritz cracker, Kraft cheese, Oscar Meyer meat, and third rate Pop Rocks combining in your mouth is every bit as unpleasant as it sounds like it would be, confirming my suspicion that this is the most disgusting and senseless product in grocery stores at the moment. Convinced that someone at Kraft had completely lost their mind with this promotion, I decided to search for answers.

On the Lunchables website I found a whole section devoted to the "Mess With Your Mouth" foods. "Messing with your mouth" is apparently the prerogative of The Lunchables Brigade, an animated crack team of processed food enthusiasts comprised of a white boy, a black boy (complete with dreadlocks to assure you he's black, and glasses to assure you he's not threatening), and an ambiguously brown girl, who conveniently could be either Asian or Latino, depending on your specific needs for ethnic identification.



As demonstrated in this TV ad, The Lunchables Brigade seems convinced that your lunch is far too pleasing in its current form, and will break through your walls and aggressively coat your food with disgusting fizzy powder, thereby effectively messing with your mouth. This approach likely stems from the Kool-Aid Man School Of Food Mascot Tactics, which teaches that th