Woot : One Day, One Deal (SM)

...is some frantic digital homoeroticism.

Wii gamers rejoice! Muscle March is coming to North America! Surely this will be THE party game of the year, as it combines group gaming, human tetris, wacky music, and well-oiled, chiseled men prancing half-naked in a coked-up conga line. And polar bears.

Apparently stealing protein powder from some body builder types is a catastrophic mistake of Benny Hill proportions, as what follows is a chase scene surely worthy of "Yakety Sax." But the only concern you should feel for the thief is how you're going to catch him. Also, maybe, how you plan on wrestling your protein powder away from him since he seems to be either freakishly strong or the equivalent of a Human Kool-Aid Man.

I know Rock Band has tons of people dedicated to having awesome parties where they dress like rock stars and play songs together, so I'm already planning my party for release day. All my friends will come over dressed in their best bodybuilder outfit, top hat, and carrying their favorite dumbbells. After a rousing tussle on the living room floor, we'll fire up the Wii.

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I became reacquainted with an old friend this chilly morning. You see, I was out of milk for my usual cereal and I was already running late so cooking much for breakfast didn't appeal to me. And then I remembered: I have oatmeal.

Oatmeal's that old friend you haven't seen in five years but the conversation picks up like you just stepped out of the room for a second. Oatmeal doesn't bring any baggage; you won't have any grease or fat to regret, and you won't spend the rest of the morning burping up cilantro. You walk away from an oatmeal breakfast feeling full. Sated.

Loved.

Yes, oatmeal is the most homely of loves but its blandness, its plain visage is its very strength. There's virtually nothing you can't mix into oatmeal. Blueberries, maple syrup, bananas, apples, cinnamon, peaches & cream, or even savory elements like bacon can be added for a delightful early morning menage a trois with your steel cut partner.

Oatmeal is patient, too. Always cooling, never begging you to dive in too soon and burn the roof of your mouth. Oatmeal forgives all my past dalliances. Sure, in college I experimented with Pop Tarts and toastable Strudels. I've had sensual flings with benedicts, omelets, and biscuits and gravy. I've even had, against my better judgment and perhaps due to my own personal weakness, an on-again, off-again fling with Denny's. Sure, the siren song of eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, doughnuts, and the like is strong. But the grass isn't always so green, is it?

When I stumble home, clothes torn, lip bloodied and swearing that this time, this time is the last time that Moons Over My Hammy ever talks to me that way, Oatmeal is there to comfort me. To stick to my ribs and tell me it's all going to be okay and that yes, someone could find even me lovable.

And later when I fall into the same old trap with some breakfast burrito I just met, Oatmeal will sigh but bite its tongue; and it will wait for me to temporarily come to my senses again.

Photo: Healthy oatmeal packaging with raw egg, Dalian, China by Flickr user gruntzooki (a.k.a. Cory Doctorow), used under a Creative Commons License.

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What do you mean it's just more NPR? What circle of Hell have we wandered into?

It has come to this bureau's attention that some company called Livio has manufactured an NPR radio. It's got the little logo right there and it's even got a little NPR button so you can go right to "Car Talk" on Saturday morning when you stumble out of bed to attempt the world's most hungover oil change. Say, though, that you want to listen to, I dunno, anything else.

Tough. This thing only picks up NPR. (And a bunch of so-called Internet radio stations. You know, every time you use the term "Internet radio", Johnny Fever dies a little more.)

Granted, you get over 800 NPR stations, and if one of those is KCRW then it's worth whatever price they want to charge, but I have to take issue with selling a radio that only picks up one radio company's stations. This is not a radio. It's a light jazz/talk show CD player.

Don't get me wrong, I like NPR. Sometimes. But I also like chocolate chip cookies and you don't see me trying to eat nothing but chocolate chip cookies for the rest of my life again.

I really would love to be in the room the first time some unknowing sap scans the channels through 800 syndicated re-runs of "Prairie Home Companion," though.

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Based on the trailer, this may be the most epic Filipino movie ever.

I've just watched the trailer for Wapakman, and based on that trailer I've become so excited that I wanted to share my brief and amateur synopsis of the film so that you can get as excited as you should be about this movie. There may be a bit lost in translation, but apparently there's this guy, and maybe he's a janitor or something. I don't know why the trailer spends so much time focusing on this because there are also molten lava monsters and a woman shooting wind or something from her breasts while singing. This guy may or may not don a superhero costume because honestly, the trailer doesn't show him in it very much, but the awesome shows up right about the time our protagonist starts kung fu fighting a crab. A. Giant. Crab. Do I have to say anything further at this point? Or are you willing to join me in petitioning the MPAA to bring this film to America! They don't even have to subtitle the thing. In fact, I'd almost prefer it that way so I can just kind of improvise the dialogue in my head. I've already got a spec script written:

EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER
"When do you think that giant crab is showing up?

GIANT CRAB
"Let's do this!"

GUY FIGHTING CRAB
"My only regret in life is that I've peaked so early!"

I don't know what a Wapak is, or what powers a Wapakman might have, but I'm calling looking at Travelocity right now to figure out what it's going to take to see this movie.

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Intel says that in 10 years you're going to be surfing the web with no hands, which I guess is an improvement from one hand, but I wonder if controlling your web browser with brainwaves is really going to be an improvement.

For one thing, do you want your brain inextricably linked to Internet Explorer? Sure, you say you're better than IE, but someone out there will be using it, which means their brainpan is going to be vulnerable to virus attack, which means their Outlook address book is going to be used for some heinous spamming. And you don't want to imagine what a Denial of Service attack looks like when actual zombified people are used.

Clearing your cache, deleting cookies, and hiding your online information from loved ones is going to be a lot more intense, too. Now not only do you have to minimize the window when your wife walks in, but you have to hide the grand mal seizure that occurs as you delete 64 days' worth of browsing history.

Cell phones present another tricky question, mainly because every time my phone rings I think, "I should answer that. But I really don't want to talk to that jerk." Even supposing it's not my mom calling, how will my phone recognize the difference between the feeling that I should answer, but the impulse that I don't want to answer?

How are everyday applications going to run from your skull? Try using "one-click shopping" on any retail site when as soon as you think about it you've purchased whatever the hell you're looking at. People will be bankrupted within two hours of turning on their computers.

And we haven't even mentioned the massive stroke you'll surely suffer when the Woot servers go down during a Bag o' Crap.

Photo: No Brain by Flickr user Pierre-Olivier, used under a Creative Commons License.

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Thanksgiving is a time of reunion, merriment, and gluttony. It can also be a time of traffic snarls, flight delays, and relatives you make a point to avoid the entire rest of the year. With those latter facts in mind, I thought it'd be helpful to lay down some easy-to-use guidelines to help get you through the holidays unscathed.

Travelling
If you've had any sort of success with your life, you should now live far, far away from your immediate family and have to travel to see them. Unfortunately, there are a lot of other people traveling at this time of year as well, and this time of year tends to suck in terms of travel weather. Odds are good that you could be snowed in, delayed by late flights, or stuck on the side of the road in a ditch cursing your 2-wheel-drive rental.

Plan ahead; arrive for Thanksgiving dinner no less than two weeks beforehand to give yourself enough time.

Family
Well it's always nice to see Mom and Dad, or at least to visit Dad's studio apartment and leave early to go meet Mom and her new beau. But what about all those other kooky aunts, uncles, cousins, and creepy neighbors you haven't seen in the last year? It's only a matter of time until Uncle Stan brings up the Socialist apocalypse Obama is bringing upon us all, and that'll only rile up Aunt Nina until she's screaming about the irreparable damage done by the previous administration. Soon enough everyone is looking at you for the tie-breaker.

Don't get involved in political discussion. Don't even mention that you are registered to vote. If you sense this type of conversation heating up, find the nearest TV and watch whoever's playing football beat the crap out of the Detroit Lions. You don't even have to like football; just stare intently at the screen and, should anyone try to speak to you, yawn loudly and rub your belly contentedly.

Food
They don't call it Turkey Day for nothing, right? The first thing to know is that this is one of those holidays where anyone who can cook, even at a marginal level, will be turning out some sort of "specialty" that they only make once a year because it's either: a) incredibly hard and labor-intensive to make, or b) so high in fat it can only be consumed once annually.

Save some room. Start fasting approximately a week ahead of time so you can maximize your enjoyment. Try not to waste any room on water, either.

Surprises
The holidays are a great and not-at-all hackneyed time to make huge announcements like, "I'm pregnant," "We're getting married," or "There is no antidote!" But timing is everything. Too soon and you'll have to sit through every single person in attendance pulling you aside to congratulate, encourage, and/or advise you based on the news you've just given. Too late and everyone will be catatonic from the deluge of turkey and pumpkin pie forcibly shoved down their throats.

All major announcements, apologies, wedding proposals, and the like should be casually shouted to the front door as you get in your car. The specifics can be covered in an email later.

Hosting
You may have acquired a decent place on your own and a knack for culinary excellence, so you may decide to host your own Thanksgiving and invite family to you. This can be a hectic but rewarding chance to show off your cooking, let people you don't see very often admire your house, and fill your dining room with the warmth and joy usually only reserved for a family-sized TV dinner.

You should never, ever, ever host a family function. Do you have any idea how crazy these things get? Are you nuts?!

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Hey, women of BYU! Are you ready to play some soccer? Because you should really be focused on defending yourself from Elizabeth Lambert.

Lambert, who apparently lost her entire family in a savage Mormon attack, became hellbent last Friday on maiming as many people on the field as possible. And while getting tackled or pulled to the ground by your pony tail is embarrassing enough, no one should have to suffer the ignonimy of being dumped to the turf AND taking a soccer ball to the face; but by god there it is happening right before our eyes at 1:05. Oh, the humanity!

So Elizabeth Lambert's a jerk, and we all know that now, but seriously: who the hell were the referees for this game? I know soccer players are kind of notorious for flopping on the ground in agony at the slightest breeze to try and draw a card, but short of brandishing a pistol I'm not sure what else Lambert had to do to get a red card and be tossed from the game. Maybe she could've gone all Kano and ripped the goalkeeper's still-beating heart from her chest, taken a bite, and raised it triumphantly over her head at midfield. That's gotta be good for at least a yellow.

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Yes, you heard right, there is a Berenstain Bears movie in the works, and while it’s early to speculate, we can all start hoping the casting directors get things right! The word on the street is it will be a mix of live action and CGI, but since we’ve got ‘til 2011 before this thing is expected to launch, who do you think would make a perfect fit for arguably the most lovable and culturally relevant children’s book characters of this generation? Here are our picks:

Director: Sure, Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) has signed on, but there’s still plenty of time to find a real director and not just some clown who’s going to throw a CGI Tyrannosaurus skeleton on a pile of crap and call it a day. We need someone visionary to really capture the essence of the Bears. Someone who can break new ground while keeping faithful to the bountiful source material. Of course I’m talking Zack Snyder.

Papa: All you need to do is read his bio at berenstainbears.com: “He is a woodsbear and rough carpenter – very rough.” This guy’s pure steel, hardened and grizzled by the harsh realities of an unflinching world around him. Yeah, he loves his family; part of that love comes from the desire to protect them from the horrors he saw, possibly in Bear Vietnam. After his victorious turn in The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke’s got this one locked up.

Mama: “Warm, wise, and witty” according to the source bio. Mama Bear is the perfect homemaker and loving mother to Brother and Sister, so we’ll need someone maternal and nurturing. At the same time, it’s 2009 and not even a kid’s movie makes it out the door without a little sex appeal, so she’s got to be hot. Maybe consider “updating” her name from Mama Bear to MILF Bear. You know what? Stick with Mama Bear, but get Vivica A. Fox on the phone right now.

Brother: He’s a natural athlete and a soccer aficionado, but at the same time he’s got a geeky side he indulges by studying dinosaurs and looking at bugs. It’s going to take a nuanced actor to walk the tightrope on this role, and that challenge is made even more daunting by the fact that we’ll need a younger actor. So screw it. They’re already using CGI; if Peter Jackson can use it to shrink Elijah Wood into a hobbit then we can use it to shrink Robert Pattinson down to Brother Bear size. Bonus: we just locked up the teenage girl demographic!

Sister: “She’s all girl, but sometimes just one of the guys.” Yeah, Jessica Alba really helps our ethnic quotient here, but Megan Fox is the it girl for another three and a half minutes, tops. We’ve got to capitalize if we’re going to take this thing to the top. And by top I mean minimum three sequels and extensive merchandising deals with Burger King and Wal-Mart.

As Yet Unnamed Villain:

I know what you’re thinking: the Berenstain Bears never had a foil other than their own sloth, greed, or ignorance. Well, that kind of morality play just doesn’t fly in American cinema today, and they’re going to need someone trying to ruin their day if this thing is going to get off the ground. I’m proposing Alan Rickman, mainly for that creepy voice and the fact that Jeremy Irons is just a little too expensive.

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