Behind the Grunts: Tights & Pads: Wilcard Saturday

Seahawks Vs. Saints 3:30 pm CT time

Philplusbert's NFL Wildcard Picks

Hey kids, welcome to today's 3 part NFL playoff coverage. Let's start off with this from philplusbert A.K.A David

Saints at Seahawks

Last week, we got to witness the first losing team make the playoffs in NFL history. This week, we will get to see the first televised practice in NFL playoffs history. This week, the Seahawks will be starting Matt “who’s that guy again” Hasselbeck, instead of Johnny Depp.

 Matt Hasselbeck                                                               Charlie Whitehurst

 In fact, I liken the Seahawks to the Pirates of the Caribbean series - cool at first, making a name for themselves…only to fade into obscurity. Suddenly, “Oh those guys are back? I mean, I guess that’s ok. Doesn’t Johnny Depp have something better to do with his time? And what happened to Keira Knightley?” What are we talking about again? Oh yeah.

Saints over Seahawks

MLIT: Look Upon This Work And Despair

You look at something like this and you think No Big Deal, this is just some crazy person making some misguided fan art from their favorite scene in the Twilight Saga which is when [spoiler alert] Bella and Edward finally have sex in Breaking Dawn. But then you remember that this scene is actually not sexy at all-- for one thing Bella is covered in bruises which is a disconcerting enough image as it is, made all the more disconcerting when you remember that there is a side character in New Moon who is covered in scars from when she was mauled by her lover who is also a werewolf and Bella, when presented with the image of this scarred up girl and her lover, feels nothing but jealousy and pain in the face of the great love she sees between the abuser and abusee because Edward, her sometimes inadvertently abusive vampire beau, is absent at the time. It's a terrifying scene that comes right back into your mind's eye when you read about the bruises. Here, Bella's been fucked so hard she's covered in black and blue, which is notably absent from the above image. Photoshop is (clearly) difficult. But the feathers are very much present. The feathers, you see, result from Edward biting pillows during intercourse because he simply can't control himself. This is discovered by Bella the morning after because she apparently fell asleep immediately post-sex and made no note of her surroundings which is strange but not the most important thing. The most important thing is that The Feathers carry a lot of weight in certain Twilight circles. Look around and you will see references to them everywhere. To some people, these feathers are sexy, this scene is sexy. Fans breathlessly anticipate the film adaptation of Breaking Dawn and speculate as to how explicit the scene will be, as if they expect 9 Songs or some shit. But when you really get down to it, this scene, and The Feathers, are not sexy. This scene is about all of Edward's fears about sex being confirmed, about his over protective father-like attitude toward Bella being resumed despite their recent marriage. For three books and hundreds of pages he stalls on making Bella a vampire, which is also symbolic sex until real sex also comes into play. He uses Bella's eventual immortality as a bargaining chip to get her to marry him, which we eventually discover is a ploy to protect her virtue. Edward is religious (seriously) and he is worried that pre-marital sex (or pre-marital vamping, again, they are confusingly equated until they just aren't anymore) will blow Bella's chances at eternity at Jesus's side. Bella plans on being immortal anyway, and is generally painted as being of a secular inclination, but she gives in nonetheless, throwing up her hands in exasperation with the rest of us after several scenes of dizzying rhetorical loopty-loops. For a while Edward resists Bella's request in turn that he have sex with her before she becomes immortal (she is worried that her thirst for blood will outweigh her thirst for sex when that happens). By the way, it's important to understand that in the text the word "sex" is avoided at all costs. Euphemisms like "a real honeymoon" are used in order to befuddle younger readers, which has the unintended effect of also confusing older readers. Anyway, Edward eventually relents and after the wedding spirits Bella away to an island his father bought for his mother (sure) in order to give her "a real honeymoon." At this point you can speculate freely as to what kind of Oedipofreudian (if that isn't a word, it is now) shit is going on in Edward's head that he would take his new wife off to his father's love nest for a shag. All we really get in the text is the morning after said shag, the implicit sex is made all the more implicit by Stephenie Meyer's odd penchant for having a disoriented narrator as frequently as possible, regardless of whether or not it has a narrative purpose. And during said morning after, Edward is filled with self-loathing over the physical damage he has done to Bella. When he sees her naked, he turns away in disgust and clenches his fists (no really). He swears to never "make love" to Bella again until she has changed into a vampire. It's a fundamentally unsexy scene that brings back a lot of the uncomfortable religious and patriarchal overtones from the first three books, which were gloriously absent from the first hundred pages or so of Breaking Dawn. You realize that people who find this scene sexy find Edward's self-loathing and overprotectiveness sexy. They find bossiness sexy. They find lack of sex sexy. It's that, or they aren't reading so much as moving their eyes over the page and liking it because everybody else likes it. So all of that runs through your mind when you look at something like this, and pretty soon it's replacing every image from the horror movies that stayed with you from childhood. Your brain re-maps around it, like the way you forget the faces of your high school classmates in college. This image is burned into the backs of my eyelids, and now it will haunt you too. You're welcome.

I'm not a twi-hard but I examine them on my blog.

Happy birthday Pizza Dog & bonus video.

Yesterday, after I had been working for 13 hours I was checking my Facebook and I saw that a fellow monster posted this:

"THANK GOD i just got an email titled "Pizza Dog turns 33 on January 12th" because what would i have done if i had forgotten PIZZA DOG'S BIRTHDAY? if i'm judging my year by the first week in emails then i'd say this year is an A+ THANKS INTERNET! 2011 never forget Pizza Dog's Birthday. happy birthday pizza dog. you earned it- i'm sure." 

Why Don't YOU Caption It? Kristen Stewart Holds What Appears To Be A Giant Glass Dildo

Kristen Stewart was at the People's Choice Awards last night, and I don't know what that actually is, but she looks quite good, does she not? Keep on keeping on, KStew (or as I call her: Mini Mary Louise Parker).

Politically Radical Dogs Newsletter

Welcome to the Politically Radical Dogs Newsletter. Today's Installement comes from the Chicago Tribune. For a while now I have lived with a dog who has some very bigoted ideas. I'ts been a tough ride but I love him none the less. If you or your loved ones suffer from living with a narrow-minded dog, please send your thoughs or concerns to DS3M.

Inspired by Steve Winwood

I simply do not know why, but every time Steve pretends to confuse Ellen Page with Justin Bieber or vice versa, I laugh. It's the stupidest thing ever and I love it. Here's to you Mr. Winwood:

LBT's Generic Book Corner

Hello monsters, and welcome to my little corner of MOBFD! It took me quite some time to decide what to do. Luckily, I eventually remembered the adage, "write what you know," which narrowed the topics to books and The Golden Girls. As much as I would LOVE to liveblog rewatching the series, I figured books might have more widespread appeal. That is not to say, however, that I am not watching that zany Blanche as I type. I am only human, after all.

Monster Fit Club: Week One check in

Hi.
Welcome to the "Monster Fit Club Check In". In this column I will try and motivate you kids for the "Monster Fit Club" that Mrs. Nightmare has been so kind to put together. If you have some movies, stories, images that inspire you, send them to me and I will post & credit you here. By the way, this isn't the place for your weigh ins and diet tips, send those to Mrs. Nightmare.

Let me start this off by saying consult a doctor. Not to alarm you, but to inform you. In fact if you are thinking of doing this, the chances that the doctor encourages you to do it are pretty high. A lot of times being overweight or unhealthy has more to do with our environment or habits than anything else, hopefully we can help each other change these.

Do not be discouraged if you don't lose weight right away. Chances are that if you are starting a new exercise regimen, you will gain some muscle. Remember muscle weighs more than fat. Muscle also burns

Monster Movie Club: Spirit of the Marathon

Okay, so I realize this was in very short notice & no one watched it, but I'm still posting this just to get into a rhythm. If you want to check it out got here: Spirit of the Marathon 

The movie is pretty engaging but if you are not already interested by running or documentaries, this movie might not be for you. There are some great stories about how marathoning took shape as a sport near the middle. Which makes me wish they would have started the movie there. The people featured in the movie are great but can you imagine if all those 80s movies started with the training montages before the half-assed story? "Why is that guy eating raw eggs?" "why is that kid hanging out with that old Asian guy?" etc.

Gums of Our Lives: Episode 6

Teacherman stumbled through the front door. He managed to cough a strangled “Help me,” as he collapsed into The Kelburrows’ arms. In response, she screamed. The other girls quickly ran to the entranceway. “What the hell is going on?” BabyFriday began to demand in the nicest way possible, but stopped as soon as she saw the tableau in front of her. “T—Teacherman?” She stammered, before fainting. Thisismynightmare and Briadru4 came in right behind her, screamed, and fainted.

Five minutes later The Kelburrows was able to revive everyone with the smelling salts she kept in her purse for just such emergencies. BabyFriday groggily opened her eyes. “What happened?’ She began. “I just had the craziest dream that Teacherman was still alive.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” responded The Kelburrows, “He’s in the living room.”

The Best Lists Previously Rejected by McSweeney's

Based on the recent post regarding McSweeney's Lists, I thought I would dust off this old chestnut for the MOBFD crew...

The Best Lists Previously Rejected by McSweeney’s by Jason Ryan:

-Cool Dreams I’ve Had by Trevor Dunn

-Words I Don’t Know The Meaning Of by Gary Bradshaw

-My Appearances On The Oprah Winfrey Show, Ranked by James Frey

-The Best Lists Previously Rejected by McSweeney’s (drafts 1-17) by Jason Ryan

-The Best Time of Day to Check Your Watch by Chrissy O’Sullivan

My Life Is Twilight: A Jashley Primer

In order to understand the Jashley thing, you need to understand the Disney thing, which I (admittedly) do not understand very well. You have to understand Jonas Brothers fans, and when you try to understand Jonas Brothers fans you start to go crazy, a little bit. I mean, Black Swan hit a little close to home, you know? I think it's because of the reporting I have done on the Jashley controversy since last fall.

When I was younger my sister really liked New Kids On The Block, but she actually liked the idea of them; she owned a NKOTB sleeping bag and probably matching pajamas but didn't actually have any of their cassettes. Since the dawn of time, shady executives have been exploiting the predilections of pre-teen girls-- I'm pretty sure that's how Jesus got started, even. And there is probably no harm in it, by itself. My sister grew up to be a (relatively) normal person.

But when you mix the fervent fandom attracted by the Jonases and Biebers of the world with the Internet, specifically with the relatively anonymous world of social networking, it can be an explosive combination. Bieber-heads infamously mocked Lily Allen when she suffered a miscarriage, in what may be the most high profile example of this phenomenon. But then you see something like this, which is a collection of death threats leveled at Twilight actress Ashley Greene, and you realize the Lily Allen thing wasn't a one-off event. For some people this is EVERY DAY.

The (Un)Official Guide For Coping with July 16, 2011...and Beyond

A dark day is coming. No, not Jan 1, 2012, but one even closer: July 16, 2011. A day we all have been dreading. The day that we shall rue for all our lives.

I am, of course, talking about the day after the final Harry Potter movie comes out.

Step 1: See the movie again

• There’s a decent chance that you have missed some movie moments from all the cheering, crying or even blinking
• This does not cover bathroom breaks because who leaves the theatre to go to the bathroom during Harry Potter?!
• If needed, invest in a set of vision-boosters so you don’t miss a thing. Look how happy this fan is:

"I am so excited"

Step 2: Sing Your troubles away

Monster Movie Club: Announcement

We here at monster technologies have been focusing on discussing movies like Black Swan & True Grit. The reason for this is that these movies fall outside what Videogum usually covers. The unfortunate flip side to this is that many monsters live in places where these type of movies are not shown until much later than when they are premiered. In order to make the appeal of this feature much broader, we are going to try to focus on a different type of talkies.


Here's the deal, this is not a WMOAT clone. We will try to focus on what we think are quality unappreciated  films that the monsters might enjoy or Movies we've enjoyed but have forgotten. The movies should be relatively easy to get, ideally on Netflix Instant. If you cannot get the movies tune in to chat on Tuesday night, for tips on where to get them. We will then try to discuss them on Wednesday. Sounds good? C'mon, it's not THAT bad. I'll make a new post for the movie then.

This week's movie to be discussed Wednesday:

Now THAT is funny. New Year Old Jokes Edition.

When I was in the ninth grade I bought a copy of David Letterman's Book of Top Ten Lists. At the time, I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever read. I think what enamored me about it the most was that it brought to light the idea that a "joke" could have multiple punch lines that could all work and be funny in their own way. That same year, while pretending to pay attention in class, I took a stab at writing my own "Top Ten Things about Mr. Bernier’s Chemistry Class." I don’t remember what the punch lines were - I think mostly they were in-jokes about Brian burning down the lab and Kimmy asking too many stupid questions. I do remember that the number one item on the list read simply: Schrodinger! ... Why didn’t I have more friends in high school? Wait! Don’t answer that.

I think this notion of one alley to an infinite number of oops is why I love Twitter BNPGs so much. Someone cooks up a basic framework for a joke then we all get to riff on that joke like so many jazz musicians. Not every tweet is a winner (my personal hit rate is likely hanging out at the 20% range) but they are always well intended and when they do work it is a truly beautiful thing. Keep up the good work gang, the creative commons of funny that is brewing amongst us is a wonderfully remarkable thing. And because there’s a dawn of a new year going on these days, I’ll raise my champagne glass and cheers to many #shakespearesitcom, #fakefamilyfeud, and #gabesexytalks to come.

On with the funny links! This week some of my favorite lists from McSweeney‘s:

Monster Fit Club: Week One (It Begins...)

It's Monday, January 3. We all know what that means. It is time to to crack down and get this party started! WHO'S EXCITED?! I know I am!

I got my grocery shopping done yesterday which means I am currently enjoying a bowl of non-fat Greek yogurt with fresh strawberries. YUM! I also just finished my first workout of MFC. I started my morning off with P90X's Ab Ripper X workout. This is a workout I used to be able to do with out stopping, and I had to take a couple of breaks because my abs were burning! I can't wait to be able to do the whole workout without stopping again. After my intense ab workout, I hit the treadmill for a 45 minute run/walk combo. I got a nice burst of energy that I hope to carry me into the work day (by work, I actually mean Videogum commenting-DUH!).

Behind the Grunts: Tights & Pads Week 17

Bored? Still Hungover from Friday? Looking to see what all the fuzz is about with this NF&L? Look no further than Dr. Trash'es patented game guide.

Week 17

Game of the week:

 Saint Louis Rams Vs. Seattle Seahawks 7:20PM Central Time