Some big developments for me recently.  I finshed my undergrad (who cares), I joined Twitter (for ideas too random or short for this blog), and I’ve been really into showing friends two online videos this week.  The first video is the Bruno trailor.  It looks INCREDIBLE and I think has the potential to be more ridiculous than Borat.

…that is such a Samantha thing to say. Then there’s the sequel to Dick in a Box that aired on SNL this past Saturday when JT was once again hosting…

There’s also an uncensored version which I find much funnier (because I’m immature).

My roommate recently mentioned that he believed Nicolas Cage to be the worst actor in Hollywood.  I do loathe both National Treasures, Ghost Rider (lowered my IQ), Gone in 60 Seconds (further fueled my hatred of any movie involving a combination of the words “fast” and/or “furious”), and “Knowing” looks worse than listening to an entire Nickelback album (on the plus side though, he’s currently filming The Sorcerers’ Apprentice, which I can only hope stars Mickey Mouse).  However, in my opinion it doesn’t get much worse than Keanu Reeves – The Matrix is only the beginning of his turd mountains.  One must also consider Hardball (“I’m blown away by your ability to show up…” – ?), Speed, and who could forget the debacle that was Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures.  Add Tom Cruise, Forbes magazine’s world’s most powerful celebrity in 2006/avid Alien believer, but disbeliever of the field of psychiatry/recovering dyslexic (via Scientology), and you’ve probably got the worst movie anyone has ever seen in their entire life.  Throw all three of these guys in a museum, sinking ship, or alternate universe that exists only in computer programs, and I would say that you’ve got the formula for the least productive hour and a half of anyone’s life to date.

Walking to class yesterday I saw this bumper sticker and it really sums up well my feelings about clowns.  Yes clowns.  They may make sweet things out of balloons, but I find them very strange (or “queer” as my grandma still likes to say and I have to remind her that that vocabulary is now inappropriate).  I also find it strange that parents encourage their kids to be friendly with creepy grown men wearing makeup and concealing their identity.  A lot of kids are told “don’t talk to strangers,” but it instead seems like the message goes something like, “don’t talk to strangers… unless they are wearing makeup and have crazy blue hair.”  Don’t get me wrong, I used to love watching Bozo the clown on WGN before pre-school and honestly, who DIDN’T want to be on the grand prize game (“…a nice crisp clean $100 bill…”).  I also had a clown lamp growing up (that I’m pretty sure is still in my parents’ basement) and a clown bank that held my collection of pennies.  However, once I have a mini-me, I’m pretty sure a love of clowns will not be encouraged.  Have you seen The Dark Knight?  Enough Said.  If you haven’t noticed from the rest of my posts, I’m quite fond of lists. Here is my list of the top 6 creepiest clowns of all time.

6.  Bozo the Clown – The tamest of clowns on this list, but dangerous nonetheless.  Bozo, gives children free candy (via audience giveaways), free toys (via his games), and money (via the grand prize game).  Evidently some kids were creeped out by Bozo, however.

5.  Ronald McDonald- I love McDonald’s breakfast, but would love it even more if if I didn’t have to confront Ronald every time I wanted a bacon egg and cheese biscuit.  He turns happy meals into creepy meals.  Even sketchier is Ronald’s friend the Hamburglar who I was legitimately worried would actually steal my food when I ate at McDonald’s growing up (maybe my brother just told me that would happen).  The Ronald McDonald house is actually a great cause, but I think it would be best if the statues of him were removed from every Ronald McDonald House.

4.  All the clowns in the movie Problem Child - I remember watching Problem Child when I was younger and thinking to myself, “damn, Junior is right.  Clowns are scary!”  As a side note, Michael Richards plays the villian before anyone even knew who Kraemer was.

3.  Killer Klowns from Outer Space (circa 1988)- That’s right, Klowns with a K.  Fortunately I didn’t see this when it came out because this would have definitely ruined my second year.  We instead rented it during one of those high school summer nights where you sit around in a basement and look for something awesome to pass the time (this definitely applies).  One perk of the movie is that Dean Wormer from Animal House plays the Police Chief.

2.  Insane Clown Posse – A posse of clowns?  Sounds like a nightmare and listening to their music actually is.

1.  Heath Ledger in Dark Knight – Why so serious?  I’m 22 and this movie disturbed me.  Incredible performance but unfortunately it only intensified my hatred of clowns.

Not to be too boastful about it, but since I started college in Madison, each year for Halloween, I have out done my costume from the previous year. Now some people may not be too impressed by this, but when you set the bar as high as Tony Perkis from Heavy Weights, outdoing myself has become a challenge, even a burden, and I’m not one to disappoint. As a result, people would probably be surprised to know that I have already been giving some thought to costume ideas for this year, which steered my thoughts towards two things:

1. Halloween in Madison has gotten progressively worse every year that I’ve been in college. Is it even worth going to “Freakfest” this year? Even my brother back in college talked about how each year State Street Halloween sucked more and more as police tried to make the event more and more safe by using more and more pepper spray. Ever since the city put their hand in Halloween planning it has down right sucked. I didn’t go last year and probably won’t this year. Why should I buy a ticket so that I can stand on State Street under stadium lighting and sober up for three hours? I think I would rather spend this year’s Halloween watching Hocus Pocus.
2. I also began thinking of all of the costumes I’ve had over the years, and as a result, I’m proud to present my top four Halloween costumes of all time:

#4: Diamonds in the Rough Halloween 2003	#3: Tony Perkis Halloween 2005	#2: Nickelodeon Guts Athlete Halloween 2006	#1: David Bowie Halloween 2007
When I was still a senior in High School Dave and I managed to convince our mom that I should go to Halloween in Madison. Dave, Mike, and I were Diamonds in the Rough and walked around playing Neil Diamond Songs all night.	My first Halloween in Madison I was Tony Perkis (Ben Stiller from Heavy Weights). Andrew also mooched off of my costume idea and was my sidekick “Lars.”	For my second Madison Halloween I was a Nickelodeon Guts athlete, complete with a piece of the glowing rock.	This past year I was David Bowie from the 1986 movie The Labyrinth. This movie was recently made popular again by the Flight of the Conchords skit, but I had been hoping to someday make this my Halloween costume ever since Nick brought the movie over to my basement back in High School. If nothing else, despite spending over $100, this costume not only made for a tremendous walk home on the Sunday after Halloween, but also earned me a spot on College Humor.

Update: 12-12-08: I began e-mailing my logos for both the Nickelodeon Guts costume and the Tony Perkis costume to a few people, but at this point, so many people have requested them that I’ve decided to just post them here for download.