What if Penny Met a Dinosaur?

From “The Flop House” podcast episode, “The Third Annual Academy Awards Floptacular”, featuring the regulars, Elliott Kalan, Dan McCoy, and Stuart Wellington:

DAN
So, normally now we would do some recommendations, but I had an off-topic story I wanted to tell-

ELLIOTT
Well, I’m sold.

DAN
Did one of you have an off-topic story you wanted to tell?

STUART
I’d like to hear more.

DAN
I feel like one of you had a story you wanted to tell.

ELLIOTT
Stuart, you wanted to talk about previews?

STUART
Yeah, I feel like I’ve already burnt myself out.

ELLIOTT
Basically came down to complaining about Sucker Punch.

STUART
Yeah. I will not Sucker that Punch.

DAN
I wanted to tell you guys a story about the Internet.

STUART
O-kay.

DAN
So…

STUART
You discovered internet pornography again?

ELLIOTT
Again.

DAN
I have that Memento disease.

STUART
He had Men in Black-itis.

ELLIOTT
I call it Memento’s disease. The same disease Memento had.

DAN
I’ve tattooed on my body, “Porn: try the Internet.” I’m excited every time I see it…I was chatting with my brother on gmail chat. And the subject of Inspector Gadget came up.

ELLIOTT
This is off-topic.

DAN
Because my brother is as obsessed with childish things as I am. And he’s older than I am.

ELLIOTT
So you figure as long as he’s doing it, it’s okay for you to keep doing it too?

DAN
Yeah. As long as we maintain the same relationship between our ages, it’s fine.

ELLIOTT
One of you better not go into space.

DAN
But my brother brought up how much he always liked the score to Inspector Gadget, and I had waves of nostalgia come over me, I go to youtube, I look at some Inspector Gadget related videos on youtube-

ELLIOTT
Porn.

DAN
And I scroll down to the comments section, and one comment on one of the Inspector Gadget videos catches my eye. And it says simply, “what if penny met a dinosaur?” All in small letters. There was something sort of plaintive about it, caught my eye, I found it particularly beguiling…

STUART
“Is there anybody listening to me here?”

DAN
“what if penny met a dinosaur?”

ELLIOTT
My message in a bottle.

DAN
My question will never be answered, by canonical Inspector Gadget.

ELLIOTT
Certainly not by DiC…the animation studio that did Inspector Gadget.

DAN
So…I actually posted about this on Facebook. I posted about the “what if penny met a dinosaur?” comment on Facebook. A firestorm of Inspector Gadget commentary erupts. My friend Kelly says, she thinks if you plug the phrase “what if penny met a dinosaur?” into the internet, you would reach the end of the internet. And so I actually googled this; I googled “what if penny met a dinosaur?”

ELLIOTT
Your job, really, absorbs you. You get full satisfaction from it.

STUART
Well, there comes a point when a job becomes a career, Elliott. It’s called the terminus-ess, if you will.

DAN
So…following this train, it’s like All the President’s Men, I’m following the money, but I’m following-

ELLIOTT
You’re following the Penny.

STUART
The Money Train.

DAN
I click on another link google coughs up for me, and it appears to be some sort of bondage inflected illustration of an older Penny. What’s the rule, if it exists, there’s pornography related to it? It’s like Rule #34.

ELLIOTT
Yeah, I think Socrates came up with that.

DAN
No, this is like an internet meme. If it exists, there’s pornography – But there’s a bondage themed photo, and I scroll down wondering why -

STUART
It’s now a photo?

DAN
Not a photo. Sorry. It’s an illustration.

ELLIOTT
What drawing style, Ashcan school?

DAN
I don’t know. It’s an older Penny, tied up. I scroll down to the comments section of this…

ELLIOTT
Because of course this has comments as well.

DAN
And in the comments, someone says, “what if penny met a dinosaur?”

ELLIOTT
So, what you thought was an adorable, plaintive cry, turns out was a request for bondage themed bestiality porn.

DAN
Possibly. I go back to the google search. I click on the next one down. Same site. A less disturbing picture, illustration of Penny…

ELLIOTT
Thank goodness. She’s doing better.

DAN
I scroll down the comments. Again: “what if penny met a dinosaur?” So, now I’m intrigued by this guy. I click on this guy’s user-

ELLIOTT
You are bordering dangerously close to an obsession that will lead you to a web of deceit. And seduction.

DAN
It’s gonna lead me to Fear dot com.

STUART
Nah, I like the seduction angle.

DAN
I click on this guy’s user name, and I find-

STUART
Love Games. Starring Dan.

DAN
I click on this guy’s username, and I get this message that says: “This user has been permanently banned from this site.”

ELLIOTT
Wow.

DAN
For, I’m guessing, asking too much about Penny and this fucking dinosaur.

ELLIOTT
“You asked the wrong questions.” “You made some powerful enemies on the Penny bondage site.”

STUART
He followed the money trail.

ELLIOTT
I guess what you’re saying is, don’t go chasing water falls.

DAN
What I liked about this whole experience was peeling back the layers of the onion. There’s always something new to discover.

STUART
So, are you plugging being a fucking kid detective?

ELLIOTT
Let’s look at what you discovered: there’s an Inspector Gadget themed bondage porn site; and that someone has irritated the moderator of this site.

STUART
Fucking congratulations, dude.

ELLIOTT
You cracked it.

STUART
Super-sleuth McCoy.

ELLIOTT
A regular Encyclopedia Brown.

STUART
You get the fucking key to the city. Key to the internet.

ELLIOTT
It’s too bad your dad the police chief can’t tell anyone about his genius detective son.

DAN
You guys just don’t understand the beauty of what I’ve discovered.

STUART
You know when you start turning over rocks, you’re gonna find some snails.

ELLIOTT
It was a fitting story for this bad movie podcast.

DAN
But guys, seriously, I guess what I’m ultimately asking is: “what if penny met a dinosaur?”

ELLIOTT
Because that commenter…WAS ME! Bap bap baaaaaaam.

STUART
Yeah. I don’t know what would happen.

DAN
She’d probably get eaten by the dinosaur.

STUART
Well, a brontosaurus wouldn’t eat her.

DAN
Yeah. It would eat vegetables.

STUART
Unless she and fucking Brain were dressed up as, like, a tree or something.

ELLIOTT
Who knows? Maybe one of Inspector Gadget’s employees might have made that happen. Brain always had to hide in costumes. The sight of a dog would destroy him.

DAN
And then Inspector Gadget would say, “IT’S A MAD AGENT.” And then wacky hijinks would ensue.

ELLIOTT
And then Don Adams would deposit the check. At his bank account. And then go on to do some Wendy’s commercials.

DAN
Anyway. So that’s my story.

ELLIOTT
Well, it’s not really your story.

STUART
It’s part of humanity’s grander story.

ELLIOTT
That was like an H.P. Lovecraft story where someone’s reading through journal entries left behind, except instead of a monster, it was the dumbest question ever asked.

The Happiest Millionaire’s Daughter

From the Flop House podcast, “Episode #86 – The Happiest Millionaire”, the usual gang of Elliott Kalan, Dan McCoy, and Stuart Wellington have a discussion about interesting hypothetical millionaires which devolves into a moment of sexual tension and mononomina:

DAN
So, this is where we recommend something, in case you don’t want to watch three hours of a story about a singing millionaire.

ELLIOTT
I don’t know why you wouldn’t.

DAN
What’s something you might have seen?

ELLIOTT
He barely spent money on anything in this movie. You expect it to be like Arthur, or something like that. Where the guy’s spending the money stupidly on crazy things.

STUART
Yeah, he’s got a solid gold car, or-

ELLIOTT
Yeah, exactly. Or solid gold hat.

STUART
Plays tennis with a giant diamond, or something.

DAN
Or solid gold hits.

ELLIOTT
Yeah. Because it’s Quincy Jones. He’s the happiest millionaire.

DAN
Probably is. I mean, he got married to Peggy Lipton…

ELLIOTT
Heir to the Lipton Ice Teas fortune.

DAN
Yeah.

ELLIOTT
His daughter is a successful actress.

DAN
Lovely woman in her own right.

ELLIOTT
Don’t get creepy.

DAN
WHAT? She’s pretty. All I’m saying is-

ELLIOTT
Stop.

DAN
She’s physically-

ELLIOTT
Do not bring her butt up, okay?

DAN
I never-

ELLIOTT
Stuart, have you ever heard this before?

STUART
It’s kinda fucking creepy, right?

ELLIOTT
Of coure.

DAN
She’s a lovely woman, I-

STUART
Can we change the way we sit when we do this?

ELLIOTT
Yes. I want to be as far from Dan as possible.

STUART
And I don’t want him to see my bottom.

DAN
I’m not making any lewd suggestions about her…I’m just saying…

ELLIOTT
It’s all in your countenance. It’s in your countenance. It’s all lewd.

STUART
It’s in your timbre [pronounced tom-bra]…or whatever you said.

DAN
Stuart, you gonna recommend something?

STUART
I am gonna recommend something, Dan. First off, Steve…

DAN
You’re gonna recommend the name Steve.

STUART
No. You know the guy Steve?

ELLIOTT
Vergotis.

STUART
I want to say, you were right. I Saw the Devil was great. Thank you.

DAN
James was his actual name. “Steve” was the name you called him by.

ELLIOTT
You think everybody is named Steve.

Nightly Rituals

An excerpt from the always entertaining “Flop House” podcast, where the hosts, Elliott Kalan, Dan McCoy, and Stuart Wellington, watch a bad or questionable movie, and then talk about it; what follows is from the podcast episode devoted to the Friday the 13th re-make. When the film’s teen heroes flee the legendary killer Jason Voorhees, they encounter some eccentric characters, and this conversational tangent is devoted to these characters’ nightly behavior.

ELLIOTT
Oh, and I didn’t even mention the weird masturbator they run into. There’s a guy they run into who owns a barn with a woodchipper in it, which comes up later. And he’s really boastful, and – there’s a weird streak of characters masturbating in this? That character looks at an issue of Hustler and then starts coming onto a mannequin? And then Jason kills him.

DAN
He also licks the issue of Hustler.

ELLIOTT
He licks the issue of Hustler, and then says “Do you like that?” to the magazine.

STUART
He did start smoking weed though, which is usually what I do when I smoke weed.

ELLIOTT
It’s just like the scene in Zapped! when the guy hallucinates from smoking weed. And then, later, one of the characters, the character who doesn’t have a girl to match up with and isn’t dead yet in the cabin, he gets high, and he’s like, “Well. Guess I’ll masturbate to something.” Pulls out a box of tissues, then picks up a J. Crew catalog, or a Land’s End catalog? And flips to an image of a woman in her mid to late thirties wearing a sweater and slacks. And goes, “Alright. This is it.”

DAN
I found this very interesting. Because, apparently, one has to believe that he masturbates every night at 10:30, exactly. Because it wasn’t like there was something that turned him on, there’s no one around, I guess what I’m gonna do…he’s like “Oh well, geez. Gotta masturbate. Whatta we got here? Oh, well. J. Crew.”

STUART
I gotta take my insulin and masturbate. That’s what he’s saying. The thing that’s concerning for me about this character is you’d think he’d have more stuff stored up in the spank bank?

DAN mmm-hmmms.

DAN
He can’t just fantasize about something in his head.

ELLIOTT
He was just watching a girl writhe around to music in very short shorts…and some kind of tight top.

STUART
I would think he’d be able to think back to…”I remember that night I was watching Big Saussage Pizza clips for four hours.”

DAN sighs.

DAN
Ah, god. We should really get some money from that web site. Because we’ve mentioned it three times now.

ELLIOTT
Just the clips. He’s just watching Brazzers previews all night.

STUART
He knocks a quick one out, then his friend shows up, and he helps him kill Jason. Now, he runs around with a boner on.

ELLIOTT
It’s a trenchant message on the lack of imagination in today’s youth.

STUART
I agree.

DAN
And the sexiness of LL Bean catalogs.

ELLIOTT
They’ve been desensitized by the media and the images they’re bombarded with.

DAN
Well, apparently not, if he can get it up for a picture of a woman in a sweater.

STUART
Well, it’s that he’s so bored with everything else he’s seen, he’s like…

ELLIOTT
Yeah, he’s seen too much.

STUART
He’s like, finally, a woman that’s fully clothed…

DAN (weary)
Alright.

STUART
…turns me on.

ELLIOTT
“You know what turns me on about this? The class.” This woman’s sheer tastefulness.

Anne Hathaway: Neither Plain Woman, Nor, Damnit, Woman of the Plains

From the assorted youtube commentary:

i wanted catwoman like the original

I assume that by “the original” you mean like the one in Batman Returns? Guess what THAT IS ALMOST NOTHING LIKE THE ORIGINAL VERSION. It wasn’t a bad character, but the history, personality, weird stupid nine lives thing–that was NEVER Catwoman. She’s supposed to be a THEIF, sometimes antihero with a somewhat soft spot for Batman.

Still, Anne didn`t have the decency to cut her hair, plus, the movie try to hard to make her likeable, she`s was supposed to be a prostitute too.

You’re dead wrong on that – Anne cut her hair on Les Miserables. Do you really think that what an actor does with their hair is up to the actor?! That’s all up to the director/stylists.

Then she should cut her hair and refuse to use hills on her own will, out of respect o the source material

“And refuse to use hills”? What does that even mean? And let me repeat this for you – what an actor wears IS NOT UP TO THE ACTOR. THAT IS UP TO THE DIRECTOR AND STYLISTS. Anne Hathaway does not decide what her outfit and hair and makeup will be like, do you actually think that? You think actors just walk on set and go “K this is what I’m wearing”

Some of them are divas, but I will give you this one, damn he or she.

“Two And A Half Men: Camel Filters and Pheromones”: A Selection of Youtube Commentary

I saw camel..like oh wow…cameltoe…click..no cameltoe

who cleans windows with a sponge?

That window can’t be more clean.

Wait… She was cleaning something??

She missed a spot when she was cleaning the windows

u know how fking much that annyed me?

@DevilzDontCry you’re right she did miss a spot, right at the bottom of the window……….and yes I’m single

No joke, it bugged the hell outta me! The whole time I was like “get that spot right? there, stop going around it!” lol

She sucks at cleaning windows…

while she was cleaning she missed a huge spot in the bottom center of the window >>>> does tht bother any1 else

My thoughts at the window scene: DAMNIT MEGAN WASH THE FUCKING MIDDLE.

…watching megan fox wash that window…was the most annoying thing ever! she kept missing the biggest spots!!!

That bish has never cleaned a window in her life. and i can tell

she isn’t cleaning well.

She refused to clean the lower middle of the window door…..

Thank god Megan Fox is hot! Because she can clean a window for shit.

i wouldnt make her clean ! i would make her have sex with me !

if you watch closely, those two man are having a conversation.?

i have some news for you: you’re gay

Way too much makeup! lol!

She’s gotten better at acting though…too bad she’s sort of blacklisted? now…Wish her and her family all the best.

Does anyone have a clip of her on her husband’s show?

let me guess, gay?

HAHAHA THE FUCKING END WAS FUNNY AS FUCK!!

Actress maybe, but how does she keep ending up in slut like roles?

She’s actually really short in real life. like 5’2” barely, also she sucks at acting

shorter chicks are hotter than talll chicks man i really want to fuck a midget

this show was good but now when i rewatch after charlie shean and Angus actions and opinions i just cant enjoy it anymore even old ep. Wow they just ruined it

these is the best two and a half man episode ever megan is still hot and one this show is not the same out charlie sheen he was the life the show that why watch charlie u still kick ass this show is dead with out u

thanks but are you giving me a sarcasm??

Am i the only that beat my meat?

Did he just run into the door… Twice?

I got naked pics of Megan fox’s body…..anyone?

is in america a sixteen y.o girl that look like that exist? not in my country…?

Have you seen her nose? She looks amazing now.

Guys,i don’t know if you wanna know or not but i’d do her

She has a picture album on her facebook named “things you cant do with your face if you have botox”. She does the things. She is real (:

if you are going strictly by looks, i’d say she’s a hard ten. if you are including personality and everything else, she’s probably more like a six. i don’t know her personally, but usually extremely beautiful girls are stupid, a total slut, or both. before you ladies jump all over my comment, key word is “usually”.

Might you be a homosexual??

my friends and I asked random people in our school who would you go out with/fuck

Jennifer lopez or Megan fox 87% said megan fox

i swear i saw her on pornhub and? xnxx (megan fox that is)! yes i masturbate often but who doesnt

no one needs to knw that

if megan fox called me a stud a shit my pants!

3rd fastest runner to the lunch room more like it!

RON PAUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I`m from Germany

I’m from ‘MERICA!

i like vagina

I’m almost 25 years old , and a female, is that sad for a girl to like some of this episode? I must say, some of the lines from the guys are quite entertaining! And Megan’s reactions!

am in fact 26. And it’s called rigor mortis you dumbass. I assume you don’t have a girlfriend, have you? So you wouldn’t have to … “play+the+meat+flute”. I just said, anywhere you see this woman, her mouth is open. She is in movies just for her lookings… have you seen “Jennifer’s Body” soooo effing bad acting. Just for her lookings.

Meagan fox is an ugly cunt. Pakistani women are Breyer looking than her

Only religious whackos and the pope dislike her. Even gay people would fuck her

Hmmmmm GAYS (HOMOS)

and no pakistani and indian women arent even hairy. ive seen sexy pakistani/indian women on youtube and im having a hard time finding hair on their bellies or their skin. just look up sexy indian women on youtube and tell me if their skin is hairy. matter of fact just look at indian belly dancers or sexy mujra as for a few suggestions

Who gives a damn about a homemade video… Wow people are so weird lol.

Thumbs up if subject was racist lol

if your complaining about this… then i guess u have a floppy disk~

If this should have been funny… or offensive in any kind. You should make sure your joke is understood. Wasn’t neither funny nor offensive… quite nonsense… any modern computer these days does not have a floppy disk drive.

She not deserve to stay and play moviess like thiss … Her place is to BRAZZERS XD likeee if you think sooo god dam shee is hotttt

Oh, so are you masturbate every time you hear that annoying laugh ? Kill yourself.

I’ll kill you instead.

Oh I’m so scary. Come here to eat some more of my shit.

Gee, nothing beats ‘Two and a Half Men’ from yore…

Oh, look, a shit American comedy for a change

I have to catch up on some paper work

Audiance: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH­HAAHAHAHHAAHAHHAHAHAHAAH

what is that..ha ha ha..in background to tell us..when to fucking laugh ..?

hi *hahahahahahahaha*

whats your name *hahahahahahahahahahahahahahah­a*

really wheres the joke…

This is just embarrassing. It pains to watch. All I can hear is locomotive breath playing in my head.

so if you are 16 you can drive a car and wreck and murder people but you can’t have sex? seems strange to me

Did you murder many people when you were a kid?

if you wreck and kill people its murder. so shut thy pie hole fatty

There are laugh tracks for dialogs which are not even funny at all

Filmed in front of a live audience. It automatically let the cast and writers know what did and didn’t work. That’s why the show became so great.

Might be live but the laughs are FAKE.

They are not fake… These shows are acted out in front of live audiences.. So when it is funny they laugh or might be prompter to… either way… Live audience.

the laughs were mostly recorded 60 years ago so we basically hear a lot of dead ppl laugh

74 people have been transformed into gay guys ;o)

All this hate over this woman… damn cant yall just leave her be? Shes actually a trained actress and deserves to not be ridiculed simply because of her looks. In short, guys, dont hate just cuz you cant get none…

hahaha dumbass asshole that’s not going to bring you good karma or make her love you, she doesn’t really care what anyone writes here hahahahaha

I would walk 5 miles on glass (Bare footed) just to hear her fart through a walkie talkie.

99 Problems In Film by Eclectic Method: A Partial List Of The Films

A clip you’ve probably seen already, and if not, you should. In case it hasn’t been done yet, what follows is a partial list of the movies used, breaking the video down clip by clip. There are a lot of popular movies I haven’t seen, so there are some easy ids I wasn’t able to make. I almost never watch videos, so I couldn’t id the Jay-Z clips used in here either: if it isn’t “Can I Get A” or “Girls, Girls, Girls”, I’m not gonna know the visual. There may be some mis-ids, but not many.

David Thomson tossed some roses at a Lindsay Lohan clip, and I was like, yeah, maybe, no, not really my thing. I’m not a man of medals, and not a medal giving man, but if I was either, I’d toss Thomson’s plaudit to this.

The clip is short, but very dense, so what follows is a very, very long post.

The Aristocrats

?

Knocked Up

The Godfather

Fight Club

?

?

Shawshank Redemption

Mars Attacks

Forrest Gump

Casino

?

Ghostbusters

Apollo 13

Pulp Fiction

?

As Good As It Gets

Kung Fu Panda

?

Aladdin

The Godfather

?

Batman Returns

All About Eve

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction

The Matrix

The Departed

?

Back to the Future

Catch Me If You Can

Forrest Gump

Ace Ventura – When Nature Calls

Blade Runner

Batman Begins

?

Catch Me If You Can

High Fidelity

Dr Strangelove

As Good As It Gets

Memento

The Godfather

American Beauty

Casino

The Matrix

Shawshank Redemption

All About Eve

?

Memento

?

Forrest Gump

?

High Fidelity

Jingle All The Way

Spaceballs

?

Airplane

?

Pulp Fiction

?

Saturday Night Fever

?

Fight Club

Ghostbusters

Saving Private Ryan

Avatar

Black Snake Moan

The Matrix

American Beauty

Pulp Fiction

Die Hard

Pulp Fiction

?

Blues Brothers

Juno

A Scanner Darkly

The Departed

Forrest Gump

Chicago

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction

2001: A Space Odyssey

Shawshank Redemption

American Gangster

Snatch

The Godfather

Blade Runner

A View To A Kill

Pulp Fiction

The Departed

American History X

Fight Club

?

E.T. The Extraterrestrial

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction

Mars Attacks

Mars Attacks

Forrest Gump

Goldfinger

Fight Club

American Beauty

Capote

Fight Club

Pulp Fiction

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

Fight Club

The Godfather

Fight Club

Knocked Up

American History X

?

Forrest Gump

Be Kind Rewind

Pulp Fiction

Apollo 13

Pulp Fiction

Batman Begins

?

Pulp Fiction

?

Pulp Fiction

American History X

Casablanca

25th Hour

Saving Private Ryan

Rocky

Pulp Fiction

?

Pulp Fiction

The Godfather

?

Forrest Gump

Pulp Fiction

The Departed

Barry Lyndon

Pulp Fiction

Back to the Future Part II

Black Snake Moan

Pulp Fiction

Shawshank Redemption

Harold and Kumar: Escape From Guanatamo Bay

Pulp Fiction

?

Analyze This

Pulp Fiction

Shawshank Redemption

The Godfather

Barry Lyndon

?

The Professional

The Godfather

Fight Club

Adaptation

The Godfather

?

?

?

?

Catch Me if You Can

?

Shawshank Redemption

Forrest Gump

The Departed

Batman Returns

Memento

Casino

As Good As It Gets

?

2001: A Space Odyssey

?

Pulp Fiction

Goodfellas

Dazed and Confused

?

Batman Begins

The Godfather

Pulp Fiction

Saving Private Ryan

The Matrix

American Beauty

Pulp Fiction

American Gangster

Pulp Fiction

American History X

Black Snake Moan

Wayne’s World

Pulp Fiction

Memento

Blues Brothers

Saving Private Ryan

The Departed

Catch Me If You Can

Shawshank Redemption

?

As Good As It Gets

Shawshank Redemption

?

Forrest Gump

Robocop

Pulp Fiction

Saturday Night Fever

Pulp Fiction

Definitely, Maybe

Shawshank Redemption

?

“Way You Make Me Feel” – Michael Jackson

Pulp Fiction

Mars Attacks

All Images Copyright Respective Owners.

More Sentences I Liked

The vessel was just comfortable for two people; there was room only for necessities, and Flambeau had stocked it with such things as his special philosophy considered necessary. They reduced themselves, apparently, to four essentials: tins of salmon, if he should want to eat; loaded revolvers, if he should want to fight; a bottle of brandy, presumably in case he should faint; and a priest, presumably in case he should die.

“The Sins of Prince Saradine” by G.K. Chesteron, a man of many disagreeable notions and many agreeable sentences.

But every work of art, divine or diabolic, has one indispensable mark — I mean, that the centre of it is simple, however much the fulfilment may be complicated. Thus, in Hamlet, let us say, the grotesqueness of the grave-digger, the flowers of the mad girl, the fantastic finery of Osric, the pallor of the ghost and the grin of the skull are all oddities in a sort of tangled wreath round one plain tragic figure of a man in black.

“The Queer Feet” by G.K. Chesterton

If a little hoochie tunnel leading straight to the Miz’s presence hadn’t opened right at that moment, causing her to sprint from my side, I was going to ask her, “What’s it all about?”

“Leaving Reality” by John Jeremiah Sullivan

Not to mention that in our minds the basement was now permanently a onetime BDSM sex dungeon, and not a mutual-consent swinger dungeon, either.

“Peyton’s Place” by John Jeremiah Sullivan

After comedian Sarah Silverman riffed at TED 2010 that her wish to adopt a terminally ill “retarded baby” made her an “amazing person,” [TED organizer Chris] Anderson, who had invited her, tweeted to his million-plus followers that she had been “god-awful,” and AOL co-founder Steve Case tweeted, “Shame on you.” (In an ensuing tweet war, Silverman schooled both Anderson—“a barnacle of mediocrity on Bill Gates’ asshole”—and Case—“should be nicer to the last person on earth w/ an AOL account.’)”

“Those Fabulous Confabs” by Benjamin Wallace

So frequently did gazes slip to reëxamine my badge that I came to know what it must be like to have cleavage.

“Magic Mountain: What Happens At Davos?” by Nick Paumgarten

This is admittedly a little hard to parse, because Santorum uses a handful of words differently than many people would use them.

“What Santorum Didn’t Say” by Greg Marx

At lunch, the most common question, aside from ‘Which offensive dick-shaped product did you handle the most of today?’ is “Why are you here?” like in prison.

“I Was A Warehouse Wage Slave” by Mac McClelland. It is one of the only funny lines in a grim, essential piece of reporting that makes me grateful that it was written, and will dissuade me from ordering anything from Amazon, which may not be the actual warehouser featured, but which no doubt runs under similar conditions.

Flambeau drove the blade of his spade through the whistling grass into the wet clay below. Then he seemed to stop and lean on it as on a staff.

‘Go on,’ said the priest very gently. ‘We are only trying to find the truth. What are you afraid of?’

‘I am afraid of finding it,’ said Flambeau.

“The Honour of Israel Gow” by G.K. Chesterton

Four Phrases I Liked

Angus, who had hitherto maintained hilarious ease from motives of mental hygiene, revealed the strain of his soul by striding abruptly out of the inner room and confronting the new-comer. A glance at him was quite sufficient to confirm the savage guesswork of a man in love. This very dapper but dwarfish figure, with the spike of black beard carried insolently forward, the clever unrestful eyes, the neat but very nervous fingers, could be none other than the man just described to him: Isidore Smythe, who made dolls out of banana skins and match-boxes; Isidore Smythe, who made millions out of undrinking butlers and unflirting housemaids of metal. For a moment the two men, instinctively understanding each other’s air of possession, looked at each other with that curious cold generosity which is the soul of rivalry.

From “The Invisible Man” by G.K. Chesterton.

Never forget that the Kennedys were hardheaded Irish parvenus who liked thumbing their noses—well, some appendage, anyway—at a WASP high society that had tried to exclude them. If Jacqueline Bouvier had only been Protestant, her husband might have been besotted with her.

Presumably, most of you are up to speed on the, so to speak, bare bones of Alford’s story. Awarded a White House summer internship, 19-year-old Mimi — who has less sexual experience than a eunuch’s handkerchief — travels to Washington in 1962.

From “Burying Camelot” by Tom Carson.

When Romney tried to “humanize” himself early on by dropping a George Costanza reference, it should have been a tip-off that this was going to be the worst final episode of a TV series since Seinfeld. This time it was the audience that ended up in jail.

From “The GOP’s Season Finale Bombs” by Frank Rich.

Dear Blaise Pascal

With regard to your replies on this page:

William Faulkner didn’t write As I Lay Dying so some Wikiquote Wunderkind could pull that one quote about Pickett’s Charge out of context.

If every southern boy harks back to Pickett’s Charge and thinks This Time, maybe Ta Nehisi ought to read the whole goddamn book this time around before he meanders over to Wikiquote to haul out a few choice lines.

Why should I remain level headed when TNC goes for the cheap Wikiquote version of one of the strangest, saddest books on the American South?

Heh heh. Google and Wikiquote make geniuses of us all, now don’t they?

Leaving aside my disagreement with you on the many substantive issues here, and the overwhelming imaginative brilliance of this wikiquote comeback, you might want to avoid using the same putdown four times on a single web page, or you could be mistaken for i) a drinking game ii) someone with Tourette’s iii) one of the many beloved characters on Saturday Night Live played by Chris Kattan.