You’re probably already aware of Louis Theroux, whose documentary on the Westboro Baptist Church is widely available online. Theroux has hosted several different shows for the BBC over the years, including Weird Weekends, which ran from 1998 to 2000 and followed Louis as he spent time with some of America’s stranger subcultures. Just yesterday, Boing Boing linked to a treasure trove of Weird Weekend movies on Google Video, and I have no misgivings about spending most of Friday afternoon and evening ravenously devouring them.

What makes these documentaries so interesting – aside from their diverse subjects of interesting oddballs ranging from male porn stars and black supremacists to UFO hunters – is Louis Theroux himself. His genuine curiosity for his subjects allows him to insert himself into his documentaries without becoming the star attraction, asking potentially painful or embarrassing questions and surprisingly almost always getting honest answers in return. Michael Apted gets away with asking similarly blunt questions in his Up series because he’s known his subjects – age 49 as of the last installment – since they were seven years old, at one point reminding a London taxi driver that he has failed at every career he has pursued in his life. Theroux doesn’t have the advantage of becoming lifelong friends with the people he’s documenting, and instead penetrates these peoples’ lives so effortlessly because he is open, friendly, and genuinely interested in what they have to say. Even when dealing with his most repelling subjects like Neo-Nazis or the aforementioned Westboro Baptist Church, he humanizes these people by cutting through their personas and rhetoric with his profound curiosity. The show is not just about the subjects themselves, but also about Theroux’s journey to understand them.

So, should you find yourself unusually bored (even moreso given this site’s current involuntary hiatus WAIT, I STILL FUNCTION) and don’t mind spending an hour or two streaming decent enough quality video, you could do worse than randomly clicking a link at the bottom of the Boing Boing post linked to above. Or, if the laws of probability terrify you like they rightfully should, might I suggest a few personal favorites like the episode on white supremacists or maybe the one on gangsta rappers. Of course, for those who haven’t seen it, Theroux’s time spent with the Westboro Baptist Church is immensely interesting, even if it leaves your faith in humanity utterly destroyed.

My fingernail on my right ring finger had a little discoloration stemming from a recent finger wounding. I just clipped my fingernail, removing the discolored bit.

Thanks to the glory that is Netflix, I’ve been watching lots of westerns in order to get hyped out of my mind for the paperback release of the last book in the Dark Tower series (shipping November first INTERNET SLANG!). Besides Unforgiven and The Searchers, I’ve watched some of the Sergio Leone films that directly inspired King, including For a Few Dollars More; The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; Once Upon a Time in the West; and Once Upon a Time in America (a western without the west). There’s just something about endless landscapes that are instantly dwarfed by a pair of squinting eyes, gunfights that stretch on for fifteen minutes with only a single bullet ever being fired, and dialogue so sparse that entire scenes go by without anybody saying a word that just makes me happy.

So, why aren’t there any good western video games, western here meaning western as a genre – the “wild west” – rather than its usual usage in video game discussions where it simply means “any game not developed in Japan.” Question mark. Or rather, why aren’t there any good ones. Looking back through the catalog of useless information that is my mind, I’m reminded of plenty of western video games ranging from remarkably average – Gunsmoke, Sunset Riders, Wild Gunmen – to outright terrible – Mad Dog McCee, Red Dead Revolver, Dead Man’s Hand. Hell, the best western (Best Western Hotels!) “video game” is that western-themed level from TimeSplitters 2.

Future prospects like GUN and the video game version of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (from Bits Studios, God help us) don’t look any more promising. Maybe after everybody gets bored of street racing and living da thug life, we can see a massive influx of western video games. Or the return of the mascot platformer. Either one, really.

I’ve started playing World of Warcraft again against my better judgment. The endgame is one big waste of time, designed specifically to string players along with the smallest possibility of reward lying in wait at the end of each massive time investment as they continue to pay their monthly fees. Leveling alts only leads to the endgame again, an endgame in which the honor system, which greatly reduces the effectiveness of alts, plays a prominent role. Yet here I am, LFGing, farming, pking, and fighting with mages and priests over the fattest of the l00tz.

When you’re spending between five and eight hours a day in Azeroth (I wish that wasn’t a conservative figure), it doesn’t leave all that much time for, well, anything. Except for dinging, gratsing, and pointing out that Blizzard’s design staff is, like, totally inept and stuff.

I’ve graduated from college now with a nice and shiny English degree. As a proud member of the “real” world, so far I have spent a week and a half with my parents and spent an unhealthy amount of time flipping 1s and 0s in some server farm in Florida. The beta servers were in Florida. I’ll just assume the retail servers are in Florida rather than Irvine too. They’re probably not though. The point, however, remains the same.

The point: I suck; World of Warcraft sucks.

Other things that suck: too many to list. So I won’t bother.

That new crunchwrap surpreme at Taco Bell, though. That’s about as far from sucking as one can get. For those of you not in the know, and God bless you for that, and for those of you too lazy and/or unable to click the link above and find the pertinent information therein (future generations, this is you), the CWS is a tostada – corn tostada shell, ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, and nacho cheese, of all things – stuffed into a tortilla which is then grilled on the Grilled Stuft grilling machine. I know, settle down. It’s as awesome as it sounds. It is the perfect representation of the cheap white Americanized commaless Mexican food that goes just great with some Del Scorcho hot sauce and a Mexican pizza on the side. It is a symbol. It is Gatsby’s green light across the water. It is perfect. God willing, our children will never know a day when the CWS does not exist. And the future, that magical world of tomorrow, will look back on these simple days as good. Better than what had come before, but not as good as what was to come. Crunchwrap supreme. It has nacho cheese.

I ate one of these.

Then I came home and I five-maned Stratholme. LFG 5-man Strath, I typed. And Vaalt and Shirfan, noble defenders of all things right, were quick to heed my call. We picked up some crap warrior and a brilliant mage, the kind of mage who makes you forget your own mother, and five-maned the hell out of that instance. We died on the MASSIVE WAVE OF DEATH following Ramstein. But we killed that ugly sucker, and Vaalt/PopcornChicken/Geoff Frazier and I got our new ring.

I out-rolled a druid for my new cloak earlier in the week. The Beast in URBS dropped it. Shirfan and Vaalt were there then too.

At some point between these two doings, I watched The Great Escape on AMC. The Wizard of Oz was on TMC at the time. I watched it because Major Zero/Tom mentions it in Metal Gear Solid 3, and I thought that by watching it I would somehow accrue (I just used that word) a greater understanding of the game. I didn’t, but the movie was pretty good. The teevee told me that if I liked the Great Escape I should watch some movie on Friday, but I won’t. I refuse.

I also refuse to stop playing Meteos, which arrived and which I play. It’s fun, and I don’t believe the game-destroying ‘crazy scratching’ method actually destroys the game. In fact, I don’t believe it does much of anything. I haven’t played Lumines (someday, he tells himself), so I can’t chime in on which one is better and thus confirm or condemn my own console purchases, as well as the console purchases of others, based on a single game. Such is life. Meteos is a hell of a lot of fun though. Wish I knew someone else with a DS and the game to compete against.

I’m a lonely boy in a lonely world.

But I have you, Internet, don’t I?

The short version:

Hearts in Atlantis is a very good book. I <3 Stephen King.

The long version:

Stephen King has said that Lord of the Flies is the one novel he wishes he could have written. William Golding beat him to it, but it’s probably for the best, as King’s Hearts in Atlantis, his own take on the themes and ideas behind Lord of the Flies (and then some) is far stronger than Golding’s classic.

King’s novel, if one can even call it that, consists of five parts – two long stories, 300 and 200 pages respectively and three shorter stories – featuring interconnecting characters, common themes and ideas, and some sort of relationship to the 1960s. This is Stephen King’s Lord of the Flies, and because Stephen King is Stephen King, because he is a writer of popular fiction and because he doesn’t like to leave any of his mysteries as mysteries, King goes to great lengths to make this excruciatingly clear. Lord of the Flies is at least mentioned in four of the stories, and is mentioned a hell of a lot in the first one.

The first story in the collection, titled Low Men in Yellow Coats, takes place in the summer of 1960 as Ted, a mysterious old man who carries his large book collection in paper bags, moves in above the 11-year-old Bobby Garfield and his single mother. Ted and Bobby foster a relationship and Bobby spends the summer with his friends Sully John and Carol, dealing with the neighborhood bullies, first kisses, and the pains of growing up. Like Stand by Me, It, or Hearts in Atlantis as a whole, Low Men in Yellow Coats is a story of the loss of innocence. It is a story of growing older and of learning what separates the adults from the children.

At the same time, it is the story with the most direct relationship with Lord of the Flies. As Bobby reads through Golding’s novel, he begins to see the events and themes of the novel appear in his daily life. He learns that people do bad things, and it’s easier for people to do bad things in groups, when people who would do good things are unable to act. Because the good and the weak are often times one and the same.

Low Men in Yellow Coats is also the story which the film adaptation of the book is entirely based on. It’s also the reason I read this book in the first place. You see, Low Men in Yellow Coats could have just as easily been titled The Dark Tower 4.5. The low men, who obviously play a major roll in the story, once again play major rolls in The Dark Tower 5 and 6. Bobby learns of “other worlds than these,” of the breakers of the Crimson King, of the dark tower, of the beam, and of the rose. Though all these elements are there, the story is much more than just a Dark Tower story. All of Stephen King’s stories take place in the world of the Dark Tower, this one just a little more than most. And though at times it feels a little too much like self-indulgence on King’s part, it doesn’t really hurt the story, or the book, in any way. Hell, it just wouldn’t be a Stephen King book without at least some sort of supernatural element.

Now is the point where I shutup and start being brief. Just kidding.

The second story in the novel, the titular Hearts in Atlantis, finds Pete Riley and Carol (Bobby’s Carol) as freshman at the University of Maine in 1966. Pete should probably spend his time studying, because if he doesn’t he’ll find himself out of college and “in the green” of Vietnam, but the third floor of his dorm has turned into a perpetual hearts tournament and Pete is unable to escape the call of the addicting card game. Once again we find the ease which with groups slide into a state of dystopia, and once again we watch as innocence fades (in more ways than one).

Hearts in Atlantis (the story) is just as strong, just as touching, as Low Men in Yellow Coats. Written as a sort of memoir of an aging hippie, we once again get King’s take on Lord of the Flies. An actual copy of the book once again shows up in the narrative. These two stories then comprise 525 pages of the 670 page book. They are the meat, baby, the main course, and the remaining three stories are the desert. A better analogy which isn’t an analogy at all: the first two stories rise, the last three stories fall. The climax is obviously in there somewhere.

So, the third story of the book, Blind Willie, takes place in 1983 as Willie (shock), a Vietnam veteran with plenty of ties to characters from the first two stories, leads a secretive triple life. He has not read Lord of the Flies. Willie’s the sort of man who believes in the importance of penance. He’s very sorry for a lot of things. He’s the sort of man who has some trouble with the past. A lot of trouble. He just can’t seem to get over the things he’s done, and he’s a done of lot of things, many of them good, but it’s the bad stuff that gives him all the trouble. And it’s the bad stuff, even after all his penance, that just has a habit of finding him again.

The entire story is just 80 pages long, which is extremely short for King, and takes place over the course of a single day in 1983, either December 16th or December 17th, depending on how you do your math, which makes it either six months after Bloomsday, the day which Ulysses takes place, or the day after six months after Bloomsday. Either way, it’s probably not a coincidence, and I should probably look for some Homeric parallels. This time, it’s all about the past, rather than any sort of present, and Willie isn’t the only man with some trouble looking back on yesteryear.

The fourth story in the book, Why We’re in Vietnam, has Bobby’s boyhood friend of Sully John attending the funereal for one his squadmates from Vietnam. It’s 1999 and Sully still sees the woman Ronnie, who loved chasing The Bitch in the hearts games on the third floor of a certain dorm at the University of Main, murdered on one hot Vietnamese afternoon. Sully lost one of his balls that afternoon. Sully hasn’t read Lord of the Flies, but he knows that Bobby has.

At the funeral, Sully runs into his old new lieutenant from the war, and the two of them get to talking. The 60s are gone, Atlantis has sunk, and it’s getting harder and harder not to sink with it. But Sully doesn’t have too much time for talking. He’s got to beat the rush hour traffic because Sully’s got a date with ka. MYSTERIOUS ENDING!

The final story, Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling, also takes place in 1999 as Bobby Garfield finally returns to the town of his youth. He still watches for the low men in yellow coats, even if he can’t quite remember the summer of 1960 as clearly as he once could. Bobby’s made his way back to town because he wants to revisit his childhood one last time, because his relationship with Lord of the Flies isn’t just over yet, and because all things serve the beam.

As a whole, Hearts in Atlantis is Stephen King’s story of the 1960s and its aftermath. It has that clean, crude style King is known for: wordy as all hell, vulgar one moment, and profound the next. It’s tragic, heartwarming, and beautiful, and is exactly the sort of novel most people would never expect from Stephen King. Not horror by any stretch of the imagination, and with plenty of complex subtlety, Hearts in Atlantis is proof positive that there’s a lot more to Stephen King than probably even Stephen King believes.

I just got back from watching George A. Romero’s latest zombie allegory, Land of the Dead, with my brother. I’ve been reading a lot of Roger Ebert’s movie reviews lately. I find them extremely entertaining. They’re well written, insightful, and contain just enough personal anecdotes to keep things interesting. Ebert’s the kind of guy who likes Dawn of the Dead (but really, it’s pretty hard not to), but isn’t particularly fond of either Night or Day. If stars earned directly translate to the worth of a film, and they don’t, and Ebert says they don’t, then Ebert ranks Land as somewhere between Day and Dawn. Personally, I found the film to be leagues better than Day of the Dead, and maybe just a little bit above Night of the Living Dead on the George A. Romero Totem of Quality. Romero’s still yet to top Dawn though, and at this point it looks like he probably never will.

Most of that paragraph was useless and/or irrelevant, but no less true. I didn’t even include any links.

Land of the Dead takes place many years after the events of the original trilogy. An unnamed city has managed to survive the zombie apocalypse and now consists of two worlds: the uber-exclusive Fiddler’s Green, a utopian society isolated within a lofty skyscraper, and the slums surrounding it. Trouble’s brewing amongst the surviving humans, as conflicts between the rich and the poor escalate and an army of zombies, led by an intelligent, and rather pissed off zombie known only as Big Daddy encroaches on their borders. Guns get shot, stuff blows up, and a variety of people are maimed and killed in a variety of interesting and violent ways. The biggest problem I have with the film though, is that there’s just too much stuff happening, and it happens much too quickly.

Whereas all of the previous films in Romero’s zombie trilogy have focused on small groups of people in small, isolated settings (a house, a shopping mall, an underground military base), Land features numerous characters, both important and Mindless Extra Waiting To Die alike, and takes place in a sprawling, if slightly underpopulated cityscape. The plot kicks into gear almost immediately and takes charge of the entire film, leaving little to no room for any character growth. That’s pretty much par for the course for a Romero flick, but in this case I was left with the feeling that I barely even knew any of the characters by the time the final credits rolled. Sure, I knew what happened, but I couldn’t really tell you about who it happened to. Because that’s exactly what happens in Land of the Dead: the plot happens, and the characters are just along for the ride. An extra 30 minutes or so (the film is only 93 minutes long as it is) to more fully flesh out the relatively large cast would have been nice.

Also, the actor (whose name I’m not going to bother looking up) who plays Big Daddy, the intelligent leader of the zombies, isn’t quite convincing in his performance. He comes across more as a stupid man than a smart zombie and just isn’t as convincing as Day’s Bub in the role of a zombie with smarts. Bub does show up for a brief cameo appearance though, as does the moustache-brushing looter from Dawn of the Dead. Denis Hopper really steals the show though, even though he only shows up in half a dozen scenes. Every single interesting line from the film comes out of Hopper’s mouth and he generally just hams it up and has a lot of fun.

Because it’s a zombie movie, and because it’s a Romero zombie movie, Land of the Dead features lots of gruesome violence. Most of the effects aren’t CG, which I wholly support, and look really, really nice. The movie’s use of CG is minimal and subtle, used only when more traditional means were an impossibility, such as in rendering a zombie whose severed head bounces and attacks from his back, desperately hanging on through its spinal column. I kinda miss the Day-Glo red paint though.

As a fan of anything Romero’s made with “dead” in the title, Land of the Dead is a perfectly enjoyable movie. I’ll definitely pick it up when it’s eventually released on DVD. I think fans of the series will have a hard time being disappointed, especially after 1985’s Day of the Dead. And hell, Roger Ebert likes it/I’m tired of writing.

Batman Begins is easily the best of the Batman films, putting Burton’s shitful attempts to shame. I was honestly impressed by the way they handled 3.5 villains, outdoing the way most superhero movies handle one or two. The only thing I didn’t like about the movie was the fight scenes. Or rather, the way the fight scenes were filmed. I found the cycle of Big Blurry Messes followed by a fist or a dude falling over and another Big Blurry Mess incredibly confusing. It looks nice if you turn your brain off or something, but in the meantime, I have no idea what’s going on. I had the same problem with Alien vs. Predator (well, I had a lot of problems with Alien vs. Predator), only in that case fight scenes consisted of a Big Blurry Mess followed by a tail or an extended jaw thing. I know it’s fun to hide shoddy special effects or poor fight choreography behind lots of fast cuts, but it sure ain’t fun to watch. Unless you’re not me. Then you probably love it or something.

SWITCHING GEARZ

I finally broke down and bought myself a shiny electric blue Nintendo DS. Now that Super Mario 64 DS, a game I had no intention of paying for, is free with the system, and given the avalanche of titles hittin’ da streetz between now and November, it became impossible for me to resist the sultry system’s siren charms. The alliteration allows you to more accurately imagine the little console’s power over me. I also bought Kirby: Canvas Curse, which is a much less awesome title than Touch! Kirby! (or thereabouts) and preordered Meteos. After spending time with the two games I gotz and looking at screenshots/reading previews/NO HANDS ON EXPERIENCE, I’ve yet to see a really good use for the second screen. Something justifiable as necessary (hint: more than a map) would be nice. Though there’s the potential for new, crazy stuff springing forth from the development opportunities two screens provide, I think Nintendo would have been better off just giving us one PSP quality screen with touch capabilities. Because it’s really the touch screen, and not the two screen display that make the console. But enough of that. It’s time for…

IMPRESSIONS

Super Mario 64 DS is a retooled version of the original featuring three new playable characters (Yoshi, Luigi, and Wario), new levels, new stars, and lots of new mini-games, most of which use the touch screen in some way. It’s still a fantastic game all these years later, especially with all the added bells and whistles. Unfortunately, it’s basically unplayable. Given that one of the high watermarks set by the original Mario 64 was its fluid control scheme and seamless user interface, it’s rather ironic that the first (non-Chinese) port of the game is virtually uncontrollable. Despite throwing a barrage of control options in the player’s face, not one of them acts as a suitable replacement for honest-to-God analog control. Trying to move around with the D-pad is imprecise and clunky while the pseudo-analog possibilities of the touch screen don’t make up for the fact that trying to use it as a joystick is both counterintuitive and an ergonomic nightmare. To make matters worse, the game forces you to use the touch screen anyway, even when using the D-pad, as the only way to save or game (or not save your game) is through a touch menu on the lower screen. A touch menu they throw at you ever time you get a star, forcing you to dig out the stylus just to hit one button before you can keep playing. Nice work!

I’m still playing the damn game though, because behind the rough interface is a genuinely excellent game. And the mini-games are a tremendous amount of fun. In fact, I plan on playing just long enough to unlock all the crazy fun mini-games available. The mere thought of trying to defeat rainbow Bowser using only a D-pad gives me headaches.

Kirby though, is pretty hot. All they had to say to sell me on this game was “use stylus to paint rainbows, watch Kirby spin.” This is exactly the sort of new experience I bought a DS to enjoy. Rather than actually control Kirby directly, players draw rainbow lines along the screen with the stylus to act as ramps, bridges, and barriers. Additionally, touching Kirby with the stylus causes him to launch into a spin attack or use his absorbed powers while clicking on enemies stun them and clicking on certain blocks destroys them. It’s an interactive wonderland!

There’s also this boss fight that’s a rushed connect-the-dot puzzle ala Anticipation.

There really isn’t much else to say. It’s a charming little game that makes me smile.

If you visit a site like this, chances are you already know what The Adventures of Pete and Pete is all about. Maybe you didn’t watch it while it was on the air, but you’re probably at least aware of the program’s existence. But for the select few of you who had better things to do in the early 90s than watch Nickelodeon 18 hours a day, Pete and Pete was a surreal little show that existed in one form or another from about 1990 to 1995. Without doing any sort of research to verify my facts, the series began as a handful of 60-second shorts that aired on Nickelodeon during commercial breaks or between other shows. The shorts focused on Pete and Pete Wrigley and the odd inhabitants of Wellsville including Artie, the strongest man in the world and local superhero. Eventually the shorts spawned a few seasonally-flavored specials before being picked up as a full fledged series whose first 8 episodes (plus four 30-minute specials) have recently been released on DVD as part of Nickelodeon’s Rewind series.

Unlike a lot of the shows I watched back then, I can watch Pete and Pete for more than just pure nostalgia because the show is genuinely excellent. It all takes place in a world where everything is just slightly wrong, a world where 24’s Dick Cheney is a mad shop teacher secretly building an air conditioner and an evil bowling ball has the power to tear a family apart. It’s beautifully written and decently acted, though Toby Huss, comedic genius that he is, completely steals every scene he’s in as Artie. It’s a strange show with a mythology all its own that’s far smarter than a kids show is usually allowed to be. Given how different Pete and Pete is, it’s really a wonder the thing got on the air at all and a real miracle that it lasted as long as it did. But even those days Legends of the Hidden Temple and Nick Arcade lasted for multiple seasons, so maybe it’s really not all that surprising after all.

Watching the series now, I’m amazed by just how sad it is. Even the happier episodes have moments of heart-crushing sorrow which seem completely out of place in a children’s show. There’s a quiet sort of sadness behind the surface of each episode, while episodes like What I Did on My Summer Vacation, about the mysterious Mr. Tastee and his unexpected disappearance, are especially melancholy.

The first season contains a couple of my favorite episodes, Rangeboy and When Petes Collide. The first follows Big Pete as he takes a job at his father’s golf range, driving around in a little cart picking up golf balls. He’s so embarrassed over his career of choice that he dons a bear suit and assumes the identity of Mr. Bear. Before long, all of Wellsville wants to take a shot at him, culminating in a contest which will result in his unmasking. Meanwhile, Artie tries to restore the memory of Clark, a turtle with amnesia who adventured with Artie and Hemingway (presumably the author) on a shiny tugboat in Italy. This episode highlights all that’s great about Pete and Pete, with its zany characters, fantastic writing, and moving moral lesson. Guess stars like Frank Gifford, with his golf club with a miniature version of himself on the end of it, The Perfect Mom from The King of The Road episode, and Bus Driver Stu Benedict, who finally makes that perfect shot, make the episode and each add their own brand of comedic talent to the mix.

When Petes Collide is the well known episode about Rolling Thunder, the powerful bowling ball which must get passed down to one of the Wrigley boys. While Pete and Pete must fight to win their father’s affection and the bowling ball, their dad battles against his own creepy father for command of his house. Meanwhile, Artie must do battle with Rolling Thunder itself in a battle between two of Wellsville’s titans. For me, this is Toby Huss’ episode from start to finish. From the moment he first shows up in his porta-home (an outhouse) and begins guarding the Wrigley home, to his showdown with Rolling Thunder and his time spent training Little Pete for a staring contest, the strongest man in the world steals the entire episode. It’s hard not to laugh watching Artie, dressed in red and blue children’s pajamas, leap around the Wrigley yard, stopping just long enough to flex his muscles and contort his face. The battle with Rolling Thunder, as the two of them roll about on the lawn before the ball chokes out the superhero, is especially great and stands as one of the truly classic Pete and Pete moments.

Hopefully this DVD set will sell enough to warrant future Pete and Pete releases. I’d love to be able to watch other great episode like the one in which Big Pete discovers an extraterrestrial who attends his high school or the episode when Little Pete helps his favorite underwear inspector get back on his feet. Yummy.

If you’ve been watching Comedy Central at all lately, and there really aren’t all that many reasons you should’ve been, you’ve undoubtedly seen the strange, uninformative commercials for the channel’s latest series, Stella. After the new season of Reno 911, Stella seems to be receiving the largest chunk of Comedy Central’s advertising budget. They’re trying really, really hard to get people to watch this show. You can even watch the entire first episode online. And I have. And it’s not very good.

Stella is small comedy group that was carved from the fresh carcass of The State in 1997 or so consisting of David Wain, Michael Showalter (writers of Wet Hot American Summer, a reasonably enjoyable little flick) and Michael Ian Black (I Love the 70s/80s/90s). When they’re not performing in comedy clubs, they put to together little sketch videos. Once upon a time they sold these shorts through their website, harnessing the awesome power of the D.V.D., but they’re no longer available, most likely as some part of the deal struck with Comedy Central. However, College Humor has collected all of these shorts (I assume) right here for some reason. Probably so people can watch them. And people should. I highly recommend “Raking Leaves,” “Poker,” and “Christmas Caroling,” but they’re all great (with the exception of “Thanksgiving 1621”).

But be warned, Stella’s brand of comedy is strange. Very strange. “Stupid,” “absurd,” and “random” are all perfectly suitable descriptors. It’s the sort of stuff that gets better the more you watch it, as you start to discover reoccurring motifs and begin to understand each comedians’ character. These shorts are extremely entertaining and I wholly suggest checking them out (and watching three or four of them before passing judgment) and proving how much awesomer you are than Scott ‘Too Deep You’re Hurting Me’ Brust.

That Comedy Central pilot though, it ain’t so hot. A great deal of Stella’s stuff just isn’t suited for cable television. There isn’t much room for strange, homoerotic male relationships, Big Meaty Dicks (BMDs), and random outbursts of extreme violence. Also, the teevee show has some noticeable disconnects with the material of the shorts which makes it Not As Good. For starters, ‘they’ try to maintain some sort of coherent narrative logic over the course of the half hour while Stella’s brand of comedy just doesn’t lend itself very well to any sort of coherent plot. Also, the Stella characters are seen as abnormal or strange, “retarded” as the their neighbor says, by other characters in the Comedy Central pilot, whereas in the shorts they’re perfectly normal. They inhabit a world where they can be heroes, where everyone else thinks in the absurd, logicless manner that they do, and where every woman has a penis. It makes for much more interesting situations then “man, those three dudes sure are weird.”

Of course, none of this really matters. Even after its mainstreamization, the show doesn’t stand at chance at surviving. It’s just too damn weird. Comedy Central should (but obviously won’t/can’t) just let Stella have their fun for the six episodes they’ll last and at least produce something memorable and noteworthy to stick to on the DVD.

Pawel Majewski and I watched the season finale(s) of 24 together last night. Whereas I found it enlightening and sexually stagnant, Dr. Majewski insisted the episodes were strangely sublime but Washingtonian. Charlie Tangora agreed to disagree, yelling at us throughout the night, imitating the sound of the timer at the beginnings and endings of the episodes, and telling us to shutup so he wouldn’t have to, and I quote, “get Ryan Hall on [our] asses.” Neither Jenn Cutter or Scott Brust could be reached in time for comment.

It’ll be interesting to see where season five of 24 goes now that Kiefer and Black President are dead. Edgar to the rescue, perhaps? The return of the Chloe babysitting subplot?