Please drop what you are doing and watch this commercial for the Squatty Potty.
The argument is that humans, like cavemen, weren’t meant to poop in toilets but meant to squat wherever they are outside to poop. Squatting opens your uh, well, you know…opens it up more so the poop comes out better.
A unicorn pooping rainbow sherbet explains the concept without you know, showing disgusting poop.
I don’t know. This is commercial is hilarious. Hysterical. I can’t stop laughing.
By the way, has anyone out there ever used one? Does it work? I kinda want one now.
P.S. reports are going around that this one hilarious video increased the Squatty Potty company’s sales by 600 percent. I know I’ve heard ads for it on Howard Stern but in my head I always envisioned it as some like rigged up contraption I’d have to get into just to poop. This commercial illustrates that its just basically a little stool (to help you make stool) and tucks away neatly when you’re done.
Do I really need to call a spoiler alert for that? Probably not. But I will for this review.
BQB here with a review of the Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy, Daddy’s Home.
Do you remember when Ferrell and Wahlberg crushed it in The Other Guys? That was a comedy about the cops who never get the hot cases with lots of action. They were the other guys, the guys who get stuck with lame, boring cases, who find themselves in the midst of an action laden case.
I remember laughing my ass off in that one. This one? While it has a few knee slappers, I have to say, not so much.
I’d never tell someone to stay in a marriage that’s making them miserable. On the other hand, I worry people don’t have the stick-to-it-tiveness that past generations had when it comes to nuptials.
“To love, honor, cherish, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.” People seem to take those more as general guidelines than hard and fast rules. People get divorced over silly things now. He left the toilet seat up. She uses all the hot water so I can’t take a shower. He doesn’t give me butterflies in my stomach anymore. She got a little chubby and there’s a girl at work who’s way hotter.
I dunno. That’s just my complaint. Especially when kids are involved. Like I said, I wouldn’t tell someone to stay in a terrible relationship but on the other hand, don’t pass up someone who’d be good for you just because she’s not perfect because you’re waiting for Angelina Jolie to show up (or Brad Pitt as the case may be.)
I digress. The setup? Linda Cardellini (Sarah) divorced her first husband, Dusty (Wahlberg), for a good reason – he just wanted to keep living a wild and crazy lifestyle instead of being there for his kids.
Enter Brad (Ferrell). Sarah and Brad get married and while Brad absolutely loves being a stepdad and all that comes with it (volunteering for field trips, helping out with school activities etc.) the kids won’t give him a chance because they miss their biological father, Dusty.
So bottomline. Dusty returns after being away. He wants his wife and kids back. Brad wants to keep them. The kids won’t connect with Brad but he is like a perfect male homemaker, which makes Sarah happy. Dusty, with his motorcycle and manliness and fun guy attitude is a hit with the kids, but no so much for Sarah, who doesn’t like being in the situation where she has to be the parent that doles out the rules while Dusty’s the fun guy.
The war is on with Brad vs. Dusty in a battle to win over the family’s hearts. Hijinx, pranks, and backstabbings ensue.
As a comedy, its more sweet than funny. The takeaway for me came from Brad/Ferrell’s advice on being a Dad to Wahlberg/Dusty – “Being a good dad is about getting shit on.”
In other words, you want the best for your kids. So you put up with a lot of crap. You take them to visit their friends even though you might think the friends’ parents are jerks. You get roped into volunteering to do a lot of extra activities and other adults complain about the help you are providing – you’d like to quit because you don’t want to do it at all but you keep going because you love the kids.
Even your kids will say and do shitty things to you. You can’t let it get you down or give up on them. They’re kids and they don’t know any better.
And especially, when you’re a stepdad, there are times when the kids hit you one too many times with the “you’re not my real dad” line when you’re trying to get them to do the right thing…and you might feel like, screw it, let the kid be a jerk then but you just have to get back in the trenches and be a good dad anyway.
So as I said at the start, being divorced must really suck. Sucks for the kids because they miss whichever parent isn’t there. Sucks for the parent that’s not around as much because he/she misses everyone. Sucks for the new step parent because he/she might want to be a positive part of the kids’ lives but the kids naturally see the new step parent as a replacement of the other parent.
So I guess try not to get divorced but if you have to, try to be as mature as possible about the situation. The kids aren’t really little monsters. They just don’t understand. Be like Brad. Take their shit and keep being a good stepdad anyway.
By the way, I remember Linda Carellini as the teenage girl from Freaks and Geeks. Why am I so old that she’s able to play a divorced and remarried mom now? And where the hell did all that time go?
STATUS: Not shelfworthy. You wouldn’t want to rush out to see it but worth a rental.
I tend to be a lier downer. I plop into bed, get comfy, put the laptop on my stomach (I know you’re getting excited thinking about this 3.5 readers but stop, lets keep this professional) and then start writing.
I wonder if I’d get more done sitting up at a desk but then I also think if I’m comfortable I write more. But lying down too much is bad for your health though.
Sometimes I split the difference and sit in a comfortable easy chair.
Do I really have to call “SPOILERS” on a movie about an event thats been in the news for years?
Probably. There’s a lot more than what the news covered.
BQB here with a review of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.
Hello 3.5 readers.
I’m just going to say it. I almost thought about not writing this review because I do my best to keep this blog non-political. This blog is about books, writing, and my adventures as a magic bookshelf caretaker forced to launch a writing career in order to satisfy the whims of a maniacal alien overlord known as the Mighty Potentate.
All hail the Mighty Potentate.
But – it is a movie. And it is a pretty good one. And I do write movie reviews soo…here it goes.
However, before I begin, please remember that whether you’re a Democrat, or a Republican, or a member of some other party, please know that I still want you to like me and more importantly, I want you to spend lots and lots of money on the books I one day hope to put out whenever I get around to writing them.
Where to start? The whole situation was a mess. After Qadaffi, the country’s dictator, was ousted, Libya descended into chaos (well, much more chaos than usual) with rival gangs vying for territory and control.
There were two U.S. locations in Benghazi involved – a State Department compound and a CIA site.
It became pretty clear that Libya was becoming so dangerous that U.S. personnel needed to either leave or more security forces had to be added.
Neither happened. Instead, the government sent Ambassador Chris Stevens, a high level target for terrorists, to stay at the State Department compound. According to the film, the U.S. government felt that the time was ripe for diplomacy with Libya (they’ll like us because we helped get rid of Qadaffi!) and that additional security would send an unfriendly message to the Libyans (because, you know, Libya is world renowned for its hospitality.)
Long story short, a group of CIA security contractors (John Krakinski from the Office and that guy who plays Pornstache on Orange is the New Black were the only actors I recognized) travel to the ambassador’s residence (when it is under attack) in an attempt to save Stevens.
SPOILER ALERT FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T READ NEWSPAPERS OR WATCH CNN – Stevens dies when the ambassador’s residence is set on fire. The CIA contractors manage to save Stevens’ security detail.
The group returns to the CIA location and whammo the terrorists start attacking there. The contractors spend a long ass night fighting off wave after wave of attackers. Perhaps I didn’t pay as much attention to the press coverage as I should have, but I never realized just how intense and long that battle was, so props to the security forces for fending off the bad guys for so long.
By the end of it all the deceased included:
Ambassador Chris Stevens
Information Officer Sean Smith
CIA Operatives Glenn Doherty and Tyrone Woods
From the movie, its clear that there were many acts of bravery, these dudes taking on all kinds of heat from all sides all night and its something I certainly couldn’t have done.
Now here comes the hard part.
It is clear that were a lot of bad decision made by the powers that be. And something I never realized from the news coverage – that CIA location had a whole helluvalot of people working there without much security.
A small security force fended off a much larger terrorist attack and saved the day but holy crap, had they not done so a lot of people would have been slaughtered. Way too many people being protected by too few.
They should have either been allowed to clear out or been provided with additional manpower. More help should have arrived sooner when the attack began. Throughout the movie, theres help nearby that can be deployed, but all kinds of ridiculous, bureaucratic nonsense intervenes.
Is this opinion I’m about to say popular? Probably not. But here it goes. You, the public, were totally lied too. Bad decision making let this whole mess happen and then the government tried to cover it up with some nonsense that it was a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islamic video that got out of control and could never have been predicted.
Sigh. Yeah. Protestors don’t have mortars. Protestors don’t have training. Protestors aren’t heavily armed with AKs and so on.
The government really should have just been straight with people and been like, “Yup. We screwed up. Here’s what we did wrong and here’s what we’ll do so it doesn’t happen again.”
Another issue the film raises that we didn’t hear much about in the media – a number of good Libyans did come to the security team’s aid. Some fought along side with them in the attempt to rescue the ambassador. Others provided them with information “i.e. don’t go that way there’s bad guys over there, etc.” A Libyan interpreter who could have left at the start sticks with the team till the end.
And after the attack, over a hundred thousand Libyans held a demonstration to state they did not support the attack.
Soo…ok…the Middle East is a place of great turmoil, but it should be remembered that not everyone there is a total dick.
As for the election…Hilary did get up and make the statement, “What difference does it make?” i.e. was it an attack or was it a protest over videos. I’m sorry. It does make a difference. Government needs to be honest with people.
Does that mean Trump is any better? No. I have misgivings about a candidate who feels “schlonged” is acceptable vocabulary for the leader of the free world.
To break my non-political rule just this once, this may be the election where South Park’s admonition that all elections come down between the choice between a douche or a turd sandwich is truer than ever.
Hell, it might be the first election where I don’t even vote.
But…you should vote for whoever you want and still feel welcome in my 3.5 readers club. And more importantly, you should a) not hate me for briefly dipping a toe into political waters for purposes of a movie review and b) more, more importantly, buy lots of copies of my future books that have yet to be written.
Finally, one issue the movie points out to take away from all of this. There’s a tendency in the media to treat wartime security contracts like crap, like they’re evil cutthroat mercenaries or something but its obvious that they also do a lot of good and in this case, prevented a lot of people from being killed.
The Old West. Beautiful landscapes. Bitter cold. Dangerous animals…
…and men wearing various hollowed out animal carcasses as hats and coats.
BQB here with a view of the Oscar frontrunner, The Revenant.
Be forewarned there are SPOILERS ahead, so don’t come after me for revenge if you read on and the movie’s ruined for you.
You know, 3.5 readers, I’m not sure the average person grasps the concept of time.
To think, two hundred years ago, men were trudging through the frozen wilderness, fighting for their lives just to skin some beasts and sell their fur for a few measly bucks.
You’ve got it pretty good today in comparison now, don’t you? Yeah. Think about that the next time you start yelling at Siri for giving one of her bullshit answers to your clearly pronounced question.
Our story begins with a band of fur traders. Domhnall Gleeson plays their boss, Captain Andrew Henry. Leonardo DiCaprio is the company’s scout, Hugh Glass and Tom Hardy? He’s Fitzgerald, the villainous douche of the film.
Tom may be stuck playing villainous douches forever because he plays them so well, just as he did with Batman’s Baine. Oh wait, then again, he did play Mad Max, so I stand corrected.
I won’t spoil the details so….yadda yadda yadda…long story short, Glass has the ever loving shit mauled out of him by a bear, Fitzgerald, villainous douche that he is, leaves Glass behind and Glass hauls his horribly wounded body across the wilderness to seek his revenge.
There’s a bit more to it than that, but I don’t want to spoil it, even though I warned you about spoilers.
Great use of a CGI bear. I’ve had mixed feelings about CGI for awhile now. It can provide amazing effects, or it can make a movie look cartoonish and silly, depending on how it was use.
Here, it was used in such a way that I really believed that a damn Grizzly bear was beating the shit out of a Hollywood leading man.
Great performances all around. Hardy, as Fitzgerald, is a douche, but you’re also left with an understanding of how horrible the frontier was. Would you have done the things that Fitzgerald did to survive or is there a limit to the depravity you’d take part in just to save your skin? Fitzgerald didn’t have a limit and none of us will ever really know unless we’re put in a life or death situation. Let’s hope we’re never put in one.
Domhnall Gleeson had a banner 2015. Ex Machina. Brooklyn. Shit, he’s even friggin General Hux in Star Wars. And now The Revenant. And before all this he was what? Ronald Weasley’s brother in those Harry Potter movies???
Holy Crap, someone get me that guy’s agent.
Finally, let me just say as an avid movie buff, it’s been a pleasure to see Leonardo DiCaprio grow up on screen over the years. He was the extra add on cute kid in the Growing Pains when all the other Seaver children started getting older. Then he was Jack in Titanic. Then his career could of gone anywhere but he put on some muscle, started getting movies like Blood Diamond and so on.
I think the best role he ever had was as Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. That scene where he takes too many drugs and his body ends up like a pile of useless jello but he tries to move around at the same time…hilarious and horribly tragic at the same time.
He deserved an Oscar for that but that wasn’t his year. Hopefully, this one will be.
I mean, not that his life is lacking or anything. He probably sticks his head out the front door every morning and gets mauled by a hundred hot chicks but still. He’s overdue for an award.
A thumbs up from BQB and consider seeing it on the big screen, just so you can get a full view of the mountains and scenery and nature and shit.
The movie itself is also worthy of winning Best Picture. It’ll be great to see a deserving film take home the prize after that pile of crap Birdman walked away with it.
As you know, I’m a big Die Hard fan. Every Christmas, I put it on while everyone else is watching It’s a Wonderful Life or some such nonsense.
Hans Gruber. It was Rickman’s first role. If you ask me, he could have stopped there and been on top had he wanted to.
The 1980’s gave us amazing action films. Schwarzenegger. Stallone. Big ass bad ass muscle dudes who could eviscerate 20 bad guys with a pinky finger.
Then late in the decade, Die Hard changed the game. Bruce Willis as a New York cop who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sure, he’s a cop. He’s collared some bad guys. But your average cop isn’t prepared to take on a group of highly trained terrorists on his own, thus providing the Average Joes in the audience what it would be like to be stuck in a situation where everything is riding on them.
Arnie and Sly? Awesome but not relatable. Bruce? Awesome AND relatable.
To top it all off, the villain. Hans Gruber. Rickman provided us with a memorable character. A charming German gent, intelligent, sophisticated, you’d probably enjoy getting a beer with him and talking about world affairs if he hadn’t been a cunning murderer/criminal mastermind.
Gruber wasn’t the typical muscle bound martial arts trained baddie from the 1980’s. His main weapon was his brain.
The part where he pretends to be an American, “Bill Clay.” The part where he very calmly shoots Takagi in the head for a perceived lack of cooperation. Gruber was in control of his emotions. He didn’t do things out of rage or anger but rather, out of a carefully thought out plan. There was money to be had. He wanted it. He went through whoever he needed to to get it. You never got the sense that he enjoyed killing anyone but rather, that any resulting deaths were just losses in an overall business plan.
Maybe that’s why he was so scary. Take emotion out of the picture and a bad guy is capable of anything and worse, there’s never a warning sign as to what’s about to come or what’s on his mind.
Yes, he was also Professor Snape. Yes, he was also that funny vulcan caricature in that Star Trek parody movie whose name escapes me now.
Writers. It seems like they’re even Bohemian coffee shop dwellers, jotting their stories down and never making a cent, or fabulously wealthy bestseller slingers who could write a grocery list on the back of a toilet paper roll and rake in the dough.
In other words, they’re either really poor and their parents are pissed off by their life choices, or they’re rich and the toast of the town.
Will tech make more middle class writers? Writers who aren’t raking in James Pattersonian/Steven Kingian levels of dough, but aren’t unwashed and destitute either.
Thanks to self publishing, social media, blogging etc they’ve created a fan base and are able to sell enough to live a decent life style. House. Bills paid. Needs met. Kids and family taken care of. Parents feel no need to be embarrassed.
Will tech make more and more middle class writers? Has it already?
I’ve caved to the excitement and purchased some Powerball tickets.
And you know what? I’m actually feeling pretty good about my chances.
Why?
BQB’s KARMA BALANCING THEORY
Your life is and/or will be 50% bullshit and 50% great. Most people experience the bullshit and greatness and separate, equal doses so as to not get too bogged down with depression or glee, depending on whether the shit or the greatness came most recently.
My life, on the other hand, has been totally shit so far so really, the only way I can see for karma to balance my existence out with the greatness I’m due is to hand me a billion dollar plus lotto win.
BUT BQB, WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR STICKY CASH?
A great question, 3.5 readers. Here’s a breakdown:
THE PLAYBOY MANSION – It’s for sale and I’m going to make it my new BQB HQ. Now, Hef requires the new owner give him a life estate, meaning that Hef gets to live there until he croaks.
Listen, I would actually DEMAND that Hef keep living there. He’s the one the Playboy bunnies are showing up for, right?
Wait. This just in. Video Game Rack Fighter will not allow me to have wild, outrageous naked celebrity hot chick parties in the Playboy Mansion Grotto.
You know VGRF…seriously…what a party pooper. Oh well, gotta keep my better half happy. I’ll still buy it but apparently all the bunnies will be required to wear turtlenecks and burkas.
PRESIDENT BATTLER – Yes, I will run for president because I too wish to be a wealthy person so rich that I feel no inhibitions and am able to shoot my mouth off and speak freely. Only, I’ll try to do it a lot nicer.
Also, I will make it a law that whatever movies, songs, digital stuff you buy on one device made by one company be transferable to another company’s device. This is America, dammit, and when I was a kid I never had to ask Sony’s permission to put a Sony videotape into a Daewoo VCR.
PURCHASE EAST RANDOMTOWN – Yep. And I’ll kick all the losers out, so it will end up empty. What? I’m still the mayor and all those people are constituents and I should be careful what I say because I haven’t won yet?
I was talking about other losers. Not you, East Randomtownsfolk. You losers are great.
WU TANG CLAN – I will purchase that super expensive one of a kind Wu Tang Clan album, you know, the one in which the Wu Tang Clan has secured a legal right to steal it back through a carefully planned heist as long as they bring Bill Murray along.
REALITY TV – I will pay off reality tv stars to stay home…or at least not go to work…or at least just go shopping and do dumb stuff. OK, so they can do all the useless crap they do but I’ll pay them to do it OFF camera because the Mighty Potentate hates reality TV.
What will you do if you win Powerball, 3.5 readers?
I’m thinking about inviting the 31 Zombie Authors back in October for another round of interviews, but this time, not in response to a zombie apocalypse in East Randomtown, but to help promote a book about zombies authored by yours truly.
Oh, that would mean I’d also have to write a book about zombies.
I enjoyed last October – it was a helluvalot of work but people enjoyed it. It might be less work this time around since I’ve found 31 zombie authors willing to talk to me now. (Assuming they’d still want to talk to me. They might be too busy fending off their own zombies.)
Then I thought about writing a book about vampires instead and doing a vampire author interview promo. It’d be a month of vampire interviews to promote a vampire book and the host would be Count Krakovich, Asshat Vampire.
(By the way, I’m thinking Count Krakovich should be an A-Hole Vampire instead of an Asshat Vampire. Fell free to weigh in on this very important matter.)
I like Halloween and Halloween related blog activities I suppose, but the big thing is I’d have to write a book…about either vampires or zombies.
And also I have Pop Culture Mysteries to think of. The big lesson I learned last year was to stop spreading myself so thin, that I need to have FEWER projects in the works and to spend MORE time on them to develop higher quality.
I tend to be a lier downer. I plop into bed, get comfy, put the laptop on my stomach (I know you’re getting excited thinking about this 3.5 readers but stop, lets keep this professional) and then start writing.
I wonder if I’d get more done sitting up at a desk but then I also think if I’m comfortable I write more. But lying down too much is bad for your health though.
Sometimes I split the difference and sit in a comfortable easy chair.
Bookshelf Battle 