Invention has been the lifeblood of our evolution as a people. We place major milestones in our growth as a species upon those inventions which define us as a people. Our first steps were discovering how to make fire. Rounding out stone or wood to make the wheel. The Roman Aqueducts. The light bulb. The car. The computer. Fantasy Football. We celebrate those beacons of our innovation and champion those when revolutionary items when we proclaim our dominance over all other living organisms ever.

“The dinosaurs may have been big and physically imposing, but we created the iPhone! Boo ya ka sha! I’d like to see those big fuckin lizards do that!”

Its easy to celebrate those grand achievements. I want to publicly admonish one of the worst developments of our modern world.

The purpose of invention is to streamline those time consuming, tedious tasks in order to give us more time to waste on youtube or Twitter. The wheel was invented when walking wasn’t fast enough. We propelled wheel using a steam engine when one horse pulling a cart wasn’t fast enough to get us across the country. When we found it was too slow to wait for a train, we invented cars so we could go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted. Planes, jets, etc, etc. Faster and faster, eventually working towards instantaneous transportation. Mail turned into email. Pony express turned into FedEx. Slow building satire turned into a swift kick to the groin. You get the point.

There’s been some invention which they attempted to do something great and failed. Astroturf. Hungry Man meals. Dippin Dots. I can’t fault them for trying and just not quite getting it right. Then there’s inventions that for one reason or another failed, then became a punchline.  The most famous of which is beta-max videos. They actually created a quality product, but failed in the licensing and therefore fell into oblivion.

Dippin' Dots!!!!!

No, one invention pisses me off beyond all belief. There’s one invention that, when you see you have no other option but to use it, causes me to curse under my breath at the time it is wasting to use. These items should be ripped off of every wall they are installed on and sunk into the bottom of the deepest abyss. They increase the time required to perform the simplest of activities by 7000% and they don’t even work in the end. You know in your heart what I’m talking about…

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In case you got four words into the title of this article and got bored, here’s what this is.  Its a list of things from my childhood that I had incredibly fond memories of.  Things that made a big impression on me in some way.  Toys or movies that I, as a child really, really enjoyed.

Until I saw them again as an adult and came to the conclusion that I was a stupid, stupid, stupid child for liking those things.  Stupid.  The above stock photo is an accurate representation of my disappointment.

Some things this list is not.  This isn’t a list of things that I always thought sucked.  Like don’t write up asking why Snorks aren’t on here.  They suck.  They always sucked.  I always thought they sucked.  There’s no big revelation here.  Not going to write a list of how right I was to change the channel every time they came on.  And its also not a nostalgia list.  Don’t ask “why isn’t The Transformers cartoon movie on here?”  Because I have seen it recently and it is still incredible.  Orson Welles went out on a high note.

So, here (after the jump) are the ten things that are much crappier than I remember.

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Its that time again.  Time to figure out what you’re getting that special someone for Christmas.  You’ll be inundated with scents as you enter the Macys at the mall.  Most all of them will be endorsed by glamorous celebrities (and Britney as pictured above).  Last year, I helped you shop for that special celebrity related Christmas gift.  This year, I’m going to help you navigate some of the celebrity fragrances you may not have heard of.  (After the break):

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By Garrett “Sphere” Hargrove

Ebert called the blue Giraffe lady (Neytiri) in Avatar “sexy“.  Not seeing it just based on the previews.  Maybe in full IMAX 3-D with her smurf boobs popping out at you, it changes things.  But there’s not a great legacy of sexy aliens in movie and TV history, so we always appreciate more.  So where does she fall in the spectrum of the all time sexiest aliens?

Not Sure if It Counts: Number Six & Number Eight from “Battlestar Galactica”

I haven’t seen BG to know if they count.  They’re really hot humanoid Cylons.  Does being humanoid disqualify her?  Not sure even though I made up the list.  Regardless, here’s a picture of them to kick things off (Six on top of Eight.  Wish I had a picture of that):

Not Sure if It Counts: Leeloo from The Fifth Element

She may or may not be alien.  She’s the key to Earth’s survival.  She’s the Fifth Element of Earth in addition to Earth, Wind, Fire and Water.  She had the best fight scene of anybody on this list.  But again, just don’t think she’s an alien.

Rest of the list after the break:

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By Garrett “Rhombus” Hargrove

(Posted this last year, but people need a reminder)

I’m making something new up. This is coming from probably 64% boredom, 27% desire to solve an actual problem and 9% hoping something funny comes out of it.

Coming into the Christmas shopping season, we’ll all deal with the hording masses exercising their ability to purchase small consumer items for others in the spirit of Christmas. Not, its not a rant on commercialism destroying Christmas. I’m sure there are enough blogs out there on that topic. Its not even on the crowds or the sheer masses of people in the stores. Those weren’t even that bad this year, partially due to the uprising of Amazon and online shopping. So now its time for me to get to the point.

The problem at stake is parking lot etiquette. A good portion of you out there suck. And yeah, I mean that like kids in second grade mean it when they say “You suck”. It was a hard core insult that needed no evidence to back it up. And it was required of you to come back with “Nu uh. You do!” or your adversary won.. and you did in fact suck.

So, how do we stop the legions of poor parkers from sucking? Simple rules.

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The books have sold in the millions… mainly to half of the population.  The movies have truly resonated… with half the population.  This cultural phenomenon has swept over the nation in a crazed wave… with half of the population.  “The Twilight Saga”.   The story is a vampire falling in love with a plain girl and then she becomes torn between the vampire and a werewolf and so they fight over her.  And while it sounds like Monster Squad 2, guys have stayed away.  Twilight the movie took in $191 million and New Moon currently has raked in $231 million in only two weeks.  Two weeks!  New Moon could have been the most successful movie of all time, beating out Titanic.  But they failed to appeal to both sides of the aisle.  Of that $231 million, $229 million were directly attributable to females or males going with the hopes of making females happy.  While The Dark Knight continued to grow after week 1, New Moon took a sharp dive in its second weekend because guys couldn’t go to work on Monday and say, “I saw that vampire movie this weekend and it was awesome.”

Being the dedicated reporter I am, I went deep under cover and took in Twilight and The Twilight Saga: New Moon and figure out why a film that matches vampires against werewolves doesn’t resonate with the male population. After viewing both films in consecutive days, I think there are some easy things we can do to make these films more palatable for guys, yet still maintaining the integrity of the love story that the females are so digging.  We, as guys, should not have to groan and moan at seeing a movie where vampires fight werewolves.  I mean, come on.  We gave you chicks James Cameron, our testosterone legend, to make Titanic.  The dude made Aliens and we just gave him to you to make a Leonardo DiCaprio love story with a Celine Dion theme song.  There’s no coming back from that.  He’s yours now.  Even if Avatar is amazing, he’s never coming back to us.  The least could meet us half way on Twilight.  So here now are 10 easy suggestions for making The Twilight Saga more guy friendly.

(After the break):

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