Recommendation: Cartoons

Cartoons for adults are by no means a new phenomenon. As we all know, The Simpsons has been on the air for 73 years, and Family Guy, South Park, and Futurama enjoy wide-spread popularity. So I'm not going to talk about those shows. This week, I want to recommend some cartoons you may not have heard of yet but that you definitely check out. Each of the following is pretty unique, so hopefully everyone will enjoy at least one of them.

1. Ugly Americans (Comedy Central)

Ugly Americans is a show about life in the Big Apple. Living in New York is never boring, even more so because the world of the show is populated by both humans and monsters. Protagonist Mark Lilly is a social worker whose job is to help immigrants assimilate into American culture. And yes, those are immigrants of both the human and monster variety. His roommate is a zombie named Randall, and he has an on-again/off-again relationship with Callie, his boss, who is also the half-human/half-succubus daughter of the Devil. This is a recipe for comedic gold, my friends. The show also features a cast of wacky supporting characters. One of my favorites is Doug, a giant koala that never speaks and is usually crying. He's precious.

Ugly Americans currently airs on Comedy Central Thursday at 10:30pm after Futurama.

2. Archer (FX)

Archer has been described by its creator as Arrested Development meets James Bond. Not surprising, since three of the actors from Arrested Development (Jessica Walter, Jeffrey Tambor, and Judy Greer) do voice work for the show. Stirling Archer is an agent for ISIS, which stands for International Secret Intelligence Service. He works for his mother and alongside his ex-girlfriend Lana, her boyfriend Cyril the Comptroller (voiced by Chris Parnell), and a cadre of support staff with varying degrees of competence. Archer is pretty terrible to all of these people, particularly his butler Woodhouse, which gives the show a great deal of its comedic value. Stylistically, the animation is pretty minimalist (some might say, lazy)* and features styles and technology from a variety of time periods. For example, the clothing and hair styles tend toward 1960s fashions, and they use very outdated computers, but the characters also have access to cell phones and laser sights. Hilarious.

*A friend of mine once called the animators lazy after watching a scene that was simply several minutes of a shot of a door while the characters talked in the background. Maybe that was a stylistic choice. Or maybe they were being lazy. I'll let you decide.

Archer airs on FX and will return in September. You can watch the first season on Netflix Instant.

3. Regular Show (Cartoon Network)
This is a new one for me, and so far I've only seen a few episodes, but I think I'm a fan. While all the shows on this short list are bizarre in their own ways, Regular Show is probably the strangest. Its protagonists are a blue jay named Mordecai and a raccoon named Rigby, two 23-year-old friends who work as groundskeepers at a park. Their coworkers include a living gumball machine, a yeti, and a man shaped like a lollypop. The humor and animation style are reminiscent of Ren and Stimpy or Beavis and Butt-Head, and the show can get pretty surrealistic at times. But the episodes are short (only around 11 minutes each), and myself 23, I feel a sort of kinship to our heroes. Give it a shot. If you don't like it after three episodes, you've only wasted about 33 minutes.

Regular Show airs on Cartoon Network. The start date of the third season is currently unknown, but several episodes can be viewed on the YouTube.

Recommendation: Julie Slonecki

This week's recommendation is a tad late, but cut me some slack. It was just released Friday, after all.

Friend-of-the-blog (and friend-of-the-blogger) Julie Slonecki is a gifted singer-songwriter who has just released her third self-produced album, Act Tough.

Act Tough has a little something for everyone. Slonecki's influences range from rock, folk, and country to jazz, big band, and even rap. The album features diverse instrumentation and a mix of upbeat and down-tempo tracks that you will find yourself humming long after the songs have ended. What's more, Slonecki's sultry voice, tight harmonies, and ability to record and mix her own albums show that she's more than just a pretty face.

Most of all, Act Tough demonstrates Slonecki's brilliant lyricism. Her words speak to feelings and experiences we all can share. In the album's first track, "Scary Song," she sings of the bitterness of a love that has been lost, not suddenly, but as a result of neglect and mutual apathy. However, in the folksy second track, "Terrible and Great," she reflects on the joy that comes with simply sitting with friends on a porch in western Virginia, finding home with people who make the minutes worthwhile. She sings of the concern that time passes too quickly but also determination not to let life pass her by. And when life gets too hard, she reminds us to act tough and push ahead.

You can buy Act Tough on iTunes and soon on Amazon.com and JulieSlonecki.com. And while you're at it, don't forget to check out Slonecki's first two full-length albums, Borders and Arguments for Love. You can sample a few tracks here.

Recommendation: The Judge John Hodgman Podcast

Part of my goal with this blog has always been to share with you the reader things that I find funny, interesting, or otherwise enriching for your life. Therefore, in an effort to give the blog a little more structure (and to make sure that I continue to post regularly), I am introducing a new feature to the blog: Weekly Recommendations. Once a week I will review something I think is cool. It could be a book, a movie, an album, or even, like today's offering, a podcast.

You may know John Hodgman from his work on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart or as PC from the Mac and PC commercials. He is also a humor writer, former professional literary agent, and renowned fake judge.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is a production of MaximumFun.org that invites real people to let John Hodgman mediate their disputes. Anyone can submit a dispute via email, and a few are selected to argue their case in front the Judge, swearing to abide by his ruling "no matter how odious it may be."

Listeners have brought forth cases that range from "Is the White Album good?" to "Which roommate should get the big room in the apartment?" and beyond. Several episodes of the podcast have featured disputes between married couples, but JJH has put a ban on such cases because he was accused of hosting a podcast version of The Marriage Ref.

In each of these cases, John Hodgman uses his natural eloquence, his immense intelligence, and his considerable fake expertise to reach a decision that is both fair and hilarious. He is joined by Bailiff Jesse Thorn, host of The Sound of Young America, and all 30 episodes of the podcast can be downloaded for free from iTunes. I have embedded one for your listening pleasure.

This case finally settles the age-old question: Are machine guns robots?

I should buy Happy Meals more often

Earlier this week I got a Happy Meal from McDonald's. I could go into detail and try to justify this questionable culinary decision, but just suffice to say that I was hungry and I bought a Happy Meal.

When I ordered this meal, they asked, as they always have, whether the meal was for a boy or girl. Despite the fact that I could have gotten a Pokémon card if I had said "boy," I went with my natural inclination and said "girl." Now, as everyone knows, girls LOVE Barbies. So it makes sense that the girl toy for the Happy Meal would be Barbie-related. It does not make sense that the "Barbie-related toy" was this:


This is a Barbie styling bust. Or as I like to call it "Disembodied Barbie Head." The idea is that you use this comb to style the Barbie's hair.


Except, note that the Barbie doesn't really have enough hair to style in any significant way. And even if she did, the hair would go right back to the way it looked before anyway. You can't even change the side on which her hair is parted. You could put it in a tiny ponytail, but that would reveal this unfortunate aspect of Barbie's hairstyle:


The shaved underside of the hair is not a great look for her. But really, that pales in comparison to the horror that is her face, specifically the eyes and forehead.




The eyes have this sort of jeweled quality designed to make them look like real human eyes, something I really don't want my toys to have. It's a little too Chucky-esque in my opinion.


Then there's the fact that she has this terrible scar across her forehead that makes her look like a scalping victim. Or Chucky again, if you prefer.

What I'm saying is, I really think McDonald's and Mattel should have thought this through a little more. Because maybe I'm over-thinking this, but I think something like Deluxe Scalped Disembodied Child's Play Barbie Head could have a negative effect on little girls, when all they wanted was something fun to play with while they enjoyed their tiny cheeseburgers.

Not to mention the jealousy these girls are going to feel when they see their male counterparts having the time of their lives with those Pokémon cards.

Fun things to buy on the Internet

I was stumbling around the Internet this evening, and I found the following Awesome Nerdy Things on Etsy.com. To give proper credit and in case you want these Awesome Nerdy Things for your very own, I will post links at the bottom of this post.

Translation: Haters gonna hate.

I can relate to this because, like Snow White, I am both trendy and pale as one who has never seen the Sun.

In case you don't know, this is a parody of a classic English poster.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/74909620/haters-gonna-hate-11x17-poster-print
http://www.etsy.com/listing/76675222/the-snow-white-nerd-decal-macbook-apple
http://www.etsy.com/listing/73579564/keep-calm-and-catch-em-all-print-12x18

Board Gaming

Over the past year, my comrades and I have become big fans of board games. I considered writing a blog post about that, but I figured it would be boring (there's a pun in there somewhere). Instead, I will share with you this video. Enjoy. And check out some of olilord's other videos on YouTube. He's pretty funny.

Harry Potter Land!

For my birthday last summer, my parents bought me a one-year pass to Universal Studios in Orlando, which, of course, meant a whole year of visiting The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Islands of Adventure. I've been meaning to report on what it's like since last August, but I got distracted. Lucky for me, I happen to know that many of my friends have not yet had a chance to see Harry Potter Land, so I hope they (and you, dear reader) will appreciate my account of this -- for lack of a better word -- magical amusement park.

Actually, magical is the best word. Harry Potter Land is like the dreams of my youth come to life. To be honest, I'm still waiting for an owl to arrive and tell me Hogwarts is a graduate school,* but until then, I can wander through a winter wonderland in 90-degree Florida weather. Now if that's not magic, what is?

The whole experience was fantastic (or fantastical, whichever you prefer). For one, I drank Butterbeer! Much as I suspected, it tastes like cream soda (though perhaps a bit sweeter), but what made it really special was the foam they added to the top like the head of a real beer. The foam tasted like butterscotch. Delightful. Oh, and unlike real beer foam, this foam doesn't dissipate over time.

They also have a frozen variety, but it's not that great. The foam doesn't mix as well when the soda part has the consistency of an Icee. So then you just get a mouth full of cream. If you ever get a chance, Butterbeer may or may not be even better if you add rum. Though, as far as I know, they don't sell rum in the park, so you're going to have to make your own chances. Proceed with that at your own risk.

In addition to the Butterbeer vendors, they have Ollivander's, Honeydukes', and Zonko's joke shop, all of which were extremely crowded.

To sum up my first experience with the shops, allow me to quote a mother I overheard calling out to her husband: (said in a vaguely New Jersey-ish accent) "We're standing in line for a store... A STORE!" Everything is an attraction, so everything had a line. I'm no huge fan of queuing, but I understand; they had to control crowding in the shops somehow. I mean, come on, there were chocolate frogs! People were falling all over themselves to pay $10 for one. Upon my second visit, the crowds had thinned a little, but you can still expect lots of people to be there. After all, you can buy wands! And robes! And Remembralls!

The park has two roller coasters, both of which are basically renamed versions of roller coasters that already existed at Islands of Adventure. The new names are "Flight of the Hippogriff" and "Dragon's Challenge." The former is, euphemistically, "family friendly." The latter is the big, scary one with loops and whatnot. If you like that sort of thing, which I do, you should definitely ride it twice. The Dragon's Challenge is actually two separate roller coasters intertwined, so it seems like you could crash into the other track. It's great. And each track is slightly different, hence why you should ride it twice.

But the main attraction of Harry Potter Land is, of course, Hogwarts Castle.

The last time I was there, the line to get into Hogwarts was between 60 and 90 minutes long, but you can't visit Harry Potter Land without touring Hogwarts, can you? First off, the line is slightly shorter if you don't bring your bags, so ditch those at Hogsmeade station (next to the Hogwarts Express) before you get to the Castle. Otherwise, you'll be forced to wait in line to use a locker. Once you've gotten through the front door, the real line begins.

Yeah, it's long, but I already told you that. And on the bright side, it is shaded from the blistering Florida heat AND you get to see the Hogwarts greenhouse. After the bulk of your wait is over, you get to see the inside of the Castle. Here a few of the wonders you can expect to see:

Sorting hat

Weird interpretation of the House hourglasses

Talking portraits!

Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom

A griffin door. Get it?

You think that's cool? Wait! There's more! At the end of the tour is a ride! (Note: you can save a lot of time by going in the single riders line, which is to the left of the regular line when you first enter the castle, but if you take that option, you miss the tour entirely, so you can't do that until you've done the tour at least once. This is Hogwarts, for goodness' sake!)

I don't have pictures of the ride because I was, well, riding, but even if I did, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. You need to see it for yourself. This ride was unlike any other I've ever ridden, except maybe the Spiderman ride at the same park, but even though I can make that comparison, the Harry Potter ride was unique.

It was like a roller coaster, but it moved in every direction: up, down, sideways, backwards. It was the Universal Studios equivalent of Willy Wonka's elevator. Visually, it was an amazing mix of giant 3D screens and animatronic wonders. You get to run from a dragon, fly around the Quidditch pitch, brave the Forbidden Forest, and more! I recommend riding it over and over again. Unless you have motion sickness; in which case, that sucks for you. You can always take the tour and skip the ride. That's still pretty good.

Well, that's about all I've got. I hope you've enjoyed this advertisement, paid for by Universal Orlando.** If you decide to make a trip to Orlando sometime in the next couple months, let me know. Maybe I could show you around the Wizard World of Harry Potter myself.


*Now that I'm going to grad school in Scotland, maybe my wish will come true, but more on that another time.
**In my dreams. Hopefully someone over there is reading.