It Takes a Nation of Children

The recent weeks have brought two of the finest reality shows of all time (The Pick-Up Artist and Rock of Love, of course) to an end. Fortunately, a new, differently (yet equally) moronic show came along just in time. That show? Kid Nation on CBS.

On paper, Kid Nation is the greatest television show of all time. If you haven't heard about it, here's the deal: CBS somehow gets their hands on 40 children¹ and dumps them all alone in some wild-west ghost town for 40 days. No parents, chaperones or anything. Then we watch them like an ant farm as they run their own government, break up into cliques, get into fights, and (I'm assuming) burn the whole place to the ground.

Remember when you were a kid and your teacher left the room for a minute? Sure you do. Now, just imagine your teacher left tomorrow and didn't come back until Thanksgiving. These kids are going to stay awake for 2-3 days at a time, they're going to forget to take their medications, it's going to be an absolute crime scene. They're going to catch all sorts of random-ass diseases like scurvy, some diptheria, maybe some measles, who knows. Can you catch polio? Well, somebody's getting it.

We're about three episodes in, but before the show started, I made a few predictions that I'm still standing by. Out of these 40 kids: 12 will get salmonella, 5 will lose at least one body part (28 if you count teeth), and I'm thinking 2 or 3 will get pregnant. But here's the big one, the one of which I'm absolutely certain:

One of these kids is going to die.

Now, CBS isn't saying this, I am. It's bound to happen. Be it heatstroke, poisoning, malaria, or (my personal front-runner) piledriver, one of these kids isn't going home. They might not even show it, and just never mention the person again like they did the little sister on Family Matters, but it's definitely happening. When I first heard about this show, I thought somebody would die. Now that I've seen the show? Oh man, I've never been more sure of anything in my life.

If you haven't seen the show, and think I'm exaggerating about this, there are two important pieces of evidence to support my claim.

1. Seeing as that there are no adults, these kids have to cook all of their own meals. And while I probably would've just forged on my own, some of these plucky youngsters are cooks, preparing meals for all of the other kids. And they're not heating pre-made food; they're really fending for themselves. Two weeks ago, they killed and ate two chickens. How are some 10-year-old morons supposed to prepare healthy meals for 40 people? I can barely cook for myself, and I'm 26. And a super genius. On second thought, change my salmonella bet to 14. And give me two for E. coli.

2. For some reason, CBS is trying to kill these children. I assume good old Darwinism would have taken care of this, but apparently the network doesn't have that kind of patience. An example: during a town-wide party, a guy and his friend were having a friendly contest to see who could mix the best-tasting drinks for the campers. Among the random ingredients he threw into his concoction: bleach, conveniently stored in the kitchen in an unmarked bottle. Unmarked bottles of bleach? In the kitchen? Don't you dare tell me CBS doesn't want to murder at least one of these kids. $50 side bet says these kids stumble across a loaded gun during sweeps. Who's in?

If you haven't been watching this show, there's still plenty of time to hop on the Kid Nation bandwagon. You should really watch at least once, just to see the old-timey sweatshop conditions they put these children under. Not only have their water pumps already frozen solid, but a dust storm recently swept through the town, leaving the community outhouses (that yes, they are in charge of cleaning) overturned. But the real reason to watch: you want to be there when (not if) one of these kids dies. Frankly, I can't wait. I've never rooted so openly against the well-being of a group of children. Well, there was one other time, but that's between me and the original cast of "Saved By The Bell: The New Class". I don't want to talk about it.

¹ They don't explain how they got parents to sign off on this. I'm guessing the network adopted or kidnapped them.

Day of the Transformers

Today is an exciting day. Just how exciting really depends on when you were born, and how much you've got going on in your life right now. If you answered "late 70's-early 80's" and "not a whole lot", respectively, then this just may be the biggest day of your year. Maybe your whole life.

As I'm sure you know, today is the day "Transformers: The Movie" comes out. I know a lot of people are excited about this, but sadly I'm not one of them. I would be excited, but I'm too nervous. I just know they're going to screw this movie up. This is how parents must feel as they drop their kid off at college: all these new people, money flying all over the place, you know your baby's coming home all effed up and crazy, and it's completely out of your hands.

Before we continue, it's important to note the somewhat misleading title of this movie. As you may remember, there already exists a "Transformers: The Movie". It was a feature-length animated movie, it came out in 1986, and it was awesome. The highlight of this movie, a sentimental favorite in the Rosenthall household, is the unexpected profanity. Nothing catches you off-guard like a cartoon robot yelling "damnit!" or "oh shit!" when his plans go wrong. These things aren't officially ranked, but when it's all said and done, a robot swearing in a children's movie may be the funniest thing ever.

Anyway, back to my problem: I'm pretty sure they're going to screw this up, for two main reasons. ¹

1. Bumblebee. You've seen the commercials, right? That's not Bumblebee. I can't stress this enough. That. Is. Not. Bumblebee. They shouldn't even call him that. That should've just called him Frank or something, and said he was Bumblebee's cousin, like when they replaced the original guys on "Dukes of Hazzard." Think I'm making too big a deal out of this? Okay, well how about this: I'm making a movie with the Miami Heat. Instead of Shaq, I'm just going to hire a Puerto Rican midget² and hope nobody notices. Same thing?

It's extremely easy to mess this movie up. Why? Okay, I'll tell you. But first, take a deep breath and relax, open your mind. Okay. Ready? Here goes:

2. Transformers is a really stupid idea for a movie. Seriously.

Okay, caaaalm down. I knew this would happen. Let me explain. I'm not saying it was a stupid show, because it obviously wasn't. The show? Awesome. The concept itself? Very, very stupid. Say I made a movie that I want you to see. Here's my pitch to you: "Okay, there's these giant space robots, right? They fly down to Earth for some reason, and they fight each other. Also, they all have the ability to turn into various modes of transportation, like jets, cement mixers and what not. I call it 'Car-bots'. Taa daa!" See? No way in hell do you see that movie. It's all in the presentation. I could (and in all likelihood, probably did) write one of the dumbest songs ever. It really sucks. Give it to say, Mariah Carey, get the Neptunes on the beat, and next thing you know, "When we gonna start humpin?" is certified 5 times platinum. See, you just need the right people taking care of your project.

Like I said, I'm certainly nervous. But I'm excited too, and I'll definitely be in the audience as soon as the movie is out. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep tonight, but luckily I spoke with someone who helped me put things in perspective: my mother. I told her how worried I was, how I wish they hadn't even made the damn movie. She wiped the tears away from my cheek, sat down, and said "Honey, I'll tell you exactly what I told your father the day you were born: 'It doesn't matter what you want; it's here now, and you need to get over that shit'". In just one conversation, good old Mom took care of that issue for me. Might've created some new ones, but we'll deal with those later.

¹There are actually three reasons, the third being the mere presence of Anthony Anderson.
²This was originally going to be much funnier, but a Google image search of "Puerto Rican Midget" was quite fruitless. Thanks a lot Google. Dicks.

Maine

So I just got laid off. 2/2 was my last day at work. I'm now officially a bum.
Instead of moping around and feeling sorry for myself (or getting a new job, which may have been the best idea), I decided to have a good time and do some traveling. Early last week, I loaded up the car and made the easy 10 hour drive to Saco, Maine, home of Brock.

If you've never been, Maine is really far away (500 miles to the north) and really cold (-3 degrees on Tuesday night). I find it impossible to believe a settler found this the optimum place to live. There's no way a guy was in Northern New Hampshire and thought he needed to go about eighty miles further North before setting up camp. I don't have anything against Maine itself, I'm just not sure why America goes this far. I think we should trade it to Canada, can we still do that? Listen up, Canada: We'll give you Maine for Steve Nash and the naming rights to your delicious circular bacon. Deal?

Before getting to Brock's neighborhood, I had to pass through a region I'll refer to as "The dark recesses of my nightmares". I know I've spent too much time in Northern Virginia, because dark open spaces now apparently creep the hell out of me. Every road I turned down, I thought I was going to die. If I was on The Sopranos (back when it was good), somebody definitely would have ambushed me. Since I'm not, I just assumed a moose would be the one to take my life. I turned on my brights, but immediately turned them off, because I didn't actually want to know what was surrounding my car. Anything I did happen to catch under the moonlight just made me more nervous. There were broken swing sets, abandoned barns with their doors falling off, basically if the Blair Witch made sweet love to a Yeti, their kid would live here. But I'm happy to say I got through the area, and arrived at Brock's house without dying a single time.

On Wednesday morning (I say morning but we obviously never woke up before noon), Brock and I drove up to Shawnee Peak resort for some snowboarding. Something you may not know about snowboarding: if you've only done it three times, apparently riding a halfpipe is not an easy thing to do. It may prove to be even more difficult when your foot is not properly attached into your bindings, which was a little discovery I made on my own. I dropped in the halfpipe, my front foot rose about three feet in the air, and the next thing I know I'm auditioning to be the new "agony of defeat" guy for Wide World of Sports. Other than that, it was a great day of snowboarding.

Brock is a sports writer for his local newspaper, meaning we had to attend various high school sporting events during the week. We went to two basketball games and a hockey game, where interestingly enough they actually played "Who let the dogs out" before it began. I don't know who was in charge of that, but I hope someone punched them in the face. Now, as I already mentioned, Maine is bitterly cold. The low temperatures and harsh wind chills are extremely harmful to a dry-skinned gentleman such as myself. I'm outside for 20 seconds and I turn into Pookie from New Jack City (what's my demographic here exactly, does anybody get that?) Anyway, now I'm going to the local High School girls' basketball game, licking my lips like LL Cool J on ecstasy. It's not a good look. I brought along a notepad and jotted down fake notes whenever a young girl appeared concerned/interested by my presence (the breakdown was really about 70-30) so I looked like a reporter. Paranoid? Yes, but the smartest decision I've made in a long time. When we went back to the newspaper after the game, Brock worked on his basketball article while I did some work of my own. Brock reviews movies as well, so I decided to write this letter to his editor. Apparently it was printed, copied, and passed around the office, but sadly it didn't work. By the way, Brock: Almost $37 million this weekend, #1 movie in the country? I rest my case.

One of the finest vacations I've ever had got a whole lot better that night, when we stumbled across what some call the greatest band ever. Their name is The Watson Mill Gang, and good God they're awesome. Check them out, just let that funk marinate on you for a while. I got home on Saturday night, and now I've got just enough time to unpack, do my laundry, and re-pack. Next stop: Mardi Gras in New Orleans. After that, I'll get back to work and officially retire from being a bum. I promise. Probably.