I did it!

Please watch this advertisement:

Thank you. Now, when I first saw this ad, I found myself asking aloud, "What the fuck is Champix?" Granted, I asked this question 4 hours after seeing the ad, while I was in line at the grocery store, just as my dragon fruit was being scanned. How embarassing! I was simply trying to impress all my fellow shoppers with my exotic fruit purchase. You see, I live in the yuppie enclave of Roncesvalles Village, where well-groomed dogs sit tied outside of stark, modern furniture stores and Polish solicitors wave sausage links as you pass.

As is often the case with advertisements for non-essential prescription pharmaceuticals, there is not even a subtle clue given as to what exactly Champix is. I certainly could have gone ahead and done a simple search of the internets, using some type of "search engine" or "protocol droid," but instead, based on my vast knowledge of advertising and prescriptions, I have come to 3 distinct, inconclusive possibilities as to what Champix could be.

1. Performance-enhancing drug (sports-related)

Based on the constant high-fiving, hugging, and back slapping (some of it even, gasp, interracial) as well as the usage of the song from Rocky, Champix may be some type of drug that allows 40-something men to live out their sports-related pipe dreams. With Champix you can win MVP of your recreational hockey league and finally win the respect of your daughter, culminated with a dramatic, slow-motion hug.

2. Performance-enhancing drug (sex-related)

Based on the constant high-fiving, hugging, and back slapping (some of it even, gasp, interracial) as well as the usage of the triumphant theme from Rocky, Champix may be some type of drug that allows 40-something men to hold an erection for long enough to have intercourse. Just think of all the congratulations you'll get for finally being able to have nearly two minutes of intercourse: your hockey buds will know you're a real "dog," your black friend will finally explain to you what "Jungle Fever" is, your mother will creepily rub your hand due to excitement at the possibility that her son is not a gay after all, and you will finally win the respect of your daughter, who will be so proud that you can actually nail her mom for nearly two minutes that she will dramatically hug you in slow motion.

3. Anti-depressant

Based on the subdued hues, the soothing background music (I can only assume the song is by Enya,) and the insistence on having everything happen in slow motion, Champix may be some type of drug that allows 40-something men who are overall failures to delude themselves into believing that they do not work a pitiful, unrewarding job, are not the worst player on the State Farm Insurers, are not in a loveless marriage, did not hire a black male escort to pose as a friend at the bar, are not into elderlove, and have a daughter that is a very fast runner. By living a constant lie in order to feign happiness, you will win the respect of your daughter, culminated with a dramatic, slow-motion hug set to some type of new age music.

Or maybe it's for some drug to help you quit smoking. Whatever.

Do the Bartman

Skewed Rationale: A cohesive study on the limits of the human psyche

I wonder if in an effort to save time when answering typical questions in social settings, actress Minnie Driver purchased a Mini Cooper.

An open letter to Zooey Deschanel

Dear Zooey,

Remember that time I confused you for your sister, wondering why you decided to join the cast of a second-rate television program with that heavy-browed former teen heartthrob? Remember how puzzling I found it that you, an indie queen who had already won the hearts and minds of Urban Outfitters shoppers and their sale section-scavenging mothers, would subject herself to the monotony of a weekly serial that follows, I don't know, medically-trained detectives who solve post-mortem mysteries with sexy results? Remember how I feigned relief upon learning it was actually your slightly less cute, slightly less buxom, slightly less popular sister who co-starred?

Well, lately I've had to feign shock and awe as it is unmistakably you who stars in a weekly comedic program that, based on your wacky antics during the advertisements, I assume involves you giggling, farting, chasing British man-boys who are stuck in that unfortunate eternal left-legger pre-pubescence, and contorting your face to extents that could wake Jenny McCarthy from her halcyon daze.

Your crooning alongside that unremarkable fellow in She&Him reminded us all why America used to be so sexy: Gingham dress-clad women who sang as if they had never even seen a penis before were more likely to get the black housekeeper to do the dishes, so one could go to the wood-panelled rumpus room and in fact show her a penis. The innocence of your alt-country duo brought that nostalgic Americana to the hip fringes of contemporary culture, teaching skinny boys in skinnier pants that it's okay if no one wants to have sex with them.

Remember that scene in "500 Days of Summer" where you say that really cute thing involving fuzzy kittens that is meant to be an analogy about the tragedy of the human condition, but it is misinterpreted by your co-star, you know, that guy that a lot of people recently found non-threateningly attractive, and he makes it kind of dirty? Or how about that other scene where you trip/bite your tongue/drop a priceless family heirloom/chew with your mouth open/sneeze and it makes a honking sound at a funeral/crap your pants? I miss those moments. I felt like I was sharing a new understanding of sexuality with all my fellow young persons, one in which people are perpetually awkward but still have perfectly trimmed bangs and the rarest vintage clothes.

I guess I'm just a little upset that you're on a network television show, to be digested by the masses, rather than my own personal twee prom queen, picking and choosing scripts based on a rating scale that involves "ugly" sweaters, coffee mugs with unicorns on them, harmonicas, flower-themed hair accessories, and a general suspicion of foreigners.

I miss you.

Sincerely Yours,

This Guy.

An academic undertaking with conclusive evidence of the aforementioned

Years from now, when archaeologists, historians, professors, assholes, and other jerks begin compiling an unnecessary, overly complex catalogue of the social mores from the golden years of the Internet Age, they will go into great detail chronicling the various self-shot (primarily intended for) myspace photos that girls (and the occasional burgeoning homosexual guy) posted. I hope to be the one first of these assholes/other jerks to do so and thus collect that Nos Energy sponsorship that so many other bloggers tend to flaunt in front of the various cafes we steal internet from.

Boobarella

This type of photograph is taken by a savvy trickster, who knows what the male-dominated internetsphere wants.... the breasts of a 15 year-old girl to look like those of an 18 year-old girl. This is accomplished by holding the camera high above, wearing a low-cut shirt with horizontal, thick stripes, and placing one's upper arms as close together as possible, while still managing to look somewhat natural, if not a little mangled, awkward, and mildly retarded. It is only with a well-executed Boobarella photo that one can entice the type of internet predator that will ask to meet at a Starbucks, rather than an all-you-can-eat pancake house.

Coin Purse

Scientific-types have proven that men are more attracted to women who look like they are pouting. The male sex is self-destructive and wishes to uphold this inclination through its relations with womenfolk. Thus, if a woman constantly looks like she is pouting, the man knows he has failed in some way and must make amends while constantly feeling like shit about himself. Sylvia Plath wrote extensively about this, probably for GQ. That being said, the Coin Purse photograph is accomplished by once again holding the camera above one's head, though not as high as in a Boobarella. The model then purses her lips into a pout and slightly elevates her eyebrows. It creates the illusion of innocence and constant disappointment, though I find in most cases only the former to be an illusion.

Sidecar

Perhaps the most devious yet simultaneously simple of the angles, this shot cannot even be fathomed by those with a mountainous nasal region or those unfortunate enough to have a condition I shall refer to as phantom-chin. After years of research and military testing, science-types conclusively found that individuals who are fortunate enough to be free of the aforementioned afflictions appear even more alluring when pictured from a slight side angle. Teenage girls who use myspace, known for their near-religious following of scientific academic journals, utilized the scientific method and thus turned their heads sideways slightly while still focusing their eyes directly in the lens. It is important in a well-executed Sidecar to still look directly towards the basement-dwelling, sweatpants-wearing, profile-claiming "software engineer," WOW level 84 accomplishing, all around nice and trustworthy young man who will be perusing your pics.

Good night and God bless and stuff.

Why I give up #27

Stand up for podium

For all those dutiful citizens researching party platforms and where their local MPs stand on fighter jets, I have the following suggestion: give up immediately. This election is all but over. Look at the podium Stephen Harper has. It says Canada on it. CANADA. Not "Let's stand up for Canada" or "Conservatives <3 Canada." Just "CANADA" plain and simple.

Harper does not have the mustachioed sex appeal of Jack Layton, nor does he have the gold-toothed scholarly elitism of Michael Ignatieff, nor does he have the teacher-slapping roguery of Gilles Duceppe (look it up, I kid you not), nor does he have the...the....the....crafty necklaces of Elizabeth May. All that being said, Harper and his Conservative advisors know one thing for certain: Canada is a nation that respects podiums. If a podium is truly representative of our unique national identity, we will band together and support that podium and ultimately, whoever stands behind it. PODIUM for PM 2011!!!!

The real 5th Beatle

Allow the following video to act as a relic from a time that was much simpler. A time in which music videos still carried relevant messages; moral critiques of social order, rebellious battlecries for social upheaval, and subtle placements of Pepsi cans and ECKO hoodies. Yes, this was before the Obama presidency—a time when interracial relationships were still obstinate and kinky, a time when a strong economy allowed for pitifully low, untaxed cash wages for babysitters and migrant workers.

God save us all.

Made You Look #1

Sometimes I think that Alicia Keys is the black Natalie Portman.

Then I remember that I don't care.

Ready, Set, Mascot!

Fear not, fellow freedom-lovers and defenders of liberty, consumerism, Twilight, and everything else that is associated with the Western World, these two spacesuit-clad cycloptic tooth things are not purveyors of galactic terrorism or promoters of tooth/eye care. They are Wenlock and Mandeville, the official mascots of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. And they're gosh-darn adorable. And not phallic at all.