http://type.method.ac/

Practice your kerning and anal retentiveness AT THE SAME TIME!!!

-JM

The band Django Django’s self-titled album is killer. Usually known for singles, they’ve spun gold with this album. You’re sure to hear a few of the tracks soon on ripomatics, so get to it before your mom is loving it in a new round of iPod commercials.

“Default” and “Wor” are the 2 singles, but the whole album is worth a listen and IN ORDER, since tracks continue into following song. Old school! -JM

1. Password Blog
Each day, I will post one of my various Internet passwords.

2. Just Awoken Girlfriend Blog
I will hover over my sleeping girlfriend every morning and snap a picture as soon as she wakes up.

3. Stuff Magazine Back Cover Ad Blog
I will buy every copy of Stuff Magazine on eBay and critique the ad on the back cover.

4. Broken Cheerios Blog
I will post a picture of every imperfect Cheerio I find in my bowl.

5. Mickey Morandini for Baseball Hall of Fame Blog
I will launch a campaign to get former Phillies second baseman Mickey Morandini into the Baseball HOF on the merits of his name alone. Each day, I will simply post his name.

6. Battletoads Blog
I will play the old Nintendo game, Battletoads, and post grainy screen grabs from each level.

7. The Many Faces of Jean Claude Van Damme Blog
I will pause JCVD movies at random times and take a screen grab of his face.

(Crossed this one off because it actually sounds pretty great.)

7. Garfield Minus Everything Blog
Playing off the popular Garfield Minus Garfield Tumblr, I will go one step further and remove everything. Garfield. Jon Arbuckle. Odie. Nermal. The talk bubbles. All gone.

8. Verbal Descriptions of the 1990 Skybox Basketball Card Set Blog
Without using pictures, I will describe in vivid detail each card from the iconic 1990 set. (Card #14: Larry Bird, wearing a green Celtics away jersey, dribbles a basketball that’s on fire through a close-up of a Bill Cosby sweater.)

9. A “Bad Ideas For Tumblr Blogs” Blog
This idea is already getting old. Imagine an entire blog of it.

10. “Why are they called Thin Mints when they actually make you fat?” Blog
I will just post that joke every single day.

–HF

Yesterday on Saturday Night Live (probably last week or month by the time we get around to posting this), Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph reunited in their roles as Betty and Jodi, two washed-up soccer moms with curly hair and straight bangs who host a talk show called Bronx Beat, where they interview highly unimpressive guests and talk 250 miles per hour while chomping on their gum like tweens.

This sketch makes me cry. Not tears of joy – though I would put it in my top five recurring SNL bits of all time. Not tears of sorrow, like the haters who declare “SNL is over” after the first episode of every season. Tears of awe. That doesn’t happen to me very often given my stunted emotional development, so it’s kind of a big deal. Come to think of it, the last time I can remember it happening was during the Broadway version of Billy Elliott when that little boy did 22 pirouettes in a row, and even then, I think I might have been getting my period.

Bronx Beat is the epitome of everything I’ve always wanted to be. It’s the reason every writer’s dream is to work on SNL. It’s the reason every improv artist does countless shows that get minimal laughs for no money. It’s the reason Marc Maron still can’t sleep at night (he auditioned in 1995, but got passed over and remains bitter about it to this day).

Lorne Michaels’ creation is more than one of the longest-running television shows in American history. It’s the most accurate cultural parody to stand the test of time, and its staff/cast members consistently nail the specificity of the characters they portray in a way no other comedy outlet can.

When I watch Bronx Beat, I know those women. I’ve heard them on trains and in coffee shops. I’ve noted the amount of mousse they must have put in their hair, the amount of gum they must go through in a day, the price of their ribbed Talbots sweaters. But I could never put that down on paper and bring it to life the way SNL can.

If envy aims high, as Ovid once said, then SNL is Mount Everest.

I’m not sure that last part made sense, but you get the point. -CR

Listen. I know we’ve had our differences over our brief time together. Lord knows we’ve had all downs and no ups. We both know this arranged marriage relationship isn’t easy. But seriously. Can’t you just get your shit together? Is it too much to ask for you to run every 5 minutes in the morning and evening instead of every 10? Can’t you find it within yourself to go more than 100 yards at a time before creaking to an inexplicable stop in the middle of a dark tunnel? Do you know what riding you during morning rush hour from the 1st Ave. Station feels like? It feels like cramming torso-first into a moving sardine box with a hundred upright Williamsburg hipsters. You’re like a mobile plaid shirt tweed blazer skinny jeans horn-rimmed glasses too-cool-for-school convention at capacity, and my name’s not on the guest list. Do you have any clue how many eye rolls I get from these people when I force my way inside you after being unable to watch another train pass without getting on it? A lot. At Union Square, you puke your guts out, the hipsters scatter like cockroaches, and I can finally sit on you. You binge and you purge. And you need help. And I want out. But I can’t. —JD

If you’ve ever seen a YouTube video of every roundhouse kick from Kickboxer, or every “dude” from Big Lebowksi, or every single Ralph Cramden threat of moon-based domestic violence against his wife Alice in The Honeymooners, you’ve seen a supercut.

Supercut.org (yes, there’s an organization devoted to them) defines a supercut as, “a fast-paced montage of short video clips that obsessively isolates a single element from its source, usually a word, phrase or cliché from film and TV.”

Some of my favorites:

Every Clay Davis’ “sheeeeit” from The Wire:
http://supercut.org/video/59

Every Arnold Schwarzenegger movie scream ever:
http://supercut.org/video/30

Every “Yeah” from Fargo:
http://supercut.org/video/16

Whether it’s every Kramer entrance from Seinfeld, every Joey Lawrence “Whoa!” from Blossom or a montage of movie scenes where someone says, “Enhance” into a computer screen, Supercuts please so many parts of my brain. They satisfy my need to categorize things, my love of organization, my pop culture obsession, and my fondness for repetition as well as my fondness for repetition. -HF

Last year, Iran issued a directive banning the printing and distribution of any goods promoting Valentine’s Day, including cards, gifts and teddy bears. “Printing and producing any goods related to this day including posters, boxes and cards emblazoned with hearts or half-hearts, red roses and any activities promoting this day are banned. Outlets that violate this will be legally dealt with.” This got me thinking. We should drop hearts, half-hearts, teddy bears and roses on Iran. Just a thought. -ES

Remember cursive? It’s that squiggly, loopy form of handwriting you learn in 3rd grade.

I still remember when I learned cursive. It was a landmark moment. Going from a classroom with the Alphabet in print letters above the blackboard to one with cursive made me feel so cool and mature. I wouldn’t have that feeling again until I got my driver’s license.

Well, one day last week, I decided to spend an entire day writing in cursive again.

It. Was. A. Blast.

As someone who hates wasting time, I loved not having to pick up my pen from the paper as often. It’s so much more efficient to connect the letters. And you know what else? I wrote more that day than usual because I was getting such a kick out of writing in cursive again. It ranged from work stuff to nonsense. I wrote the name Theodore 12 times and I don’t even know any Theodores.

And it was nostalgic. Memories came flooding back — like how much I hated cursive G’s or the time my 7th grade teacher told me she couldn’t distinguish my o’s from my a’s from my e’s and I told her to try using context clues.

Why did I stop using cursive?

Do they even teach cursive anymore?

Is there anything more beautiful than a cursive Theodore? -HF

The first time I ever played 18 holes, I shot a 75…over par. And that’s not counting the dozens and dozens and dozens of times I swung and missed. It’s not that I’m uncoordinated. There’s a youtube video of me playing indoor office baseball where I used a long wooden spoon for a bat and a kumquat for a ball and I freaking crushed that thing (on my second try, but still).

I’m just not wired for golf. I don’t like it. I’m not good at it. And yet, I’m one of those guys who swings an imaginary golf club all the time – in elevators, in line at the salad place, standing around the office.

It’s a problem. But the weirdest part about these imaginary golf swings?

I’ve been keeping score.

It turns out that I’m an incredible imaginary golfer. No, I’m better than incredible. I’m the Tiger-Woods-Before-His-Divorce of imaginary golf. First of all, I never swing and miss. Ever. My imaginary drives are 300 yards, right down the middle of the imaginary fairway. I do need to work on my imaginary short game, but come on, who doesn’t?

My imaginary handicap is 2, which in case you’re not a golf fan, is awesome. Next month I will compete for a spot in the Wells Fargo Imaginary Invitational, in which I hope to win an imaginary trophy and get sponsored by an imaginary company that makes imaginary golf shorts, gloves and visors.

I even watch imaginary golf on TV. Usually while playing air guitar. -HF

Every Christmas season, Doug sits down and decides to make music with the black and white printer. It usually happens when a paper jam occurs and he has to clear it. For Doug, the Thom York of the advertising world, it’s the perfect time to sit on the floor, relax and fiddle with the Xerox sound machine. He plays by ear — like my grandfather — never by the error manual. Its a gentle seasonal song indeed, with spices of oaxacan wood güiro, sitar, and a tad bit of Hurdy Gurdy. When Doug’s in a zone like this, our studio executive, Wayne, halts all printing to that machine. Productivity doesn’t stop completely, though. We do have other printers. – TN