HALFSQUATCH: December 2008

HOLY CRAPINOLI 2008! It's that time of year again where the year comes to an end and I have to do a little retrospective of some of my favourite or memorable Halfsquatch posts:

10
HANCOCK MOVIE TRAILER REVIEW
originally posted 01/14/08

Okay, when I saw this title I thought "FINALLY! A movie biopic on Herbie Hancock!" Boy was I wrong! The trailer for Hancock couldn't be more opposite. It stars the charismatic Will Smith (The Legend of Bagger Vance) as a slacker super-hero and am I severely disappointed. The special effects for this trailer were sub-par in most cases as was the music. I'm not much of a rap fan to begin with but I imagine if you are a fan of rap, you might like the trailer a bit more than I as it plays a major, and I mean, MAJOR role. I was extremely excited and surprised (SPOILER ALERT) to see Jason Bateman play some friend of Hancock and of course Bateman was "on point". Is Jason Bateman enough to make me want to see the trailer again? I don't know? I don't think so. I've seen the Juno trailer maybe 4 times now and Bateman killed every scene he was in, but it was more than just Bateman that kept me returning to the Juno trailer.

Jason Bateman steals yet another scene in Sony Pictures' trailer for Hancock.

What I did like about the Hancock trailer (SPOILER ALERT) were the impacts whenever Hancock touched back down to Terra Ferma. It seemed as though he was landing at a terrific force which made for great eye-candy and needless destruction of civic property. Could he land more carefully? I don't know, and I don't care! WHOOOOM!

Will Smith as Hancock lands with some 'umph' in Sony Pictures' trailer for Hancock.

One scene in particular bugged the crap out of me (SPOILER ALERT!). Hancock lands in the middle of some freight train tracks and the train collides tremendously against our hero, causing the freight train to derail itself. The thing I hate about this is that the film makers think its cool to take liberties with simple physics!

Will Smith as Hancock prepares for impact in the trailer for Sony Pictures' trailer for Hancock.

Michael Chiklis as The Thing prepares for impact in 20th Century Fox's trailer for Fantastic Four.

Will Smith as Hancock bullshits the viewers in Sony Pictures' trailer for Hancock.

Michael Chiklis as The Thing bullshits the viewers in 20th Century Fox's trailer for Fantastic Four.

I don't care how super-strong you are, if you're going to get hit by something it's going to move you if you're not securely planted or restrained! They did the exact same thing in the Fantastic Four trailer with The Thing stopping a truck. I'm not saying that Hancock or The Thing can't stop these grand forces of nature, but at least have the train or truck push them back a bit. I didn't like it in Fantastic Four trailer so why would I like it in Hancock?

Personally, I wouldn't watch the Hancock trailer again. If it were to pop on a television set while I'm taking in all the fine culture that Muggs & Juggs has to offer, then maybe, just maybe I'd take another gander at the effects and subtle Bateman nuances, but otherwise, you'll find me steering very clear of personally clicking on any link to this trailer ever again and I don't care if I ended this review with a major run-on sentence.

09
RASPYBOY REVIEWS HALFSQUATCH TRAILER REVIEWS
originally posted 01/16/08

Wow! I got a review!

from Raspy’s Trailer Review Reviews:
I recently had the pleasure of reviewing Johnny Darrell’s review of the
trailer for Hancock. It was a pleasure for a number of reasons, not
least of which is I have NEVER EVER reviewed a review of a trailer. Now
I’ve been in the business of reviewing trailer reviews for 12 years,
but no one has ever bothered to review a trailer before. So I was
doubly pleased that the very first trailer review that I got to review
was so excellently put together. I don’t know what pleased me more -
Darrell’s expert dissection of the trailer itself, his scientific
comparisons with Fantastic Four (which I didn’t personally understand
but they sure looked scient-errific with pictures and everything!) or
his obvious yet downplayed attraction to Jason Bateman. I also found
his SPOILER alerts extremely helpful, as I planned on watching the
trailer myself at a later date and was able to avoid reading those
sections. Overall this trailer review has reaffirmed my belief in the
trailer-review-reviewing business and I just might stick at it for a
few more years. Now if only someone would review the trailer for Alvin
and the Chipmunks! (I bet Dave screams “Alllviiinnn!” in there
somewhere!)

08
KEVIN GAMBLE: NYC'S NEWEST HERO
originally posted 01/28/08

So here it is in a nutshell. Kevin Gamble (AKA Tiki Bar TV's Johnny Johnny) jumps into the subway tracks to save a woman's life from an oncoming train and basically ruins a good winter coat. Head off to NAKED SPONGE to hear his story! AWESOME WORK BROTHER!!!

07
MARY KAY CADILLAC
originally posted 02/10/08

Here it is folks, Vancouver's UGLIEST car (actually, I took the photo in Coquitlam)! Look at how fucking gaudy this travesty is. It gets worse! It's a Cadillac STS4 and it's from the MARY KAY line!

I dug up just a bit of research on this pathetic existence and found that if a Mary Kay sales person (aka goof-ball) exceeds a certain $ in sales, they'll receive one of these shit-bags. It's supposedly an honour to have one! There's more. The "fortunate" sales people who receive one of these disasters have to return the car to Mary Kay after two years (so Mary Kay can repaint them and sell them--NOTE: the pink is an exclusive shade of pink owned by Mary Kay. The shade is called Mountain Laurel based on a shade of blush from Mary Kay's line. Personally, I prefer the more reddish shade Juniper's Rectum). Should a salesperson wish to keep her/his 4-wheeled-turd, they have to sign a contract never to resell it. What a catastrophic tragedy in so many ways. I bet most Mary Kay sales people are Christian.

Whoooo boy did this post ever generate a lot of hatred towards me! Check out the comments!!

06
HALFSQUATCH GUEST BLOGGER JAMIE HATCHET
originally posted 02/24/08

Hey y'all, because I'm super swamped with other things (power-washing my deck, directing a cartoon, being a dad, pleasuring my wife, and replacing the latch on our front fence) I've decided to let a friend look after Halfsquatch for a full work-week. It was hard for me to decide who would be best suited for the job, but, perhaps it was more than just coincidence, an old school mate contacted me through Asspamphlet (it's like Facebook but not as good). I hadn't heard from him in almost 18 years and when I asked him if he'd be interested in looking after Halfsquatch for a week, he said "Fuckin' rights, that'd be cool." So, without further ado, here is your new keeper of Halfsquatch, Jamie Hatchens!

Hi. My name is Jamie Hatchens but my buds call me "Hatch" or I'm also go by "The Hatchet." Im a guy from Orangeville Ontario and I work for a Coca-Cola distrabuting plant, loading pallots of soda onto trucks. Good money cause its union and all. So Johnny asked if I'd run this thing of his so I said yeah and now I'll be out to fucking rock you into orbit! I really have anything in mind at all and all day i was racking my brain trying to think of somehting that would be fucking awesome so my girl says something like write what you now about and love so thats when i decided! My trcuk.

Look at this:

Can you even belive it? This is my pride AND my joy. It fucking hauls serious ass. I got a buddy of mine to do up some deckals for it to make it One in a million. No one has this Dodge at all. First, I put UNLIMITED TIRE TEAM on the doors. Its an inside joke that the guys and me do. "UTT!" Don't ask. You won't even get it. On the hood I did this

FUCK OFF!!! I'm laughing my ass off right now cuase its so awesome. If you click on the pitcher it will be made bigger so you can see it beter. Ha ha ha ha! Awesome."UTT!" I then also got these done on both sides of the truck

You don't even know! Ha ha ha! Fuckin' right and look at the salute i 'm giving you! You don't even know! IThe words are made up with stick people. Originilly it was stick people in sex positons but it was harder to read. This is still right the fuck on though. I also put this one the gate

You don't even know but if you call this number you won't get anyhone cuz its just a fucking joke that me and my buddies made up. It says If this vehicle is seen driving irradically dial 1 800 eat-shit. So awesome. My buddy came up with that one one night and it stuck. I like it and if you look at the word irradically you can see the word radical in it which is fuckin right the fuck on. I don't have a piture of of the other side (so sue me, i'm an idiot for not taking the piture) but it says in the same kind of letters These Tires are ALWAYS for sale. Again, its another inside joke that fucking rocks (UTT!!!!). I laughed my ass off so hard when we put that on my truck and you don't even know! I gotta go.

05
POST CARD PRANK
originally posted 03/15/08

A little while ago, your pal Beadle bought himself a carved wooden deer head. It took about 6 weeks to arrive and when it finally did, one of the antlers was broken. Koolhaus said "you can glue it back on!" and Colin said "You can order me another!" Unfortunately this would take another 6 weeks.

Meanwhile, John Dryden was heading down to Argentina for 6 weeks and we wanted to pull a post card prank on someone so we figured that Colin would be our mark. Finally, on Thursday night when Colin got home from work the mysterious post card was now in his possession. You can read Colin's post here!

My favourite line and yours "...or I make a slap on your face!"

04
WORST RAP BATTLE EVER RECORDED ON VIDEO
originally posted 04/11/08

Worst Rap Battle Ever - Watch more free videos

03
JESUS CHRIST: DINOSAUR TAMER
originally posted 06/17/08

HEY! Go on over to Conservatipedia's Jesus Christ Lizard Tamer! so you can a shake your head in disbelief! These people actually think Jesus existed! HA HA HA!

02
MY ENEMY & MY LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH TRANSIT
originally posted 07/29/08

As the title implies, I have a love/hate relationship for taking transit to work. The pros equal the cons so I'm stuck in the middle.

PROS:
•less stressful and safer than driving in traffic
•cheaper than driving
•I can read, "relax", listen to music, eaves drop (some young 18-year-old Surrey construction workers talking about what drugs they did yesterday and what drugs they'll do today and fears of being fired. And just today in fact was a schizophrenic talk-out-loud kook who had many enjoyable things to talk and laugh about--as he exited he said to everyone "Smile! You're on TV!")
•environmentally more friendly
•looking at hot girls

CONS:
•sick people coughing (I make it a point to not touch anything on board with bare hands)
•when it breaks down (rarely) it sucks
•missing your scheduled bus sucks
•dealing with assholes

Monday night was a great example of a bad day. On my home from work, the Skytrain was packed. I'll let a train go and wait for another in the chances that it's less packed but last night it wasn't happening so I got crammed in. I got a backpack to the face, someone's arm got hooked into my headphone cables and yanked my phones off, and someone let one rip. When I got off at my station I went and stood in line for the bus which was on schedule any minute. We boarded and as I approached the back of the bus I saw my ENEMY: A retarded Asian fellow.

My enemy: Keeping up to speed with Hollywood gossip!

Here's the deal. About a year ago, I noticed that every once in a while I'd see this retarded man on the bus. He always took the back bench, sprawling out to take over three seats. No biggie. I can handle that as long as it's not busy and no elderly person needs the seat (they never come to the back of the bus anyways). He sits quietly, occasionally saying something out loud nodding his head to his headphones of his DiscMan (I'd love to know what he listens to). A few trips with this fellow and I realize that he's a snorter. He snorts so loud that the first time, I actually thought it was perhaps hydraulic pressure being released from the bus itself. Started to get kinda annoying. One day, coming home from work, he's sitting there when he suddenly blurts out, and this is no lie, "DAHHHH! Oh, fuck! I shit my pants!" And he stood up and tried to fix himself as best he could. I can handle that kind of stuff from a distance, and kinda relish the fact that I witnessed this but am too cold and inconsiderate to help the poor chap. What would I be able to do anyway? I'm sure someone out there would have a good solution to this kind of situation but not me. I just kinda grin inside. I know that sounds harsh but I've had the same thing happen to me so I've earned the right to enjoy this man's sudden and unexpected pants-shitting.

My enemy: Sprawled out like a son-of-a-bitch.

A while later, my son and I took a bus to the Skytrain to catch a movie and there he is; sprawled over three seats on the back bench: his ass in the middle seat, his legs across the window seat and his hand on his left "reserving" the third seat. There's one empty seat next to the "reserved" seat so I figure, he'll move his hand and we'll both be able to sit. As I guide Kai to the "reserved" seat I quickly realize that Gretzkeee isn't going to move his hand and I quickly usher Kai into the empty seat. Gretzkeee looks at me with a look that says "Nothin' you can do about it, fuck-face: I'm Gretzkeee." It creeps me out to think that my son's ass was this close to sitting on this man's hand. So I decided at that point that I really didn't like this guy and I didn't care that he was retarded. He was going to be my enemy.

Last night was the icing on the cake that took my level of dislike of this man to a higher level. After being crammed uncomfortably in this sweltering Skytrain car I cheerfully hopped almost immediately onto my connector bus. I saw my enemy sprawled out in his usual seats. His DiscMan now reserving in the third seat, his backpack taking the window seat. A very tall, very friendly looking African man came loping to the back and tried to take the seat next to the DiscMan, but due to circumstances of another man's circumference, it was but half a seat. The friendly tall man looked to Gretzkeee with a look like "excuse me please" and gestured to the DiscMan. Gretzkeee ignored him though was fully aware of his situation. Mr. Friendly then takes the DiscMan and considerately pushes it towards Gretzkeee who pushes it back with a loud "Hmphhh!" Mr. Friendly then picks up the DiscMan and hands it to my enemy who then pushes the man's hand, grabs the DiscMan and shoves it back onto the seat muttering "Fuckin' Christ!" At this point I finally say my first words to my enemy "Give the man the fucking seat. You've got plenty of room." Gretzkeee throws daggers, knives and torches my way with his eyes and yells "FUCK YOU" and then stammers and huffs and puffs in anger as he rearranges his seating arrangements. Occasionally he'd stare at me, throwing more javelins into my eyes and shaking his head in complete disgust, nodding his head more furiously to the music as though it was now playing something really heavy and aggressive, like Bon Jovi or Cinderella or maybe even Warrant. Somewhere along the ride his backpack fell to the floor and he chose to ignore this opting instead to look at me as if this was all my fault.

My bus ride is really only 5-minutes (I usually opt to walk if it's not there) so I don't have to share it with him for long and when I got off and walked past where he was sitting, again he was looking at me as if he wanted to kill me so I did the only thing that came to my head: I stared directly into his eyes, pointed at him very sternly as if poking him and said, yeah, that's right, "YOU!" Of course a million other ideas popped into my head as the bus drove my enemy safely away from me.

This morning, as luck would have it, Gretzkeee was on the bus and he and I gave each other the evil eyes.

01
BEADLE'S ENERGY MOVE
originally posted 10/02/08

So there you have it! It's been a memorable year for sure and I wish all y'all a safe and healthy 2009! Thanks for supporting Halfsquatch and making it the best website in the past 100 years.

Thanks Andrew Hudec!

Check out this creepiness!

According to National Geographic:

The image of airborne snakes may seem like the stuff of nightmares (or a certain Hollywood movie), but in the jungles of South and Southeast Asia it is reality.

Flying snake is a misnomer, since, barring a strong updraft, these animals can’t actually gain altitude. They’re gliders, using the speed of free fall and contortions of their bodies to catch the air and generate lift.

Once thought to be more parachuters than gliders, recent scientific studies have revealed intricate details about how these limbless, tube-shaped creatures turn plummeting into piloting. To prepare for take-off, a flying snake will slither to the end of a branch, and dangle in a J shape. It propels itself from the branch with the lower half of its body, forms quickly into an S, and flattens to about twice its normal width, giving its normally round body a concave C shape which can trap air. By undulating back and forth, the snake can actually make turns. Flying snakes are technically better gliders than their more popular mammalian equivalents, the flying squirrels.

There are five recognized species of flying snake, found from western India to the Indonesian archipelago. Knowledge of their behavior in the wild is limited, but they are thought to be highly arboreal, rarely descending from the canopy. The smallest species reach about 2 feet (61 centimeters) in length and the largest grow to 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Their diets are variable depending on their range, but they are known to eat rodents, lizards, frogs, birds, and bats. They are mildly venomous snakes, but their tiny, fixed rear fangs make them harmless to humans.

Scientists don’t know how often or exactly why flying snakes fly, but it’s likely they use their aerobatics to escape predators, to move from tree to tree without having to descend to the forest floor, and possibly even to hunt prey.

One species, the twin-barred tree snake, is thought to be rare in its range, but flying snakes are otherwise quite abundant and have no special conservation status.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Monday, December 29, 2008

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Monday, December 22, 2008

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Friday, December 12, 2008

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Monday, December 08, 2008

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Monday, December 01, 2008

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