Fill up the tub, we have a winner!

Congratulations to Concrete Tomato for winning yet another Erasable Pen Reader Challenge. This is CT's second victory in our ongoing series. The subject of the challenge, you may recall, was to come up with an alternate title for the new movie Hot Tub Time Machine.

Here's Concrete Tomato's winning entry:

H.G. Wells' The Hot Tub Time Machine

Hey, it was a difficult challenge people. Personally I find it mildly amusing, which is reason enough to award Concrete Tomato the big prize: a 6-pack of Diet Rite.

Now let's take a look at our runners up:

• In second place we have Natalie Bohm with the bland, yet oddly compelling Turn on the Jets.

• Coming in third is Antelope Baby Industries with the equally dry The Hot Tub Effect.

• Honorable mention goes to Woz for The Brotherhood of the Time Traveling Germ Incubator.

Thanks for playing folks! Keep your chin up. You're all winners in my book, and surely it can only get better from here.

In Conan we trust

I don’t normally use this blog as a forum to talk about deeply personal matters (aside from my love of snacks), but I want to take a moment here to address the programming debacle at NBC. As I’m sure you’ve already heard NBC is trying to give Conan O’Brien the shaft, yet again, by moving Jay Leno’s “variety show” to 11:35 and bumping Conan and The Tonight Show to 12:05. Conan has decided to take the high road, and crafted a beautiful statement expressing his unwillingness to be part of a plan that would move The Tonight Show out of the timeslot it has held for almost 60 years. Conan cares about tradition, and he would rather go elsewhere than participate in this harebrained scheme that’s destined to destroy the legendary show he has dreamed of hosting his entire life. I, and everyone I know, support Conan to the fullest and will follow him wherever he ends up. Why? Because in a not-so-roundabout way he has helped shape our collective sense of humor for much of the past 20 years.

During Conan’s first few seasons (aka The Awkward Years) hosting Late Night, my high school buddies and I would tape every episode on VHS cassette. Then on the weekends we’d get together and watch the standout moments while drinking ungodly amounts of soda pop. A couple of us even used our favorite “In the Year 2000” bits as senior quotes in the yearbook. Mine of course was delivered by Andy: “In the year 2000, the artist formerly known as Prince will no longer be referred to by a symbol, but rather… an odor.” I still find it funny to this day.

When I went off to college at Ohio University, Conan’s ratings in our dorm must have been through the roof. If only NBC had a way to measure such things. I can’t count the number of times I heard my buddy Brian Woznicki cackling in the room next door around 12:45 am. I’m almost certain most of those outbursts had something to do with Conan’s opening sketch.

This brings me back to the idea that our own senses of humor have been molded in some way by Conan. For me and my closest friends, we grew up with Conan. His unique brand of humor was right there in front of us during a very important period in our lives. We were in college, on our own, honing the wildly creative side of our brains, and loving every minute of it.

From the beginning, Conan, Andy, and their brilliant staff of writers always pushed the envelope, night after night finding new ways to make us laugh. Did they ever let up? Did they ever settle for the same old same old? No. Just look at Conan’s first week hosting The Tonight Show. Sure there were a few wrinkles to iron out, but the laughs were there right off the bat, and no one can accuse these guys of being anything other than original. Compare Conan’s show to any other talk show and you’ll see what I mean. These guys try harder, and they care more.

You know, not everyone in the world attempts to be funny all the time (and that’s a good thing), but Conan does. And for clowns like Brian and I, and many of our friends, it’s kind of what we do too. We probably fail more than we succeed, and I’m sure we can be annoying, but at this point it’s just the way we are. Did Conan have something to do with this? Of course. He’s the funniest guy we know, even if we only know him through a television set. Hold strong Conan. We’ll be watching.

Reader Challenge: Create an alternate title for Hot Tub Time Machine

Like many Americans, I spent part of my Christmas day at the movies. We decided to see Sherlock Holmes. Pretty decent flick, but what really stuck with me after I left the theater was the preview they showed for the upcoming film Hot Tub Time Machine. Yes, that's the actual title of the movie. Amazing! It sounds so outlandish, but it makes perfect sense. The movie is about a group of dudes who use a hot tub to travel back in time. What other name could you possibly give this thing other than Hot Tub Time Machine? I don't know. I don't even know if I love it or hate it. But that, my friends, is your new assignment. Here's the trailer:



Hey isn't that John Cusack? Well, this is clearly our most difficult Reader Challenge to date. I'll throw a few ideas out here just to get the juices flowing.

Hot Tub Time Machine alternate titles:

1. Jacuzzi Leap
2. Rub-a-Dub-DOH!
3. Drawing a Bath to the Future
   

Now it's your turn. Please post your ideas in the comments section. Whoever provides the winning entry will receive a six-pack of Diet Rite.

Is this really you?

Our friends at Yahoo! have reinvented themselves with a new ad campaign, and apparently a new service that lets you, yes you, control the NET. This is exciting stuff. Well, until you look at the people they chose to represent you. Let's take a closer look at you, through the eyes of Yahoo!

Do you like to skateboard? Shirtless, in swim trunks, after you just finished working out at Muscle Beach? And will you still be kick-flipping at the ripe age of 50? Something tells me this isn't the sk8er boi Avril Lavigne was referring to.

If this truly is you, I think I want to punch you in the face.

What the **** are you wearing? Did you just raid a free bin? I feel embarrassed for your pit bull.

Is this how you react when you check your email? I hate to be the person to tell you this, but you didn't really win a prize from Megafortune Lottery International.

You are giving me plenty of reason not to have kids.

A true story of natural flavor, and other natural flavors

To an outside observer my life might appear perfect, but let me assure you it’s not. You see, I love snacks. Love them. Don’t worry, this isn’t about my weight (I’m as thin and wispy as Slim Jim himself). It has more to do with supply and demand. It seems no matter how many snack items I stock up on there’s never enough finger-food to last the entire work week. That’s why this week I decided to go with Triscuits. Is there any heartier cracker on the face of the earth? No, I don’t think so. Eating a Triscuit is like munching on a tree trunk. These are strong crackers. Of course with all that added stability you’re sacrificing a bit in the way of flavor, or are you…

The packaging read “Quattro Formaggio” (that’s Italian for 4-cheese snack cracker). Without hesitation I tossed the box into my reusable grocery sack and moved to the checkout aisle. Could these Triscuits… these baked whole grain wheat crackers possibly satisfy my cravings for a full week? And what of the multiple cheeses? Could this inspired recipe bring forth an explosion of flavor previously unavailable to those who walked similarly wheaty cracker paths? And are Triscuits really made in Italy?

These and other questions clouded my vision as the cashier rang up the sale, but through the haze something caught my eye. There was a note on the box, something I hadn’t noticed before. In all caps, for all the world to see, right there in the center of the package the following words were written: NATURAL FLAVOR WITH OTHER NATURAL FLAVORS.

The message rang loud and clear. There was a combination of flavors at play, to be sure. Yes, the four cheeses of course. But also natural flavor, as well as other natural flavors. I hurried home and went to sleep well before my bedtime, hoping with all hope that the night would race by, bringing me that much closer to the remarkable natural flavors contained within each wondrous Triscuit.

I won’t lie, I had a hard time sleeping that night. But like clockwork, morning did eventually come. To the sweet whistle of a blue bird I hopped out of bed, already in my work clothes, and raced to the bus stop with cracker box in hand. When I arrived at the office the faces of my workmates lit up like fluorescent bulbs. They were happy, not only to see me, but also my Quattro Formaggio Triscuits. Surely with the additional natural flavors packed into these crackers I’d be able to spare one or two, right?...

Wrong! I devoured the entire box within minutes of my arrival. They tasted pretty much like ordinary Triscuits, but I was really hungry.

James Cameron is sending the U.S. military on a very questionable mission

Has anyone seen the preview for this new movie Avatar? I am so confused! First of all, how can you spend $300 million on a movie and use Papyrus as the official font for all your titles, logos and marketing materials? Papyrus comes free with Microsoft Word, and it's the font that everyone uses when they think they're choosing something that looks cool, when in fact they're doing the complete opposite (see the wedding invitations your sister designed for you). In the off chance you're not sure what Papyrus looks like, here's a sampling:

Here's the same font, Papyrus, used in the logo for James Cameron's Avatar:


...and again in the teaser:


What in the name of Pandora is going on here? Can James Cameron not afford to buy the font of his choosing? Why go with the freebie? I know we're in a recession, but there are other ways he could have cut corners in this film without sacrificing the dignity of the designers.

Which leads us to the actual movie. Here's the trailer for Avatar:



Jigga waaaaa? Why is James Cameron sending the U.S. military on some wild crusade to kill off a bunch of innocent fairies and pixies? We're already fighting two wars. We don't need to take on another. Imagine the billions of dollars it will take just to get our troops out to their planet. Apparently they have some amazing natural resource out there. But we haven't even fully committed to our own renewable resources yet. I'm talking about the wind, the water, and the sun, my god the almighty sun. I thought we were trying to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. It doesn't get much more foreign than this Pandora planet.

I don't know what else to say. I'm exhausted. Maybe James Cameron will explain himself in the feature-length film, but I have serious doubts that this war is gonna turn out well for anybody involved.

Cheeze N Cracker Crisp - The cereal made with real Wisconsin cheese!

Editor's note: This is the second installment in a 12-part series on sandwich cookies and other assorted sandwich-like snack items.


Remember Cookie Crisp? How 'bout Oreo O's? These were cereals founded on the seemingly delicious premise of cookies floating in milk. Yes, it sounds like a good idea, but I was never all that into it. Probably because I don't have much of a sweet tooth. I'm the type of person who would rather have my birthday candles stuck in meatloaf than sheet cake. I guess you could say I pitch my tent in the savory camp.

So when the time came for me to create my own cereal for home consumption, I thought long and hard about what's missing in the modern cereal aisle. Believe you me, there are a lot of cereals out there. Which makes it all the more remarkable that no one else beat me to this idea. Are you ready? No? How 'bout now? OK, here it is... Cheeze N Cracker Crisp, yes, made with real Wisconsin cheese.

350% calcium daily value per serving.

You know that feeling after you eat some cheese and crackers and all you want is a tall glass of milk to wash it down? It's like you can't have one without the other. And that's what makes Cheeze N Cracker Crisp so perfect. It's what you've always wanted in a cereal. You just didn't know it until now.