Steve: Do you ever buy frozen corn dogs?

Joe: No.

Steve: This is my corn dog rant.
I like the occassioanl corn dog or two
I don’t buy them often, but when I do, I want them to be good

Joe: Naturally.

Steve: Everybody knows that things heat better in a real oven than a microwave, but if you’re in a hurry, you use the microwave.
Every box of corn dogs I’ve ever bought has had microwave instructions on it.
Not one time has a corn dog survived the microwave.
So you know what I’ve decided?
YOU CAN’T COOK CORN DOGS IN THE MICROWAVE!
Why the heck do they put microwave instructions on a product that can’t be cooked in a microwave?
‘Cuz here’s the thing
Whatever part of the corn dog is on the bottom is going to be ice cold while the part on top gets too hot to eat.
Flipping it in the middle of cooking never works because they’re round and they roll.
So there’s always going to be part of the corn dog that’s ice cold.
Unless you leave it in the microwave ten seconds too long.
Then the whole thing explodes.
And most of the time they end up half exploded and half cold.

Joe: Somewhere in Haiti, there’s a starving child who totally agrees with you.

Steve: I should just use my oven.

Joe: He really sympathizes with your problem and he’s going to pray for you.

Steve: Haitians get all the sympathy.

Joe: He marks your problem as one of the top ten to come up today, somewhere between his grandmother’s death and his lack of clean water.
Champ.
Anyway, I’m out, time to go be a husband/father in person.

Steve: Ever since you turned democrat, you’re no fun to talk to

Steve: Wow. You really have a lot of bitterness about Greek myths.
Were you forced to read the Illiad when you were six or something?

Joe: Am I wrong?
Are there warm and cuddly Greek myths not retold by Disney?

Steve: Um…
That’s like… being right and wrong at the same time
Obviously Greek myths are really dark. Most mythologies are.
But… like… are you okay?

Joe: What?

Steve: You seem personally offended by it.
Like Greek myth raped your mom or something.
Wait… are you a demigod?

Joe: I am Zoul

Steve: The minion of Gozer?

Joe: You’re the minion.

Steve: Your mom’s a minion.
Minion of Jesus.

Steve: Also, I’m going to adjust your extremely venomous post so that terrible trailer is embedded instead of linked.
Did you see the first Clash of the Titans?

Joe: Yes.

Steve: Were you with me?
That movie was BAAAAADDDDDDD.
But the kind of bad that I sometimes like to watch just to make fun of it.

Joe: I saw it at the Grove with friends.
not with me
you

Steve: …
Did you just get me confused with yourself?

Joe: Kinda.

Steve: Dammit. We all knew this day would come. I’d better grow my beard out again.

Joe: See the Hobbit trailer yet?

Steve: No.
But something else momentous just happened.
After being away for six years…
Jonathan just came back and took down the comic strip he hung on my fridge.

Joe: Let’s pause a moment.
……………..
And now a new era begins.

Steve: So Joe.
I think we should have a goal.
And that goal should be Godzilla.
We should spend the year building up our tolerances.
And then close out with a two-weekend Godzilla marathon.
There are 22 of those.
We could 11 each weekend.
And then collapse and die.

Joe: I hate you and I totally agree.

Steve: How much do you agree?

Joe: What do you mean?

Steve: Enough that we can announce that as our goal now?

Joe: Yes.

Steve: Alright. We’re both in then.
Damn.
So much Godzilla.

Joe: You know what the worst part of that 2 weekend nightmare will be?

Steve: The American one.
Or do you mean the Monday in between?

Joe: No, the American one.
I have watched a total of 5 minutes of that twice in my life and regretted it ever since.

Steve: Yeah that’s the one where Godzilla doesn’t even breathe fire.
I saw it in the theater.
I was young enough to assume they couldn’t possibly screw up Godzilla.
He’s a giant fire-breathing lizard who can’t be killed.
Only in the movie he not only didn’t breathe fire and was easily killed.
He also turned out to be asexual and laid a bunch of eggs so that they could rip off the Jurassic Park raptor scene with a bunch of baby Godzillas.
In other words, they literally cut the dick off the most famous monster in movie history.
On the flip side, you know what the best part of those two weekends will be?

Joe: ???

Steve: Godzilla vs. King Kong.

Joe: True.

Steve: Greatest thing since Superman vs. Batman

Joe: Did you ever take sides in that fight? I always hated King Kong for even thinking he could get into the ring with Godzilla.
Giant fire breathing dragon with armor plating created from toxic waste vs. giant gorilla.
Didn’t seem like a fair fight on any front.

Steve: Eh.
It’s tricky.
I mean, monkeys beat reptiles every time.
But like you said, Godzilla breathes fire, which is something real reptiles don’t do.
Plus, in the original movies King Kong was 50 feet tall while Godzilla was 400.
So again, Godzilla
But I’ve actually seen that film.
And the explanation was that in the intervening years, Kong had simply continued eating the giant-growth berries that embiggened him in the first place.
So now he was Godzilla-sized.
Plus, apparently electricity makes Kong stronger but hurts Godzilla.
So the lightning storm helped him out.
Kong won in the American release, but my understanding is Godzilla won in the Japanese release.

Joe: Yes, that was the case.
Editor’s Note: No, it wasn’t. Turns out Kong won in both versions.

Steve: I say Kong I guess.
Breathing fire is nice, but nothing beats raw brute strength.

Joe: Except breathing fucking fire.
But whatever.
I was super emotional about it as a kid.

Steve: Gorillas are fucking strong dude
Haha.

Joe: Fire is hot, nuclear fire is crazy hot.

Steve: I loved them both.
Yeah but Kong can take it.
From his perspective, it’d only be a little bit of fire.
It just singed his fur.

Later…

Steve:I also have bad news.
The Godzilla franchise is even bigger than I thought.
29 films total with a 30th in preproduction.
Possibly to be released next December.

Joe: I hate you.
Well, that’s like three Saturdays.

Steve: http://www.deathbymovies.com/
Just posted about it.

Joe: Not sure that’s possible, especially in December.

Steve: I think we’ll be able to do it in two.
30 hours each.
Say we start at 9am Saturday, we’d be done by 3pm Sunday.
Then sleep until it’s time to go to work.
Hopefully we’ll gain the experience we need to pull it off between now and then.

Steve: Dude.
Dude dude dude.
You gotta do this new thing with me.

Joe: Mmm…does it involve lube? ‘Cuz if it does, I’m out.

Steve: No.
Worse.
I just had the greatest idea for a blog ever.
And I’m totally doing it.

Joe: Are we doing a blog a year now?

Steve: And I want you in on it with me.

Joe: What is it?

Steve: Once a month.
We sit down and watch an entire movie franchise from beginning to end in one sitting.
And blog while we do it.
We start with the Fast and the Furious.
We can do Rambo, Die Hard, Rocky, Alien, Predator, Friday the 13th, whatever we want.
But the only rule is we have to watch ALL of them.
No skipping Rocky V.
And we write whatever comes out of us while this is happening.
What do you think?

Joe: I like it, might actually be a good way to kill a saturday while watching our sons and letting our wives rest, sleep, shop, hang out, etc.
I think we should do one a month and agree before hand on which franchises
Obviously Rocky and Fast/Furious are in.
Probably Die Hard as well.

Steve: And Rambo
We can bring in guest bloggers to watch with us too
I did this once with Glen when we watched all ten Star Treks.
That was a one shot deal but it was hilariously painful.

Joe: Well, Star Treks would take two days, maybe three.
We should put things like Rambo and Fast between things nicer to our souls, like Lord of the Rings or something.

Steve: At the time there were ten Star Treks.
It took us from 1:30pm on Saturday to 9:00am on Sunday.
We were totally incoherent by the end.

Joe: Yeah.
I’d be blind and dead.
Also, I think we should end with Star Wars, watching them in the order they were created, not the order Lucas rammed them up our asses.

Steve: Star Wars yeah.
I might feel the opposite about the order though.
That’s one of the few franchises where we could have the better movies at the end.
So you’re on board with this? Because I want to start soon. I’ll probably create the blog today.
We could have a no pausing rule.
That keeps it from taking forever.

Joe: Right.
We will have to create a schedule and present it to wives as “you will have this Saturday off while we do something stupid with our boys.”

Steve: Agreed.
I think Sarah’s already on board.
She had this look on her face that was a mix of excitement and terror while she simultaneously realized the awesomeness of the blog and the horribleness of what we’ll have to do to create it.
The taking the baby element will seal the deal I think.
Yeah, Sarah’s down.
If Liz agrees we’re golden.

Joe: I’ll email Liz.

Steve: The next step is to start making a list of every movie franchise we can think of with more than two films in it.
We’ll probably run out of franchises we like early on.

Joe: True.

Steve: But we can probe history for things like Frankenstein.

Joe: That might be too much.

Steve: And Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name trilogy, which isn’t really a trilogy but is called one.

Joe: There are some very old and some very bad and some very bad old Frankenstein movies.

Steve: Yup
My parents a have a DVD box set
Dude!
I just realized.
If we get started soon enough maybe we can build up a following before Avengers comes out.

Joe: That’s a good one.

Steve: Then we can watch all the Marvel movies at my place and cap it off by going to the theater
It’ll be like a premiere event
And we can do the with Expendables 2
Watch one film from each actor, then Expendables 1, then go to the theater.

Joe: I don’t have time right now, can you create the biggest list you can and I’ll edit/update after I see it and then we decide?

Steve: Yeah no problem
Everyone’s about to leave me alone here anyway.
Later we’ll start inviting other bloggers over to do it with us. Cross promotion.
My sister wants to do our first one with us.
She’ll be in town on the 1st for Johnny’s dedication.
I don’t suppose you have Monday the 2nd off work?

Steve: Okay I shared a Google Doc with you.
I marked in red the ones I really want to do and put asterisks around franchises that have a new installment coming out soon.

Joe: Ok, I will look at it later.

Joe: Remember Total Recall?

Steve: The broad strokes, yes.

Joe: Remember Quato?

Steve: I think I see where this is going.

Joe: My son looks like Quato sometimes.
By sometimes, I mean I keep holding his hand waiting to remember the Martian mines I saw when I was someone else.

Steve: See, the great thing about Joey is, he won’t be mad at you for saying that.
BTW, we are planning to make Joey and Johnny Danger fight on Saturday, right?

Joe: …. OF COURSE NOT….*whispering* yes

Steve: See, what we’ll do is.
We’ll just lay them next to each other..
Our wives won’t know they’re fighting unless we tell them.

Joe: Perfect.
Also, they won’t know they’re fighting unless we tell them.
And throw them at each other.
And so forth.

Steve: Dude we’re totally going to throw them at each other.
You stand on one side of the room, I’ll stand on the other and on the count of three we both throw a baby toward the center at eye level.
It’ll be just like in The Shadow when the two bullets collided in midair and fell to the ground.

Joe: This isn’t a bad idea at all!

Steve: Agreed.

Joe: Joey farted all night long.

Steve: Johnny grunted all night long.

Joe: Joey too.
Must be all the heavy foods the mamas ate.
Joel said the same thing.

Steve: And someone broke into our car.

Joe:DUDE

Steve: All the cars on the street

Joe: Wow.
Really?
In Walnut Creek?
What did they steal?

Steve: From us, it looks like just the car charger for our phones and the miniphono cable we use to plug into the radio.

Joe: Well, could be worse.
Although, that’s a smart thief there.

Steve: They went through the glovebox and console compartment too and just threw stuff around.
Yeah and he only hit the cars that were unlocked.
Which was most of them around here.

Joe: Bastards.

Steve: Odin was very embarrassed.

Joe: Ha.

Steve: After spending all afternoon and evening trying to kill our family, he let’s the cars thieves walk right up.
Sarah’s cousin Eric is going to have nightmares about Odin. But somewhere some teenager’s charging his phone with my thing.

Joe: That totally sucks man.
I’m sorry

Steve: No big deal. $30 loss.

Joe: what’s the difference between an hdtv and an lcd tv?

Steve: HD just means it’s high definition.
LCD is liquid crystal display.

Joe: which picture is better?

Steve: LCD is a type of HDTV.
It’s not an either or.

Joe: Ah.

Steve: LCD would be as opposed to LED or Plasma.
But they’re all HD.

Joe: Ok.

Steve: LED tends to be the best
Though some people like plasma for some reason.
I think Roemer’s solution was best.
Just go to the store and buy the one that looks the best.
Buying a new TV?

Joe: Thinking about it.
Not sure yet

Steve: Black Friday emails made me want to buy stuff too.

Joe: we’re doing all our shopping online this year, but the TV deals seemed crazy.

Steve: Yeah they’re immense.
I almost bought a new one myself and I have one.
I wouldn’t mind having one that works a little better, but then I remembered I’m poor.

Joe: Right.
I keep forgetting that as well.

Joe: True
I have, however, figured out a way to get Joey to poo when I know he’s trying not to.

Steve: How?

Joe:: You know how when you change his diaper you have to grab his feet to swap out the diaper?

Steve: Yup.

Joe:  If you kind of work his legs like an old school water pump Joey will let loose after a few minutes.
Did it the other night.
I knew he had to go, but wasn’t going, so I just worked his legs a bit and he let the fuck loose like you wouldn’t believe.

Steve: Geez dude.
No fucking way am I going to do that.

Joe:  I don’t do it with any regularity, but at 2am when I know he has to shit, I’ll take a triple diarea shot over sleeplessness.

Steve: If the kid wants to hang onto his poop, he can have it.
I have to say though. That’s so twisted I kind of want to try it anyway.
Dude the most amazing thing happened.
We’re staying with Sarah’s parents for the week.
Last night her mom offered to take the baby for the night.
We put the kid in their room and slept.
The entire night.
My mind was blown by how good I felt this morning.

Joe:  Wow.
My parents come into town next week, i’m hoping we get one night like that.
You know what the problem is with that though?

Steve: What?

Joe: You’re not going to sleep that way tonight.
It’s like eating one large meal a month and 1 moldy potato the rest of the time.

Steve: Damn it.

Joe: Sorry.

Joe: How’s Johnny?

Steve: He’s good.
Bastard drank five ounces at one feeding this morning.

Joe: Joey drank that much, then he puked.
I think Joey and Johnny have one of those “can’t drink a gallon of milk in an hour” contests going.

Steve: We’re in Walnut Creek at Sarah’s parents’ house. We have Odin with us.
He’s very concerned about all these random people holding the baby.

Joe: As am I.
Why did you bring the dog?

Steve: Because.
Dogs need more attention than cats.

Joe: You just wanted an 8 hour car trip with a big dog didn’t you?

Steve: Cats and tortoises we can just have my dad stop by and feed once a day.
The dog we’d have to board if we didn’t bring him. And that costs wicked green.
Fortunately, dogs travel much better than cats too. So it works out.

Joe: Please tell me you stopped in Oakland and yelled “sic ‘em” at those Occupy Wall Street turds.

Steve: Haha.
No.

Joe: Dang.
Then it’s a wasted trip unless you do it on the way back.

Steve: Honestly, I’m a little bit on their side

Joe: I’m on their side the same way I’m on the Tea Partier’s side.
I agree with a fair amount of what they are fighting for, I just think pooping in public parks is retarded.

Steve: Have they done that?

Joe: In NY they have

Steve: Morons.

Joe: I think they will accomplish nothing.

Steve: We’ll see. Protesting almost never directly accomplishes anything, but I think a good amount of the public has gotten pissed off along with them.

Joe: Also, how can you occupy Wall Street in LA/Oakland/Chicago?

Steve: Well they change the names.
It’s called Occupy Oakland.

Joe: Well, I think the public was pissed off with them at first and is now pissed off at them.

Steve: Partly.

Joe: Yeah, well the Occupy L.A. people have been protesting buildings with no bankers in them (namely my building) and making life a mess for middle class people who are part of the “99%”
So fuck them and their idiotic need for attention.

Steve: Ha.
Morons.
I guess anyone in a tall building is fair game.

Joe: I do agree that corporations, especially banks, are evil though.
So it’s not like I’m rooting for Chase or BofA.
But when the other side is a bunch of modern day hippies,  I don’t know who I’m rooting for.

Steve: Yeah.
Thing is, I’m usually the guy who defends corporations.
I was kind of nonchalant about the “corporations suck” mentality until I saw this one chart.

Steve: Someone put it on Facebook. It shows the average CEO salary vs regular worker salary in several countries.
That bugged the crap out of me.

Joe: Right.
Got a meeting.
Peace.

Steve: Right. Later.

Joe: Okay.

Steve: Whatever else can be said about Steve Boshear.
This Saturday, I put five birds inside a pig, layered it with bacon and Andouille/croissant stuffing, and smoked it all day.
Then I carved it with a 20-inch gold-plated bowie knife.
And when we ate it, it was better than anyone imagined.






Joe: Yes you did.

Steve: So looking back at our conversation from November…
The Gauntlet Thrown
Is there anything you’d like to say to me?

Joe: I believe I said others would be ashamed of you, but I will now say this:
Jesus, all your future children and the various Norse Gods who do not exist all honor your great achievement.

Steve: Thank you Joe.
You are a king among men.

Joe: It was a great day.

Steve: And we ate the hell out of that poultry-stuffed pig.

Joe: Dude, that part was amazing.

Steve: Dude seriously.

Joe: It was 70 pounds of meat compacted together and we ate the hell out of that thing.

Steve: When everyone left, I still had the head, shoulders and butt.
Nothing else.
Plus my dad has like ten gallons of beer in random containers in his garage.

Joe: We did forget one thing.

Steve: What?

Joe: The reading.

Steve: OH NO!
You’re right.

Joe: It’s fine.
I’ll post on Facebook.

Steve: Actually, paste it in here.
It’ll go up on WKJT.

Steve: Dude we had a bacon-covered meat log and a keg

Joe: True.

The Meatiest of Them All.

by Joseph Marchelweski

On the plains of Silarma, the great pig army faced off against the empire of the fowl. There stood 300,000 swine, snorting in a truly ruthless manner, waiting to devour their natural enemy, the bird. Standing just 100 yards away, the Empire of the Fowl crowed loudly at their sworn nemesis, shouting insult after insult. As they faced each other down, one pig stood head and shoulders above the rest. This pig balanced himself on two legs while resting on the backs of his brethren and defied the fowl to send their five greatest warriors to do battle with him. This pig shouted “If thy five greatest warriors can defeat me, we will all bow down before you and allow you to ride on our backs, serving you as our masters.”

“And what if you defeat our five great champions,” shouted a rotund turkey who looked more like a vulture than a buzzard. “If I can defeat your five great soldiers, then you shall watch as I torture them in front of you and then weep as we annihilate your entire kingdom.”

As the fowl leaders thought about this great challenge, five birds gathered at the front lines. Rock the Wise, Mallard the Brave, The Great Quail of Endor, The Cape Barron Goose and Wild Turkey Jim slowly marched half the distance to their enemy, realizing they were the murderous bunch the pig had wanted to fight. They began to squawk, calling out the pig, chanting “Where is this great hoofed coward who challenges us!” They quieted themselves, and then only moments later they felt the ground rumble. Both great armies began to tremble as the Five Fowl of the Great Empire stood face to face with Goliath, the Great Boar of the West.

Immediately sensing their flaw, the five birds thought of running, but their obligation, their courage and their duty kept their feet in place. Goliath laughed when he saw the fear in their eyes, sensing that this fight might last minutes, or even seconds. However, he didn’t realize these fowl were trained well in the deadly arts and desperately wanted the glory such a battle would bring to their fellow birds. Rock the Wise attacked first, thrashing the great pig’s knees with his machete. The Pig let out a squeal, and took a monstrous step back towards his own soldiers. This step quickly encouraged the fowl, who unleashed a combined attack Goliath could never have imagined.

Blow after blow knocked the great pig back as they battled. Mallard and the Great Quail used their combined efforts to slice the boar’s arms to ribbons. The pig bled on the ground, gasping for air when he was sprung upon by the goose. The Cape Barron Goose took his ax, removed three of pigs fingers on his left hand and ripped open a great gash on its stomach. Finally, Wild Turkey Jim ran at full speed with his club, smashing Goliath about the forehead repeatedly, causing a great crack that rang throughout the valley. The fowl, now sitting exhausted, waited to see if the pig would rise, or if they had indeed defeated the greatest enemy on earth.

As they looked at each other, they heard something startling; a small chuckle began to lift its way toward the heavens. Goliath was bloodied, beaten, cut and torn, but he was by no means defeated. He rose to his feet, stammering only slightly at first, and with one great blow with his right fist he punched Wild Turkey Jim so hard he shattered the bird’s rib cage entirely. In a whirl, he then spun his sword, removing the arms of both the quail and the duck so quickly, they didn’t even know it had happened at first. Goliath then turned his attention to the goose. The goose, brave as he was, ran full speed toward the pig, who caught the courageous bird with one hand, and then ripped its beak off.

Lastly, Rock looked at his comrades and shuttered in fear. Goliath raised his voice and began mocking all the fowl. “Oh great bird empire, home of such great warriors, watch as I not only defeat, but shame your worthless race!.” He grabbed the quail, whose body was marred by the pig, and held the small bird by the throat. To the disgust and horror of each fowl warrior, the pig shoved the quail down the hen’s throat, as the bird wept and begged for mercy. The pig then grabbed the duck, and snarled viciously as drool ran down his jaw. Each bird, filled with disgust at what they were now forced to witness, dropped to its knees and begged for this slaughter to stop. Their tears and cries were so powerful, even a few pigs ran up to Goliath, begging their brother to cease. He then promptly broke their necks, cut off their heads and ripped their own flesh from them, slipping their blooded meat down his own throat. lastly, having massacred each bird and forced them to eat their own brethren, the mighty pig took a deep breath and swallowed the bloated carcass of the turkey. It was with great pain that he did so, but he laughed deliriously the entire time, dancing around as if possessed by Satan himself.

When the carnage was done, the pig fell to his knees and stared at the birds who realized their fate. However, almost instantly, each creature, swine and fowl, smelled something sinister in the air. Their instincts took hold, and each forgot about their great feud, fearing a fate much worse than what they had just beheld. Suddenly, through two great trees, as if delivered by God himself, two men burst forth, and stood twice the size of Goliath himself!

Each creature bent down, kneeling at their feet, begging not to be made the main course of some devious human feast. The two men paid no attention to either army, focusing their attention solely on Goliath, who had immediately been sobered by the fear he felt. They lunged forward, grabbed the mighty boar, broke it’s neck and drug it back to their cabin.

Today my friends, today we eat the remains of the greatest battle in the history of the swine/fowl Armageddon. These six creatures we will now eat demonstrate the great dominance mankind enjoys over its prey.

Steve: That… is disgusting.

Joe: I think we achieved perfection.

Steve: Pretty much.
I’m not sure what else we could possibly have done.
Except maybe put the pig inside an ostrich.
…
We’ll try that next time.