Years End Top Ten List - FROM THE FUTURE!

Because the WORLD has demanded it, here is my top ten list of most awesome things from the year 2007. Oh, what? It’s still 2006? Well, Mr. Smarty-Pants, not according to my fax machine that appears to receive faxes from THE FUTURE!

(1) Me
(2) Me
(3) Me
(4) Me
(5) Independant, or "indie" Porn. Where pornographers buck the Hollywood System by producing small, low budget, heartfelt character portraits depicting the complexity of life...and then they screw each other...artistically.
(6) Me
(7) Me
(8) Me
(9) Me
(10) Battlestar Galactica

Boots, Tin Foil Style

Sometimes I make my dog walk around in boots that I’ve made out of Tin Foil, just so he learns to appreciate how lucky he is that his feet are not made of Tin Foil. There’s a valuable life lesson there. Plus it's hilarious to watch, it's like he's never worn shoes before. Stupid dog.

NOTE: Once tried on our cat, who later tried to murder me in my sleep. We both learned a lesson that day, vengeful bastard.

Possible Titles for my Inevitible Autobiography

A list of possible titles for my inevitible autobiography -

A. Jonathan Cox: Portrait of a Man whose wife tolerated him, though that was the extent of the relationship.

A. Jonathan Cox: Intimate conversations with a ghost who appeared sometimes as a werewolf and once: a vampire.

A. Jonathan Cox: Chicken puncher, a portrait.

A. Jonathan Cox: Once threatened to strangle a puppy wilst at a dinner party hosted by Stephen Hawking. Carl Sagan attended, though via Ouigi Board.

A. Jonathan Cox: On being Awesome, a memoir.

England

Sometimes I wish I were moving to England, just because I think it would be funny to see my pets in quarantine. Yeah, I think six months in a pet jail will show them how good they've got it. And maybe they'll stop with all the pooping/puking on my carpet...four-legged bastards.

Astronaught

Because of massive bouts of binge drinking, which when we get down to brass tacks is nothing more than small bouts of binge sobriety - I am incapable of spelling the word "astronaut" correctly. I insist on using the word "astronaught" in its place.

As it turns out, "astronaught" completely confounds the "Spell Check" function on Microsoft Word, rendering it incapable of offering any spelling suggestions.

The World's Second Fattest Woman Died

The World's Fattest Woman died recently. Somewhere World's Second Fattest Woman is eating a deep fried turkey in celebration. You're number one, baby, you did it!

TXT

Perhaps it's because I'm thirty, but text messages baffle me. I understand that using the T9 function (it automatically types words for you!) is thinly veiled witchcraft, but the alternative is a complete butchering of the English language, no - sodomizing of it.

For example, I have seen the txt phrase "ur" used several times in my life. Is this supposed to be "your" or "you're"? These are two completely different words that would ultimately baffle the receiver of my txt. It may further raise their blood pressure as they realize that they've paid ten cents to their cell phone provider, only to be confused by my message.

Clearly rules need to be put in place and from now on "ur" is "your", whilst "u'r" is "you're". Or you could stop being a lazy bastard and type the whole word like a civilized human being. Or, now stay with me on this one, you could actually use the phone for what it's supposed to do, which is call someone live and in person.

Also, anyone using "lol" as a cheap substitute for "laugh out loud" is going to get an IOU for a "PIF" which is a cheap substitute for "punch in face."

Feast

If you're sitting in your living room on a friday night, wearing nothing but your jockeys and replica mask of Sauron and you're saying to yourself, "my life is just about ninety minutes too long" then a good remedy is to watch the movie Feast.

The first minute and a half showed a lot of promise with neat/creepy super-8 stuff in the desert. It was artsy and interesting. Unfortunately at the 91 second mark the movie goes straight down the toilet and stays there for the next 88 minutes and 29 seconds. It's nothing but missed opportunities and bad decisions, this combined with a bad plot and self reverential jokes that don't quite connect makes for an aweful movie experience.

Horrible.

Just horrible.

The problem with horror comedies start with the movie Tremors, and to some extent Shaun of the Dead, where they take absurd, yet endearing, characters and put them in horrible situations. The comedy comes from how the characters react rather than the monsters that are attacking them. The runner in Feast deals with monster genitals and monsters humping. Hilarious...not so much.

The horror-comedy genre is a tough nut to crack and the people who made Feast just didn't even try. They weren't clever enough to make the movie interesting or funny. According to the dvd extras - they creators thought of the movie as 50% horror, 50% comedy. They grossly overestimated on both counts.

I think Project Greenlight should be titled "How to make a bad movie."

An A. Jonathan Cox Guide to Making Horror Movies - In action!

The super-producers of the Amityvill Horror remake and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake have followed the A. Jonathan Cox Ten Step Guide to Making a Horror Movie and are remaking the famous horror film The Hitcher.

In the new, tarted up version they've enlisted Sophia Bush (of the CW's One Tree Hill) and Zachary Knighton (of the WB's Related). At the helm of this fiasco is Dave Meyers - who is well known to Behind the Video fans because he directs rap videos for a living.

Anywhoo, I forsee a lot of Sophia Bush running around in the rain in a tank top. I also forsee 1st place in the boxoffice on opening weekend, and straight to my Netflix queue the next weekend.

Barenaked Ladies

As an American who drives an SUV and lives in the deepest darkest heart of Suburbia, it goes without saying that I am a fan of the Canadian Rock/Folk troupe the Barenaked Ladies.

In preparation for their upcoming new album I've opted to spend today listening to every Barenaked Ladies album in my iPod (an incomplete collection that includes Born on a Pirate Ship, Stunt, Maroon, Everything to Everyone and their magnum opus: the live Rock Spectacle) album - in shuffle mode. Then for dessert I'll listen them each in chronological order. When I'm done I may listen to some palette cleansing Alanis Morissette. I'm not sure about the Alanis though, as she's dating one of the two guys from Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place. I'm fickle like that.

What's that? Oh, thank you, my life is indeed awesome.