I’ll also have you know that he is performing tonight and tomorrow at the Punchline in San Francisco with other friends of RooftopComedy, Kevin Avery (of one half of Siskel and Negro fame) and Chris Garcia (of oh-my-God-are-those-his-balls-in-that-American-Apparel-video fame).

I’m sure you guys remember Reid Faylor, runner-up to our first ever National College Comedy Competition. Well, I’ll have you know that he just won The Funniest Person in Cincinnati Contest last week.

Production is busy cutting out and prepping Reid’s winngiest performance from last Wednesday at the finals, but until then, please to enjoy his semi-final performance from three weeks ago at Go Bananas.

I’ll just leave you with this.
Dreams really do come true.

Hot off the presses! We’ve been informed that Laurence Fishburne is indeed joining the cast of CSI! Our own Point/Counterpoint discussed this a few weeks ago.  Check out our groovy debate here.  I win! I win!

All angst aside, my hands down favorite scene in the movie was the immortal Von Steuben Day parade where Matthew Broderick, in probably the absolute peak of his career jumps on a float, starts lip syncing to The Beatles’ Twist and Shout, and incites the crowd to perform acts of mass exuberance. To me, it was pure, absolute joy to behold. I spent so many late afternoons mimicking that scene, pretending that I was indeed Ferris Bueller pretending to be Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago.

So thanks to the Comedy Central Insider, I’ve learned that on September 6th (two days after my birthday, natch) artists are recreating the iconic parade scene from Ferris Bueller’s day off in NYC! Happy birthday, indeed.

The protocol goes for the event goes:

1. Pick a character from the clip.

2. Show up to the parade dressed like them.

3. Start singing and dancing along like it’s 1986 when their Ferris float approaches. (This is the most important step: to get everybody dancing!!)

I won’t be there, because I live in California, and will be laser tagging, but this feels like the best inadvertent birthday ever received. I excitedly await for the post-parade footage. For more information, check out the Project Bueller Tumblr or the Craigslist Ad for the event!

My question would be, who would you dress up as from the parade?

In other news, I definitely want to thank Briana so much for taking the reins on this ship of blogging. Baby, I’m back!

PS: I never really even liked Subway THAT much to begin with. Subway to me is settling, kind of like marrying the first person to give you any time of day because you’re afraid you’re gonna die alone, or be hungry for lunch. One in the same really.

Click the thumbnail for the full-res version!
Click here for more elbow macaroni!

Generally, NBC sucks at pretty much all news-type broadcasting. Specifically, the 2008 Summer Olympic coverage, from what I’ve seen, is atrocious. And the Olympics could be such a great chance for the US to show that we can produce quality content with global appeal.

Maybe it’s the fact that most of the coverage is heavy on either American athletes or athletes with well known international gossip stories. Or maybe its the seemingly endless commercial breaks. No - these things should have been expected, are in fact part of a long history of Olympic coverage aesthetics. I think what I’m most annoyed by are the self-important “Chinese Cultural” pieces that are peppered throughout the event coverage. Perhaps I should have expected this? Well, I didn’t.

Let me paint the scene. Bob Costas, poor man’s Jimmy Stewart, sits behind the announcers booth during a commentary segment. Mary Carillo, poor woman’s Martha Stewart, sits opposite him and guffaws her way through another Chinese slice-of-life piece. Neither look like they have much movement in the small muscles of their faces. And when they’re both smiling through their botox at each other during a discussion of Chinese culture it kind of feels like taking your grandparents backpacking through Asia with you. On this particular night, the theme was Chinese cuisine. Carillo says something about China living up to its reputation of eating anything with four legs besides a table and everything that flies besides a plane. What? Is that a known phrase? If so, Google’s never heard of it.

Cut to Mary taking it to the street. The camera follows her through an outdoor market where she’s challenged to try various Chinese delicacies. “Scorpions?! Are these jumbo scorpions?!” she shouts at a vendor who offers her some. He laughs at her, assumably because she looks and sounds like an idiot. It’s literally 3 minutes of her talking slowly and loudly at various food service workers, picking at their food, and then making awkward faces at them. It’s embarrassing.

Cut back to Bob at NBC Olympics home base. He’s looking nominally amused, I think. And then he looks more than displeased when Mary busts out another scorpion on a stick and thrusts it into his hands. This is hilarious! Scorpions! These people eat scorpions!

Lets get back to sports, NBC. I want to see the American men’s 4×100m freestyle relay team celebrate their pool-side victory over the French. Again. And Again.

UPDATE: The Today Show is also broadcasting live from Beijing during the Olympics. And guess what they had on the show yesterday morning? That’s right, folks. Scorpions. When searching for the video of this to link to, I stumbled across yet ANOTHER segment on eating scorpions. We’ll be lucky if the Chinese invite any of us back into the country once we’re done.

Oh, and for more things that suck, check out our new What Sucks page.

Michael Phelps is HOT!
-Jen

Michael Phelps is an excellent specimen of a man…woo is it getting hot in here?? He’s pretty much hands down the best Olympian in history with, I think 11 gold metals and counting. They say he has an arm span of 6’7”….and don’t I wish he would wrap those Albatross arms around me! And have you seen those shoulders? I mean come on they are round and big and lovely….I wouldn’t mind taking a bite out of them!
The one issue I have with Michael is his teeth. Now, I speak from experience, as a former headgear wearer. After 5 years in braces, I had to re-learn how to swallow (that’s for another discussion), so I know what it’s like. But let’s get with the program Michael and get some orthodontia – I mean you have the money so it’s not a financial aid issue. If anything, take one of those gold metals and melt that sucker down and get yourself a sick ass grill! I’m sure Baltimore would love it!

Michael Phelps looks like a monkey.
-Briana

Listen, I’m all for hot swimmers. I used to hang with them poolside myself back on the swim team. And I’m not going to knock Phelps for his athleticism. He’s amazing to watch in the water. But all that aside, when that dude steps out of the pool and receives a close-up, NBC Olympic coverage style, I’m not exactly liking what I see. Thankfully he swims with a cap on, because otherwise those ears would create some serious drag in the water, possibly causing him his medals.
I don’t want to pick apart his face, I really don’t. The man doesn’t really need a pretty face – he’ll have no trouble with the ladies going forward. His real asset is his killer swimmer bod – which, coincidentally, he seems to want to cover up with that full length swim outfit he seems to be rocking more and more lately. Michael, do us all a favor and bring back the speedo. It distracts us from your monkey face.

Based on a concept similar to Morgan Spurlock’s “Super Size Me”, Doug Benson documents his experience of abstaining from weed for 30 days, and then consuming massive amounts for 30 days.  Since Doug is already a stoner, the 30 days of sobriety are just as funny as his 30 days of being baked.

Super High Me is just as much about stand-up comedy as it is about weed. The film has some excellent cameos from the LA comedy scene. Comedians Jimmy Dore, Sarah Silverman, Dana Gould, Zach Galifianakis, Bob Odenkirk, Patton Oswalt and tons of others discuss their views on marijuana, and one of them even smokes it on camera.

People that don’t enjoy smoking reefer will enjoy this movie as well. “Super High Me” examines California’s system of medical marijuana use and adds a much needed layer of seriousness that keeps the movie from being just a bunch of dumb stoner moments.

Go check out some of Doug’s clips on RooftopComedy.com, and add “Super High Me” to the top of your Netflix queue!