66 posts tagged “simpsons”
This guy, George Monbiot, was on George Stroumboupoulos' show last week. And he talked about how Canada is a threat to the world because of pollution caused by the Alberta tar sands. The article is quite interesting.
The purpose of Canada’s assault on the international talks is to protect [industries that benefit from refining the tar sands]. This is not a poor nation. It does not depend for its economic survival on exploiting this resource. But the tar barons of Alberta have been able to hold the whole country to ransom. They have captured Canada’s politics and are turning this lovely country into a cruel and thuggish place.
I was posting a comment to an LJ friend about fish (!) and told him that, if he really wanted to see something nasty on the internet, to take a look at a two-mouthed goldeneye caught in northern Alberta. It is believed that pollution from tar sands development caused the mutation. The fish is absolutely gross and ugly and nothing like this mutant fish:
And I thought that Canada's major contribution to climate change was Terrance and Phillip's farts.
Apparently, Hans and Fritz (the guys who temporarily bought the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant from Mean Monty Burns) were wrong; Germany isn't the ONLY land of chocolate. There were some interesting chocolates in Japan, too. So I decided to try some of them out.
Over here, we have KitKat bars in chocolate. Pretty dull, huh? In Japan, the KitKat bars come in different flavours. Every time I visited a kiosk (on the subway or the train) or convenience store, I checked to see if there were any interesting flavours.
While shopping in the duty free shop at Narita Airport, I noticed that each city/ region is represented by a different flavour of KitKat bar. Kyoto, for example, is represented by green (matcha?) tea. Kobe is represented by Kobe pudding. And Tokyo is represented by...shoyu. That's right; soy sauce-flavoured KitKats. Interesting.
This flavour is "Kinako ohagi aji," or soybean flour covered rice cake. It was actually pretty good. This video came in handy identifying the different types of chocolate.
This was a bit more mundane (but nonetheless tasty):
I came across a few other chocolates. The Morinaga bar is plum vinegar flavoured; it actually tasted like a liqueur chocolate.
At Sumo Stadium, Homer and Bart are among the spectators. A sumo wrestler sprinkles salt on the ring. Homer eats a soft pretzel.
Homer: Mmm, fifty-dollar pretzel. Hey, what's Baby Huey doing?
Bart: [reading a folded piece of paper] It says here they throw salt
before they wrestle to purify the ring.
Homer: [looks at his pretzel, then walks in the ring to the wrestler] Spare
some salt, Tubby?
Wrestler: Tubby? [Japanese, subtitled:] The name "Tubby" is hurtful, as my
weight problem is glandular. Are you going to eat that? [takes
pretzel from Homer] Yoink.
Homer: Hey, that's mine!
The corn puff thingies were tasty, but not as hot as I would have liked.
ETA (11/21/2009): I found Japanese KitKats at T&T! Yayyyy! (Sweet potato and black sesame, in case anyone's wondering. If I can keep myself from eating it before it stops raining, I'll get a picture of Homer with it!)
...which is not a sequel to I, D'Oh!Bot. (That's the episode where Bart entered a battling robots contest, and Homer masqueraded as the robot.)
Today's Simpson's episode is a rerun (stupid World Series!), so I watched Battle of the Blades. Sadly, CBC has not seen fit to put Sanjaya on the show. Reality TV just isn't reality TV without Sanjaya. No one has rocked the ponyhawk yet, either.
There was some commentary about the remaining five couples from RandyPaulaSimon, uh, Dick Button and Sandra Bezic. I didn't bother watching it. It made my brain hurt.
Yu-Na Kim (current world champion) will be skating on the results show, hopefully not to "Pauler" music or anything written by Krappy Kara.
Ken & Jodeyne (James Brown's "I Feel Good") - I have no idea who either of them are. They did a nice flippy thing at the end and she stuck the landing. The judges liked them.
Shae Lynn & Claude (Stevie Wonder's "Superstition") - Shae Lynn looked like she stuck her finger in a light socket. A ponyhawk would have looked a lot better. Unfortunately, I was so busy mocking Shae Lynn's hair that I forgot to watch the program. Claude had a nice shirt on. The judges were relatively mehh. I think.
Marie-France & Stephane (James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World") - Enjoyed it, although I thought it relied too heavily on the lifts. The judges enjoyed it, too.
Interesting bit where Paul Martini was showing the guys how to deal with a lift gone bad.
Tuffy (Christine Hough) and Tie (don't know the song) - Okay. Relied too much on the lifts, too. I like Tie Domi, though.
Jamie and Craig - I can't stand Jamie Sale (she and David have given me serious hypoglycemia from their syrupy skating over the years), so I hate anything that this team might do. I actually didn't watch them because I had to take a phone call during their program.
ETA: Ken and Jodeyne were eliminated. I still don't know who either of them are. Since the Simpsons are in reruns for the next 2 weeks, I will get to watch next week, too.
I saw an article in the Globe and Mail about the Simpsons' 20th anniversary this year. Has it really been that long? Bart and Lisa should have moved out years ago!
And Marge is in this month's Playboy! I thought she hated Playdude, I mean Playboy. There was an episode where she trashed all of Homer's vintage Playdudes (Bart salvaged them and converted his tree house into the Playdude mansion).
Once again, I am missing Battle of the Blades to watch the Simpsons. The "Treehouse of Horror" episode aired early this year. Stupid World Series.
In the first part, Lisa and Bart spoofed "Strangers on a Train." They made a deal to get revenge on each other's adversaries: Lisa would get Mrs. Krabappel and Bart would get Miss Hoover. Only Bart actually killed Miss Hoover (and Principal Skinner, too). In order to fulfill her part of the bargain, Lisa would have to kill Mrs. Krabappel. Lisa decided to go after Bart instead.
In the second part, Krusty introduced the Burger-Squared at Krusty Burger. The cows used in the Burger-Squared were fed meal made from other cows (ewww!). When Kent Brockman took a bite, he turned into a zombie. Soon, the rest of the town turned into zombies too.
Part 3 was a musical that seemed to be a spoof of "Sweeney Todd." In this case, Homer was accidentally killed when he fell onto the beer tank at Moe's. The errrr, enhanced beer turned out to be a hit. And Marge found Moe less creepy after she had a sip of it.
Oh, and Kang and Kodos made an appearance, too.
Battle of the Blades is okay, but there's nobody really BAD on the show. Someone needs to pair up with Sanjaya. It's not a reality show unless Sanjaya is on it.
The shows were broadcast in the same time slot, so I did a lot of channel switching.
Mrs. Krabappel (who has the stereotypical miserable life of a Singleton - whatever happened to Principal Skinner?) got annoyed with her class and confiscated their cell phones. As revenge, Bart had the class collect as much booze as possible, and substituted it for her coffee. Mrs. Krabappel was fired for channelling Wing & Lowe, and Bart felt guilty. So he decided to help her with the help of a book called The Answer (a parody of The Secret).
The episode was pretty good, but felt like a mix of "Bart The Lover" (Bart answers Mrs. Krabappel's personals ad pretending to be a millionaire) and "Seymour Skinner's Badasssss Song (Bart gets Principal Skinner fired.)."
Bart has an iPhone or Blackberry Storm - how could Homer afford it?
Battle with the Blades pairs up female figure skaters with hockey players. This week was arena rock week. Sadly, Sanjaya did not show up to sing "You Really Got Me." So I actually don't remember what happened. (Note to CBC: get Sanjaya.) Next week is Frank Sinatra week, and Don Cherry will be a judge.
Anyways, Adam and Allison didn't perform "Slow Ride," so I have nothing more to say. I didn't vote. (I don't like Jamie Sale or Barbara Underhill, and I would rather listen to Archuleta music rather than vote for them. And there's nobody Vote for the Worst-worthy.)
I still think that Wing & Lowe should get their own reality show.
Comic Book Guy created a comic book starring "Everyman," a superhero that takes on the powers of every comic book he touches. (It was published by Bongo Comics, which also publishes the Simpsons comics. Matt Groening was quite happy because Everyman was making him rich.) He then negotiated the movie rights with a Hollywood studio, and had the option of picking the actor cast as Everyman. Homer blundered into the auditions, and A STAR WAS BORN.
The producers wanted Homer to get into shape for the part, so he started working out with a personal trainer (who was a name-dropping phony). In a miracle only achievable by animation, Homer became as ripped as Ned Flanders. Unfortunately, once the personal trainer left, Homer returned to his old form (undone by cheese cubes!).
You can get collectible Simpsons figurines with KFC Family Meals. Too bad I don't like KFC, or KFC Family Meals.
Homer decided to try losing weight the bulimic way, with a little help from Apu (buttermilk from 1961). It didn't work. So he went inside his trailer and refused to come out. (He wasn't as fat as he was when he became obese so as to be classified as having a disability.) The producers decided to try a little creative editing.
The producers made another deal with Comic Book Guy - if he could convince his legions of internet dweeb fans that the movie was the greatest movie ever, he could direct the sequel.
Overall, a pretty good episode. Homer was a twit, but not Jerkass Homer. Comic Book Guy was pretty funny (usually, he's annoying.) However, I wonder why the Android's Dungeon still exists. Didn't it go out of business when Coolsville came to town?
The Simpsons Archive has a list of all the Simpson family's vacations! I will have to bookmark it somewhere so that I can refer to it while planning my own vacations!
Homer Simpson may have to reconsider his dislike for New York City. Tomorrow, 12 Tim Hortons outlets will be opening in Manhattan. Sadly, I have never seen donuts with pink icing at Timmie's. There are many other flavours, though.
(Bart's chalkboard gag for the week.)
"There are only two commandments, and the other eight are just filler." So sayeth Reverend Lovejoy.
Speaking of Reverend Lovejoy, it turns out that there was a problem with his certification, and that anything he did over the previous few months was invalid. (Also, Helen's a hot tranny mess. Hee.) Which meant that Homer and Marge's re-marriage was also invalid. So they decided to get re-remarried. Homer wanted a rocketship cake, but was overruled. And Marge became a Bridezilla. (Exactly how could they afford the wedding? Didn't Homer finance his Mardi Gras parties with a home equity loan?)
And since when did Krusty and Sideshow Bob kiss and make up?
Anyways, the evil Patty and Selma kidnapped Homer in the hopes that Marge would dump him. (They later released him when Homer said that he missed Marge so much, he even missed her sisters.) Bart and Lisa found out about their evil plan and made them pay--for a new wedding reception. Marge got her blue roses, and Homer got a rocketship cake.
Overall, it was a very sweet episode. (Homer and Marge In Love episodes often are!)
So now everyone knows where I stand on the show. I wouldn't pick Hokey Gokey even if the choice were between him, Mikalah Gordon, and Janay Castine. Hokey has a decent enough voice, but he used his dead wife to pimp for votes, he wears stupid glasses every week, and he completely traumatized me on Wacko Jacko Week with his awful pelvic thrusting during the group number. Then again, Wacko Jacko traumatized me on Wacko Jacko Week, and he wasn't anywhere near my T.V.
Anyways, I am tweeting the show again. Tonight is Motown Week. The Idol contestants went to the Motown museum in Detroit and met Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy. Lucky them! And Smokey Robinson is this week's mentor.
Pauler came out in a dress that looked like she mugged one of Wing and Lowe (I'll leave it to you to guess which one). She was hitting on Ryan.
Megan sang "For Once In My Life." The judges hated it. I thought it was entertaining, if stylishly inconsistent.
My picks: Adam, Allison, Anoop, Kris...and Megan. (Everyone else was mehh, and Hokey needs to put the Go in Gokey.)
Homer Simpson would really like this: chocolate-covered bacon. Really.
