What I DON'T Like About You

Twitter is an amazing thing. In 140 characters or less you can express your views on any topic you so desire to anyone who has either chosen to follow you or who is following a certain hashtag (#). While I do feel hampered by the 140 character limit, I find it to be a unique challenge to craft what I want to say so that I can express my opinion fully within the limits of those 140 characters. No, I don’t tweet anything groundbreaking or truly thought provoking, but the 55 followers I have (it was only 54 until yesterday when Naughty Loving asked to follow me) get very sporadic and nonsensical tweets from me and seem to enjoy them. Prior to yesterday, this is what I considered Twitter to be for.

Amanda Bynes is/was an actress whom you might remember from the Nickelodeon show “All That” or from some of her other film and  television roles including “What I Like About You” or “She’s The Man”. She was never really a big time actress but was very cute and kind of funny. The thing that I noticed most about her, however, and what I truly appreciated  is that she looked like this:

 

In 2010, Amanda “retired” from acting for no apparent reason and since then has kind of disappeared. After that she had a small role in the Emma Stone film “Easy A” but, acting wise, she has been mostly irrelevant and she officially re-retired in 2012.  

No big loss

A few months ago, however, Ms. Bynes reappeared thanks to Twitter and TMZ. She had a string of car accidents, drunken/stoned escapades, and altercations with law enforcement that brought her full swing into the world of the paparazzi and all of the fun that goes along with it. To defend herself, Amanda took to Twitter and began what I like to call the Amanda Bynes meltdown. She has denied obvious drug use, she has denied any kind of mental instability, and she has taken to calling people ugly. I won't go into her various tweets because, simply, there isn't enough room in this blog to fully describe the insanity. Just know that the chick is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Given how she looked in the picture above though, I could understand the “ugly” references, but she has also become obsessed with her own looks and has had surgery to correct what she thought was wrong. As a result, she now looks like this:

 

And this

Why would anyone do that to themselves?

 

Now, I love crazy chicks. My obsession with Britney, Mariah, and LiLo (and to some extent my lovely wife) are examples of this. I don’t even mind if you go off the deep end a little bit, a la Britney, and shave your head. But poor Amanda has gone and totally disfigured what was really a very pretty face. On top of that, she’s still calling people ugly.

That's fine. To each their own.

I was okay with that until she referred to a picture of Drake (couldn’t name one of his songs if I had to) with a tweet that I was going to repost here, but has since been deleted from her account. In a nutshell, she claimed that they must have photoshopped  a picture of him to cover up his Downs Syndrome eyes. Drake does not have Downs Syndrome and, for some reason and I have zero idea why, that sent me over the edge.

Which brings us back to Twitter.

Since she posted this on Twitter I took it upon myself to respond to her via the same format to make her aware of my displeasure for that tasteless Downs Syndrome comment. This is what I wrote:

oReply

oRetweet Retweeted

oDelete

@AmandaBynes you are a horrible person and are getting uglier by the minute. NO amount of surgery can cure the ugliness in your soul.

 

After that, I was happy with myself. I don't know why as she has over 2 million followers and I'm sure that just one tweet from me would more than likely go unnoticed, but I felt good knowing that I made a stand. But then it started to get to me that she probably wouldn't see that tweet. What good would my stance do if it would go unnoticed by its intended target?

That is when I made it my goal to get blocked by Amanda Bynes

I've seen this happen before. One of my favorite follows on Twitter is @JennyJohnsonHi5 and she has made a career out of taking tweets from the likes of Kim Kardashian and Chris Brown and replying to them with wit and gnarling teeth to the point where they got sick of her and blocked her from posting to their account. I see no harm in calling out idiots who post idiotic things and pointing out that idiocy for others to see. It's the American way of doing things. As a result, I decided to do my patriotic duty and get blocked myself.

Seeing as Amanda has over 2 millions followers who are probably posting to account on a fairly regular basis, I knew my tweets would have to be quick and sharp. They would need to show up on her feed in rapid succession so that she recognized my name and the smiling picture of me in the upper left hand corner. I then began about the process of posting the following tweets to Amanda Bynes

      

@AmandaBynes saw an old show that you were on, but then realized I was actually watching my neighbors ugly dog dry humping a dead squirrel. 

 

@AmandaBynes I thought you were AWESOME in the title role in Mask.

 

@AmandaBynes if you had to pick between being ugly or having your career be over, which one would you... oh, nevermind. #bothtrue

 

@AmandaBynes Knock knock

                             Who's There?

                             Amanda Bynes

                             Amanda Bynes who?

                             Exactly

 

@AmandaBynes you know that movie you were in about that thing? The one where you were pretty and really nailed he role? Yeah, me neither.

 

@AmandaBynes If an "actress" retires from acting and no one is around to give a crap, does the sound of her bombing movies make a sound?

 

Can't wait for @AmandaBynes rap album 2 drop. SOMETHING needs to replace North West as the worst thing 2 come out of a "celebrity" this year

 

 

At this point I was still able to post to her account so I knew that I had not been blocked. I needed to step up my efforts. I needed to hit her where it hurts. I needed to play on her insecurities. I needed to make her feel super ugly. That's when I invented #amandabynesmustache

 

 

Hey @AmandaBynes!! Let's get #amandabynesmustache trending. You do know about your mustache, right? No? #awkward

 

@AmandaBynes I'm having chicken and rice for dinner #amandabynesmustache

 

@AmandaBynes #amandabynesmustache is not trending yet. Surely with your beauty and star power you can help out, right? #amandabynesmustache

 

@AmandaBynes in an earlier tweet I mentioned my neighbors ugly dog. He's only ugly compared to the dead squirrel. Compared to you, he's cute

 

@AmandaBynes so is the dead squirrel. #amandabynesmustache

 

@AmandaBynes "you are a great actress. I hope that you get back on track because I really enjoy your work" said no one #amandabynesmustache

 

I stepped in a big pile of @AmandaBynes career the other day. I threw the shoes away. #amandabynesmustache

 

 

Still tweeting, still not blocked. It was here that I made my intentions known to my buddy Chris and he, understanding my odd sense of humor and need to accomplish this feat, made a suggestion to me in regard to #amandabynesmustache. Based on that suggestion, I tweeted the following:

 

 

@AmandaBynes I was watching Super Troopers the other day and got inspired to ask you a question. Can I have an #amandabynesmustache ride?

 

 

I was now becoming desperate because my time in front of a computer was ending and I wouldn't be back on for another hour or so which would break my flow. I had to let her know what I was doing. Hence:

 

@AmandaBynes block me and I'll be forced to stop, but then you'll also admit to the fact that you're aware of #amandabynesmustache #quandry

 

 

Nothing

 

My day was over and I drove home a little sad that I hadn't achieved my goal. I know that it takes someone who is really good at what I was trying to do a lot longer to get noticed and then blocked by their intended target. But I was only a novice. It would probably take weeks, if not months, to get blocked. As a result I started thinking of more tweets I could send Ms. Bynes to continue my tirade against her. I continued to think about this the entire way home and began to construct tweets in my mind that I could post in the future. I had one in mind but I had to craft it perfectly. I'm not a crude person and I would not resort to vulgar language just to get noticed. That is why the next tweet had to be worded exactly right to fit in the constraints of those 140 characters and my personal code of ethics. This is what I sent her when I got home:

 

Pretty sure the only thing less attractive than @AmandaBynes face is @AmandaBynes lady parts #amandabynesmustache

 

 

After that, I was officially blocked.

 

And it feels good!!

 

 

 ***UPDATE!!***

While posting this blog on Twitter I mentioned that it was a shame that @amandabynes couldn't read it. Upon doing that I was expecting to be notified once again that I had been blocked. I did not receive this notification. I sent her another test Tweet and it also went through. I am officially unblocked.

While saddened that my blocking only lasted less than 24 hours, I am bound and determined to make it a permanent ban. This is my mission. This is my goal. I'll let you know how it goes : )

Thanks for reading. 

Cub Scouts and Danny Tanner

I, believe it or not, am a huge sap. While this big manly physique and tough as nails demeanor might lead you to believe otherwise, I am, in fact, a sucker for the emotional moments in life. While most of the time I avoid anything that may emit some sort of emotional response out of me, it is the exact opposite when it comes to such moments with my son. I live for the fatherly advice moments. I yearn for the I’ve-been-there-before-and-here’s-the-sage-advice-I-can-bestow-upon-you talks. In a nutshell, I love the Danny Tanner moments.

For anyone unfamiliar with Danny Tanner, he was the character played by Bob Saget on the television show Full House in the late 80’s to early 90’s. Danny was a single father of three girls who, after his wife’s death, asked both his brother-in-law and also his best friend to move in with him to help him take care of his family. Regardless of the kinda creepy premise, almost each and every episode’s plot was resolved at the end when Danny would have a sit-down meaningful conversation with the troubled party and they would work out their differences while both learning a lesson from their encounter.  Was it cheesy? Oh yeah. Did I watch the show regularly? For the purposes of establishing a basis for this story, I’ll say yes. Either way, the Danny Tanner moments were inspiring to me and, once I found out my wife was pregnant, I couldn’t wait to have them with my child.

Now, my son is six years old and, while he is extremely intelligent, I’m pretty sure the Danny Tanner moments I’ve had with him in the past have been forgotten or ignored up to this point. I’m not saying that he ignores me, but his ability to sit still for a meaningful heart to heart and his desire to listen to his old man ramble on and on about anything that doesn’t involve Skylanders, super heroes, or the crappy toy he just got from his fast food kiddie meal box just isn’t there. As a result, I’ve wasted great speeches on topics such as the importance of family, the ability to rise above, and the need to not pull your pants and underwear all the way down to your ankles while peeing in a public restroom.  

It’s okay. He’ll get there.

That being said, last night was a big night for him/me – his first Cub Scout meeting.  We had gone to an informational meeting about a month ago regarding Cub Scouts and had purchased the necessary shirt, belt, poorly-sewn-on-by-his-father-patches, and Cub Scout manual. Last night, however, was his first actual meeting and I thought it was a pretty big deal. Now I, myself, had gone through the Cub/Boy scouts in my youth and never really got that into it as I had some really annoying older scouts that acted like the boss of me (and NO ONE is the boss of me. Well, maybe my wife…). But I was really excited for him because it was something that we could do together. We could go on hikes together, we could go camping together, and I could make his Pinewood Derby car for him and let him add an early coat of spray paint to make him feel like he contributed (thanks Dad). It was really going to be awesome.

After I picked him up from his summer day camp, we went straight home and got him dressed in his three sizes too big Cub Scout uniform. After taking the shirt tails that hung down to his knees and tucking them into his shorts so that it wouldn’t seem TOO monstrously big (he’ll be a scout for years and should grow into it) I stood back to take a look at him.

Man.

Ben’s always been my little boy. He just turned six a few months ago and it amazes me how much he’s grown even since then. I know he’s just a kid and that any stranger that looks at him will still see a six year old, but to his mother and me he is just growing so fast.

Too fast.

Anyway, looking at my grown up little boy in his Cub Scout uniform, I was immediately inspired to have a spontaneous Danny Tanner moment with him. I asked him to come into the living room with me and sit down on the footstool while I knelt in front of him so that we could talk eye-to-eye. I told him that tonight was an important night because he was officially becoming a Cub Scout. I told him of all the great and useful things he would learn like fire building, public service, and general gentlemanly behavior. I told him that when I was his age I was a Cub Scout. I also told him that when I was a Cub Scout my dad had given me a Cub Scout pocket knife and that once I learned to use it properly I was allowed to carry it to meetings and other Cub Scout events.

At that moment, I reached into my pocket and retrieved that very same knife and showed it to him (okay, so this wasn’t entirely spontaneous – deal with it). His eyes widened as he asked me if that was the same knife and I responded with a yes. I opened up the blade and showed him how it stopped at a 90 degree angle and then opened the rest of the way. After checking it myself, I showed him how dull the blade was and told him that we could sharpen it together once we learned how to properly handle, use, and store the knife. I showed him the can opener and I also showed him the ice pick looking thingy that maybe was an ice pick or maybe it was something more handy and useful that I wasn’t familiar with. Whatever it was, I was in heaven as I had his total attention. My inner Danny Tanner was reveling in this moment as I was really connecting with him and he seemed to really understand the gravitas of the situation. I then told him that the knife was now his.

That is the moment where he looked me dead in the eye and said with all sincerity “I don’t want it.”

Excuse me?

Did he not understand what was occurring here? I was handing him what I was hoping would one day become a family heirloom. I was passing something given to me by my father on to him. We were having an emotional connection. I was Danny freaking Tanner. I WAS DANNY FREAKING TANNER!!!!

“It’s too sharp” he said as he handed it back to me. “I’m scared I might cut myself.”

Oh. That wasn’t so bad. Not the response I was necessarily looking for though. I simply told him that he didn’t need to be scared of it because I’d teach him exactly what to do with it and how to take care of it so that nobody got hurt. I also asked him if he’d like me to hold onto it until that time. With a look of obvious relief, he said yes.

From that point we left the house, got dinner, and went on to his first Pack meeting where he ceremoniously received his Tiger Cub neckerchief. He also was asked to be a part of the color guard that presented the flags at the beginning of the meeting. He was well behaved and he was reverent. I was disappointed that the knife presentation didn’t go better, but was proud of him nonetheless.

After the meeting, we went home to find my wife waiting to hear all about his first Cub Scout meeting. After convincing him that we did NOT want to hear about the paper thumb wrestlers he got in his kid’s meal from Wendy’s he began to tell her about what happened at Scouts. He seemed pretty into it and is looking forward to some of the upcoming events. At that point, mostly for my own benefit, I asked him if he wanted to tell Mommy about the knife. To my surprise he lit up, came over and got it from me as I still had it in my pocket, and took it over to Carol. My wife, being the great mom that she is, put on her amazed face and asked him to tell her all about it.

“It’s a Cub Scout knife. It was Dad’s when he was a little boy.”

That’s all I needed to hear.

He had listened and he got it.

I was Danny Tanner.

Thanks for reading

Number One? Think again...

I’ve spent some time over the last few weeks reading some of my previous blog entries. There were some stinkers, there were some (many) with typos, and there were some that were obviously written just so I could say I wrote something that day. And, as much as I’d like to say that even the bad ones are worth a quick glance for just a few laughs, most of them were just god-awful and should never have been written in the first place. For that, I apologize.

On the other hand, there are a few that are my personal favorites that I believe to be undiscovered gold. Sure, Ben’s green eggs and ham was popular, but what about the one discussing my soccer abilities? And, while some of my more serious ramblings about our Veterans and our duty to our country have been well received, I noticed a severe lack of readership for my fictional tales of the Tro-lo-lo guy and Rick the cougar chaser.

The reason I bring this up is that on my blog site I have a section entitled Scott’s Greatest Misses. It lists, in order of popularity, my most accessed blog entries. It doesn’t mean people have read them, but it means they have at least opened the link, read a few sentences of this drivel, and closed the page soon after. Hopefully most (more than likely some, or even more likely than that, very few) have stuck around long enough to read an entire blog entry, but I’m going to guess not because sitting at the top of the list for almost the entire life of my website has been the same freaking entry:

“Damn you Joel McHale”.      

For longtime readers of this blog, you may be able to remember back to its earlier days when Joel McStinkbutt was a frequent topic of my disdain/homoerotic fantasies. It wasn’t until this recent perusal of my blogs that I discovered how many references I made to this jerk face/stud muffin. You could say I was borderline obsessed. Luckily, up to this point, I had moved beyond this and no longer felt such intense dislike for a man I have never met (those feelings are now saved for Chris Brown and Justin Bieber – but for totally different reasons). But that does not change the fact that my entry entitled “Damn You Joel McHale” is the most accessed/read blog on my site.

Yes, I know it is because I tagged Joel McHale and that anytime someone does an online search for him my article will be referenced. But shouldn’t they have to scan through about 23,187,554 other online subjects pertaining to “Joel McHale” before coming to my piece of crap article about him? Wouldn’t you think that something entitled “Damn You Joel McHale” written by some bald-headed nobody on a more than obvious blogging site be skipped over for anyone looking for the slightest bit of credible information on a mainstream star? Hell, in a quick Google search for Joel McHale, in the first 20 pages of results there were at least three references to Jerk McHussein discussing Seth Meyers’ boner and not one link to my article. Seriously, how is anyone accessing this?

But then it hit me.

It’s McHale

You see, I called Joel out on more than one occasion. I told him to keep his hands off the beautiful Allison Brie, but did he? Noooooooo. I told him to keep his damn shirt on, but did he? Of course not. I told him there would be serious repercussions for his actions should he continue on his path of sexy destruction and he defiantly did not heed my warning.

But it scared him. It scared him bad.  

It scared him so bad that he forced his show Community to take a brief hiatus at the beginning of last year’s season in fear of what I might do. It scared him so bad, in fact, that he started a rumor that the show might be cancelled in order to throw me off my tracks. In his defense it may have worked as, in its absence, I found other much more entertaining (you hear that McPoopforbrains? MORE ENTERTAINING!!!) shows to watch. Even after Community returned mid-season, I still neglected to watch it because, quite frankly, I had lost interest in both the show AND my feud with Just McHorrendous.

Well played, sir.

But after doing some (not-so) serious, very (not at all) thorough, and (absolutely none of my) time consuming research I discovered that while my “Damn You Joel McHale” article was the most accessed blog entry on my site, it was only being accessed by one man. This one man accesses it multiple times per week. This one man accesses it multiple times per week from a computer in Los Angeles, CA. And this one man who accesses it multiple times per week from a computer in Los Angeles, CA is the one and only – Steven Rothschild.

DUHN-DUHN-DUHN. (That’s the climatic music that plays when the villain is discovered. I really need to get a soundboard for this website to make it more dramatic).

Who is Steven Rothschild you ask? I honestly have no idea. But, if my spidey-senses are in tune I’m going to bet that it’s an alias. It’s an alias for someone who has an interest in me and my writings. It’s someone who has a vested interest in what I’m going to write about next. It’s someone who is fearful that if he steps out of line one more time that I’m going to follow through on my threats of composing strongly worded letters to the networks. But mostly, it’s someone that craves the attention. That someone is – Joel McHale.

DUHN-DUHN-DUHN (seems more dramatic now that you know what it means, no?)

I’m on to you McHale. More on to you than I ever have been on to you before. I’m so on to you that my on to youness is only surpassed by how on to yourself that you are. (??) You read that article because you’re vain. You read that article because you like the attention that I give you. You want it to be the most read blog on my site because it makes you feel good. But most of all, you read that article because you don’t want it to be over. You want my hatred/homoeroticism. You NEED my hatred/homoeroticism. Well, guess what McHardabs:

You’ve got it.

I will not have you besmirch the other great writings I have written about in my writings. I will not have some over the top diatribe about my half-truth/half-playful feelings for you sit atop my most read blogs anymore. While I can’t make other people read my other blogs so that it overtakes yours for the number one spot, I can call you out – once again – and make it be known that your secret is no more. I know you read the article. I know you read it every chance you get. And I know that by making reference to it multiple times in this blog (and offering links for my readers’ convenience) I am only drawing more attention to it and to you. That’s fine. You can win this battle.

I’m in it to win the war.

McHale, we live in a world that has blogs. And those blogs have to be written by men with wit. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Joke McHasbeen? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Chevy Chase and you curse the bloggers. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that this blog, while tragic, probably makes people laugh. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, makes people laugh...You don't want this to end. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me writing this blog. You need writing this blog.

I use words like blog, awesomesauce, randumb thoughts...I use these words as the backbone to a lunchtime spent writing something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very entertainment I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a pen and write you own blog. Either way, I don't give a damn if you want the blog about you to be number one!

It is my hope that calling attention to this will shame you into not reading it anymore – but we both know that is not going to happen. If not Steven Rothschild you’ll just find another alias to access it under. Maybe you’ll even find a different server in a different state or even country to access it under in order to go unrecognized. That’s fine. Do it. Just know that I know that as long as that blog is sitting as the number one most read entry on my site – you’re reading it. And as long as I know that you know that I know that, that’s good enough for me.

I’m on to you, McHale – like never before.

And it feels good.