It's not just Costco, I guess.

I was out at Taco Bell, having lunch, wearing my Sounders FC shirt, because it's hella comfortable. A lady and her two kids walk in. One of them points at me and says:

Look, mom! A soccer ball!

Apparently, since I cut off my "long hairs", now all anyone can see is my big round head.

Who is having sex?

OH MY GOD BEAR IS HAVING SEX, HOW CAN THIS BE?

"Are they playing?"

Who is pole dancing?

OH MY GOD BEAR IS POLE DANCING HOW CAN THIS BE?

Who is doing kung fu?

OH MY GOD BEAR IS DOING KUNG FU HOW CAN THIS BE?

YNTE Movie Night: I'm not even sure this counts as a movie edition

...but since it was two and a half hours, I'm counting it.

For better or worse, "Lost" is over.

There will be spoilers ahead, so if you worry about that sort of thing you should probably stop reading.

The finale was pretty much your standard Lost fare. There were more questions than answers, the whole thing was left pretty ambiguous so that the internet could argue over what "REALLY" happened.

Basically, this season, they've been flipping back and forth between two different timelines. The one on the island and the "flashsideways", a world where their plane had never crashed on the island, and they all went on to eventually live pretty swell lives.

In the primeline, most of the cast is dead prior to this episode, but the surviving members fight and eventually kill the black smoke monster. Everyone (except for Jack, Hurley, and Ben) escape on a plane, even though they have no way of knowing where the island is and where civilization is in relation to it. Hurley is put in charge of the island, Evil Ben becomes his chief advisor, and Jack bleeds to death alone in the woods.

In the sideways world, it's revealed that everyone there has died, and were living out happy fantasy lives with each other before they "moved on". The entire cast (Even people who haven't been with the show since season one) smile and hug. It's basically a contrived plot point to give the show a "happy" ending.

The last two paragraphs took two and a half hours. There was a lot of filler.

It's important to point out that a good deal of the episode centered around the showdown between Jack and the Smoke Monster. They both believed that Desmond, due to his "special powers", would give them the upper hand. What are these special powers? THE ABILITY TO LIFT A ROCK OUT OF A HOLE.

It is perhaps also important to point out that Jack had to put the rock back in the hole later on, and despite not having desmond's magic rock powers, moved it just fine.

At no point was it fully explained what the island is, why it was SO IMPORTANT that it be protected, what the job of the protector really was, or what the mystical "rules" were that governed the job. They did spend a lot of time killing cast members to defend the island from the evil smoke monster who just wanted to leave, but couldn't due to the "rules". They also put a decent amount of focus on who that protector happened to be at any given moment, and how Hurley's first act as protector was changing the rules so people were allowed to leave now.

The whole thing was a big dramatic clusterfuck that took too long and only answered stupid pointless questions, while leaving the big important questions completely confusing. In short, it was pretty much like any other Lost episode, and kind of a fitting finale.

Did you see the finale and have an opinion? Leave your thoughts in the comments or shoot an email over to evan@jimmyandthehammer.com and I will post them up before the end of the month.

I now want Marvel vs. Capcom 3

Why? Deadpool is a confirmed character. I'm not much of a comic buff (or like them more than any adult should), but I know enough that he is awesome.

"Deadpool's teleportation device will comically malfunction if you spam his teleport move. Also, he breaks the fourth wall by beating his opponents with his health bar."

via EventHubs

Can I get that in Chinese?

So this week and next week, I am on phones duty at work, as well as performing odd jobs and moving furniture in and out of rooms and other things that the higher-ups don't want to do and delegated to us, as per usual.

Anyway, the phones area is in the helpdesk, where I normally work. But I wasn't doing helpdesk duties; instead, I overheard a wonderful customer come in.

"Can I get windows?" Simple enough. "Can I get it in Chinese?" Sure, we have a Chinese ISO for Windows 7. Yet, when the techs out there were trying to explain it to him, it was as if he didn't fully get what they were getting at.... every minute he would ask "Can I get it in Chinese? Will my keyboard work with that?" And other such things.

For an hour.

My coworker and I started off laughing at it, but about 20 minutes in we started feeling pity for the techs out front. They then proceeded to try to hide back where we were sitting, as it was a truly nerve-wracking experience. I feel their pain. It's almost like that time where I had the Indian lady having trouble installing the (obviously illegitimate) Office 2005 disk that was, as she said, "From my home country." It was actually office 2000, with a crack and the original torrent info. Trying to explain something like this to a customer can be... excruciatingly painful. After about the 50th "Can I get it in Chinese?" question, I think a little part of my coworkers died inside.

This one is destined to live up to "You Need to Eat," "adsjfhpiouczvn;alerth," and, "But will it run Crysis?"

Reptil is not a superhero

As you likely already know. I like comic books a lot. Perhaps more than any adult should. As such, I pretty much look the other way at the bizarre superpowers some people have. Mild precognition and the proportionate strength of a spider? Sure. Near unlimited healing factor so powerful it has at one point regrown an entire body (including the adamantium skeleton that had to be surgically added) from a single cell? A bit of a stretch, but these are superhero comics. Bizarre superpowers come with the territory.

But there's a point where it get to be too much, even for me.

I'm refering to Reptil. His superpower is the ability to turn any part of his body into any part of any dinosaur. You may think that he would use this for awesome purposes like turning all of his body into all of a t-rex, or switching his arms for velociraptor arms, his head for a triceratops head, plus a spiked tail and pterodactly wings ALL THE TIME. He does not.

He does not. His most common form is "little kid with raptor arms" which seems terribly impracticle. The only time he really deviates from this is when he puts stegosaurus blades on his feet so he can ice skate. or get tyrannosaurus eyes for good eyesight. I AM NOT KIDDING.

It was okay, because the character had been created for the Super Hero Squad Show, wich is for elementary school kids, so it kind of got a pass. But now Reptil is coming to comic books, in a mainline avengers title. FOR ADULTS.

Marvel: WHAT THE HELL?

The Riddles - SOLVED

...but not by any of you mooks.

1) Michael's snack is bad for the super-thin

The Michael in question here, is Michael from Burn Notice, who fans of the show will know, has a fondness for yogurt.
So what does yogurt, being bad and the super thin reference? A recent xkcd (newest as of the riddle's posting):


2) A very hungry monkey completes the future

The monkey in question is Jimmy, from THE GREATEST WEBCOMIC EVER


But just how hungry is he? Hungry enough to Eat a World?

Jimmy Eat World has an album called Futures, the last track of which is "23":



3) Green, though not my favorite, is often referenced

This one was just a reference to my phone number.

Overall riddle solution: Today is my 23rd birthday.

Really, the whole thing was just an elaborate way for me to say "How could you forget my birthday, Matt? I even reminded you ahead of time!" but then he had to ruin the whole thing by REMEMBERING. WHAT A JERK.

Happy Birthday Evan!

Happy birthday Evan! To commemorate this wonderous occasion, I am giving you a picture of a pizza, but it's actually a cake. I have no idea how it tastes though, I just googled pizza cake and this is what came up. It probably tastes like both.

Also, as an added gift, I am publicly remembering your birthday... in the past!

The similarity is remarkable

I've been a big Evanescence fan for a long time, mainly because they named their band after me. Just a few days ago I did a wikipedia search to see if they had a new album coming out soon, and found that they had one coming soon, but there still wasn't a lot of details on it.

So imagine my surprise when I was driving and heard what sounded, pitch for pitch like a new Evanescence song.

It turns out it was by a band called "We Are The Fallen" that is made up almost entirely of former Evanescence members, just with a new lead singer. In fact, their name is even a reference to the Evanescence album "Fallen".

I'm really enjoying their first album, which was released today, but some have complained that it's too derivative. Is that possible? Can you sound too much like yourself?

Listen to their first single below and let me know what you think.

Things I learned that the internet hates

So I've been using these internets for some time now, and I've come to find that there are very specific things that the internet hates on, sometimes deservingly and sometimes not so much. Three things I know the internet hates the most right now:

-Nickelback

-Jeff Dunham

-3D Movies

Nickelback had at least a few songs that I remember not hating, Jeff Dunham is more talented at comedy than many the people ripping on him will ever be, and when done right 3D movies enhance/augment rather than be the focus. I'm sure there are worse things in the world, like actually terrible bands, people who aren't funny at all, and claymation.

Now, the internet also hates the RIAA/MPAA and DRM, which is justified. As long as they don't start hating people making and/or eating weird foods, I think we'll be good.

A series of riddles

Should the right person solve the following cryptic riddles, it will aid them in not breaking a sworn vow.

1) Michael's snack is bad for the super-thin
2) A very hungry monkey completes the future
3) Green, though not my favorite, is often referenced

Good luck! Answers will be posted once they no longer matter.

Cinco de No Contest

WELL... Taco Del Mar in Pullman didn't have the Cinco de Mayo 5 pound burrito challenge because somebody got sick last year. Thanks random person for ruining my chances this year! Here's a picture of me looking sad-faced that I could only get a REGULAR mondo burrito instead of the Cinco de Mayo one.

So instead, since I didn't want to break the bank -too- badly, I got 2 mondo burritos instead. Ate them both no problem.

But then I got home and looked up the Mondo Burrito, and it turns out those are only 24 oz apiece. So I ate only about 5/8ths of what a giant burrito would have been. I would have needed to eat 3.3333333333333333 burritos to match you guys. I'm thinking I could have managed the .333333333333333 part, but if I had to eat a whole other burrito, I may not have come out victorious. BUT I guess we shall never know... this year.

Five pounds is too many pounds

Once again, I valiantly attempted the Taco Del Mar Cinco De Mayo 5 Pound Burrito Challenge. And once again, I was bested by the mighty beast. I could make excuses about it being slightly larger this year, or the fact that it wasn't wrapped in foil, but the truth is, I just didn't measure up. I did a bit better than last year, though. Keep reading for pictures!

see? FIVE tortillias this year, up from 4 last year.


We got to wear fancy hats!
I was joined by two frat boy types who had NO IDEA what they were getting into. They tried using a KNIFE AND FORK. Didn't even get halfway. Amateurs.
Just barely in, and my buritto is already falling apart. At first it wasn't a problem...
...but by the end the thing was barely holding together.
This should be my new facebook photo.
At the 23 minute mark, I still had this much left, and while I still had energy and enthusiasm, I could not make myself take big enough, or fast enough bites to finish the rest. I could have pressed on and gotten pretty close but I wouldn't have finished and would have felt much worse the rest of the day.

So I washed my hands and walked away, defeated. I'll have to wait until next year for the rematch.

I'm looking forward to Matt's experience. He called me and let me know of a complication, but I think he was still going to make an attempt of sorts. Stay tuned for his scintillating report!

Today is May 3rd...

...which means May 5th is 2 days away. And that means one thing:

5 pound burritos

Who's doing it this year with me? Tom? Stevo? Umi? Matt, do they even have Taco Del Mar out in the arctic tundra you call your home?

I have a good feeling. This should be my year.

April Roundup: I'm too lazy for graphs edition

The only thing you need to know about last month:

TOM MADE A POST.

Matt can earn up to 50 bucks still; Tom can earn up to 12.

What's better than beer and bread combined?

Iunno.

In any case, we made beer bread 'cause we were bored. Recipe was pretty simple - 6 cups of flour, 6 tbsp baking powder, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tsp salt, 1 c butter, and a 22oz bottle of beer. (We used a Red Hook ESB I think). The reason it uses beer is a substitute for the yeast as a rising agent, and because someone thought it would be a good idea to put their beer in the batter. In any case, mix all together, bake for 30-45 mins in bread pan(s) at 375F, and eat fresh. Tastes almost like biscuits, would be good with jam or honey, or maybe even more butter!

In any case, delicious. It's simple, foolproof, and delicious.