Mr. Short Term Memory Visits the Hospital - SNL: A short essay

Given this skit happened in 1990, I believe I was in middle school.  

I love how memories work, pun intended.  Certain pop culture moments are connected to your past. I was a super geek, guaranteed that girls would never talk to me.  I hated attending school because I didn't fit in with the “cool kids”. At one point in my life, I decided to go my path.  I dressed and acted the way I wanted to.  I collected a few nerdy outsider friends as well.  We’d talk about VGs and Star Trek.  One of the nerdier things we’d discuss was the episodes of SNL.  From 10 to 21, SNL was in my life.  

Anyway, there was a rather butch girl named Betty.  She was tall, chunky, and unattractive.  She and I had a few clashes because she was a low-effort bully.  Because her life wasn't great, she found pleasure in being an asshole to everyone that didn’t fit the norm.  I think she hated me the most because I refused to change.  She never touched me or beat me up, but she used to make fun of me all the time.  

I sat in the bus seat with my friend Joey and we’d talk about the various geeky shows we watched on the weekend.  Furthermore, I talked about this skit “The Short Term Memory Guy”.  I remember acting it out, even doing the Tom Hanks voice. 

Behind me, I heard Betty asking one of the cool kids what I was talking about.  So, he mockingly repeated my nerdy story. So, Tom Hanks did a skit, mockingly doing a silly voice, on a show.  In return, I mocked Tom Hanks's mocking voice retelling the skit.  From there, one of the cool kids mocked me, mocking Tom Hanks's mocking voice.  We have a mocking inception here.  

I heard the whole thing.  At the time, I was a little hurt by this and got a little angry.  Why did they care about the geeky shit Joey and I discussed? Why would they intently listen to our conversation? Who cares?   

What was the point of this story? 

One of the things I’ve been known for today is telling good stories, both written and verbal.  I get into the story with voices and gestures, kind of like that skit. I give zero f’s if people mock them.  I am more comfortable in my skin to care what the “cool kids” think.  

This all came about due to this not-so-funny skit. 

High Anxiety- Window Scene Breaking the 4th wall or window.

This is simply the best scene in the movie.  I love that the camera is zooming in too fast and crashing through the window.  The characters look back in shock as the camera quietly backs out, embarrassed.  As someone was work stated, it is an actual fourth wall break. 

Deep Blue Sea False or Decoy protagonist

When people saw this in the theater, they laughed, cheered, and clapped. This was the moment after Samuel Jackson's rousing speech when people were supposed to come together and work out a solution to a problem.  Even the score and camera pretend this was that heroic moment.  As we zoom in, the shark shows up right on cue to dash our hopes.  Even the characters in the scene are destroyed by the misdirection.  Brilliant.  

That shark read the script and waited for the right moment to make its own reshoots.  

There is a growing trend of movies setting up heroes only for the movie to knock them down for greater impact.  So, what is this trope?

One of the famous tropes, of recent times, is the guy or girl we believe is the hero, but ends up dying midway through the story.  This subverts the hero we’re supposed to cheer for.  One of the best examples of this trope is Samuel Jackson making that heroic speech in Deep Blue Sea.  

Looking through the TV tropes, one can see that it is either the decoy or the false protagonist.  

From the wiki, ((In fiction, a false protagonist is a literary technique, often used to make the plot more jarring or more memorable by fooling the audience's preconceptions, that constructs a character who the audience assumes is the protagonist but is later revealed not to be.))

Scream is another movie with this trope.  Drew Barrymore was promoted as the main character in the movie only to be killed in the first ten minutes, They snatched her away from us.  Remember, Barrymore was on the movie cover and promoted it as if she was the main character.  

Metal Gear Solid 2 is another story where the game misdirects us that we're going to be playing as Snake the whole time. Nope, we only play him in the first chapter.

The other story I remember this happening was in the delightful Cabin in the Woods. Remember, Chris Hemsworth has the moment when he was supposed to "get help" only to die senselessly...by accident.

Terms to talk about (Rizz Remix)

In the olden times of this blog, I used to go through new terms from the Internet and make fun of them.  I stopped doing it because blogs change and evolve.  However, I got bored and decided to dig this old corpse up again.  Some of the terms I looked up come from Google’s AI, while others come from the Urban Dictionary.  Just like old times.  

Doomscrolling: Doomscrolling is the act of spending too much time reading negative news or other content online that makes you feel sad, anxious, or angry. It can be harmful to your mental health.

In the past, I used to do a lot of Doomscrolling, but I don’t do it as much.  When things are too gloomy, I just go elsewhere on the Internet.  I move on.  As I have gotten older, I tend not to waste my time with harsh depressing news.  I didn’t Doomscroll the news about Trump and I simply will just move on with my life. I do more Pornscrolling…

Chillax:  "Chillax" is a slang term that means to relax or calm down. It's a combination of the words "chill" and "relax". Here are some examples of "chilax" in a sentence:

I hate this word.  I can’t stand it, but it is a proper term today.  It is a hipster term.  

Rizz:  “Rizz” is a slang term that describes someone's ability to attract people, often romantically or sexually. It can be used as a noun or a verb, for example, “to rizz up” means to attract, seduce, or chat up someone.

Rizz is the one word that perplexes me the most.  I kept hearing about it until I asked some 20-somethings.  So, it comes from the word charisma.  Are we so lazy that we can't even say the “Char” at the beginning of a word?  Is there a shortage of syllables for young people that they must chop it down to four letters?  I thought my generation was into adding “Z”s to words.  The more rizz you have the more ladies you can get.  I, for one, have NO rizz.  Never will.  

Echo Bunker: An "echo bunker" refers to an extremely isolated echo chamber, where information and viewpoints that contradict the dominant opinion within the group are completely blocked out, making it impossible for any opposing truths to penetrate or be considered, essentially creating a completely sealed off space for a single perspective.

This is what the Internet has become.  Think of Twitter where people block away one that has a different opinion than yours.  Discord is another site just like it. Discord might be worse.    

Jim Rauch has passed on.

Jim was one of those legendary TCAP predators. He worked for the University of Cincinnati. He was into music and liked to talk a lot—I mean, he loved to talk!  Jim had a lot of history and honors, but he threw it all away.  

When you watch his two-hour integration, he experiences a wide range of emotions and stories. The arrest happened in Highland Heights, Kentucky, near the Cincinnati border. Chris Hansen never interviewed him, though the cameras caught him being handcuffed. Remember that Jim rolled around Ohio and Kentucky drunk, looking for the decoy. He said and showed some nasty things to the decoy, too.  

Jim was an angry blowhard who thought he was smarter than the detectives interviewing him.  However, he dug his grave by talking to the cops without a lawyer.  The entire interview is an amusing journey through his life.  Due to most of his police footage being released, he became an Internet legend.  There are prank calls and analysts of this guy out there.  Since he was a boomer, he wasn’t aware of his Internet fame.  We know this because Jim had someone called his house and talked to him.  

He succumbed to his long-term illnesses and passed away in October. He’s brought many laughs, but time has passed, and I can’t feel bad for him. 

Revisiting The Channel Awesome Document

I found this dude on a KF page.  

This commentary is very good.  I used to like and respect the Channel Awesome crew.  When I was younger, I wanted to be like these guys.  As I have gotten older, I have seen them as entitled and out of touch with reality.  These kids who got out of high school made it big in the salad days of the Internet.   While flawed, CA did bring some attention to these reviewers.  They would come around and attack the very site that helped them become Internet famous.  

A great many of these guys never had a real, butt-kicking job, so the old CA document seems petty and foolish.  These CA content creators needed to get their hands dirty with real jobs to be thankful for the great jobs they had during the golden years of the Internet.  

As I have gotten to more about many of these former CA, I find them to be annoying.  I think it has more to do with social media.  Even when their fame is waning, they look down upon getting a real job. We all have to do it.

Remember Spoony.

Side Note: My favorite entitled former CA member is Film Brain.  I liked his negative reviews, but he’s changed into a more positive reviewer and moved away from what made him amusing, funny, and popular.  His old videos were getting between 90-150K, and now they are between 2-9K views.  It reminds me of my shitty ass blog.  This blog was getting crazy numbers in the 2000s.  Good thing I didn’t make this my living.  Right, Film Brain?  

Die hard 3| Water Jug Puzzle

At work, I mentioned the water jug puzzle from Die Hard: With a Vengeance.  It was one of those puzzles that I could not figure out even after the scene.  We discussed it and came up with the solution after the time limit.  This scene is one of the reasons I love Die Hard 3 so much.  

The movie wasn’t supposed to be a Die Hard movie.  Jonathan Hensleigh wrote the script Simon Says as a standalone movie.  Wanting to go in a different direction, they commissioned the script for the Die Hard franchise, with some major changes to the second and third acts.  When you go back and watch DH3, please take notice of the tone shift after the explosion in the subway.  The movie goes from a mystery thriller to a full-blown Die Hard movie.  It even reveals its connections to the first movie. 

Tina Peters 2 of 2

Why throw away your entire life over a lie  

County Clerk in a county in Colorado.  There was an audit done in her county and no issues were reported.  She started to believe there were problems with the voting machines and took it upon herself to look into matters.  In stealth mode, she brought in a spy to copy hard drives and other information.  Get this, when it happened, she ordered the cameras to be turned off during the heist.  

She let a former pro-surfer/CEO into the building to record and copy sensitive documents.  Yes, she brought in a former surfer for a heist.  The data ended up on the Internet with passwords and names.  In this orgy of stupidity, the fellow clown, My Pillow CEO, is mixed into this mess.  

During her sentencing, she went completely off the rails. You have to see that video because she talks more about the fake votes than about herself. Despite the facts, she still believes she is a hero.  

While she is sentenced to nine years, I don’t think she will be there that long.  Plus, she will attempt to do right-wing interviews and podcasts in prison.  Trust me, grifters are sweeping for her.  The best part is that she is going to a state prison and not a federal prison.  That means she can get a pardon from Trump if he gets re-elected.  

Did Juliette Lewis leave Xenu?

I am finishing up Peters' story, but I wanted to add a post about a Scitenotist or a former one.  Juliette Lewis, an actress who has been in hundreds of things, has left Scientology.  She fled that stupid religion back in 2021 and I didn't know it.  Given it was Covid season, it was overlooked.  Lewis was a hardcore Scientologist right along with Danny Masterson and Jason Lee.  She probably spent millions to reach a high level of OT on their bridge, and she walked away from it.  

Can she leave?

However, some people claim that she has not left Scienigyu.  So, is all this a lie?  

Tina Peters part 1 of 2

"Get out of my pants" Tina, no one wants to get into your pants.

Tina Peters is a misguided and entitled person.  The video above is of her being arrested. She goes full Karen in her arrest. The more I look into this crazy woman, the more silly shit I find about her and the big lie.  The story is insane and payback is a bitch. Her story is so unreal that I have to break it up.  She is the model of people believing in bullshit. As much as I have problems with the left, the right has just as many stupid people.

Even her freaking age is funny.  She just turned 69 (hee-hee).  

Taken from her Wiki, I learned she received a non-credited degree in holistic nutrition.  Red flag one.  Her degree comes from a correspondence school—red flag two.  Her fake-ass degree came from the fake-ass school of Clayton College of Natural Health.  It was so “natural” that it went out of business in 2010 with many lawsuits.  The school was a joke, so she fit right in there.  She took the right-wing version of gender studies that is plaguing the left.  

Oh, did I mention that she was also involved in multi-level marketing too?  Yep, a flimflam woman. 

Darrell Brooks 2.0

What a clown.  This guy went completely nuts and drove through a barricade to a parade.  He was trying to pull a Darrell Brooks.  Luckily, he didn’t hurt or kill anyone.  The best part is that he recorded the entire incident on his dashcam.  

This guy, who looks like a skinnier Alex Jones, is named Sidney Mecham.  Yes, it is a stupid name.  He is also a sexual predator.  This makes it strange because Darrell Brooks is also a predator, a child predator.  

I love that he calmly takes hits off his vape while evading the police.  This POS got five years in prison.

Star Trek: The Next Generation 1x1-2 Encounter at Farpoint

Watching these young people watch old-school Trek brings back memories.  I love that new people are entering one of my favorite universes.  While I can’t get through Discovery, I like some of the new Trek stuff, but the Berman and Gene Star Trek has a warm place in my heart.  I left a long-winded comment on a first-time watcher of TNG about all the issues BTS on the first two seasons of TNG.  

TNG was my way gateway away from the terrible childhood I had.  Because I had so many issues growing up, TNG was a shining moment that kept me going, and I love that younger people are starting to get into the deeper meanings of Trek.  

Gene screwed that show over with his ego, drug abuse, and decaying health.  It is lucky that TNG even got a second season.  As much as he tried to protect TOS, Gene became TNG’s worst enemy.  

I just love watching these people watch Trek for the first time. 

FULL Sarah Boone on Nickelodeon Game Show- Florida Suitcase Killer

I haven’t talked about the suitcase killer, but she is close to my age.  

Here is a young Sarah Boone, the suitcase killer, in a Nickelodeon game show back in the 90s.  This bright-eyed, fresh-faced, high-wearing blue jeans girl would become a bitter and entitled killer. In the video, you can tell she just wants to shove the game show host into a purse or a travel bag.  Maybe, it is her thing.  

Anyway, this game show was called Nick Arcade.  It was a video game-based game show.  You’d answer questions and play VGs.  Not a bad gig.  I remember this campy little game show, it is a tone-down Double Dare with stranger kids.   

I have so many questions.  Who was the chunky kid on her team?  Did she attempt to shove him into a suitcase?  Could he even fit?  I want to know. By the way, her partner seems to be on the spectrum. In the 90s, she liked to “check out guys and spend money”.  Now, she likes killing guys and firing lawyers.  

If her 90s counterpart saw her today, she would be highly disappointed.  She would mutate into this horrible person with no self-awareness.