Top 8 Snarky, Jaded Websites

8. Cake Wrecks

Oh man! These cakes suck! We gotta let someone know! I wanted to order a sweet cake and instead I got a suck cake! I bet it tastes like a day old bag of cake shit! (Eds. note: What is that? {My note: ED, GET BACK TO WORK!}) Look, so some renegade baker/mom put George Michael on a cake. That's a pretty baller act of confectionery if you ask me. I'm not gonna hurt anyone's feelings over that. I might have a piece though. Like, the cheekbone.

7. FMyLife

Oh, here's the other thing about a lot of these websites... they showcase this new, weird trend of people making their failures super public. To me, this is both hilariously humble and staggeringly self-absorbed. (Eds. note: Too much consonance in this post. {My note: NO ONE ASKED YOU, ED.}) Wow... you have enough confidence to tell the world that your girlfriend broke up with you over the phone while sleeping with your brother. That's awesome. But you also feel the need to anonymously tell everyone. That's weird. And you don't really get anonymous pity in return. It's like howling "A DOG SHIT ON ME!" into the abyss. Where's the catharsis here? Oh my god, is catharsis dead!? All this time we were worried about irony...

6. Texts From Last Night

FMyLife to the next level, and by "next", I mean drunk. (Eds. note: Need to limit the "and by x I mean y" usages... {My note: WHO THE FRIG DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, ED!? STRUNK AND/OR WHITE!?}) And again with the weird, anonymous bravura thing. Entries usually fall into one of three categories: 1) Here is how poorly/confusedly I am texting... I am having an amazing/awful night; 2) Here is how little I remember and how many weird things I found in my room... I must have had an amazing/awful night; 3) I slept with an amazing/awful person. Okay, cool.

5. Look At This Fucking Hipster

It's at this point that I'll say... look, I obviously check all these sites semi-daily. I'm not hatin', I'm just trend-spottin'. (Eds. note: Really? {My note: THE SAME COULD BE SAID FOR YOU, EDWARD.}) I actually dig this site pretty hard, and this one time, at a party in Williamsburg, a dude turned to me after a particularly ridiculous-looking person entered, and that dude said to me, "Oh man, LATFH," and I laughed so hard Yuengling came out my nose and we high-fived. I'm fine with hipster-directed e-vitriol. That being said, it's 2009. This is no longer a difficult target. What's next, taking pot-shots at David Schwimmer? (Actually, can we?)

4. Fuck You, Penguin

Because there were too many Cute Animal Websites, they had to invent Fuck You, Penguin. It's a simple concept--cute picture, angry blurb about how the animal is annoying. It is as though the internet is screaming, "Look, we got Obama elected, can we just screw around with unimportant stuff for a while?!" (Eds. note: You sound silly when you speak for the internet. {My note: YOU SOUND SILLY WHEN YOU SPEAK!)

3. Awkward Family Photos

Yep, the 80s were a rough time for hair and clothing. So were the early-to-mid-and-okay-sure-the-late 90s. During this time period, there were some photos taken. Now it is time to laugh and thank god that we are all wearing Mad Men suits and sipping the finest brandy and shooting our bad-ass glocks into the air just because we feel like it. Oh wait. We are all still broken. Time has not healed us. The future will be awkward. Awkward is the only certainty. (Eds. note: I feel like we got off on a bad start. {My note: You're right, Ed. OH WAIT, NO, ACTUALLY, YOU BLEW IT.})

2. FailBlog

In theater, the rule is that when you cannot express yourself sufficiently through words, you sing, and then when song fails, you dance. On the internet, when you cannot express your awkwardness through texts, you tweet... when tweets fail, you post embarrassing photos. When you still haven't proven yourself to be worthless, you post videos of your friends trying to dunk by jumping off of rooftops and missing the rim completely. I'm not going to link. Search for it yourself. While you're doing so, meditate on how fun it is to be part of the New Lost Generation. (Eds. note: Preachy much? {My note: DICK MUCH, ED!?})

1. Peter and Rob Make Lists of Things

WE'RE BACK(ISH!), FOLKS! Yep, the other day, Rob was like, "Hey, it's our 1 Year Anniversary, except, actually, it was like, two weeks ago. Yay?" Then we cooked a sumptuous meal and watched a rom-com together, because that's what you do on anniversaries. Anyways, who's snarkier than us, right!? Heck yeah! (Well, except when I'm all, "Hey, here is a list of some things I made up.") And don't expect it to stop any time soon! 1 MORE YEAR! 1 MORE YEAR! 1 MORE YEAR! (Eds. note: You can't make me say it.)

Top 10 Most Underrated Films

10. Reign of Fire (2002)

Instead of writing why I love this movie so much, I just want to ask you all for a moment of silence for the fact that this was released in 2002. 2002! @))@!?! (That was 2002 in all-caps.) Gosh, seven years is a while. 

9. The Party (1968)

This movie got a little forty-years later buzz recently, when it was mentioned in like, every review of The Love Guru. (Either in the form of "This is not as good as The Party" or "Didn't we decide this sort of thing was a bad idea after The Party".) Well, forget it, because this movie is in another league. Peter Sellers (as Hrundi V. Bakshi) deserves every single Oscar ever for this performance, including the ones he didn't win for Dr. Strangelove. Far from the obviously awful, obviously awful route that British-guy-in-Indian-face could easily go, this film is sweet, subtle, and absolutely friggin' hysterical. Also, the original tagline was "If you've ever been to a wilder party than this... you're under arrest." Um, this movie has some sort of legal jurisdiction over similarly-wild parties? Double points!

8. Beautiful Girls (1996)

Aaaaah, I have dropped so much "OMG BEST MOVIE EVER" praise on this film, ever since two minutes into my first viewing of it. What can I say... get a cast of that-guys and that-girls, get the dude who wrote Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead to write the script, set it at a high school reunion in upstate NY, throw in Matt Dillon and a baby Natalie Portman... yeah, there's no way I'd go crazy for that movie. What, there's a "Sweet Caroline" singalong? Oh god, tell me where to go, I am already going crazy for this movie.

7. Starship Troopers (1997)

Really just for that moment when Neil Patrick Harris touches the gigantic bug's brain and yells, "IT'S AFRAID! IT'S AFRAID!" and everyone cheers. Oh, also, how did America not get that this was a satire on jingoistic recruitment films from the 40s and that the basic message is war makes fascists out of even the best people. I read a nice bit on CHUD.com that basically said, "This is the best 9/11 film ever made, even though it came out in '97." Yup.

6. Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980)

Okay, so it's basically The Big Chill before there was a The Big Chill. (Yes, I know, five thousand other people have made this connection already, but it's just true.) But here's my whole deal on that. They both have their merits. Secaucus 7 has long, rambly, banter-packed scenes that feel like actual conversations--ie; there's a 50/50 chance between brilliance and boredom. Chill has the laser-refined script and and the perfect score and the gift-wrapped ending, where even the heartache is the good kind. This last bit, incidentally, is my favorite thing about Secaucus 7--it deeply appreciates the "So... what next?" aspect of life. You can't just reconcile your loves, losses, and old ideals in one weekend at the lake. 

5. Dog Soldiers (2002)

So, by now, it's pretty cool to like Shaun of the Dead. And I see why... I mean, it's a perfect movie, after all. But if you want to make a deeper foray into very bloody, very funny films from the British isles, Dog Soldiers is a great place to start. The laughs to screams ratio is off the charts--which director Neil Marshall kind of abandoned on his next film, The Descent, but whatevs. I like werewolves more than cave-monsters, anyway. (As a grad school-bound 23-year old, that is exactly the kind of sentence I should stop writing.)

4. Kicking and Screaming (1995)

Again, this is a film I give pretty regular laudations to... for good reason. Yeah, you've got your "End of high school/college is crazy!" movies. Yeah, you can find a Baker's dozen of "We are adults for the first time!" films. Oh, and don't get me started on the billion and one movies that follow the "We have drifted for so long..." plot. This is the in-between of the three. A perfect triangulation. Oh, sure... all of these characters will be totally fine in a year. But there's that brief but crushing time period immediately following graduation and lasting until you decide that you are actually a real person--that's a killer. (A killer for wealthy-ish white kids who can always teach at their high schools, sure... but, I mean, we're people, too. Right?) Endlessly quotable, eternally watchable. Also, Parker Posey.

3. The Monster Squad (1987)

I don't think you get how much I watched this as a kid. If you are my parents, I don't think you get how much I snuck away to watch this in secret as a kid. THERE ARE KIDS. THERE ARE MONSTERS. THERE IS A BATTLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL. End of story. This was a winner from the pitch. 

2. My Name is Nobody (1973)

A baby-faced blond gunslinger goes out in search of his hero, so that he can make sure his hero goes out in style, "style" being a hail of bullets. Henry Fonda plays the hero, the baby-face is maybe the first gay cowboy of cinema, Sergio Leone is producing, does the rest even matter? Blurring the lines between slapstick and Western, homage and parody, pathos and bathos, this is a film I will always love. And thanks AMC for showing it at 3 AM like, five years ago...

1. The Long Goodbye (1973)

This film is a drug in and of itself. It takes a while to kick in... suddenly, it grabs hold of you and knocks you clear of your feet before you even see it coming... finally, it spits you out on a dirt road in Mexico, as a whistling man dances away from you. (That is what all drugs are like, right?) You want pedigree, you got it: Directed by Robert Altman, shot by Vilmos Zsigmond, scored by John Williams, based (ugh, loosely) on Raymond Chandler novel, and led by a mumbly, brilliant, tongue-so-far-in-his-cheek-it-hurts Elliott Gould. You want supporting cast, you got it: out-of-the-park performances from Nina Van Pallandt, Mark Rydell, Henry Gibson, and Sterling "Big fucking bear of a man" Hayden, as well as hey-look-at-that-guy cameos from David Carradine and baby Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh, and Jim Bouton, the pitcher who wrote Ball Four. The 70s, LA, noir, drugs, thugs, booze, money... just watch it.

Top 10 Next Todd Phillips Movies

Hey!!! Were you aware that this one film entitled The Hangover has done very well? Oh, good for you, Todd Phillips, director of movies. I like how all your movies have plots that approximate your titles as follows... The Hangover: Hey, what if there was a hangover! And now he's doing a movie with Robert Downey Jr.!? Cool! What next... I WONDER:

10. Cover Band

What if there was a cover band! These three guys have been seen it all... except fame! Zach Galifianakis plays the bassist with an unpredictable streak.

9. Blackout

What if there was a blackout! These three guys have seen it all... except electricity! Zach Galifianakis plays the ConEd engineer with an unpredictable streak.

8. Day in Court

What if this dude had his day in court! These three guys have seen it all... except justice! Zach Galifianakis plays the baliff who streaks unpredictably.

7. Moving Day

What if it was moving day! These three guys have seen it all... except home. Zach Galifianakis plays the unpredictable Streak, a dude lives his life and gets what's his.

6. The DTs

What if these dudes had the DTs! These three guys have seen it all... except sobriety. Unpredictably, Zach Galifianakis plays the 12-step member streaking towards Step 11. 

5. Summer League

What if there was this summer league! These three guys have seen it all... except victory. Zach Galifianakis plays the unpredictably corruptible umpire.

4. Fixer-Upper

What if there was a fixer-upper! These three guys have seen it all... except the I-beams in the basement. (MORE LIKE WHY-BEAMS!?!) Zach Galifinakis plays the house, unpredictably.

3. Cross Country Flight

What if there was a cross country flight! These three guys have seen it all... except Utah! Zach Galifinakis plays all of the other people on the plane. With beards. Unpredictably?

2. Out of Milk

What if these dudes were out of milk! These three guys have seen it all... except more milk! Zach Galifinakis plays the milk.

1. The Dark Knight

What if there was a Dark Knight! These three guys have seen it all... except a dark knight! Zach Whatever plays the Bearded Whatever. You love it. Shut up.

Top 22 Under-the-Rader MLB Deadline Deals

OH MAN WE NEVER POST ANYMORE!

Well, we here at PaRMLoT are all about bucking trends little by little, AKA, when I'm supposed to be finishing a chapter for work, I write lists about fake things that happened in baseball today (but not really).

Anyway, we've all heard that story about the baseball player who got traded for an expensive dinner or a handful of bats... well, guess what. THINGS LIKE THAT STILL HAPPEN. For instance, today--the date of the Major League Baseball trade deadline--the following trades happened:

22. Gary Matthews Jr. traded from the Angels to the Astros for a relatively sizeable hunk of cheese

21. Marco Scutaro traded from the Blue Jays to the Oriolies for four screws, a thumbtack, and a sheet of paper with a crudely drawn penis on it

20. Heath Bell traded from the Padres to the Mets for the Asian Jonathan Papelbon

19. Eddie Guardado traded from the Rangers to the Twins for some twine and a particularly sharp chicken bone

18. Stephen Drew traded from the D-Backs to the Mariners for the entire Internets

17. Rocco Baldelli traded from the Red Sox to the Braves for a DVD copy of Entrapment

16. Nick Johnson traded from the Nationals to the Rays for two DVD copies of Entrapment, plus a VHS of Youngblood

15. Huston Street traded from the Rockies to the Brewers for a sturdy 50 year-old oak

14. Boof Bonser traded from the Twins to the Dodgers for the farm, and all its residents

13. Ricky Nolasco traded from the Marlins to the Nationals for the philosophical idea of the Washington Nationals

12. Grant Balfour traded from the Rays to the Tigers for a potato alarm clock and Eva Mendes, who is a lizard

11. Khalil Greene traded from the Cardinals to the Yankees for the gay Jonathan Pabelbon

10. Vernon Wells traded from the Blue Jays to the Cubs for the island nation of Papau New Guinea

9. David Eckstein traded from the Padres to the Rangers for Jupiter’s moon Io

8. Fausto Carmona traded from the Indians to the D-Backs for the naming rights to the next Farrelly Brothers' comedy

7. Willy Aybar traded from the Rays to the Cardinals for the blind Jonathan Papelbon

6. Mark Teahen traded from the Royals to the Rockies for a handful of grapes and $150,000

5. Dennys Reyes traded from the Cardinals to the Rangers for a high plains drifter with nothing to lose but his past

4. Marlon Byrd traded from the Rangers to the Mariners for a can of wasabi peas and a “Kick me!” sign

3. Homer Bailey traded from the Reds to the Yankees for whatever the Native Americans sold Manhattan for

2. A.J. Pierzynski traded from the White Sox to the Indians for window-mounted AC unit and Jhonny Peralta

1. Jonathan Papelbon traded from the Red Sox to the Tigers for the female Jonathan Papelbon

Top 10 Best Sitcom Episodes of the 2008-2009 Television Season

Well, I had meant to do this before the Emmy nominations were out, but now they are, so that ship has sorta sailed. I'm still offering my opinion, even when there is a much more respected one out there!

10. 30 Rock - "Kidney Now!"

I think I was more into this year's 30 Rock finale than most people--I thought it was far better than last year's finale, scattershot Emmy winner "Cooter." A lot of my enjoyment came fromm the fact that I'm a sucker for satirical points about the division between medium and message, which two of the three plotlines (1. a charity song to selfishly get one person a kidney and 2.a catchy but relationship-destroying catchphrase) dealt with.

9. Flight of the Conchords - "Prime Minister"

Of all the fun things in this episode--the guest starring roles of Art Garfunkel-obsessed Mary Lynn Rajskub and self-important Elton John impersonator Patton Oswalt to start, not to mention the cameo of Garfunkel himself--the one that pushes this episode into the sublime is the parody of Korean karaoke. The whole bit, sung by Bret, complete with both-languaged subtitles and marvelously weird stock footage, is the most consistently hilarious straight two minutes on TV since Alec Baldwin's therapy session last year on 30 Rock.

8. South Park - "The Ring"

I've knocked South Park before here, but man, when they get it right, they get it right. Calling out the Jonas Brothers' purity rings not for being lame but for being an elliptically dirty marketing trick--THAT is satire.

7. The Big Bang Theory - "The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis"

This is a show that started with a terribly lame pilot, but has grown into one of the best sitcoms on TV, centered on Jim Parsons playing an self-important Aspegian asexual (and getting an Emmy nom for it, huzzah!). I wouldn't pick this episode to start with (for that I'd recommend either the first season's "The Loobenfeld Decay" or this season's "The Vegas Renormalization") but once you've familiarized yourself with Parsons' character, his every move in this episode is gold.

6. How I Met Your Mother - "The Naked Man"

Television critics smarter than me have pointed out that at HIMYM's best, it often recalls Seinfeld's social-deconstruction-via-term-invention but with more heart, and this episode is a prime example of that, in what is almost certainly the show's best season to date.

5. 30 Rock - "Gavin Volure"

I was a lilttle underwhelmled by this episode at first, but I kept thinking about it and remembering lines from it, and when I watched it again and realized that it's exactly the groove that 30 Rock has settled into--in a good way. It's not as mind-blowingly surprising as, say, last year's "Secrets and Lies," but it's just an excellent and consistent half-hour of comedy, with jokes like, Steve Martin: "This is my expert on fine art and yelling," John MacEnroe: "Why isn't there any good art in this house!" that I can only describe as perfect.

4. How I Met Your Mother - "Intervention"

Maybe my favorite episode of HIMYM to date, this just has callbacks building on callbacks building to an earned climax--this is like great sitcom writing 101. And something as wacky as old-man makeup as a plotline could only be sold by Neil Patrick Harris.

3. 30 Rock - "Generalissimo"

As I indicated before, I don't think that 30 Rock quite had the highlights of its best episodes last season, but was overall more consistent. That was helped out by a pair of reliably good-quality romantic storylines, Baldwin with Selma Hayek and Fey with Jon Hamm (whose good looks and serious comedic chops make him my biggest man-crush in a long while). This stellar episode is kind of a stand-in for how the several episodes with those characters were for me--brought over the top by Baldwin playing his gay Mexican doppelganger.

2. The Office - "Broke"

Even more so than 30 Rock, this one is a stand-in for The Office's superb 6-episode storyline about the clash between Michael Scott and Charles, the stuffy suit played by Idris Elba. This whole season saw Michael Scott shouldering not only the comedic weight that he always had on the show, but also the dramatic weight--with a major love interest early on and a major professional conflict later. Together they made this season of The Office the best yet, though it was more about the consistency in arc from episode to episode than it was about individual 22-minute chunks. I elected this one the best (over other close calls like "Heavy Competition," which may have the best Office line of all time in, "The meatball parm is their worst sandwich!") in part because all of the wonderful subtle details about Michael that appear when this show is firing on all cylinders. The fact that he has been drinking milk and sugar--JUST milk and sugar--every morning for the past six years, is too perfect for words.

1. Better Off Ted - "Racial Sensitivity"

Well. I have waxed poetic about this episode already. Suffice to say I thought it was the best half-hour of TV this season. Watch it, already.

CAVEAT: I have yet to see more than the pilot of Party Down. Also, there are other shows that I didn't watch, but they're shows that for the most part I don't like.

Top 18 General Hospital Spinoffs

(...not including Port Charles.)

18. Typical Firehouse

17. Nonspecific Police Station

16. Regular Ol' Post Office

15. Conventional Airport

14. Everyday Cancer Treatment Facility

13. Humdrum Law Firm

12. Commonplace Commons

11. Normal Widget Factory

10. Ordinary Department of Sanitation

9. The Usual Supermarket

8. Vague Federal Building

7. Run-of-the-Mill Dental Practice

6. Just Your Average Bank

5. Literally Any Bus Depot

4. Your Basic After Work Hangout

3. What You'd Expect Of A Veterinary Clinic

2. Ill-defined Struggling Coffeeshop That Caters To Local Artists

1. Indistinguishable From Every Other Performing Arts High School

Top 17 Things I Texted Rob While Watching "The Dark Knight" Tonight

Hi, all. Hi, dears. Hi, friends of the blog.

On Sunday nights, I like to kick back and relax while watching a fine, fine film. This tradition is known in Hell's Kitchen as "Sunday Night Movie", or SNM for short. (IT SOUNDS LIKE S&M, WHAAAAT!?!) Anyways, tonight, Caitlin and I were all, "Oh, hey, The Dark Knight... haven't watched you since, um, ever." AND WATCH IT WE DID!

But for me, watching a movie is a multimedia experience. As in, I was texting Rob the whole time. About a movie we've both seen. A lot.

1. 10:01pm

"Watching Dark Knight. Forgot how baller this movie is."

2. 10:09pm

"'D-did yer balls drop off!?' ...brilliant."

3. 10:33pm

"You have been cast as Commissioner Gordon in The Dark Knight."

4. 10:57pm

"Oh hi I am The Dark Knight I am so fuckin good."

5. 10:58pm

"I am the Batman!"

6. 11:05pm

"Oh shit you are not dead, you just arrested The Joker (cast as Jordy)..."

7. 11:09pm

"Dude the good cop bad cop shit is not gonna work on Jordy!!!"

8. 11:14pm

"Morgan Freeman (as played by Caitlin) is gonna hook me up with some sonar shit."

9. 11:16pm

"Jordy is wearing waaaaay too much makeup."

10. 11:20pm

"Oh fuuuuuck there goes half your face Aaron Eckhart! You didn't need it, to be fair... All you need is that chin dimple, the source of all your power."

11. 11:22pm

"Whoops Rachel (Dawes slash Leopold) is dead... Bad info! (I originally typed 'bad indo', lol...)"

12. 11:35pm

"Hospital fail!!!"

13. 11:43pm

"OMJerz don't blow up the (two) Staten Island Ferry(s)!"

14. 11:53pm

"Why does this movie keep being the best ever!?!"

15. 12:00am

"Rob, you thought we could be decent men in an indecent time! WRONG, BRO!"

16. 12:05am

"Not Deniro we deserved, but Deniro we needed... (Caitlin made that joke.)"

17. 12:07am

"Oh! The Dark Knight! THAT's the name of the show!"