Closure

Hey there 'Redheads... Welcome to the eagerly anticipated season finale of the blog, where all of your questions will be answered. Questions like, "Seriously?" or "Really?" or "No, seriously, really?" One question I'd love to answer is why I put off fixing the air conditioning in my black truck. It hit 90+ degrees today and I'm pretty much driving a solar panel with cup holders. I tried to beat the heat with a frosty float, but that melted faster than that guy's face at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I'm here to wrap up all of the nebulous minutiae into a neat little package. I feel like I've got to keep pace with the Fantasia broomstick army of finales that've ambled down the pike over the last week, each carrying its own bucket to douse our expectations. I had varying degrees of emotional stakes in the big three tv finales of Lost, 24, and American Idol. I've seen maybe 3 episodes of Lost, I'm a huge fan of 24, and I always seem to get sucked into American Idol.

Like I mentioned, I had no idea what was going on with Lost, outside of the fact that there was a bunch of them marooned on an island. For all I knew, the Professor was going to make an airplane out of coconuts just as the Harlem Globetrotters arrived. My thinking was, if I caught the last 15 minutes of the finale, everything would be made clear. I could get the payoff without the five year emotional investment in the characters. No fuss, no muss. The person who got a payoff was M. Night Shamylan, who apparently sold the ending of The Sixth Sense to the show's writers. So, they were all dead. The whole time. The island was some kind of purgatory. They've been blowing the smoke monster up the viewer's ass for five years. They could've pulled the plug on this thing at any point during the five year run and played the "They're Dead" card. Like I said, I'm not pissed about it, because I've spent about three hours with this show, but there are some fanatics out there who have a few more questions...

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

After the Lost dud, I dusted off the edge of my seat to gear up for the last two hours of the last very bad day for Mr. Jack Bauer. I've been all-in with 24 since the very beginning. Jack had me at, "You probably don't think that I can force this towel down your throat. But trust me, I can. All the way. Except I'd hold onto this one little bit at the end. When your stomach starts to digest it, I pull it out. Taking your stomach lining with it. For most people it would take about a week to die. It's very painful." Bad. Ass. I've seen Jack tear out a terrorist's jugular with his teeth, fake his own death, and tangle with just about every cast member of RoboCop. My friends and I have made two 24 fan films (feel free to watch Guys Watching 24 I & II, conveniently linked to your right...I'll wait). So, with a heavy heart, I watched Jack take down a presidency for the greater good one last real time. The 24 finale pistol whipped Lost in the catharsis department. Everyone got what was coming to them. I especially loved seeing President Logan put a cowardly bullet in his brain as his world crumbled around him. Very Shawshank. And at the last real minute, Jack was saved for the greater good...the 24 movie. Which will hopefully be in 12 parts. Otherwise, you can only call it 2...or 2 1/2. Jack, you have the thanks of a grateful nation.

Last night, I checked out the culmination of weeks of semi-decent elimination karaoke to crown a new American Idol. And it was craptastic. In one corner was the dry white toast of Lee DeWyze versus the clearly more talented 5th Non-Blonde, Crystal Bowersox. The evening was duet after duet with some crusty rock legend. Seacrest might as well have cracked open a sarcophagus for some of these acts. Joe Cocker? That's the target demo you're shooting for? He looked like he was just barely getting by with a little help from his friends. They also devoted some time to some Simon Cowell retrospective, since he was leaving the show. My favorite moment of the night cam during an attempted roast of Cowell by none other than Dane Cook. He had a guitar of his own and was singing a ditty comprised of insults that Simon had hurled at the most delusional of the contestants he's heard. Then, in a decision the producers would later regret, they let a bunch of these lunatics on stage to dance around. Long story short, Cook had his mic stolen by another idiot who thought he was being funny.

I haven't seen Iron Man 2 yet, but if it's half as cool as this, I'm in...


To be continued...

Running Joke

Hey there, 'Redheads... I had high hopes to have this to you yesterday, but I fell asleep in my papasan chair with my feet up while watching 24. Men plan. The papasan laughs. I had good reason to have my feet up, because I have shin splints. "Shin splints?" you ask incredulously, "But silly Jared, you can only get those from running. And you don't run." Well, under normal circumstances, you'd be right. I normally don't run, mostly because I'm getting winded typing this, but this past Saturday, I ran the gamut of running, from a light jog to a full out sprint to doubling over and gasping for breath to begging for death's sweet embrace (hell, this sentence runs more than I do), because I was being chased. I wasn't alone. I was one of the 1200+ people who descended on Dupont Circle to take part in Survive DC 2010, essentially a giant game of tag through the streets of DC...It was set up to play out like a zombie outbreak, about 1200 runners being set upon by a handful of chasers. The object is to make it to six checkpoints throughout the city without getting tagged. When the runners get tagged, they become chasers and begin to hunt down other runners, until the numbers get downright overwhelming for the remaining survivors. I was there with some new found friends I met at the zombie walk from the last installment, and comedy super friend, Chris White. Together, we were Team Double Plus Undead. The first checkpoint was near Gallery Place and we were starting at Dupont Circle. While metro travel was allowed, it wasn't advised since the path of least resistance would be heavily patrolled by chasers. So, when the whistle blew, we took off down Connecticut Ave. After about a block of sprinting, the harsh reality that the tub of goo I call a body wasn't up to snuff hit me pretty hard. Once we figured out that we had cleared the first wave of chasers, our pace slowed down so I could stumble after the rest of my teammates. We made it to the first checkpoint unscathed, and I quickly took a seat so my insides could take a break from bouncing around. I was pretty much gassed and we had five more checkpoints and roughly six more miles to go. What's the first rule of Zombieland? Cardio. Note to self: buy canned goods and a shotgun. I did catch a second wind or a second wheeze and we headed off to checkpoint #2, which was near Union Station. And we got pretty close before a nonchalant chaser took us off guard and tagged my whole team...except me. Turns out my flight response is pretty good. Unfortunately, I lollygagged a bit to see what my friends were going to do. That was answered quickly as Chris took off after me. The pursuit did not last long. So, now we were a merry band of chasers with no real pressure on us to run if we didn't want to. All in all, it was a lot of fun. It'll be more fun next year, when I actually put in some kind of cardio training. The next morning, I felt like I caught polio. I'm still sore.

A couple chances to point and laugh at me this week... I'll be at the Baltimore Comedy Factory with my buddy, comedy dynamo, Justin Schlegel from Thursday-Saturday. On Sunday, come check out a fun free show that I'll be hosting at Union Jack's in Bethesda. Erik Myers, Mike Way, and Tyler Sonnichsen are on the bill. The show starts at 7:30. DVR Lost and come check us out.

Before I go, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the falling of a Metal God. Ronnie James Dio, the man who is credited with inventing the universal sign for rocking out, the two-finger devil horns, has gone to the great gig in the sky. Look out your window tonight for a rainbow in the dark.

To be continued... Vaya con Dio...

Hi At Us

Hey there 'Redheads... You still out there? It's me... I know, where the hell have I been? I've left you in the digital lurch since mid-March. I was 0-for-April. What can I say? Zyrtec is a hell of a drug. I'd like to take this time to remind all of you to help control the pollen count. Have your trees spayed or neutered. I've been pollinated into a slo-mo haze... That, coupled with a work ethic that I lovingly refer to as "slothy," elevated my already potent powers of procrastination to superhuman levels. I was putting off stuff that had already happened. Seriously, this pollen is slowly choking the life out of me. It's not so much that I'm allergic, but my lungs are filling up with this crap. But, for you, I'm sucking it up, or as best I can without my lungs seizing up, and getting back on the blog horse. With a week already wasted in May, I figured it was time to brush the dust off and get things back in gear before we reach a point of no return. So, let's get caught up, shall we?

I'd like to congratulate Horatio Sans on his appointment to the Supreme Court...

Nice to see he found work. I've never been very politically minded, but I also never look a gift fat joke in the mouth, lest it try to cram me down its gullet. Anyone else find it mildly ironic that she'll be casting judgement on the loftiest issues that face us and we're judging her because she looks like she should have a pet rancor under a trap door in the courtroom? I'm looking forward to the movie version of the Elena Kagan story, Paul Blart: Supreme Court Justice.

Speaking of insatiable hunger, I unfurled my dork flag and participated in a zombie walk back on Cinco de Mayo (I'm glad that Cinco de Mayo fell on May 5th this year). The man who created the zombie movie, George Romero, was in town to unveil his recent undead undertaking, Survival of the Dead. So, a shamble of zombies assembled at the Greene Turtle next to Verizon Center for a bloody good time...
This was my first foray into having a social afterlife, and I was way out of my league in the make up department. I just popped open a fake blood capsule and smeared it all over my face...Not exactly Tom Savini quality, but it got the job done. And, it turns out, it'll end up in the annals of zombie schlock, because the zombie walkers and I ended up as extras in an independent horror/comedy flick called My Boring Zombie Apocalypse. When portraying the walking dead, I prefer to go the method acting route. Act hungry. When we were done moaning and shuffling through Chinatown, we ended up at the Gallery Place theaters for a screening of Romero's new movie and a Q & A with the man himself...The movie was just ok for a guy who created the genre. I've taken more of a shine to the modern day hardcore sprinter zombies of Zombieland and 28 Days Later that the remake of his Dawn of the Dead begat, so maybe I found his zombies to be old fashioned. Don't get me wrong, both will use your intestines for bloody Mardi Gras beads, but today's walking dead don't make you wait as long.

That's all for now. More soon. No, seriously. I mean it this time. Wait right here...