Whastizwitu with you? People want stories of you in new city.

This one’s dedicated to all the lovely ladies who frequent Barber College, but the gents are also welcome to read on.

Does this guy look familiar? He calls himself Mystery, and it’s quite possible he tried to pick you up one night in a shitty nightclub with a steady onslaught of cheese. Even if he did, the fact that you’re reading this blog tells me you’re a smart-enough gal not to have fallen for his version of charm.

If you’re fortunate never to have experienced Mystery firsthand, you might instead recognize him as the star of VH1’s “The Pickup Artist.” Basically, VH1 and Mystery took eight normal, nice guys who were just lacking in confidence, and Mystery taught them how to manipulate and lie to stupid girls in the hopes of fucking them. Mystery gets paid to do this. It’s his job. In the end, the guys were reduced to cheesy balls of douche. I’m all for people gaining confidence, but these guys were just automatons spewing schlocky bullshit to people who didn’t know any better.

Let’s see what Mystery’s MySpace thingie, which is basically an ad for his services, has to say. He writes, “The Venusian Arts Process, ‘Mystery’s method’ is a practical, field-tested method that allows men from any background to meet, attract, and build relationships with exceptional women of extraordinary quality and breath-taking beauty.”

Ugh. Where to begin… First of all, easy on the adjectives, bud. It makes you sound desperate. As for “Venusian Arts Process,” the only one of those words that doesn’t bother me is “process.” For better or worse, what you’re teaching is a process. But come on! If “venusian” were an actual word - and it’s certainly not - it’d be one you should never use, and using “arts” in this context cheapens actual fine arts like finger-painting and coloring. Then comes “quality.” I don’t know what you mean here. Quality how? Are they smart and well-read women? Do they have good senses of humor? Solid educational backgrounds? Challenging and rewarding careers? Ohhhh! I see what you’re getting at. They don’t wear underwear. You stud, you!

Reading on, we discover that before Mystery was Mystery, he was Erik von Markovik (German for Erik of Markovik, Markovik being a little-known city in the German lowlands), and before that, he was Erik James Horvat-Markovik. Did I mention that Mystery is a magician from Canada? Because he is. If that doesn’t get you wet, I don’t know what will.

But then he drops this bomb: “I, like other magicians including Penn & Teller and James Randi, do not believe in the supernatural and am an atheist.” Whoa! An atheist Canadian magician! I’m gonna start using that as a pickup line. I’ll be like, “Hey. I’m Loquacious (that’s my pickup artist name). I’m a magician from Canada, and I don’t believe in God. Wanna come back to my hotel, and, uh, let me saw you in half?” I’m only kidding, pal! That does explain why you feel the need to lie to women, though. Also, you, unlike other magicians including Penn & Teller and James Randi, are a dick.

This is bordering on fuzzy-hat overload. Explore Erik more at your leisure, and if you’re feeling frisky, definitely start with his YouTube videos. I’ll close now with a text message conversation I had with my brother a few days ago while watching a “Pickup Artist” marathon:

J-Ho: I kind of want to follow Mystery around and tell every woman he meets that he has AIDS.

C-Ho: Or that he’s Canadian. And a magician.

J-Ho: Yeah. Those are worse than AIDS.

Today learn how to beatbox …

… for the war effort. I’ve read that it would only cost about $20 billion to end world hunger. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s 10% of next year’s proposed war budget.

Who out there still thinks this was/is a good idea, and why didn’t you learn how to read newspapers or at least watch television?

Hey kids, sorry for the light posting. We’re gonna get back into the swing of stuff soon. First some “Awww”-inducing trickle

I was reading EM Forster’s “What I Believe” to cheer myself up yesterday after a personal defeat, and I guess it fits in kinda nicely with the above (Forster spent his life in the closet, btw). We’re all straight here at BC, but we are three cynical writers, who often need to reminded there’s hope in the world, and that there are others out there looking for hope and even a few trying to create it.

We are the aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. We’re people willing to changing our minds, and do what’s right by those closest to us. We’ll call that a mission statement heading forward.

Respect to the Mayor of “Whale’s Vagina” for saying what the leading contenders for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party don’t have the guts to.

Sorry for the grandstanding. Two cheers for democracy and stay classy, San Diego.

It goes without saying that there are a lot of crappy people with crappy taste in movies in this country, but this gives me hope. It’s one of those movies you don’t need to see to know it’s total pap (People who tell you you need to see something before judging it tend to have bad taste).

From the glance I took at the synopsis, it’s about a guy who’s cursed for some reason and has problems with his love life or some shit. But then he meets a woman, who happens to look like Jessica Alba, and he falls for her. For some reason the curse says he can’t fuck her or she’ll run away or something. Whatever. Now I’m bored and sad.

Then again, I didn’t need to go even that far to judge it. Quality entertainment is the opposite of Dane Cook. He’s a perma-dumbass who’s not even fun to listen to when you’re drunk or high or stupid or all three. And Jessica Alba? Well, a part of her exquisite hotness is ruined every time she opens her mouth to talk.

I know I’m picking on easy targets, but they totally deserve it. As long as zero of my screenplays are in production, I reserve the right to complain about shitty movies to no end.

What a waste of a season. But the Lions are 2-0, and Michigan has a one-game winning streak! Yay?

Also, from Webmaster Gordo: The Canadian dollar hit parity with the U.S. dollar today. Way to go, us.

A.: from the internets, in honor of talk like a pirate day:

J-Ho: hahaha
J-Ho: what does the top-left say?
J-Ho: i can’t make it out

A.: avast

J-Ho: hahahahaha

[Ed. note: We probably shouldn’t admit this, but we read Language Log almost daily. And by “we,” we mean just A.]

Scott sent this news this morning: Ann Arbor legend Shakey Jake passed away over the weekend. He may not have had more than two strings on his guitar, and the degree to which he was “with it” was always questionable, but he gave the town some character, something it desperately needs these days.

I think I’m a pretty nice guy. I’d do anything for the people I love, and I don’t wish harm on anyone. Still, sometimes I wonder if the horrible things I say about certain people are completely unwarranted. Shit, have you heard some of the things that come out of my mouth? They’re awful.

But then I see people like Dani, and my resolve to judge such people on sight and then ridicule every facet of their lives is reinforced. Before we move on, a thank-you and a warning. Thanks to Carly for sending me this link and saving me a lot of hard searching. The warning: You might get herpes if you read beyond this point.

So this is Dani, and she loves flashing the peace sign. No, silly! She’s no hippie! The peace sign is something cool club-type people do with their hands when they’re posing for pictures, especially when they’re posing for pictures in clubs! Why do they do it, you ask? Are they making some kind of antiwar statement or promoting love and understanding? No again, silly! They’re just boring and uncreative! I think the only time Dani isn’t showing the peace sign is when she has a drink or a dick in her hand. But that’s not very often! Hi-yo!

I pledged a while back that I wasn’t going to criticize people for having poor spelling and grammar, and I’m going to stick to that. At the same time, I want you to see how Dani writes. Here’s an actual screen cap from her profile:

Does somebody make a keyboard with an actual “♥” key now?! It’s cute to use it once in a while, but come on! That’s excessive, Dani! And the double brackets around almost everything? That’s a new one for me. If there’s a deeper meaning you know of, please let me know so that I might blog about it on this blog.

I think my favorite line from Dani’s profile is “My friends call me [[Dani♥Cali]].” It’s fun to take that literally. Like, do her friends say “Open Square Bracket Open Square Bracket Dani Heart Cali Close Square Bracket Close Square Bracket?” If I ever meet her, I will.

The subsequent list of interests is pretty dull, but it takes a strange turn at the end, when she writes, “♥[[HaTe]]♥ ♥[[Spiders]]♥ ♥[[FeEt]]♥ ♥[[DrAmA]]♥ ♥[[LIARS]]♥ ♥[[Backstabbers]]♥ ♥[[being sick]]♥ ♥[[HangOvers]]♥” At first I thought these were more things she likes, but then I realized that “♥[[HaTe]]♥” introduces a new list - a list of things she hates. Why “[[HaTe]]” has hearts around it can only make sense in Dani’s mind.

Let’s get serious for a second, because I just noticed that Dani went through a traumatic move from ♥[[CaliFornia]]♥ to ♥[[St. LouiS]]♥ a couple years ago. Like we all know, all the gurls in Cali are nice and real, but all the St. Louis gurls are bitches. How’s a girl like Dani supposed to make new friends? She writes,

the gurls out here are bitches they dogg u for no reason they are jealous and talk shyt yur a whore if u wear a skirt and they always think bad about u if yur not in sweats or dressed like a bumb…trust me i knoe pple call me a whore because im from cali and im wearing a skirt adn a t-shirt..thats some shyt right there..well then they think yur all up in there territory and they tell u that u dont belong and they think yur stuck up…

I feel ya, girl. I’ve been to St. Louis a couple times, and *all* the girls there are like that. I’m from Michigan, and I don’t wear skirts, so they didn’t call me a whore. But still! I know *exactly* what you’re talking about! According to the 2000 census, there are about 182,451 females living in St. Louis, and they are *all* bitches! Also, “bumb” is a really clever pun. Bum + Dumb = Bumb! Get it? I’m gonna start using that.

Thankfully, another MySpace user stumbled upon this blog entry and left this comment for Dani: “hey i was browsing through blogs and just ran into yours, and you know what, i was thinking the same thing as you, thanks for writing it, but yeah i NEED to let you know that you can get mp3 quality ring-tones featuring all the top artists sent instantly to your phone, youll love it, go here and enjoy PS, let me know what ones you picked K?”

MySpacers always take care of each other. A girl gets depressed, and someone is right there with a link to quality ring tones featuring all the top artists sent instantly to your phone. What a beautiful community.