Funny Making Money
This is an example of a typical email forward my dad would use taxpayer resources to promulgate throughout the Internet. I’ll let the pictures tell the story here, because in this case, the phrase “A picture says a thousand words” is really a gross understatement…
Hangin’ on your patio is cool and all, but how ’bout we take this party up a notch…
Dude, do you smell burning ass hair?
Wait for it… Wait for it…
Wow… As far as ass-welts go, those are definitely first rate…
With Bailes about to join the ranks of our Halo 2 platoon I thought I would offer him some advice on the most difficult decision he’ll ever have to make in life: Selecting a Gamertag. This is not something to gloss over. The Gamertag is your unique identifier to other players, and it cannot be changed or altered once it is submitted. That’s right, you get one chance at this… so don’t blow it.
Of course, it is common knowledge that my Gamertag is “McSex.” Aside from the occasional illiterates that call me “Emcee Sex,” this moniker has been well received in the Xbox Live cyberspace.
So how did I come up with “McSex?” To tell the story properly, we must go back a few years… As an awkward pre-teen, struggling to feel like a man, I tried to identify the main shortcoming preventing me from assuming alpha-male status amongst my peers. Conveniently, I settled on the least obvious one: my name. Surely, I thought, if I had a more masculine name, it would mask the girlish physique, acne and falsetto voice.
Turning on the TV, I saw a constant barrage of studly men with names like “Thomas Magnum” and “Indiana Jones.” At the time, the only difference I saw between a lady’s man private investigator and myself was the blandness of my name. It suddenly dawned on me; none of my GI Joe’s or Transformers had pedestrian names either. Why couldn’t I have been named “Stormshadow” or “Snake Eyes” or “Optimus Prime?” The name “Matt Ring” just lacked certain panache. In naming me, clearly my parents weren’t the least bit concerned with wanting their son to sound like a badass.
So, I began brainstorming names I would one day assume in the event I grew up to be a secret agent, assassin or plays-by-his-own-rules police detective. Naturally, I needed a name so over-the-top that it would leave no doubt as to whom was running the show. Thomas Manchild came to mind. Jack Stallion had a nice ring to it. Ultimately, I settled on Jack McSex.
I’ve always liked the first name “Jack.” It is a classic, simple, masculine name with a hint of rugged toughness. The name “Jack” represented a can-do attitude… the kind of guy that would climb a beanstalk or go up a hill with Jill to fetch a pail of water. The McSex part came later. I wanted a last name that completely lacked subtlety and somewhat spoofed the action-hero genre. Ultimately, I think I crafted a name that commands both respect and a chuckle. To this day, I can’t help but smile with pride when I say the name, Jack McSex.
Of course, it became more than just a name… Jack McSex is my charming and daring alter ego. And naturally, Jack McSex even talks differently than Matt Ring…
When answering the phone:
Matt Ring: “Hello?”
Jack McSex: “McSex here.”
When introducing himself:
Matt Ring: “Hi, I’m Matt Ring.”
Jack McSex: “The name’s Jack McSex, and the pleasure is all mine.”
And so forth. In short, Jack McSex makes James Bond look like Screech Powers. And when it came time to choose a worthy Gamertag for my Xbox Live persona, there was no hesitation on my part.
Now that I’ve revealed the origin of my Gamertag, here are some simple pointers in selecting yours:
1. Avoid a name that rhymes with anything derogatory or sexual in nature. For obvious reasons. Believe me, your opponents will seize upon this instantly. The only time this naming convention works is when you select a name like “Mulva” or “Bovary” as it has a humorous double entendre to it…
2. Avoid this formula: Stringing together a sexual innuendo and the number “420” to form a Gamertag. This does not make you a badass. Sadly, there are at least ten million dudes on Xbox Live that think they are being cool by combining their fantasies of kinky sex and habitual pot smoking into a name like “Filthy Sanchez 420.” Also, unfailingly, each of these dudes is 14 years old.
3. Avoid a name that reads like a vanity license plate. This is my pet peeve. I hate having to solve a magic-eye puzzle in order to alert “GR8est 1Der of N8ure” to cover me during the middle of a firefight. Yeah, this guy is a sweet teammate. Of course, after my inevitable death I’ll have the requisite time to translate and appreciate the cleverness “Greatest Wonder of Nature” used in selecting his Gamertag. Standard.
On a side note, can you imagine being friends with this person, and having him call you to key in his Gamertag into your friends list? “Alright dude, it’s capital ‘G-R,’ then the number 8, then lowercase ‘e-s-t’…” I would seriously hang-up on him halfway through this conversation.
4. Give yourself an esoteric name from an 80’s franchise that only the coolest people on earth would understand the reference to. For instance, I thought about using the name “Kreese,” (after the evil sensei of the Cobra Kai dojo from the Karate Kid movies.) After every kill I could taunt my opponents with a line like “Fear does not exist in this dojo.” Along those same lines, I always thought “Lord Helmet” (Spaceballs) would be a fantastic name. You could use quotes like “Evil will always triumph because good is dumb” or, “I see your Schwartz is as big as mine” during any confrontation. If these examples don’t appeal to you, try “Niedick” (Saved by the Bell) or “Cooter P. Davenport” (Dukes of Hazzard) or “H.M. Murdock” (The A-Team.)
5. Integrating hip-hop lingo into your name will not change the fact you are a suburban white kid. Don’t bother putting extraneous z’s and x’s into the spelling of ordinary words… that won’t help either.
6. Names that have real-life tie-ins with death are popular. For instance, I toyed with being The Coroner for a while. You get the idea, after each kill I could declare the cause of death to be my battle rifle or my superior skills. Along those same lines, you could be The Embalmer, The Mortician, The Chalk Outline Guy, The Pallbearer, or The Guy that Pokes the Dead Body with a Stick… lots of possibilities here.
7. Whatever you do, don’t use your actual name. Seriously, don’t do it. This isn’t an email account. You will actually be ridiculed more by your fellow teammates than your opponents if you can’t concoct a clever name.
So there it is. And fellow Zillionaires, please share the origin of your Gamertags and/or potential names for future members of our platoon.
Continuing on with remote controls, for previous parts, click here: (Part I, Part II)…
Part Three! This is officially a trilogy! Lots of franchises don’t make it to this point. Think about it… The onset of rigor mortis prevented Bernie from doing his trademark floppy-armed wave, thus derailing any hopes for a Weekend at Bernie’s 3. After saving New York from a malevolent underground river of slime, there was really no way for the Ghostbusters to top a feat like that in a sequel. Also, we never got to see Boof have a litter of werewolf pups in Teen Wolf 3: Doggystyle. Even Guns ‘n Roses couldn’t muster another 18-minute monster ballad to justify a potential “Use Your Illusion III.”
So we’re in rarified air here. And this is nowhere near the final installment. My plan is to be like Tupac, and continue releasing new posts about remote controls long after I’m dead. People don’t seem to question this, so why not? I can just imagine some of the zany mishaps with remote controls I’ll encounter in the afterlife…
Anyway, in the previous segment, I implored my wife to exercise responsible use of the remote control with this simple request:
“If you’re going to watch TV, and insist on using the remote, can you please make an effort to leave the remote in a logical place?”
Seems like a reasonable request. Considering my sanity hung in the balance, you would think my wife might make an effort to honor my wishes. Instead, she devised a method that would seemingly address my concerns; yet at the same time make me painfully regret making the original request in the first place. How does she accomplish this feat? Well, after each use, she now places the remote control on top of the TV.
It took me a while to catch onto this. Nobody thinks of looking for the remote on top of the TV. Ironically, it’s almost the last place you’d look. I’d find myself spending a solid hour scavenging between couch cushions, filing police reports, and lighting prayer candles in hopes the remote would soon be safely returned before even glancing at the top of the TV. By the time I would actually locate the remote, whatever show I was hoping to watch was over and Spring Break Shark Attack II had begun.
Seriously, who puts the remote on top of the TV anyway? The whole point of having a remote is to avoid having to get off the couch and walk over to the TV in the first place. My personal definition of hell is pretty much having to rise from a seated, comfortable position when I shouldn’t have to. But what other option do I have? It’s not like I can watch TV without the remote control (another personal definition of hell). Lying on the couch, when I gaze across the room and see the remote taunting me atop the TV, I simply hang my head in defeat. At this point, you may as well prod me with a pitchfork for good measure…
Of course, I brought this on myself. I asked my wife to leave the remote control in a logical place. I didn’t clarify this any further. The word “logical” is somewhat ambiguous, and it left my wife plenty of loopholes to hang me with. It’s like one of those episodes of the Twilight Zone, where the guy is granted three wishes that all backfire horribly on him. You get the idea, where a simple wish to be “rich and famous” is granted by turning the dude into Rosie O’Donnell or a wish for “happiness” is granted with total spiritual consciousness instead of with an Xbox. And of course, these cruel and ironic twists eventually force him to use his final wish just to turn everything back to normal.
Sadly, I’m almost at that point. I think I would rather spend hours searching adjacent rooms, kitchen cupboards, linen closets, and all the other unorthodox places my wife likes to leave the remote rather than enduring the humiliating walk of shame from the couch to the TV to retrieve the remote… But the question remains, how did my wife come up with a plan so ironic? I think she may have borrowed the idea from Alanis Morrisette:
It’s like rain on your wedding day,
It’s the remote sitting on top of the TV,
It’s searching for an hour for something that is in plain sight,
And who would have thought? It’s standard…
Stay tuned for Part IV…
While I hate to reopen the wounds from our last Star Wars debate, there is one issue left to address:
As you know, someday, I intend to procreate. And so far, the plan is to have nothing but boys. And when that day comes, I’ll adhere to my fatherly duty and initiate my son, Lando Calrissian Ring, into the world of Star Wars.
However, something occurred to me the other day. In which order should the movies be viewed by someone that has no prior exposure to the films?
1. Do I show my son the movies in chronological order, starting with Episode I (The Phantom Menace) and ending with Return of the Jedi, Episode VI?
~ Or ~
2. Do I show them in the order in which they were made, starting with Episode IV (A New Hope) and ending with Revenge of the Sith, Episode III?
Some might argue the latter is the order in which they are meant to be seen, as this is how George Lucas chose to release the movies. And not to be discounted, this is the order in which I saw the movies, and obviously, things worked out ok for me…
On the other hand, most would agree that episodes 4-6 are better than episodes 1-3, and viewing them in chronological order would allow the viewer to enjoy the superior movies at the end. Of course, to make it to the final episodes, one would have to endure a lot of frontloaded scenes of Jar Jar Binks. Any responsible parent should seek to shelter and protect their child from extreme amounts of Jar Jar, not subject them to it. I worry that starting my son on this path could sour him on Star Wars altogether. Or worse yet, we’ve all read that it’s traumatic childhood events like this that spawn future serial killers and telemarketers.
There is one other hope. Perhaps I can wait a few years, when they release the “Director’s Cut” versions of the latest Star Wars movies. I have a feeling that instead of including “bonus footage,” they would actually be the first movies in history to advertise “omitted footage,” namely cutting out several hours of scenes featuring Jar Jar. The director’s commentary alone would be priceless:
George Lucas (rubbing beard): “Yeah… Looking back, I realize now that Episode I really should have been about 17 minutes in length… And it probably should have been a silent film as well.”
As you can see, it’s quite the dilemma. Maybe it’s time we really explored this debate. Right now I’m leaning towards showcasing the films in the order they were made… However, as always, I’ll definitely consider any advice my fellow members on the Zillionaire Council are willing to impart…
This is going to be a tough post to write. I’d like to share some thoughts on Episode III, but I don’t want to give away any details of the movie for those that haven’t seen it yet. Of course on the other hand, if you haven’t seen it yet, I think you should really be taking stock of your priorities in life. It’s been out for a week people! If you’ve been too busy helping the homeless, spending time at church, or mentoring troubled youths, I urge you to sit down and reflect upon the direction your life is going. With that said, I’ll try not to spoil any major details, but here are some things to look forward to in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith…