Friday, September 30, 2011

Blog Off 2011: Frustration by way of Ottoman

Monpeeps, how delightful it is to see you again. I'm doing well. Just sitting here at 5 am drinking a beer and listening to ABBA. I still haven't decided if my life is awesome or pathetic. If I can find a way to legitimately make a cause for both, I will.

Round 5. This is why all bloggers get out of bed in the morning. Well, this and the fact that they have to go to their normal people jobs because unless you are Perez H-....that guy, you don't make a fucking cent doing this. I suppose you could, but the moment I sell out and activate "Google Adsense" on my blog, the doors open to all sorts of lawsuits because of all the pictures and videos I use on the blog without anyones permission. I don't need that money, I have a perfectly respectable drug dealing operation that pays the bills. We've been showing excellent 3rd quarter earnings and our projected growth into mid 2012 should show fantastic returns. (I feel the need to clarify I am joking) Drugs are bad. Unless they keep people from eating other peoples faces. Those drugs can stay.

For the Origin of The Blog Off, read the initial post HERE
For Round 1: A How-To read it HERE
For Round 2: A Rant read it HERE
For Round 3: A Review read it HERE
For Round 4: Opponent's Choice (Shakesperean Rules) read it HERE

For the 5th and final Round of the 2011 Blog Off, Brent and I decided to each submit 5 topics for a "Random Wheel of Bullshit". I put them on two pieces of paper, spun an empty whiskey bottle on my kitchen floor and that is how we determined what we would write for the epic final battle between two guys who have no real gripe with each other.

Brent's topic: "How the Game of Life is Complete Bullshit"

My Topic:

Ottoman's: The Footstools, not the Empire


(Ottoman's: Conquering Relaxation since the 1800s)



If you don't like Ottomans, I don't like you. There it is. We are opening with strong, bold statements today. I don't know much about this history of the Ottoman, so as is normally the case when I'm too lazy to look something up, I will just make something up. Cool? Cool.

Chapter I: "The Ottomanorigin" (most forced title ever)

Thousands of years ago (probably) there were a bunch of conquerers that absolutely LOVED to conquer shit. They showed an aptitude at it from a young age. Most kids grew out of the "mine" phase, these dudes developed it into an artform. A violent, treacherous artform. They wanted to rub a bit more salt into the wounds of opposing cities that they were going to buttfuck in battle so they banded together and decided that nothing showed more arrogance and indifference than calmly eating an apple. They were right. Just look at this smug little bitch:

("Oh, what? Are we conquering the Turks? Whatever")

The 3 Ottoman brothers (yes, I just decide I believe they were brothers who started the whole thing) then came to a mutual agreement that although this was a great psyche out tactic and really drove home the indifference necessary to be as much a prick as possible, they needed more. According to several historians, who I also made up, the conversation is said to have gone like this:

(Likes: British Royal Guardsmen, MC Hammer, Tying bitches to railroad tracks)

Derek Ottoman: Guys, seriously, loving the apple thing. It's delicious and even if we lose a battle, it looks like we only lost cause we weren't paying attention.
Chauncey Ottoman: Or that we don't care and we didn't really wanna win anyway.
Derek Ottoman: I know, right?! It's awesome. But I, Derek Ottoman, a real dude who totally existed and wasn't just made up, feel that we can kick it up several notches.
Ulysses Ottoman: We could eat them while at the same time pooping...?
Derek Ottoman: (sighs) Ulysses, why do all your ideas come back to that?
Chauncey Ottoman: I think he is on to something--
Derek Ottoman: No he isn't! Look at his stupid face. I hate him!
Chauncey Ottoman: How about we eat them while sitting? Not just on horses, but chairs? Eh?

And so the three Ottoman brothers tried that. It added a little bit to it but there was still something missing. Also, they hated how their faces got all sticky from the apples and they felt bad about throwing the cores "just anywhere". While they may have loved conquering, they hated littering. Once more they met to discuss what they should do about their ridiculous problem.

Chauncey Ottoman: Let's sit with our feet up on something, reeking of indifference.
Derek Ottoman: I love it.
Ulysses Ottoman: So we've completely ruled out taking arrogant poops, right?
Derek Ottoman: You're as worthless as you are adopted, which by the way is "very".
Ulysses Ottoman: (cries)

And that was that. Nothing else in the world exuded as much smug above-it-all-itude than Ottomans did, At least not until ironic haircuts became a thing 40 years later. But by then it was too late. When these fellas showed up to a battle or a razing, took out their chairs and put their feet up, you knew it was your ass.

(Macedonian propaganda ad from the early 1800s)

Family Guy is the only historical source to ever get it right.




Chapter II: What does your Ottoman Say About You?

At this point I thought I'd look at a couple different Ottomans and what they say about the person who puts their feet up on them. I feel they should keep their fucking mouths shut but you know what they say about Ottomans: They love to gossip and talk shit about you behind your back. For this exercise I'm going to pretend that I'm an FBI profiler and I'm trying to determine a personality profile. It is exactly like the plot of "Silence of the Lambs" only barely related and 85% more pointless. Sounds like fun. Well, "fun" may be a bit strong, but it definitely sounds like something that is going to happen whether you want it to or not.

Name: "The Derek Jeter"
Likes: Chess, Piano Key Neckties, Listening to "Ebony & Ivory" at full blast on their stereo
Dislikes: Having to choose between ebony OR ivory

Name: "The Reverse Hotdog"
Likes: Wearing shoes on hands, eating dessert first, sleeping bags
Dislikes: The smell of napalm in the morning.

Name: "The Kremlin"
Likes: Russian dolls, goldilocks and the three bears, NHL Hit the Ice arcade game
Dislikes: Lines, Capitalism, Team Canada Hockey.

Name: "The Space Odyssey"
Likes: Cold hard logic, Being comfortable in zero G environments, pawn shop basements
Dislikes: Sentient robots, murderous sentient robots (two totally different things)
Name: "The Dandy"
Likes: Austin Powers, royal weddings, beards (you know the kind)
Dislikes: When shit isn't fabulous

Name: "The Wicker Man"
Likes: Woody Harrelson, pandas, social conciousness
Dislikes: THE BEES! OH GOD THE BEES!!



Name: "The Student"
Likes: Hot plates, Mac & Cheese, freeloading of neighbors wi-fi
Dislikes: Laundry, living in a studio apartment, "bathkitchenrooms"

Name: "The I Fucking Dare You"
Likes: Hunting, trapping, covering holes with leaves so when you walk by you fall in
Dislikes: People who aren't easily fooled, things that cant talk and don't like dying

Name: "The Jimi Hendrix"
Likes: Protests, tye dye, lying to score medicinal marijuana
Dislikes: The man, the establishment, showering

Name: "The Celibate Sufari"
Likes: Not getting laid, Getting sweet discounts on used porn furniture, zebras (natch)
Dislikes: Basic fabrics, leopard print, NBA basketball

Name: "The Footrest Formally Known as Ottoman"
Likes: Rasberry Berets, Little Red Corvettes, Partying like it's 1999
Dislikes: Not gettin' it on, being short, 12:01 am January 1st 2000.

Chapter III: Shitty Chairs at Crowded Parties

Picture this scenario: You show up to an awesome party that your friends are having because they just got engaged and are secretly trying to rush to whole engagement process because she is actually pregnant and doesn't want her super religious parents to find out because the same thing happened to her older sister and they haven't spoken to her since last Thanksgiving. You with me so far? Good. Proud of you.

You walk into the party and immediately seek to establish a vibe at the vegetable platter. You know that is where all the awesome stuff goes down at a party and you have fond memories of talking to that norweigan by the vegetable dip at your sister in laws gallery opening and you totally hit that. Still with me? Don't blame you.

(At a party, this is where shit gets DONE)

You see a charmingly translucent dude with alibaster skin has already established himself by the vegetable platter and is a huge hit with all the sexy ladies around there (In this imaginary scenario I am also at the party and I arrived first. And people don't hate me) You want to sit down so you look around the room for a chair. All 5 chairs are taken (btw, don't trust anyone who has more than 5 chairs and no kids. They are up to something nefarious). You see...something to sit down on so you decide to pop a squat. Congratulations, you are this person:

(No lie, got this picture from a Maine suicide prevention website)

Congrats, you have to sit awkwardly on an Ottoman for the foreseable future. Isn't that great? You're right, it isn't. Not at all. Having to take up position on one of these footstools sucks. You can't get a cool looking "lean back" going so your two sitting options are having your back completely straight (which makes you look like a serial killer) or to hunch forward (which makes you look like a desperate serial killer with terrible posture). It's a no win situation. Never in the history of ever has a "how we met" story started with "I saw him/her there, across a crowded room, sitting on an ottoman, looking sexy". NEVER! In fact, I bet I can search the internets (all of 'em) right now and I won't be able to find a single picture of someone looking sexy while sitting on an ottom--

(...)

Okay, well I guess she is kinda pulling it off. But there is no way I'd be able to find another pictu--

(....)

Well, shit. I stand by my point though. I would just narrow my search to prove that dudes can't look good while sitting on ottomans, but to be honest I really don't want "Sexy man sitting on ottoman" to show up in my google search history. That doesn't wash off and I'd prefer not to have to explain that to anyone so lets just all carry on assuming that I was at least half right about this. Cool? Cool.

Epilogue

That's it. I'm done with this blog off. I learned alot about myself and my opponent. Nothing that will make me a better person or anything. Just more bullshit. It's been a crazy ride. I have negelected other regular posts on the blog so I gotta get back into the swing of things and backtrack some updates. This may be overstating the cultural importance of the 2011 Blog Off, but regardless of the final score, this has been the most epic battle that has ever been waged in the history of ever.

Thank you to my esteemed opponent, Mr. Brent Smith, for his matching of wits and patience. He is a formidable opponent and I look forward to our "Best of 15" rematch series in 2012 to determine, for realsies this time, who is the undisputed blog champ.

For realsies, yo.

Thanks for Reading

- jB

OH and in honor of my round 4 post, now that I can use pictures again, Lizzy Caplan, take a bow!

(Or a sexy, celebratory hair toss. Totally up to you.)

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