I've been meaning to update y'all about our new resident Problem Bear. Let's see... to recap, I was alerted by the Cowardly Pets and looked out to see a tagged bear out in the back yard. Scared him off with the judicious use of an air horn. He punched a hole through our blackberry briars trying to get away from me.  MORE Mojo! »

So Mojo is one of those poor misinformed people who has never had the opportunity to see certain movie classics. Like Taxi Driver. Sure, I've seen enough clips and parodies you'd SWEAR I've seen it all the way through, but I haven't. (Ditto The Godfather until I was somewhere in my thirties.)

No, this isn't about seeing Taxi Driver, although that's on my to-do list. This is about another movie I've heard so much about most of my life, and I finally got the chance to see it. Midnight Express, the Turkish prison "horror" movie that pretty much everyone my age saw when it first came out and were traumatized for life by it, and then didn't have to have things Explained To Them when scenes were parodied in other movies or TV shows.

Anyway, after twenty years or so of people TALKING INCESSANTLY about it, I finally saw it this weekend.  MORE Mojo! »

...than EATING CONTESTS, that is?

Usually these vile pigs are scarfing down hot dogs, and we poor news viewers are suddenly treated to extreme closeups of grownups smearing food all over their faces. Mojo doesn't even like it much when CHILDREN do that, let alone people that she had vainly hoped would somehow know better by virtue of their age.  MORE Mojo! »

...as if more were needed.

Okay, as we all know--and I HOPE you've been taking notes--Mojo is back to driving her beloved Taco pickup truck since the Deathtrap expired in the driveway a couple of weeks ago. Mojo LOVES the Taco. It was Mojo's first new car in like fifteen years when she bought it, back in '04. Which made the accident less than two weeks later, when that poor teenager t-boned me while I was stopped at a traffic light, particularly heart-breaking, but I digress.

One of the things I like about the Taco, besides the fact it's a color I like and it's so cute 'n' all, is that it's a STANDARD TRANSMISSION. Yes, Mojo is a Clutch Snob. In her limited, petty world, she maintains that people who can't handle a clutch just shouldn't be allowed on the road, period. Making people do their driving tests in a standard transmission car would cut down on incompetents getting their license. It would also cut down on the underage kids stealing the family car and going joyriding, 'cuz really, ANY chimp with a working foot can drive an automatic, but no smartaleck snotnosed kid is gonna get too far trying to figure out how a clutch works if they've never clutched before.  MORE Mojo! »

It's the weekend, it's been a long, busy week, and Mojo is tired. My delightful essay on sweeping the chimney will have to wait until Monday. All I will do today is go on the record--although I believe all right-thinking people are behind me so I am preaching to the choir--and say that every single "Axe for Men" commercial I have ever seen is the most repulsive thing on television since the latest FOX reality show. And, again like FOX, every time I see a new one I think, well, gosh, they can't POSSIBLY get more repulsive with this product, can they?

Well, surprise! Yes, they can. Not only with their useless, pathetic product but now they seem to want to turn Mojo off of chocolate for life. Forget all the old products, which apparently turned men into babe magnets who didn't have to bathe on a regular basis. (I mean, really, how gross is THAT?) Their newest product, which apparently turns men into GIANT CHOCOLATE PEOPLE complete with scary chocolate rabbit STARING CANDY EYES, is just plain DISTURBING as well as repulsive.

Okay, Mojo realizes young men can be stupid when them-there hormones start swirling about. But I maintain there is a special echelon of stupidity reserved for anyone who would ever buy this product or think the commercial is somehow a good idea. I thought the guy not showering and just spraying himself with Axe Stink and then peeling the scum off of his body was bad enough. But chocolate Easter Bunny Boy losing pieces of his anatomy as he walks down the street is so utterly repulsive on so many levels Mojo can't believe it made it past storyboards.

Mojo is so turned off by the whole entire Axe campaign she suspects she must be missing something and they are in fact ironically self-aware parodies of themselves. If that's the case they're not doing a very good job of it. Ditto that TAG crap. (What, young males can't figure out names with more than three letters?)

Although I'm not a HUGE fan of Family Guy they DO have the occasional good line now and then, and I DID mildly enjoy their little cutaway of "TAG for Sick Cats". Note I DON'T say I believe it to be Comedy Genius, but it about says everything I would say regarding male body sprays attracting women. Don't click on the movie if you don't want to watch a cartoon cat throw up. Seriously.

I leave you with that for the weekend... that, and the final TAGline, "This spray is not for me."

Mojo

Stupid people. There are two types. Well, make that three. The first type, and the sort I was about to leave out, are the stupid people who realize right to the letter just how stupid they are. Ironically, I view this brand of stupidity as the first step toward actual intelligence. When you're in your twenties, you think you pretty much know everything and you dearly love to lecture your elders in How Things Ought to Be. At least Mojo did, charming lass that she was and is.  MORE Mojo! »

Rosie is still recuperating after an exciting weekend. We had my Six-Year-Old Friend to visit, of course, and she had an absolute ball being mauled and abused by him. Right now I own two of the nicest and kindest animals I have ever known. They are so totally kidproof I would trust them with a newborn baby. So a tough character like my Six-Year-Old Friend just pigpiles into the zoo and somehow comes out okay the other side. The animals revel in his attentions and beg him for more.  MORE Mojo! »

Okay, so it's not three days to Stove Day. Stove Day is TOMORROW. What happened was, Mojo was thinking (always a concern), Friday is Stove Day, today is Wednesday. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday--that's three days. Ergo, three days to Stove Day.  MORE Mojo! »

I'm thinking "never". They've been hyping the heck out of their latest schlockfest, being an idiotic-looking ripoff of the Terminator franchise, for the past month or two. And then, the last week or so leading up to it, they start hyping it as "the most ANTICIPATED television event" blah blah blah.  MORE Mojo! »

As staggering as it might sound to those of you who have come to regard Mojo in an almost goddesslike fashion, I must admit she was not always the Paragon of Intelligence she clearly is now. No, for some reason this past weekend Mojo and her Favorite Husband got into swapping Stupid Things I Did As A Kid stories, and left us both idly wondering how we survived childhood.  MORE Mojo! »