Monday, April 27, 2009

On A Mission From God

Ah Blues Brothers. One of the most important movies of my adolecense.

I'm only writing to tell all of my imaginary readers, and of course my one actual reader, but mostly my imaginary readers- I will not be making anymore posts until I have finished writing my next magazine article from Primer. I can't seem to finish it, its all a mess, and it is driving me crazy.

-Kevin H. MacLean

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Circle-Circle, Dot-Dot

So apparently, I have cooties.

Or some form of bizarre sickness that keeps people from wanting to hang out with me. I had 3 count em' THREE extra Yankee tickets to tonight's game that I was willing to give away for free and yet I could not get anyone I asked to take them. I must of asked at least 16 people if they could they were...
Nathaniel - working/school
Leah - work too early the next morning
T. - working
Nikki - working
Mike - working
Kirsten - already doing something
Tommy - too much homework
Shane - never called me back
Vince - too tired (seriously!?)
Josh - working
Jr. - stuck at school
Brad - also, stuck at school
A girl named Lia who I haven't even spoken to in almost a year - dance class
Upstairs roommate - reason unknown
Upstairs roommate - working
Downstairs roommate - reason unknown

And I know I'm forgetting about someone! Well, anyway, the game was good but it was pretty cold so I spent almost half of it inside (which wasn't much warmer). I stayed to the end and on the way home I was freaking out between 125th and 59th street on the D train.

Just before the D train I was on passed 86th St. it passed the B train. I thought to myself seeing thing "oh good, I can switch to the B at 59th st. and take it home without having to wait long or walk as far." But then, things took a grim turn.

At around 72nd st. the D train slowed to a crawl, for probably about 90 seconds, but it felt like 98,586,209,012 seconds. As I hunched over nervously I saw the inevitable, the B train flew by. I thought, maybe now the train will speed up and the B will wait at 59th street for connection passengers. But the D train didn't speed up, it stopped completely.

I was now quietly screaming inside my head. I muttered to myself under my breath and I thought about how stupid the MTA is for allowing a local to pass an express just before a common station.

As the train pulled into 59th street, I was defeated. But then, a ray of hope. Actually more like an entire star; the B train was there waiting for me. And after a long string of bad luck in catching trains the last few days, I got one back.


Be Back Soon,

Kevin H. MacLean

P.S. I hate scalpers. They're dishonest.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Be Well, John Spartan

Haha, Demolition Man

My bathroom smells like crap. Not like that kind of crap, exactly. The plumbing in my apartment backed up into the tub and sink and now the bathroom smells like clay pots and rusty iron. It looks like the only way to get it clean will be to do it myself, it would be nice if it ever occurred to them that they should occasionally clean something up too.

This Demolition Man movie is ridiculously hilarious. Oh look, it is Dennis Leary playing himself cira 1993, how very original.

I cannot believe I couldn't find anyone to take my extra yankees tix. I must of ask 10 people. I mean, what the hell? Free tickets people!

Oh well, I guess I didn't really have much to say but I haven't written anything in a few days. I've been writing a lot for Bleacher Report at the moment. Trying to find the balance is tough, but I guess that's true with everything.

-Kevin H MacLean

Friday, April 17, 2009

The Worst Pizzas in America!

As I sit in front of my computer, in front of my television, eating a peanut butter and apple sandwhich, drinking a non-alcoholic concoction called a "rootbeer sweetie" I heard a commercial for Papa John's pizza advertising their new "XL X-treme" pizza. They proudly proclaimed that it had "Nearly 1 lb. of cheese!" Wow, so who exactly does that sound appetizing to, cholester-holics?

I personally, loathe Papa John's pizza. I think it is sloppily made and tastes like it was taken out of a freezer. But, that commercial made me wonder, what other pizza chains do I hate...

Rocco's Pizza in Providence Rhode Island.
Hate is a strong word here. Let me just say that while I was in college, everyone always talked about Rocco's like it was God's gift to pizza. I thought it was alright, but overpriced and the crust was really tough and not fun to eat. I always liked that place next to Li Li Wok, no one else ever wanted to go there though, just because someone was murdered there a few years earlier. What a bunch of racists.

Ronzio's Pizza in Providence Rhode Island.
Everyone knows that Ronzio's sucks. But it is cheap so there you go.

Pronto Pizza in Mid-Town Manhattan.
Not terrible by Mid-Town Pizza standards, but hardly a satisfying pizza. There are a few Pronto's but the one I'm referring to is across from Rockefeller Center on 48th. I actually was one of their most loyal patrons for while because their subpar pizza was still the best in the neighborhood but then they raised their prices so that a slice of cheese is 2.75! And this is during a recession. Never again will I eat there.

Papa Gino's
I've must of eaten at Papa G's hundreds of times through the years. It was by far the most visited pizza place of my young childhood and my friends and I were some of the first regulars at the weekly "all you can eat" pizza night. But nothing lasts forever. It wasn't long before rowdy stupid highschool kids from neighboring a town (South Windsor) showed up and started harassing families and so "All you can eat" ended. I wouldn't say Papa Gino's makes a terrible pie (as I would say of Papa John's) But I would probably rate it a B- at it's best. The whole selling point of Papa G's is that you can eat as much as you want for a flat rate, take that out of the equation and they're pretty blase.
Oh, and they don't deliver.

Little Ceasar's
I actually don't think I've ever had Little Ceasar's pizza. Do they even exist anymore? What ever happened to those commercials with the little guy with the spear?

Pizza Hut
You know those obnoxious commercial's where Pizza Hut hires all those actors to pretend they are patrons in a fancy restaurant and they "unknowingly" consume Pizza Hut food thinking it is "authentic" Italian cuisine and they film the whole thing on hidden cameras? I hate those commercials. In fact, everyone I know hates those commercials. Pizza is medicore chain pizza, anyone who would mistake it for good Italian cuisine is either being paid to do so, or an imbecile.

Domino's
There are few edible things on this earth as disgusting as Domino's Pizza. The stuff tastes like air. If I'm going to eat a pizza, it is because simply consuming air is not enough to satisfy my hunger. I suspect the reason it tastes like crap is because it is given such a meager amount of sauce, but I make a point of eating so infrequently that I can't say for sure. All I know for certain is that it tastes bad and isn't worth the cardboard it is made out of.


Just for the record my favorite chain of pizza is People's Choice. Although, they are a little pricey.

I'm gonna go now. I think I'll have to mute the Yankee Game, Michael Kay is talking about how he is capable of umpiring 3rd base in a Major League game. Michael, you're not even capable of doing your current job, why don't you work on getting that down first? Also in related news, all further sports related topics will be posted on my BleacherReport.com account, located Here.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Mr. Money Bags, You Can't Be Serious...

I wasn't planning on posting anything until later today but I am so outraged by this that it simply could not wait.
Once again, the human race has demonstrated to me that they are irrecoverably stupid and continue to proudly hold there subjective preferences over common sense and justice. I am, of course, referring to the newest edition of the board game Monopoly: International Monopoly.
The people at Hasbro wanted to try and get people excited about their new board so in their infinite widsom they chose to have people vote to pick what cities would be featured. The more votes the further up they get.

So what does the board look like? Well, all of the obvious choices for the most valuable spots (New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Beijing) are all peppered around the middle of the board, only Paris being placed on the final straight away. Many of the most well known and most populous cities in the world arent' recognized: Los Angeles, Seoul, Prague, Madrid, Amsterdam, Dublin, Egypt, any city in Germany, any city in Russia, any city in India, any city at all from Central OR South America!

But of course, these tiny, significant cities had to make room for mecca's of modern day civilization such as Kyiv, Vancouver, Toronto, Belgrade, and Gdynia. I've never even heard of Gdynia. And what two mighty cities claimed the coveted dark blue spots you ask? Well Riga and Montreal, but of course! Now if you're like me, you are asking yourself, "Where the hell is Riga?" To answer your question it is in Latvia, or as no-one-in-the-whole-world-calls-it: "The Center of the Earth". If you're wondering where exactly Latvia is it is one of those three tiny countries right next to Russia (the other two are Estonia and Lithuania).

Seriously, what was Hasbro thinking when they put this together? Never mind their exclusion of cities like Berlin, Moscow, and Mexico City. How can they have THREE cities from Canada of all places and not have a single city from the entire CONTINENT of South America? The common sense approach to this board would have been simply to designate each color to a continent and any continent with a large number of historical cities (such as Europe) would be given two colors. Even if they decided to go with the very flawed voting system they went with they should of at least had the sense to limit the number of cities from each country to one or reserved the right to put the cities in whatever order they saw fit. Doing that would have at least made it possible to put somewhere respectable onto the final straight away (the only city that belongs there currently is Paris).

I have nothing personally against any of the places that did make it on the board and I also understand that it would have been impossible not to leave some great cities off the board but it is pretty hard to objectively defend a place like Capetown being given the final green and Montreal the most valuable spot on the board when somewhere like New York or London (two cities that virtually everyone in the world has at the very least heard of) are on red and cities like Rio De Janeiro and Mumbai (the largest city proper on earth) aren't even on the board!
Ah, humanity. I'm not surprised, but I'm still dissapointed.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Ice Breakers: Part Duex

I guess when I put up "Random thoughts and Ramblings" on the title of this blog I wasn't kidding. Not that I'm hugely unsatisfied with what has been posted thus far, but when your as opinionated as myself you like to try and say something just a little meaningful every once in a while. Over the next few weeks I'm going to make a much stronger effort to cover topics that I really have something to say about. Things that really grind my gears. Things like Bill Maher and public opinion on steroids. People's opinions about the economy and government. In general, just how much I can't stand the approximately 70% of the world's population that is stupid to the point where if someone they trusted told them the wrong thing they could be pretty dangerous.
I'll probably talk a lot about sports and a little about music. If I was talking about me from 4 years ago it would have been a lot more about music.

I'll undoubtedly talk about how I should be doing lots of things like performing stand up comedy and going around asking/begging different people for internships and work. I'll piss and moan and ironically muse about my frustration of being a struggling human being in a competitive world.

I'll probably talk about a lot of this over the next few days, maybe even some of it tonight. So if that stuff sounds like something that might interest you, maybe you should ask to see my pamphlet sometime. For right now I'm going to work on a magazine article for Primer Magazine about riding on the New York City Subway. Until then, I hope this can satisfy your unsatisfiable nature (the human nature, naturally).

Be back soon,

Kevin H. MacLean

Monday, April 13, 2009

Das Auto

I really don't have much to talk about at the moment (It is late at night and I'm very tired). I just felt I needed to put something up here because I haven't for a few days and I wanted to let my readers out there (all zero of you) know that I'm still alive and more posts will be coming over the next few days.

All I have to say at the moment is that allergies are a bizratch and there is a bunch of clothes on my bed that may very well spend the night on the floor instead of folded in drawers. Also, I would like to make a brief correction. In my previous post entitled "Ice Breakers" I said that I love the junk food "Cheese Doodlez". This is in fact not true, what I meant to say was that a love the junk food "Cheez Doodles", I don't even know what "Cheese Doodlez" are.

So that is all until tomorrow. Here is a funny car commericial from Europe my friend told me about (I guess they thought us Americans were too uptight to catch it on our TV sets, and they're absolutely right).

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Harness the Power of Dinosaurs

When I was a kid I used to really like going to visit my cousin's on my mom's side of the family. Part of the reason was because most of my cousins on my mom's side are boys and relatively close in age to myself. And part of the reason was because one of my cousins had the coolest toys in the history of action figures. These toys were the perfect blend of a young American boy's favorite things. They were opitome of cool. They were Dino-Riders.

For those who don't know, Dino-Riders was a short lived animated series about People and Aliens who used Dinosaurs like tanks and were always thinking on new and zany ways to try and best one another. But really, it was a show about the toys. The entire reason the show even came into existence was to promote the toys. And oh man were those toys cool. Even watching the videos of the episodes now on youtube I want to get me some of those toys.

I had the day off from work today. I haven't gotten anything useful done all day, unless you count this as being useful. Yankees are on right now and losing, again. Not worried about it, but it would be nice to see them do something positive. One of my favorite movies from my early adolescence is on right now: Jurassic Park.

Jurassic Park may be the most quotable action adventure since the good Star Wars trilogy. Although he wasn't a star of the movie the best character is by far the Raptor dude, Muldoon. He totally makes up for the stupid old man running the park and his annoying little grand kids. No matter what is coming out of the guy's mouth the general message is always the same: "I am so totally awesome."
Who can forget classic lines like:
"They should all be destroyed."
or,
"I think this was Gennaro."
or,
"Clever Girl..."
or how about the all-time classic,
"Shoooot Heerr!"

And the part where he drives the jeep and escapes from the T-rex. He doesn't actually say anything but he makes this awesome face that is all like, "Suck it, Mr. T-Rex."
Its too bad he gets killed in the movie, but he survives in the book, so I think he comes out ahead.

Well, I thought I had something else to write at least loosely related to this topic, but I guess I don't 'cause I can't remember anything. The credits are rolling on the movie now, so I guess it's time I say goodbye for the night. I used to love the music to this movie when I was a kid. Technically, the first music CD I ever owned was the score to Jurassic Park. The only thing I don't get is why is B.D. Wong's name so high up on the cast list? He is in the movie for like 2 minutes, has 5 lines, and is a totally insignificant character. Just one of life's great mysteries, I suppose.

Be Back Soon,
Kevin H. MacLean

P.S. I didn't want to put this up top before because I wanted to give Muldoon his due attention but this is my imitation of "Timmy" (A name I always thought sounded weak) from JP, "Oh look at me, I climbed all the way over a giant electric fence but instead of climbing down I'm gonna freak out like a little girl and just sit here while 60,000 volts of electricity jolt through my body. But don't worry, I'll fly off this fence in a perfectly choreographed fall and miraculously survive not only an electric shock 40 times what is considered a fatal amount but also a fall from about 25 feet with no serious injuries to speak of."
What a bizratch.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Ice Breakers

I hate Michael Kay.
For those who don't know, Michael Kay is a broadcaster and radio personality who works for the New York Yankees. The two main things about Mike I can't stand are, one, he always announces games in such a way that would suggest the people watching don't know the first thing about baseball, and two, he is a Met fan. At least he was when he was in college, one of my uncles knew him. Have some personal integrity, Michael.

So that's two things you now know about me. I love the Yankees and I think Michael Kay is patronizing liar. I also love baseball in general, but you wouldn't necessarily know that from the above.

Last night I tried to fill out all the personal stuff on this blog about myself. I got about halfway through and I hated everything I was writing so I decided to stop and do the rest in blog posts where I am free to ramble as I please between writing about how I use Old Spice body spray and my favorite junk food is Cheese Doodlez Cheese Puffs.

I love sports and music. I love playing just about any sport (except tennis because I'm horrible at it) and my favorite sports teams are The Yankees, Green Bay, and Real Madrid. I also support Providence College (because I went there) and UCONN (because I grew up there) for college sports. With music I listen to lot of things and blah, blah, blah, the same thing everyone else says about their taste in music. I can play guitar, harmoica, and the piano. I play the guitar and harmonica well. I also am a good singer and songwriter. For a while I considered music as a career but I haven't focused on it now for a long time.

I write freelance for an online magazine called primermagazine.com. It's not bad, if you like my writing you can check me out there as well. Buffalo wings are argueably my favorite food and my favorite wings continue to be the very first buffalo wings I ever tried.
I don't hate my job, but I don't love it much either.

I started this blog as another step in trying to lift myself out of the muck and obscruity of faceless, jobless, writers.
I would've liked to of said something else about that last bit, but nothing really comes to mind.

I love the line in the movie Network when Peter Finch's character says, "Because, less than three percent of you read books!" Peter Finch was the last person to win an Oscar posthumonously before Heath Ledger, in case you didn't know.

I love movies. One day, I'm going to make a lot of money writing movies. I don't know that for sure, but I'm still young enough where I can say it and be relatively confident that it'll happen. Network is the sort of movie I wish I wrote. My favorite movie is a tie between Raiders of the Lost Ark and American Beauty.

One of these days, I'm going to be someone that people are going to want to know what I have to say just because of who I am. That day won't be tomorrow and it probably won't be a year from now. But it's around somewhere down the road and I don't mind waiting.


Be back soon,
-Kevin H. MacLean

Monday, April 6, 2009

(Sort of) Brave New World

You know, this isn't actually even my first blog, technically. My first blog was started over the summer of last year (2008) for an internship at a theater production company. I never actually made a single post, but it was called "Good 'Bad' Theater". If I had written anything, it probably would have been about how much I hated that internship and a mass warning to anyone who would find it, "Don't see this show!"

I quit that internship in mid July. When I did I was so worked up and angry that I probably could have written 50 pages worth of complaints and frustration. But I didn't ever write anything.

So that was my first blog and this is my second, but this is my first post.


-Kevin H. MacLean

P.S. I could say more, a lot more. I could talk about why I quit that internship, or the music I love, why I didn't finish filling out my profile, or the woman at work today who unleashed a profanity filled tirade when I asked where she was from. But I'll save all of that. After all, I need to keep you coming back for something, don't I?