Above picture taken as the storm rages on, not an hour ago. As per usual, the Milk Moms and Old Ladies are vindicated for their non-perishables hoarding and general hysteria. I’m typing this from the eye of the storm, begging Jesus Allah to let me live.

While I thought the movie Watchmen was a turd that seared my soul and crushed my dreams regarding an adaptation of one of my favorite comic books of all time, it did have one perk: blue dongs. Or specifically, Dr. Manhattan’s blue schlong.

Slashfilm:

Reddit does it again, using a screencapture of Google Trends to show the extreme rise in user searches for the term “blue dong” in the begining of 2009, around the time that Watchmen was released in theaters.

Naturally, people’s eyes were opened to the glory of blue dicks. Not blue as in priapatic, the blood flow cut-off. No elastic bands and cock rings. Legit blue cocks. What followed was a Blue Dick Search Term Explosion.

Dear Eric Northman, if you die, I will be inconsolable. Somehow, I haven’t tired of your brooding nature, or your staccato bursts of malaise. Nor your continuous pining for Sookie Stackhouse, despite the fact that you’re far too good for her hillbilly ass. No seriously, if you are reduced to cinders and eulogies next episode, I am going to be one seriously sad dudebro.

And so the writers of True Blood have me hooked like it’s the good ole days. Yeah, you know, back in 2008. When I loved True Blood. I know I do a lot of hatin’ about True Blood, but it’s based out of pure emotional response and not some sort of agenda. So I can say I was pretty stoked with last night’s episode.

For the first time since the middle of season two, I was totally aggravated that the show was over. I have to wait two goddamn weeks to find out what happens to my beloved Eric? Fucking Labor Day! Do you know what I’ll be doing next Sunday? Probably sitting on my fat ass! Why can’t I do that while watchin’ the season finale? Son of a bitch.

But it’s a good aggravation, the sort of interest that stems from wanting to know what happens next. This is in contrast to almost this entire season, where my mind was a river of profanity and hate following an episode. I was a river of confusion, wondering what the fuck I loved about the show so much in the first place, and how it had run so far off course.

Last night reminded me.

Bill and Sookie In: Of Mice And Men
A good portion of the episode was dedicated to Bill and Sookie cruisin’ the swamp-ass roads of Louisiana, dreaming of what their life would be like if they could start over. Just to prove that I’m not just fickle, but also an overly emotional dude, I actually dug on those scenes. It was all Of Mice & Men & Vampires & Fairies, as they detailed the impossibilities they’d love to indulge in.

Plus, with those gap-teeth and that tendency to embark on the hopelessly stupid, Sookie can totally be the Bon Temps’ version of Lennie.

It was enjoyable though, to see the couple actually interacting for almost like three minutes without someone’s life at stake. Sure it goes to shit pretty quickly, but before Russell totally upends their dumb car, they actually come off like the rest of us couples; fucked up, trying to make it work, and hopelessly in love with the idea of their relationship.

Jason In: No Country For Old Stackhouse
Leave it to True Blood to drag in some commentary on the state of modern sports. Poor Jason Stackhouse strives to legitimize his career in the face of his spiritual successor as the High School Jock Top Shit. Motherfuckers.

Jason’s always been one of my favorite characters, because of his hopelessly retarded antics. But underneath all that bullshit, I’ve enjoyed the times when they’ve attempted to humanize him. Give him a few flourishes to go alone with his boneheaded statements and his nintety-three pack abs.

I feel for the dude. Stuck in a back road town, one of his only claims to fame seemingly about to be obliterated by a cheater, it’s got to be depressing as fuck for the guy. Even more so since I think Jason feels that there’s a good chance this kid will make it.

There’s probably some ethical dilemma here for more people, but I hope Jason blasts that kid’s stupid arm off with a shotgun and then dances in his blood.

Jason actually comes off like the rest of us humans; fearful of being outmoded in the face of newer, superior versions of ourselves. Quicker, faster, their potential not yet wasted, or withered, or perhaps worst of all, close to being actually actualized.

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As you may or may not know, Pepsibones and I live under the same roof. The result is a lot of absurd conversations, and oodles of wasted time.

Today as I was trying to pump out Press Start!, the Bones was in my room. I walked out for a moment to throw away a Diet Mountain Dew bottle. As I returned, he was in the middle of tipping a lamp over on himself. I caught him, I was too quick for his old man bones.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked him.

“The lamp was attacking me. It was a lamp attack.” He informed me.

This is about par for the course in one of our conversations.

“What the fuck is a lamp attack?” I inquired.

“It’s when a lamp loses its mind and attacks you.”

He seemed deadly serious.

He then proceeded to insist on showing me what it looks like when a lamp attacks a person. As you can see, it is not pretty in the least. Watch out for the lamps, yo. They’re eying you.

Eric Northman has spent this season on a butt-fucking rampage of revenge. He has pouted, killed, pouted more, brooded, killed, and ultimately pouted some more. Going into last night’s episode, I was fucking stoked!, shit was about to go down.

But then? Then Eric just pouted a real lot, signed some court documents, and pouted some more.

Oh True Blood, if you were as good as your previews, we’d have such a great relationship. I’d buy you ice cream, and we’d swing on the swing set near the lake and talk about the time when you locked your keys in your car and you came over and we snuggled and watched Man Vs. Food until you fell asleep on my shoulder.

But seriously, last night, what the fuck?

We finally got the big reveal! Sookie is…Navi from Legend of Zelda? Or something like that? I actually think its sort of dope, despite the fact that it’s also sort of seven shades of lame. Sookie herself knew it, and the writers had her drop the self-aware “That’s fucking lame!”, which of course makes her existence as a Fairy Lady a bit more bearable.

Unfortunately, Sookie has to be the dumbest fucking fairy ever, running off as always when she’s explicitly told not to. Bill wakes up and he’s all like RAWR, RAWR, WHERE ART THOU, SOOKIE?! Then he gets up in Jason’s face like it’s his fault that his sister is the most aggravatingly impetuous bitch ever.

Seriously. Sookie is every annoying chick in a horror flick rolled up into a ball of hot buck-toothed misery. She deserves a pickaxe in her dumb chest. But she’d just catch it with the gap in her teeth and then use it to mow the lawn or some shit.

If you take a step back, the entire episode, much like the entire series of True Blood, was just Sookie running back and forth from Bill and Eric. Like, seriously. But that’s okay, because the rest of the denizens of Hick Trash, Louisiana can fill up the episode with sugar-pop bullshit.

First off, Tara’s got to fucking go. Like, seriously. Let me describe Tara to you in one sentence: Annoying ass chick who just bulges her eyes, quivers her bottom lip, and acts really pissed off.

There you go. Find me a scene where at least one of this qualities isn’t true.

She’s in the good though, because she may be soon fucking Jason. But Jason’s wrapped up with a Were-Panther, from Nearby Hick Trash, Louisiana. As an aside, Were-Panthers are probably the coolest thing in the show since good old vampires. So there’s that, for Crystal.

Meanwhile, when did True Blood become LOST? The whole flashing to Sam’s life of douchery wasn’t needed, and sort of just jumbled up the narrative. Do we really need to complicate Sam’s life? He’s already a shifter with yokel parents who fucked a Tree Goddess, and now he’s also a thief and a murderer.

I only got a place in my heart for one Sawyer, yo.

But Sam’s back-story wasn’t the only thing that was hacking the narrative structure to pieces. Lafayette and Jesus go on a ridiculous V-Trip on some Universal Islands of Adventure ride. The entire five minutes it ate up were entertaining, but I was left wondering why the fuck it was in the episode. Like, do we really need another storyline involving more characters on some epic bullshit? Isn’t this show already a disastrous potpourri of storylines?

I would have enjoyed it, if it wasn’t wedged into an episode that was doing absolutely nothing to the main narrative, other than having Fairy Gap Tooth run around and get rubbed down by the two guys she’s sweating.

That’s my main qualm with this fucking shit at this point. There’s so much bullshit going on, with so many characters, that the entire thing comes off as a tonally-uneven, fractured narrative of misery. There’s so many storylines going on, that the pacing is total fucking bumper cars, and everything is tethered together more by wishes than anything.

What is connecting the Eric Buttfucking Rampage storyline to the Jason Stackhouse Fucks Panthers storyline to the Sam is Sawyer From LOST storyline? I’m not really sure. But they hop and skip between the lot of them so quickly it’s some jerky, hodgepodge of suck. Sure they’re characters that existence within the same universe, but beyond that?

As far as the main storyline goes, the entire episode was high-fructose bullshit. Pure filler. By the time Russell finally appears on screen, almost the entire episode had been burned up with a bunch of different characters accomplishing almost nothing. Sam was sitting in the woods, Tara was probably just quivering somewhere and stammering, Sookie was in-between running to/from Eric/Bill.

And god dammit, I like Russell’s storyline. I also enjoy Eric’s butt-fucking fiascoatron. I love Hoyt and Jessica’s relationship more than both. But I’m given so little time with every character, it’s like I’m watching a bunch of vignettes tied together under the same umbrella.

There’s two episodes left. And as I always say, if the episode is as good as the preview, I’ll be happy. If it’s “The Lives of Hick Trash” again, I’ll be here next week. Lamenting and groaning and whining like I’m just another member of Bon Temps.

[This! Is! Mad Men! recaps the newest developments of Don Draper and his ragtag group of cohorts. In the spirit of the show, it will often be sexist and drunk. Apologies ahead of time.]

Okay, we’ve hit the fifth episode of this fourth season. I’m liking where things are going, even if they make me mad (man!) or uncomfortable. Let’s take a look at some of the more striking developments in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword…

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Holy smokes. One year ago today, OL launched its very first post. Since then, we’ve unfurled countless obscenities, over-indulgent critiques of comic book characters and recollections of general buffoonery onto the Internet. Caffeine Powered chronicled that final season of LOST with a candor and enthusiasm that I truly believe is worthy of publication. I walked readers through the oft-overlooked celebration of OCTOBERFEAST. We got to express ourselves in many ways that would be impossible otherwise.

It’s been a blast.

To those of you who regularly attend Omega-Stadium – thank you. We sincerely appreciate your support, even if that just means reading and commenting on a post.

Let’s keep making memories.

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I know that I’ve skimped on doing a True Blood recap the last couple of weeks, and for that I apologize. Sort of, and somewhat. The truth being that the show inculcates in me something of a blind rage, and a recap would be me smashing angrily on a keyboard, nerd rage clouding my vision and mind.

But!, I have been consigned to do a recap, and I promise one. So here I am. We’re going to try and keep it positive today. That’s right, I won’t bring any complaints. It’s going to be a short recap.

Is it commonly accepted at this point that Hoyt and Jessica’s relationship is the best on the show? And furthermore, the most interesting one? I love the scenes between the two of them, and I find their relationship eminently relatable. Hoyt is suffering from Rebounditcus Con Douchecuntinus. It’s a common problem for man and woman alike.

Rebounding with a douchey person out of a sense of need to be with someone. Yeah man, I been there Hoyt. Stay strong. And you probably have too, faithful readers. When Hoyt is all, “Man, I fucking hate her”, it struck a cord.

I remember my last rebound chick. A psychosis that was only surpassed by the jungle in her loins. Flossin’ for weeks, yo. And stalked for months.

Stay strong, Hoyt.

I know I shouldn’t enjoy it as much as I do, but I’m totally in love with Northman’s crusade for revenge against Russell Nazi Guy. I mean, c’mon. It’s a Viking seeking out the man responsible for his father’s death. And yeah, of course I’m a bit smitten with smoldering Eric and the way he just sort of broods into the camera. I think between my girlfriend and myself there’s an unspoken appreciate for Eric that crosses (blurry) lines of sexual preference and gender.

The only thing is, what are they going to do with Northman once he consummates his Revenge Quest? He’ll totally level-up and gain +30 Serenity, but please lord don’t place him back in the Gap-Toothed Wonder / Brooding Confederate Vampire dynamic. They’re insuffertable enough, we don’t need to drag the entire cast into it.

And finally, the coup de grace, the final three minutes of the episode. I hadn’t been this enthralled with an episode of True Blood since perhaps the first episode of the entire series. Or, when Godric was on screen rockin’ out as Jesus Christ Vampire. Spittin’ about acceptance and life.

If I knew Russell Edgington was going to be this interesting by the end of his arch, I don’t think I would have hated him with the passion that I did. Dude stole the entire episode. Between rolling in the exploded bits of Previously Talbot, to cooing into a chalice of Talbot mush, he was a rollicking clusterfuck of insane absurdity.

That’s when this show is rollin’, when they eschew the brain-numbing awkward love-slop pandering for some sort of ridiculous moment drizzled in light social commentary.

And goddamn, did we get it last night.

There’s something about offering a social critique while holding the spinal cord of a fallen douche that appeals to me. I don’t know if it’s the social critique, or the spinal cord dripping in muck, or perhaps a synergy of the two circumstances that speaks to me. But if you combine the two of them in an absurd monologue, you’re going to crush it in my eyes.

So Russell did that. His monologue carefully towed the precipice between preachy and insightful, and any time I was about to groan, I remember he was doing it while his right hand was covered in some dude’s central nervous system.

I sat slack-jawed at the ridiculousness of the scene, and by the time he kicked it over to the meteorologist, I almost forgot that at the middle of the episode I was so bored I was checking my email on my phone.

Almost.

Sometimes, you cannot dare the universe with culminating absurdity. Whoever thought it would be a good idea for Tila Tequila to perform at the Gathering of the Juggalos clearly didn’t think through the consequences of putting one piece of gutter trash in front of another gathering of social refuse.

For all of us though? The results seem surreal.

Boing Boing:

CNN reports that Tila Tequila, star of MySpace and reality television, suffered facial cuts after being pelted with rocks and liquor bottles during her performance at “Gathering of the Juggalos” in rural Illinois. A witness said the crowd of about 2,000 was hostile toward Tequila. “She took her top off and they got really violent,” he said. The witness asked not to be identified, “so that he does not anger the juggalos.”

Let’s zoom in on one particular bid of awesomeness. ENHANCE:

The witness asked not to be identified, “so that he does not anger the juggalos.”

Hell yeah man! You know what happens when you piss off a group of juggalos, yo! You do something crazy like show them your tits and they be gonna rough you up.

I love this story.

The Almighty GJ have released their new single All Good Junkies Go to Heaven on vinyl. As is to be expected, the record is already out of stock and more copies are going to be printed.

I’d really prefer their new EP to be released as a straght-up CD (or even a digital download), but I might just have to invest in a turntable.

Judging from this track and You Think You’re John Fucking Lennon, I think it’d be a worthwhile investment.