I promised to ramp up my tales of Commuting Suicide. I've failed. Maybe I've become too good a commuter – too good at blocking out my inane fellow travelers, too good at keeping myself entertained. When I'm ready to relaunch this semi-regular feature, my notebook is full of moderately amusing observations (and, in case I find myself pen-less, I started a Twitter account to text myself reminders.)

But I'm proud of a few past installments, including "The Conversationalist," which I actually read during a job interview to a slightly puzzled crowd.

vs.

Who's tougher?

Have you you used your health insurance lately? Do you even have any? Then do yourself a favor, and do not get sick, or injured, either. Sicko from Michael Moore opens June 29th.

Alessandra Ambrosio and Keira Knightley in a hover-car equipped with lasers in an underwater laboratory fighting mutant shark/human hybrids until they're naked (the ladies, not the sharks) whilst Michael Bay-like explosions go off around them. That would be the greatest day ever. Until that day comes, and you know it's only a few short years off, we'll have to count today in the top ten greatest days ever. (As reference, the day I got pubes is #7)

Thanks to Ariel Waldman for pointing me to one of the most insightful news blogs I've ever seen - LOLTheNews.

Check out the rest of the fake ads created by the goons at Something Awful here.

My contribution to Retro Week for today is a piece written by another ex-contributor, Girl Arkansas. It's a beautifully written story that first appeared in January 2006, about first love in a small town, and just so happens to be about the unnoficial fourth member of Green Day, Jason White

I admit it. I love Green Day.

In fairness, that admission must be followed by the admission that I loved Jason White, the North Little Rock native who for years has played guitar and toured with Green Day and who, with his increasing visibility in their videos, live performances and recent DVD, seems to have become the trio's unofficial fourth member. Jason was my high school sweetheart. I can't remember how long it lasted -- two years? A little less? A little more? I do know we met about 15 years ago.

I have loved Green Day, the trio of Billie Joe Armstrong, Tré Cool, and Mike Dirnt, all that time. If you've turned on your television or seen a magazine lately, you know it's been a big year for Green Day.

Of course, it's been a big year for Jason White. But back to him in a moment.

He has songs of wilderbeasts and angels,
He has soared on the wings of a demon.

Hell yeah, raise your devil horns for Ronnie James Dio... today on the veg.

Some things are funny. Other things are not funny. But both can be made more funny with The Benny Hill treatment. We've posted some examples you may have missed the first time around.

Remember those cows that invaded NYC a few years ago? Now there's The Vader Project - re-imaginings of the classic mask by contemporary artists, all on display at the Star Wars Celebration IV.

Flickr set here. More about the masks and artists here and here.

A site that provides free movies and TV shows streamed over the internet is almost certainly illegal, no matter what country you're in, so we'd never recommend a site like Joox, which seems to be doing just that. Shame on them. Let's hope they crack down on them...err...soonish.

So, the blog's been kicking around for about two and a half years now. And I'd say in that time, I've had ten, maybe twenty, posts that were worth a damn. The rest have been self-indulgent musings about things practicaly no one else cares about, lists made for the sake of making lists, product reviews that collectively a half dozen people have read, reports on the whereabouts of every b-list celebrty from the seventies, and political rants that serve no other purpose than to keep me from screaming out my window. How's that for a sales pitch.

Speaking of those political rants, here's one now...pundits make me sick. They boil important issues down to three word catch phrases. They seal their point by screaming the loudest and talking over the other guy. And in the end, they're all just pretty mean-spirited people. (My name's Jellio, and I speak in sweeping generalizations)

Regarding the man-spirited thing, back in September of '05, I asked Mike, a friend of the blog, to help program a game that would seal the point in my eyes, but in hindsite was just stating the obvious in a "we get it already" kind of way. I'm reposting it now because 1) Mike put alot of work into it, and did a great job, and 2) any day I can ridicule Ann Coulter is a good day. So take a look at a mindless little matching game we created called Classic Condemnation (reference to the 70's gameshow, Classic Concentration. Christ, I'm old) and see what took up many hours of my time about two years ago...before I upgraded the level of my posts to flying squirrel videos.

- First rule of astronaut fight club...don't mess with Buzz Aldrin, because he may just go medieval on your ass.
- Speaking of fight club, you don't really know pain until you've had a pocket protector shoved up your dirty place.
- And the Lord told Noah to take two of every endangered species (and some bear paws), and go make some real cash.
- Only 2 more episodes left. So many whackings to commit...so little time. How 'bout a look back at the death count.
- And how many Leias does it take to screw a big fat frog-looking thing. Those Star Wars kids know how to party.