Benny in search of the sweetest infection

HD stinks. Sometimes.

Since my ADSL connection was upgraded to 2.5Gb/s, I've been downloading more and more content in HD. Most of it looks pretty awesome, but there's one area that seems to suffer from this evolution in home video technology. When Blu-ray and HD-DVD (may its soul rest in peace) were introduced a couple of years ago, there was an outrage in the pornography industry. At the time it seemed pretty silly to me, but now that I've had several experiences with high definition pornography I'm sorry to say that the fear was completely justified. Disregarding realistic amateur content (among other sick stuff I have absolutely no interest in), the porn industry is all about selling fantasy to the homely masses. It's all about highly attractive people, engaging in highly attractive sexual acts. And HD ruins it all. See, the one thing we don't want to know is that porn actresses are real people. Because real people are made of flesh and skin and bones. They have skin imperfections. Pimples. Rashes. Scars. Infected wounds. Moles. Indentations from leaning on the wrong thing. Unsightly hair, as well as stubble in awkward places. Acne scars. Evidence of piercing gone wrong. Stretch marks. Teeth that aren't all that perfect. Under-eye bags. The list goes on and on. In standard definition video you can't really see most of these problems, and in high resolution still photos they can all be easily fixed, but HD always gives you the truth, the kind you can't even cover with makeup. And what's the point of watching someone having sex on your screen if they're just as human, just as flawed as you are? The image below is a full resolution partial capture from a 720p source. One can only imagine what it must look like in full HD, which is twice as detailed. I think I'm going to lay off HD porn for the time being. I'd like my favourite porn chicks to remain the goddesses that they are, at least in my mind. Virtually no one is as dear to me as they are, and I'd like to keep it that way. Why is that, you ask? Stay tuned after this extremely sexy image to read an example of why I've given up on living, breathing human females a long time ago.

An incredibly hot chick's left ass cheek

There's this farmers' market by the beach here that I like to go to, but I haven't been there in over three months. Yesterday we went and bought a bunch of stuff, like persimmons and figs and purple carrots and a pitaya. The two things I like most about the market is the beer stand and the hummus stand. The beer comes from a little local brewery and is very good and makes me sort of happy, at least for a short while, and the hummus comes from a little organic restaurant, and it's literally the best hummus I have ever had inside my mouth. So I'm at the hummus stand, asking for a "large" container of hummus from the adorable little chickiepoo who sells it. I've seen her there maybe two or three times before, but those were all over three months ago. I remember that the last time I was there she had offered me a taste of the hummus on a little piece of pitta, but I declined the offer (because her job entails handling money, which is filthy, which means her fingers are usually pretty dirty too), which I immediately regretted, because how often do I get to eat something touched by such a pretty, cool-looking young woman? So yesterday she's getting some hummus into the container (I couldn't help noticing how she placed her finger inside the container before filling it, which was both thrilling and disgusting) when suddenly she asks me a question. The question was, do I reheat the hummus at home (they serve it warm, fresh from the pot). My first response was, no, I'm eating it right here, by the water. As I felt that this statement made me sound both fat and lonely, I immediately corrected myself and said that "*we're* eating it here". This was obviously a total lie, and I'm pretty sure it made me seem even sadder. Then I asked, why, is there a problem with reheating it at home? To which she replied, no, there isn't, I've just noticed how you've been buying here hummus regularly and wondered what you do with it, because a lot of people think you can't reheat it at home. Then I took a couple of plastic forks (when all I really needed was one) and left. This very brief encounter has charged me up for quite a long time. I know that having the appearance of a connection with you customer is the basis of good salesmanship and that it didn't mean anything, but I couldn't get over the fact that I had had something that was sort of like a conversation with an attractive young female, who has actually noticed and remembered me, which for me is a pretty incredible scenario. I wish I could have said something cool like "hey baby, could you please tell me your name, so that later when I'm thinking about you while I'm masturbating in my single bed I'll know what to mumble happily?" On the other hand, I'm pretty grateful that I can't actually say stuff like that out loud to another person. So given my basic lack of social skills when it comes to people of the female persuasion, anyone can clearly see that getting an actual girlfriend, the kind you can take out to a movie and touch and fight with, is just not something I'm capable of. Anyway. Here's to you, cute hummus girl. In my stupid little world, you definitely get this week's "Gawd I Wanted to Bang Her" award.

Yum!

Benny in search of the perfect view

Fun with lung cancer

Yesterday I finished watching the second season of Breaking Bad, created by Vince Gilligan and starring the brilliant Bryan Cranston. I absolutely love Breaking Bad! It's all about a lowly high school chemistry teacher who gets lung cancer and so in an effort to raise money for his treatments as well as for the future of his family he turns to manufacturing drugs, crystal meth to be specific, assisted by an old stoner student of his. The first season ended after only seven episodes, with a really mean cliff hanger that left me itchy all over. This time we got a full 13 episode season, which tied most of the loose ends from the previous season and then went on to even awesomer heights. It's brutally honest and very dark, in a real-life suburban kind of way. I can't even begin to describe Bryan Cranston's work on the show. I've always liked him in that Malcolm show (have you heard about how the kid from that show was recently arrested for slicing off a hooker's left ass cheek with a chainsaw while he was high on Benadryl?), but that was nothing compared to the level of craft he displays on Breaking Bad. He *is* Walter White. I don't think I'll ever be able to accept him in any other role. It truly is the role of a lifetime. I wish Mr. White could've been my high school chemistry teacher, instead of that fat anal retentive asshole who forbade the use of correction fluid in our notebooks and gave us insanely long multiple choice tests. Hell, I'd have probably hated chemistry class anyway. A chemistry lab is a pretty scary place when you have an acute fear of sinks. Aaron Paul is pretty good as Jesse the stoner, who gets an especially hard time this season, being the show's main punching bag. I guess that's what you get for having a fried egg for a brain. Dean Norris is pretty entertaining as Walter's DEA brother-in-law, a very familiar character actor whom I can't really recall seeing anywhere specific. This season Jesse got a new apartment that came equipped with an adorable little landlady, played by the lovely Krysten Ritter. Cute, isn't she? Too bad she won't be reprising her role in the third season. Choking to death on your own vomit with a needle in your arm can do that to a character.

Krysten Ritter, not pretending to be a corpse

I can't really take anything that doesn't have a complaint hotline number on the label, so recreational drugs that are currently illegal are pretty much out of the question. For now, beer works just fine for me. As long as there's enough of it, I'm good. Sort of.

Benny in search of his daily obsession

I too am not much fun when I'm hungry

Today I watched The Incredible Hulk on DVD, and I liked it just as much as I did when it came out in theaters. Not the most cerebral film ever, but an extremely enjoyable 110 minute ride. It starts in Brazil, homeland of the world-famous bright yellow drink (now with 60% more blood!), made exclusively by the two biggest stereotypes of Brazil: scary assholes who call white people 'gringos', and crazy-hot chicks with big round butts. I don't usually like drinking human blood. You can get diseases from it and stuff. Once the army tracks down the narrator guy from Fight Club we finally get to see the new Hulk design, and it is a sight to be seen! I kinda liked the first Hulk movie, the one directed by the guy with the funny eyes who usually makes movies about gay cowboys eating pudding. Sure, it has its faults, but come on, how can you not like a movie about a giant green guy who goes ape shit every time someone looks at him funny? And there were giant mutant dogs, and that drunk who played the Hulk's dad, and that purdy Labyrinth chick, so there's actually a lot to like about it. The Hulk itself, however, was a bit of a letdown, and it has nothing to do with technology. It's the design that was just not good enough, because it made the hulk look like a whiny little pussy instead of a comic book hero. Thankfully, the new 2008 design fixed all that. The new Hulk is pure awesomeness. His skin tone is more realistic, his hair is cooler, his body is veinier, his face is meaner, and everything about him screams pure GRRRRRRR! Really great stuff. Ed Norton does an OK job playing the scrawny pink version of the hulk, but it's obvious that his heart isn't really into it. Liv Tyler is very pretty, but I'd hate to think what would happen to her the day she stops being so. William Hurt and Tim Roth are both awesome, as usual (be sure to check out Mr. Hurt in a serial killer movie called Mr. Brooks. Sure, it's a Kevin Costner movie, but it's actually really really good!). And the Abomination design is just incredible, with bones sticking out under his skin in every direction. Very creepy stuff. Scaaaaary. I haven't noticed Lou Ferrigno the first time I saw the movie, which means I'm really dumb. I remember watching the TV show back in the '80s, but I don't remember much about it other than the fact that every once in a while some big green dude would run around smashing stuff.

A can of peas, anyone?

Two things I've learned from The Incredible Hulk: first, anything you put in your mouth, you better be ready to poop it out the other end. And if you're planning on gaining weight, it pays to invest in stretchy pants. And yes, turning your rage into muscle mass still counts as gaining weight. Next time someone comments about my weight I'll just say that I'm not fat, I just have the radiation-induced ability to convert boredom into body mass. That should work nicely.

Benny in search of his bitter mistress