Shameless self-promotion

Today's Under 30 is on Appleton's smoking ban, a universal topic for readers everywhere!

"Look at the teeth on those comb"

Here's a story I wrote about a super cool festival coming to Cranky Pat's in Neenah on Monday. You should check it out, dudes. The show and the story, I mean.

If there is a bad public access TV show, an incriminating home movie or laughably unmusical music video in your past, the Found Footage Festival is your worst nightmare.

For the rest of us, it’s a comedic dream.

The Found Footage Festival, which comes Monday to Cranky Pat’s in Neenah, is a collection of unintentionally hilarious corporate training films, celebrity workout videos, religious shows and other visual oddities “that just make you say, ‘Why did they decide to commit this to video tape?’” said Nick Prueher, a New York City documentary filmmaker who curates the festival with Joe Pickett and Geoff Haas.

Audience members might wonder why or how some of this stuff ended up on video, but they won’t regret it. Memorable lapses in bad taste occur frequently over the course of the show’s 90 minutes, with unlikely stars emerging from the fuzzy footage. There’s Jack Rebney, an RV salesman whose inability to recite simple dialogue for a commercial was thankfully preserved in a series of expletive-spiked outtakes. There’s John and Johnny, a pair of manic hosts for a Wisconsin-based home shopping network who talk about shaving kits with an enthusiasm normally reserved for the Second Coming.

So I won't be posting for a few days

Because I am currently on vacation. Just thought you dudes should know in case you care.

Suck/lame: The mustache

We continue our mission of clearly defining those people, things, ideas, thoughts, actions and other nouns and verbs of questionable suckitude with the studliest facial hair this side of the fu manchu, the mustache.

Mustaches aren’t just for porn stars and 1970s cop shows anymore. The lip-warmer is back in a big way, baby. It looks cool, suave and so, so manly. Whether we are talking about one of the mustache greats like Burt Reynolds or Tom Selleck, or a newcomer to the ’stache party like college basketball star Adam Morrison, there’s no question that it takes a special kind of man to do the whiskers justice. Oh, who are we kidding? Mustaches are goofy, not to mention creepy. We only like them in an ironic way. And any dude with just a ’stache probably can’t grow a full beard.

So, is the mustache awesome, or awesomely bad? In other words, does it suck? Vote until NOON FRIDAY. Results will be posted soon after.

This is just plain weird

By now, you have probably heard about the hubbub over the pro-life Britney Spears sculpture. This thing just creeps me out. I mean, look at this thing. It's half ugh, half erotic.

Here are my questions: (1) The sculpture was made without Britney's cooperation, so the artist is speculating that this is what pregnant Britney looks like. How accurate is he? (2) What does the back side look like? (3) Can you please disregard the previous question? (4) Um, why is she on a bearskin rug?

If you can enlighten the class, please do.

Check out this $%@# story, you $%@$#

Here's an interesting story about how Americans #$%!!@# swear all the time.

Younger people admit to using bad language more often than older people; they also encounter it more and are less bothered by it. The AP-Ipsos poll showed that 62 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds acknowledged swearing in conversation at least a few times a week, compared to 39 percent of those 35 and older.

More women than men said they encounter people swearing more now than 20 years ago - 75 percent, compared to 60 percent. Also, more women said they were bothered by profanity - 74 percent at least some of the time - than men (60 percent.) And more men admitted to swearing: 54 percent at least a few times a week, compared to 39 percent of women.

Wondering specifically about the F-word? (For the record, we needed special dispensation from our bosses just to say 'F-word.') Thirty-two percent of men said they used it at least a few times a week, compared to 23 percent of women.

"That word doesn't even mean what it means anymore," says Larry Riley of Warren, Mich. "It has just become part of the culture."

My question is this: Isn't it a good thing the F-word doesn't mean anything anymore? That way it's not offensive. Or is it more offensive that the F-word isn't so offensive anymore?

An update on the experiment

So far my MySpace experiment has yielded only one good crazy message. And here it is:

WELL, Chris Isaak...He's the man writting all love songs and smooth music to ears of lovers and wanna be lovers..... Do you like his style compare to Mr. Adams and Mr. Young????? I'm just a stranger reading your blog! Mr. E p.s. Your beautiful...... Your Beautiful! It's true! This musican is a good song writter, too bad he sings like a billy goat! Listen to him.....am I right?

No clue what this dude is talking about, but if I were a woman, I would definitely go out with him. He had me at "writting."

Mostly I'm just getting friend requests from lonely divorcees and dudes posing with their shirts off. Man, being a woman on MySpace is depressing.

I took the pretty girl photo down for now, by the way. I forgot that I use that profile for work sometimes. But when I have more time, I'll post a phony profile and fish in the crazies. In the meantime, do any ladies out there have some good crazy MySpace messages to share?

Um, hello? My eyes are up here!

One of those meathead laddie magazines picked Scarlett Johansson as the sexiest woman in the world. I post this only as an excuse to put this picture up. I am trying to improve my teenage boy demographic.

While Scarlett Johansson is definitely the sexiest female movie star in the world, can we say for certain she is the sexiest woman in the world? What kind of screening process do the good people at FHM have?

I was thinking we could have a vote for the world's sexiest Under 30 comment poster. Right now for me, it's a toss-up between KBL and Cheddar. Your thoughts?