Hey Folks,

Ben here to let you all know that Mr. Wolff will be taking a rant break for the foreseeable future. I’m sure that you are all wondering why we must go rantless on Thursdays, so please allow me to fill you in on the dark events that transpired to bring us sadder hump days. You see, Mr. Wolff is well known for having a collection of the finest looking ladies at his beck and call, and there are some who take great umbrage at our blogger’s menagerie of beauty. It was for this reason that Mr. Wolff’s harem was shanghaied by a cadre of Sasquatches. Upon finding his home disheveled and covered in man-beast hair that was not his own, Mr. Wolff went into a rage, punted the nearest midget a full city block and vowed vengeance against the yeti-kin that would deprive him of nook nook. And so, Mr. Wolff has embarked upon a journey to of ho retrieval and monster whumpery.

No one is sadder about the loss of Mr. Wolff than I. Without him my week will far be less angry, and there will be way fewer pictures of scantily clad celebrities on my computer.Throughout his brief time with us here at Semantink, Wolff has taught me so much, most of which I can’t really talk about in mixed company. If you are a newcomer to the site, or have never gotten a chance to read the writings of Mr. Wolff, I encourage you to take some time and go back and read his excellent work in our blog archive. I also thought that today we could go back and remember some of Mr. Wolff’s finest rants…

Cosplay: In Mr. Wolff’s first full length rant, he touched on the potential for greatness from hot she-cosplayers. He also showed the ugly (and fat) side of cosplay, and showed us all that not everyone was meant to participate in such events. How could we forget this?

Mr. Wolff later found this man and beat him with his own wig.

My favorite line from this rant has to be:

“…my heart is racing and I feel an urgency at the tips of my fingers as if somewhere, an overweight, under-sunned,  gap-toothed, overly-hairy, cankled beast dressed as Super Girl has just killed a child by merely making itself visible.  Damn you poorly-costumed villain.  Damn you to Cosplay Hell…”

Heroes: Mr. Wolff would often focus his rants on the entertainment industry. Movies, books, TV, all were fields he felt (and rightly so) qualified to rant on. In a television-centric blog, Mr. Wolff learned us all on what shows we should be watching, and in the case of Heroes, what shows we should be skipping.

The look in her eyes says “I don’t want to be here”.

I doubt anyone could explain what’s wrong with Heroes as eloquently as this:

“Heroes is like a beautiful woman with a tight premise, supple characters and a nice, round potential — but the crazy b*tch keeps puking on herself!  All she does all day is stick her finger in her butt, smell is and wipe her face leaving a streak across her brow.  Then she throws up on her chest, rubs it all over her body and blows snot out her nose while laughing, snorting and growling uncontrollably.  The potential is there, but she keeps f*cking herself up!!  Somebody please put this b*tch out of her misery.”

Well put Mr. Wolff, well put.

World of Warcraft: In one of his most controversial blogs, Mr. Wolff took on MMORPGers everywhere by ranting against the popular World Of Warcraft. There was a great ammount of vitriol from fans about this post, but in the end, Mr. Wolff made his point. WoW is stupid. Don’t play it, and you won’t be stupid. Continue your basement dwelling ways and risk turning out like this:

Sadly, this paladin will never succeed in his quest to lose his virginity.

I think Mr. Wolff summed it up best:

“…let me just say that I do not condemn WoW, or WoW players.  I don’t think you’re all stupid, useless bags of flesh, rotting in a pile of your own feces — but most of you are.  Grow up, move out of your mother’s basement, get a real job and try finding a member of the opposite (or same if that floats your boat) sex and try, just try, to discover what people did before Warcraft.  Or just trick yourself into thinking your character has some tangible meaning in life and die — I don’t really care.”

It’s like the man drinks thrice distilled wisdom, and then is kind enough to spit it at us.

Sports Illustrated (swimsuit edition): Despite all of his macho talk, Mr Wolff showed that he had a soft side, and a deep respect for women, in this touching piece. He made sure to include the faces of every model he referenced, and even found out their names. Mr. Wolff has been called misogynistic before, but in this blog, he showed the world how much he cared about the opposite sex. Would a misogynist show this?

Thanks Mr. Wolff.

Mr. Wolff even offered us all this generous warning:

“Whatever you do, do NOT go to Sports Illustrated where you would be forced to see a lot more of these “beautiful” models in very little clothing at no cost to you.  And if for some ungodly reason you do go to the site, don’t look at the site alone, like I am or you may be tempted to think impure thoughts and take of your pants. In the dark.  Like me.  Right now…”

God Bless you, Mr. Wolff.

Thank you all for joining me on this bittersweet day of reminiscing. I’m sure that you all are wondering what will be filling in our blog on Thursday moving forward. I will be toting my Comicopea blog over to Thursdays. On Sundays, we will be featuring the works of some of our Semantink writers. I already have some work from MYTHOI writer James Ninness. And one day, if and when he is needed, Mr. Wolff could come back for a guest appearance or two, but not any time soon, Those Sasquatches are some elusive bitches.

At midnight tonight we will begin not only a new year, but a new decade.  The last ten years have been…interesting.  We’ve had our ups (conquering racial boundaries with the election of an African-American President) and downs (the the realization that our African-American president is, at the end of the day, still a politician), but nobody can say we didn’t try our damnedest to make it memorable.  Unfortunately, some things/people will be remembered in ways the contrary to their hopes.  With that in mind I would like to close the otts with a tribute to the worsts of the decade in five fields: Television, Film, Comics, Music and Celebrity.

Television:  Heroes (2006)

If you’re familiar with my writing, then you know I despise Heroes.  Whilst some of you may be wondering if I have labeled them the worst of the decade for personal reasons, allow me to be clear: I have.  You see, TV shows come and go.  To find “the worst” according to ratings would be somewhat trivial as I would have to sift through an onslaught of shows that never were and describe them to you, since you probably never had the chance to see them.  Now, what makes Heroes the worst?  The fact that it started so strong and fell so flat.  I’ve exhausted myself on previous occasions berating this show so I will keep this somewhat short:  Heroes started in 2006 as a hot girl in high school — she had a nice rack, breasts to make a goddess envious and the playful kind of personality that would impress your parents at dinner and then fuck you something rotten in private.  But as seasons went on and Heroes left high school, she got dirty and fat.  She became abusive and started stealing from other (better) stories without the slightest semblance of an apology.  Then, before anyone knew what happened, we came home from a hard day at work to find our parents dead with Heroes stroking a dick she’d grown while worshiping an altar to some evil little bastard in the shape of Uwe Boll.

Film:  Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever (2002)

Look at this instead of the poster. Trust me.

Lucy Liu is hot.  Antonio Banderas is great.  So what doomed this potential money maker?  Everything.  The story was weak, the action was too much (and think about that for a second — “too much”) and the acting was, well, there wasn’t any really.  Currently Ballistic has a 00% on Rotten Tomatoes, in the company of: Witless Protection (2008), Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004), and Pinocchio (2002).  I tried watching this movie once and one time only.  I was unable to finish it because I killed myself five minutes in after I saw something about nanobots or a homosexual orgy — I forget.  Point is, I killed myself and when I got to Hell, Satan tried to make me watch Ballistic for eternity, when he heard that they had released his torture of choice on Earth, he cried in a corner while I slipped out of hell, slapping some succubi ass on my way out.

Comics:  Trouble (2003)

Perhaps lesbianism would’ve saved this one…

Let’s start with the obvious:  Mark Millar is one of the best comic book writers ever.  That being said:  WHAT THE FUCK MAN?!  If you’ve never read Trouble, here’s the abridged version:  Aunt May (yeah, the old woman who looks after Spider-man) was a slut who got knocked up when she slept with her friend’s boyfriend.  Turns out she is Peter’s mom, but just barely since she almost aborted his ass when she went nuts learning of her spawn.  Instead, she had Peter, dropped him off with Mary and Richard (whom we thought were Peter’s parents) and goes home like nothing every happened.  First of all, I don’t ever, ever want to see sweet old Aunt May whoring out with two guys in one comic, even if she does have huge breasts — it’s just creepy.  And second, don’t fuck with Spider-man’s back story.  Leave that shit alone.  There’s enough confusing shit to follow and keep track of and I don’t need to learn about Parker’s skank of a mom who has lied to him forever.  Fuck this book.

Music:  The E.N.D. — Black Eyed Peas (2009)

Weren’t there some dudes in this band at a point?

When the Black Eyed Peas picked up Fergie, it was the best/worst thing they could have done.  It would launch them into the mainstream market and help them to bathe in money for the rest of their lives.  It would also decrease the quality of their music so enormously that musicians would laugh at the mere mention of this once talented band.  Need proof they suck?  They were nominated for a Grammy.  I know that some of you love this band (Fergie included), and that’s okay.  You people are considered tasteless and I don’t care what you think.  You’re probably the same people who think the Jonas Brother’s Movie was “fun,” and that Fred Durst will make a come back.  You’re cute.  Really.  Here, sing with this guy, he’s on your team:

Celebrity:  Michael Vick

Good boy.

According to a US Department of Agriculture report dated August 28, 2008, “Vick, Peace and Phillips thought it was funny to watch the pit bull dogs belonging to Bad Newz Kennels injure or kill the other dogs.”  Vick was tried and convicted, spent a little time in jail and ultimately wound up playing football again for the Philadelphia Eagles.  Folks, I know I can be a bit insensitive to women, retards and various forms of stupid, but abusing animals is an evil above most other evils, surpassed by only by Hitler and just above punching babies.  Michael Vick is a joke.  The laugh comes at the expense of our justice system which has grossly missed the mark.  Vick should be fed to the dogs he abused and then forced to drink the urine of puppies for the rest of his days.  Get this: He won the Eagles award for courage a week or so ago.  Courage, huh?  Fuck you.  What Vick did was the largest, most inexusable act of negligence performed by any other celebrity in the last decade.  I hope he gets rabies.

In less than 24 hours it will be 2010 and the beginning of the next decade.  I know that Semantink has a shitload of goodies lined up and I can only hope that the economic slump lessens with time, but the nice thing about the future is the opportunities it presents.  Get out there and do something awesome people.  If you insist on being a dumbass, stop breathing so the rest of us can try and make the world a little better than when we found it.

Until next year,

Mr. Wolff.

Read more @ Semantink.com

Before I begin please read the title of this article again.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

That’s right, nowhere in that silly string of words does it say that these are the “only” shows you should be watching or that these are the “best” shows ever made, so please don’t get your panties all wadded up your arsehole (yeah, arsehole) if I don’t mention your favorite show.  I don’t care about half the sh*t on television these days for lack of time and I only use my DVR to record shows that are of particular interest to me based off of a reliable recommendation or previous experience with the show in question.  While I would love to receive more recommendations from you, my intelligent readers, chances are that I’ve heard of half the shows you’re going to say and I probably won’t care.  So, if you think you’ve got something I may be interested in then pass it on, otherwise, keeps your shouts of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “General Hospital” to a dull tone because I’ve obviously been aware of them for some time and I think they’re lame at best.  And on that note, let us begin…

The first show you should set your TIVO to record is Sons of Anarchy.  Some of you may never have heard of this show and that’s okay — daddy’s here to learn you good.  The show was created by Kurt Sutter, husband to Katey Sagal (Peggy Bundy, Lila from Futurama, and Mrs. Morrow on SOA) and tells the story of a motorcycle club in the fictional Northern California town of Charming.  Jax, (Charlie Hunnam) the protagonist, is the vice president of the club and begins to doubt the direction the club is heading under the leadership of his step-father, Clay Morrow (given life by the great Ron Perlman).

Season one is already over, but it’s out on DVD and should be purchased by anyone with a taste for badassery, hotchickacauccas, or motorcyclitus.  SAMCRO (an acronym for Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original) traffics guns to a pair of rival city gangs outside of Charming for income, though they all hold down “day jobs” to keep the law they haven’t bought off their backs.  They have also sworn to keep meth out of their humble little town, which puts them at odds with the local white supremacists, the NORDs.  I’m not going to ruin the whole thing for you, but sh*t gets nutty…  Beatings commence, rivalries erupt, a horny TFA agent molests local law, the lovely Maggie Siff exists, Drea de Mateo is flaunts both her acting and her body, and all of this led by the previously mentioned creator’s wife, Katey Sagal and her gigantic, enormous, lovely-to-look-at, uh… talents.

It doesn’t hurt to watch her. Not at all…

Season two is a few episodes in and so far, so good.  The whole crew is back and Jax is still up to his neck in bullsh*t:  Clay is getting fed up with Jax’s desire to be a more peaceful illegal gun running operation, SAMCRO just adopted a porn company (yeah, that’s right), Mrs. Morrow (Jax’s mother) was raped, and all this at the hands of some new white-loving residents to Charming, Mr. Etan Zobelle and his enforcer A.J. Weston (played by Henry “I’m-never-not-angry” Rollins).

The true excellence in this show does not lie in their ability to throw violence, naked women and awesom motorcycles at the audience each week (though it doesn’t hurt), but the genuine way in which it is done.  The characters feel real.  The situations unfold naturally.  Characters are established, situations present themselves, and then shit blows up in a fashion that seems to defy television law.  For instance, at the end of season one, a particular series of events caused one of the most tragic deaths I have ever seen on screen.  It never felt forced, the whole progression made sense, but by the time I realized where it was going it was too late — I was emotionally invested and my heart dropped as the tragedy flashed before my eyes completely unrepentant.

And there are boobs.

Next on the list is Community.  The comedy was most recently sent to viewers among a barrage of Office-like imitators, creating a refreshing reminder that mockumentary is not the only way to be funny.  The plot is simple:  a sweet-talking lawyer named Jeff Winger has his college degree revoked by the board and must attend community college to finish up the necessary credits to get back to his life.  The twist?  This community college is filled with hilarious stereotypes and laugh-out-loud moments all perpetuated by the socially awkward cohorts Winger has assembled unwillingly in an attempt to bed and spread Britta (the eye-candy played by Gillian Jacobs).

To enhance the already hilarious performance from Talk Soup escapee Joel McHale, the producers threw a ton of well-known and not-so-well-known talent including:  Chevy Chase, Ken Jeong , John Oliver, Danny Pudi, Yvette Nicole Brown, Donald Glover and Allison Brie.  Most of us may know Chevy Chase and of late, Mr. Ken Jeong from everything Judd Apatow, but the true stand out in this lineup is Danny Pudi.  Pudi plays a character named Abed, the only person in the group who doesn’t seem to mind that he’s at a community college and spends most of his time wearing a blank face, throwing out brutal honesty as a result of his Asperger’s Syndrome.

Never have I envied Mickey as much as now.

Is it the greatest comedy ever?  No.  It has moments of unfunny that make me wish hilarity could avoid plot lines on television, but overall it is a guaranteed 30 minutes of fun each and every week.  Everybody is given a chance to be funny and for the most part, they all deliver.  And don’t leave until after the credits or you may miss some of the greatness…

Finally we pay homage to what is, in my opinion, the greatest show on television at this point:  FRINGE.

If you don’t know about Fringe then you are probably don’t own a television, or you use it strictly for porn or videogames.  I’m not going to go into details about the shows plot or characters, suffice to say that J.J. Abrams doing X-Files with a LOST like continuity is a blessing to all things entertaining.  Everything about this show is awesome…  The cases meld with fringe-science giving equal parts fiction and fact to further arouse our nerd-boners; the cast is superb enough to make me buy all of the Mighty Duck films if only to support Joshua Jackson; and the mystery/violence/comedy is all given equal doses mixing into an hour of geeky goodness.

Anna Torv does quite well as a leading lady, especially since she has to use an American accent every week (though that in and of itself is a shame because Austrailian accents are a ten on the you’re-f*cking-sexy scale).  Joshua Jackson pulls off the leading man role much better than I had anticipated, walking the line between mysterious-smart and funny-badass with ease.  And the Emmy-overlooked John Noble is nothing but brilliant as Dr. Bishop, the quirky, insane and often child-like motor for everything in Fringe’s world.

Now say, “Tha’s notta knife…”

Each episode is pretty similar:  Impossible situation explained in somewhat reasonable terms over the next hour until you actually believe it to be possible.  It’s a formula that works, as proven by Fringe’s predecessor The X-Files.  I’ve heard the two shows compared over and over with fans for the X-Files screaming “ripoff” and fans of Fringe crying out “original,” but I’m afraid I have to disagree with both sides…  On the one hand, it would be utterly ridiculous to say Fringe writers have thoughts unmolested by the X-Files.  X-Files was too big, too succesful to not be present in the minds of anybody with a television for the last twenty years.  Even if the writers try to write in a way to avoid X-Files comparison, they are still being influenced.  Now, on the flip side, Mulder and Skully had a very specific dynamic: one was a skeptic and the other a believer in all things supernatural.  And X-Files didn’t try to explain everything, instead, they just showed the audience that the unbelievable was in fact happening and left it up to the audience to try and figure out how.  Fringe is a team of middle-walkers, people who neither believe full-fledged, nor deny wholeheartedly the existence of unlikely events.  In Fringe our heroes accept what is happening and then use science to figure out how to understand it as best as possible.  Is one better than the other?  I dunno…  I’m partial to Fringe, but I’d be hard pressed to argue with a die hard X-File fan the greater nature of either.  The bottom line is this:  Fringe is on and I’m enjoying it.

Damn you all.

In closing I’m sure that some of you may think I’ve gone a littl soft this week and haven’t really complained about anything, so here’s your moment of rant:  I know I’ve already bashed Heroes once this year, but I’ve been (unfortunately) watching, hoping, waiting for the show to get good and it has done the unthinkable; Heroes has gotten worse.  Sylar doesn’t know Sylar — lame.  Peter Petrelli is nothing but an ambulance driver.  Claire is in a sorority — boring.  Hero is sick, a carnie villain isn’t threatening in the least and Matt Parkman has gone completely and totally bitch.  Heroes is like a beautiful woman with a tight premise, supple characters and a nice, round potential — but the crazy b*tch keeps puking on herself!  All she does all day is stick her finger in her butt, smell is and wipe her face leaving a streak across her brow.  Then she throws up on her chest, rubs it all over her body and blows snot out her nose while laughing, snorting and growling uncontrollably.  The potential is there, but she keeps f*cking herself up!!  Somebody please put this b*tch out of her misery.

Until next time,

Mr. Wolff.