Aviously

Because, aviously…

I’ve seen the movies you’ve made. You never had any pride. Why start now?

Before it even starts, the Comedy Central Roast of Bruce Willis gives him a kick straight where it counts. And while most of it is about making fun of his age, which is an old joke…they never won’t be funny.

Comedy Central always does a great job with these, and this one is no different, as Bruce Willis is a ready and willing target and most of the dais is funny. Here’s a rundown of the night’s cast:

  • Roastmaster Joseph Gordon Levitt – He hit the mark on some, but missed on others, doing well as the host — B+
  • Nikki Glaser – The Comedy Central Radio host kicks things off with her typical comedic style, which can be an acquired taste — B
  • Kevin Pollak – The longtime funnyman pulls out his Christopher Walken impression, mixed into his great one-liners — A-
  • Cybill Shepherd – She is one of the great understatements of this roast — B+
  • Lil Rel – One of two “brothers” on the list, and the first to mention Yippee Ki Yay, he couldn’t wait to Get Out on stage — B
  • Edward Norton – Maybe the greatest actor on stage, in the longest set of the night, breaks down Bruce’s career in the best ways possible — A
  • Martha Stewart – Comedy legend, and a woman toughened by her time in jail, she gets better each time in front of a podium — B+
  • Dom Irrera – An actual legendary comedian, Dom makes his presence felt, with laughter from start to finish — A
  • Dennis Rodman – The worm has managed to get onto the stage, and that may have been the biggest mistake of the night, as his humor is just flat — C+
  • Demi Moore – The ex makes an appearance, ribbing on his failures — B
  • Jeff Ross – The Roastmaster General, and the one thing holding these roasts together (because he thinks a roast is a type of food), but he’s always funny — A-
  • Bruce Willis – When the man of the hour gets on stage, he doesn’t let down, topping the night off right — A

Here are some of the lines I enjoyed more from it:

“Let’s see Bruce Willis in action, because no one wants to see him in comedy.” – Joseph Gordon Levitt

“Bruce was at Ashton’s wedding, with Demi. His gift was a toaster and 90 million dollars.” – Joseph Gordon Levitt

“It’s odd to see Dennis Rodman here. If you know Bruce…he’s not fond of the blacks.” – Kevin Pollak

“I had the honor of playing Martha Stewart in two different movies. But the only one to truly capture Martha, was the FBI.” – Cybill Shepherd

“I just look at our marriage like the Sixth Sense. You were dead the whole time.” – Demi Moore

“You look like Sir Patrick Stewart…if he operated a ferris wheel.” – Jeff Ross

“Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. It’s a Bruce Willis movie.” – Bruce Willis

Song of the Day. The most popular segment on this site, as voted on by the writers…aka: Me.


Solo by Clean Bandit feat. Demi Lovato

I declared this song the “Song of the Summer” before I even heard it, just based on it being Clean Bandit, who has made numerous appearances here with Rockabye (with Anne-Marie) and Symphony (Zara Larsson), as well as Song of the Year in 2014 with Rather Be, and they were teaming up with Demi Lovato.
But initial listens didn’t impress me, but like most good songs, it has grown on me over time!

I wanna f-woop, woop woop, but I’m broken hearted
Cr-cr-cry but I like to party
T-t-touch but I got nobody
Here on my own
I wanna f-woop, woop woop, but I’m broken hearted
Cr-cr-cry since the day we parted
T-t-touch but I got nobody
So I do it solo


Back To You by Selena Gomez

I love the sounds in this song, which I know is usually said for something like a rock song, but it really does have a nice ring to it.

We never got it right
Playing and replaying old conversations
Overthinking every word and I hate it
‘Cause it’s not me
And what’s the point in hiding?
Everybody knows we got unfinished business
And I’ll regret it if I didn’t say
This isn’t what it could be


Sit Next To Me by Foster The People

Foster the People was the first ever song of the day, back on April 15th, 2013, with Pumped Up Kicks, and it’s taken until now for them to get back into the mix.

Come over here and sit next to me
We can see where things go naturally
Just say the word and I’ll part the sea
Just come over here and sit next to me
And I’ll take you high


Meant To Be by Bebe Rexha feat. Florida Georgia Line

I don’t mean to be so uptight, but my heart’s been hurt a couple times
By a couple guys that didn’t treat me right
I ain’t gon’ lie, ain’t gonna lie
‘Cause I’m tired of the fake love, show me what you’re made of
Boy, make me believe
But hold up, girl, don’t you know you’re beautiful?
And it’s easy to see

Iliza Shlesinger and her dog are hitting the stage on a ship for this Netflix special, and right out of the gate she addressed what’s changed since her last special: Her engagement.

Born in 1983, Iliza is just inside the cutoff, declaring herself an Elder Millenial, but that old hag troll act gets tired in the first minutes of the special.

She covers topics like dating and biological clock, to Ted Talks and peacocks…but it wasn’t until 75% of the way thru that I started laughing when she talks about pudge little legs that kids have.

If a guy likes you, he’ll do anything……When a guy likes you, carrying your purse isn’t an issue. He’ll carry your bags if they are heavy. They’ll put gas in the car if you don’t want to deal. They’ll check under the hood for the…thing.

I really expected this special to be great, and it was a very big letdown, and the fact that they kept putting hashtags on the bottom of the screen, to try and be hip and relatable, made it worse.
If this was a Prime Time TV Show, the hashtags will at least have a shot at trending, but this is Netflix, and it’s not going to gain enough steam to make a dent.

Maybe it’s because this is supposed to be a “Women’s comedy show” and not meant for me as an audience? Although I did see enough guys in the crowd there, and they were awkwardly clapping when the women were going all out.
But being “for women” has never stopped me in the past, and this show just doesn’t do it for me, getting a 4 out of 10.

The Springfield History Museum, or what’s formally known as the “Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History”, is the second of the five museums in Springfield that I’m going to focus on, the first being the Springfield Science Museum.

This museum focuses on the history of Springfield, and all the things that gave the town flavor over the years, with its exhibits including:

  • Automobile Gallery – Some of the earliest cars were test driven on the streets of Springfield, some of which are on display here
  • Indian Motorcycle Collection – The Indian Manufacturing Company made Springfield home for the first half of the 1900s and holds some ‘cycles that had been in the Indian Motorcycle Museum, formerly of Springfield
  • Smith & Wesson Gallery of Firearms History – S&W sponsor this gallery, showing guns throughout time, from wars to sports, and history of guns in America including some of the more famous ones
  • Granville Brothers Aircraft – Two planes hang in a two-story room right past the entrance, showing some of the fastest racing planes ever built
  • Downtown Retail Gallery – Some of the early stores of Springfield are on display here, including Steiger’s and Friendly’s Ice Cream
  • Made in the Valley: The Industrial Revolution was huge in Massachusetts and some really famous companies made their way thru here, including Milton Bradley, Breck Shampoo, and Merriam-Webster!
    • Hasbro GameLand – A full gaming area, with coordination tests, imagination stations, and a memory game, all showing off some history from Milton Bradley

The Australian comedian Jim Jefferies, who is always most popular after a school shooting, has a brand new Netflix special entitled This Is Me Now.

He is a super dirty funnyman and had me laughing from start to finish, with a wide range of topics.

From being poor and famous vs rich and famous, and everyone getting in trouble starting with Kevin Spacey and the President (and the infamous grabbing phrase that got him in trouble).

Women are a sensitive bunch. Moody if you will.

This special is filmed in the UK, and he doesn’t hold back from discussing Brexit, and other countries immigration problems, like the sneaky Mexicans.

Some of his funnier moments are when he talks about when the deaf come to his shows and keeping an eye on the sign language to see how his curse words translate.

All you gotta do is outlive your depression.

Lastly, he focuses on a party he did for Mariah Carey and getting hit on by Al Pacino.

He’s funny and can keep a crowds attention for the full hour, and gets an 8 out of 10.

Father of the Year on Netflix is their continued quest to push out movies to the masses, this time starring David Spade, Nat Faxon, Joey Bragg, Matt Shively, and Bridgit Mendler.

Ben (Bragg) is home from college, after graduating valedictorian, and his trailer park father Wayne (Spade), who is on disabilities for colorblindness, is right there waiting for him with a surprise: a new swimming pool!!!…in the back of his neighbor’s pickup truck.

His best friend Larry (Shively) thinks his dad Mardy (Faxon) can clearly beat up Wayne, and the fight is on for father of the year.

Ben is just trying to get his childhood crush’s (Meredith (Mendler)) number and clean up the mess that his dad keeps making, but everything is standing in his way.

Strangely, a movie that feels like it has zero storylines suddenly goes from 0-60, and it skips a whole piece of building out a good “romance”, which is a little weird.

One of the funnier characters is Nathan, the nerdy friend who is trying his hardest to get into a biker gang, despite his abilities on a motorcycle.

The movie is funny at times but never drew me in, getting a 6.5 out of 10.

Springfield, Massachusetts has a grouping of five museums, all located around one central Dr. Seuss themed sculpture garden (more on that at a later date), with one entry that gets you into all of them. These five are:

  • Springfield Science Museum
  • Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History
  • George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum
  • Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts
  • The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum

I’ll start today with a quick peek into the first one, the Springfield Science Museum, which for reference is very similar to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, as seen in Night at the Museum:

  • R.E. Phelon African Hall – Ramps will guide you thru this two-story exhibit, which features many mounted animals
  • Dinosaur Hall – The life-size T-Rex is the main thing you’ll notice here, in what has become a go-to for most museums
  • Earth Hall – Minerals from around the world, as well as some that are local to the area
  • Solutia Live Animal Center – A little aquarium nestled into the museum, showing off some of the local animals, as well as creatures from around the world
  • Special Exhibits – This space was filled with the Adventures with Clifford The Big Red Dog exhibit, which is a “paws-on” experience for children
  • Seymour Planetarium – Take in a show exploring the universe in the oldest operating planetarium in the US

This is a great spot to start your trip around the five museums, and has a lot of things for all ages!

Joel McHale had a Netflix run of a fresh show every week for 13 weeks, which started here. And then when it finished they extended it by six episodes, to be binge released at one time…which is risky for a “weekly style” show since its content becomes more dated.

And with them being released this week, Joel makes it work, crossing the line and bringing up all of these issues, referencing the binge, that the next episode is only 31 seconds away, and even pointing out things that will happen in other episodes, in case you don’t watch them in order.

Regular guest appearances by Producer/Director Paul Feig, and a guest per episode including Gillian Jacobs (promoting Love and Ibiza), Joe Manganiello, and Jack Black.

There are also custom songs for each credit scene, by Eli Braden, with one of them sung by his son, and the final episode performed live including other sideshow acts.

Ben and Jerry’s has their original factory located in Waterbury, Vermont, and is a giant tourist trap, and really not worth visiting unless you happen to be in town already.

The tour itself will run you $4, which is basically paying for the free sample, and features the following:

  • A video in their moovie theater showing how the company was formed and the expansion since. But once that part of the movie is done (about 30% of it so far), they launch into the things Ben and Jerry are passionate about: Liberal politics. And spend the rest of the movie pushing their agendas onto everyone who is now suddenly unwillingly sitting there.
  • You then walk out onto an overlook, from which you can see all the machines that are involved in the ice cream making process (but no pictures allowed on this tour!).
    These machines do everything from mixing the milk and cream, to blending together flavors, and putting them into their containers, before sealing it all up and sending it out the door.
  • Free tasting. At the end they give you a single scoop free sample of a random flavor, before sending you on your way!

After the tour you can go for a walk behind the building, and see their giant tanks that store the milk, cream, and sugar before they hit the factory floor.

And lastly, you can head to the Flavor Graveyard, the final resting place of flavors that didn’t quite make it, or the limited edition runs. Some of these, like Sugar Plum, seemed great on paper, but tasted horrible…and on its tombstone reads:

It swirled in our heads,
It danced in our dreams,
It proved not to be though,
The best of ice creams.

One of the reasons I got a PlayStation, besides to play MLB The Show, was to finally try out one of the most storied franchises on gaming systems: God of War.

One of my biggest issues while starting the most recent edition of the game is that I had no idea what was going on. There’s no intro video to catch you up, and I even bought the Guide, hoping for something in there, and not an ounce of knowledge was gleaned…so I knew that Kratos was a God, and that’s about it.
(Although I’m told by people that when you play all the way thru it will fill in all the questions I have…but I’m impatient.)

The game is beautifully drawn, and a complete work of art, as you can see from the PushSquare screengrabs below.

Despite not knowing what was going on for a lot of it, the story is intriguing, as we follow a classic father-son journey into the real world, on a quest to deliver his mothers ashes to their final resting place.

We do what we please. No excuses.

While this game wasn’t for me, it just isn’t my style or genre, I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for an adventure with a really long story.