A Running Diary of Sci Fi Network Commercials at 4AM

This morning’s movie is “Decoys 2: Alien Seduction.” A couple of friends and I watched the first “Decoys” movie and it was…objectively terrible. The movies are about aliens that come to Earth disguised as beautiful women in order to breed with human men. When their mating act freezes their victims from the inside-out, hilarity ensues. If you ever want to watch a terrible, campy Canadian horror movie, give it a shot. The “Decoys” movies really deserve their own post.

To keep myself alert I’ve decided to keep track of a few of the commercials to see what (other) kind of person watches the Sci Fi network at 4 AM on a Sunday morning. I omitted commercials for Sci Fi network shows, even the really terrible ones.

Commercial break one:

Pokerstars.net – This seems pretty appropriate for our demographic.

ShamWow – What can I say that hasn’t been said? Did you know Vince hates Scientologists?

NetZero – Meh. This was an interesting idea in 1999.

eSurance – Fact: People actually have drawn up pornographic images of Erin, the eSurance girl. No, I’m not going to link to them. Yes, we’re doomed.

Commercial break two:

ExtenZe – These commercials are so creepy and uncomfortable. I don’t like watching weird middle aged people talk about their sex lives. It’s funny to me that these commercials almost always have to air at times when the only people watching TV are almost certainly not the people with sex lives to worry about.

FinallyFast.com – Frustrated people and their crappy computers. It promises to remove spyware and speed your computer up, but – whoops! – it’s spyware.

USA Medical diabetes test - Wilford Brimley is not in this commercial. Boring.

LiveLinks - How do these “singles chat lines” stay in business? Haven’t they been replaced by internet chatrooms as the province of desperate people that need a quick lay, real or fake?

AlienThink.com - A 43 hour training course on how to draw the human figure. I would rather spend 43 hours playing Ninja Gaiden II for the NES over and over, but then again, I’m also unmotivated and a terrible artist.

So, what does the average Sci Fi watcher at 4 AM buy? Well, he’s a prospective single diabetic poker-playing artist with a slow computer and a need to clean up messy spills. He also wants his internet and car insurance on the cheap, and may or may not have a fetish for animated characters. Oh, and he wants a bigger penis.*

(I say “he” for the sake of simplicity.)

That doesn’t sound like me, and I’m not too upset about that. Then again, it’s a bit ridiculous for me to spend time writing this and thumb my nose at anybody, so…

It’s Always Sunny In Medford #10

Three years ago, I wrote an article on my old website (now residing only on an external hard drive) about Hot or Not. The entire idea of Hot or Not amused me. It basically is the one online matchmaking service that was ahead of the curve in saying “Fuck it, we most of you are superficial anyway – let’s cut the crap” and celebrated that fact by asking you to “rate” pictures of members and choose whether or not you wanted to meet them based almost entirely on that criteria alone. I guess in that one sense, it’s sort of admirable, if still completely terrible and repulsive.

Earlier that year, I had written something about the “camera whore” nature of MySpace (I was on the cutting edge back then, I know) and took a ridiculous picture of myself to parody it. Hot or Not is basically the home for the whoriest of the camera whores, so it seemed a natural fit that I post a profile there with said picture. Keep in mind, I neither consider myself attractive or take black and white pictures of myself that aren’t for ironic, self-deprecating, or otherwise comedic purposes. My hypothesis was that anyone willing to take a ridiculous, partially clothed, toolsy picture of themselves could attain a decent rating:

Success! I had proof that there’s a very simple relationship between how much of a tool you look like in your picture on Hot or Not and how highly you get rated, assuming looks are equal:

Hotness vs. Douchiness - A Study

A couple of days back I was rummaging through my old bookmarks and, lo and behold, came across my old Hot or Not profile. So I thought, well, why not update it for 2009 and see how this year’s douchey version of me performs?

Sometimes, I hate myself. Regardless, I will update it, and see how it does for shits and giggles.

It says something about this that if I wore a Mets jersey and a baseball cap I wouldn’t do nearly as well, even though that’s way more “me” than not wearing a shirt and having some contrived expression on my face. Oh well. I also neglected to write some snazzy self-aggrandizing paragraph to describe myself and what I want:

I’m a lover of the world. Literature, history, and lively debate all serve to awaken me from the feeling that I’m sailing through life aimlessly, a feeling I think too many of my fellow humans share. I speak two languages, can play two instruments, and find the scent of the ocean a far better drug than anything I could buy at the liquor store or from the corner dealer. Find something, whatever it is, that leaves you vulnerable – that leaves you wanting more, that leaves you wanting to be alive; that is my mission in life.

Also, I hit .511 last summer batting cleanup for my slow-pitch softball team, but I’m ready to hit 1.000 batting leadoff…for your heart.

That would’ve just been too much. I’m pretty sure that no matter how this turns out, I won’t be proud of myself.

While I find ways to waste time by using Hot or Not as an experiment on human attraction, I will also anxiously be following spring training updates for the New York Mets. This is the time of year when I talk myself into being overly optimistic based entirely on prognostications or fluffy spring training reports. PECOTA says we”re going to win the East? John Maine’s working on a curveball? J.J. Putz is as filthy as advertised? Ryan Church is no longer woozy? I’m excited! By April 1st, I will have the Mets in the World Series sweeping the Yankees (after a July trade for Roy Halladay, of course).

In reality, there’s a way better chance that five months down the road that they will once again find a way to disappoint me and question why I became a baseball fan in the first place. It’s a vicious cycle. I’ve never done this, but I imagine it’s like talking yourself into giving your ex “one more chance” again and again, only to have them throw your Nintendo Wii out the window of their second story apartment in a few months time. Yeah, I imagine it’s just like that. Being a baseball fan is a committment though; you either get it or you don’t.

With the Knicks not going anywhere this year and the Rangers collapsing in a hurry (can Sean Avery really save them?), the timing seems pretty good, just like the timing for football season always seems pretty good once the Mets implode in the fall. Right now, though, I’m talking myself into New York Mets baseball again. Help me.

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