Wheel of Reviews: Advertising - Bowlmor Lanes

Okay, I know Bowlmor isn't exactly a national brand with a huge ad buy. For the most part, they just do cheeky little campaigns on NY subways and buses, but that's still no excuse for poor execution.


Basically, a cute girl with a flirtatious nickname is used to say "cool people with a free spirit bowl at Bowlmor." Also, in a subtle subtext, the name "Gutter Girl" suggests to lonely guys the prospect of a handy in the men's room.

Fair enough. I've been to Bowlmor, and I know the entire lure of the place is the trendy scene and fascinatingly overpriced booze. But at heart it's still a bowling alley. As such, one would hope that of all things they might fuck up in their ads, it wouldn't be HOW TO KEEP SCORE AT BOWLING.

Well, one would hope, but one would be terribly disappointed. I submit a closer look at the ad...


WTF? Did she actually knock down 12 pins in one frame? Either she's got mad skills or the person keeping score is borderline retarded. And if Gutter Girl is retarded, it certainly makes that hook-up in the john way creepier. Ew.

To continue...


Okay, so now I'm led to believe that 7 + 9 = 9. This one is a little more forgivable because the person is simply writing the score of that frame rather than the total. Forgivable for most, but not in an ad FOR A BOWLING ALLEY! Then again, if you're idea of an appealingly quirky nickname is "Bowling Stone," you're a crap weasel anyway. Unless of course, you're NBC journalist Stone Phillips, in which case, cool play on words.


So, if you remember nothing else from this post, allow me to sum up. Stone Phillips gets hand jobs from retards in the crapper.

Sublime Nonsense

It's the return of Mr. Douche Bag, Esq.

Happy Friday.


(click to enlarge)

Wheel of Reviews: Advertising - Honda

This might not be the most recent ad, so some people may have seen this before, but I just heard about it today. Everything you see was done with practical photography. No special riggings or digital effects were used. The recording cost 6 million dollars and it took 3 months to finish, including the engineering design of the sequence.

I will never complain about a slow or complicated production schedule ever again.

Wheel of Reviews: Movies - Watchmen

Being a geek, I decided to see Watchmen on opening night. I used to be a Geek (note the capital "G"). Back in those days I would have seen the movie on 12:01am late Thursday night/Friday morning. As it turns out I love sleep just a bit more than genre movies, so Friday night won out.

As I was thinking about this review, I couldn't think of a way to concisely review a 2-hour 45-minute movie filled with A TON of stuff. Plus, I don't want to reveal too many spoilers. The only way I could think to do it easily is a simple list of Pros and Cons. So here we go.


> Rorschach was spot on. (Get it..."spot on"...it's a damn fine pun, aint it?)
> Solid action sequences.
> Kept the adult themes in place.
> Visually stunning in most places.
> Had about the right amount of laughs mixed in.
> Wasn't too overly "Snyder-ized."
> Malin Ackerman's nakedness.
> Night Owl's costume and gear were pretty badass.
> Faithfulness to 90% of the graphic novel.


> Some of the action got gory and violent without needing it.
> Too much giant blue radioactive penis.
> Some of the visuals tried a bit too hard to be comic-booky (see Nixon, Richard).
> The soundtrack had cool classic rock songs but they seemed out of place.
> Dr. Manhattan just felt a bit too CG in too many scenes.
> Malin Ackerman's acting.
> Night Owl's acting.
> Some of the relationships and interactions seemed forced or lacked emotional believability.


So, the way I see it, the movie was an overwhelming win. Most of my pros were things I was worried about beforehand that wound up turning out well. And almost all of my cons are nitpicks and things that missed the mark, but not by much.

Missing LiNK Wheel of Review final verdict:
On a scale of 1 to 5, we give Watchmen 4 ink blots.


(Chop off half a blot if you're a stickler for fine cinema and details.)

If the question is "Who watches the Watchmen?" the answer should be you, and soon.

Happy Hoboken St. Patty's!

So, this past Saturday was Hoboken St. Patrick's Day. As many Missing LiNK readers know, the town of Hoboken, NJ celebrates St. Patty's Day on the Saturday a week or two before the actual holiday. By and large, Hoboken St. Pat's consists of an inordinate number of 20- and 30-somethings dressed in green crammed into trains so they be crammed into bars, only later to be crammed into local apartments and eventually crammed back onto trains. And all of this starts around 8AM and involves copious amounts of alcohol.

It's been a few years since I've been part of HSP, mostly because the commute takes about two and a half hours each way. But this year I ventured out to celebrate with friends at a house party. Ah, the wonders I have been missing. Alcohol + parties - restraint = entertainment! Here is a brief recap.

3:00pm: Leave my apartment and head for the Long Island Railroad into NYC.

3:15pm: Best slice of Buffalo chicken pizza ever.

3:30pm: Train leaves Long Beach.

4:30pm: Train arrives in Penn Station.

4:45pm: Get on PATH train. Not sure if it's the right train, but the 50 people wearing green shirts that say some form of "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" gives me confidence. (The two best versions were "I'm Not Irish. Kiss Me Anyway" and "Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced.")

5:10pm: Arrive in Hoboken. The air smells like beer (plus or minus a waft of puke.) Drunks are dancing in the street, even ones with cars driving on them. The debauchery has been underway all day, and I'm now dropped into ground zero.

5:15pm: Hot chick. Hot chick. There's another hot chick. Oh yeah, this is why I remember this being fun. Ooh, look, another hot chick.

5:20pm: Spot a girl wearing a very short skirt. Unfortunately, she has no business whatsoever wearing such a thing. She had legs like Jerome Bettis. I know sharing this serves no purpose, but I had to. No man should have to carry the burden of this image all by himself.

5:30pm: Arrive at house party. Spot someone I know. The fun starts. Beer me.

6:00pm: More people I know arrive. They're drunk. I'm not, but I'm on my way.

6:30pm: Joe Rockhill and I get destroyed in Beer Pong. WTF! Pissed off, I'm determined to drink more.

7:00pm: Yolked some dot. (This entry may have been changed slightly to avoid openly admitting illegal activity.)

8:00pm: Three beautiful words...Irish Car Bomb. Delish!

9:00pm: Decide it's time to leave and begin my never-ending trip home.

9:15pm: Overheard on the street:

UNHAPPY GIRL ON CELL: (unhappy) Seriously, I lost my shoes. [pause, then angrier and almost crying] Yes! I'm literally barefoot right now! [pause] I don't fucking know!

At this point, I turned around to see what one would expect...an angry girl on her phone walking through downtown Hoboken barefoot. Yet somehow I was still surprised.

9:30pm: I wait at the PATH station for the next NYC train. While waiting, I see a familiar face. No, not one of the many friends I know were there that day. Instead, I saw WWE ring announcer and Spanish-language musical artist Lillian Garcia.




Yes, she's kind of hot and yes I'm a fan of professional wrestling (fuck you, don't judge me!) Unfortunately, when she is piss-ass drunk and squeaking at her fiance, I'm much less of a fanboy.

9:40pm: I joke with Lillian and her fiance about being on the wrong train. She may be hammered, but she seems very sweet. And he's a pretty boy, but a nice guy. I guess they aren't spoiled by marginal C-lister celebrity.

10:00pm: While on the train, a quickly fading Lillian sits on the floor of the car. I hear her fiance mention another similar night where she didn't remember stopping for calamari and french fries. For her sake, I hope she doesn't make a habit of these nights. Rock-hard abs and a great singing voice will eventually fade if you're a blackout drunk. I don't think she is, but it's a cautionary tale.

10:20pm: The fucking PATH train sits at 14th Street for 15 minutes. Ugh.

10:35pm: Get to Penn Station. 15 minutes or so to my train. Phew.

10:40pm: I am quickly reminded that yolking dot makes you hungry. McNuggets rule!

10:50pm: Get on train to Long Beach.

11:45pm: Finally make it all the way back to Long Beach. Some more math...Beer + car bomb + McNuggets = trouble. A few deep breaths and I'm okay.

MIDNIGHT: I get home, I drink an entire Vitamin Water in one shot and pass out in bed. All in all, HSP was a success. Hopefully Newark Arbor Day will be just as cool.

(Editor's Note: While sending an email from the party, I discovered that my BlackBerry apparently thinks that when I type "Hoboken," I really mean "hobo ken." I wonder how many of those dolls Mattel could sell.)

I'm the Comedian. Heh heh!

Saw this online, had to share it. Coolness.

Wheel of Reviews: Television - American Idol

The following was contributed by a reader who wishes to remain anonymous, so I will refer to him as Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukis. Thanks, Duke!