I figured I'd take this time today to big up some of my favorite online scribes and entertainers. Most of these guys and gals are pretty big-time at least by internet standards but I figured exposure never hurts so here are a few of my favorite websites, and why I like them:
The Dugout is a series of fictitious chatroom transcripts between major league baseball players. Yep. I'm a giant, monumental dork. And I don't care. I love this fucking website. The pictures, the usernames, the accents, pretty much everything about it is totally hilarious. The Dugout started off as a column on Progressive Boink made to look like a Peter Gammons ESPN.Com piece. The AOL chat log was a small part of the column but got such good feedback that it became a regular thing. It got so big that it had it's own URL "WordUpThome.com" which is the fictitious version of Jim Thome's screen name.
Three guys used to write it but now I think it's just two. It's pretty hard to describe why I like this so much, it's about as niche as niche can get but the fact that it's so over the top and offensive makes it must-read status for me.
There's one where Craig Biggio is getting hazed as the newest member of the 3,000 hit club and Ty Cobb takes it way too far and shoots him. Manny Ramirez and Jonathan Papelbon are pretty much 6 year olds who constantly want to play spies. The real stars of the show, however, are Kyle Farnsworth and Jim Thome, the former, a dim-witted, death-metal lovin' pyschopath who calls people by incorrect racial slurs and the latter a cherubic doofus with a heart of gold who always types in all caps and always hits "enter" before he's done typing. There is also a LadyCop who is constantly tormented by law-breaking ball players. Oh, and Dmitri Young. Holy shit, you gotta read the Dmitri Young dugouts, they are epic.
Snacks And Shit is a blog that makes fun of weird rap lyrics. It's name is from the Jay-Z song "Hey Papi" in which Jay-Z declares that he and the young women he brought to One Trump Plaza did not order room service but instead opted for snacks, and shit.
Originally the blog was updated by an LA based comedian named Chris D'Elia who has since gone on to have a standup special on Comedy Central and was a regular character on the TBS show Glory Daze and a writer named Chris Macho who was in a Wheat Thins commercial where Wheat Thins encouraged people to follow him on Twitter.
Not every single entry is a home run but there is never a lack of material for these guys because there are just so many ridiculous rap lyrics. A lot of times it's weird slang that these guys gravitate towards which makes for some great material in the comment section where there is inevitably some e-thug explaining how when Jeezy calls himself a Snowman it's because he has lots of "ice" and also deals lots of "cocaine" and us criggady-crackas are too white too get it.
The Nostalgia Critic is a guy named Doug who basically reviews things that people my age and a little younger used to watch when we were kids. From Saved By The Bell to Drop Dead Fred and Animaniacs and just about everything in between. This guy's work ethic is incredible. He puts out a new video every single week and they're consistently funny and creative. He does top 11 lists (to go one step beyond) and compares old movies with more modern remakes. He is very insightful and you can tell he really cares about this stuff he's reviewing. The editing is also incredible considering he churns these vids out once a week.
I've seen all of his videos and for some reason the one bit that made me laugh the hardest is in his review of Judge Dredd where Stallone and the dirty cop are screaming "LAW!!!!!!" at each other and the Critic busts into song, kinda hard to describe on the page so you'll just have to see for yourself : Judge Dredd Review .
I could write a lot more about the Nostalgia Critic but the guy is making a ton of money off his website and doesn't really need my help. That being said, I'm now moving on to a guy that is also very true of:
I know, I know, he's the "Angry Video Game Nerd" now but I don't care. When I first discovered this guy he was the Angry Nintendo Nerd and his videos were (and still are) fucking hilarious. He basically would find the worst NES games ever, play them, and then totally freak out about how much they sucked. This guy knows his stuff, too. He doesn't get too technical and alienate casual gamers or former NES-addicts that stopped playing video games when they got older, he manages to appeal to everyone.
His delivery is excellent and while he's not quite the showman that the Nostaliga Critic is he perfectly captures the early 90s frustration that went into renting a nintendo game for the weekend and having it totally suck. I rented Back To The Future, I rented Fester's Quest. We didn't have a Blockbuster in my town, we had a fucking VideoSmith and kids would rent all the good games and keep them pretty much forever. It was a different time, to say the least, and The Nerd brings me back to it every time he appears on my screen ranting and raving about how the Ninja Turtles shouldn't die when they fall in water because they are FUCKING TURTLES.
A valid point, indeed.
So there it is, none of this stuff is real high brow or anything but these guys all make me laugh and that's what the internet should really be all about. Clicking and laughing. Again, none of these guys are exactly unknowns they all have profitable websites that get a lot of traffic but they get all that attention for a reason and I enjoy their work a great deal.
Hope you enjoyed this little tour of my Bookmarks.
-Judge
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