The Top 10 Reasons Being Sick Sucks

Um, in case you hadn't noticed, or, for instance, haven't kept up on my little Twitter Window O' Info, I have been FUCKING SICK! Man, I just got waylaid on Tuesday like a big bag full of illness fell out of the sky and doused me in all it nasty, shitty, nastiness. I literally felt like dropping on the deck in the fetal position and cashing in my chips from this Mortal Coil. Being a bit dramatic, you say? Well screw you and I guess you've never had a flu bug so wretched coupled with a cough so dastardly that it feels like a second one of me (see: big fat guy) sat on your chest over night and turned your lungs into mashed yams! Fortunately, I only managed to miss a few hours of work over all since my job basically has me sitting in a chair doing design work, so I had that going for me. But, once back at home I had all the energy of a cinder block and felt just as useful. Well, today, finally, I feel a little more like a human and a little less like a big-ass back of fucked-up sick, so I figured I do a little, non-traditional update and finish my recuperation till Monday. Oh yeah, and I got a copy of God of War: Chains of Olympus for my PSP and that has done a fine job of getting me to shirk my writing responsibilities as well. Yeah, I suck just a little. Ok, on with the show.

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10) THE FEVER

Nothing quite sinks a fella's ship faster than the rapidly ebbing and flowing onset of a chilling and roasting fever. One second you're baking like Christmas Goose, and the next you're freezing like, well... also Christmas Goose. I'm so out of metaphors.

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9) THE HEADACHE

For the love of all things good and Holy, why must I wake up after my worthless night of pointless rest to somewhere between six and seven professional excavators carving a tunnel into my brain? Fuck all of you!

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8) THE CONGESTION

Q: Can I breath via my nasal passages?

A: Can I do what with my what now?

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7) THE ACHES

You know how when you do something that requires you over-use a certain part of your body and that specific part hurts like a son of a bitch for a good few days? Yeah, now multiply that times sixty billion and then proceed to weep openly. Now ya got it!

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6) THE SHITS

That picture up there is fucking brilliant. That is exactly how it looks when a Mexican child sharts out his lunch. When I do it, it's much less not-toilet-having-y, but it's close. Feel his pain, because when it happens to you, and if you are anything like me, it's much akin to shotgunning ass-pellets and equally as hot.

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5) NO ENERGY

I can barel... ZZZzzzzzzzzz....

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4) NO APPETITE

Seriously, I'm positive I lost about 10 pounds this past week from just simply not wanting to eat and shitting a bunch of nothing out, too. It's a great diet and I highly recommend it.

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3) LACK OF SLEEP

Oh I was tired. That wasn't even the issue. Nope, it was the sheer fact that... well, see the next number on this list.

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2) SOREST THROAT EVER

Yep, now that you're here, enjoy the picture, and move right along to...

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1) MOST PAINFUL COUGH EVER ON THIS OR ANY OTHER PLANET

RIGHT FUCKING HERE. This cough that I presently still suffer from is, by far, the most obnoxiously painful and exasperatingly cloying muscle spasm I have ever succumbed to. It feels, and this is so not an over statement, like a large mammal (possibly Rosie O'Donnell) has been beating on my chest from the inside with a cricket mallet. I desperately try, every time the itch rises, to hold back the torrent of agony, right before I shutter with heaving and throes of erupting sputum. I'm relatively certain I've broken several ribs.

And that, as it stands, is how I've felt all week. And no, I won't stop whining about it.

The Top 10 Humorous Horror Movies Ever

So, post 153. Let's see: 5 + 3+ 1 = 9. Ok, so 9/3 = 3. Then, we go 3 - 2 (see cuz 9 and 3 are 2 digits) and we get ONE! The very first blog I started with! WEIRD! Or, conversely, incredibly stupid. Oh well, either way, here's the new list.

I am a HUGE horror movie fan, I'll just get that out of the way right off. So, it stands to reason that I should do another list based on great horror flicks featuring just as much humor as horror. So, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER (so there), here are the top humorous horror movies of all time.

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10) A Nightmare On Elm Street (The Complete Library)

Yeah, sure, Freddy Krueger slashes the shit out of everyone in town just for falling asleep, and, as such, it is a relatively gruesome set of horror movies. But, there can be no argument that he'd just not be quite as creepy -basically falling into the predetermined slasher mold- without his signature snide attitude and witty quips. Freddy is fucking hilarious and almost keeps the atmosphere light as he guts his next victim. Wes Craven had the right idea creating Freddy the way he did, and it's this very reason he lives on in the horror lexicon.

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9) Abbot and Costello Meet the Wolfman

Largely regarded as Lou and Bud's finest achievement at their heyday of comic genius, the duo find themselves working as loading dock employees for a spook house. Unbeknownst to them, of course, is the fact that the full compendium of Universal's Horror Monster line-up is in full effect: Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman, to be exact! Abbot and Costello goof and guffaw their way through this classic and equally as outrageous romp. A wonderful film with even a little terror tossed in.

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8) The Scary Movie Series

I am by no means a Wayans Brothers fan. But, having said that, the original set of Scary Movies are pretty damn funny. Later, the reigns were taken by veteran comedy alum, The Zuckers, and they, too, made the series as fresh as possible. Each film combines the most recently released movies of the time -originally focusing on just horror including Scream and The Ring- and renders them as full-on parodies. Unfortunately, the parody is a tough thing to do, and, to its very detriment, everyone tries to do it. Fortunately, Scar Movie has done well for itself and does, sort of, toss in a few genuine scares.

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7) Saturday the 14th

Ok, OK... I actually like this movie. No, it doesn't particularly hold up as well as you'd hope, but it is still relatively funny. Basically primarily a spoof of the Friday the 13th series, it also takes shots at several other horror films. After his family moves to a new house, a young boy discovers a mysterious book describing the curse hanging over the date of Saturday the 14th. Opening the book releases a band of monsters into the house, and the family must join together to save themselves and their neighborhood. Yeah, sounds just as undeniably horrid as all the others attempts to do the same, but trust me: it's on a whole other level of stupid.

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6) Black Sheep

As sheep movies go, this is by far the most fucked up. Also, it's by far the best. I was enthralled by this film from beginning to end and, though thoroughly homaging Peter Jackson from credits to credits, it is still a great movie. Here's the Wikipedia description for ya:

"A young Henry Oldfield lives on a sheep farm in New Zealand. One day Henry's older brother Angus plays a cruel prank on him involving the bloody corpse of his pet sheep, just moments before Mrs Mac comes to tell the boys that their father has been killed in an accident. The combined shock of these two incidents leads Henry to develop a crippling phobia of sheep.

Fifteen years later, Henry (Nathan Meister) returns home to sell his share of the family farm to Angus (Peter Feeney). Unknown to Henry, Angus is carrying out secret genetic experiments. While trying to expose Angus's experiments, a pair of environmental activists named Grant and Experience accidentally release a mutant lamb. As Grant and Experience flee from the scientists, the lamb bites Grant and infects him. The lamb then infects the herds of sheep."

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5) Film Crew

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that you have no idea who Chris Seaver is. Yes, I'd have to belt you stupid, but I can also be kind and helpful. So, Drop By Right Here. Chris Seaver has, as you can plainly deduce from his wonderful web site, produced and directed a slew of films so, at random, I chose Film Crew, on of my favorites. Picture a bunch of 'teens' being trapped in a theater either working there or just plain hanging out, each being systematically slaughtered by a crazed lunatic named Caspian. Oh, and it's funny as shit, too. Yeah, once you watch his independent stuff, you'll get hooked on it forever.

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4) Fido

Man do I love this movie. The plot is as simple as your basic Lassie movie: Boy meets zombie, boy loves zombie, boy is threatened with separation from said zombie, boy and zombie live happily ever after. Yes, it's sappy as hell but it's also really, really funny. Picture a post-Zombie War Earth where certain living areas are cordoned off from the ravaged waste lands and everyone within the fenced-in regions owns a zombie or two thanks to some fancy machinery that keeps them docile and useful. It's a fifties-style neighborhood with fifties values and Carrie Anne Moss looks damn fine in said period garb. Also, Billy Connolly as Fido utters not a word the entire film. Very well done.

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3) An American Werewolf in London

Leave it to John Landis (and if you have to ask, get out!) to take an otherwise freaky idea and turn it into something almost as hysterical as it is classic. Two American college students, David Kessler (David Naughton -the Dr. Pepper guy) and Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne), are backpacking across the Yorkshire Moors when they are attacked by a large, unknown animal (read: WEREWOLF!). Jack is killed, but David survives the mauling and is taken to a hospital. When he wakes up later, he does not remember what happened and is told of his friend's death. Things get stranger when he is visited by Jack's gross-ass spirit, which takes the distressing form of a re-animated corpse, who explains that they had been attacked by a... right, meaning that David himself is now a werewolf. Jack urges David to kill himself before the next full moon, not only because Jack is cursed to exist in a state of living death for as long as the bloodline of the werewolf that attacked them survives, but also to prevent David from cursing others when he transforms. Also featuring the finest transformation scene of any movie ever without an inkling of CGI. Awesome.

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2) The Evil Dead Series

Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell have created one of the most iconic and cult-classic horror series of all time. All beginning with Ash (Campbell) and friends traveling from Michigan State into the woods on a camping excursion. Then, thanks to the Necronomicon, Hell is unleashed in the form of a series of undead things and a sexually amorous tree. Part two basically retells the same story with a bit more added for flavor, and the third installment is called The Army of Darkness and ads this phrase to the world's horror encyclopedia: "Groovy". Awesome series of films and just too damn funny.

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1) Shaun of the Dead

Mix a healthy dose of Brit comic geniuses Simon Pegg and Nick Frost with a well-established zombie horror genere and sprinkle liberally with dry wit, wicked humor, and wry story telling and you've got yourself undeniably one of the greatest comedic horror movies of all time. Directed by Edgar Wright and written by Pegg and Frost themselves, Shaun of the Dead redefined the humor/horror label from then on. Sure, it's only been out for a few years, but everything else since then that even remotely fits into the same mold owes all of their successes to Shaun. If you haven't seen it, drop everything and do it post haste.

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Honorable Mention: Dead Alive

Peter Jackson before The Lord Trilogy and King Kong. Peter Jackson before the uprising of greatness and popularity. Jackson when Jackson was a twisted, sick mother fucker. This movie revolves around a sickly mother having been bitten by a Sumatran Rat Monkey and her son who slowly watches her deteriorate into a giant demon. Rife with zombies, Franco-American spaghetti sauce-colored blood, and a messy, messy scene involving a weilded lawn mower. Good stuff and almost a little too full of the nauseating to be considered overly funny.