Blog Categories: Politics | News | Chow | Music | Do This! | Media | TV | Arts and Culture | Fun in General | Sports | Cinema | Snapshot | more categories»

So here's one of the absolute worst things I've ever seen: 'Pooping in Reverse,' a Vimeo-hosted video uploaded by a user called "Ringo Boomschlicka" and supposedly coming to Access Tucson at some point in the future...though in checking the Access Tucson alphabetical schedule, it appears that (thankfully) this show isn't on the air. I mean, it might be in the future, but this is awful.
Now, there's a lot of awkward nudity and bad language throughout this NSFW video, so in the interest of your eyes and your employment, I'm not embedding it...but I'll post a quick, live-blogging of my thoughts as I watch the video. Watch along at the link above, if you must.
God help me.
0:00: - Screen is black. This is the high point of the video.
0:02 - Aaaaand that's a man — though thankfully, he's tucking like Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, so we're spared seeing what assumedly would've looked like a baby bird in a pitch-black nest of horrors.
Let's recap: In 2010, Amy's Baking Company, a Scottsdale bistro, became "famous" for going after a reviewer on Yelp. Late last year, during the taping of Fox's Kitchen Nightmares, Scottsdale PD were called to the scene to defuse a shouting match between owner Samy Bouzaglo and a patron who waited more than an hour for his food.
Last Friday, that episode of Kitchen Nightmares aired, resulting in magic like this:
From there, things only escalated for: The Facebook, Twitter and Yelp pages for Amy's Baking Company flooded with general Internet haters — and, as they have done in the past, Amy and Samy defended their company. Viciously.
Now, they're the most recognizable name in publicity stunts gone horribly wrong — which is saying something in a world where LED boards with cartoon characters were considered bombs, and a movie theater brought in dudes in body armor with AR-15s to promote Iron Man 3.
As we've already noted, Amy's Baking Company is going ahead with a Grand Re-Opening, in which they hope to ignite all sorts of love and goodwill (and also stick it to Ramsey, apparently).
But the fact that everything melted down for Amy's means that the rest of us have had the chance to enjoy comedy gold.
Take this parody commercial, for instance, which just doesn't feature enough meowing for my taste:
Or this, from an Amy's Baking Company Twitter parody:
WHO THE HELL IS SUPERTROOPERS AND WHY IS EVERYONE MEOWING AT ME?
— Amy's Baking Co (@AmysBakingCo) May 14, 2013
But the best (worst?) part is the newfound Internet fame that has befallen Katy Cipriano, the young waitress that was dropped like a bad habit for giving Amy an "attitude" during the show. Her Reddit AskMeAnything Q&A session was, for two days, one of the top posts on the site...and it looks like it's resulted in a nice, creepy following:
@cipppa I think I might be in love with you. Just thought you should know.
— Gilbert Redman-Ernst (@Gilbee_) May 16, 2013
Which, of course, she retweeted, because SOMEONE has to be into her obsession with Phoenix Suns player Channing Frye.
We'll see how long the interest in Crazy Amy's Baking Company lasts — though I will say, we're waiting with bated breath for next week's Grand Re-Opening and all of the crazed publicity that's sure to follow.
According to azcentral.com, an ASU student was left in the lobby of a hospital with a sticky note reading that he had been in a drinking competition.
Apparently, the 19-year-old was found in the emergency room lobby of St. Luke's Hospital in Phoenix, where the note read that he needed help — and given how much he drank that night, "help" is an understatement.
According to Tempe Police, the student drank 20 shots that evening, winding up with a blood-alcohol content level of .47% — keeping in mind that the legal limit is .08%, of course.
The student seems to be recovering, though apparently charges can be brought against the student's friends for abandoning him at a hospital.
[Update: The Bouzaglos claim to have been "hacked."]
We now present a masterclass in how a business owner should not respond to criticism.
You might be familiar with Amy's Baking Company, up in Scottsdale — and likely, not for the reason that a restaurant would prefer to be known for.
This 2010 video (which we're linking to due to poor audio quality) from Phoenix's KTVK shows a mighty tiff between a Phoenix-area Yelper and owner/chef Amy Bouzaglo — though, honestly, that's nothing compared to the display from the recent season finale of Gordon Ramsey's shout-fest TV show, Kitchen Nightmares, during which Amy and her husband Samy Bouzaglo freak the fuck out at anything and everything — customers, Gordon Ramsey, each other — in their quest to be a notable business.
If their aim was to gain notability through (spoilers) making Ramsey toss up his hands and walk off, they appear to have succeeded. But, they didn't stop there: somehow these folks poked the bear that is the Internet, earning a ridiculous discussion thread on Reddit that appears to have poured into their Facebook page. Now?

Presumably, Amy and Samy have decided to rain hellfire upon their Facebook audience, salting the earth where any goodwill might one day grow, with statuses and responses that include lines like "WE WILL START A GENERATION OF TRUTHFULLNESS (sic) AND WE WILL FIGHT TO BRING PLACES LIKE, YELP AND REDDIT, AND HORRIBLE PEOPLE LIKE GORDON TO THE LIGHT" and "I AM GODS CHILD. PISS OFF ALL OF YOU. FUCK REDDITS, (sic) FUCK YELP AND FUCK ALL OF YOU" and "AMERICA IS ABOUT RESSLING, (sic) IT IS NOT A BIG DEAL. THE CAKES WE OFFER ARE EXPENSIVE BECAUSE WE HAVE TO REPACKAGE AND SHIP" which is seems to be in response to (seemingly accurate) accusations that they purchase desserts and re-sell them under their own name.
Farm Bloomington is another one of those cool, farm-to-table joints (not unlike a few of the cool places featured in this week's fantastic cover story, come to think of it), only this one tells you straight from the help-wanted ad everything that they require of you, listing 44(!) separate points they'd like you to adhere to.
I mean, that's all well and good — after all, who doesn't want a competent employee that cleans as they go, doesn't take themselves too seriously, asks for days off well in advance, is able to work double-shifts for days at a time, is willing to find ways to make suggestions look like the chef's idea, seasons everything properly...
Yeah. The list goes on. And on. And on...though admittedly, it's not a bad list. Though according to FoxNews.com, the ad only stayed on Craigslist for a short time before being pulled:
Harry Shafer, general manager at FARMbloomington, said a sous chef put up the job posting— which was taken from another site— without reading it thoroughly.
“It was taken down as soon as we were aware of the negatives listed. I promise that the ad does not reflect the kind of business we run,” Shafer told FoxNews.com in an email.While the ad only stayed up on Craigslist for a few minutes, FARMBloomington admitted it did have some bad help in the past.
Shafer added: “’Sick’ associates are most often just hungover, so it is our policy that the managers decide if they cannot work.”
As noted, the original ad has been pulled...but happyplace.com has the ad in full. Check it out here.

It's the blog post that cruised Tucson Facebook posts yesterday with the exclamation: Is Anything Sacred?
Well, is anything sacred? According to the blog Stitch Kingdom, Walt Disney Company filed trademark application to secure Dia de Los Muertos. In Tucson where we sometimes think we hold the trademark on all things Day of the Dead, the idea of Mickey and company owning the rights to images of skeleton mariachis or painted faces, marigolds, altars — take your pick — is as nuts as the idea of Michael Jackson owning the Beatles catalog.
Within the past few days, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) has filed several trademark applications in attempt to secure ‘Dia de Los Muertos’ across multiple areas. Dia de Muertos, or ‘Day of the Dead,’ is a holiday most associated with Mexico, where it serves as a national holiday on November 1 and 2 — the days following Halloween — in which families gather together to remember and pray for relatives who have passed on. Interestingly enough, it has also been selected as the topic of an upcoming film from Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Lee Unkrich, tentatively being titled The Untitled Pixar Movie About Dia de los Muertos. The move could indicate that Disney is simply hedging its bets or that Pixar has indeed settled on simply calling its film Dia de Los Muertos, though they have yet to file for films that will precede it, such as Inside Out (2015), though trademarks have been filed for The Good Dinosaur (2014).
But it's okay, folks: It appears that the righteous fury Disney met with after attempting to trademark a national and cultural holiday went over about as well as if the House of Mouse made an attempt at trademarking Patriot's Day, or Halloween (The Nightmare Before Christmas aside) — similar to how a watermelon feels going up against a brick wall.
From Fronteras Desk:
The Walt Disney Company told Fronteras Desk it will withdraw trademark applications related to the Day of the Dead holiday. Disney made the decision late Tuesday after an avalanche of social media backlash....
The news did not go over well. Grace Alvarez Sesma is a traditional Mexican healer who lives in Colorado.
"We don't need The Walt Disney Company to help us to promote our own culture," she said.
Alvarez Sesma started an online petition against Disney. Hours later it had more than 14,000 supporters.
Twitter and Facebook exploded with posts like 'Our culture is not for sale' and 'Keep your corporate hands off.'
By late afternoon Disney released a statement saying it would withdraw its "Día de los Muertos" trademark applications.
Everybody wins — and by "everybody," we mean everyone who is pleased that we won't soon be seeing Disney-trademarked Mickey Mouse sugar skulls.
I love novelty Tumblrs.
Actresses Without Teeth is/was spectacular (especially because it helped contribute to my not-too-shabby score last time I went pub quizzing), Fearless Editor Dan Gibson has a few he's sitting on 'til they blow up (including one dedicated to All My Children, weirdly enough) and I keep hoping that the one dedicated to the things I expect to contribute to my death might one day produce a book deal.
But we all know what the real secret to Internet fame is: butts.

The Metropolitan Museum of Butts is dedicated to showing you, the reader, a new backside every day, all from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City — and, kindly, they feature a donation link to the Met, so you can contribute to the "care and restoration of these butts."
The Internet is weird and hilarious sometimes.
In honor of the fact that May is Masturbation Month, we give you something that was found a week or so ago and didn't share for reasons such as "it is so damn weird" and "it's porn related" — then, we remembered that this is the same publication that ran fiction featuring its writers in compromising positions only a few months ago, and said "eh, to hell with it."
So without further ado, I present the terrible porn parody that took inspiration from (and paid homage to) the Parks and Recreation episode "Bailout" from the most recent season, which featured a clip from a fictional porno "featuring" members of the main cast. It's just so damn meta.
The Porks and Recreation (yep, that's its name) safe-for-work video is below. But I still probably wouldn't watch it at work if I were you.
Happy Masturbation May, everyone!
Times are still tough out there, folks. Though the local unemployment rate is hovering around 7.3%, we've found a gig for an enterprising job hunter: a strange, fairly lucrative job opportunity, paying $30 an hour.
The catch? You might have to drive to Sahuarita.
Oh, and you have to spend that hour removing a man's body hair.
Need somebody once a week to do a whole body shave on me. My wife likes me hairless and I agree. I need arms, legs and torso trimmed very Sunday afternoon. I had back surgery a couple of years ago and my wife has been doing the hair removal every week. She has some arthritis issues that are making this hard to do. I'm in my late 40's. I'll gladly pay 30.00 per for an hour to hour and a half of exfoliation a week. I am flexible to use my home or your location. Please let me know any concerns or questions you may have. I'll pay $30.00 per hour for this service.
Look alive, folks: though this was posted last week, we can safely assume that he's still searching, as the post still exists. Get applying!
A blog post in Jezebel about women getting together and putting drugs up their vaginas as an experiment on getting high sounded strangely intriguing at first, but ended up being disappointing. Don't bother not trying this at home folks.
In "Cunt Odyssey: Search for Vaginal Datapoints," they reported on their experiences and...well, yeah, not much vagina-reefer madness to report on here:
Disappointingly, none of the women had notably strong trips; it turns out that if you want to hallucinate that the sky is an Etch A Sketch/have the most amaaaaaazing back-scratch experience ever/cry about your dead hamster for hours while simultaneously convinced that the magnets on your fridge are watching you, you should swallow your drugs instead. "Consensus seemed that this was not an efficient way of dosing, and that for any future experiments, compounds should be in solution or in some cream form for better dispersion," the participants mused.