Oh Japan! Is there nothing about you that isn't unnessecarily quirky? Here are a number of actual "Smoking Manners" signs which were/are posted around Japan for no good reason.
 
I hope you find them as brow-furrowingly fascinating as I did.

Ho hum. Just another boring week of puppies being tossed at motorcycle gangs, cocaine-addicted funeral directors gyrating in the nude, 60 foot tall flaming Jesuses, library/condiment crime sprees, human head smugglers, nearly indecipherable alien abduction stories, and ice cream man turf wars.
 
If only something strange or mildly humorous would occur.

I've always been a big fan of As Seen On TV gadgets. Not in a "wow, this stuff is actually pretty cool and useful" sort of way though. It's more like an "Oh my god, this is the most hilarious piece of crap I have ever seen, I can't even believe it" kind of thing. Even at their very best, infomercial products often offer nothing more than a slightly more expensive way to accomplish a task which wasn't really all that important in the first place (I am looking directly at you, Magic Bullet). Of course, this very fact is exactly what makes them so entertaining.
 
So let's take a look at four of the dumbest infomercialesque products currently on the market: The Backup, Instant Arm Lift, The Freedom Tray, and Jingle Jugs. Yeah, I know! Even the names are fantastic.

It is still not uncommon for the general public to assume that all videogamers are socially inept losers prone to uncontrollable outbursts of intense and inexplicable violence. This is incorrect. In reality, only 65-72% of males who play videogames on a regular basis fit this description, so obviously it's slightly unfair to generalize.

Also, this really only applies to these men while they're playing games. The rest of the time, they're normally quite calm (if not downright docile). But place any one of these gamers in a situation where they believe themselves to have been "wronged" or "cheated" during a game, and a whirlwind of grisly violence is sure to ensue. Very rarely will this tantrum seemed to have "come out of nowhere". More often than not there is an easily perceived buildup of hostility which takes place before The Ragestate occurs.

This article should serve to educate the rest of you in the recognition (and subsequent containment) of any videogamer who flies into this ragestate.

This week: A(nother) woman rips off her boyfriend's testicle and chews on it, graves are double booked, children seem to attempt suicide, nuns grow marijuana, and nude men claiming to be Jesus act as crazy as they are expected to.

All of these stories, links, and so very much more has been made available to you after the break.

This summer, patron must gird throbbing loins with the fun which the large expensive film can bring. Which is to say: Loving will induce a fun. Respect the joyful picnic. The summer movie proposes this: Escape your trouble! Escape the career which you is miserable! Escape the nagger cruelty of a wife whom pulverizes your joy! In the paid theaters, your environment is controlled in compliance with pleasant temperature. Appearing on the screen is a coitus grudge which improves the virility of men who view it.
 
From here we list the films: Iron Man 2, Macgruber, and Crown Prince of Persia. Speak these, becoming satiated. Acclamation inserted!

There are certain types of hats that only old men can wear. Fedoras, for example. If you see an old man wearing a fedora, you'd probably think "Look at that old man in his fedora, I bet he used to wear that in the 50s!" but if you saw a 20 year old wearing one, your thoughts would almost certainly be along the lines of "Hey, check out that asshole the fedora. Who he think he is, Humphrey Bogart?"

I think my point is that we all wear different hats in life (Baker, Communist Dictator, Avant Garde Beard Trimmer) but no hat is so important as the hat a father dons the day his child is born (the hat of fatherhood). This hat is often a harbinger of male postpartum depression, so be sure and keep a close eye on the man, for the time being.
 
And now the news.

Looking through PC game new release lists lately, I'm puzzled by the apparent abundance of what I like to call "Monotonous Task Simulators". These games take the idea of Flight Simulator or Train Simulator (which, if you ask me, already push the boundaries of dullness) and develop similar games in which you perform jobs or activities which were not inherently interesting in the first place. So imagine a Carpet Sample Choosing Simulator, or an Ethnic Grocery Store Vandalism Simulator, or a or Being Forced To Reiterate The Point You Made Only Moments Before Because Nobody Was Listening Simulator.
 
OK, so obviously those aren't real games (yet), but with deathly serious titles like Fork-Lift Truck Simulator and Garbage Disposal Simulator being released frequently, it's not too far-fetched to assume that some day someone might develop a "Fail In Your Attempt to Make a Cat's Cradle To Impress a Rodeo Clown" Simulator. As insane as the idea might seem, I'm sure there'd be an audience for it somewhere.
 
But hey, here's a short list of five of the dullest/weirdest simulator games available today.

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm this guy who runs his own website. This makes my opinion only slightly more valuable than some random guy in a baseball cap who signed up for IMDB and gave The Truman Show 10 stars. Only slightly more valuable, but more valuable nonetheless.

So you just know that when I decide to review of a number of fairly old films which I believe to be wrongfully beloved, people are going to listen. And by "people", I mean "not very many people at all and possibly nobody". And by "are going to listen", I mean "are going to skim the intro and maybe the first paragraph and before clicking over to an article written by somebody with actual talent".

In any case, here is a short list of movies I don't really like that somehow made it on the IMDB Top 250, causing me to become slightly exasperated.

This just in! This just in! Hoarders Buried Alive Under Mounds of Garbage! Kid Drinks Cup of Feces at Elementary School! Wild Animal Shanked in Prison Yard! Drunk Arsonist Behaves Irresponsibly! Humans Slurp Down Mexican Ringworms to Cure Diseases!
 
Alright, my use of "This just in" may have been somewhat disingenuous since all this crap happened over a week, but I really just like typing "This just in". This just in! This just in! Now If I could only work in "stop the presses" somehow my life would be complete. Maybe another time.

Little known fact: There's actually an entire state attached to New York City. This state is commonly most called New York, and it draws literally dozens of tourists each year into it's distinctly unremarkable borders. Granted, many of these people are simply on their way to Pennsylvania to commit suicide (Harrisburg is the exsanguination capital of the world), but this matters little, as even somber pilgrims hell-bent on their own destruction have a hard time resisting upstate New York's many curio shoppes, taffy fountains, and collectible coin emporiums.
 
So the next time you inexplicably get it into your fool head to pay a visit to the overrated, obnoxious, self-important, overpriced, stench-ridden cesspool known as NYC, you might consider bypassing the Big Apple altogether in favor of it's slightly less nauseating upstate cousin, as there's plenty to see and do there.
 
In service of this, the following article features an overview of some of the more popular New Yorkian attractions. I invite you to examine it at your leisure.

Any man can sport a mustache, but it takes a special sort to do so with refinement and class. In honor of these men, I present to you this photographic collection of the most accomplished facial hair enthusiasts I could drum up. I have selected these photos with care and love, and I hope that you will view the men featured in them with the respect and reverence they deserve.

Note: For those who may be wondering, "mustachier" is a term I have coined to describe those who wear mustaches.

This time around: Toddlers Flung Through Windshields, Voodoo Grave Robbers, Sleeping Gas, An Innocent Man Requesting Guns From a Lawnmower, Abandoned Blind Women, and Nude Photos of Steven Seagal. OK, maybe not nude nude. Nude except for his clothes and shoes and eyes.
 
Also, from now on I'll be including a short list of links to cool stuff (top 10 lists, guides, infographics, etc) from around the internet. These will be at the end of the article under the heading of "Link Roundup", so go ahead and skip there if you want to see the best stuff (i.e. the stuff that wasn't written by me). But I hope you'll enjoy clicking the links as much as I enjoy pasting them on the page and subsequently hitting enter.

Call me skeptical, but the first time I saw 5-Hour Energy Drink, I immidiately dismissed it as a scam. I mean, all the telltale signs were present: 1. The price was relatively high. 2. The words "Energy Supplement" were present on the bottle. 3. The label appeared to have been designed by a semiliterate child and printed on a cheap laser printer in some meth addict's basement. 4. It was sitting on the counter at a filthy gas station next to a container of laser pointer keychains and Playboy bunny lighters. So I think you can forgive me for concluding that the whole thing wasn't on the up-and-up.
 
But in the interest of semi-science (internet science?) I decided to buy a few bottles of 5-Hour Energy Drink, do some research on the ingredients, and perform a few test-drinks to see what effect this shining example of Ostensibly Shady Energy Drink Marketing would have on my hypercynical, overly suspicious mind. The results of my experiment are contained in the following article, which is guaranteed to thrill, educate, and excite you (provided your standards are low enough).