For the past seven years Hollywood has been serving up heaping helpings of 1980s nostalgia, and 2011 will be no exception.  Transformers and Smurfs will be gracing the silver screen.  Conan the Barbarian is coming back (in 3D!) and we are FINALLY being given the Footloose remake we’ve all been clambering for.  It seems like just about everything is fair game.  We asked a handful of Hosers: which generally great bit of the 1980s should absolutely NOT be remade as a new movie? Answers below the jump.

MORE after the jump…

Posted on May 11th, 2011 Filed in: Entertainment Tags: KillerB1, outdated tv show review, Sparks=Wrong, xtian

I just finished reading all of KillerB1’s ideation sessions on the Wikileaks site.  It appears that nearly ever since he learned about The Hose, he has been pitching various aspects of The Hose to competing media outlets.  Consider the following damning evidence:

MORE after the jump…

Posted on November 30th, 2010 Filed in: Entertainment, Life Tags: best of 2010 Candidate, KillerB1, Sparks=Wrong

I’m kicking off a new series: “Why Didn’t Killer B1 Think of That?”  KB1’s job and life passion is to optimize brand and product marketing on behalf of his clients.  Or, put another way, to cram another salty snack down America’s bloated pie-hole.  This series is meant to highlight the most brilliant advertising strategies out there today.  The goal is to keep KB1 on top of the latest trends, and also to subtly rib him for not having thought up the brilliant plan in question.  This is not a proprietary tag; please feel free to add more examples as you come across them.

First up: the bottle of Listerine in my bathroom.  Listerine is a great product.  Most mouthwashes only last a few hours, 10 to 15 at the absolute most.  Listerine provides a full 24 hours, provided you use it every 12 hours.  You may be asking yourself, shouldn’t a 24 hour mouthwash just be used every 24 hours?  Such a question just demonstrates your lack of understanding of marketing and mouthwash.

I see a big future for this kind of marketing.  Mobil can introduce a 30,000 mile motor oil*.  Jack In The Box can introduce a cheeseburger capable of satiating your hunger for a full week**.  And Yale can start providing a one-semester bachelor’s degree***.

*Change every 6,000 miles

**Eat twice per day

***Repeat seven times

Posted on April 6th, 2010 Filed in: Politics/Economics Tags: KillerB1, Sparks=Wrong, Why Didn't Killer B1 Think of That?

My mind is made up. I’m gonna do it. I’ve wanted to do this ever since I was young. I was always fascinated by this place, but never had a chance to go. Today I’ve got time and proximity on my side. It’s gonna get done.

I’m going to the La Brea Tar Pits (though this photo already has me prepared to be underwhelmed).

Posted on February 4th, 2010 Filed in: Life Tags: KillerB1

Couldn’t he at least start losing his hair or something?

Posted on January 31st, 2010 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: I Never Feel Like This Guy, KillerB1

Earlier this week I went through my personal email account and unsubscribed all sorts of random stuff. I thought that would make my life better, but it has just made me sadder. Turns out I don’t get much meaningful email at all. Now most of the time when I check, there is nothing new waiting for me.

Should re-subscribe to the Walgreen’s photo center? Or Equinox? Or Travel & Leisure Hot Deals? Or BasketjobsR’Us?

Posted on January 28th, 2010 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: KillerB1

Black Woman: Check
White Woman: Check
Military Guy: Check
Nerdy Asian: Check
White Guy in Charge: Check
Native American:

Posted on January 28th, 2010 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: KillerB1

You have to hand it to the guys at Goldman Sachs – they’ve got their shit figured out. People can moan and complain all they want about fatcat bankers and Main Street vs. Wall Street and class divisions and all the other stuff – but you at least have to agree they’ve got their shit figured out.

A few years ago Sparks was a fatcat oil man literally swimming in the liquid gold Exxon treasury kept in an Olympic size pool underneath the Belt Parkway in Dallas. As you’ll recall Exxon had some monster paydays because they had their shit figured out (or speculators drove the price of oil to irrational levels). Anyway, at the time, I did a little math – breaking profits down in a way that makes them easier to understand. So who wins? The Exxon of the oil bubble, or the Goldman Sachs of right now?
More…
Well, Goldman had 4Q profits of $4,790,000,000.00. Exxon had 2008 4Q profits of 11,680,000,000.00. Exxon wins? Not so fast.

Exxon is HUGE. They have a kabillion employees. They employ all of Texas, most of the middle East, some of Africa, and my little brother from the Delta-Pi chapter of Kappa Sigma. Goldman employs a comparative handful – most of whom are of dubious character (ahem, Shoulders? Le Trois?).

When viewed this way, Goldman wins – earning profits of $134,929.58 per employee for the quarter. Exxon, a paltry $111,556.83.

Now, $134K over a quarter is a little abstract.
So how about $1,499.22 per day?
Or $62.47 per hour?

Or $1.04 per minute? Every minute. Of Every hour, day and night. For every employee. GOOD GRAVY!!!!

Posted on January 22nd, 2010 Filed in: Life Tags: Good gravy, KillerB1

Could you ask for more raw caption material? New Senator. Teen daughters. Clamshells!!

Have at it.

Posted on January 21st, 2010 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: KillerB1

The kids at PS22 in Staten Island rock out!!!! Here they kill some Journey:

And versatile enough to add Empire State of Mind to the repetoire as well.

They have a bunch more on YouTube from Lady Gaga to Eye of the Tiger, so go kill some time.

Posted on January 18th, 2010 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: KillerB1

Proving once again why the Wall Street Journal has my favorite sports section, today they report an analysis of what the coverage of a 3+ hour football game is. That is, how much are commercials, crowd shots, replays, reviews, cheerleaders etc. The real surprise for me, however – my GOOD GRAVY moment, was the amount of time players are actually playing. All told, there are about 11 minutes of action in an NFL game. GOOD GRAVY!!!! That’s it?!?! Yup.

Consider most players only play on one side of the ball (and even then rarely every snap on offense or defense). All told, if a player stays healthy for 16 weeks, they might be active for just shy of 90 minutes all season. GOOD GRAVY!!!!!

I know it’s not apples to apples, but this is about as much action as a rugby player would have in a single game (80 minutes).

I’m usually pretty defensive and dismissive of my English and Australian colleagues when they say American football is just guys standing around, but I guess this puts it in a new light.

Anyway. J – E -T – S jets jets jets

Posted on January 15th, 2010 Filed in: Life Tags: Good gravy, KillerB1

Last night I had dinner with a friend from Indiana. He’s in town attending some sort of finance event where people like Carl Icahn talk all day as out-of-towners in the audience pretend to take notes while nursing their hangover with annoyingly small plastic juice cups. You know the drill.

Anyway, I went to dinner with him and a couple of fund managing kind of guys. I normally wouldn’t expect much from these guys, but they both turned out to be very cool. We even had some friends in common. They seemed like normal, everyday, rational people. Both had kids and wives. Talked about sports with ease. Nothing odd here.

But then the most rational of them dropped this when the topic turned to the economy….

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He lives in a small town south of DC. His in-laws have a cabin on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Following the meltdown last year, the first thing he did was buy a bunch of gold coins, and handgun, and some ammunition. Then, he went to the local airport where small private jets come and go and found a pilot+plane to fly his family out as soon as the world starts to end. So now he’s got this standing arrangement. Pile of gold = get my family to the Upper Peninsula.

That freaked me out a bit, particularly since he’s a really normal guy.

Anyone else out there have an end of days survival plan? I don’t.

Posted on January 14th, 2010 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: KillerB1

Why do we bless people when they sneeze, but not when they cough?

I got caught in an awkward situation today when a co-worker made a noise, but it sounded like a cough/sneeze hybrid. Like a Griffin of head noises. A snough, I guess. Anyway, I didn’t know how to react. Do I bless her or don’t I. I didn’t, but I’m still not sure it was the right call.

If we just blessed both coughs and sneezes my life would have been a lot easier today.

(not that it was a hard day. I am aware many many people had a much much worse day, for which I already donated to Oxfam to do my small part, thus making this rant about my tough day okay)

Posted on January 13th, 2010 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: KillerB1

Tonight I got home at 7:30. By 7:35 I was in my pajamas. 3 years ago this would have been unthinkable. I can think of only 1 person to blame/credit with my new lifestyle.

When KillerB2 and I first started living togegether, I was a wearing clothes around the house kinda guy. I only put my PJs on just before bed. She, on the other hand, was a GET ME OUT OF THESE CLOTHES kinda girl. I thought that was weird. It felt like surrender – like ending the day 4 hours early.

I’m here 3 years later to say she was right, especially this time of year. Here I sit, in my PJ pants, a t-shirt, and a blue cardigan sweater with buttons on the wrong side – comfy as could be.

I’d like to hear from the Hose crowd – especially the East Coasters dealing with the dark and the cold. Is there something therapeutic about about getting into your jammies as soon as you get home? Or are KillerB2 and I just sad?

Posted on January 13th, 2010 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: KillerB1

Wow, I went to an hour-long meeting, and come back to my desk to find that:
1) Mark McGwire admits to cheating, lying, and ruining a great sport
2) Sarah Palin gets a multi-year contract with Fox News. 24+ months of her political commentary and analysis! Score!!!
3) You (I) can finally buy a sex robot that focuses on appealing to the mind. Finally. I’m tired of all those sex robots that don’t appeal to my mind.

Posted on January 11th, 2010 Filed in: Uncategorized Tags: KillerB1