A Guide to Human Evolution

Human evolution can be difficult to understand.  So you have two options.  First, you could say we were magic'd into existence six thousand years ago, riding dinosaurs and using prehistoric beasts as household appliances.  Second, you can read this simple guide.  Now gather 'round children and let me tell you about your great great great great... etc... grand-pappy.

1)  Australopithecus:  His feet were made for walking, and that's just what they did.  His major advancement was the ability to walk upright, which in turn led to the ability to spot predators from far away, to do the cha-cha slide, and eventually to dunk a basketball.  Before you know it, every day he was shuffling.  Ultimately, he died out when potential mates grew sick of him complaining about how his "dogs were barking" and his constant requests for foot massages.

Shuffled into non-existence.  Also there were robots.

2)  Homo habilis (no homo):  The first of the evolutionary chain to get all "handsy".  His new opposable thumbs allowed him to be the first to make the joke, "What has two thumbs and doesn't give a crap?  This guy!  Seriously, I'm the first one to have thumbs.  You should be impressed."  Eventually his cocky attitude got the best of him when constant thumbs-up gestures to his buddies distracted him from predators and made him virtually undateable.

Also, he wrote jokes for Scrubs, which has been
cancelled several times since the Pleistocene.

3)  Homo erectus (okay, totes homo):  The brainiac of the family tree, and the one with the most hilarious name, Homo erectus never had a chance in high school.  But being a nerd has its advantages.  While Homo habilis was busy poking cheerleaders, H. erectus was busy developing better tools and finding a stable job with a higher salary.  Though they lived at the same time for a while, H. erectus outlived H. habilis, proving that the nerds always win eventually.

An arsenal of stone tools
and six figures, ladies.

4)  Homo neanderthalensis:  The Neanderthal is like that uncle that your brother suspiciously resembles more than your actual father.  He lived at the same time as Homo sapiens, and even managed to bang one or two. In fact, many people alive today have a little Neanderthal DNA floating around in them (not in the sexual way, just... nevermind).  Despite his constant efforts to convince mates that his pronounced forehead was a sign of sexual fertility, the Neanderthal was far too fugly to be a long-term mate.

Above:  Fuggo.  Too ugly to love.

5)  Homo sapiens:  That's you!  You're an upright-walking, thumb-having, language-speaking, building... building, television-watching consumer thanks to all the junk that happened before you.  We've spread out over the whole world, launched people at the moon, and flung our garbage out into space, hoping to find anyone in the universe like us.  So far, no luck.  Scientists say that this is it.  No more evolving for humans, barring some natural global catastrophe, which is unlikely.  Although, Snooki is having a child in December of 2012...

Above:  The end of all things.

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The End Just Got Nigher

Well ladies and gents, it's a new year and we're one step closer to the Apocalypse.  2012 is coming, and if the Mayan's were good for anything (were they?) it's doomsday prophesies.  Okay, maybe they dropped the ball on predicting their own demise, but let's look at the facts.

Thousands of birds and fish, and now crabs apparently (the water kind, not the pube kind), have died en masse in the U.S., Sweden, Brazil, New Zealand, and Britain.  Scientists say it can be the result of global warming, waste dumping, disease, or in the case of the birds who dropped dead on New Years Eve confusion and fear  over fireworks.

But what's more likely, those perfectly logical scientific explanations, or the end of days?  Yeah.  That's what I thought.

2010 saw a huge influx of high profile UFO sightings, including ones that shut down Chinese airports and produced weird lights and formations over Texas.  Aliens, or angels of death heralding the Rapture?  Californians reported seeing a possible missile launch off the west coast.  The government's response:  "Um...  I dunno.  A cloud I guess?"

Come on, government.  People, can we really trust a group where one of the most powerful people weeps openly all the time.  Like, all the time.  Look up "John Boehner crying".  There's 4000 more results on Google than "John Boehner not crying".  Also his name is pronounced "Bay-ner", not the way it looks like it should be pronounced.  You would think getting called "Boner" his whole life would toughen him up.

No, we can't trust the government.  We can't trust science.  All we can trust is that, come 2012, we're all checking out.  The last step?  Zombies.  Yeah.  Get ready for that.




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4 Movies That Are Better if You Approach Them Differently

Some movies are awesome, and some are terrible. But even a terrible movie can be made better if you approach it differently. The following movies are not all abominations, nor are they all masterpieces. But if you approach them in a way that is different than what was probably intended, they become far better. If you've seen them already, watch them again with a different attitude and you'll see what I mean.

Twilight: This definitely fits in the category of "abomination" if you approach it in the way the advertisements would make you believe. They say it's a teenage romantic-horror-drama or some such nonsense.

The way you should approach it? As a comedy. The copious amounts of awkward staring, the stupid voiceovers, the ridiculous dialogue, and the obvious pandering to a certain audience (ahem, awkward teenage girls) are hilarious if you accept that it is meant to be funny. If you don't believe me, watch the scene where Bella gets on Edwards back and they go running up the mountain. It's comedic genius. And indeed the entire movie would be a work of genius if it were intended to be a comedy.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off: This is not an abomination. In fact, it is one of the greatest teen movies of the 80s, and perhaps all time. And if you approach it in the way it was intended to be approached, as a comedy, you will enjoy it. But...

The way you should approach it? As a psychological thriller. One of the fan theories surrounding this movie is that Ferris is the product of Cameron's imagination. If you think about it, Ferries convinces Cameron to get out of bed, break out of his shell, and confront his overbearing father in the course of one day. He is the opposite of Cameron; popular, fun, successful with women, and the entire town seems to rally behind him when he gets "sick". The fact that he is, perhaps, Cameron's alter-ego is not so difficult to believe if you watch the movie with this theory in mind. And it makes a great teen comedy into a film with depth and meaning.

2012: If you watch this movie as an apocolyptic thriller, the way it was most likely intended, you will realize what a piece of garbage it is. Yes, there is some entertainment value in the senseless destruction of the earth and the constant suspenseful moments. But the whole movie is a cliched premise with cliched dialogue and cliche moral lessons. You might assume at the beginning of the movie that the girl who wets the bed will overcome her embarrassing problem, that the main character's divorced wife will get back together with him after her new husband is killed, and that the bad people will all be dead by the end. And indeed you would be right.

The way you should approach it? As a parody. The cliches are so incredibly obvious that you can't help but find humor in them. It's like they just took lines from all apocolyptic and catastrophic thrillers and recycled them into one movie. My favorite was when some scientist says something along the lines of, "For all our advanced scientific equipment, we couldn't predict what the Mayans did thousands of years ago". Oh, the hubris of man. To think that our science makes us invulnerable. Surely the heavens must open up and teach us a lesson in humility. And they do. And that is why this movie is hilarious. The predictability has to be a parody of all these movies. Laughing at this movie is the only way to make it tollerable.

Inception: Okay, we get it. The guy who directed The Dark Knight, with almost the exact same cast of actors, made another great movie. Big freaking deal. And it has an ending that is a bit ambiguous and will keep you thinking for a long time. Woop-de-doo. You know it's a good movie, I know it's a good movie, so let's approach it this way...

The way you should approach it? Watch it, spend one night talking about it with your friends, then NEVER talk about it again. I'm so sick of the speculation about the ending, the fan theories, and all the stupid conversations about how you had that dream that one time where you woke up and you were still dreaming. Oh my God, put a bullet right in my cerebellum before you talk about this movie to me again. Seriously, I get it. It's fun to speculate and bring your own ideas to the plot. That's why I allow for one night of talking it over. But seriously, as an English major I have to analyze things all the time, and your analysis is probably (no offense) pretty basic and far less interesting to everyone else than you believe. Watch it, talk about it, write about it in your diary, then shut up and leave it alone. You are ruining a good movie for me and everyone else.

Watch these films again in the way I am telling you to. There will be no need to get down on your knees and worship me in thanks, just post a comment. And know that you are welcome. You are welcome.