Oh yeah, life's good.

(11)  Job search website CareerCast.com has crowned “actuary” as the best job in the world for 2010. Really? Tell that to Jack’s Dissociative Identity Disorder.

(10) We thought that we had come to terms with MGM's upcoming Robocop remake. Granted, a movie as perfect as Paul Verhoeven's ‘87 classic should never be remade, but at least Robocop was in the capable (and suitably weird) hands of Darren Aronofsky. Not anymore. Thanks to the success of Avatar, MGM now wants the movie shot in blockbuster ready 3D and Aronofsky, who won't have his vision sullied by stupid plastic glasses, is likely to drop off the project. We can only hope that this causes the Robocop remake to collapse entirely as MGM is already facing catastrophic financial troubles. Bitches, leave.

(9) On Wednesday, Netflix and Warner Bros. announced that new DVD and Blu-Ray releases would not be available through the by-mail rental service until 28 days after they hit stores. This guy is all pissed off about it. On a fundamental level, this is certainly messed up. We pay Netflix so that we can rent movies whenever we want. But now they are effectively telling us that we can’t rent movies whenever we want? Humph. In return, Warner Bros. will offer reduced product costs to Netflix, release more copies (which will decrease wait time), and expand titles available for streaming. In practice, this can only be good for us. There is something wrong if you absolutely have to see a movie the first month it comes out on DVD. Life is short; get out of the house. Besides - any time you get excited or plan a night around your Netflix rental, you can bet it will come cracked anyway.

"No, he's to blame for the collapse of NBC."

(8) In some real bullshit, it appears that Jay Leno will be reclaiming his 11:30 timeslot. The shuffle at NBC is still shrouded in mystery and ineptitude, but the best guess is that Leno will be returning to 11:30 for a 30 minute monologue (oh, the humanity!) with Conan and that nice but slow Fallon boy each getting bumped back. This comes after months of Leno struggling to find an audience at 10pm, despite NBC's dogged insistence that Leno is funny and that a 10 o'clock talk show is a good idea. Apparently, huge fucking morons that like their comedy primarily centered on typos and mediocrity are too busy with George Lopez reruns on Nick-at-Nite to switch the dial over for some Jaywalking. Brandon Tartikoff would have never let this debacle happen. We hope that Conan has the balls to bail on NBC, take his reported 40 million payday, and breeze on over to FOX (even though we love our late night Seinfeld repeats). The only silver lining here is that NBC will likely return to airing (gasp) scripted television at 10PM come fall. And let’s not forget, this is the braintrust that brought us shows like Heroes. Oh wait.

(7) So, uh, they did this thing. Yesterday. On Facebook. Where, uh, girls were posting the color of their, uh, bra… in order to support breast cancer awareness. Which is cool, you know, because awareness is important. But seeing your ex girlfriend, or, you know… a family member… talk about their black lace bra is just… super awkward.

(6) The long-in-gestation Stephen King and John Mellencamp musical will open this September in Georgia, with a cast featuring Elvis Costello, Neko Case, Sheryl Crow and Stephen King himself. A CD/book combo will precede the stage production. While this whole thing sounds like a well-intentioned disaster, some dude from Esquire saw a table read and claims it’s “not only tolerable, it’s good.” And let’s face it, don’t we all want these crazy kids to succeed?

Menace II Propriety

(5) NBA all-star Gilbert Arenas admits to bringing guns into the Washington Wizards locker room, and amazingly Commissioner David Stern’s head doesn’t explode. For Stern (who has made it his life’s work to convince America that the NBA isn’t full of dangerous, black thugs), this must seem like a personal attack. There are many ways the league could have spun this; it was just a stunt to help sell Washington Bullets throwback jerseys. It was a tribute to the ABA Indiana Pacers who played “cowboy” in the locker room – with guns (according to trainer Dave Craig in the terrific oral history Loose Balls, a gun actually went off once). It was just a goof. Instead, Stern has indefinitely suspended Arenas and will probably do everything in his power to see that he never steps foot on an NBA court again. Let this be a lesson to all – admit nothing, deny everything.

(4) In “pilots from TV creators we love” news, Fox is putting Shawn Ryan's Chicago cop drama Ridealong into production. We're certainly not expecting another The Shield, but this new project sounds closer to that stellar cable cop show than anything he's worked on since. And HBO is giving the nod to Deadwood creator David Milch's drama about all the kooky characters at a racetrack. We’re already intrigued, but if you’re not, know that Michael Mann is directing the pilot.

(3) There is a multiverse! We told you so. All those slanderous allegations you keep making against us? That we've been blaming on our doppelganger from the Negative Zone? Well, told ya so. Eggheads that are still paying attention to the Large Hadron Collider (we stopped caring after it failed to end the world) are saying that it might prove the existence of a parallel universe as early as, like, Tuesday, when it creates a nano black hole, or a Stargate type thingy, or some other science-y stuff. Whatever. All this fuss to figure out where so-called "dark matter" comes from. We could tell you that, nerds. Dark matter comes from magic. And Jesus. You’re welcome, science. Now hurry up and collide some particles so we can get that transdimensional pathway open again, we left the directions to our Cosmic Cube in the sex room of our alternate realty penthouse.

Goodbye, vain devil.

(2) Cue the sappy dramatic music. It’s over. This is the last season of Tyra’s talk show! Maybe it was the prayers. Maybe it was the incessant (hilarious) mocking by Joel McHale on The Soup. Maybe it was the realization that she is a vapid, narcissistic void of humanity utterly incapable of offering anything of worth to actual people. Whatever it is, it has ended her dark reign. For now, we are going to ignore the fact that Tyra and her advisors Oprah and Tyler Perry may be forming some sort of creepy melodramatic self-empowerment media conglomerate. Forget about that. No more Tyra! No more Tyra!

(1) We don’t really know what to say about beloved stand-up comic Artie Lange’s recent suicide attempt, but we’re pretty sure an off color joke is in order. So, congrats Artie, on managing to shatter the self-inflicted wound record previously held by Elliott Smith. We love you. Get well.

Jeremiah White, Jeff Hart, and Jason Arican contributed to this Countdown.

This koala likes to nap, just like us.

(15) Australia's koalas (aka the world's koalas) are being threatened by a monumental loss of natural habitat, and the stress of overcrowding is causing a breakout of chlamydia (yes, THAT chlamydia - do NOT laugh). In order to raise awareness about this dire situation, Culture Blues would like to dedicate this countdown to the plight of the koalas (cue sappy music). We’re not going to live in a world without these furry little monsters.

(14) In a celebration that you probably have to be Chinese to understand, 10,000 Chinamen (not the preferred nomenclature, dude) gathered in Chonquing to laugh simultaneously. The creepy display of manufactured levity was just one of many bizarre ways Red China is celebrating the 60^th anniversary of its blood-drenched creation. We’re happy the PRC has made it to 60 and we’d love to send those wonderful Chinese our fondest regards, but they aren’t allowed to read our website. Next week, the Chinese plan to remember the Hundred Flowers Campaign (where dissidents like us were flushed out and persecuted) by gathering for a group armpit fart.

This one is fighting a crow... in midair.

(13) GM's plan to sell the Saturn line to Penske Automotive Group fell through this week, putting the line of cars and 13,000 dealership jobs in grave jeopardy. Inside sources have indicated that the deal's failure is entirely attributable to a new GM employee who wasted an entire week sleeping and drumming pencils on his desk rather than working on the all important "Penske file." The employee, George Costanza, could not be reached for comment.

(12) Brooklyn is so gully that even its swans drop bodies. Yuppie-filled Prospect Park, previously known for its roving baby gangs and Frisbee related homicides, is now home to feuding families of swans. One family, protecting its turf, attempts to drown the family on the other side of Prospect Park Pond by jumping on their backs. The father of the aggressors has been dubbed “The Monster” by locals. They mean it in a bad way, but it’s mostly just bad-ass. A bunch of namby pamby hippy pacifists have been lobbying the friggin’ government to step in and have been going to the park to try to protect and hydrate and coddle the sissies who can’t hold their ground. We would like to lobby the sickly family to get on the steroids. This underground swan fighting operation we’ve set up isn’t going to last long if it’s all first round knockouts.

This is a koala's claw. It could gut you if it wanted to... and it just might.

(11) So this lady who couldn't find some sad sack to impregnate her buys some sperm from a bank, moves to London and has twins thanks to the miracle of science. Happy story right? But what happens when you run out of money because you've been living high on the hog with British royalty for years and you get kicked out of your "flat." Naturally you come back to America and its warm litigious embrace and sue that deadbeat sperm donor bastard-maker for paternity. A Massachusetts court ruled that it wanted fuck-all to do with her attempt to force the sperm bank to name the anonymous donor. We're not going to comment on the irony of a woman known only as Jane Doe trying to take an anonymous sperm donor to court. But we will say that about 300 sperm banks around the country got "please dispose of" requests from the Culture Blues offices yesterday.

(10) While promoting that Brad Pitt/nazi movie overseas, Quentin Tarantino has claimed that there will definitely be a third Kill Bill movie. Although it won’t really be a “Kill Bill” movie cause Bill is dead. It’ll be more like a “I’m gonna try to get in Uma’s pants one more time” movie. Tarantino claims he’d like to have 10 years to have passed between 2 and 3 because he wants Uma’s character to have had 10 years of peace and also because he doesn’t understand how movies work. Regardless, this all sounds strangely familiar.

(9) Not content with its place in global economics, Japan has begun to reverse globalize America and infiltrate that most trusted of our institutions – the fast food industry. Onya, a Japanese noodle chain, recently opened their first North American location in midtown Manhattan. Adventurous diners looking for something exotic should order Udon special # 2: Bukkake noodle. Thanks but we’d just like the house sauce, please.

In the future, it's us versus the robots, and the robots win every single time.

(8) The frozen head of Ted Williams has been horribly mistreated, alleges a former cryogenic executive from the Alcor Life Extension Foundation (Ra’s al-Ghul, CEO). Williams’ head has undergone all kinds of punishment, including being drilled, hit with a wrench, and occasionally removed from cold storage (if it ruins the chicken nuggets, what will it do to brains?). We have no indication if this will affect Williams’ scheduled 2020 debut at Cyber Egg Stadium.

(7) Google started handing out invitations to its next life altering innovation Google Wave this week. It promises to be the Email/Communication 2.0 or some other such buzz word gobbledygook. Imagine Email+IM+Video & Voice Chat+Collaboration+Sharing+Losing more hours of your life tagging photos and updating your status. Just think of it as the next step down the road that will one day lead to Google becoming Skynet and bringing Judgment Day to us all. When reached for comment an unnamed Google rep. was quoted as saying "We here at Google are proud to bring you products that enrich your life, aid your creativity, and steal your information." P.S. If anyone has invites out there, we here at Culture Blues would love some.

(6) Because you don’t have as much international street cred as us, you’re probably not aware that the greatest rapper in all of Germany, Bushido, turned 31 this week. Of course, we’ve been following Bushido since his days in Berlin’s Most Wanted. We even remember Bushido’s beef with Aggro Berlin and Bass Sultan Hengzt. Shit was crazy, son. Anyway, happy birthday Bushido, and happy Oktoberfest to all you goose stepping German hip hop heads out there.

"Welcome to primetime, bitch!"

(5) The first trailer from the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot has arrived and we’re not impressed yet. Honestly, we thought that Freddy learned his lesson when he got his ass beat by Jason fucking Voorhees. But no, the burnt one is back for some recycled bits from Wes Craven’s original and for absolutely none of the wisecracking and puns he’d become known for in the later movies. Everything has to be so serious now (thanks Dark Knight). Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach and the child molester from Little Children) takes over the role of razor glove wielding former child molester Freddy Krueger. In case you’re not familiar with Freddy, you can see all of his kills ever here. Thank you internet.

(4) In his memoir, “Behind the Bell” (out this week), Dustin “Screech” Diamond dishes that his Saved by the Bell co-star Mark-Paul Gosselaar used to take steroids. Diamond says, “If you watch [Saved by the Bell:] The College Years, you can see massive amount—25 pounds of growth occur in about two months.” Well…that’s a big “if,” Dustin. Really big.

I mean, come on. Somebody needs to fix this. Look at them!

(3) Although they were unveiled earlier this year the internet blew up this week with stories about our government’s newest innovation in military development: Cyborg Beetles. Researchers at the University of California, Berkley (with funding from the incredibly powerful and somewhat ominous DARPA) have succeeded in "controlling a live rhinoceros beetle by remote control" Tech-on reports. A series of six electrodes are hooked up to the brain and muscles of the insect, then with the use of the same type of controller that operates the toy car you bought your nephew last Christmas, one can control the insects like some sort of petty God. DARPA intends to use this breakthrough in order to make insect spies. INSECT FUCKING SPIES!!! Just sit there for one second and imagine all of the possible applications for insect spies. Or how about when they branch out to other animals? Can you imagine there one day being a Gorilla spy? I know... Pretty awesome... Especially if they get him a badass tux like James Bond.

(2) Perhaps the saddest news from the butt-rock world this week was that Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst has been left high and dry by his wife of two months, Esther Nazarov. (Girls with names like that are incapable of loving you unconditionally). Durst informed fans of the breakup on his Twitter page, which, was appropriate because, let’s be honest, social networking is basically the butt-rock of the internet (FOLLOW US!).

(1) On Thursday, David Letterman delivered yet another monumental moment of television. With sincerity, humility and a bit of self-deprecation Letterman gives a detailed account of his affairs with staffers and subsequent blackmailing and sting operation. Letterman has repeatedly shown that he is capable of operating entirely outside of the confines of most television personalities. This was perhaps the most newsworthy example yet as he delivers a 10 minute monologue that left the audience intrigued, confused and laughing. And in a particularly clever trick, Letterman manages to turn the tables and leave no doubt that the blackmailer is the only bad guy here. It is both shocking and exhilarating to know that Letterman has been able to survive so long on network television in the 11:30 time slot with his tendency to create groundbreaking and compelling television moments that reach far beyond the spectrum of late night TV.

Jeremiah White, Jeff Hart, John Burgman, Giovanny Caquias and Cheese contributed to this Countdown.

Maybe I should start at the beginning.

We're all going to die!

A few weeks ago, the intuition that we’re all going to die in a fireball crept over me. When it happened,  I was relaxing in my austere work cube, procrastinating over a pile of TPS reports, occasionally lighting a cigarette from the burning pile of government bailout money that I supervise. An average day for me – mister big city middle class, wiling away my days, getting fatter and older. And yet, I’m suddenly overcome with thoughts of falling sky, rising ocean, pandemic virus, food riots, terrorism, zombies, and all that other Roland Emmerich shit. These disturbing thoughts invade my peacefully mundane day-to-day.

I was spurred to action. Immediately calling upon the forces of Google, I posed that wonderful robot (whose increasing intelligence might also contribute to the eventual eradication of humanity) a very simple question.

How will I survive the end of the world?

The search leads me to Survive2012.com, the internet’s most comprehensive guide to how we’re all going to die in three years. Operated out of Australia by Robert Bast, Survive2012 launched in 2000, presumably after the new millennium failed to sate humanity’s guilty craving for a doomsday. Since then, the site boasts over 5 million visitors. It was also ranked #314 in the book “505 Unbelievably Stupid Webpages.”

Survive2012 is a godsend for a neophyte like me. Bast has created a list of twenty-two ways that the world could end, scored them, and ranked them. To give you an idea: number five on the list is Religious Apocalypse, number twelve is Super Volcano, and number fifteen is Time Travel Error (nice job, McFly). One, or some, or all, of these disasters could happen in 2012.

At this point, you might be wondering what the big deal is about 2012. Obviously, it lacks the uniqueness of a millennium change. Why not 2015, or even 2009?

Because of the Mayans.

Blame it on these guys.

You might remember the Mayans from such films as Apocalypto, directed by notorious crackpot (and alleged 2012 believer) Mel Gibson, where the Mayans face the waning days of their civilization. Apocalypto is also an allegory for the decline of America or the Christian end-of-days, depending on who you read. Aside from getting lionized by Mad Max, the Mayans were also notable for their societal contributions, developing important early techniques in agriculture, mathematics, architecture, and human sacrifice.

They laid the foundation for the way we live. It’s only logical we be interested in their calendars. The Mayans had a bunch of them, inherited from their ancestors – Aztecs, Olmecs, etc. But, for our purposes, we’re just going to lump all ancient Mesoamerica cultures together so, if you’re a professor of ancient history, or if you can understand words from a Wikipedia article better than me, you might want to turn away from the next few paragraphs as they’re probably going to insult your intelligence.

The Mayans devised a sophisticated system of interlocking calendars – they had a 260 day calendar that interlocked with a 365 day calendar. The two calendars combined to form a cycle that would repeat every 52 years – typically longer than your average Mayan was alive and kicking. The end of the calendar was usually a scary time for the Mayans, as they were forced to go to lame parties with their friends and, of course, they never had dates, so instead they just stood around reflecting on all the shit they didn’t accomplish in the last calendar cycle, and hoped like heck the Gods would see fit to grant them another 52 years.

Anyway, the 52 year cycle was great for forecasting seasons and remembering birthdays, but not so great for recording history. To that purpose, the Mayans devised a “Long Count” calendar. The Long Count calendar ran all the way back to what the Mayans believed to be man’s creation date – approximately 3114 BC. To give you some mythological perspective, the Mayan creation date would come about 1,000 years after lonely Adam pulled out a rib to create himself a girlfriend.

"The silver snakes shall live, but the purple parrots must burn!"

The big fuss about the Mayan Long Count calendar isn’t so much where it begins as where it ends. If you believe the Mayan creation myth, then we’re actually the fourth world. That means there were three other worlds before ours, but the Gods deemed them too screwed up to keep around, so they shook the celestial etch-a-sketch and started fresh. The Mayans back-dated their Long Count calendar to begin at creation and it ends, presumably, when our run is over and it’s time to make way for the fifth world.

The Long Count calendar ends on December 21^st, 2012. Or December 23^rd, depending on whose interpretation you favor.

We’re basing the end of days on a bunch of savages that probably just ran out of carving space in the calendar cave. Who cares, right? A whole lot of people, apparently. As a culture, we’re fascinated by the end of the world – the new millennium, Nostrodamus, Independence Day. We lucky Americans have just spent eight years under a President that believes in the rapture. The apocalypse is an industry, evidenced by the support for mom-and-pop bunker sales, the Left Behind series, and Roland Emmerich’s movies, the next of which, 2012, is all about the next big thing in cataclysm.

He skiied the K-12. I trust him with my life.

2012 stars John Cusack as a family man who outruns meteors in a RV. As usual with Emmerich, cities are destroyed in glorious fashion, people make impassioned speeches, and scrappy humans like us manage to survive against all odds. The marketing campaign for 2012 features a viral site – The Institute for Human Continuity. It’s a glossy, make-believe version of what Robert Bast’s Survive2012 site really is – a resource devoted to making sure some of us make like John Cusack. The IHC also offers a survival lottery (presumably to secure your place in a fictional bunker) and is currently holding an election to determine who will lead the post-2012 world. I nominate myself, but this is a decidedly premature action on my part; there are tests involved, and I fail them miserably – I can’t outsmart the computer in a strategy portion that reminds me of Free Cell, and I haven’t read enough (any) Daniel Pinchbeck to pass the knowledge section. Winner of the election receives an all expenses paid trip to the Mayan ruins – where it all began.

After browsing Survive2012, skimming some Wikipedia articles, and watching the 2012 trailer a half dozen times (explosions are awesome), I believe that I’m ready to begin taking on the apocalypse. I consider posting some of my initial questions to the insanely active Survive2012 forum (it boasts over four thousand registered members), but I’m intimidated. I decide to take my inquiries directly to Bast.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting from him. While he runs a site devoted to the end of the world, and has authored articles such as Dragons: Were They Once Real?, I don’t get much of a tinfoil-hat vibe from him. Instead, I get the feeling that Bast is a more sincere Roland Emmerich, a smart guy on the fringe, attempting to cash in on our hunger for extinction.  The site is littered with promotion for his upcoming book. The first item in Survive2012’s FAQ is:  Are 2012 authors just trying to make a quick buck? You can read Bast’s answer here (it’s essentially, “yes, but is that so wrong?”).

I shoot Robert Bast an e-mail. I confess my skepticism. I describe myself as a “someone who lives in a major population center, is in relatively good shape, but is generally middle-class and soft.” I ask him some ignorant questions about the Mayans (how high could they count? etc). Finally, I ask him about an asteroid hitting Earth, which Bast ranks as the most likely doomsday scenario. How could the Mayans predict such a thing? Will it hit New York?

He replies four hours later.

Here, Bast sets me straight on the Mayans:

“The Mayans counted years in the billions and trillions, so they certainly could count higher. The calendar was never a paper one like we hang on the wall, so they didn't run out of space either.  Their Long Count calendar started thousands of years before their culture began, and ends hundreds after their demise... suggesting to me that they didn't create it.

Halley worked out when the famous comet would return by observing the sky and computing everything by hand. Not so easy, it involves taking into account the gravitational effects of every planet it passes. Some French mathematicians did the same. There is no reason why the Mayans or Egyptians couldn't also predict the return of a comet, even one with a period of a 1000 years. It's about the only possible tragedy they could have predicted for us.”

Later in the e-mail, Bast reassures me that he (and most of his forum members) shares my status as fluffy and middle-class. This is when he gives me the advice on where to build my bunker. I ask if he’s got a bunker of his own, and Bast tells me that he’s got the land picked out, about two hours drive north of Melbourne (where Robert lives), but that he can’t yet afford a bunker. He’s working hard and saving money.

My future bunker

After reading that, I don’t feel so bad. If the internet’s foremost expert on 2012 (an honorary title I’m bestowing on Bast) doesn’t have his bunker ready yet, then there’s still time for me. Forget The IHC’s phony election – I’ve got three years to prepare. I might make a bad post-2012 leader today, but I’m going to keep working at it. I just set aside the first $50 for my bunker. I can survive this. And I’m going to take all of you with me. As servants.

Well, ok, only four of you. The bunker I’m looking at has limited space. 

PROGRESS:

Preparedness:  Extremely Low

Disasters Researched:  0

Bunker Fund:  $50

IN THE COMING WEEKS:

Jeff goes bunker shopping, explores the various causes of humanity’s demise, and social networks the apocalypse.