Another Hilarious Idea, Brought to You By The Internet

I swear, I'm always the very last person to find out about anything funny.

I stumbled on something hilarious yesterday. Apparently, two years ago, Brad Neely did an alternate soundtrack for the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone movie, called Wizard People, Dear Readers. Better I find out late than never, I guess.

It's been compared to Mystery Science Theater 3000, but it's not. This is an actual soundtrack narration for the whole movie, as opposed to quips inserted throughout. Like MST3K, though, it's hilarious. For example:

Harry sees one boy disappear, cart of luggage and all, right into the brick wall between the 9th and 10th platform. “Holy Balls, I am not doing that,” he thinks.

Dumbledore erects himself slowly, and tells jokes about death that most of the kids just don’t get.

Harry holds up the snitch and bellows, “I am a beautiful animal! I am a destroyer of worlds! I am Harry Fucking Potter!”

--“Hey Ron, you look tired. Have you ever beer tested for diseases?”
--“At least I’m not a hideous fucker.”

Holy fucking shit, there’s a sickass face on Queerman’s head! Harry almost vomits all over him.

You can get and burn the discs from Neely's website, www.creasedcomics.com, to watch over the DVD, or you can watch it on YouTube, where the good folks of HarryPotterCentral have done it for us.

And, because I'm so good to you, for your viewing pleaseure, I give you Wizard People, Dear Readers:



Chapter 1 --- Chapter 13 --- Chapter 25
Chapter 2 --- Chapter 14 --- Chapter 26
Chapter 3 --- Chapter 15 --- Chapter 27
Chapter 4 --- Chapter 16 --- Chapter 28
Chapter 5 --- Chapter 17 --- Chapter 29
Chapter 6 --- Chapter 18 --- Chapter 30
Chapter 7 --- Chapter 19 --- Chapter 31
Chapter 8 --- Chapter 20 --- Chapter 32
Chapter 9 --- Chapter 21 --- Chapter 33
Chapter 10 -- Chapter 22 --- Chapter 34
Chapter 11 -- Chapter 23 --- Chapter 35
Chapter 12 -- Chapter 24

"I Swear Every Word of This is True..."

From time to time, I find myself in a situation, looking around, thinking, "Is this the beginning of a Penthouse Letter?"

Some situations just lend themselves to it. For example, the time the hot female plumber showed up and told me she was there to clean out my pipe.

OK, so the plumber thing never happened, but stuff like that does. Tonight was one of those nights. Don't worry - nothing sexual happened, so don't fear I'm about to gross you out.

The girlfriend wasn't around; she had a work thing this evening, and would be gone all night. I was left home alone, and I decided to do some laundry.

On the way back from the laundry room down the hall, I realized I'd left the keys in the apartment and locked myself out. Awesome.

Trip to the front desk. Bribe the guy to lend me the landlord copy of my key without charging me the big landlord fee. Run upstairs and get my own keys.

When I got back down to the ground floor, I jogged back to the front desk - in a hurry to finish the bribe transaction. On the way, a fairly attractive girl stopped me.

Now, were this a Penthouse letter, I'd tell you how incredibly hot this girl was. I'd say things like "perfect tits" and all that. But, this is my "seems like a penthouse letter" story, so I'll say this: she was attractive to the point where if people really wrote Penthouse letters and I were one of them, I could make such exaggerations without getting laughed at too much by anyone who saw her.

One Penthouse Letters kind of thing I would not have to exaggerate: she spoke with a Russian accent. Sexy. Because of this, I'm going to call this woman Natasha. And you have to say it out loud in something like a half-whisper. Natasha.

She asked me if the hallway I was coming from was the south building of my apartment complex. I replied quite politely that it was, and resumed my jog to the front desk to remit the key and said bribe.

From the front desk, content with my having averted financial and laundry disaster, I began to stroll back to my apartment from the lobby, where I saw, from afar, Natasha entering the elevator.

I entered another elevator a minute or two later. Halfway up to my floor, the door opened. Not paying attention, and being the only one in there, I almost stepped out, thinking it was my floor. I was stopped by almost running headlong into, you guessed it, Natasha.

She got in to the elevator. I was going up, but she was going down. Sorry, had to say it. She hit the button for the first floor, but as the elevator was still going up to my floor, she and I got to spend another 30 seconds together.

I asked her if she was ever going to make it to her destination, in a manner that seemed to me handsomely witty, and probably seemed to her totally asinine.

She laughed and smiled, and said she thought she might be in the wrong apartment complex altogether.

I explained that there is another complex one block away, set up like mine, and politely gave her directions.

Don't get me wrong, at this point, I was still just being nice, and seriously was not thinking anything sexual about this woman. I have two friends who will say, here, that I'm lying. Eat me; I am not.

But then, as I stepped out of the elevator, thinking my helpful directions would be the last of it, Natasha took a step toward me. I don't know why, but she did, and I began to have that dawning realization that I was in a Penthouse Letter-type situation.

She continued the conversation for another minute, saying something about this place looking different than one she'd been to before. But she was looking directly at me. In my eyes. Having just taken a step forward toward me. It was weird.

This is where all the freaky stuff happens in Penthouse Letters. But since this is real life, this is where I said, "Well, good luck. Have a nice evening."

Could I, though, have said something to convince her to come back to my apartment? Would it have taken much? I don't know. Since I'm not a believer in the truth of Penthouse Letters or similar stories told to me by friends, I wasn't about to test it out.

Then again, who knows? Maybe one well-placed line, like, "I'm in apartment - - - , if you need a place to stop and rest as you find your way," might have done it. Maybe "wanna come down the hall and get it on?" might have done it. As I said, I don't know, because I wasn't about to try. I guess that's why nothing even approaching the craziness of a Penthouse Letter has ever happened to me.

This Halloween, I Went as a Music Critic

Have you ever had an acquaintance go out of his way and do something really meaningful for you, making you realize that he's really a friend? OK, that's a little deep, but that's how I feel about The Bravery, who I saw play a Halloween show last night.

I've known and sort of liked The Bravery ever since I heard their ultra-catchy An Honest Mistake a few years ago. I bought their sophomore CD almost as an afterthought. I listen to them at times, like when they pop up on shuffle on my MP3 player. But I've never been into them or thought of them much.

My girlfriend recently became enamored with The Bravery when they landed on her IPod from my computer. So, last night, at her suggestion, we saw them play a Halloween show at the 9:30 Club in DC.

I hadn't really expected much, but it was a fucking blast.

There are many things that stand out about the show, and the costume contest at the end was not least among them (Lieutenant Dangle from Reno 911! won). Many in the crowd, of course, donned various costumes, from the shamelessly slutty to the highly inventive. I was also quite impressed with the guy who dressed as an IPod playing The Bravery - to the Bravery concert.


The Bravery came out in full costume. Most notably, their bass player played almost the entire show (minus the encore) wearing a 3-foot horse head with white top hat. It was utterly disturbing and fantastic. The keyboard player wore one of those lame skeleton costumes a la The Karate Kid.

Within minutes of the opening, I came across something I had never realized before - The Bravery rocks. I don't mean that in the sense of "The Bravery is the most talented band I've ever seen," but I do mean it in the sense that their songs are good, their stage presence is wonderful, and their show was just, well, really damned fun.

Other minor observations that led to this conclusion: The Bravery's songs have good backup harmony vocals that add a lot of depth to their music. Moreover, those backup vocals, I think, are secretly the lead vocals - they're the part the crowd sings along with.

Also, the lead singer graced us with something to which I feel entitled but never receive - interaction with the crowd. I'm pretty sure he told us what every one of their songs is about.

So, this band that was an acquaintence is now a good friend. The Bravery has proven to me that they deserve more rotation on the MP3 player. If nothing else, I can listen and think back to this show. It was a really good concert, and the crazy Halloween shenanigans only made it more fun.