122 Days Until Dragon*Con 2012…

It seems like just yesterday I was serious about being Conan at 2012… and not the O’Brien type with onions and peppers. Today that seems like a ridiculous goal, despite whether I ever could have achieved it or not. These days, the costume goal is just “not fat”. I should probably have loftier aspirations, but I’m a natural pessimist, so there ya go.

Today I am posting because it is the last day of April, and if I don’t post anything today, it’ll be the whole month that I’ve gone without posting. A stupid reason, I know, but more or less a practical one. It’s also to stir up the readership, because I lost a few facebook “likes” due to my Hunger Games bashing in the last post. Oh well. If they’re the type who gets so worked up over the Hunger Games, this blog wasn’t ever for them, anyway.

I do feel a slight twinge of guilt over not posting much, though. And like a lot of things, the longer you go without posting, the harder it is to go back to it. The worst thing about that is, posting on this blog and fitnessing once went hand-in-hand. Despite not posting much, I’m still hitting the gym in the morning… but then hitting the ice cream at night. It is a bad formula. A formula for mediocrity and a formula for not progressing. By progress, I mean getting fit as shit, of course.

I’m also back on the WoW after receiving a Scroll of Resurrection from a friend of mine. This is probably not as bad of an idea as it sounds. Probably. Because when I do go to the gym, I get up early and go in the mornings, before I would be up anyway, so that gym time doesn’t cut into Me Time (or T-Time, as I like to call it). So instead of getting up, going to the gym, then playing lotro and watching movies until time to go to work; now I get up, go to the gym, and play WoW until work. Really, it’s no change then.

Where was I?

Right. GI Joe and Transformers have been added to the netflix streaming service.

I figured I would share this information with people who might understand my excitement.

To be clear, this is the original cartoons from when we were kids. Not the movies. I prefer to pretend that the new movies do not exist, much like I pretend that the new Star Wars movies do not exist (or the “redone” versions of the originals. Speaking of this subject, I’d like to recommend the fillum “The People vs. George Lucas”. I watched it last night on the netflix and really enjoyed it. I’d like to eventually confront my feelings about Star Wars and the new ones, but now is not the time.)

So, a few things about GI Joe really fast (as this posting shit is really cutting into my WoW time right about now):

1. It sucks.

I went from the ages of about 15 to 30 talking shit about all the kids shows these days. “These kids today, they don’t know what good is! Power Rangers?!??!?!?! Pah!!!!! We had GI Joe and Transformers and Voltron and He-Man and blah blah blah!!!! Now those were good shows!!!!”

Turns out, not so much. The badness of the first 3 episodes both entertained me and put me in my place as I came to the sad realization that I was just as stupid as any other kid. Bottom line, like Marv says in Home Alone, “Kids are stupid.” And unfortunately, I have it from my cousin (who recently tried to watch every episode of GI Joe in order, but didn’t make it) that it only goes downhill from here.

Despite it being bad, I’m still excited to watch them all. There’s nothing better to accompany my pre-work lunches than 20 minutes of stupid television shows from my youth.

The next two things that got me worked up are in the theme song:

2. In the first few episodes, the theme song explicitly states, “It’s GI Joe against Cobra and Destro…”

What the what??????

I had to do a double take. And if you are familiar with how much of a pain in the ass it is to rewind on netflix, you’ll know that I really needed to hear that again.

There it was, plain as day, “GI Joe against Cobra and Destro”.

I brought this matter up to my cousin, and he says that, at some point, they change the lyrics to the words that I remember so well, “It’s GI Joe against Cobra the Enemy, fighting to save the day… bah bah…GI Jooooeeeee!!!!”

Clearly, at the beginnings of the show, Destro and Cobra were separate entities, despite both being bad guys.

This begs the question: if Destro was his own separate bad guy, despite being allies with the Cobras, why didn’t GI Joe just take him out? Surely a super team of guys like Flint, Roadblock, Gung Ho (by far the most homoerotic Joe in the bunch), and Snake Eyes would have no trouble taking down one guy, right? Then half their damn enemies are dead!!! Yo Joe!!!!!

It also makes you wonder what the relationship between Cobra and Destro really was. My cousin and I came to the conclusion that Destro is an “arms dealer” (definitely a bad guy in 1980’s America, as evidenced by Cobra Commander’s brief appearance in an episode of Transformers as a, you got it, “arms dealer” and, of course, a bad guy. My cousin swears this episode exists, but I can’t remember it, nor have I seen it.)

The Baroness is also a common link between Destro and the Cobras. I didn’t remember this, but there are multiple scenes where Destro and the Baroness slip off for some make out sessions. I wonder what it’s like to kiss that metal face. I also wonder if well… you know…

Anyway, the Baroness is smoking hot. Though if Destro, as one man, is on an equal playing field with Cobra (according to the theme song), I imagine he’d have to beat the Bad Guy Bitches off with a stick.

Regardless, at some point in the show. Destro becomes a part of Cobra and the line in the theme song is changed.

3. Evidence that Duke is “GI Joe”.

File this one under “kids are stupid”, also. With a subheading of, “I have no qualms about admitting to my own stupid mistakes for your entertainment.”

There was definitely a period of time when I was a kid that I thought Duke was GI Joe. As in, I thought that was his name.

Breathe that stupidity in for a second.

Despite Scarlet saying his name a billion times in the first couple episodes, for some reason I thought Duke was GI Joe and that the show was about him.

This isn’t too surprising considering that he is the main character in the first few episodes and is evidently the leader of GI Joe (I don’t recall if I thought that the team of hyper-specialized soldiers was called GI Joe or something else, though. Maybe I thought they were just named after their leader… GI Joe).

For years I looked back in shame on those times on the playground when I would defiantly announce, “I’m GI Joe!!! I’m GI Joe!!!” I also had a wood gun that my dad had made for me; none of the other kids had guns (although a nice pine stick would do in a pinch) so I got first choice in who I wanted to be when we played GI Joe.

Why do I have no shame in this now??? For one, I would like to amuse you with my own ignorance, but for two, I’d like to point this out in the theme song:

“Yo Joe!
He’ll fight for freedom where ever there’s trouble.
GI Joe is there.

It’s GI Joe against Cobra and Destro
Fighting to save the day.
He never gives up.
He’s always there,
Fighting for freedom over land and air

GI Joe- A real American hero
GI Joe is there

[never mind this next part. I think I zoned out as a kid when the guy starts the talky part.]

 
GI Joe is the codename for America’s daring, highly-trained
special mission force.
Its purpose: to defend human freedom against Cobra-
a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.

[pay attention again:]

He never gives up.
He’ll stay til the fight’s won.
GI Joe will dare.

GI Joe- A real American hero [singular]
GI Joe!!!!!!!!!!”

Point is, while it is saying “he” it’s showing lots of shots of Duke kicking some serious Cobra ass. I am taking this as evidence that I was not as stupid as I have thought all these years. “He”, in my kid brain, was obviously Duke, and the pronoun “he” here is referring to “GI Joe” himself, Duke.

I don’t know when I figured out that GI Joe and Duke were not one and the same, but I doubt I felt very sheepish about it until I was 20 or so and began to feel the emotion of “embarrassment”.

So, what would GI Joe do? He’d curb his appetite for pizza, beer, and ice cream and increase his appetite for fitnessing, paratrooping, laser guns, and kicking the crap out of some Cobras!!!!

Yo, Joe!!!!

Anyway, there will be more ramblings about GI Joe, I’m sure, as I progress through the show. For now, Azeroth calls. I am abruptly ending this because WoW time has been thoroughly cut into and I can’t take it anymore.