Category Archives: Strange America

The Fenian Brotherhood: Invading Canada, From America, For Ireland

“Ha ha, guys, what are you doing?  Come on, stop that.”

~American and Canadian Forces, 1866

fenian

For years, we’ve treated Canada like our polite, little brother to the North.  They’re friendly, they send over some comedians we like, and excluding the time they killed the Baldwin family in the South Park movie, they’ve been an adequate ally and neighbor.  We tend to forget that they’re technically still a Commonwealth of England, with the Queen on their currency and everything, but we don’t really care about that, since we’ve not really had a beef with England since they burned down our White House and we were forced to replace it with a much more kickass presidential residence.

Now, while Canada has never really done anything wrong by us, England does have its fair share of people pissed off at them.  Like, say, the Irish.  Oh yeah, the Irish have a very sticky history with England and, well, there’s no nuanced way to say this so we’ll just spit it out—a bunch of Irish Americans invaded Canada as a “fuck you” to England, which is just about the closest we as a nation has come to invading Canada since the early 1800s.  So that’s a thing, a thing that happened, in history.  Let’s talk about it.

That One Time the Fenian Brotherhood Kept Invading Canada From America

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The Worst Life Hacks (Invented By Crazy People)

“Crush up aspirin with vodka to make an exfoliating facial scrub!”

~Crazy person/”Life Hacker”

light bulb candle

The internet has changed culture the world as we know it at a blinding pace.  Back in the day (everyone over the age of 26 will say while swaying hypnotically on a rocking chair) before internet was everywhere, things were different.  We’d use a phone book to call businesses, bar arguments about which Bond movie had Christopher Walken as the villain ended in frustrating stalemates (both parties were wrong, the answer is A View to Kill, not Moonraker or Octopussy), and pornography had to be purchased in magazine form with a cashier taking your money as you shyly avoid eye contact.  It was a simpler time.

Ever since the Internet has become the all-encompassing entity that will someday eventually spell our species’s doom, it has brought a lot of information into our everyday lives that we would never have known otherwise.  Sure, 90% of this information has to do with sexual fetishes that we wish we didn’t know existed, but it also means that the combined human experience can be distilled into life hacks; little common sense cheats that make life easier and make you say, “Oh, of course, why didn’t I think of that?”

hoodie life hack

“Oh my God, that somehow manages to be ingenious and depressing at the same time!”

Roughly 70% of life hacks are about either fingernail painting techniques, amplifying the volume of music played on your iphone, or freezing things that aren’t water to make things cold without watering it down, but all life hacks, when done right, make you go, “Oh shit!  That’s kind of cool!” even though you’re almost guaranteed to do nothing with this newly acquired information.  And they are cool!  The first time you hear that Chinese take-out boxes can be folded out into plates, you lose your fucking mind for half a second.  And when we finally realized that the markings in Solo cups measures your serving size for shots, beer, and wine, a few of our staff members actually wept out of sheer joy.

However, for every game changing life hack, there are others that, well, let’s just say, were explicitly designed by people who would sneak into your bathroom and replace your mouthwash with castor oil, because they’re, well, they’re crazy.  They’re crazy people.

The Worst Life Hacks (Invented By Crazy People)

 umbrella the fuck

“My apartment is filled with them!  Broken umbrellas, as far as the eye can see!”

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Halloween Costumes That Should Not Exist (Female Edition)

“Honestly, I just kind of feel sorry for the models.”

~You

like the fuck is this

We talked to you earlier this week about Halloween costumes for men that, essentially, are crimes against humanity.  Now, it’s time for us to talk about the ladies, because AFFotD is a gender-equal institution, and also because all bad idea women’s Halloween costumes are, let’s say, revealing.  Which, you know, gets page hits.

That said, while the men’s article required multiple categories, you don’t need such nuanced distinction with the Halloween costumes that, we guess, in theory, someone has bought.  They have to have, right?  Anyway, while horrible men’s costumes covered a moderate range of awful ideas, today’s article adheres to just one basic theme.

Sexy versions of blatantly unsexy things.

Let’s delve in.

Costumes That Should Not Exist (Female Edition)

 sexy straight jacket more like gay jacket that was just a joke

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Halloween Costumes That Should Not Exist (Male Edition)

“Wait, let me guess—you dressed up as a giant douchebag.”

~All of us

ice bucket

Halloween is a wonderful time of the year.  No, we’re not saying that sarcastically, Halloween is one of the better holidays out there—you’re not expected to do anything other than dress as something goofy, get drunk with your friends, and maybe steal some of the candy your kids got Trick-or-Treating when they’re not looking (they are guaranteed not to notice, unless you snag one of the full-sized snickers that your neighbors keep offering just to show up everyone else on the block, the bastards.)

We’ve, long ago, talked about how Halloween is the holiday that ages with you.  That might sound like an indictment, but it’s quite the opposite—almost every other holiday is so inflexible, you’re inevitably bound to have periods of your life where you don’t find them as enjoyable as you once did.  Not so with Halloween.  When you’re a kid, and want candy, boom, you’ll get to fill your little chubby cheeks with enough sugar to force us to make some diabetes joke that leads to weirdly hostile diatribes being posted on our website.  You’re in your 20’s or 30’s and would like an excuse to get smashed while dressed in 1990’s pop culture references?  All yours buddy!  Feeling like settling down, dressing up your baby as a pumpkin and having a shindig at your house?  Halloween has you covered!

It’s a great holiday.  We can’t stress that enough.  It’s great.  Great great great.

But people who buy and wear novelty costumes for it suck.  Like these following costumes.  Do not buy these costumes.  Do not suck on Halloween.

Costumes That Should Not Exist (Male Edition)

 bed costume

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Bloomberg Businessweek Has Stopped Giving a Fuck

“Ha ha ha, holy shit, this is, what?”

~AFFotD’s Graphic Design Department

tim cooks apple

Look at that.

Just give that a real good stare.  You might be wondering, “AFFotD, why did you photoshop this awkward and obviously fake Bloomberg Businessweek magazine cover?”  Oh, oh you could not be more wrong.  Ladies and gentlemen, we present you, the actual, real-life Bloomberg Businessweek’s cover story about Apple’s Tim Cook.  No, we’re serious.  Yes, they intended for it to look that way.  Yes, they put that on the front of something that they then expected people to buy.  Like, with real money and everything.  We know.  We know.

We had to keep going through various articles of Bloomberg Businessweek because, come on now, that can’t be for real, can it?

But it is.  It is very real.  And Bloomerg clearly has just run out of fucks to give.

Bloomberg Businessweek Has Stopped Giving a Fuck

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The Worst Products Inspired By The Walking Dead

“Guys, guys, guys.  GUYS.  You gotta cool it.  Just, chill.”

~AMC’s Marketing Department

walking dead happy

If you’re an American with access to cable television (cough-or-know-a-good-streaming-site-cough) you’ve probably seen The Walking Dead, with your opinions ranging from “This is the best show to happen to American television” to “this show is a utter garbage” with your true feelings likely settling somewhere along the lines of, “I mean, it’s fine, everyone except for Daryl, Glenn, and Maggie kind of suck, but it’s cool to see zombies get smushed.”

But no matter your views on the show, it’s impact on American culture is hard to ignore.  This is a show that, when it airs, outperforms Sunday Night Football among 18- to 49-year-olds.  No matter how you slice it (puns!), when your show is more popular than primetime football (and that’s even before the whole, you know, “2014 was a bad year to be related to or romantically involved with a football player” messiness) that’s pretty impressive.

Which is why on one hand, we can understand why many people, companies, and businesses are falling over themselves to get a slice of that sweet, sweet Walking Dead publicity by creating tie-in promotions, or “Walking Dead influenced” products.   And, also not surprisingly, trying to find a way to go viral by emulating a show that follows of a bunch of chronically depressed southerners as they run away from murderous shambles of rotting flesh can lead to some pretty bad ideas.  And since the world is filled with the assholes who say, “Well, any press is good press” whenever they’re talking about a story of a Wal-Mart shoving their undocumented workers into a furnace to avoid a tax write-up (citation needed) no one has the sense to say, “No, guys.  Stop it.  This is a bad idea.  A bad idea.”

Here are some bad ideas inspired by The Walking Dead

The Worst Products Inspired By The Walking Dead

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Meatbeers: 12 Beers Brewed With Animal Meat

“The only thing that can make beer even better is the knowledge that a living creature died so I can drink it.”

~American Beer Drinkers

 meat wave

Beer is wonderful.  We love beer.  You love beer.  Everyone loves beer.  Well, except for Sharon, but seriously, Sharon is the worst.  Like, every time she opens her mouth, just, ugh.  Sharon.  Fuck Sharon.

But horray beer (Horray beer!)  As a nation, America spends an obscene-yet-appropriate amount of time, money, and effort into making new, exciting, and dangerously alcoholic beers for us to punish our livers with.  If we spent the energy we exert on beer innovation on, say, space travel, we probably would have settled colonies on dozens of planets by now.

But are planets delicious, refreshing, and able to get you absolutely trashed?  No, of course they can’t, they’re just stupid hunks of rock.

They’re practically the opposite of beer, so why should we give them the time of day?  That’s right, we shouldn’t, we’ve got a new session beer to try.  We’ve got our priorities straight, is what we’re trying to say.

Seeing as the beer brewing business favors the bold and encourages risk taking, as well as being largely stocked with red-blooded American heroes, it should come as no surprise that there are a dearth of beers that include honest-to-God animal parts in the brewing process.

Because we like our beer like we like our women: swirling in a vat surrounded by chunks of creatures that once had a fully functioning nervous system.  Um, wait.  Let’s try that again…

Meatbeer:  12 Beers Brewed With Animal Meat

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America’s Comically Awful Sequels (You Didn’t Know Existed)

“What are you talking about, this movie is hilarious!”

~Extremely drunk people watching the following

caddyshack 2

There’s an old saying in Hollywood that goes, “We’re in the business of making dreams.  And when those dreams can be repurposed after the fact for additional profit, we’re in the business of brutally violating and mangling those dreams to remind you that nothing is sacred and your childhood is long dead and gone and the world is a cruel place driven by cold logic.”  It’s a little wordy, sure, but when you truly take that sentiment to heart you can finally make sense of the fact that our weird and brief obsession with the “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” dog abstractly helped spawn not one, not two, but three fucking Beverly Hills Chihuahua films.

For as long as we’ve had movies that we love, we’ve had sequels to those movies that take different actors, directors, and writers that served as nothing but direct-to-video cash grabs from bored studio executives.  Yes, there are instances where the sequel is arguably even better than the original, but for every Godfather: Part II there are a dozen Return of Jafars.  And while we all are painfully aware of the mega blockbuster sequels that make, essentially, all the money while being objectively horrible (looking at you, Spider-Man 3) you’d be surprised at how many of your favorite films were sequeled (shut up, it’s a word) without you having the slightest idea of their existence.

Yes, they’re awful.  Often hilariously so.  That’s why we’re let’s get the largest bottle of the strongest liquor that’s within reach and get drunk together as we discuss…

America’s Comically Awful Sequels (You Didn’t Know Existed)

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The Ten Longest Films Ever Made

“Man, and I thought Lord of the Rings was too long…”

~American Film Critics

lady clock

We like our movies like we like our sexual encounters—brief, anonymous, and preferably ending with you sobbing uncontrollably while watching Ryan Gosling kiss another woman.  Whether we’re watching Nicholas Sparks play out his latest sexual fantasy of star-crossed lovers being separated for 50 years by dire circumstances only to die of cancer the day they’re supposed to meet again, or someone gave Michael Bay $150 million to be the pyrotechnic version of Bamm-Bamm Rubble, American films are the world’s primary source for laughter, entertainment, and taking a brief respite from our bleak, miserable lives to watch Brad Pitt casually eat something while pretending we’re his friend.

There was a time when epic sagas were the norm in Hollywood, which is why Ben-Hur is over three-and-a-half hours long, and also why most of us never saw Ben-Hur once we were informed that the film was 212 boobless minutes.  Nowadays, we like our movies shorter, more action-packed, and Anne Hathaway naked-ier.  Yes, we’ll sit through the occasional three hour opus, but that’s about as long as we’re able to physically sit still without our ADD kicking oh hey look there’s a bird.  Besides, we can’t waste all our free time watching a single movie.  We have things to do.  There are bars literally just outside the theater, taunting us.

Yes, we know how to squeeze $200 million into a handy 90-minute package, but we’re America.  We invented, perfected, and then perverted everything you know and love about modern cinema.  Other countries don’t quite get the hint, which is why you see places like China making 14-hour films.

And that’s not even one of the ten longest films ever created.  Since we at AFFotD are public servants, we’re going to save you the trouble of knowing which impossibly long films to avoid by listing off the ten films with the longest running time.  And since we can’t imagine a world where people make day-long movies without something terrible and dark having happened in their childhood, we will also inform you what life-ruining tragedy must have happened to the countries of the world that would actually sit through these exercises in torture.

The Ten Longest Films Ever Made

 Die hard

Because if you’re going to stare at a movie screen for 14 hours, you’d better damn well be watching all the Die Hard movies.

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The Six Worst DIY Kits For Sale On The Internet

“OH GOD WHY DID I DECIDE TO ASSEMBLE THIS MYSELF IT IS INSIDE ME!”

~Step-dads everywhere

ladder fall

America is a nation filled with handymen, or so we kept telling ourselves when trying to explain the popularity of Home Improvement.  We’ve been building our own devices to make life quaint or awesome for years, but with the invention of the Internet came something terrifying.  Brooklyn Boundless Do-It-Yourself opportunities.  We used to see some wood, a hammer, and a handful of nails and say to ourselves, “You know, it’s Sunday and there’s no football on, I might as well come down with tetanus while making an rickety doghouse that’ll never be used.”  Now, we’re forced to embarrass ourselves as we spectacularly fail to make Precision Outback Savannah doghouses complete with a shaded porch because your wife saw all the lumber in the backyard and decided to spend the next three hours fucking around on Pinterest.

It’s a blessing and a curse, and by that we mean to say the internet is a blessing for master craftsmen with advanced engineering degrees who want to show off what they can do in a simple afternoon, and it’s a curse for the rest of us who usually have a hard time figuring out the diagrams on IKEA furniture instructions.  It’s also a boon for those of us who like to laugh at the latter group, but that’s neither here nor there.

Of course, with endless DIY products at our disposal, there are numerous helpful guides and kits that (usually for a cost just covering some of the basic supplies) can help you feel like a red-blooded, self-sustaining, uh, well let’s be honest, hipster.  Most of the people doing these projects are just hipsters.  When a woodworker makes an awesome bench, he doesn’t really spend his time posting about it online.  He’s probably outside.  Sitting on the bench.  And he’s definitely not making his own soap, because he’s not insufferable.

The people who buy, sell, or came up with the following projects, however?  Yes.  Absolutely insufferable.

The Six Worst DIY Kits For Sale On The Internet

 corona tv

This one’s actually not for sale, though you know you’d buy it if you could.

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