Ah, the internet.

It's hard to imagine life without it, doesn't it? Merely a decade and a half ago, we'd have to leave the house and actually do something with our lives, but no more.

Now the entire world is conveniently laid before us, and we can take all the time we like to fully explore all the amazing and wonderful...

The internet sucks.

There, I said it.

No, move those flaming fingertips away from the keyboard, and hear me out. I'm not complaining about the concept or the execution, but the content. Sure, the convenience is amazing, but besides being incredibly immediate, is there anything the internet is really good for?

Okay, there's that, but what about for the other 23 hours, 45 minutes of the day?

Shopping? You've conveniently avoided a short drive and all you had to do was wait two weeks and pay five bucks shipping.

Information? College professors know about wiki, and half of the other sites are lying in order to get your vote/worship/attention/money/honest opinion on the quality of their erotic slash fanfic.

Human interaction? DOOOOOD! WANNA CYBER?!!! U HAWT! I GOT HUGE 3====>

Gaming? Your opponent is a South Korean 12 year old that does nothing but play the game for 20 hours a day. Have fun.

No, I've had it! The internet is one of the greatest inventions ever made and we've reduced it little more than an ad spewing porn vehicle!

What can I do? I'M GOING TO TAKE ON THE INTERNET!

MAX VERSUS THE INTERNET

This is a battle so complicated that it's going to take several posts to update as the competition continues.

I'm going to challenge nine websites to battles so cunning that those websites won't even realize that they're being challenged by me, in any way shape or form, to battles of my own choosing with Amber as the impartial judge!

Now, I'm not 'pretentious' enough to claim I'm superior to the internet as a whole (I'm pretentious enough to use the word pretentious, sure, but not enough to claim I'm superior to the internet as a whole), but DAMN IT, I need to do something!

Specifically, I need to claim that I'm superior to the internet as a whole!

TO THE ARENA!

CHALLENGE #1: IMDB

Ah, internet movie database. You cow.

You're supposed to be the ultimate movie/television website and you're abbreviating database as if it's two words. Yeah, that doesn't really mean anything, but I'm a geek, it's what I've got.

I've conferred with the judge, and she's agreed that I should name three movies/television shows that I believe I know more information about than the IMDB does, and we'll compare (should be a good match because I don't know a lot of nitpicky small things like years of production, director names, actor names or correct spellings of the titles, but I know enough to give this overbloated site a run for its money!).

If it seems unfair that I get to choose the movies, keep in mind that all this information is off the top of my head, and IMDB had a virtually unlimited amount of time on their hands to put there site together. I'm not saying they 'couldn't' have made a better website. I'm saying they just 'didn't'.

My choices are: Dr. Alien (the comedy skin flick), My Pet Monster (the direct to video kids movie), and God Told Me To (THINGIES!). Winner will be decided best of three.

Dr. Alien is a very stupid skin flick which I only remember because I watched it when a large amount of skin meant something in a movie (before the internet...yes, I've already surrendered that point!).

In it, a young loser is seduced by his female alien teacher after she injects him with a mysterious drug that makes him grow a tube out of his head (looks exactly like something you'd see on a Snork). This tube, for some reason, isn't seen as strange by other people. In fact, it makes all women fall madly, passionately in love with him for as long as it takes to have sex with him, and then it wears off and they leave.

For some reason that I can't even begin to comprehend, our hero sees something wrong with this, even though it leads to him sleeping with his enemy's girlfriend, the hottest girl in school. This leads to a hilarious scene where the sidekick sees the girl leave a closet, partially dressed, and then he sees the hero leave, stunned.

SIDEKICK: "Wait, did you and her just..."

HERO: *NODS*

SIDEKICK: *PUMPS FIST* "HOLY SHIT!!! Wait! Is it true what they say about..."

HERO: *NODS*

SIDEKICK: *PUMPS FIST* "HOLY SHIT!!!"

The hero finally gives into temptation, but all the random, unprotected sex is annoying his girlfriend slightly, so he gives it up, leading his hot alien teacher to reveal that she is an alien, and has an admittedly cool giant blue Roswell alien head, leading our hero to slightly regret 'hitting that'. The alien then reveals that the her planet needs someone injected with the serum to help repopulate it(kind of a reverse 'Mars Needs Women' thing).

The serum is lost, but the alien's human sidekick took it in order to try to win her heart, so they go off to repopulate the planet, which they could have done at the beginning, but what the hell, it's a stupid skin movie.

Your move, IMDB.

DR. Alien (1989)

Average rating: 2.5/10

PLOT OUTLINE: Dr. Ackerman, the biology teacher at the local college, meets with an untimely demise when chased by a UFO. Wesley, one of his students, is having trouble attracting women. That all changes when bombshell Ms. Xenobia takes over Ackerman's class and persuades Wesley to participate in some vitamin research she and her assistant Drax are conducting. Suddenly Wesley has become very desirable, despite the fleshy antenna that grows out of his head during excitement. His newfound success threatens to alienate the girl he really cares about (Leeanne), and Xenobia's motives may have something to do with the fact that she is not of this earth.

Apparently the Alien is Judy Landers, and that's someone we're supposed to know, judging by the attention the site gives to that fact. I'll click on her name and get shown to her page on the site which reveals she's...absolutely nobody. Cameos on television. I can see why that's important.

Apparently the alternate name for the movie is "I Was A Teenage Sex Maniac"

90 minutes, color

One quote:

Wesley: You stay away from me. You are not of this earth!
Xenobia: Wesley, you say that as if it were a negative thing.

There's one user comment, going on about how hot Judy Landers is, and how pissed off he is that she doesn't get naked.

In my opinion, I could've gotten more information from looking at the video box.

Judges?

POINT FOR MAX, FOR REMEMBERING THE ONLY GOOD LINE IN THE MOVIE, AND YOU SHOULD FEEL VERY ASHAMED OF YOURSELF. VERY VERY ASHAMED.

Thanks Amby! I'm up 1-0, so let's go to "God Told Me To".

The main character looks exactly like Judd Hirsch from 'Taxi' and he's obsessed with religion, so much that he goes to church every day of the week, which has alienated his wife, to say the least. He's an investigator looking into many recent, seemingly unconnected murders where the murderer claims they were told by god to kill those people. These people act with an incredible divine zealousness that leads them to kill even their own families.

Long story short, it turns out that all these people have met this single golden glowing hermaphrodite who turns out to be the product of an alien and human interbreeding. Hold on, it gets better. It turns out our hero is ALSO a half-alien (he took more after his mother, so he looks human), and, get this, it insinuates that Jesus was also one of these half-aliens.

Yeah.

They actually show the scenes where the women floating in mid-air inside the large alien machine where a small worm-like thing flies inside the woman's...well, you know...thingy...and that's not all!

*I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR DESCRIBING THIS*

They have a close-up of a prop 'thingy' that the worm-thing flies into. Yes, they show that. I admit, they never went that far on the Muppets.

You know, someone actually had to request that from the prop guys.

PROP GUY: "YOU WANT ME TO MAKE WHAT?!!!"

So anyway, it gets even worse, but I'm not going there. Needless to say, the hero uses his powers to kill his evil half-sibling and then he gets arrested for murder. What does he say the motive was? "God told me to."

I want to punch this movie.

IMDB:

GOD TOLD ME TO (1976)

Tagline: "Conceived In A HELL Beyond Our GALAXY Destined To Rule Our World!"

Summary: The storyline of this movie involves a series of motiveless murders committed by various New York residents: a sniper shoots people from a water tower; a father murders his entire family; and a cop (Andy Kaufman) opens fire during a...

Wait, Andy Kaufman?!!! How the hell did I not realize that was Andy Kaufman? That would have made the perfect Taxi reference! I could have said something along the lines of "Alex is finally tossing Latka off a building. I think we all knew this day would come."

How could I miss that?!

INDEED! MAX IS DISQUALIFIED FOR NOT CATCHING A PRICELESS CAMEO, LIKE A TRUE MOVIE GEEK SHOULD!

Dang, we're tied up 1-1. It's time to go to the final test: 'My Pet Monster' the direct to video failed TV pilot, based on the popular stuffed toy!

Our main character is just your average perpetually hungry fat 80's kid who only gets offered disgusting health food by his mom (there's a funny scene where his sister accepts the health shake and casually dumps it into a house plant on her way out). He instead just goes hungry in the traditional 'fat kid in a kid's movie' style, and when he's at the museum, he encounters two scary monster statues. A weird magic aura leaves the smaller of the two statues (which happens to look exactly like the 'My Pet Monster' monster), and after that, every time he gets really hungry, he turns into a large, gorilla sized version of the My Pet Monster monster (a guy in a mascot-like suit).

There's some predictable kid movie hijinks where they starve the fat kid (always fun) in order to get him to change into the monster, culminating in a dog show where they somehow pass him off as a dog. In the ending, the villain of the movie (who figures out their secret) successfully gains the power of the other monster statue, only we never see him transform.

This special appealed to me when I was a kid, for some reason (probably because the main character is named Max), even though I didn't have a My Pet Monster, didn't want one, and didn't fail to notice that the show had absolutely nothing to do with the My Pet Monster toys.

The premise of the toy is you have a pet monster. The show practically writes itself! A young, funny kid has a hidden monster that gets into all kinds of mischief in his house, but the kid's not going to give him up because he knows that if he doesn't keep the monster chained up in his closet, it'll break free and hunt down all of his enemies, bringing their severed heads back as gifts for his sworn master.

I sure would have watched that when I was eight! Wouldn't you?

But no, they took 'My Pet Monster' and made it into a kiddie werewolf story. What the hell?

IMDB:

MY PET MONSTER (1986)

No picture.

Plot Outline (in its entirety): Max is transformed into a monster when exposed to a statue.

Country: Canada (should have known...go check out 'The Hooded Fang' and see what I mean)

One user comment (in its entirety):

10/10 stars

"Haven't seen the film in a very long time, so can't really remember too much about it, but I can remember that this is a classic not to be missed.

Growing up this film was one of my favourites, I even had a stuffed toy of the monster, although isn't quite the quality it was originally after using it as an object to replicate certain wrestling moves (I'm past that now).

I don't think much has to be said about this film other than it is GREAT.

If you have never seen this, go out and get it now!"


That's it.

Judges?


YEAH, MAX WINS

Booya!!!!!!!!!!

MAX: 1, INTERNET: 0

Internet Movie Database, I have three messages for you:

1. If you had nearly as much information on movies as you do on countless worthless actors, you would have won this competition.

2. Database is one word. Yeah, I'm still milking that.

3. I JUST KICKED YOUR ASS!!!

Look out Ebay! So long Netflix! Better notify your next of kin, My-Space...

BECAUSE THE BATTLE'S MERELY BEGUN!

BACK!

Whew! You wouldn't believe the sheer amount of data entry I've been doing at my job. By the time the weekend's hit, my hands are ready to strike. Seriously, I had to rush the picket lines to get the blog today, which is tough when you're holding picket signs in both hands.

Jeese! They even flipped my car! (BTW thanks to everyone who came down to help my hands flip my car this week. It wasn't easy, but together...HEY WAIT A MINUTE!)

STEVE'S QUESTION

Q. Is it possible to sneeze with your eyes open?

A. YES!

YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

I DID IT!

After weeks of false starts and botched tries, I finally sneezed with an eye open!

Admittedly, it was only one eye, held open with fingers, but still, it counts. If there's any doubt, Amber was present at the moment of glory, there to witness my EYE POPPING RIGHT OUT OF ITS SOCKET!!!

OH GOD!!! WHAT HAVE I DONE?! WONDER BOY, WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?! WAS THIS YOUR PLAN ALL ALONG SNUFFY?! WAS IT?!!!

Okay Max.

Calm down.

Of course it's hard to calm down when your left eye is swinging like a pendulum in the breeze, keeping an eye on my laces while I ponder my next move. Huh...shoes are untied. I guess I'll just reach down and...

OH DAMN IT!!! RIGHT AGAINST THE KNEE!

I can't live like this, there's no use even pretending. Sure, the parents didn't say anything, but they were a little distracted by the comics page at the time (apparently, For Better Or For Worse is beginning to heat up, but after several failed attempts, I gave up trying to care).

Gaming went smoothly, thanks to my psychic Dungeon Master hypnotism powers. I was worried for a moment that Vinny noticed something, but I just threw giant monsters at him to distract him. Frank was half blind, and Steve was across the room, too intent on sabotaging his fellow players. Jude almost blew my cover, but she was stoned and bouncing on Vinny's lap, so the coast was clear!

Work was a little strange, I have to admit...


BOSS: "Hey Rob, is everything okay?"

ME: "Oh yeah, why? Is there something wrong?"

BOSS: "Well, I just noticed that you had an eye resting on a wet paper towel next to your keyboard."

ME: "Caught a cold."

BOSS: "Really? Because it looks more like an eyeball blown out of its socket."

ME: "Uh...that's just because I'm sitting down."

BOSS: "Ah, I see. Well, you should probably take the rest of the day off then."

*DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA*

*SWINGS EYEBALL AROUND HEAD*


Stupid ceiling fans.

No, this has to end, I can no longer keep living this lie! Amber, you can stop knitting that vest with the eyeball pouch in it, because I'm going to do something about this!

But who can help me with this? I know! I'll ask that guy who works at the videogame store in the mall! He once had to have an eye temporarily taken out of his socket, using suction while he was unconscious, in order to cut out a tiny injury/rot of some kind. They then put a small patch on it and popped it back in! Oh, and Amber thinks he's hot. (True story) I bet he'll know what to do!

ME: "Hey dude! I was wondering..."

HIM: "DEAR GOD!"

ME: "What? Do I have something on my..."

HIM: "YOUR EYE!"

ME: "Oh yeah."

HIM: "WHAT THE HELL?!"

ME: "Well, that's what I came to talk about actually."

HIM: "I MEAN, WHAT THE HELL?!!!"

ME: "Do you have any advice?"

HIM: *Dials 911*

ME: *Snaps fingers*


Man, do I feel silly for not thinking of that earlier! The paramedics were so polite and they even wheeled me around for everything too!

As a final, wonderful cherry on top, thanks to the incredible amount of drugs shot into me, I was even paid a visit by the spirit of Christmas!


SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS: "Max, you have to stop doing shit like this."

ME: "Why's that, Mr. Pagan Santa dude?"

SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS: "I'm just saying that it might be better for everything if you..."

ME: "How so?"

S.O.C., NOW WITH MOOSE ANTLERS: "There's just a natural order of things, my boy. You have a mental reflex within your brain that causes you to blink every time you sneeze."

ME: "Gosh."

NOW HE'S PURPLE FOR SOME REASON: "It's there so the various germs that expel out during a sneeze don't get in your eye. Who knows, your friend at the game store might have gotten a germ in his eye from sneezing with an eye open..."

ME: "That doesn't seem..."

BACK TO NORMAL: "Quiet you! Anyway, it's at least possible, and that may have led to his eye getting that infection, and do you know what that leads to?"

ME: "Working in a video game store?"

NOW WITH DUCK ON HEAD: "Exactly, my son. And you don't want to have to sell a minimum number of pre-orders and club card subscriptions, do you?"

ME: "I wouldn't want to talk to those angry customers either..."

NOW HE'S A PENGUIN FOR SOME REASON: "I see that you're getting it now, my boy. But just in case, do you see that other hallucination at the door?"

ME: "The asian bikini model?"

CLASSIC VERSION OF HALLUCINATION: "No my boy, that one."

ME: "The ultra hot nurse who's staring at me?"

SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS: "No, that's actually real. You should probably keep your voice down. No, I mean that one!"

ME: "The...goat guy with the pointy stick?"

S.O.C.: "Yes, my boy, and what's that around his feet?"

ME: "Unconscious European children?"

S.O.C.: "And you don't want to end up like them, do you?"

ME: "nosir"

S.O.C.: "Of course not! So wise up, always keep your eyes closed while sneezing, keep your internal monologue internal, and have a very Merry Christmas my boy!

ME: "Wow! Thanks so much Mr. Garcia!"

SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS IN TIE DIE SHIRT: "My pleasure! Now, if you'll excuse me, your next hallucination is here."

ME: "Oh neat, what is it?"

S.O.C.: "Spiders mostly."

ME: "Spiders?"

S.O.C.: "Those and other various creepy crawly insects, including those weird flying beetles you only get by your house. Man, they look angry too!"

ME: "Uh..."

S.O.C.: "Well, best of..."

ME: "WAIT! WHY NOT HANG AROUND FOR AWHILE?"

SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS: "Well, I'm kind of busy..."

ME: "Look! The Price is Right just came on!"

SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS, NOW IN SUIT WITH MICROPHONE: "Well...okay then, I'll stick around for a few segments."

ME: *WHEW!*

S.O.C.: "But then it's right to the horrifying hallucinations."

ME: "Oh well, best make the most of it then! Come on in Torgo! Enjoy the show! Any last message to the world out there before those rednecks try to guess the price of a DVD player?"

BOB BARKER, IN FESTIVE ATTIRE: "I'd just like to remind everyone not to attempt to sneeze with your eyes open, to have their pets spayed or neutered, and for everyone who isn't a pet or a naughty child to have A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL!!!"