LamBam DOJO

Bud Select 55: Light Beer for Fat-Asses, Fitness Freaks

In an effort to keep my body as close an approximation to that of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s as possible (particularly in the butt cheek region), I’m always on the look-out for low calorie options of the food and beverages I love to eat and drink. I particularly love drinking beer—particularly because it measurably improves my Van Damme dancing (I know you’ve seen that scene from Kickboxer on YouTube)—so you can imagine how excited I was when I first learned that Budweiser was offering a lighter option than its so-called Bud Light, shaving off an additional 40 calories from Light’s boatload of 95, leaving us a smooth-faced, winningly slender cerveza, one that you could safely go swimming after drinking without waiting the recommended half hour. Or safely drive after drinking, really. Why would I suggest such a seemingly dangerous thing?

Because hand-in-hand with a reduction in calories comes a minimization of the alcohol content in Bud Select—only 2.4 % ABV, making Bud Light’s 4.2 % seem shit-facedly excessive. And along with the minimized calorie and alcohol content, it’s only logical to assume the taste has been watered down too. But if you’re already a fan of light beer, you probably prefer the taste of nearly beer than actually beer. However, safe to say most light beer drinkers, myself included, while willing to sacrifice flavor, are unwilling to cut out the drunkenness. That’s the reward of beer, right?

With only 2.4 % alcohol content, it begs the question, Can you even get drunk from drinking Bud Select 55, the beer that displaced MGD 64 from it’s own slogan “as light as it gets”? With Budweiser’s newest option not even available nationwide yet, distributed only in a handful of test markets, you probably can’t buy a 12 pack to find out for yourself. Good thing Bert Werd lives in Chicago, one of those lucky test market cities, to test it out for you. (Spoiler alert: He does get drunk, but only with the help of little extra somethin’, somethin’.)

Yearning for Jennifer Lopez's butt results in mental workout.

When I was in high school, there were two things I collected—hand written notes on college ruled looseleaf, returned to me from girls out of my league with No circled, instead of Yes or Maybe; and magazine pictures of Jennifer Lopez’s butt. The former made cry from sadness. The latter made me cry tears of joy—I guess you could call J-Lo’s rear end an Onion Ass.

Coming out of the shower a couple of days ago, I noticed in the mirror that my ass—usually the perkiest thing about me, notwithstanding my personality in the morning after an espresso—appeared to be frowning instead of smiling, so to speak. Tearful, I made a decision to bring happiness (i.e., firmness) back to the buns that desperately wanted to make baby-making motions in high school. So I searched for the workout that shaped up the buns most coveted by me when I was so desperate: I Googled “jennifer lopez booty work out.”

In the search results, I clicked through a link for the “Top 10 Butt Exercises.” A Google Blogspot, its first paragraph seemed to give a synopsis why I, or anyone else, should concentrate on making the booty cheeks smile, and not frown.

Your butt is what everyone sees when you walk away. It’s the thing that makes your jeans look so great. So don’t you want to make sure that your butt looks its best all the time?

And this whole time, I thought the elastic waist and extra baggy loins were the thing that made my A.C Slater jeans look great. Dummy! But seriously, it is true that your butt is what everyone sees when you walk away; or when you walk toward everyone backwards.

The blog was full of useful information. Although, sadly, just typed information. If you’re searching for butt exercises, you want to see them, not read about them. Right? The following is the comment on left below the post.

So the name of your blog is LadyThrills. That’s funny. So is the nickname for my butt cheeks. Just kidding. Actually, my butt’s nickname is Mister Bubbles; or just Bubbles, once you get to know him better.

Watch Mister Bubbles doing the Jennifer Lopez butt exercises for yourself on YouTube.

Cool new Internet micro trend: hot YouTube girls wearing fake mustaches while dancing.

Girls with fake mustaches are totally in style, appearing in videos all across the Internets. In this video blog, Bert Werdenstein—”Web Gentleman 2.0”—shows you the best of the best of the false feminine lip sweaters uploaded on YouTube. Sort of like how Maverick from the movie Top Gun was in the top one percent of all naval aviators, along with his RIO Goose, who had a top one percent mustache. A top one percent mustache that was one hundred percent REAL.

1991 Miami Dolphins wear Zubaz pants and rap in video parody of MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This."

Located on the bestweekever.tv blog, I found a post mentioning the return of Zubaz, the brand relaunched and the pants remade at the end of 2007, while doing a Google search for “zubaz rap.” If you’re old enough to recall the year 1991—”like, OMG, yuckerz!!!”—the appetite for these baggy-through-the-loins-yet-tight-on-the-ankles workout pants was unquenchable. Best Week Ever refers to the pant-emonium as “everyone’s favorite “Hammerpants with Zebra stripes on them” fashion craze.”

Helping to fuel the craze was a licensing agreement with the NFL, which put Zubaz on the shelves of retailers in official team colors (and in unofficial Zebra stripes). It wasn’t just the fans who wore the bold legwear, though. Mimicking the Bears Super Bowl Shuffle video, and parodying MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This,” the 1991 Miami Dolphins wore zubaz pants and did a rap. It’s the Dolphins players, representing the Fins in “Cory and the Fins”—notably, minus Dan Marino—as back-up to Cory, who displays some awesome(ly bad) mic skills. In the video, Cory proves there’s nothing cooler than driving an aqua green ‘91 Corvette with cheerleaders in the backseat—except coming up a mall escalator next to a Hooters waitress, wearing an all white tux with no shirt under the jacket.

A Jean-Claude Van Damme impersonation for a world of Schwarzenegger sound-a-likes.

The movie poster for Conan the Barbarian—the 1982 film starring a young, pre-Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger—shows the bodybuilder-as-Cimmerian triumphantly thrusting his sword skyward, accompanied to the left by four descriptors of his personage: thief, warrior, gladiator, king. After its succesful run in theaters, you could have added a fifth one: Hollywood star. Conan was the character that launched Arnold’s career, helping to transform him into an actor who, at the height of his popularity in the 90s, commanded millions of dollars per role.

And even to this day, despite leaving Hollywood to become a politician, Arnold still commands millions of impersonations. Think about it. Is there anyone else who is impersonated more? Just about everybody, I’m sure, has a relative who’ll fall into a faux-Austrian accent, quoting any one of the many one-liners from Arnie’s many action movies—”To the chopper!”. And probably do it very badly. Here’s one guy, though, who does it well.

Six years after Conan the Barnbarian introduced Schwarzenegger to American moviegoers, another action movie featuring another muscular leading man with an accent made an impact at the box office. In 1988, Bloodsport was released in American theaters, showcasing the martial arts skills of its Belgian star, Jean-Claude Van Damme. He was a sort of mini-Arnold, who instead of just taking down the villains, also sexed up the vixens. By the mid 90s, it appeared that JCVD might step into Arnold’s top spot. That is, before Van Damme decided to do coke and co-star with Dennis Rodman—the latter choice somewhat understandable if he chose the former first.

Van Damme never reached the upper eschelon of the action genre like Arnold did. Although, in the late 90s and early 2000s, you could have called him the Arnold Schwarzenegger of direct-to-DVD. But that doesn’t explain why there’s literally hundreds of homemade videos on YouTube of Schwarzenegger impressions, and basically none for the Muscles from Brussels. So I uploaded my own Jean-Claude Van Damme impersonation. Not just a voice impression, I embody all aspects of Frank Dux, including his bikini-briefed ass.

Why have so many mimicked the bodybuilder from Austria, but not the one from Belgian? My guess is it’s because Jean-Claude’s accent is French. We may have fallen in love with its fries, but Americans have never cared much for the sound of its language. Right now, you may be thinking in rebuttal, But we’ve included so many French words into everyday English. Touche.

Magnum p.i. the movie news update: casting rumors for 2009.

For a couple of years now, there’s been an online stream of news-slash-rumors about the development of a Magnum p.i. movie adaptation. Importantly, one that won’t star Tom Selleck as the titular, mustached, Hawaiian-based investigator.

About a year ago, the biggest casting rumor was released across the Internets, with many entertainment sites reporting that Matthew McConaughey had been offered the starring role as Thomas Magnum. Unfortunately, it wasn’t specified if, in playing Selleck’s stardom-launching character, he’d be doing so while wearing Selleck’s pleasure-launching mustache.

However, in news reported at the end of 2008 by the MTV Movies Blog, McConaughey is out, as told to MTV by super producer, Brian Grazer. About casting the leading role, Grazer, who confirmed that there is a script for the developing project, said:

“I think the idea for ‘Magnum P.I.’ is to find a counterpoint, to not try and find the new Tom Selleck but to find someone that is just so different that you go, oh my God! That guy is Magnum?!?”

After reading that, my question is, Why even call it a Magnum remake? A counterpoint? So different that you go, “OMG! That guy is Magnum?!”? This doesn’t seem like a good idea to me, abandoning the soul of the original. Maybe Grazer should focus on “updating” another adored TV series.

Hey, I’ve got a great idea! Let’s also do a live-action adaptation of the 90s Captain Planet cartoon. Except, instead of a gang of children helping the Captain with rings, it’ll be a squadron of scantily clad young co-eds who are all bi-curious. And instead of saving the planet, they’ll be saving the souls of their small dogs from purse snatchers who are vampires. Who’ll be playing the Captain? Robert Pattinson made pasty with make-up. He’s our hero! Gonna take pollutiondog-soul-snatching vampires down to zero!

What if Captain Planet, instead of saving the planet, did meth? Take a look at the answer.

Ten facts about Jean-Claude Van Damme that are unknown. And (un)true.

Jean-Claude Van Damme was born on October 18, 1960. He’s married to Gladys Portuguese. He’s 1.75 meters tall. In 1990, he starred in Lionheart, a movie in which he fought and defeated another street fighter in the deep end of a drained swimming pool while wearing a black leotard.

These are all facts about JCVD—facts that anybody with an Internet connection and half a brain could find easily enough at imbd.com. Those facts weren’t good enough for me, a fan so hardcore that I once had my cousin climb to the top of an oak tree and drop a coconut on my abs, like Van Damme’s sensei did to him in the movie Kickboxer.

So what did I do? I dug extra deep to unearth heretofore unpublished tidbits of information about the man whose bikini briefs are home to the tastiest of tidbits (don’t ask me, ask Kylie Minogue, his co-star sometime bedmate on the set of Streetfighter).

What I found are ten facts about Jean-Claude Van Damme that are totally unknown and totally true. Well, true-ish.

Miller Lite not light enough? MGD 64 to the rescue.

During the spring of last year, Miller Brewing Company began rolling out the reformulation of its Miller Genuine Draft Light, calling it MGD 64. Because—you guessed it!—it only has 64 calories. If you’re like me, you’ve taken a swig of Miller Lite—maybe at your local Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar and Grill while waiting for one of their mouth-watering apps—and thought, This isn’t light enough.

Targeting folks like me, with the taste for something that tastes lighter than a beer already labeled Lite, Miller rolled out their ad campaign, with a tagline calling their newest beer “as light as it gets.” In the press release, the company included some facts comparing the “lighter alternative” to other alcoholic beverages. Did you know that a margarita has four times as many calories as a bottle of MGD 64? Now you do.

Four times! Truly mind boggling. Still don’t believe it? Maybe you need a visual learning aid. Good thing part of their ad campaign is an MGD 64 commercial showing an attractive young woman at a bar ordering 64 calories of a margarita—which, fabulously illustrating the point, only fills the stem of the glass. For her sake, I hope its the one-fourth that has the tequila.

Interviewee penetrates seriousness of teen sex article with sexual innuendo.

HealthDay News recently reported a story, “Many Teens Don’t Keep Virginity Pledges,” which was picked up by Yahoo! News.

Quoted in the article is study author Janet E. Rosenbaum, who used a different statistical method on previously used data, controverting ealier studies that found pledgers were more likely to delay having sex than non-pledgers.

“Virginity pledgers and similar non-pledgers don’t differ in the rates of vaginal, oral or anal sex or any other sexual behavior,” Rosenbaum said. “Strikingly, pledgers are less likely than similar non-pledgers to use condoms and also less likely to use any form of birth control.”

I’m assuming Tom Selleck-esque mustache rides fall under “other sexual behavior.”

Interesting enough, but not really funny. Janet sounds like a textbook when she talks. We’re talking about sex, here—and teenage sex, at that—and we can’t throw in a little innuendo or tongue-in-cheek suggestion? Thank goodness the reporter also interviewed Bill Albert, the chief program officer for The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Abbreviated N.O.C.H.A.N.C.E.?

Bill says “When pledgers fell off the wagon”—here it comes—”they fell off hard.” Zing! I wonder, did he emphasize “hard” when he told it to the reporter? That is, “they fell off hard.” And then snickered? I hope so.

I responded in a comment with my own story of virginity pledging:

In high school, I took the abstinence pledge, while holding my hand over my heart and saying the words under my breath, “with Liberty and Justice for all.” With a half-baked head, I thought I was saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Later that night, I had sex with the butter-face who was my lab partner, wrapping a flag around her head before proceeding onto the battefield. I’d like to say I did it for my country, but really, it was because she had a lazy eye.

Blogger says MGD 64 is magic. Turn your toilet water into champagne!

Andrea Grimes, blogger for heartlessdoll.com, wrote a post titled “MGD 64: magic or merely gross?” I came across it in the Google search results for “mgd 64 abv,” trying to figure out why, after drinking four 64s, my head wasn’t buzzing, but my bladder was. Turns out the alcohol content of MGD 64 isn’t even 3.0%.

Grimes’s opinion of the beer that is “as light as it gets”? “If you love Miller High Life, you are going to enjoy the hell out of an MGD 64.” It would be then, by extension, accurate to call 64 the “champagne of light beers.” A beer that, shortly after drinking it, will turn your toilet into a bowl of sparkling effervescence.

I responded in a comment below the post, sharing my own experience with lightest-of-all beer:
Met a school teacher at the bar last night—well, she didn’t tell me she was a teacher, but I assumed because she was wearing a denim vest with stitched-on ABCs. When she asked how old I was, I said 23. When I asked how old she was, she said “old enough to be your mother.” Even though she didn’t reveal her age, there was one number she did share with me: 64. Mommy McTeacher kept buying me MGD 64s, pinching my butt, and whispering in my ear that my well-manicured mustache reminded her of Tom Selleck. I would have asked for her number, but because of the scant 3.0% ABV in the 64, I never got drunk enough to forget that what was under that denim vest was as old as my mother’s.