Patrice O'Neal - One Fan's Thoughts

Patrice O'Neal; December 7, 1969 – November 29, 2011

On November 29, 2011 the world lost a comedy icon.

5 Things: November 27, 2011

Hey kids, its about time for another 5 things... If ya don't know what that is, its the column where I wirte down five of the crazy, silly, yadda yadda yadda... know what? Go check previous entries and figure it out! On with the 5 Things!

1) Either we've been lied to all these years, or Santa Claus is a perverted deviant...

10 of Joey's Favorite 80's Songs (In No Particular Order)

Hey kids, I'm kinda bored outta my skull so I thought I'd make a list of my favorite songs from my favorite decade, and share it with you all... with video evidence - video evidence through the magic of the YouTubes! Anyway, the criteria for this list are as follows; No Michael Jackson, no Madonna. They were way too popular for this list, and at least in my case, I could make a list of just my top ten MJ songs, easily, so they're out. This list is much deeper and more ecclectic than that, and its meant to show that I'm not just some pop music hack who hears "Come On Eileen" while out at some shitty bar and thinks that means I know and love 80's songs. I'm a connoisseur dammit! (also no Madonna because I'm heterosexual). This isn't really my top ten, its just ten 80's songs I really like. Lately all I listen to is my 80's list on my iPod and at last count, there's 923 songs!  I'll also try to share a little memory, or at least tell what the song means to me and why it made the list. So check 'em out, in no particular order, after the jump, it'll be fun. 80's!!

5 Things; November 7, 2011

Hey kids, its about time for another 5 things... my semi-regular column where I throw five of the insane, ridiculous, ponderous and utterly absurd things that pop into my head out there for public consumption with the goal of (hopefully) making you all laugh... and/or think twice about crossing me for fear of the twisted revenge that's sure to spawn from my lunatic mind. No seriously, I will hurt you in creative and unexpected ways. But enough about that, on with the funny!

1) I find myself forced to ask, would being up shit creek WITH a paddle really be that much better?

Forgotten Toys of the 1980's Volume 2!

Hey kids, as some of you know, as well as doin my thing over here on a semi-occasional basis, I also do a bi-yearly column for my boy Mike D's blog, Cultual Complusive Disorder called "Takin You Back... Way Back" where I reminisce about some of the lesser know toylines of that greatest of decades, the 1980's.  A few months ago, I reposted my original column here in a slightly edited form, and now, as we gear up for Comic Con, I'm bringing you the rest of them to enjoy as well... justto get in a nice, geeky frame of mind. This was the second article, originally published on October 18, 2010.

I Made Some Art...

Inspired by the letter "C"

The Hell?

Jeez... I write an article about toys, or dick jokes and you fuckers can't wait to comment. I write a blog about doin' a little soul-searching and self improvement and not a peep outta you? You guys suck.

A Confession, of Sorts...

Hey kids, so I'm sure at least a few of you are wondering why I deactivated my Facebook tonight. Well, I hate admitting this, but I learned something about myself this week. It's something I don't like and I want to change, and getting rid of distractions like Facebook is a step toward that.  See, I never realized it before, but I'm a selfish person. Not intentionally selfish - and if you asked me, I would have never said that I'm the kind of person who's only concerned with his own interests and well-being, and I don't think the question "how does this benefit me?" has ever been a deciding factor in whether or not I did something for someone. But,the truth of the matter is that I have a thoughtless streak in me, a lot of the time I don't consider the feelings of the people around me, and that thoughtless streak has hurt people I care about and even in some cases driven them away from me completely. Not intending to be selfish is no excuse I want this to change.

The truth is it wasn't a decision I made lightly, but as many of you know, I spent quite a bit of time posting on Facebook, usually trying to make people laugh. I figure now, if I take that time I used to spend on Facebook and do something like, oh I don't know, call or text a friend I haven't spoken to in awhile, or make a list of my friends' kids birthdays so I can finally remember to send cards and gifts like I always intended to, or do any other number of things to just be a better me.

Hopefully another side effect will be having a little more time to actually write stuff on here. And I'm sure I'll be back on Facebook at some point, but not until I'm satisfied that I've developed some better habits... habits that don't make people think I'm kind of a dick. Man in the mirror kids, man in the mirror.

5 Things: March 28, 2011

Hey kids, its about time for another 5 things... the feature on my blog where I throw five of the insane, ridiculous, ponderous and utterly absurd things that pop into my head out there for public consumption with the goal of (hopefully) making you all laugh and/or think twice about crossing me for fear of the twisted revenge that's sure to spawn from my lunatic mind. Wow that was a long sentence. Anyway, on with the 5 Things:

1. Have you ever taken a dump, and then after you wipe you go to smell the toilet paper to see exactly what's goin on with your doodies, but you misjudge the distance, get too close, and accidentally get shit on the tip of your nose?

Wheel of Time Action Figures Part 6: The Figues of If...

Hey fellow Wheel of Time fans, welcome to the final (for now) entry to my series of blogs detailing the creation of my custom Wheel of Time action figures. Today's entry is going to feature all the figures I intended to create, but never got around to finishing. As you guys know from the previous articles I was never working on just one figure at a time, and thanks to a rapid loss of free time and inspiration, more than a few toys got left in various states of incompletion... which my spellcheck tells me is not really a word, but it's my blog and I'm using it anyway (if you wanna check out the previous articles and then come back: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5). What follows are the figures that never got made. Who knows, if we had access to a portal stone, and the One Power, maybe we could all travel to a world where I actually finished them so we could see them in all their completed glory... and there you have it folks, the geekiest sentence I've ever written. Sigh... Pics and stuff after the jump.

Farewell to a Friend

You know, it seems like a big part of getting older is feeling that combination of nostalgia and sadness that comes from watching things you associate with your childhood get changed, ruined, or sometimes out and out destroyed. The other day I got that feeling. I was driving on Crossbay Boulevard and I noticed a sign in the window of a store that instantly brought a frown to my face. But more on that in a minute. Back in the summer of 1998, two guys named Don and Jeff left their jobs at a neighborhood toy store called Sukons and opened up a store of their own, right here in Howard Beach on Crossbay Boulevard. That store was called Video Game Central, or "VGC" for short and from 2000 to 2003 I had an absolute blast working there. 

Forgotten Toys of the 1980's Volume 1!

Hiya kids! I'm gonna switch things up here for a minute and take a quick break from the custom Wheel of Time action figure stuff to bring you some talk about some other toys. Last year I did a couple of articles on "Forgotten Toys of the 80's" for my boy Mike D's blog; Cultural Compulsive Disorder. If you're a fan of movies, TV, music, sports, toys, games, or just popular culture in general, you need to check out CCD, its definitely the spot to be. I'll be writing a third volume of the article over the next few days (an all He-Man knockoffs edition!) which you'll be able to read there soon (and here eventually).

Anyway, without further ranting from me, here are 5 cool toy lines from the 80’s that I’m pretty sure nobody but me even remembers...

Wheel of Time Action Figures Part 5: To Make A Trolloc

Hi kids, welcome back! I hope everyone had a fun and festive holiday season and that 2011 is treating you all well so far. I have a late Christmas present for all of you, another entry in my custom Wheel of Time Action Figures series - a special one this time! As I alluded to a few weeks ago, I was going to devote some of my free time during last week's mini-vacation to creating a new Wheel of Time figure and also try to do some sort of "making of" feature along with it, possibly in real time here on the blog. Now I had taken the week between Christmas and New Years off anyway, but the free time I ended up having during my "mini vacation" was greatly multiplied by New York City being buried under a metric shit-ton of snow; our wonderful Dept. of Sanitation leaving us that way for two or three days for whatever reason, and the fact that at the slightest hint of inclement road conditions, Joey's Beemer only drives sideways.

Also, I'm not quite sure how I expected to do a blog post in real time, but regardless, the post is here now. I know I also said I would be doing the "aborted and abandoned figures" article first, but I decided I'd do this one instead. If this bothers you, what can I tell you, deal with it.  Oh, and if you're new here, you can check out the previous articles here, here, here and here.

So yeah thanks to the snow I ended up with even more free time than I planned on having last week, and despite Santa bringing me a whole bunch of new books and DVD's I managed to pry myself away from my Christmas presents long enough to create a brand spanking new Trolloc figure. Actually I pried myself away long enough for two marathon sessions of painting and sculpting on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively; from 10pm to 4am-ish both nights. And I guess I didn't really pry myself away either, the first night during the sculpting I finished off The Simpsons Season 13 (which was much better than I remember it being) and Flash Gordon (which was fucking ABYSSMAL... I mean really, what the hell was that?). The second night during the painting it was all Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 1, which I have to admit is a surprsingly excellent little show, despite being based on the... ugh, prequels. Why you care what I was watching while I created this figure, I'm not quite sure, but I'm just trying to give you all the total experience of what went into this toy's creation process. Wait, should I tell you what I was wearing too?