Qualler's Holiday Shopping Guide

It's just about that beloved time of year again -- the time when big box electronics stores shove soon-to-be-irrelevent new albums from beloved-yet-overrated-by-time artists down our throats, people start thinking of creepy gifts for their loved ones, and the movie theaters give us a heavy dose of Vince Vaughn. Yes, it is a truly joyous season. To save you time shopping this season, let me go through your choices for music, film, and creepy, creepy gifts.

Four Christmases
Not much more needs to be said about this movie than that it is starring Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, and Wacky Holiday Situations. But, the conversation I overheard in downtown the other day summarizes the movie even better:

Moviegoer: You know what movie I want to see? There's a new movie coming out called Four Christmases...
Friend: Oh yeah, who is in that movie?
Moviegoer: I think, Jennifer Aniston is in it. Wait, no, Vince Vaughn is in it. No, he's not in it. Yes he is.
Friend: That does look good! That looks funny!
Moviegoer: That movie does look really funny! I told my friend, when we saw a commercial for it, "We are going to see that movie together!"

Like I said, nothing else really needs to be said.

Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy
I haven't been to Best Buy in a while, but I assume that when you walk into the store, you trip over the display of the life-sized cardboard cutout of 45-year-old-or-whatever Axl Rose. Yes, Best Buy is the "exclusive dealer" of the seventeen-years-in-the-making new LP, or, what Chuck Klosterman calls on the AV Club, "the last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs." Um, yeah. I hope that's not really the case. Are we as consumers already so dumbed down by iPods that we will never want to listen to this thing called an "album" anymore? Yeeeeesh, Chuck. Anyway, you can listen to the whole thing on MySpace, which I tried a little. Qualler's three sentence review? This would make a great soundtrack to the 1999 film The Rage: Carrie 2. Axl, you probably should have released this ten years ago. Overall, it's some pretty meticulously-produced m'eh.

Loud 'N Clear
In other apostrophe-N related news, I caught a commercial during a Lifetime Movie Network film ('Til Lies Do Us Part, if you must know -- a cautionary tale about hiring a private investigator / stalker to look after your husband) for a one-of-a-kind creepy product. It's called the Loud 'N Clear, and it helps you hear the sounds around you that you want to hear in a, I assume, loud 'n clear kind of way. The inherently creepy thing about this product is that it is shaped like a bluetooth telephone device, but isn't really a bluetooth telephone device. But wait, it gets creepier! As Brigitte pointed out, this device isn't really a hearing aid. It's a device that allows one to hear things that one wouldn't normally be able to hear from long distances. Y'know, like those cute ladies in the other room who are probably talking about you. No doubt, the creep in your family would love to have his hands on the Loud 'N Clear. But don't take my word for it...roll the commercial:

Looks like my holiday shopping list is complete. Happy shopping, Blogureaders!

This entry was posted by Unknown, on Monday, November 24, 2008. You can leave your response.