Leave it to the intrepid Spears gals not to let a little thing like a surprise teen pregnancy keep them down. They’re almost exactly like the Hardy Boys, if the Hardy Boys had a book called The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of the Staggering Series of Personal Setbacks.

Well, now Spears the younger has decided to finish out the fourth and last season of her hit (in the sense that I’ve never seen it, and I’m totally out of touch with popular culture) TV series Zoey 101, which I imagine from the name tells the story of 101 adorable teenage girls who escape being skinned alive by a wicked governess.

Naturally, her pregnancy will have some minor effect on the course of the series–writers will likely have to abandon the “Zoey plans to attend and compete in an International Gut-Punching Championship” plot line, for instance—but I think this episode guide pirated off of one of my favorite Nickelodeon forums (I have several) illustrates just how clever they can be.

Spoilers ahead!

E401: Zoey is in love with Chase, but an offhand comment about some “extra weight” she has put on leaves her down in the dumps. Only her best friends and a night out on the town can help. Let’s do it!

E402: All the kids at school are puzzled when Zoey trades in her trademark outfits in favor of roomy coats and muumuus. Uh, whatever!

E403: When Zoey has a sudden craving for ice cream and pickles, the cafeteria staff have their hands full. Girl power!

E404: Chase is thrown for a loop when Zoey takes a job warming whole chickens by carrying them around under her shirt. Say what?!

E405: Zoey’s big sister drops in for a surprise visit and takes her out of school for the day. Guest starring James Van Der Beek as the receptionist at the Clinic. Hunk alert!

E406-410: Zoey recovers at home.

E412 (Series Finale): Chase finally reveals his love for Zoey at Senior Prom, but Zoey no longer wants to be touched by a man. Awkward!

And in a special Zoey 101 retrospective, Zoey looks at old pictures of herself and cries. Girl, you crazy!

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When not blogging for Cracked, Michael makes list-formatted videos as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

Awesome Video Of The Day

Homemade Halo Suit

I know what you’re thinking. You’re watching this video¹ of this kid in his homemade Halo suit, and you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow - what a total badass.” I would agree with you, but having made more than my share of homemade Halo suit videos in my day, my trained eye sees all the telltale signs of an amateur here. I can relate, though: in my first homemade Halo suit video, I was wearing a tinfoil shirt and a pair Levi’s. I knew it kind of sucked, but I thought maybe the fog machine and strobe light would still make it look cool. No dice.

Anyway, the cardinal rule of making a Halo suit video: always make sure your mom is out of the shot. I know how it goes when mom’s cooking dinner and the lighting looks best right near the kitchen, but you know what? It’s called “self-control.” Wait until she’s done cooking you dinner and THEN make the video. Think about it like this: What would Master Chief do?² I’ll tell you what he’d do: he’d crouch in the corner, reload and wait for a more opportune moment to flex in his new homemade cardboard armor. Are you Master Chief material? Yeah? Better start acting like it, then.

I know that might sound needlessly harsh considering he’s just a kid or whatever, but I’m not apologizing - that “kid” got like 30 headshots off me last night.

¹ Not to be confused with this video, or this video, or anything associated with this website.

² WWMCD?

Well, my Cracked’y friends, it seems our enchanting time together is at a close, as I will shortly be off to pursue other endeavors (or “endeavours,” as our dainty readers from across Ye Olde Ponde would say). But before I go, I thought that rather than shoving out one more snarky post about celebrity proctological habits, it would be more fitting to turn the spotlight for once to you, the fabulous readers, whose ad-clicks have paid for my new kitchen.

So today I’d like to share some of my favorite reader comments from my stint here at the Cracked blog, separated into handy categories for your perusal. I believe they show that you are the true assholes here. I mean stars.

The Concerned Parents:

• badhog: what if this was your child?would you post her on this site just for comedy?I find the line between comedy and bad taste very fine
• jaek: Things of this nature only cease to be funny when something similar has happened to you or someone you care about. But that is typically what it takes for someone to gain prespective. A person who loves rape jokes would likely stop making them if they were subjected to that type of violence. It’s quite easy to point and laugh at the misfortune of others until then.

The Smartypantses:

• Ross: By the way, not to be a pedandic dick but Britain is four seperate countries with at least 10 or 20 counties each. Britain isn’t just London. Sorry to be pedantic, you know i love you guys (in a totally rugged manly way).
• Captain Ross: Technically to you British means English, therefore I escape on a geographical technicallity.
• Gladstone: Wait. I just realized you used the Walrus for Paul. True, Lennon said “the walrus was Paul” in Glass Onion, but that was a lie. John Lennon was the walrus — as in “I am the walrus, coo, coo, ca-joob”)
• RDawkins: I’d simply like to point out that Atheism is not a religion, rather, the absence of religion. I hope your consciousness has been raised.
• Brentin: Um, Ian, in the picture of the “trademark black cowboy hat”, the hat he’s wearing is white.
• Daniel O’Brien: Hey, if someone wanted to write a post about how people always use irony incorrectly, would it be ironic if the author of the post used irony incorrectly all throughout the post? Would that irony be nullified if it was discovered that the author used it incorrectly intentionally? Would that mean it ISN’T ironic anymore? Is it possible that there is NO SUCH THING as irony? I want you all to think about that while I finish up this heaping pile of cocaine.

(more…)

Sure, I know that the Cracked Science Corner is Ian’s gig, but sometimes a story comes along that’s so important you just have say, “Hey, I’m gonna cut and paste someone else’s graphic and do a post that the Cracked readers will not read.” This is one of those times. Besides, as you may have noticed from that gaping hole in yesterday’s blog, Ian’s been as sick as a dog so really there’s nothing he can do about it.

Ready? Then let’s begin. It seems that researchers have stumbled upon something truly important: you can really mess with blind, hairless mole rats and they feel no pain. Don’t believe me? The researchers discovered that when . . . mole rates had their paws injected with a slight dose of acid . . . as well as some capsaicin — the active ingredient of chili peppers — the rodents showed no pain.

Apparently, the key to their pain resistance is the mole rat’s lack of a substance called Substance P. Well, realizing that torturing rats is no fun if they can’t feel it, scientists took the next logical step: the researchers used a modified cold sore virus to carry genes for Substance P to just one rear foot of each tested rodent.

And it worked!! This time when they burned the mole rats’ feet with acid, the moles felt it. Isn’t that awesome? I’m assuming the mole rats still couldn’t feel pain in the rest of their pink, vulnerable little bodies, but there’s no way to know for sure. I mean, who would bother testing that?

At this point, maybe you, as a non-scientist, are feeling a little bad for these critters. Don’t. The head researcher told reporters: “They’re the nicest, sweetest animals I’ve ever worked with — they look frightening, but they’re very gentle,” said neurobiologist Thomas Clarke at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Yeah, so screw ‘em. Stupid mole rats with their not feeling pain. We’ll show you.

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Gladstone writes for Cracked and others. Go to Wayne Gladstone Lives in Maine to see all his published stuff, his full name, and state of residence.

Awesome Video Of The Day

Screw You Porn Addicts

Like a lot of people, I’m FED UP with all the porn spam that’s being posted on YouTube. It’s been bugging me for a while, but I could never find the right words to explain myself. Finally our movement has found its voice. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Pruane2Forever¹.

It’s about time.

If this kid continues to spout sage advice like “stop jackin’ off, find a chick, and have sex with her,” I’m pretty sure our movement will begin to gain traction. Pretty soon YouTube will be a pristine internet locale, clean as freshly-fallen untrodden snow. All we have to do is get this kid’s voice out there to the masses.

I showed this video to a porn spammer² I know. Know what happened? He started bawling like a little baby, went home and signed up for an associate’s program at his local community college. I’m talking results here, people! Let’s get the message out!

Based on most of the 500 comments people have already posted in response to this powerful, moving video, I think we’re already making progress:

“lol, what a bullshit” - rubi84

“You don’t like porn? Fag.” - Peikon

“i hope you die in a car accident” - BKajun06

One user at a time, Pruane2Forever³. One user at a time.

¹ I would like to point out that, according to his YouTube profile, this kid’s name is “Sexman,” he’s 54 years old, and he owns a company called “Gang Bang Prodouctions” [sic]. That is all.

² You thought porn spammers were bots? Wrong. They’re just normal dudes who love internet porn.

³ Be sure to check out his other videos, too, including a review of the new Rambo movie, a rant on why “Jerry Sienfield” [sic] sucks and this AWESOME fight he had with his dad.

When your organization consists of thousands of anonymous hackers, programmers, and Internet junkies, each working on their own authority towards a common goal, there’s bound to be the occasional stray. This rare address to Scientology from an unknown member of Anonymous serves as a case in point:

Author’s Note: Dear members of Anonymous, if you take offense at this video for any reason, I offer the following arguments against trying to hack, slash, or otherwise infiltrate my connectables:

1. Nothing in here is really aimed against you guys. In fact, I fully support anything that’s against Scientology. See this video as evidence.
2. My MySpace profile is already choked with gay pornography. I doubt it could take any more.
3. I am bereft of lulz, and any attempt to extract them from me will only end in my retreating into my room with a hot fudge sundae and listening to Alanis Morissette tapes. Please, don’t let that happen.

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When not blogging for Cracked, Michael makes ANONYMOUS PLEASE DON’T HURT ME videos as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

Awesome Video Of The Day

Legion of Rock Stars - “Lookin’ Out My Back Door”

One time I got drunk at a bowling alley with some friends and pumped like $10 into a jukebox. We started off with some Limp Bizkit, then worked our way through Korn, Kid Rock and that one song where the guy’s all “OOOH WEH-EH-EH-EH! C’MON, GET DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS!” Then we tried to play some more Limp Bizkit, but by that point we were the only ones left in the place and the guy who worked there was so annoyed that he decided to close the bowling alley two hours early and kicked us out.

It’s easy to appreciate unbelievably shitty music in an ironic fashion, but these videos by Legion of Rock Stars are kind of challenging in a way: I can’t tell if I’m enjoying them ironically or not. I think they might totally kick ass, which is weird because I know in my heart that they totally suck.

This is all so confusing.

I guess I need to think of it like “If I played this at a bowling alley, would I be playing it ironically or not?” I think that I genuinely like it, but after years of claiming to like everything from “Chronic The Hemphog” t-shirts to Ernest Goes To Jail my irony detector is completely fried.

I’d also recommend checking out their covers of “Too Legit To Quit,” “Time Of The Season,” and “Anyway You Want It.” Or maybe I’d recommend that you DON’T check them out. I don’t even know anymore. Whatever - at least it’s not Korn.

So 2008 marks the 50th Anniversary of the humble Lego Brick, which you should all be familiar with - if you breathe air there’s a pretty good chance that at some point in your life you played with Lego. And if you’re anything like me, you pretty much exclusively focused your attention on building cars that had guns sprouting from every available surface. For some reason as a child, my entire concept of the outside world looked an awful lot like The Road Warrior, which probably speaks to some sort of flaw in my upbringing.

Anyways, it turns out that there’s thousands of other things that can be created out of of Lego bricks - all of which would be made immeasurably cooler by the addition of several guns. And these Lego creations can get big. As with any hobby that involves spending a lot of time by yourself, some pretty lame but enormous people have built some pretty lame but enormous things out of Lego.

Thankfully, they’re not all dreadfully boring. Here’s 8 of the coolest things I could find.

Han Solo in carbonite

Why go to the hassle of trapping and cryo-freezing noted stage and film actor Harrison Ford when you can recreate the same grisly visage out of Lego’s?

An ambulance that employees the principle of hopping instead of rolling

I’m a die-hard Achewood fan and you will be too if you know what’s good for you. This ambulance meant for rabbits is just the greatest.

An eye-wateringly detailed church.

Click on the picture to check out some more images of this masterpiece. Say what you will about religion, but you won’t find anyone dedicating this much time and energy to recreating a Sizzler out of Legos.

Automated Car Assembly Line

Kind of a long video, this one uses the new-school “Mindworks” Lego pieces, which can be programed and automated. It depicts an automated assembly line which constructs a little Lego car. harmless toy, or yet another threat to the American auto industry?

Elastic Band Gatling Gun

This one’s definitely worth watching. It’s another motorized creation, this time a gatling gun that fires about 80 rubber bands in 10 seconds. Visually impressive, although judging by the piece of paper used as target, it appears to have the stopping power of a wet fart.

Stephen Hawking

This is probably the only thing on this list I’m capable of building myself, and yet I know that were I to do so, I wouldn’t be able to resist attaching a couple guns to his wheelchair and head.

Harpsichord

This is a legitimate feat of engineering, given the amount of strength needed so it wouldn’t snap in half from the pressure.

Sure it sounds like someone kicking a bag of cats, but that’s pretty good for Lego.

Lego Porn

A classic in Internet terms, dating back to the early 2000’s. I’m going to err on the side of caution and not post any pictures here. But if you’ve been using the Internet for more than two weeks, you’ve probably seen harder core stuff than this by accident.

Lego Porn Scene 1
Lego Porn Scene 2
Lego Porn Scene 3
Lego Porn Scene 4
Lego Porn Scene 5
Lego Porn Scene 6

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Chris Bucholz is a writer and a robot. His personal blog, robotmantheblog.com contains a great deal of other humor articles, all of dubious quality and taste.

Surely by now you’ve heard: both Stone Temple Pilots and New Kids on the Block are gettin’ the band back together and going on tour!!! You haven’t heard? Well, where’ve ya been? Oh. Listening to music that’s relevant? Gotcha.

Anyway, just in case you were considering how to waste your money best, I’ve put together this comparison chart to help weigh the decision.

Categories	Stone Temple Pilots	New Kids on the Block
From 1 to 10, How exciting is the reunion news?	2.8	- 2.8
Likelihood a band member will OD before tour completed	15%. (There is, however, an 85% chance Weilland will OD before the tour starts)	Only 5% unless it’s possible to overdose on Zima.
What would make the show more exciting to watch	If it were the Foo Fighters	nSync coming out for a “to the death” tickle fight
The first time I heard the band I thought:	“Man, I hope Pearl Jam kicks their ass.”	“Why are my ears bleeding?”
Gained more respect for the band after	UnPlugged and Big Empty	They set themselves on fire during their reunion tour to protest the war in Iraq

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Gladstone writes for Cracked and others. Go to Wayne Gladstone Lives in Maine to see all his published stuff, his full name, and state of residence. And would someone click on the red Gladstone in the byline above and become my Cracked buddy? I’m a big loser and my 3 “friends” just aren’t easing the pain.

Awesome Video Of The Day

SUPER DRAGON!!! (clap clap clap clap clap)

Before I was a Cracked blogger, I did a short stint as an amateur wrestler named Snapneck McDanger. It was a decent gig: the money was good, I met a lot of interesting people and got to do a little bit of travelling to boot (once I even got to go to Tampa!). I built quite a name for myself, taking down some notoriously tough opponents¹, but all good things must come to an end, and after only a few short months of working the circuit, a rare medical condition² forced me into early retirement.

I met Super Dragon out on the circuit a few times. He always seemed like a nice guy, but I have to say that I probably would’ve chosen to handle this situation a little differently. It always seemed to me that if there were thirty people watching my match, and if only ONE of those people was a total Snapneck McDanger superfan, well, then that would probably be the one person that I WOULDN’T threaten with a folding chair. And if I was going to threaten them with a folding chair, it probably wouldn’t be for CHEERING ME ON. I’m not Super Dragon (I’m Snapneck McDanger), and he’s obviously free to handle his business any way he sees fit, but if you’re reading this, SD, take a little advice from me, Snapneck McDanger: If you’re an amateur wrestler, your most important signature move should be APPRECIATING YOUR FANS.

And I should know, too. You know - because I used to be an amateur wrestler named Snapneck McDanger. One who was forced to leave the business because of very mild eczema who then went on to become a humor blogger.

¹ Ever heard of Elbows McFierce? What about Tommy McFacekick? Elroy “The Kid” McPunchy³? Anything?

² Very mild eczema.

³ His favorite move was punching.