The Morning News just posted a new one by yours truly:

DawnQuil & DuskQuil
Time-specific alternatives to Vicks’ popular DayQuil and NyQuil brands for those days when you want your cold and flu medications around the clock. Executives at Vicks are hopeful another spinoff, the NyQuil 40 oz, which comes pre-wrapped in its own brown paper bag, will do better when introduced in 2011.

Cap’n Chewy
A spinoff of the popular Cap’n Crunch cereal line for those who prefer their sweetened corn and oats with more chew than crunch. As it turns out, nobody did.

Grand Theft Auto: Burlington, Vermont
The follow-up to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas featuring a stolen Toyota Prius, with character voices provided by Alan Alda, Terry Gross, and Bill Moyers. In this family-friendly spinoff, the guys from Car Talk helped thieves troubleshoot problems they encountered with their stolen hybrids while trying to convince them to turn themselves in. Players missed the carnage.

Violin Hero: Legends of RockRead the rest at The Morning News.
A Guitar Hero sequel for fans of Kansas and, well, Kansas. A similar ill-conceived game, Flute Hero, featuring the music of Jethro Tull, was discontinued in 2009.

If you’re as tired of those ubiquitous TV recaps as I am, you may enjoy this spoof I did over at The Awl.

Last night on “Three’s Company,” there were hijinks. Hijinks, wacky scenarios and sexual innuendo. And, spoiler alert, somebody overheard a conversation while standing outside of a door and misinterpreted it as somebody else having sex. (Well, that happened!) In fact, the whole episode was a comedy of errors.

After months of all of us devoted recappers being stuck watching “Rhoda” reruns and nonstop hostage hysteria—and are we the only ones who think the way Jane Pauley whistles the s’s in Syed Ruhollah Moosavi Khomeini is sexy?—America welcomed the return of its favorite platonic trio: Jack Tripper, Janet Wood and Chrissy Snow. Wait a minute, let me adjust the antenna. That’s not our ditzy Chrissy in terrycloth short-shorts tripping over her own long legs at the Regal Beagle! It’s her klutzy cousin, Cindy!

Check out the whole thing at The Awl.

Um, this book annoyed me:

It pains me to says this, given my admiration for the original, but we need a sequel to The Official Preppy Handbook about as much as we need a sequel to Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche. It’s hard to criticize the design or the thoroughness of True Prep. But the whole misguided project, published during the harshest economic times since the thirties, leaves a foul taste in the mouth of anyone who the recalls the first incarnation with fondness.

When the first Preppy Handbook was released, we’d just struggled our way through two energy crises and were headed towards recession. It was the era of trickle-down economics and “Dynasty,” when people where much less cynical about the wealthy. An era when we’d yet to experience “too-big-to-fail” and the AIG bailouts. The Preppy Handbook introduced regular folk to Prepdom: a privileged, madras-filled world occupied by golden retrievers and children who called their mothers “mummy.” Of course, people always enjoy mocking the rich, but in the 80s people also wanted to emulate what they perceived to be their genteel ways. Needless to say, we live in profoundly different times.

There’s certainly no denying that the preppy aesthetic has made a comeback. Ushered in by cultural forces like “Gossip Girl” and the popularity of Ivy League rockers Vampire Weekend, argyle, rugby shirts, and loafers by G.H. Bass & Co. are now as ubiquitous as they were in their 80s heyday. Not surprisingly, True Prep devotes plenty of ink to fashion (preps now love polar fleece), but like the original Preppy Handbook, the book is much more about class than it is about style. True Prep comes across as callous and out-of-touch with the times.

Read the rest at The Awl.

A little ditty on Yoso and other horrible “supergroups:”

I remember the first time I heard the term “supergroup.” It was 1981 and my older brother Kevin, an avid Styx and Kansas fan, had just brought home a copy of a record with a blue sea monster on the cover. He was sitting on the end of his bed checking out the lyric sheet, the album jacket resting on his stonewashed jeans, and nodding his head along to “Heat of the Moment.” He kept a badminton racket beside the stereo for occasions that demanded heavy riffing. And this was most assuredly one of those occasions.

Me: What are you listening to?
Kevin: It’s this new supergroup, Asia.
Me: What’s a supergroup?
Kevin: It’s, like, a band that consists of members from other groups. That’s Steve Howe on guitar from Yes. I think someone from Emerson, Lake and Palmer is in the band too. [Picks up badminton racket]
Me: Awesome, can I borrow it when—
Kevin: Do you think you can shut up for five minutes, zit-fag? I’m trying to listen. [Shreds a power riff with badminton racket]

In the household of my youth, the name Steve Howe held deep significance. It was almost akin to bringing up the names David Ragsdale (violin, Kansas), Tommy Shaw (guitar, Styx), or Brad Delp (vocals, Boston). Mentioning these names was shorthand for saying “musical genius.”

Of course, I’ve since come to understand that the most unforgivable thing my brother ever did to me was to convince me—at a very impressionable age—that Styx, Kansas and Boston (his trinity of rock) were good bands. They’re not. How could he have done that to me, I have since wondered in dismay? I was just a kid. I looked up to him, for Chrissakes.

Read it all over at The Awl.