Slashdot Mirror
Third Falcon 1 Launch May Be This Afternoon
ElonVonBraun writes "The web is abuzz with rumors that SpaceX will attempt its third rocket launch today. In the past two days, they have also done successful tests of their bigger, stronger rockets. When the launch does happen, sometime during this five-day window, there will be a webcast. Betting odds are that they will do it around 4PM PST."
I am planning to answer some questions people have been asking about my job in the next week or two, but today I'm forced to lower the bar of quality for this blog due to the fact that I feel like I have mono, so I have selected an equally low subject matter about which to write briefly and poorly: Tucker Max
If you don't know who Tucker Max is, then congratulations on having finally managed to shake the most lunkheaded and dimwitted of your old ZBT fraternity brothers, who, if you were still talking to them, would be emailing you about how hilarious his blog and books are.
Why? Because he's a dude who meets and sleeps with some fairly attractive women and then tells stories about it that are often unflattering to one or both parties. Since I do coverage, I am professionally equipped to summarize the majority of these stories thusly: Tucker Max is an asshole but the kind of asshole that all of his asshole friends love because his antics distract them from the thinning hair and gentle mediocrity that characterize their post-college years. Most Tucker Max stories involve him doing or saying crazy/offensive things, getting into trouble for them, and then going home with one of those girls who, when a guy says something sort of awful to her, hits him on the shoulder and says "you asshole" but also smiles and sticks to him like glue for the rest of the night. My dad was nice to me, so I don't have this reaction, but I guess it takes all kinds. Invariably in Tucker's stories, someone gets pissed off and says his jokes aren't funny, and if that someone is a woman, she's dismissed as ugly and/or fat and therefore too bitter and angry to get the joke, while if that someone is a man, he's dismissed as being a meathead and therefore not cool or smart enough to get the joke. If you are confused by this last, let me clear it up for you: Tucker Max is unaware that he is the definition of a hazey, rapey, fratty meathead. He thinks he's a witty humorist, which almost makes me believe that he's fake and that Miguel de Cervantes is alive and writing.
Why this diatribe? Because a friend at an agency slipped me a copy of the script for the currently-in-production Tucker Max movie, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, written by Tucker Max and some dude named Nils Parker. I am very excited to talk about this script, especially since I didn't read it for my job so I feel I can get into a bit more detail than usual. My primary goal won't be to expose how sexist or otherwise offensive the script is because that's obvious and easy and not the most interesting thing to talk about here. Here's what is:
Holy crap, It's terrible. I'm talking Godawful. Even with the offensive factor set aside, it's in my top 10 worst comedy scripts ever read (out of probably over a thousand). This thing is poorly structured, obvious and predictable at every turn, with flat, one-dimensional characters who ALL sound exactly the same and an ending that falls flatter than humorless girl in a Tucker Max story. And even if I liked the central joke of the script -that Tucker is an offensive asshole, but if you don't love him for it you are probably ugly and a woman-- it would be still be a clunker because the way that Max and Parker make that joke (over and over and over again) is stupid and uncreative. I love broad, juvenile comedies done well. I also love real, juvenile people who make juvenile jokes and know many comedy writers do this for a living in a way that is funny and smart. But funny and smart are operative words here. And the Tucker Max jokes aren't. Often, they aren't even jokes, just clichés recited at the expense of some bystander in a way that just makes you feel embarrassed for everyone involved..
But this is all too vague. Let me give you an idea of what we're dealing with. Opening scene: police are called for a domestic disturbance only to find that the ruckus is coming from a woman whom Tucker Max is pleasuring so well that she's been screaming. Ok, fine, right off the bat the writer is proclaiming himself to be the best ever at sex. Th