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  THE BLACK LIST: ASTROGLIDING TOWARDS INFINITY.  
  By The Black Table  
04.06.04
 
   
 

The Black Table had been misbehaving in shop class -- we stapled some dork's tie to the table drill -- so we were punished by being forced to run laps. Running laps is healthy and fun, but we were hungover and it was cold, cold, so cold. So we're sick and tired and quite groggy today, and there's nothing that could possibly rouse us from our slumber …

Wait …

Is that a Black List submission about ASTROGLIDE??!! It is. We're wide awake now. Counting Astroglide, we have 12 jolly good reviews this week. As always, if you want to be the coolest kid at your school, you can sign the petition for awesomeness by submitting your reviews to the right. Yah.

--BT

 

   

 

The Black Table needs your help! Every week, we need reviews of the latest media-related crud, new products from Capitalists and odd idea, concept or trend. All you need to have is a sharp opinion that you can distill down to one paragraph of 150 words and give a letter grade. To submit, please fill out the form below. Entries may edited for length, style and clarity. Hit us with your best shot. Fire away.

 

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Type your review here. And remember to add a letter grade, or else we'll make one up and embarass you in front of all your friends:

Before you submit anything, ask yourself the following: Have I put a grade on my review? Have I read this thing at least once? Will anyone care what I wrote? If the answer is NO to any of those questions, break down and cry, knowing you're a failure who can't do anything right. You stupid face head moron!

 

 

   

ASTROGLIDE: My sex life is satisfying, but not exciting. There are no vibrators next to my bed; no sex toys or saucy condoms in a little box on the bureau. I like it this way. But medication has made this ordinary sex life somewhat, well, dry and painful. So why not get some help in this department? One awkward trip to the drugstore later (sans boyfriend) … meet Astroglide. Cut to later that night, when boyfriend is kind of drunk, pretty horny and willing to try something new. Close to an hour later, this couple is converted. No pain. Way more enjoyment. A boyfriend who is now the sexual equivalent of a long-distance runner. This stuff is fantastic. And it's not even messy. If only it didn't have the awful name of "lube." A -- TPG

"FREE MOVIE TICKETS" SPAM: I suppose it could just be considered on the same annoyance level as any other spam, yet those repeated "Free Movie Tickets!" emails from supposed friends are particularly irksome. First of all, there really is no such thing as something totally free, and if the price of a free movie ticket is harassing my friends ad nauseam, I'll just cough up the 10 bucks. You should be old enough to know that anything requiring mass input of email addresses isn't really going to net you anything valuable. Second of all, if I haven't signed up by now, I'm not going to suddenly decide the 10th time I receive that email that it's a good gimmick. Thirdly, it's incredibly disconcerting to get emails with perky subject lines like "April Fools!," and "Don't forget" and the utterly untrue "Last reminder!" time stamped 4 a.m., particularly when it's from your ex whom you're not really speaking with. And apparently it's difficult to remove oneself from those lists once you're on them, so be warned -- if you want to keep your friends, don't sign them up for spam filled with false

 

(and annoying) promises. F -- Rachel Kramer Bussel

VISITOR BADGES WITH DIGITAL PHOTOS: Turning oneself into a sticker used to mean feeding $5 to a Chinatown photo booth, or $40 to Urban Outfitters for an iZone. Now corporate security guards will do it for free! While a Hello Kitty border and the option of bringing a friend are missed, visitor badge headshots are just the right size to stick on Cosmo fashion spreads and pretend I'm Angelina Jolie. A -- Lauren Oster

PAUL HORNUNG'S NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL SOLUTION: Mr. Hornung is a living monument to gridiron greatness at one of the most legendary and revered universities for college athletics. His recent comments on a Detroit radio show about, essentially, lowering the school's academic bar to attract the black athlete were misguided, insensitive, and terribly archaic. Notre Dame doesn't need to lower its academic standards. A better solution would be to exclude Asians and Indians from applying to the institution to give the black athlete a better chance at being accepted. I mean, the Asians and Indians don't play football. They should apply to MIT or something if they want to solve challenging math problems. The school should also accept white student athletes only if they agree to play offensive line. The Midwest is full of doughy white guys that love to get their hands dirty and work hard, so that shouldn't be a problem. Another way Notre Dame could attract the black athlete to its school without lowering academic standards should be to only allow Puerto Rican women on the cheerleading squad. These black athletes love a gal with some heft to her and the all important "flava." But, regardless, Mr. Hornung is wrong and should probably be stripped of his alumnae status and never allowed to speak on the radio again. F -- A.J. Daulerio

DARK-, CURLY-HAIRED WOMEN WITH STRAIGHT BLOND HAIR: Dear Former Messy-Haired Brunettes: Do you really think straightening and bleaching your hair makes you look better? Are you really convinced you're prettier like that? Or is it that you're secretly afraid it looks like you've got pubes growing out of your head? C'mon now. Heat and peroxide are a match made in hell. Your hair looks like straw. Straw! Every time I see you I get the urge to rush home and sweep something. Is it really worth it? It doesn't make you look more of a professional; it just makes you look more like you hate your gene pool. It's too late to make the cheerleading squad. Get over it. It's time to lay down the round brush. You always miss a chunk at the back anyway. D -- Sarah Banani

NOT WEARING SHOES: Now, shoes have their benefits. They prevent your toes from turning black and rotting off in the wintertime, and they keep your foot from multiple puncture wounds in the case of broken glass. When the weather's right and the streets are safe, though, I just can't help but to spread my toes and go unshod. The cool, hard cement or the soft grass under my feet, the weird looks or accusations of hippiedom, and most of all, the comfort -- my God, is it comfortable to go barefoot -- all make the experience worth it. If you're like me and dread the time when you must constrain your toes and suffocate your lower extremities, don't! Take your shoes off, take your socks off, and be proud! And for God's sake, watch where you step. A -- Paul Scheible

HAVING TO FORCE A CONVERSATION WHILE USING THE URINALS AT WORK: "Hey, Bob, how's the bleeba-boo?", says the dude with the corporate pot-belly and male pattern baldness standing next to you at the urinal. "Yep. Oh, yep. Bottom line bottom line work flow back end RTP reports and CSMS." It's one thing if you're sharing the urinals with one of your buddies, but when it's one of the suits or your jerk boss or one of those people in that "other" department's cubicles who stare at you all doe-eyed whenever you walk past, and not "doe-eyed" because they have a crush on you or anything, but "doe-eyed" because they're bored bored bored and maybe also a little bit sad. It's OK to admit it. Some of the people you work with kinda maybe sorta are real sad bastards, and they make you want to follow your chair through a broken 12th floor window. So what do you do? I mean, sure, you're doing fine, and we're a civilized people who eat with knives and forks, and you know he's there, and he knows you're there, and we're all so goddamn alienated, there's really no reason not to say "Hey, howya doin'?" back to the dude standing there right next to you. Really, in all likelihood, he doesn't even wanna talk to you either. But for a moment, just for a moment, it's an issue. Sharing a pee with your jerk boss: F. Sharing a pee with a cubicle stranger who's probably a good guy and not talking to him: C -- Frank Smith

VITAMIN WATER: I'm not one for fancy beverages. I drink water, cranberry juice, whiskey and beer. And now I drink Vitamin Water. I'm one of those people, though I'm usually successful at avoiding gimmickry. Vitamin Water is nothing but a gimmick.The bottle is "designed." By that I mean a non-visual person such as myself noticed the way the bottle, especially the label, looks. And inside the bottle is colored water that tastes something like juice and is supposedly packed with vitamins. Why not just drink water and take a multivitamin? Why not just drink orange juice? Because Vitamin Water is delicious. I drink Revive (fruit punch with Vitamin B & Potassium) if I'm hungover. Focus (kiwi strawberry + gingko) prepares me for a long sit at the poker table. Balance (cran-grapefruit with Vitamin C and Yerba Mate) is the tastiest, even though I have no idea what Yerba Mate is or what it's supposed to do. Vitamin Water's label touts that "one sip ... may result in boycott of other beverages." While I have yet to turn my back on traditional H2O or my old standby cranberry juice, Vitamin Water is a fine addition to my beverage lineup. Even if I do feel like a huppie (hipster + yuppie) drinking it. B+ -- Aileen Gallagher

REUNION.COM: Don't get me wrong, I think reunion.com is a great service. After all, who doesn't want to get back in touch with people you haven't seen -- let alone heard from -- in almost 10 years? But the constant weekly reminder sitting in my inbox like a coiled-up viper is a little too much for me to bear. Week after week, in bold letters: "23 New Students, 0 People Looking For You." Thanks, reunion.com. Now not only am I not being contacted (or even looked up?!) by people that I didn't really want to speak to in the first place, but now I have to deal with this regular e-mail reminder?! Can't you just lie to me and say "3 People Looking For You" maybe once a month? It doesn't have to be specific; I don't need names. It's not like I'll be paying for your upgrade service anyway. C- -- Tom Clayton

AQUAFRESH EXTREME CLEAN: "How have I lived my whole life depriving my choppers of Micro-Active Foaming Action?" I thought, eyeing the futuristic translucent box. "I must buy this toothpaste before social services comes and takes my teeth off to a foster mouth." Seemingly designed by the prop-master from "Back to the Future II," the silver tube inside was sleek with a special cap that I assumed was necessary to keep the Micro-Active Foaming Action nano-bots inside. I hoped my analog toothbrush would be compatible with toothpaste 2.0. Unlocking the tube and squeezing some of the bright-orange dentifrice out, I raised the brush to my mouth and commenced extreme cleaning. As it turns out, brushing your teeth in the future is a lot like brushing your teeth back in the good old 1990s -- only a lot grosser tasting. There were no tiny robots scurrying about my mouth, blasting away plaque with lasers, nor was there anything about Micro-Active Foaming Action that couldn't have been called "The Same Foam That Every Other Toothpaste Makes" Action; I guess there wasn't enough room on the box. But the most disappointing aspect was the flavor. I didn't even know that I knew what Orange Halls tasted like, but there I was, standing in front of my bathroom mirror, ashamed and with a mouth full of bullshit, positive that the taste was unmistakably Orange Halls. Realizing I'd been duped, I tossed the tube in the trash and begged Colgate to take me back. Aquafresh Extreme Clean Toothpaste: F-. Aquafresh Extreme Clean Marketing: A+. My Ability to Discern Clever Packaging from Quality Goods (Lifetime): C- -- Matt Tobey

F TRAIN RIDERS STILL READING THE CORRECTIONS: The New York Times says with the right taste in literature (and fishnet stockings), you'll meet the love of your life on the subway, so WHAT are you still doing with that well-thumbed copy of the magnum opus of 2002? Just how do you expect to reel in that girl with the monthly Metrocard and the Beacon's Closet ensemble if you're so stranded in the literary landscape of yesteryear that your edition all but features a cover photo of Laura Linney from the soon-to-be-released Miramax film version? You'd think any commuter with a modicum of personality would want to strike out on his own and stray from the hordes of Community Bookstore patrons anyway. In fact, here's a tip on how to really stand out on the F train -- read the National Review! At least that would get you points for originality. Unless you've just awoken from a two-year coma and are on your way home from the hospital via the Coney Island local, you've really got no excuse. Just admit defeat, and go buy a copy of The Bridges of Madison County. B- -- Rachel Natelson

PASSOVER: The story of hope, escape from bondage and return to some semblance of a peaceful, normal co-existence with a home, family and a people is one to remember every year. It's also the eight days when Jewish people do an inordinate amount of cleaning prior to cooking, and then lots and lots of cooking. One also can't help think of history when attending a Passover seder, the years of sitting next to your grandfather while he reads from the Haggadah -- as he did 50 years prior to that with his ancestors. Besides, with a menu that includes pickled tomatoes, gefilte fish, hard-boiled eggs, wine mixed with apples and nuts, chicken soup and potted brisket, how can you go wrong? A -- Dave Gaffen

 

 

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