Justin Achilli

Shameless self-promotion, but, hey, it’s content.

Starting Wednesday, December 5, Eric and I are bringing a new format to Halo. It’s our trademark head-to-head exercise, but we’re both branching out and focusing in. Odd, yeah, but it’s going to be hot. And we’re going to be at a bar I love so much I moved across the street from it (let’s not open that one up for discussion) and have been champing at the bit to be able to play again.

Last time we went head-to-head at an established venue, frankly, it didn’t work out. We were at the Masquerade, which doesn’t traditionally do good business on Wednesday nights (tonight excluded, what with the Outkast party being thrown there). It was sort of pointless, especially with me lugging my hundred-pound box of Pioneers there to play for maybe a dozen people.

This time, though, we’re going to blow the roof off the place. Halo’s already established, first off, having just won a pair of awards from the local alterna-rag, Creative Loafing. Granted, one of them is a nasty award, but what are you going to do. Anyway, the bar was also apparently mentioned in InStyle magazine recently, which is pretty sweet as well. As if that wasn’t enough, we’ve got a month of strong promotions building Wednesdays as a hot night at Halo (New Sound Theory, then the New York Times-lauded CSX party, then Mr. Scruff with Ninja Tune, then Ursula 1000 — we’ve got some big shoes to fill).

Yeah, yeah, yeah; but what’s it about? It’s called Electro Retro Halo, and we’re playing new wave-inflected music from "then" to now. If it’s not new wave, we’ll lounge it up a bit and sneak it in anyway. In a nutshell, it’s a break from the Atlanta-ubiquitous house that every other club plays, but it’s not the stock "80s night" where you hear the same goddamn Cyndi Lauper song train-wrecked into the same goddamn Beastie Boys song ham-fisted into "People Are People" again every week. That’s not to say that recognizable 80s won’t be in there, because it will be, but it’s not going to be album cuts thrown at you by a wedding-caliber DJ, and it’s going to be laid over with synth-pop/electro on a foundation of dance-friendly underpinnings. Stevie Nicks jacked on breakbeat segues into Josh Wink with Public Enemy vocals which subsides into Fischerspooner before yielding to Felix da Housecat, who makes way for good ol’ OMD. All in a sound burrito concocted by Eric’s Tall Paul and my Fatboy Slim.

What the fuck?

Yeah, it’s about time. I know you New York scenesters have pounded this into the ground already, but Atlanta hasn’t even tasted it yet. I mean, there’s Karma and MJQ, but come on.

Been out of town. Will update tonight.

Oh, man, you know how there are just some songs that, no matter how old or stupid or not really good, they’re just so hot that every time you hear them, you jump out of your chair and throw a bottle at some guy and the next thing you know, shit’s all gone to hell and there’s cops and people are throwing bottles at you and it’s one crazy shit of a good time? I wish all songs were that good. Then again, if all songs were that good, it would reduce the radness of the whole thing because you’d just expect so much ROCK all the time that pure radness would become the average. So, yeah, we pretty much need shit like Collective Soul to make sure that Ozzy still kicks our lungs in every time he shows up.

But, hell, you already know about Ozzy. Good for you. Here’s 10 other songs that cause the pH balance of your blood-borne ROCK GENES to fire through the roof. Not to be taken internally.

Iron Maiden, "Run to the Hills"
I can’t really hear any of the words, but this song’s just got some frenzied craze of activity going on. It’s probably about running from the Devil or running from that Eddie thing or something, but who cares? Bruce Dickinson is screaming, the guitars are all wailing, and you’re standing on the goddamn gas pedal like there aren’t a pair of police cruisers behind you. Yeah, that’s it. It’s probably about running from the cops.

Danzig, "Snakes of Christ"
It’s not all speedy, but you know some villainous shit is about to go down when the guitars start licking this one to life. Once again, I can’t pick out any of the words, and I’m not really sure what Christ had to do with snakes, but once again, it doesn’t matter. This is the sort of song that gives you that look in your eye so bad that your girlfriend has you pull the car over and let her out before any warrants are issued or body parts turn up.

Andrew W.K., "Party Hard"
You can’t beat this guy’s ethic — two-thirds of his songs are about "partying" and the remaining third are about "partying" until you throw up. Every now and then, when you think to yourself, "being a beer snob is kind of boring" and you turn shit loose with the PBR or the Hamm’s or the Schaefer, that’s the secret mind control rock technique of Andrew W.K. short-circuiting the wires in your brain. And "Party Hard" you do, because all the beer is causing this chemical reaction with all the ROCK isotopes in your muscles and all bets are off. Like as not, you will crash through a plate glass window when you hear this song and you have any alcohol in your body. After you do it, you’ll be lying on the floor and there’s blood everywhere and you’re missing teeth, but you’re still smiling and everyone around you is all, "Fuck, man, that was sweet."

Guns ‘N’ Roses, "Rocket Queen"
Hell, any of the songs off Appetite for Destruction would send you into a kamikaze ROCK spiral, but this last one really brings it all home. There’s that part at the end of the song where they break it down, and then there’s that part where you can hear exactly what Axl Rose is saying but none of it makes any sense, but by then you and your stupid friends are all daring each other to slam the car hood down on each other’s heads or to stab each other "just to see if it really hurts." And then, fuck it, you head off to the go-kart track and crash into each other because it just doesn’t matter.

Journey, "Any Way You Want It"
Hey, not all songs have to be bad ass to ROCK. This one is about rocking even though you’re wearing a thrift-store T-shirt with no sleeves and some crappy nylon shorts your mom bought you and made you wear, but it’s all cool because at any second, Journey could fire out from some speakers somewhere and before you know it, there’d be cans of beer being passed around and bikini chicks and some guy with those Tom Cruise Risky Business sunglasses. The cops would show up and try to shut down the party, but Tom Cruise Sunglasses Guy would just say, "Is there a problem, officer?" and hand them beers and they’d rock the hell out of the joint as well. After it was all over, you’d say "Man, were we rocking to Journey?" and your friends would look at you, nodding, and their eyes would wince sheepishly and you’d never speak of it again.

The Cult, "She Sells Sanctuary"
Remember back when you first discovered that you were sort of a punk or a new waver or whatever subculture you found yourself belonging to? This song was playing, and you were like, "That’s it. Van Halen doth rock no longer." And you wanted hair like Ian Astbury (if you were a guy) or you wanted to get on Ian Astbury (if you were a girl) but then you realized that you were just some no-goodnik teenager, so you stole some cigarettes and wore a trenchcoat and turned the Cult up just a little bit louder.

Stone Temple Pilots. "Interstate Love Song"
Continuing to establish the relationship between MAXIMUM ROCK and unintelligibility, this song made you want to get in your car and just go, go, GO. It was road trip music, and damn if STP didn’t know it because that’s what they called the song. See, it was usually rad because whoever was rocking didn’t really care that you were rocking with them, but Stone Temple Pilots said, "We made this song so that you may rock. Now proceed, and get on the highway to do so." You replied, "Why thanks, STP," and made up a bunch of lyrics that vaguely matched the meter of the actual lyrics in the song, except it’s not very likely that STP was singing about your dog.

Iggy Pop, "The Passenger"
This song made your dad nervous and it made your mom take away all the Velvet Underground tapes you had, but only because she didn’t know Iggy wasn’t part of that band and she thought the Stooges was a slapstick black-and-white comedy troupe on Channel Nine in the afternoon. So you sneaked away to listen to this tape by yourself or with your scabby little friends, all fired up on how edgy you were, but beneath all that rebelliousness, this song made you really worried about being in an alley or getting in a car with people you didn’t know. Even at the ripe old age of however old you are, this song still scares the bejeezus out of you.

The Damned, "Wait for the Blackout"
Yeah, you think the Damned were at their best with "New Rose" or "Smash It Up" but nothing got the punches flying faster than "Wait for the Blackout." When this song came on, you might find yourself head-butting a friend into submission, picking up one of those cheap metal bar chairs and throwing it, or pinned underneath a pool table. Whatever the case, you woke up the next afternoon and thought to yourself, "Christ, I’d better get home and pour some bactine on this."

Motorhead, "Ace of Spades"
I’m sitting at my desk writing this, but Lemmy just drove a stolen Lincoln through my window and now he’s jacking my head with a tire iron. He’s all junked and I can’t understand a word he’s saying, and he’s, like, 200 years old, but what am I going to do? It’s Lemmy. And he knows how I feel.

BMXXXX is "the first action sports video game designed specifically for today’s mature gaming audience," according to publisher Acclaim.

Provided your definition of "Mature" is "dogs humping and boobs."

At what point did "mature" come to mean "juvenile"?

It’s a great press campaign, surely, as Acclaim has tricked the media into doing its advertising for it by stirring up controversy. Some of the points are even valid, suggesting that it’s a double standard that makes a video game like this "taboo" while such similarly lowbrow garbage as American Pie doesn’t even cause a batted eyelash.

But then, if you’re comparing yourself to American Pie, should you really be using the word "mature"? Since the game is obviously aimed at those whose development stopped right at the point of "leering adolescence," is age really the determinant of maturity?

No. No, it’s not.

Rock on, Acclaim. Make a buncha money with this title. I wish you every success. Granted, none of your games have ever been the least bit entertaining, but you obviously recognize that and are taking steps to work around it. If the games themselves aren’t worth buying, you may as well resort to other tactics to earn company profits, and I’m not begrudging you that. But as a publisher of "mature" material that explores morality, I absolutely loathe sharing that distinction with a publisher to whom it means nekkid sluts and cuss words for their own sake.

If having sex with food is mature, I’m proud to proclaim my immaturity.

As you may well know, many auto manufacturers hire their model designers from such prestigious design academies as special ed and street corners. For every brilliant car or revolutionary design feature that graces the roads, we’re subjected to a hundred shitboxes slapped together by mouth-breathing yokels or, worse, vicious, hateful design veterans so burned out on being trapped at American car companies that they express their ire by symbolically extending middle fingers at the whole driving world through their concepts.

Hereafter, some of the worst trashheaps currently cursing our roads and the design philosophies behind them.

Ford Excursion
America’s fascination with the misnamed Sport-Utility Vehicle is to blame for this one. Look at this beast. Neither sporty nor useful, and a vehicle in only the loosest sense of the word (as something so big as to be immobile barely counts as a vehicle), this ditch pig should have been called the Extinction, as its vile presence combined with its negative gas mileage creates a kill-zone that extends roughly a hundred yards in every direction from it.
Purported Design Philosophy: King of the SUVs.
Actual Design Philosophy: I am a giant fucking asshole, and this is the biggest car I could find that had less than 18 wheels.

Audi TT
Overdesigned meets underpowered. Audi hit a slump during the 80s, which it remedied with renewed devotion to design and quality in the late 90s (through the present), but this toad slipped through the cracks. The standard model pushes only 180 horses, and even the 225-hp upgrade isn’t enough to make up for the overweight body, which is itself heavily influenced by those plastic eggs the little, sticky, rubber "Slap-It" hands you get from the quarter machines at the grocery store come in, and heavier than a fucking 911. The interior is a saving grace, but ultimately just conjures a "silk hat on a pig" vibe.
Purported Design Philosophy: An elegant roadster in the spirit of the design’s heyday.
Actual Design Philosophy: Fuck you, yuppie.

Lexus SC 430
Lexus, like Audi, is usually on the mark, pairing hot mechanical perks with rad design. On the other hand, some executive’s kid came into the office one day, sticky with Pop-Tart filling, and drew crappy robots on the designers’ blueprints, resulting in this monstrosity. It looks like a bar of soap knife-fighting with some broken rollerblades. Sadly, Lexus’ sweet 300-hp V8 lives under the hood — the vehicular equivalent of putting Lennox Lewis in Tommy Hilfiger clothing.
Purported Design Philosphy: "Announce your arrival with an exclamation point."
Actual Design Philosphy: What if Pikachu was a car?

Pontiac Sunfire
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Seriously. Someone had the balls or brain trauma to present this thing to his superiors. And they approved it. This is what happens when American car companies react to Japanese auto trends (which themselves follow German radness) without improving the fundamental hellishness of US-auto engineering. The result is a warty mess that makes more noise the harder you step on the gas pedal but doesn’t actually go any faster, instead leaving more oil and broken parts scattered across the road surface. The Eminem of cars — and with the added "sportiness" of the convertible, it’s Eminem in baseball cap.
Purported Design Philosophy: Jaunty, devil-may-care Americana.
Actual Design Philosophy: Blllphhhht. Glarg. Vroom! Hrrrrnk. Zzzzzgt. [Sound of hands clapping awkwardly.]

Cadillac CTS
Oh, it gets bad starting here. While most American car companies just make garbage, Cadillac sets the standard for most shit ever stuffed into a flawed-to-begin-with package and then ups the ante by putting a price tag on the thing that’s two orders of magnitude what any sane person would pay to have the whole travesty hauled off his property. They’re built with such an obvious hatred for all of automotive manufacturing’s customer base, it’s even part of the marketing. The CTS replaced the old Catera ("The Caddy that zigs"). Look at that: Catera + CTS. Cateracts. Well, cataracts, really, but it’s moot, as you’ll wish you were afflicted with cataracts when you see one of these asswagons on the road.
Purported Design Philosophy: European design with American pride.
Actual Design Philosophy: The most you’ll ever pay for something that comes broken from the manufacturer.

Cadillac Escalade
This "flagship" of Cadillac’s product line is so blatantly designed with racist overtones, it’s a wonder they don’t have Steppin Fetchit shilling these things. Or maybe Martin Lawrence. Positioned to out-bling-bling the Lincoln Navigator, the Escalade starts with a fundamentally flawed design, the Yukon Denali (uh… what does that mean?), and glues enough tacky, baroque bullshit to it to appeal to people whose money exceeds their sense. It’s a Chevy Yukon. A 50,000-dollar Chevy Yukon. And the people who buy them live in $300-a-month housing projects to show that they big-tymin’.
Purported Design Philosophy: The most luxurious SUV ever.
Actual Design Philosophy: YO H TO THA IZZO PASS THE HENNESSY FO SHIZZLE MY NIZZLE.

Cadillac EXT
It defies explanation. Apply Cadillac’s "staple some big, gold badges on it" ethic to the already criminally insane Chevrolet Avalanche and… well, I’m not sure what happens, but here’s what was left after all the smoke cleared. Remember the El Camino? This is the modern legacy. My dad called the El Camino a "half-assed car and a half-assed truck." The EXT (and Avalanche) don’t have any "car" sensibilities, however, opting instead to mate everything terrible about pickup trucks (bulk, limitation of utility, redneck connotation) with everything ass about SUVs (shitty mileage, zero regard for other drivers, absence of utility) and then ejaculate a brutish veneer of Cadillac hostility across the whole thing ("You are stupid and captivated by shiny things, but have a significant amount of money"). And people buy it.
Purported Design Philosophy: Epicurean ruralism.
Actual Design Philosophy: Ia! Ia! Cadillac fhtagn!

I believe I speak for everyone when I say, "Holy fucking shit."

It’s not a dinosaur. It’s not a mummy. It’s a dinosaur mummy.

As if life wasn’t terrifying enough — as if we didn’t have enough to fear with the simple, radioactive dinosaurs from the popular Dinosaur Island III or whatever that Tom Clancy book about time-traveling dinosaur mutants running rampant through our cities. As if the regular mummies led by The Rock (from The Skeleton King) weren’t sufficient to make us whizz ourselves in terror. No, that’s not a vicious enough possibility for monster-borne apocalypse. Should we breed a giant dinosaur? One that can dwarf even the giantest of the already-giant "giant lizards"? ("Dinosaur" is Spanish for "giant lizard.") Should we summon an extra-wicked uber-mummy that can lumber slowly toward the smaller mummies? ("Mummy" is Portuguese for "small mummy.")

No, you, simpletons! That’s why you’re mere minions and lackeys! No ambition!

Somewhere, probably on secluded island (know in Flemish as "Secret Dino-Mummy Island"), Darth Crap has reverse-genetically engineered the most fiendish creature ever to prowl the Earth. It’s 23 fucking feet long — it’s the biggest mummy ever recorded in the history of mummy terror.

I’m not a timid person. Pour enough booze into me and I’ll fight a mummy or a dinosaur or a Finnish Ultimate Fighting veteran. One thing I will not fight, however, is a dinosaur mummy. Neither should you, which is why the neo-hybrid dino-mummy is such an important find. Consider:

The dinosaur mummy was found in the month of October. October is also the month of Halloween, a traditional witches’ holiday, also associated with other monsters. We may infer from this that the dino-mummy may also cast spells, much like a witch. It is also probably a werewolf, but science has yet to verify that fact.

Mummies are old. The oldest living mummy heretofore, "Strom Thurmond," is only about 250 years old. Leonardo DiCaprio, the dino-mummy is 77,000,000 years old. By my math, that means it’s nearly twice as old as Strom Thurmond, which means it’s probably twice as fighty and almost three times as insane, which is a lot of fighty insanity.

Dinosaurs are also old. Previously, the ancientest dinosaur still alive was Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler. Look at that dude: pretty scary. Well, this thing is even older than that. What that means is that, since the dinosaur mummy is over twice as old as Steven Tyler, the dinosaur mummy’s music is over twice as shitty as the worst Aerosmith song. Yes, I know that saying "worst Aerosmith song" is redundant, but that’s just your mortal mind in shock at how shitty this music can be.

Also, it’s been proven that monsters use the multiplicative property as opposed to the cumulative property. Therefore, what we’re dealing with here is not mummy plus dinosaur, it’s mummy times dinosaur. You know how, like four plus five is nine, but four times five is 200? It’s like that, only with the bone-rending power of dinosaur fangs and unstoppable beyond-the-grave vengeance of a mummy.

I want a dozen.

I also think it’s funny that there’s a Tom Petty feature on CDNOW in which he “rails against mediocrity,” while there’s a banner with Gwen Stefani and Dave Matthews right above him.

This past Saturday, I turned old. Well, not as old as I will be next year, but I’m still old. It’s bad. My bones don’t knit when they break and my teeth have started falling out. I am a desiccated husk. Here’s some proof.

I’m so old, I wear button-up shirts.

Oh, yeah; it was a surprise party, courtesy of my crafty girlfriend. Here’s some people lurking in the house before my arrival. We had gone out to dinner with Eric and Nicole because October 5 is Eric’s birthday as well. When we got back to my house, someone had left the door partially open and I though, “Fuck, I’m getting robbed.” So my dumb ass charged into the house, ready to unload some whupass on whataver clown was stealing my shit (and probably get shot in the process), but instead of thieving scoundrels, it was a buncha my friends. Which are pretty much the same thing, come to think of it.

Note the Harry Potter decor (on the walls). Note also the Morrissey wallpaper on my computer.

Boo yah.

Um… a bunch of the guys in our group of friends have the same haircut. There’s (from right to left) Josh, Steve and Andrew. Crop-tops not pictured: myself, Chad, Otto and (sort of) Kieran. I’ll have you know mine’s due to shaving, not baldness.

Damn, that’s a lot of candles.

Harry Potter cake… SERVED WITH A BUTCHER KNIFE. Don’t fuck with House Gryffindor.

Booze: the gift that keeps on giving.

Shelley knows what’s badass — stuff with monkeys. She painted a monkey for me, which shall soon occupy a regal place on the wall between the kitchen and bar.

Alien Life Form ’02.

WHERE’S YOUR FRED AT?

When boys misbehave, their girlfriends let them know in no uncertain terms.

Ha ha, Chad. Trapped outside. He gallantly climbed in the window to avoid dealing with security gates.

The photography reflected the condition of my vision by this point…

… and it continued to here, as well.

“*Hic* Hey, man, I been to Finland, too.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Yeah. I bought Brandy a lamp from Pentik while I wuz there.”

“I know where Pentik is.”

“*Hic*”

“*Hic*”

“I think there’s some beer we haven’t drank yet.”

“Rock.”

All in all, a lovely affair.

Today’s celebrity guest on Holy Fucking Shit What Happened to You will be…

Here at Third Element (or "el the Third Element" in our native Spanish), we like to consider ourselves contributors to the betterment of society. We like to do little things here and there to make sure that you, "el reader de la the el Third Element," take a little something away from our time together. That’s why we always have a music entry down there at the bottom, because God knows, without our guidance, you’d probably have Incubus or some shit in your CD player.

Speaking of Incubus, some other stuff sucks, too, and we want to prevent it. This particular installment of "How Not To Suck" involves being a villain. Lots of people like to think they’re villains. Lots of people think wearing black and blowing shit up makes them evil. Well, guess what — they’re not villains. They’re not even evil. These people suck worse than the Miami Dolphins attending a Creed concert. They, then, are the reason we present this Guide to Not Sucking At Being a Villain. If you see someone sucking as a villain, pass this on to them. The world will be a better place for it, but probably not because they’re a villain and trying to make the world a worse place, which, ironically, they were already doing by being a Miami Dolphin and listening to Creed, but it will be worse in a better sense of the world, which is better (and therefore worse) for us all.

In order to be an effective villain, you must…

… have a decent agenda.
Lex Luthor wanted to rule the world. Um… okay. What do you do when you "rule the world"? How do you go about it? Well, in Lex’s case, he got a bunch of dim-witted "supervillains" together and they united in the interests of… ruling the world. Look: You need to take this thing in stages. Start small. Accomplish anything at all. The Legion of Doom couldn’t collectively tie its shoes without someone stabbing someone else in the back. It didn’t have the powers to take over a Wendy’s, let alone the world. Come on, Legion of Doom — you’re trying to take over the world by sticking up banks? And you have a monkey on your roster. Oh, pardon me; a giant monkey. Next.

Johnny Ringo, on the other hand, was a great villain. His motivation was great — he wanted revenge for being born. Now that’s hard. No fool, he paired that motivation with an attainable goal: Kill motherfuckers to make himself feel better. Totally within his capacity, and productive to boot. The more dudes he killed, the less dudes were in my way on the highway. Come to think of it, Johnny Ringo is more of a hero than a villain. Well, an anti-hero. No, fuck it; he’s a hero.

…have the means to achieve your goals.
I know it seems like I pick on Cobra Commander a lot around here, but that’s only because I love COBRA so much. See, COBRA has all this potential. It’s ruthless. Its people are devoted. It falls down on two fronts, though: planning and funding. I’ll get to planning later; funding is the issue at hand. COBRA used the flawed Lex Luthor method of asset acquisition — crime. You see, before COBRA even gets to press its agenda, it’s already developed opposition. Half of the time, COBRA can’t even get to stage one of its villainous program because its already attracted the attention of the law. So much wasted effort.

George W. Bush, on the other hand, was born with the means to achieve his goals. Granted, he’s not really smart enough to say "agenda," let alone have one (cough… Iraq… Daddy’s albatross… cough), but he’s got fuckloads of money by which to accomplish whatever it enters his mind to do. Think about it: He has a bunch of money already, he’s got an entire nation’s other resources and military at his own disposal, and he’s evil as fuck. He’s a real-life Doctor Doom, only without the mask.

…be a maniac in a productive way, not a self-destructive way.
Okay, now Hannibal Lecter has a lot going for him. He’s really smart. He’s so rational you could chop celery with his thought processes. He thinks three steps ahead of everyone else. On paper, he wins every time, much like the chicken at the state fair in those "play tic-tac-toe against the genius chicken" games. Goddamn those games — the chicken isn’t playing tic-tac-toe. It’s a computer. There’s just a chicken in a bubble on top of it. Of course it’s going to win — it’s programmed to win. Even if you buck the odds and tie, it says, "Tie — chicken wins." A tie is not a win, fuckers.

It seems that I’ve become distracted. But, ha ha! so does Hannibal Lecter. See, he’s so fucked up that he has to put aside whatever villainous plan he’s hatching because he has to eat people. No time to conquer the world tonight… blah blah blah fine chianti. You don’t even want this guy as a henchman because he’s never really able to pull through. He’s the poster child for "the criminal wants to be caught."

No, you’re better off being berserk like Roy Batty. Seriously. When you freak someone out with the Hannibal Lecter business, they’re all, "That’s pretty creepy. He eats dudes." But when you jam a sixteen-penny nail through your own hand to spike any last bit of lingering juice out of yourself so you can just… maybe… go… a… little… more to kill your fucking adversary — there’s a guy you need to be afraid of. When you punch through walls, ruining your own hands and arms just so you might be able to put a little more hurt on the poor sap who’s after you, all bets are off, jack. Yow. It hurts me to think of Roy and I like him.

…make a plan and stick to it.
See, this one’s a hard one because it’s easy for other stuff to steal your attention when you’re a villain. Sometimes you’re distracted by all the girls flocking to your sweet self. Sometimes you get some money up front and you end up spending it on other junk instead of your villainous accouterments. Other times, you’re just a crappy villain and you don’t really have any purpose other than random chaos. And believe me, those are the worst types of villains because they don’t really do anything. They have no purpose. Take Simon Phoenix, for example — supposedly a criminal mastermind so dastardly they had to freeze for a hundred years because… well, whatever. It didn’t make any sense. But neither did Simon. They thaw this wicked genius and… he’s Curly from the Three Stooges with bloodlust? No wonder he didn’t accomplish anything. He never even knew he was supposed to get anything done. Jokey Smurf with homicidal tendencies. Zzz.

Now Jules, on the other hand, knew what he was up to. When he walked into that dude Brad’s house, you knew someone was going to die. You just didn’t know who or when or even how many. Jules did. You couldn’t deal with him not because he was an exploding five-year-old like Simon, but because he didn’t give away any of his own purpose. He made the plan, stuck to it, and came out ahead.

And his wallet says "Bad Mother Fucker." Advantage: Jules.