Having spent the formative years of my life in Buffalo, I’m always looking to find ways to keep my hometown relevant to the big city types who don’t acknowledge anything upstate of Westchester. What better way then to point out it’s grammatical flexibility?

According to Wikipedia:

“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo,” is a grammatically correct sentence used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs. It has been known to exist since 1972 when the sentence was used by William J. Rapaport, an associate professor at the University at Buffalo.

The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word “buffalo”.
In order of their first use, these are:

• The city of Buffalo, New York
• The animal “buffalo”
• The verb “buffalo,” meaning to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate

The phrase can be roughly translated to mean “Bison from upstate New York who are intimidated by other bison in their community also happen to intimidate other bison in their community.”

I thought this was pretty awesome despite the relative lack of bison feuding in the region for the past few centuries. Regardless, feel free to casually slip this phrase into conversation and wait for someone to correct your grammar. That should buffalo them.

Any shred of credibility that MTV was clinging to in the entertainment industry was destroyed last night during their annual MTV Movie Awards. Having not tuned in for their broadcast in the past decade I decided to give it a chance this year.

This was my first mistake.

The red carpet show was nothing more then a half hour of shameless promotion for the summer blockbuster flick Transformers, which stars a bunch of no-name actors with absolutely nothing interesting to say. Assuming the endless plugs and repetitive “exclusive clips” would end with the preshow was my second mistake.

The shows only redeeming quality was host Sarah Silverman’s relentless attacks on her fellow celebrities, most notably Paris Hilton. She is such a bitch and I love every minute of it. After the opening monologue had ended, so did anything that resembled entertainment. From that point on the show would be dedicated strictly to self-promotion and more nauseatingly drawn out Transformers promotions.

Now, it’s one thing to dump a monster marketing budget into one event and force feed your stars and trailer on the viewers, but the tactics employed by Transformers and supported by MTV sunk to a new low. Toward the end of the show, a new award was announced: ‘Best Summer Movie You Haven’t Seen’. At first I was interested, thinking this might be an attempt by MTV to pay homage to all of the great films not staring Will Ferrell or Sasha Baron Cohen. This was my third and biggest mistake.

This year’s award for the ‘Best Summer Movie You Haven’t Seen’ goes to, you guessed it— Transformers. God dammit that was the last straw! After the cast was done parading around the stage with a false sense of accomplishment, they returned to present the very next award for ‘Best Movie’ and, once again, remind us of the July 4th release date.

Although the list of unimpressive nominees included perennial MTV heavyweights like Johnny Depp and Will Ferrell, I couldn’t help but think that Transformers would somehow manage to pull this one out too. Fortunately I was once again mistaken as ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 2’ took home the grand prize. Finally, it’s over! But wait…

The show was immediately followed by a Transformers themed skit by MTV.

Then a Chevrolet commercial featuring the cars from Transformers.

Then the official trailer for Transformers.

I had to change the channel before I threw my remote through the television. The sad part is, I’ll still see the movie (I just won’t pay for it). As for the MTV Movie Awards— I’ll catch you in another decade.

10. Journey - Separate Ways (1983)

Most Rocking Moment:
Playing a keyboard screwed to a wall (00:34)

 
9. KISS - Lick It Up (1983)

Most Rocking Moment:
Realizing why they wore makeup for the past decade

 
8. Twisted Sister - We’re Not Gonna Take It (1984)

Most Rocking Moment:
The look of fear on the dad’s face when he sees Dee Snyder, in costume, at the top of his stairs (03:25)

 
7. Poison - Nothing But A Good Time (1988)

Most Rocking Moment:
Three Words: Triple. Knee. Slides. (03:28)

 
6. Van Halen - Hot for Teacher (1984)

Most Rocking Moment:
When you’re at a strip club and you hear those opening drums

 
5. Guns N’ Roses - Welcome to the Jungle (1987)

Most Rocking Moment:
Stacks of televisions playing the same thing (an idea I borrowed for a ‘Legends of Rock’ party in college) (04:02)

 
4. Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast (1982)

Most Rocking Moment:
Having the songs meaning be misinterpreted for over two decades

 
3. W.A.S.P. - Animal (1984)

Most Rocking Moment:
The look on Tipper Gore’s face when she saw this album’s cover

 
2. Motörhead - Ace of Spades (1980)

Most Rocking Moment:
Blowing up cars with a truck-mounted flame thrower (02:24)

 
1. Mötley Crüe - Kickstart My Heart (1989)

Most Rocking Moment:
Sam Kinison driving the Dr. Feelgood ambulance (04:54)