Well, it’s Valentine’s Day again, and your so-called long-term relationship has run its course. You know it, they know it, all of your friends know it. A breakup is around the corner, and that’s usually a sad time, but on a very surface level, it doesn’t have to be!
Sure, if a person is in a relationship that’s turned toxic they need to end it. A person also needs to get that wisdom tooth removed, get a weird skin tag checked out, or start job hunting. That doesn’t mean said person won’t do all kinds of rationalizing mental gymnastics to put those scary/painful things off for as long as humanely possible!
Breaking up is such a to-do. Not only is it a painful process that usually involves a lot of false starts and back and forths, but on top of that, you need to pack up your stuff, find a new place to stay, divvy up friends and assets, change passwords and aaaaaahhhh it’s just a lot! On some level, your partner is probably just as desperate as you to put all that off for months, maybe years. And THAT is why we celebrate Valentine’s Day!
The right Valentine’s gift can make your partner overlook months of feeling awkward in a room together and extend your relationship well beyond its natural expiration, all the way to the point where you’re honestly afraid you might kill each other if you spend one more night under the same roof. Here are 30 gift ideas ranked by how much unnatural longevity they’ll give your doomed coupling!
30. Gift Cards
The most impersonal, transparently for-appearance-only gift of all time. Are you even trying to pretend you still love each other?
29. Something That Isn’t Normally Shaped Like A Heart Shaped Like A Heart
Wow, do you give Christmas-themed Christmas presents too? Why would you gift someone something they’ll only be able to use 12 months from now? That’s no way to buy yourself another 12 months.
28. Makeup
If your partner is female presenting you may think that fancy makeup is a suitable Valentine’s Day gift, because you just don’t think things through do you? Watch them turn this “gift” into a personal attack faster than you can say “I wasn’t implying that you look ugly!”
27. Something Just Expensive, Like a PS5
To certain personalities, this may seem logical, but it’s non-thematic overkill and when it fails, guess whose out a PS5? J.Q. You, that’s who!
26. A Horse-Drawn Carriage Ride
In February? Are you insane? No couple in the history of relationships has a story that goes “Well we were going to break up but then one night we were cold as hell together and that dissolved all of our tensions.”
25. An Activity
Oh sure, why not trigger the growing animosity between the two of you out in public for all the world to see? Come on, you want this thing to end in the privacy of your own home, not in an escape room or at a sip and paint.
24. Flowers
A classic, but really sort of a flash in the pan. They’ll avoid a fight for a day or two but that’s about it. Flowers AND something else, that’s the move.
23. A custom mug
A coffee mug. With their name on it. Great. You’re trying to convince yourself and them that the two of you can build a life together, not congratulating the runner-up in a sales contest. Do better.
22. A Puzzle
You can only ask “Does this look like a match to you? I can’t tell” so many times before your partner starts internalizing the obvious metaphor.
21. Matching PJs/Clothing
It could work, but it could also backfire. It’s a little too on the nose really. It basically says “Hey, debase yourself with me!”
20. A Giant Teddy Bear
Super cute at first, but eventually your partner will see it as impractical and in the way, sort of like your relationship.
19. A Niche Kitchen Appliance
Waffle Irons, pour-over sets, fancy mixers, etc. For the right partner, someone with a true passion for the kitchen, this could work, otherwise avoid it. Giving someone who doesn’t earnestly love cooking a gift that says “I thought maybe you could make us stuff” isn’t a strong selling point for staying in a relationship you both know in your hearts is over.
18. Scented Candles
Nice, neutral, and safe, but where’s the flair? Scented candles are for couples secure enough in their love to not make Hallmark holidays a big production, that ain’t you.
17. Basic Chocolate
Your Russell Stover hearts and the like. A little more shelf life than just flowers, but not by much. By the time they get down to the imitation dark chocolate, it’s over.
16. Ferrero Rocher
Okay, now we’re cooking a bit. Sure it’s just candy, but these things are delicious, and there’s sort of an unwritten rule that you’re not allowed to buy them for yourself. It’s the gold wrapping, too opulent. You maybe bought yourself a month.
Growing pains isn’t just a show featuring demigod Kirk Cameron, and “Resolver,” Veruca Salt’s third LP altogether and first of two without Nina Gordon, who was riding a super pop solo wave of her own around that time with “Tonight and the Rest of My Life,” is good, but not great, and as you know, good is the enemy of great. Still, Veruca Salt doesn’t have a bad record, and this full-length, or at least 66.66% percent of it, deserves your time; the band is chock full of born entertainers and you’d be hard-pressed to argue with that assertion. Produced by Brian Liesegang, founding member of fellow ’90s peers Filter, “Resolver” sounds really good, and the catchiness of the songs are counterbalanced with a tried and true rocker grit. In closing, Inferior publications were divided regarding this record but that’s how they typically are so we can’t fault them.
“IV,” Veruca Salt’s, uh, fourth full-length studio album is not only, in a display of extreme wit and cultivated vigor on our end, ranked in the fourth position right here and right now, but it is the band’s sole release via the curiously named label Sympathy for the Record Industry, former home to Rocket from the Crypt, Turbonegro, Holly Golightly, and Polly Goheavily. However, for some sad and alarming reason, “IV” is not on DSPs like Spotify or Apple Music, and that’s a low down dirty shame making us not feel very blissful… Fix that and get your ish together, SFTRI! Anyway, six years after this LP came out, the band took a short break, but reformed with Nina Gordon, and announced their reconciliation to the world exactly one year and one month after they publicly took a hiatus. Coincidence? Not sure. Cool circular trend? Very, very much so.
Despite what many might think, but likely not you, you smart warrior of a rock hepcat, Veruca Salt has a song other than “Seether,” and released a full-length, their FIFTH altogether known as “Ghost Notes” in the year of our lord known as 2015, a full twenty-one years after their debut LP “American Thighs” hit stores. Overall, “Ghost Notes” is an underrated highlight, and truly closed the museum of their own broken yet mended relationships with a smile and a ghoul. We here truly clamor for more, we’re telling you know, we implore the band to create another with both lead vocalists. El Camino Records released this gem of an album to minor fanfare, and producer Brad Wood, who also worked behind the boards for VS’s debut record and ones by Liz Phair, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Big Bird, majorly shone in the greatest way.
Veruca Salt’s sophomore LP, is the band’s best-produced album for sure via King Bob Rock of Metallica, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi and Canadian fame, and contains, in our opinion that literally/figuratively doubles as a fact, their most superior song and single, “Volcano Girls.” Still, it has a few songs worthy of skipping we can’t give it the Subway-sponsored and endorsed Michael Phelps gold medal slot here, but silver ain’t too shabby either. One more hot take for good measure and good clean fun: If “Eight Arms to Hold You” was a four song EP consisting of tracks 1-4 back to back to back to back, it would be one of the better ’90s EPs for sure, along with Salt-N-Pepa’s screamo classic “Jar of Flies”.
Veruca Salt’s first full-length studio album, and likely the reason you’re here and actually read this piece for as long as you have, is truly a “no skip” effort from the band, and provided the globe with a solid vocal harmony driven rock band with a fantastic and delectable combination of saccharine and sour. Seemingly coming out of nowhere, the band initially released this LP in late-1994 via indie Minty Fresh Records, and re-released it on their then-new label Geffen Records, who also put out Weezer’s self-titled debut in ‘94 along with (not joking) Slash’s Snakepit the following year, and “American Thighs” eventually and justifiably earned a Gold-certified record. Plus, its epic album cover could unironically be showcased more than seasonally in an art museum and certainly on an overpriced crewneck at a high-end clothing store. Control your car and don’t spin out.
“Tales from the Crypt” is known for its puns, but you gotta respect putting one right there in the title of the episode. That being said, this one was a letdown, brief nudity-wise. You know there were boobs on set. Bill Paxton and Brad Dourif? They were probably beating off boobies left and right just to get to and fro. I bet they even had a cool nickname for themselves, like the Boobie Brothers or something. Would it have killed you to put just one of those boobs on camera HBO? Our free weekend ends tonight, thanks for nothing!
No boobs. Superman is in it, but he doesn’t fly or anything. Zero stars.
If you’re gonna have a horror anthology show, you gotta have a couple creepy doll episodes. This particular one features an embarrassment of riches when it comes to talent. Directed by Richard Donner, co-written by “The Shawshank Redemption” scribe Frank Darabont, and starring legendary insult comic Don Rickles playing against Bobcat Goldthwait. It’s a stacked episode, except when it comes to stacks. Not a single boob in the whole damn thing. I stayed up past 11 on a school night for this?!
This was Tom Hanks’ directorial debut, and we have just one note: boobs! Come on man, you were in “Bachelor Party,” you know how this works! It’s a satisfying ‘con-man meets macabre demise’ tale, but since it revolves around a black widower targeting rich old women, it’s almost impossible to masturbate to. 2 stars.
Over the years we’ve come to respect the hell out of character actor M Emmet Walsh’s work. At the age of 12, staying up past bedtime with HBO on mute literally praying to see breasts, we hated him. One look at him and we thought “Great, another boobless episode of “Tales from the Crypt,” why do they even do these?!”
There was a time in this country when hard-hitting shock-journalists dominated the media landscape. In this episode, we meet reporter Horton Rivers, who is filming on location at a supposedly haunted house. What does his crew find? Not a single goddamn boob that’s what. Big points for incorporating the found footage horror style years before “The Blair Witch Project” but if there’s one thing a sleazy early ’90s journalist should understand it’s “sex sells.”
Another Richard Donner/Frank Darabont collaboration sees an old west gunslinger confronted by the ghosts of his past. Well, apparently no one in this dude’s past had big ol’ titties. Negative 4 stars.
We had high hopes that “top billing” was a trademark Crypt Keeper pun of some kind, and that the episode would feature lots of babes tops. As soon as the name Jon Lovitz came on the screen we knew that could not be the case. Jon plays an annoying actor who can’t get a part because of his looks (big stretch) and decides to murder his competition. We turned it off halfway through to see if we could make out any action from the static on the Spice channel.
A rich elderly man undergoes an experimental procedure to make himself young again in order to satisfy his much younger girlfriend. Okay, we get that not all of these can have boobs in them, even at 12 we understood it’s a roll of the dice, but this one was directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger! The guy who gave us 3 breasted women in “Total Recall!” Thanks a lot, Governator, how am I supposed to pump my iron to some young bodybuilder with William Hickey’s voice?
This might be the first thing Traci Lords was in where she doesn’t show her boobs. This one hurt.
Ugh, I don’t know, this one looked like it was gonna have boobs like there was this hot lady on top of this lumberjack guy and they were doing sex stuff in their underwear, but then I heard my mom come down the stairs so I had to change the channel and pretend to be asleep. Thanks mom. Lame.
A tale of jealousy and murder set in the modeling world that somehow manages to lack even the briefest of nudity. Really dropped the ball here Mr. Crypt Keeper.
Tim Roth stars as Jack Craig, a struggling artist who can still afford a huge studio space because it’s a TV show. When Jack finds that only his most macabre paintings sell he realizes he has no choice but to kill for inspiration. It’s an interesting commentary on our obsession with death and the role of the artist, which raises a lot of questions. Questions like “Why couldn’t he just paint boobies?” This episode could be wall-to-wall boobs, and then like a ghost or whatever, but sadly they went a different way. There is a sex scene where you do see a lady’s butt which is super cool, but her nips stay just out of frame. 2 stars.
A farmer tries to sleep with a blackmailed semi-captive girl on his farm by exploiting her mental illness. It’s a pretty messed up plot, but when it first aired and we were in middle school we thought the plot was just “Patricia Arquette is in a wet tank top.” Anyway, he gets what’s coming to him.
A miserly and abusive funeral home owner takes in his nephew after his parents are killed in an accident. The boy clashes with his uncle over his miserly habits, like stealing the corpse’s gold teeth and embalming them with tap water. When he threatens to go to the police the mortician murders him, which is a big mistake in “Tales from the Crypt” and sure enough his nephew’s ghost comes back for revenge. It’s a thrilling episode and the parts where we weren’t frantically scanning the screen for a nipple had us on the edge of our seat. In other words, at no point were we on the edge of our seats.