Spare a thought for Daz and Chip, two longtime companions who died within an hour of each other. “They were a great pair of otters,” says a former captor.

In Emily Gould’s glamorous home kitchen studio, she finally learns to properly make hollandaise with the very funny (if CANADIAN!) Kathryn Borel, the author of Corked: a Memoir, who is also admittedly the first (known) killer to participate in “Cooking the Books.” (Awkward!) As well, it turns out the secret of hollandaise is putting the butter in your pants? Cooking the Books is directed by Valerie Temple and shot and edited by Andrew Gauthier.

Are girls becoming more violent? Everything you see in the news would lead you to say yes. But a women’s studies professor and a researcher with the suspicious sounding name of Mike MALES say no.

We have examined every major index of crime on which the authorities rely. None show a recent increase in girls’ violence; in fact, every reliable measure shows that violence by girls has been plummeting for years. Major offenses like murder and robbery by girls are at their lowest levels in four decades. Fights, weapons possession, assaults and violent injuries by and toward girls have been plunging for at least a decade.

So who’s doing all the ladyviolence? “Among women ages 35 to 54, F.B.I. reports show, felony assault arrests rocketed from 7,100 in 1981 to 28,800 in 2008.” Good work, older women! At least you broads are trying to keep things even.

Horror Chick: Why We Should Rejoice for ‘Birdemic,’ AKA ‘The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made’

It’s tough to make bad movies in the Age of Irony. Once you reach a certain level of badness, it raises a slew of questions: is it an “ironically bad” movie, where the director is tossing us a wink-wink-nudge-nudge with every line of face-clawing dialogue? Or is the whole debacle a deliberate attempt at “look at our reverential homage” bad? (Cough cough, Inglourious Basterds.) Or maybe it’s “look at how bad this is but it’s so bad it’s actually good, and if you don’t think so then you don’t ‘get it’” bad? The whole thing gets so confusing (I have had it with this motherfucking irony in these motherfucking films!).

But what we can’t handle is the notion that a movie is JUST THAT BAD. The implication is too astounding: a human being actually made a sincere effort to produce something good, that resulted in a bottomless maw of pullulating awfulness. The idea throws us into a tailspin. How could the poor schmuck who made this frothing crockpot of pigshit not REALIZE how awful it was? How could he keep going? How could he not know how relentlessly he’d be mocked on the Internet if this catastrophe got released? The notion that such an un-self-aware person exists is too much to process — and as such, when someone does succeed in being so utterly guileless and making a movie that is UNGODLY BAD AND HE HAD NO IDEA, then we turn it into a cult classic out of sheer disbelief that such an earnest, non-jaded human still exists.

Which brings us to James Nguyen. He’s the living embodiment of everything Internet-addled snarkomatics love to tear down: a mid-level software salesman in Silicon Valley, in a Men’s Wearhouse suit, with a buzz cut high and tight, who one day woke up with the epically bad idea to make a low-budget horror movie. He then spent a hefty chunk of his free time and money writing, directing and producing one of the deepest pits of raw sewage ever shown onscreen. And, my dear irony addicts, after four years, he finished it.

The result, for those who don’t faithfully spend their Friday nights reading horror blogs (ahem) is Birdemic: Shock and Terror, and its infamy is growing. The plot — oh fuck it, there is no way I’m discussing this movie seriously. Just watch the clip.

So yeah. It’s bad. Break-the-fourth-wall bad. “I cannot physically take another second of this without asphyxiating in a pool of my own pancreatic juice” bad. Don’t believe me? Go see the entire thing at IFC this weekend (it’s there for a VERY limited engagement).

And yet at the heart of all that awfulness, there is something pure. At some point, the badness transcends itself and becomes a metaphor for human possibility. Nguyen’s cluelessness knows no bounds — dude drove a bus up and down the street during Sundance demanding that people watch his (summarily rejected from the film festival, since Sundance judges are a generally sane lot) film. And yet there’s something inspiring about the unlikeliest of filmmakers spending FOUR YEARS of his time and money creating a movie that so unequivocally sucks.

Why? Because, while we may laugh at him (I mean, not to be a bitch, but Jesus have you seen that clip???), we also reserve a little bit of awe — at the end of the day, it’s hard not to admire someone who can exist so entirely in his own universe, free from the persecution and perceived criticism of others. There’s no fear, no damning inner dialogue that floods him with doubt after every abysmal take: “But everyone will laugh at me! The Internet will erupt in practiced disdain, and bloggers will spew verbal giblets of well-honed snark and boil my self-esteem in peanut oil!” Just think how many books/movies/albums/Tumblrs/Youtube clips/LOLcat captions weren’t finished, sometimes weren’t even STARTED, because of that mental conversation? Just think how many of those sloppily aborted projects might have been GOOD! I once heard a brilliant writer say he’d written a novel, but banished it to a drawer after reading a blog comment saying his writing was “watery and subfuse.” I don’t know what the fuck that means, but it had this poor dude writhing in a millpond of creation-stomping self-hatred and throwing years of work on the fire.

But none of that exists for Nguyen. He floats above the bounding main of criticism, nestled in his determination and refusal to quit. There is only his dream, and a cashed-out 401K, and a crew of actors fired from Valtrex ads, and an unyielding desire.

So yes, Birdemic really is that bad. But at the end of the day, Nguyen wrote, directed, and completed a feature-length horror film, and now all the cool Internet kids are talking about it. So who’s the moron now?

Melissa Lafsky has got principles of pleasure.

You people have lost your minds over the iPad: “Your grandma will embrace it. Your aunt will embrace. Your cousins. Your kids. Everyone who doesn’t have a fucking clue about computers and don’t want to learn and don’t care. Everyone will jump into this new era of computing. Everyone.” I can happily admit it is gorgeous. And yet. We are gaga for a thing with an application that delivers a New York Times front page that only displays four whole stories? A thing that’s just like reading a book, a book with DRM encoding, so you don’t actually own it, and also book that weighs 1.5 pounds. (The average “actual” book weighs 12 ounces.) A thing that’s just like reading a magazine, so you can get Time magazine for $4.99, which is about 14 times the cost of a delivery subscription to the paper magazine. But those are all just quibbles, probably personal preferences. A real problem (apart from the “palpable contempt for the owner,” manifested in many ways) is that the iPad is a device that’s okay for consuming text, at least, but is designed to encourage you not to create at all.

My real objection to this development is that Apple has created a computing device that, for the first time in the brief history of computing devices, has as a design concept the need to actively resist the urges of people to make things.

The lack of a camera is a giant step backwards, for one thing: what people do now is document their lives and create images. This machine is for passive image-consumers.

Computers, you will recall, began their lives as machines for accomplishing tasks. (Calculating pi! Running spreadsheets!) Later, they became machines to assist in creative tasks as well. (Writing books, just like Carrie Bradshaw!) And now we have a computer-the future of computing, according to fan boys-that so significantly devalues the importance of creating text that it renders the entire device useless as anything but a consumption device.

This is not actually a computer! (Or: “iPad is more about experiencing media, and light sharing, than heavy-duty media production,” as our pal Xeni put it.) Light sharing! This is a viewscreen, and I keep coming back to the future of humanity a la Wall-E: it’s non-computing entertainment devices being touted as the future of computing in this manner that really worries me. Because what if they are the future? I mean, however will one type a little 402-word blog post in the future? One won’t.

Is there a more a dangerous place to work than at a McDonald’s? Remember last year, when the woman in Florida called 911 three times to report that the McDonald’s she was out had run out of chicken McNuggets? And then three months ago, when the woman in Ohio punched through a drive-thru station window for the same reason? Well on Sunday, in South Brunswick, NJ, a man, apparently frustrated that the filet-o-fish he’d ordered at the drive-thru was taking too long to appear, climbed from his car through the pick-up window, slapped an employee inside, grabbed his sandwich and walked out of the restaurant. What do they put in that food?

by Simon Dumenco

In today’s Tao of Dow, Wall Street reacts to:

• Justin Bieber’s disturbingly slack jaw.
• Justin Bieber’s trip to the dentist.

The Awl’s Morning Market Report:

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 70.44 points on Thursday to close at 10,927.07 as the market processed news that Oh my God, OMG Bieber is going to be OK!

Remember the viral sensation known as “OMG Bieber vs. OMG Cat”? Of course you do, it was yesterday. You may also recall Lindsay Robertson’s recent disturbing interview with cat expert Brad O’Farrell, who postulated that OMG Cat’s adorably slack jaw may have been be the sign of a serious health problem. Fearing the same for Bieber, I contacted a Bieber expert, who asked not to be named*. An excerpt from our four-hour conversation:

Bieber Expert: I think OMG Bieber is actually a sick Bieber. Teen pop stars don’t step out of character to personify people unless they’re sick…. I did a little research, and a teen pop star’s mouth hanging open is likely a sign of an infected tooth or an injured tongue. It may also be a broken jaw. In which case, its “OMG” face could be in response to the pain it was enduring.

And you know what? It turns out Bieber Expert was right! There was something wrong with Justin Bieber’s mouth! But — take a deep breath — he’s going to be alright, because he’s gotten it taken care of. Here’s the video proof: “Bieber After the Dentist.”

• Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 4.62 yesterday to close at 2,402.58 as investors greeted the news that Justin Bieber will not only not be dying of some hideous mouth disease, but will be the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” on April 10th (Tina Fey is hosting).

P.S. The market is closed today in observance of Good Friday. The Tao of Dow returns on Tuesday.

* Because he does not exist.

Simon Dumenco is The Awl’s Senior Wall Street Correspondent and Justin Bieber Bureau Chief.

Jerald F. terHorst, who served less than a month as White House Press Secretary to Gerald Ford, died yesterday at the age of 87. terHorst resigned in the wake of Ford’s decision to pardon Richard Nixon, a choice the Times notes “was — and still is — considered a rare act of conscience by a high-ranking public official.” terHorst’s three paragraph letter of resignation is still worth a read.

In the Last Year, It’s Like the Entire City of Philadelphia Lost Their Jobs

New employment numbers today! Here’s a brief digest for you. 48,000 people were hired by the census; “Service-producing industries added 121,000, including 39,000 in government.” There were 13,310,000 unemployed people a year ago; as of this March, there were 15,005,000. The number of people unemployed for more than six months is double what it was a year ago. Average weekly earnings went from $750.72 to $763.98 over the course of a year. The full-time worker (“unemployed persons who have expressed a desire to work full time or are on layoff from full-time jobs”) unemployment rate was 9.3% a year ago; it is now 10.5%.

Scott Roeder, who murdered Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller last May, was sentenced to life in prison yesterday. “The blood of babies is on your hands,” shouted Roeder on his way out.