How to Waste Your iTunes Gift Card

If you have relatives, friends, or coworkers who don’t know you very well but were forced by the societal pressures of the holiday season to buy you a Christmas gift, chances are pretty good that you got an iTunes gift card. iTunes gift cards are the modern day fruit cake, a great way to say, “I don’t know you at all or what you like here just get whatever you’re into and have it be from me I’m sorry our relationship is so shitty ok Merry Christmas bye.”

But iTunes gift cards do serve one very important purpose: They provide the chance to splurge on terrible, foolish purchases you would never spend actual money on. So go nuts. Buy the stupidest things you kinda, sorta want. Spend like no one’s monitoring your purchases. (Even though the NSA totally is, you guys.) Here is a list of totally wasteful things you would never really buy, but since they’re free, why not…

If sensuous poetry is your thing—and whose thing isn’t it really?—iTunes carries a spoken word album of love sonnets called When Love Speaks. It features a collection of love poems read by various people, all of whom become COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT when you realize that Alan “Voice of Hogwarts” Rickman is on it, reading Shakespeare.

If someone offered you the opportunity to see Vanilla Ice in what was billed in 1991 as a hip hop remake of Rebel Without a Cause, wouldn’t you trip over your Nike Air Maxes to buy this experience? You would. And fortunately, you can. Cool as Ice is available to rent from iTunes for only $3.99, but you’ll definitely want to shell out $14.99 and just buy the damn thing for repeated viewings of Ice’s ad libbed catchphrases like “Drop that zero and get with a hero.”

Let’s be honest. You’ve seen this guy on the subway ads, you’ve even heard him referenced in Method Man songs. You’re kind of curious to know what this dude is about. Not “real money” curious. But certainly, “fake iTunes money” curious.

It’s called “Oh No She Didn’t!” because that’s where we’re at as a society. But our culture going down the toilet aside, this episode is stellar. It’s so perfect, you’d think it was written by Shakespeare himself (if Shakespeare characters were covered in 40 pounds of makeup and pink leopard stretch pants). Olivia goes out with Tracy’s amateur bodybuilder ex-boyfriend behind her back, and well, I won’t spoil the ending for you but they beat the shit out of each other in a Sonic parking lot and cinnasticks go flying everywhere. I guess I did just ruin it for you there, but still, watch it.

Since the legendary Lou Reed passed away this year, many people will likely drop some Christmas cash on his albums. And while there are a ton of good ones you can buy (start with Transformer, obviously), this article is about how to foolishly waste your money. So with that in mind, you should download Lou’s cringeworthy rap song, “The Original Wrapper.” Not a bright spot in Lou’s career.

If you have flown on a plane or watched FX for more than five minutes over the last two years, chances are good that you’ve seen the Adam Sandisaster comedy, Grown Ups. It was absolutely terrible. Not a single joke in the whole thing. But at the same time, don’t you kind of want to see the sequel? Not so much to see the continuation of the story, because there was none (something about staying in a cabin?), but just out of morbid curiosity about whether the original can be topped in terms of sheer humorlessness. You owe it to yourself.

Sometimes, you just want to spend a Sunday morning lying in bed, thinking about deep stuff, while listening to “Hallelujah.” Well, lucky for you and your emo side, you can download at least 20 different versions of thing. First, make sure you have the Jeff Buckley version, obvz. But then dig into the lesser versions—Rufus Wainwright, k.d. lang, Susan Boyle, Il Divo, Jason Castro, and of course, the original Leonard Cohen version. There’s even a parody version about Hurricane Sandy by Adam Sandler and Paul Shaffer that includes the chorus—and this is sadly not a joke—”Hallelujah, Sandy, screw ya.” You can literally listen to this song for over two hours.

Look at these fucking idiots. Obviously you shouldn’t give them your real, actual money. But it’s sort of worth $11.99 worth of fake iTunes money to hear the irony of these homophobic hillbilly morons singing “Don we now our gay apparel." That, by the way, was from the song, “Duck the Halls” because duck puns! Get it?

Have you been meaning to see the Green Day musical but have been busy doing literally anything else for the last few years? Well good news. Now you can hear some theater kids ripping off Dillinger Four, instead of just Billie Joe for a change.

Shatoetry is an app where non-Patrick Stewart Star Trek captain, William Shatner, will read whatever you type. There are three different versions of every word so each time you make him say, “Suck my hairplugged balls, Apple iTunes agreement,” it’ll sound different. Well worth the $.99.

It’s called “If It Doesn’t Snow on Christmas” and guys, it is a dollar. A DOLLAR. A goddamn buck to hear Joe Pesci (aka Vincent LaGuardia Gambini) sing this underrated holiday classic. Oh, and while you’re at it, throw his rap song, “Wise Guy” into the cart as well.

LOL @ the idea of paying for music in 2013.

Dan Ozzi did not get iTunes gift cards this year but he did get Q-tips and tube socks. Follow him on Twitter - @danozzi