Friday, April 24, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Worst Movie Ever Made
I remembered this awful movie when I caught word yesterday that my middle school girlfriend got a sex change last year. I did a little Googling and came across her blog that said this:"I never dressed as a feminine woman or dated men as a female..."
What a liar! Did she forget all about our magical month together in 7th grade? Anyway, we were inexplicably in the front row of the sold out theater seeing this creepy, creepy film.
"A marvelously witty and wacky black comedy"?! The critic must have been referring to Sinbad's "Houseguest". And geez, how old is Mary Steenburgen now?
If you're wondering, the horrible film grossed $7.5 million, half of which seemed to have come from my local theater.
Movie Star Death Frequencies
Friday, April 17, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
When Larry Met Woody
NY Observer has the piece. It's a good one.So, a new Woody Allen movie starring Larry David filmed right here in New York City. Could there be a more deep-fried mix of talent, comedy and neuroses? For most of us, Woody Allen is as quintessential New York as the Chrysler Building. Many New Yorkers grew up with a vision of this city spun by Annie Hall and Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters, where the skyline always twinkles and romance lurks around every limestoned corner; where brainy, nervous men charm young and naïve beautiful women in grand prewar apartments lined with bookshelves; where there are country weekends with lobsters to chase and always—always—love to find and fail.
And then there’s Larry David, another Brooklyn boy made good, co-creator and writer of Seinfeld, which defined New York all over again in the ’90s, with its exquisite, endless examinations and sweating of the small stuff—soup Nazis, being master of the domain, parking garages and puffy shirts. Since his 1999 HBO special Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the still-airing series that followed, he’s made performance masterpieces of excruciating situations. The news that he was to star in Mr. Allen’s latest had some rubbing their hands in anticipatory delight, others sharpening their knives, all anxious to see if Mr. David could pull off the ultimate as a Woody misanthropic paradigm.
And then there’s Larry David, another Brooklyn boy made good, co-creator and writer of Seinfeld, which defined New York all over again in the ’90s, with its exquisite, endless examinations and sweating of the small stuff—soup Nazis, being master of the domain, parking garages and puffy shirts. Since his 1999 HBO special Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the still-airing series that followed, he’s made performance masterpieces of excruciating situations. The news that he was to star in Mr. Allen’s latest had some rubbing their hands in anticipatory delight, others sharpening their knives, all anxious to see if Mr. David could pull off the ultimate as a Woody misanthropic paradigm.
The Perils of Social Media
From the NY Times:When two Domino’s Pizza employees filmed a prank in the restaurant’s kitchen, they decided to post it online. In a few days, thanks to the power of social media, they ended up with felony charges, more than a million disgusted viewers, and a major company facing a public relations crisis.
In videos posted on YouTube and elsewhere this week, a Domino’s employee in Conover, N.C., prepared sandwiches for delivery while putting cheese up his nose, nasal mucus on the sandwiches, and violating other health-code standards while a fellow employee provided narration. The two were charged with delivering prohibited foods.
By Wednesday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than a million times on YouTube. References to it were in five of the 12 results on the first page of Google search for “Dominos,” and discussions about Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter.
Below is Domino's response video which has been praised in USA Today:
The CIA Interrogation Memos
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3a, Part 3b, Part 4a, Part 4b
And Obama's statement:
This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.
And Obama's statement:
This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.
The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Nukes
Steve Coll of The New Yorker lays out Obama's challenge of striving towards nuclear non-proliferation:"Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and Sam Nunn are among the Cold War-era defense hawks who have preceded Obama to an embrace of nuclear abolition. Even so, it is commonplace to criticize this vision as naïve, since the goal is unlikely to be achievable anytime soon. This criticism distorts the abolitionist movement’s work; its supporters do not generally waste time on speculative debates about when and how a world containing precisely zero nuclear weapons might eventually be created. Instead, they want to drive down the world’s nine nuclear arsenals to much smaller sizes as quickly as possible—perhaps to the tens or low hundreds of weapons, in the case of the United States—and, while doing so, to make nuclear weapons as illegitimate and impractical as possible."
Monday, April 13, 2009
Still a Politician
I love Obama, but sometimes I'm reminded that in many ways, he is still a politician. Nowhere is this more apparent than his stance on gay marriage. He is FOR civil unions but AGAINST gay marriage. Now, it's understandable why he held this position during the campaign; He was courting independents who were more likely to be swayed by social issues.However, the Windy City Times reported that when President Obama ran for the Illinois State Senate in 1996, he was unequivocally for same-sex marriage President-elect Obama’s answer to a 1996 Outlines newspaper question on marriage was:
“I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” There was no use of the phrase “civil unions”
Granted, it's possible Obama has changed his views over the past 13 years, but more than likely he has been playing politics. As the population continues to shift towards favoring gay marriage, I won't be surprised when the President reverts back to his old stance.
The Voice of Summer
Growing up in South Jersey, I was never really a Phillies fan, but I was always a baseball fan. On summer days, after running around outside for hours, one of my favorite things to do was lay on the couch and flip on channel 57. The backdoor breeze and the voice of Harry Kalas calling the ballgame was summer personified to a 10 year-old. That unique, drawled, Midwestern delivery was so relaxing, so unmistakable. And the call- everyone from the area knows and has probably imitadated their own version of the call- "Looong fly ball to deep center field, it could be, it isss...ouuutta here, Mi-ckey Mour-an-di-ni!" Sad day.
Kalas calling the last 3 outs of the World Series
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Jason Kendall Sucks at Baseball
As I watched the dynamic duo of Jon Miller and Joe Morgan ruminate on how bad the Milwaukee Brewers catcher is in tonight's Sunday Night Baseball telecast, I had flashbacks similar to the end of The Sixth Sense remembering just how bad he was on the Oakland Athletics.He is hitless in 15AB this season. He hit .242 and .246 with a total of 5 home runs in '07 and '08, respectively. He is so bad that I made my friend be Jason Kendell while I was the fake Barry Bonds (Reggie Stocker) in home run derby MLB06 PS2 (I still lost, I am the Jason Kendall of video gamers). Not that I NEEDED validation, but I Googled "Jason Kendall sucks" and here's what I found in some of the first few results:
Danny's Blog: Does Jason Kendall Suck?
In closing, Jason Kendall sucks balls, and will be a giant black hole for the Brewers all year. Or until he is replaced. ..
Cubs Acquire Jason Kendall
Cubs got Jason Kendall for FREE (basically) Rob Bowen was sent to the A's .... Kendall sucks. But if he's better than the other options you guys have then ...
Why the 2009 Milwaukee Brewers Will Suck
Bleacher Nation ...Jason Kendall sucks both at and behind the plate. Bill Hall vanished last year, and now he’s hurt or something, leaving someone like Mike Lamb to start at ..
Baseball Toaster: Catfish Stew : Kid Kendall
My five-year-old daughter decided early in the season that Jason Kendall was ... her dad thinks that player sucks
By the way, Kendall makes $5 million a year
Dear Zachary: The Craziest Documentary I Have Ever Seen
Basic premise:
Crazed woman kills boyfriend after he breaks up with her,
Flees to Canada where they drag their heels on the extradition back to the U.S.,
Woman announces she is pregnant with victim's son,
Best friend/filmmaker decides to document his life, interviewing friends/family/etc.,
Then everything goes completely haywire.
MSNBC aired this a few months ago (part 1 is here), but if you are looking for something to add to your Netflix queue, I recommend picking Dear Zachary . It is jarring:
"Stamping it bluntly, Dear Zachary is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen and I am not prone to such hyperbolic statements. Kurt Kuenne has remarkably turned this into a furious lightning bolt of reminiscence and outrage that is going to reach into each viewer's chest and squeeze their heart like a tomato in a vice. Dear Zachary unfolds like a masterful thriller that never loses respect for the wake its tragedies have left. And still, by the end when we're exhausted and ready to collapse under the weight of our tears and anger, Kuenne has created an absolute love letter to the art of parenting...it's the best documentary of its kind probably since Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line. This is Oscar-worthy material and hopefully enough people on the committees will see it and cast a vote for next year." - Erik Childress, eFilmCritic.com
Story Time
From a friend:
One of the dumbest things I ever did in my youth was explain to my mother how to use AOL. When her father passed away, our family got some money and decided to hop onto the exciting rollercoaster that was the budding internet revolution.
I was 11 years old at the time, and I would bop around in the VH1 chatroom. It was the only one I could find that seemed remotely relevant to anything I liked. I would type in A/S/L and talk about how much I loved Hanson to a bunch of middle aged people that did not respond or care.
A few months later, more people bought computers, and my mom started to take interest in what I was doing on there. I excitedly explained the wonderful world of talking to strangers and how much easier it was to talk to my aunt in an instant message box. I showed her how to go into chatrooms and explained the typical protocol and she was excited to explore the world herself. Soon after she began to spend hours transfixed in front of the screen in the Long Island Over 40 Chatroom, not even talking, but simply watching other people in the chatroom converse.
This was around the time my parent’s marriage hit the skids. My mom spent a lot of time on the computer, and one day my dad came home with another computer and said we would get a second AOL account so that the rest of the family could actually use the internet. He put the computer in the basement, and as you might have guessed, it wasn’t long before he too spent much of his free time in the basement on that computer.
Whenever any of us would go down to the basement, my dad would immediately close all the screens on the computer. My mom clearly became curious as to what exactly my father was doing on the computer for so many hours. Her solution for this was to enlist a spy, 12 year old me, to try to find out. I guess in all honesty at the time I was excited to spy on my father, because at least if I could report something back to my mom, she would care enough to talk to me.
At random times during evenings, I would try different approaches to seeing what was on the screen. Sometimes I would try to run down the stairs, pretending I had something exciting to tell him. I wanted to catch him off guard before he had time to close all the windows. Other times I would creep down the stairs, hoping he wouldn’t hear me before I got far enough down to see the screen. My favorite was opening the door and laying my body partially crawled down the stairs while I craned my neck to view the monitor.
I never saw anything, however, because my glasses were broken and my parents were not interested in replacing them.
One of the dumbest things I ever did in my youth was explain to my mother how to use AOL. When her father passed away, our family got some money and decided to hop onto the exciting rollercoaster that was the budding internet revolution.
I was 11 years old at the time, and I would bop around in the VH1 chatroom. It was the only one I could find that seemed remotely relevant to anything I liked. I would type in A/S/L and talk about how much I loved Hanson to a bunch of middle aged people that did not respond or care.
A few months later, more people bought computers, and my mom started to take interest in what I was doing on there. I excitedly explained the wonderful world of talking to strangers and how much easier it was to talk to my aunt in an instant message box. I showed her how to go into chatrooms and explained the typical protocol and she was excited to explore the world herself. Soon after she began to spend hours transfixed in front of the screen in the Long Island Over 40 Chatroom, not even talking, but simply watching other people in the chatroom converse.
This was around the time my parent’s marriage hit the skids. My mom spent a lot of time on the computer, and one day my dad came home with another computer and said we would get a second AOL account so that the rest of the family could actually use the internet. He put the computer in the basement, and as you might have guessed, it wasn’t long before he too spent much of his free time in the basement on that computer.
Whenever any of us would go down to the basement, my dad would immediately close all the screens on the computer. My mom clearly became curious as to what exactly my father was doing on the computer for so many hours. Her solution for this was to enlist a spy, 12 year old me, to try to find out. I guess in all honesty at the time I was excited to spy on my father, because at least if I could report something back to my mom, she would care enough to talk to me.
At random times during evenings, I would try different approaches to seeing what was on the screen. Sometimes I would try to run down the stairs, pretending I had something exciting to tell him. I wanted to catch him off guard before he had time to close all the windows. Other times I would creep down the stairs, hoping he wouldn’t hear me before I got far enough down to see the screen. My favorite was opening the door and laying my body partially crawled down the stairs while I craned my neck to view the monitor.
I never saw anything, however, because my glasses were broken and my parents were not interested in replacing them.
[ed. note: I was not expecting this M Night Shamalamadingdong twist ending]
Is YouTube Doomed?
Fliqz CEO Benjamin Wayne thinks so:
"The problem lies with the bean-counters. According to a report by Credit Suisse, YouTube is on track to lose roughly $470 million in 2009. No matter Google’s $116 billion market cap: a half-billion dollar loss on a single property, even one as large as YouTube, is a bitter pill to swallow. Even Eric Schmidt, talking to the New York Times about the YouTube acquisition, was quick to say that, going forward, Google would “be more careful with potential large expense streams, which are of uncertain return.”
"The problem lies with the bean-counters. According to a report by Credit Suisse, YouTube is on track to lose roughly $470 million in 2009. No matter Google’s $116 billion market cap: a half-billion dollar loss on a single property, even one as large as YouTube, is a bitter pill to swallow. Even Eric Schmidt, talking to the New York Times about the YouTube acquisition, was quick to say that, going forward, Google would “be more careful with potential large expense streams, which are of uncertain return.”
Credit Suisse estimates YouTube will manage to rake in about $240 million in ad revenue in 2009, against operating costs of roughly $711 million, leading to a shortfall of just over $470 million. This half-billion dollar loss comes after more than a year of feverish experimentation in various forms of advertising, cross-product embedding, licensing and partnership deals. YouTube is adamant that ultimately they’ll find an advertising solution that will enable the ungainly behemoth to reach profitability. Looking at the math, it doesn’t seem likely."
The YouTube Presidency
From the New York Times:
"... and while Obama’s campaign speeches weren’t delivered expressly for YouTube the way Oval Office addresses are delivered for TV, the versions of those speeches millions of us saw were tailored to the site, with titles, omissions, crowd cutaways, highlight footage and a dozen other manipulations of sound and image that affected the impression they made. When Obama delivered his speech on race a year ago, the campaign uploaded, for example, its own version of the speech; it was cleaner and more elegantly produced than the CNN version, and it has been played more than 1.5 million times.
"... and while Obama’s campaign speeches weren’t delivered expressly for YouTube the way Oval Office addresses are delivered for TV, the versions of those speeches millions of us saw were tailored to the site, with titles, omissions, crowd cutaways, highlight footage and a dozen other manipulations of sound and image that affected the impression they made. When Obama delivered his speech on race a year ago, the campaign uploaded, for example, its own version of the speech; it was cleaner and more elegantly produced than the CNN version, and it has been played more than 1.5 million times.
Every one of the president’s weekly public-address videos is conspicuously labeled “public domain,” and commentary is welcome. Plenty of detractors weigh in. Name-calling — “socialist pig,” “fascist in chief” — jostles for space with praise (“Nice to have an articulate, intelligent, thoughtful president again”). In general, the effect is one of openness and inclusiveness, even as the shooting and spreading of the videos has been tightly controlled. As of this writing, no video has surfaced, for example, from a St. Patrick’s Day White House event with the Irish prime minster, at which Obama thanked himself in an effort to parody an earlier teleprompter mishap. Could this be because his joke might be taken out of context by those who consider him the Teleprompter President?"
Saturday, April 11, 2009
iamdiddyJust leavin the club!!!! Now the party really begins!!!! You only live once!!!! Just do it!!!!! Close your eyes and JUMP!!!!! Let's go!!!!
iamdiddyI'm so HIGH off life right now!!!! Get HIGH with me!!!! Off of life!!! Life is such a blessing!!!! Thank you GOD!!!!!!
iamdiddyIts 330 am!!!! Are you LOCKED IN????!!!!! Let's go!!! Who's wit me????
iamdiddyI'm so HIGH off life right now!!!! Get HIGH with me!!!! Off of life!!! Life is such a blessing!!!! Thank you GOD!!!!!!
iamdiddyIts 330 am!!!! Are you LOCKED IN????!!!!! Let's go!!! Who's wit me????
Friday, April 10, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Good News
A silver lining to our deathscape economy, pirate attacks (and attacks on naked pirates), auto industry collapse and so on and so forth....
HBO's Eastbound and Down has been renewed!
"The premium cable network announced Wednesday (April 8th) that production on a new run of “Eastbound & Down” will begin later this year and will premiere in 2010"
I wonder if Kenny Powers will chime in on the news.
HBO's Eastbound and Down has been renewed!
"The premium cable network announced Wednesday (April 8th) that production on a new run of “Eastbound & Down” will begin later this year and will premiere in 2010"
I wonder if Kenny Powers will chime in on the news.
Pirates! No, Not Those Ones
The University of Maryland was to show the porno titled Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge at its student union last week. BUT, Maryland State Senator and total buzzkill, Andrew Harris (arrrrR-MD), wasn't too keen on the idea of a public university airing porn so he threatened to withhold school funding.University of Maryland, home to incessant Israel versus Palestine sidewalk chalk wars, riots, and library masturbators, is not one to shy away from controversy. So some administrators, lawyers, ACLU members and students held a "rebel screening" to air pornographic footage and teach all sorts of "Full House" lessons about copulation and the responsibility of caring for Comet.
The stuffy TIME version of the events are here
The fun Gawker versions are here and here
And the Diamondback student newspaper piece here
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Roid Ball
Addicting Games decided to steal the idea my friend Jaiah and I had in college to create a video game where the protagonist uses steroids.
Our game would start out with this nerdy kid who gets picked on by all the bigger guys at school, including the most roided-up, bacne'd linebacker. In the each level, the hero has to fight increasingly big kids from school and steal their creatine, HGH, and so on until he's huge enough to beat up the guys who have the good stuff like Winstrol or Danabol on their person. Once he's jacked and raging out of control, Roid Man takes on the linebacker to win the heart of the slutty cheerleader.
Unfortunately, neither of us knew anything about Flash, programing or basically anything that would have let us realize our dream of creating "Roid Man". So here is the next best thing, I guess. Compete in home run derby as Josie Conswaco, Berry Bombs, Marky McWeird (among others) and choose whether or not he's training on the juice. You might hit more home runs, but watch out for random drug tests!
(credit: deadspin)
The Facebook Revolt
NY Mag's 4,000 word feature on Facebook:"This is a crucial moment for Facebook, and a delicate one, because We, the users, are what Facebook is selling. “Facebook is walking a fine line of keeping the trust of its members, and wanting to exploit them for profit,” says Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch. “It’s having a tough time balancing the two.” In 2007, the company was valued at $15 billion, after Microsoft bought a 1.6 percent stake for $240 million, but profit has been elusive. If they can solve this problem, come up with a viable business model—one might note that if they charged $1 a month for the service and even half its users stuck around, it would take in $100 million each month—it could go public and even become the first big IPO to reinvigorate the market; if Facebook doesn’t, Zuckerberg & Co. will struggle to resist a takeover by a very rich tech company (well, Microsoft) for a fire-sale price of a billion or two. After CFO Gideon Yu announced his exit last week, the company claimed that it was looking for a replacement with public-company experience, but the way forward is far from clear. The history of social networks is an absurd one of missed opportunities, from Tripod to Geocities to AOL, though Facebook thus far has avoided their pitfalls. It’s been unaffected by Friendster’s technical glitches and its taint of uncoolness; Facebook’s antiseptic design clears away the lascivious, spam-ified, knife-wielding clutter of MySpace, a site that was double Facebook’s size in the U.S. eight months ago but whose technological innovation has been stymied by News Corp until recently."
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Inside North Korea
In honor of the test launch this morning (night?), here is a rare look inside North Korea. Shane Smith, founder of VBS.tv, was one of 16 journalists granted permission to visit the country through a bizarre visa process. Things only got weirder as you'll see. Below is one of 14 clips touching on different aspects of North Korea including: The DMZ, Pyongyang, Schoolchildren, Memorials an Gifts, and Karaoke! I recommend watching them all. The whole thing is insane.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
UNC Hate
Not my words, but they might as well be:
I hate this fucking UNC team. I hate them more than hitting my funny bone, more than Coke Zero commercials, more than when my roommate blasts TV at 4 AM right outside my door, more than philosophically wrong Pitchfork Media reviews, more than using scripture as a basis for human thought, more than war, more than hippies, more than Don Delillo's "literary" books, more than the flex offense, more than college football's bowl system, more than the college loan system, more than the fact that banks charge you thirty dollars when you have negative money already, more than failure, more than condoms, more than hangovers, more than jovial greeters at chain bookstores, more than the word "intense," more than when people use "u" instead of you on the internet or text messages, more than people who say the NCAA tourney is "boring" when good teams win against smaller seeds no matter how good the games were, more than people who constantly claim thaty classic rock is underrated despite the fact that it has entire radio stations, more than people who voted against gay marriage and hate being married themselves, more than slavery, more than radio rap, more than white Jesus, more than the horror film genre, more than bad pizza, more than teams that jack up threes when they get panicked, more than bad announcing, more than Van Halen, more than David Spade now that he is old, more than reality television's vast expanse of anti-knowledge, more than life itself, more than the crippling loneliness and depression that haunts me for long periods of time, more than work, more than the word "diva," more than passive-aggressiveness, more than spam emails, more than the shakes after a binge, more than my boss, more than freedom fries, more than rhyming dictionaries, more than people who say "whoa, you must be really smart" whenever someone mentions a book over the level of "Chasing Harry Winston" et al, people who get mad when bands change their sound a bit, more than the its-it's rule, more than referees allowing big guys to get calls thye don't deserve way too early in games, more than the mess I clean after parties at my house, more than hemorrhoids, more than animal rights, more than the smell of hand sanitizer, more than people that bring up politics no matter the surrounding, more than assholes who walk slower than the crowd, more than all the petty grievances I have had, will have, or have presently, more than all of it-- all.
Top Stories
Here are some of the top stories around the country
NYT: Europeans Offer Few New Troops to Afghanistan
WaPo: Celebrity Adoptions Scrutinized
LA Times: Extra Extra Coming Out of the Woodwork
Sun-Times: Obama Makes Pitch for 2016 Olympics
SF Chronicle: 25 Years of Wrestlemania
Miami Herald: Obama Set to Ease Cuban Ban on Travel, Money
Detroit Free Press: It's Loud, Busy, and Packed at the Final Four
Dallas-Morning News: Plano, Area Cities Looking to Video Game Industry for jobs
Atlanta-Journal Constitution: Sign AT&T Contract, Get a 50$ Laptop
NYT: Europeans Offer Few New Troops to Afghanistan
WaPo: Celebrity Adoptions Scrutinized
LA Times: Extra Extra Coming Out of the Woodwork
Sun-Times: Obama Makes Pitch for 2016 Olympics
SF Chronicle: 25 Years of Wrestlemania
Miami Herald: Obama Set to Ease Cuban Ban on Travel, Money
Detroit Free Press: It's Loud, Busy, and Packed at the Final Four
Dallas-Morning News: Plano, Area Cities Looking to Video Game Industry for jobs
Atlanta-Journal Constitution: Sign AT&T Contract, Get a 50$ Laptop
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The Cost of Beauty
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