Little Superstar

Categories: weird, youtube

If you think you might feel bad about watching a midget break dance on the internet, just move along.

CONTINUE

Life Imitates Art

Categories: stupid, television, news

Life imitates art today on YouTube. At least if you watch Family Guy. Asian reporter Trisha Takanawa Olivia Chang demonstrates what its like to get tasered. I am fairly certain my local news doesn't make their field reporters do this stuff, yet I am fully aware that getting tasered is something I should avoid.

CONTINUE

The Fall Television Lineup

Categories: television, news, cool, opinion

So here is what I have set on my DVR for the next few weeks now that every show is or will be starting:

Monday
Prison Break (8pm, Fox)
Heroes (9pm, NBC, starts tonight)
CSI: Miami (10 pm CBS)

Tuesday
Friday Night Lights (8pm, NBC, Oct. 3)
Standoff (9pm, Fox)
Nip/Tuck (10pm FX)
Smith (10pm CBS)

Wednesday
Jericho (8pm, CBS)
Justice (9pm, Fox)
Lost (9pm, ABC, Oct. 4)
CSI: New York (10pm, CBS)
South Park (10pm, Comedy Central, Oct. 4)

Thursday
Smallville (8pm, CW, starts Thursday)
The Office (8:30pm, NBC)
Grey's Anatomy (9pm, ABC)
Six Degrees (10pm, ABC)

History suggests that either I will get sick of a few of these shows, or some of them will be cancelled. At this point, Skeet Ullrich and the lack of hot chicks has Jericho as the lead candidate, but it's only had one episode, so things could change. Six Degrees is the least likely candidate (from the newcomers) because it has plenty of hot chicks and since I am never home Thursday nights, it gives me the perfect after work/before going out routine for Friday evenings. This is also the first year we have had CBS HD (that channel wasn't offered in our area until last week), which I think is partly responsible for the sudden boon of CBS programs. I used to think it was just an old, boring people channel for people obsessed with acronyms and washed up stars from other channels. But they have made an effort to show shows that don't suck, so I am giving them a shot this year. I really want to watch The Unit with Dennis Haysbert, but I just don't think that's going to happen.

So to summarize for all the TV execs out there here's what you need to give your show a shot with me: (1) don't be on at the same time as another show I watch. Direct competition forces me to choose, which is always worse for the challenger. (2) Have hot chicks. Hot chicks can act as distracting eye candy during crappy episodes or they can play integral roles on the show. At least one should do both. The rest is up to you. (3) If you have to put a show on Thursday night, it better be damned good. I have things to do that night and the DVR can old record so many shows at once.

CONTINUE

Nike And Italy

Categories: sports, ads, television, stupid

If there was ever anything that could prove to you that most companies are just attention whores and that Italian soccer players have no shame, this is it. Somehow Italians are fine with the fact that reality shows he went down faster than a drunk teenager after prom, yet the ad suggests he is the new Man Of Steel. This is roughly the equivalent of T.O. showing up on an NFL United Way ad helping kids and being a good teammate.

CONTINUE

The Office: Season 3

Categories: humor, television, awesome

According to Pam's (Jenna Fischer) MySpace page, the kiss in this scene was improvised by Steve Carell. My guess is that only a hug was in order but he decided to take things one step further. If you look closely you can see where he double checks with the camera man before he starts. It's only slightly more than the normal Michael/Jim camera shrug (which they mocked perfectly earlier in the episode). So the reactions to the kiss are completely genuine. B.J. Novak (Ryan) gets his face off camera while Jenna Fischer sits there with her mouth open. Mindy Kaling (Kelly) is smiling and almost clapping. This may have been the best episode they've ever made. Big Tuna, Gaydar, it was all hilarious. The only thing I didn't like was the very awkward face time with Roy, when he explained his DUI and said he wanted Pam back before crying. A little too serious for me.

CONTINUE

Home Shopping Network

Categories: stupid, television, humor

I still don't know who is putting these out onto the internet, but I really enjoy watching these idiots make a fool out of themselves while trying to take your money. Honestly who in their right mind says "well I always wanted a kitana, and if I knew where to buy one I would. [flips past channel 10] well, there's one right now. It must be destiny. Hello QVC..."

CONTINUE

M&M Dark Chocolate Movie References

Categories: games, awesome, film

This is fun. So far I am up to 18 references in 16 minutes. Click here to visit the M&M's Dark Chocolate movie page. They have a picture with a running timer that has 50 "dark" movie references in it. 16 of them are pretty simple. You just navigate your mouse around, and when you see a clue you can identify you click on it, a box comes up and you type in your answer. It turns green if you're correct and the clue gets marked in gray. If you're wrong the box turns red and you have to try again. This is the perfect friday afternoon time killing activity. If you got a really hard one, let me know. The hardest one I have gotten so far is Pumpkinhead, mostly because I had vaguely remembered knowing there was a movie by that title but wasn't sure if it was high profile enough to warrant inclusion in a contest like this.

CONTINUE

The Japanese Wasting Time

Categories: weird, television, japan

Here's video of a Japanese man attempting to open a beer bottle with a helicopter. There isn't much more I can explain.

CONTINUE

MSNBC's Freudian Slip

Categories: news, humor, television, youtube

Umm what kind of helicopter was that again?

CONTINUE

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Categories: weird, humor, psa

Sorrrrrrrrrry for the late notice. But today is Talk Like A Pirate Day, nationwide. So here is a picture of Keira Knightley. Yar would I like to loot her chest, plunder her booty and give her an all-around Jolly Rogering. I keed, I keed. Aaannnddd I ran out of pirate puns, so here's two jokes:

Q: How much do pirates expect to pay for corn?
A: buck an ear (Buccaneer).

Q: Why couldn't the teenage pirates go see a movie?
A: Because it was rated Arrrrrrr(gh).

Feel free to use those anytime you want. No credit needed.

CONTINUE

Michigan Football

Categories: sports, awesome, youtube

After this past Saturday's thrashing of Notre Dame I couldn't be more excited about the Michigan football season. It's been a while since they have had a game where they were firing on all cylinders, and to do it against the Irish only made it sweeter. It also served as a silencer to all those little ankle-biting schools like Michigan State, Iowa, Wisconsin and Penn State that like to shoot their mouths off when they beat Michigan. I don't really mind if they do so after the fact, but lately a couple of those schools have had the gall to expect wins against the Wolverines, even in the Big House. Your window of opportunity is now closed. Just ask Brady Quinn.

CONTINUE

Cartoon Nostalgia

Categories: television, opinion, awesome, youtube

I don't know if you watched as many cartoons as I did way back when, but I have to believe people in and around my age (26) grew up during the golden age of cartoons. After school, saturday mornings, pretty much any time you wanted you could find a great cartoon show on TV. For the sake of this argument I am going to call every 6 years of television a generation, because that is about how long a great series lasts. So maybe every generation believes that they had the best programming but I have seen Dora the Explorer, Spongebob, Lilo & Stitch, Yu Gi Oh, Kim Possible and every other piece of crap being pawned off on children today. It is no wonder kids are allegedly dumber less creative than they were 20 years ago.

I lived close enough to elementary school to walk their in fourth and fifth grade. During fifth grade I volunteered as a safety, and walked a couple of AM kindergartners home at lunch. In exchange I got to cut to the front of the lunch line when I got back. I barely had to wear that gay orange belt, unlike the before and after school safeties. But that is beside the point.

Everyday school would get out and since most of my friends had to take the bus there was no reason to hang around at the playground. So I would run home, jump a fence run, through a friend's sideyard and down the street to my house. Typically I would be home by 3:10.

3:00 Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers
3:30 Talespin
4:00 DuckTales
4:30 Darkwing Duck

At times the schedule changed and Bobby's World consistently found itself in the mix, but I don't remember exactly everything and what time it was on. At 5pm my parents got home and brought me to soccer practice. During the summer when I had nothing to do most days I had a nice little Pinwheel package on Nickelodeon that included The Adventures of the Little Koala, David The Gnome and The Elephant Show (with Sharon, Lois & Bram). The Elephant Show has been lost in the shuffle I guess, but their most famous bit was "Skinnamarinky dinky dinky, skinnamarinky do, I love you...", and it had all kinds of hand motions that I still (shockingly) remember. Some people probably watched Eureeka's Castle (I didn't) and Maya the Bee (I did occassionally). The there were cartoons that I somehow just jammed into my brain whenever I could find them. Looking back on it now I would have to guess they were all amazingly choreographed in some awesome chronological order so that there were never any conflicts in my daily two hour window of cartoons plus my three hour saturday morning time slot (when I didn't have soccer). With the help of Retrojunk and YouTube, here is the list of cartoons that I used to watch (and would watch again if they were ever on TV):

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears
Transformers
Thundercats
Muppet Babies
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
GI Joe: A Real American Hero
The Real Ghostbusters
Beetlejuice
Jem and the Holograms (yeah, looking back I don't know how this fits)
Inspector Gadget
Voltron, Defender of the Universe
Garfield & Friends
Alvin & The Chipmunks
Heathcliff
The Smurfs
Denver The Last Dinosaur
Care Bears
X-Men: The Animated Series
Batman: The Animated Series
Dinosaucers
Shirt Tales
Reading Rainbow
The Jetsons (Judy Jetson was hot, and I wanted their doorbell)
Challenge of the GoBots
Spiderman (1995)
The Super Mario Brothers Super Show (I have this song on my iPod)
The Little Prince

I left some shows off like Fat Albert and Fraggle Rock because I never really watched them despite their relative popularity. Fraggle Rock seemed like a Muppets knockoff, and I didn't really even watch The Muppet Show, just Muppet Babies.

In going through all of this, I realize now that I have probably been watching about an hour of animated television (on average, minus weekends) since I was about 7 years old. Even now I come pretty close to that with Family Guy, Futurama and King Of The Hill reruns on daily during the week. Anyways I hope you had as much fun clicking through those links as I did making it.

By the way are you suprised at how much you could remember of some of the theme songs? I wish they could take the people that write them and force them to make informational music as well. If I could remember geometric theorems with relative accuracy and consistency that I remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song I would probably be a world renowned architect.

And lastly, why didn't Darkwing Duck ever address the fact that they took both Gyro Gearloose (by proxy of Fenton Crackshell, aka GizmoDuck) and Launchpad McQuack from Ducktales?

And also, why when everyname in both Darkwing Duck and Ducktales is some play on water fowl (Drake Mallard, etc.) are Huey, Duey and Louie members of The Junior Woodchucks? That seems odd to me.

CONTINUE

The Buffalo Sentence

Categories: weird

Are you ready to blow your mind? This is a grammatically correct sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

Here's why:

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

1. The city of Buffalo, New York.
2. The animal "buffalo", in the plural (equivalent to "buffaloes"), in order to avoid articles.
3. The verb "buffalo", meaning to confuse, deceive, or intimidate

Now if you break everything down and begin replacing the word buffalo to keep the same meaning but make things more clear you have:

Buffalo buffaloes that Buffalo buffaloes buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffaloes.

Followed by:

New York bison that New York bison intimidate, intimidate New York bison.

and finally:

The Buffalo bison that Buffalo bison intimidate, intimidate Buffalo bison.

Here is an example of a clearer sentence with the same structure in case it still doesn't make sense:

Many things many people say confuse many people.

Oh and the Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo sentence can be extended infinitely and it will always be correct. It will just be a run-on sentence.

Isn't that crazy?

CONTINUE

Probably A Terrible Idea

Categories: tech, weird

I like propane patio heaters as much as the next guy, especially when you're at an outdoor bar/restaurant enjoying yourself in the last summer/early fall. Normal places have the overhead, mushroom top design for what I assume is maximum saftey. I can only imagine this model is designed for minimum safety. Its the Bistro Table Patio Heater TD101. As you can see the top is an actual tabletop where you can rest drinks, meals and other items. The stand is an inferno of propane-fueled heat. I know I wouldn't want to risk waering open-toed shoes, sandals, or any non-heavy duty cotton materials near that thing. For guys I guess it might be as much of a problem, but women always seem to have flowing skirts, dresses, scarves and belt thingys that could potentially create a dangerous situation. If you go to Gizmodo, you can see a picture of four model friends standing around one of these with at least an 18 inch buffer like a middle school slow dance.

CONTINUE

Kate Carpenter?

Categories: women, film, stupid

Dude, Kate Bosworth needs to start eating sandwiches. After looking at this picture I have the sudden urge to play the xylophone. That is just gross (enlarge for full effect). More photos here.

CONTINUE

Lost City Of Chernobyl

Categories: news, cool, weird

Last night Peter sent me this link to an amateur tour of Chernobyl that a russian blogger took within the last year. Last April was the 20th anniversary of the nuclear disaster there. I was only 5 years old at the time so that and Three Mile Island are events that sort of got lost in the cracks because I was not old enough to remember them being in the news and they were never properly addressed in school. You can tell from the blog that English is not the writers native language but the descriptions are close enough that you can understand everything pretty easily. It really is amazing to see an entire city deserted, yet still standing. It totally reminded me of Resident Evil. Peter pointed out that from the photos and descriptions the power plant seemed to be the main attraction of the town, with a ferris wheel and other carnival games located nearby. Anyhow if you are interested in that sort of thing, its really a pretty interesting Planet Of the Apes/12 Monkeys look at how cities might look if any of the dozens of "end of days /viral epidemic/man-made apocalypse" scenarios you see in movies actually happened.

Thanks for the link Peter.

EnglishRussia.com - Lost City of Chernobyl

CONTINUE

Borat Buys a House

Categories: television, humor, politics

Just to sort of drive home the absurdity of George W. Bush speaking to the leaders and peeople of Kazakhstan about Sacha Baren Cohen's "Borat", here is a clip of Borat trying to buy a house. And I sincerely hope the realtor was just trying to tell him what he wanted to hear when he mentioned knowing people who burned bodies in their backyard.

CONTINUE

The National Security Surveillance Act

Categories: news, politics, law, opinion, stupid,

About a month ago if you weren't distracted by the latest developments in the JonBenet Ramsey case you might have noticed that a circuit court judge in Detroit ruled the NSA's warrantless wire-tapping program was unconstitutional. In the roughly 30 days since then, Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter has been writing a bill called the National Security Surveillance Act which aims to circumvent judge Anna Diggs Taylor's ruling. Among the key parts of the bill that was recently voted on and passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee were the following:

[The Bill] Redefines surveillance so that only programs that catch the substance of a communication need oversight. Any government surveillance that captures, analyzes and stores patterns of communications such as phone records, or e-mail and website addresses, is no longer considered surveillance.

Expands the section of law that allows the attorney general to authorize spying on foreign embassies, so long as there's no "substantial likelihood" that an American's communication would be captured.

Repeals the provision of federal law that allows the government unfettered wiretapping and physical searches without warrants or notification for 15 days after a declaration of war. The lack of any congressional restraint on the president's wartime powers arguably puts the president at the height, rather than the ebb, of his powers in any time of war, even an undeclared one.

Repeals the provision of federal law that limits the government's wartime powers to conduct warrantless wiretapping and physical searches to a period of 15 days after a declaration of war.

Repeals the provision of federal law that puts a time limit on the government's wartime powers to conduct warrantless wiretapping and physical searches against Americans. Under current law, the president has that power for only 15 days following a declaration of war.

Allows the attorney general, or anyone he or she designates, to authorize widespread domestic spying, such as monitoring all instant-messaging systems in the country, so long as the government promises to delete anything not terrorism-related.

Moves all court challenges to the NSA surveillance program to a secretive court in Washington, D.C., comprised of judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Only government lawyers would be allowed in the courtroom.

Allows the government to get warrants for surveillance programs as a whole, instead of having to describe to a judge the particular persons to be monitored and the methods to be used.

If you didn't read or understand all of that let me summarize: Everything will be done behind closed doors and in secret. You just have to trust the government that none of it will be abused. Oh and once we are at war, the President's ability to authorize warrantless wiretapping and warrantless physical searches of Americans is extended indefinitely (when before he had only 15 days following the declaration of war).

On top of steamrolling most of our civil rights, Specter wants to introduce the bill to the Senate as a voice vote under something called a unanimous consent motion, which essentially eliminates any records of individual votes for and against. So in 2008 when (hopefully) we realize the mistakes that have been made in the name of security, nobody will be accountable because there will be no individual voting records on this issue. This bill is makes the Patriot Act look like a firm massage with a happy ending by comparison.

If by some chance the voting records are recorded and available between now and the November elections, I will do my best to find out what the tally was so that you can be fully informed as to which of your state's representatives are handing over your freedoms before you cast your votes.

CONTINUE

An iPod PSA

Categories: tech, music, psa

I just wanted to get this out there. If you are looking for a way to play your iPod on external speakers in your home, you don't need an iPod Boombox or any of the other all-in-one devices that retails from $100-$200. In most cases you probably don't even need an indoor iTrip. All you need is this cable pictured below and a receiver with an RCA cable (red/white) input. It's called a Mini-to-RCA Y Cable and it sells for about $6 if you're smart, or $30 if you're dumb and buy the Monster Cable brand. I have two of them in my house, one hooks up to the stereo in my room and the other to the receiver for our home stereo setup. You simply plug the red/white into the back of your receiver and the black end into the earphone jack on your iPod. Then change mode on your receiver to match where you plugged in, you will hear sound coming out and you're all set. Generally I have discovered that you'll need to push both the receiver and iPod towards the higher end of their volume to get normal to loud sound levels.

I am guessing that a lot of people have figured this out already, but I keep seeing companies release these dockable all-in-one stereos. So I figure there are people out there that do not yet know any better.

CONTINUE

Mentos + Bloodsport

Categories: television, film, humor, ads

This is another one of those times when I just love the internet. I you haven't watched Bloodsport dozens of times on TBS, then you probably won't appreciate it as much. But I ran across this the other day and thought I should share.

CONTINUE

NFL Countdown

Categories: sports, television, awesome, youtube

Dan and I saw this Sunday morning while waiting for the NFL to get into full swing. I almost choked on my lunch doing a double take on Tom Jackson's response to Michael Irvin. I don't know that it is necessarily the right thing to say, but I couldn't be happier that someone finally called Michael Irvin out on his ridiculous opinions (although this particular one was not deserving of the response he got).

CONTINUE

Blog Stew

Categories: news, opinion

This picture just cracks me up. If you see me and I say the word emo, this is what I am talking about.

A bunch of different things that aren't really related and not large enough for individual posts:

iTunes 7
The new version is pretty awesome. You can automatically download album art through the iTunes store just by creating an account. So in the future when you rip CDs you don't have to meticulously find and place the album artwork yourself. I haven't really tested it to so how it handles stuff like double discs and importing albums already in mp3 format. Most of the other changes are pretty aesthetic, although the 'skip when shuffling' feature is pretty awesome for people like me who inexplicably have the entire Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtrack on their iPod and prefer to listen it in solitude so as to avoid mockery.

Steve Irwin
Australia is fighting back against wild marine life. Since The Crocodile Hunter's death Australia has reported that citizens have killed as many as ten stingrays in retaliation. Personally the thought of accidentally falling in the water and also getting stabbed in the heart by a stingray is enough for me to leave them be. Basically what this proves is that Australia is to the world what Texas is to the United States.

Lindsay Lohan
Yet another chance to acknowledge the sometimes bittersweet concept of celebrity. In the last week someone has taken to photoshopping upskirt pictures of Lindsay Lohan so that it looks like she is going commando. The photos are then passed off as real and make their way through the celebrity blog circuits. As much as I don't care for her movies (aside from Mean Girls), it's really not cool to simultaneously start a millions message board comments about the aesthetic beauty of someone's vagina. The comments I have seen are brutal to say the least. This one was definitely fake, the previous link is still being debated.

Justin Dolak
"At only 25 years of age, Justin Dolak has already become a force in the music industry" reads the description on Daily MySpace All-Star Justin Dolak's profile. Originally I thought I was going to have a great laugh but I listened to his cover of "SexyBack" and I must say it is equally as shitty as Justin Timberlake's version. Both of them sound like the vocals were recorded through a McDonald's drive-thru microphone.

Hi-Tech Weaponry
This one goes out almost exclusively to the campuses of Michigan State and Ohio State. Air Force secretary Michael Wayne is suggesting that new, non-lethal weaponry should be tested on unruly mobs here in the United States before being deployed abroad. Among the possible weapons he did not specifically mention are Pulse Energy Projectiles (PEPS) designed to inflict pain and temporary paralysis on its targets by "firing a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid... This appears to be the result of an electromagnetic pulse produced by the expanding plasma which triggers impulses in nerve cells."

Another option? The Directed Energy Weapon which works like this:

The weapon concentrates energy into a beam of micro-millimeter waves that penetrate clothes to rapidly heat moisture particles in the outermost layer of flesh without going deep enough to damage organs.

So perhaps the next time MSU or OSU wins or loses a big game you all should just stay inside your homes instead of taking to the streets, turning over cars and burning couches.

BMW
BMW will shortly be launching a line of 7 series cars fueled by pressurized, gaseous hydrogen. If you have ever seen a propane fueled fork truck, this is the same concept. Evidently the fatal flaws that made the Hindenburg famous are no longer a concern. The car can go 143 mph and the only biproduct of its fuel is water vapor.

Hongqi HQ3
The Chinese have developed a car capable of stopping at intersections, making turns, staying in between the road lines complementing passengers all by itself. The prototype goes about 37 mph, but the manufacturers claim it can actually reach a speed of about 90 mph before the vehicle becomes "confused". Not bad, I can think of a few times where I would welcome quite a few of these features. Even if it meant I could only get home at a maximum speed of 37 mph.

Borat
The two topics at the forefront of President Bush's sitdown with the leaders of Kazakhstan are oil and Sacha Baren Cohen. The Kazakh leaders are angry with the hilarious misrepresentation of their nation and their people. For whatever reason they have requested that President Bush of all people address this. Hopefully this will be recorded and made available to the public. I would like to see how well our fearless leader understands the differences between Sacha Baren Cohen, Borat, Bruno and Ali G. And I would really like to hear him pacify their outrage over statementents like this from Borat:

"Since 2003 ... Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world. Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats and age of consent has been raised to eight years old."

I don't know what is worse, that they want him to address this or that he is willing to do so.

CONTINUE

I Built The NFL

Categories: sports, television, opinion

I was reading Tuesday Morning Quarterback today which was discussing all of the financial deals the NFL has in place for broadcasting its games. As I read through it all I realized that all of it is made possible because of me. Not me the individual, but me the semi-obsessed NFL fan and the millions of me's in this world. Collectively we are like the IT from the eBay ad campaigns. Look at some of these numbers (I'll paraphrase):

Last night's ESPN Monday Night Football doubleheader cost the network $129 million in rights fees, plus production costs. Thats about $65 million per game, or $20 million per hour...

For television broadcast rights, the NFL now gets about $3.7 billion (combined) annually from ESPN, CBS, Fox, NBC and DirecTV...

...An average of $550,000 per player. That's the amount ESPN is putting in the average NFL player's purse for the 2006 season, and for seasons to come. The sum works out to $32,000 per Monday Night Football game. The next-highest rights fee on the landscape works out to about $12,000 from CBS to each NFL player for each game the Columbia Broadcasting System airs.

So last night when I stayed up until 12:30 AM to see if Randy Moss was going to catch a touchdown and start his season and my fantasy off on the right foot I was actively earning ESPN money. And all of this over a fantasy league I have been in for the last five years with 8-12 of my best friends. I bent over backwards to watch a west coast football game that might, but probably won't, factor into my 1 in 12 chances to win 75%-80% of $120 ($90-$96) and some pride. Because that's all I really care about. In all honesty the games are somewhat meaningless without a fantasy stake in them. Six years ago I was only mildly interested in the NFL. I watched the Lions because of Barry Sanders but not a whole lot else. It was good lazy TV watching fodder for Sunday afternoons and there was the social aspect of the Super Bowl, but most of the knowledge and opinions I had about NFL teams and players came from whatever I found about them as college players. Now because of fantasy, bragging rights and $96 I regularly watch almost 5 of the 16 weekly games and devote another 3-4 hours a week keeping up to date on the news and notes regarding my fantasy players. I am essentially the NFL's version of an indentured servant, happily doing their grunt work in exchange for a metaphorical warm meal and a bed while they use me to make a killing in the corporate world.

If the NFL wants to sell my rights as a viewer for billions annually, then I demand that they at least provide me with a free NFL Sunday Ticket so I can at the very minimum watch what I want to watch instead of getting stuck with regional broadcasts. Let's share the wealth. I want my 40 acres and a mule (oh yeah I went there).

CONTINUE

Five Years Later

Categories: news, psa

There's not too much to say five years later that hasn't already been said. Some things have changed some things have stayed the same. Rudy Guiliani still shows up at nationally televised New York sport events, perpetually fusing his fame with 9/11 for all eternity. Anyhow here a collection of links to different, more interesting stories related to 9/11.

CBS New York affiliate Traffic helicopter audio. Including live descriptions from eye witnesses of the second plane hitting the tower.

The perspective of the now 15 year-old students President Bush was reading to when he found out the WTC had been hit.

Jon Stewart's first Daily Show monologue following the attacks (video).

A Fark.com message board on 9/11/2001 discussing the information they were seeing/hearing from different cities/networks around the nation/world.

If you listen to the traffic helicopter it is amazing how much confusion there was even amongst people in New York City who saw everything with their naked eyes.

CONTINUE

Tarako Cupie Girls

Categories: television, japan, ads, weird, music

I found this on the TV In Japan blog. Apparently this is a national obsession in Japan right now. These two girls are spokespersons for a company that sells quick-serve egg noodles. I have no idea if that's what the song is about, but the song is enchanting. I tried to turn it off, but then these weird baby things appeared and the the oddity sucked me in while the song brainwashed me. Feel free to completely skip this post if you want to avoid having a bizarre Japanese song stuck in your head for the next few hours.

CONTINUE

How Quickly Things Change

Categories: science, future, opinion, weird

It is going on 2 am local time at the start of this post. I got home from The Chance (a bar) about an hour ago and have been futily attempting to fall asleep for the last 47 minutes. Evidently I neither drank enough to quickly fall into a drunken slumber nor remained sober enough to realize that sleep is a necessity. I unfortunately got to the point where my body believes the evening is just getting started. Anyhow a thought ran through my mind an hour ago while I was brushing my teeth. Plastic. The world one hundred years ago was amazingly different than it is now, and arguably the reason is two-fold: petroleum and plastic.

If you had a time machine and went back to 1906 and gave a layperson the choice between a small pile of gold and small reserve of oil, the answer would hardly be debated. Today the answer would be equally obvious but in the opposite direction. Oil is the far more valuable commodity. Though both are a finite substance, oil is being consumed at a much higher rate. Obviously. When politicians speak about breaking our oil dependency the obvious thought is the petroleum consumption of automobiles, but realistically we should also consider the equal importance of plastics in global economies. Most commercial plastics are produced from petroleum-based raw materials, so as oil supply dwindles and prices rise so will the cost and availability of plastics. A quick glance at the products in my own bedroom found the computer I am using for this entry, my alarm clock, a dozen or so coathangers, a DVD player, a number of video games, CDs and DVDs all made of plastic. Even my toothbrush is made of plastic fibers that cleanse my teeth and gums. I don't know specifically what the efficieny rates are on creating plastics from petroleum but looking at the numbers for trees I can only imagine it is fairly unimpressive:

A cord of wood (wood stacked 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet, or 128 cubic feet) produces nearly 90,000 sheets of paper or 2,700 copies of a 35-page newspaper!

And how many 35 page newspapers are printed and sold daily? A lot. Wikipedia says that plastics account for just 4% of the world's petroleum consumption. That may not a huge number now, but at some point it will be an issue. It is just a matter of time. Petroleum industry analysts estimate that the world's oil supply could be consumed within 40 years. Conspiracy theory and wild estimations aside lets say that in another 100 years oil ceases to exist or is at least in such short supply that cell phones, computers and every other object that depends on plastic becomes significantly more expensive. What is that going to be like? The optimist would say that something will come along to replace and the world will keep on keeping on. But I am curious (to say the least) to find out what the plan is. Plastic recycling is somewhat cost prohibitve and thus limited at this point, but perhaps as prices rise someone will find it in their interest to really get their hands dirty in widespread recycling.

Honestly I don't know what to think about all of this. On the one hand I could definitely imagine another world war developing from the few remaining oil reserves, but believing that seems a bit pessimistic. On the other hand I can't ignore the rapidly diminishing petroleum reserves and how that will impact the hundreds of industries that blossomed from the relatively cheap and (currently) bountiful supply of plastic products.

CONTINUE

Stupid iTunes Flaw

Categories: music, tech, weird
I was wondering if anyone else has this problem in iTunes. Certain songs just up and disappear. You can listen to them on your iPod and they exist in your iTunes but there is no way to select them manually. It somehow becomes a matter of luck of the shuffle if you ever hear them. I noticed this problem a while back and I think I have figured out how to correct it. Here is what happened:

I put some ELO on my iPod. Just some loose singles that I added and I left the album title blank. That worked fine. For a while I could select these songs without any problems. Then I added Boogie Nights: Vol 2 which featured "Living Thing" by ELO. This somehow made the other five ELO songs vanish into thin air. They were in iTunes and I managed to stumble on one of them during a shuffle but I couldn't manually find them on my iPod. After forgetting about it for a couple of weeks I noticed it happened again with Blue Oyster Cult so I took the loose songs, added a fictional album name and then updated my iPod and suddenly everything returned to the way it should be. Those songs are listed under their improvised album title, but at least I can access them.

Karen, Kathy have you had anything like this? It drives me crazy because have enough songs now that this may have happened dozens of times but I'll never know until I have a desire to hear a specific song, try to find it only to discover it has disappeared. I even formatted my iPod and restored it to factory conditions and then reloaded my entire library and that did nothing. I am glad I figured out how to get around this flaw, but it only recently occured to me that it could be something I am doing wrong or just a unique flaw between my iTunes and my operating system. Anyways your feedback would be appreciated.

CONTINUE

Investigative Journalists

Categories: news, awesome, youtube

John Mattes is one crazy guy. A few days ago he was assaulted on camera during a confrontation with the target of an investigation. The clip shows that Mattes' subject had a left a number of threatening voice mails and angry messages for him, but for some reason Mattes decided he was going to go John Stossel on him and get the whole thing on camera. Boy did he take a beating. This is pretty awesome from a local news standpoint. If you don't like blood, you should probably not watch. Its too bad for Mattes that the other guy backing him up wasn't a better fighter, because that probably could have saved him a few more seconds of being choked.

Sometimes I wonder how much longer it will be before a new reporter is killed on live television while trying to get too close to a clearly dangerous situation. Currently a YouTube search for 'reporter attacked' returns 232 results. I think we're getting close.

CONTINUE

Suri Cruise Emerges

Categories: news, stupid

After months of ridiculous speculation and rumor, Suri Cruise has emerged from her protective anti-negativity cocoon and shown her face to the world. I am not sure that a 22 page photo spread was really necessary (enlarge the photo), but I am sure that to the surprise of some this baby looks remarkably like one or both of her parents. And I am sure Jeremy Piven is delighted that this is all over.

Please don't judge me for actual mentioning this. It was either this or tasteless Steve Irwin jokes

And while we're on stupid things I shouldn't even be posting about, people are criticizing Katie Couric's debut on the CBS Evening News. Not because she was bad or anything, but because she wore white after Labor Day. Umm yeah. Slow news week I guess.

CONTINUE

9/11 All-Star Tribute

Categories: music, stupid, opinion

I want to get in the mockery well ahead of Monday's five year anniversary of 9/11. I wouldn't want there to be any confusion as to what exactly I am making fun of. I was downloading some music yesterday and came across the 9/11 All-Stars Tribute and instantly remembered the train wreck that was the song and video put together by some of pop music's biggest names. I honestly forgot how bad it was. Unlike "We Are The World" and the other major celebrities for a good cause collaboration (forgot the name), they scrapped the idea of a group song and instead gave everyone a line or two (and added a few more) and let them put their own signature on it. What it ends up sounding like is a dozen musicians each recording their individual version and then pasting it together into one craptacular song. I had fun for about a half hour listening to the song on my iPod and then trying to match names with voices. It was pretty easy. Bono had me fooled because I didn't think he would have sunken down to that level. Evidently I completely ignored his attention-whore disorder and forgot that before he saved Africa he also helped rebuild the United States by wearing an American flag on the inside of his jacket while performing at the first post-9/11 Super Bowl. This sounds like sour grapes, but I don't really care for the way Bono goes about doing what he does. That Super Bowl performance annoys me to no end. I forgot how much.

Anyways, the video is "What's Going On?" by the 9/11 All-Stars. Thanks to all the musicians for lending their wide variety of musical talents, as well as the money they generated for the cause, but I am sure the quicker this disappears the better.

For my money, it doesn't get any better than Fred Durst laying it out for us with this rhyme:

Somebody tell me what's going on?
We got human beings using humans for a bomb!

Word. I never thought of it like that. Though I should probably be a little nicer about that, we all know hindsight is 20/20. Fred Durst had to rhyme human with human on the spot, amidst the chaos.

CONTINUE