Can't say I'm suprised

A double-amputee Iraq-war vet is suing Michael Moore for $85 million, claiming the portly peacenik recycled an old interview and used it out of context to make him appear anti-war in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Sgt. Peter Damon, 33, who strongly supports America's invasion of Iraq, said he never agreed to be in the 2004 movie, which trashes President Bush.

Wow, Michael Moore being dishonest? Who would've guessed....

burn

A radio station has responded to James Blunt's suggestion that anyone who does not like his music should simply switch off the radio, by banning his tracks from the airwaves.

In a move that may be closely monitored by other stations, Essex FM announced that from today it would no longer play Blunt's hits "You're Beautiful" and "Goodbye My Lover".

The GCap Media station said it was responding to recent audience research, which revealed that listeners had tired of Blunt's distinctive sound.

But he's cool wid it:

Asked if he ever got sick of his music...[he] said: "I don't have to listen to it. I'm the one who sings it. And it's continued to get me laid."

Back on top

Undeclared Chicago-area high school seniors should be informed (and their parents warned) that the May issue of Playboy ranks nearby University of Wisconsin at Madison as the top party school in North America.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

for the people

I'm watching "Meet the Press" right now, and Tim Russert is talking to Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Rep. Jim Sensennbrenner (R-WI). They're talking about immigration reform, and a little bit about the FBI raid on the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA).

I just have to say that I am so goddamned fed up with these greasy bastards and their posturing, their question-dodging, and their arrogance. This time, I'm not talking about the media, either. Sensennbrenner is not answering direct questions, Hagel is misrepresenting his position, his bill, the position of the House. Whose position I agree with more is completely irrelevant, because it is completely impossible to ascertain. Both are being so fundamentally dishonest in their positions and the bills they've come to represent.

As far as the raid on Rep. Jefferson's office, and the Congress' closing of ranks around him, I just can't think of anything that is stupider to do. The guy is a flat-out criminal. They have fucking videotape of the guy taking like $100,000; they found $90,000 in his motherfather freezer, ok? And these guys are criticizing the perfectly legal process of the FBI obtaining evidence.

I don't care what party this puts in office in the fall. I plan to vote against every single congressional incumbent.

this post for GROWN-UPS ONLY!!!

Hahahaha... made you look

more on banning web access at work

Companies can try to ban this sort of thing, of course, and they'll sometimes be able to succeed. But as access to the Internet becomes more widespread and routine, with cellphones and PDAs morphing into wearable computers... those sorts of intrusions will be seen as more and more, well, intrusive. ... And the more intrusive the policies seem, the harder it will be to attract bright, creative employees who are marketable elsewhere: Just the kind of people that companies ought to want to hire and to keep.

Ultimately, this issue isn't about employees but about management. Managers tend to resist output measures because output measures require managers to take uncomfortable action: They have to tell the good employees that they're doing a good job (which tends to encourage the good employees to want more money) and they have to tell the bad employees that they're doing a bad job (which tends to make them resentful and unpleasant). Nonetheless, I think that measuring the work done, rather than just whether employees manage to look busy, is going to be the management trend of the future. Success in business, after all, usually has little to do with whether managers are comfortable or not.*

blocked

It's tough to know what to make of this. Having access to diverse sources of information is pretty important to workers at my company, not only for the purpose of securing future contracts, but also because the higher-ups like to tout our successes by pointing us to popular sources on the web (e.g. New York Times, NPR) that mention projects we've done. In that respect, it's difficult to imagine they'd regulate our access. On the other hand, the place is run by a bunch of goddamn communists, so I can totally see how the Big Brother aspect of this would appeal to them.

Cross your fingers, dear readers, that your humble blogger doesn't get suddenly spied on or blocked out. I mean, where else are you gonna get your semi-weekly dose of right-wing reactionary opinion, iPod geekery, and ephemeral pop music? I'm tellin ya, this site is a one-of-a-kind resource.

"the world's most powerful nerd magnet"

Have you guys seen pictures of the new Apple store in NYC? Wow, man. I mean, like, wow.

I made Firetruck go with me to the Apple store in Durham after lunch yesterday to check out the new Apple lappys, which, I hope to get one of those real soon. They are superfreakin'tabulous.

(thanks again for lunch, Truck)

jesus and his lawyer are coming back

An albino group in the US is also angry because their condition has yet again been used as shorthand for villainy. One of the Da Vinci Code's most memorable character is the monk-assassin Silas, an albino, who carries out a series of murders to secure the secret of the Holy Grail. "Silas is just the latest in a long string," said Michael McGowan, of the National Organisation for Albinism and Hypopigmentation. "The problem is there has been no balance. There are no realistic, sympathetic or heroic characters with albinism that you can find in movies or popular culture."

So, now albinos are upset at their negative portrayal in popular culture. And we've long since passed the day when it's acceptable to portray an African-American as an evil-doer. Wait, is "albino" even an acceptable term anymore? People of pallor? Hypopigmented-Americans? Anyway. So, we can't have extremely white people be villians, and we can't have black folks be villians, either. From now on, only those of medium skin tone shall be portrayed as villianous in major motion pictures. Man law!

Let me just be the first to say that, as a Medium-Skinned-American, I take offense at this future stereotyping of my people! We shall overcome!

$ $ $

I'm kind of curious to see how this turns out. It's seemed to me that organic foodies buy organic food in large part because it's not part of "big food." Like, it seems to me, and I'm perfectly willing to be convinced otherwise, that even if, say, Kraft made organic Mac & Cheese people would still buy the Annie's brand instead. In that organic food also (at least to this point) costs more, it has seemed to me to also be a signifier of class, a form of conspicuous consumption.

I should add that of course not everyone who buys organic food is stricly motivated by anti-big-business sentiments and notions of class. I mean, some people actually enjoy tofu. Crazy, I know. And some people just don't like food treated with hormones or pesticides. Fine. But it should be interesting to see 1) who buys the organic food at Wal-Mart, and 2) if those who traditionally bought their organic food at places like Whole Foods make the switch to Wal-Mart.

And what if it's successful? Will organic food become the next (or part of) "Big Food?" Will people still buy it then? I mean, it's far from certain whether it's actually healthier for you, so I have to be at least a little curious at to the motivation here.

In any case, I have to say that I'm in favor of the plans for organic breakfast cereal. Because the current organic cereals have the creepiest-assed boxes around. Those cheerful multiculturpals beaming creepily at me from somewhere beyond the land of Bush... names like "Good Friends." How does that describe the cereal at all? It doesn't. Unless it's made of people. I don't know. It just gets at me in a way that an anthropomorphic rooster just can't.

Yes, today is a multi-coffee morning. bbbbbbuuuuuuuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

cheese it!

There's such a thing as illegal cheese? Why haven't I heard about this before?

Man, do I love Netflix

I get home today, and Netflix has mistakenly sent me a 3rd dvd (I only have the two-at-a-time plan). It has this description on the sleeve:

Young Janie -- attending a topnotch graduate school and living with her handsome boyfriend, Michael-- leads a life most people would kill for. Then someone does just that: Michael gets murdered, and police finger Janie as the prime suspect. This low-budget, erotic thriller produced for the Playboy Channel follows a trail of clues that ultimately lead to Janie's friend and lesbian love, Frankie.

Awesome. So awesome. As if Netflix wasn't great enough, they mistakenly send me low-budget erotic thrillers for free. It's like that time I tried to download an episode of the Sopranos from the webbernet and ended up with some movie called "Gay Niggers From Outer Space." Sometimes, life just gives you a bonus.

pop/rocks

I agree with that. I want to be both.
Look, I mean, I have to agree with this:

I also suspect that many of my colleagues, like me, have embraced the anti-rockist critique with particular fervor as a kind of penance, atoning for past rockist misdeeds—for the party line we'd swallowed whole in our formative years and maybe even parroted under our bylines.

But it seems that after reading this that I'm supposed to pick sides. Like, either I can like pop music for real or ironically. Can't I do both? I mean, I really dig "Justified," for real. Or "Since U Been Gone," for that matter. But some pop is just crap, like Celine Dion, and I don't feel that I should be forced to like it just because I like some pop music.

So, I guess I can't be a full-fledged "poptimist." But I find "rockism" really tiresome these days, too. (Although anyone that knows me probably thinks that me condemning rockism is just about as bullshit as when the Beasties started changing the lyrics to all their old songs. I mean, it's part of who you are.) But again, that's how we were brought up. Nevermind was the album that knocked the hair bands into oblivion, but now we're supposed to like and appreciate those same hair bands? And disco? Nuh uh. Doesn't feel right. I agree that pop music can be as artistically valid as rock music (which is a conceit in itself, but one which I'm unwilling engage right now), I guess I'm just not concerned that it all is as valid.

Different music can be great and can be appreciated in different circumstances. Dismissing a single as undeniably awesome as "Since U Been Gone" just because Kelly Clarkson doesn't play the guitar is as lame as going to a houseparty and being forced to listen to tuneless, trendy dreck like Modest Mouse. All types of music can be great, is what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to get to a point in my music listening where it's about about what you like and when you like it, and not about excluding a whole genre based on a contrived label.* **

Or, mejor dicho:

Ideally, poptimism shouldn't be about critics working through their daddy issues and straining to prove that they're hipper than Greil Marcus. It should be about openness to all kinds of music—including music that seems to embody rockist ideals.

But Coldplay is still absolute shit.




*And don't argue with me in the comments about whether or not me liking one band or another in light of this post makes me a hypocrite, because then you're missing the point.

**Like, sometimes the rockists are right, because this is a badass album and the dude is obviously a rockist.

whiskey tango foxtrot, y'all

Not that I anticipate ever being at a place that does this shit, but...

For the martini, they blend olive juice, vermouth and gin with xanthan gum and calcium chloride and drop it into a sodium alginate and water solution to form stable olive-shaped blobs... Mr. Fukushima said the dirty martini is based on Mr. Adrià's technique for "liquid melon ravioli."

Uh...yum?

Plus, as if it doesn't already take long enough to get a fucking drink at these stupid fancy places:

They have worked a number of molecular mixology touches into the high-volume drink menu at Café Atlántico, Mr. Andrés's pan-Latin restaurant. There is celery air on the bloody marys and sea salt air on the margaritas. (Air is, for the uninitiated, lighter than foam, and made with lecithin instead of gelatin.) In a playful, if not exactly molecular touch, they serve a "magic mojito": an unsweetened mojito decanted from a cocktail shaker into a glass filled with cotton candy that immediately dissipates into — and sweetens — the drink.

"Your drink will be up in a minute, sir. I have to go get more cotton candy from the back."
"Sorry, but you'll have to wait for your martini to coalesce into a gelatinous blob. It should just take a second."
"No, no. It's good, I promise. It's like liquid melon ravioli."

fake Jefferson hats

"As Sen. Kennedy's brother so memorably said, 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what a fake quote can do for you.'"

I guess folks are too busy chuckling about "decider," which is a real word anyway, to get this out there.

upgrades

Sending e-mail with your mind? Syringes full of oxygen that let you stay underwater for hours? Mind-reading?!?! This is the scariest/coolest shit...

I believe it is called "al fresco"

Fun new song in the blog radio. It's by new 'sphere fave Lily Allen. I don't really know too much about her, just found the track on Stereogum the other day, but I've been bumping it ever since. I think it samples "Shake Senora," the song they use at the end of "Beetlejuice" when Winona Ryder is floating and dancing? Such a great movie. Anyway. 's fun.

all the right reasons

Here's a pretty interesting interview with the two main dudes from The Jayhawks, who are now officially over.

royale (wit cheese)

A trailer, the first, I think, for the new James Bond movie is online. It looks....uh... it looks... well, it's there. Let's put it that way.

While I'm not holding my breath for a great movie, or even a very good one, one ray of hope is that they hired the same guy who directed "GoldenEye," my favorite of the recent Bond movies, to direct this one, too. And I'm not gonna hate; I think Daniel Craig will be a great Bond.

correction

I have to say that I find this supposed "controversy" over Steven Colbert's speech at the Correspondent's Dinner to be kind of ridiculous.

Tiringly and predictably, those on the left are claiming Colbert's remarks to be so tremendously brave, biting and uncomfortable for the President, and a bold act of defian truth-telling that Colbert socked RIGHT IN THE FACE of President Chimpy McHitler. The right is pointing out that many of Colbert's jokes fell flat (which, if you watch the video, they did), and using it as more evidence of liberal media bias.

Lame, lame, lame.

Look, the White House knew what Colbert was about when they invited him to speak. They know about his show, they know about the Daily Show. It is a tradition of the Correspondent's Dinner for the main speaker to rip into the press corps, the White House, the President, and other gov't officials. It is just so predictable, and so lame that people on the left are taking this as, "DUDE, Colbert whupped ASS on Bu$h!" No. It's a roast. Every year. This is just how it's done. Colbert did nothing out of the ordinary. Let me say it again: Bush knew this was coming. Is Colbert still the brave truth-teller? Let's look at another brave lefty truth-teller, Al Franken, when he was in the same situation. He cowboy-ed up by... listing jokes he wouldn't tell about the President. Wow. Now which president is the one that can't take criticism again?

Get a little perspective, people. I know that you've only started paying attention to politics since your beloved "You Can Call Me Albert" Gore lost in 2000, but with Google and all? You could've at least read a few past transcripts to see how this thing generally plays out.