From the We Are Sheep Dept.: The mere presence of a photo of watching eyes moved unobserved people to donate three times more to the office's coffee donation cup.
Renaissance Man with Sneaker fetish. A borderline- schizophrenic posting of the sort we rely on Mega to find. I can't tell if the mispellings are deliberate.
Conservatives host a love-fest for 24. The jokes just write themselves here. Anyone surprised conservatives need a little escapism these days? Limbaugh even said that the show "got lucky with 9/11 happening..." Well, if W can abuse 9/11 for political purposes, Limbaugh can abuse it for entertainment criticism. (You'd think someone so fond of Jack Bauer would be able to hide drugs from airport security. Personally, I've seen those ads about how drugs help terrorism and I'm a huge fan of 24 so I think Limbaugh should be held down and tortured until he gives up his dealers and everyone at the conference should agree.)
TC Fantasy Football 2006 Another season, another fantasy challenge. Going to be adventurous and try to do a live draft this year. No cost to enter, only bragging rights to win. Go to the league page (Yahoo # 112798) and enter the password "purplechimps" to join. It's first come, first serve -- feel free to invite a friend.
Please review the settings before joining. The basics are:
Max 10 teams
Unlimited trades, max 30 FA acquisitions
Head to head competition
Live Online Draft on Sunday, August 20th at noon (eastern) -- if unable to attend draft, you can pre-rank your players.
I'd skipped over the blurb about Matt Damon being eyed for the young James T. Kirk role in Abrams's upcoming Star Trek movie -- based on his Bourne movie roles and ability to chew scenery, I think he could handle the action convincingly and Shatner it up a bit -- but I have wondered who might be in line for the Spock and McCoy roles.
For Spock, the first few faces that popped to mind, in no particular order, were Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Dacascos, John Cho (Harold in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle), and Josh Hartnett.
For young McCoy I think Vince Vaughn would've been great ... 10 years ago (and McCoy probably shouldn't tower over Kirk) ... and for some reason Neil Patrick Harris comes to mind. That could just be on account of his recent run of mentions on this blog. If Kevin Spacey were younger, he'd be great too. Who's the next Kevin Spacey? That's who I'd see as Bones.
Bosox Short-Timer Paxton Crawford Talks HGH and Steroids I think more and more teams are going to have guys coming out and saying, "yeah, I did it and I wasn't the only one, lots of guys were." When these guys start naming the bigger names, the question is no longer going to be "who's doing it?" it's going to be "was anyone not doing it?" More choppy seas ahead for the national pasttime. I don't think Selig will survive this scandal by the time it's done blowing up. Costas for commish!
Death Star Funny. "I'll tell everyone what a whiney b!tch you were about Padamomay, or Panda Bear, or whatever the hell her name is." Like Palpitation, or Palomine, or whatever his name is, is one to talk!
I Wasn't the Only One Thinking Reboot I've blogged a couple times about how I feel the best thing for the Star Trek franchise would be a reboot ... unbeknownst to me, at least one pretty big name was thinking along the same lines -- J. Michael Stracyznski wanted to create a Universe B and reset the mythology.
Here's the post on Zabel's (Stracyznski's collaborator) blog with a link to the treatment. One strength of the treatment is that it has a clear vision for limited series, just as I had proposed, with a five year mission and each season being one year of that mission. My thinking was to cherry pick and remake the best episodes, which is an element in this vision, but they have the idea of the Enterprise crew seeking out advanced race that seeded the universe being the driving story arch, which I feel is too remniscent of Stargate (although there's plenty of precedent in the Star Trek universe for this already as well) and detracts from the pioneer spirt that made the original so compelling. The universe as frontier, as wild, untamed nature is so much more engaging than the universe as the garden of an advanced race, at least to my thinking.
Speaking of Neil Patrick Harris, he's even getting non-Doogie YouTube clip love. I wonder if his resurgence, as one too sexy dude, has had any positive or negative effect on TC's friend neilalien, who has been said to bear some Neil Patrick Harris resemblance.
PItchfork's review of the new Replacements greatest hits CD, the awesomely-titled Don't You Know Who I Think I Was?, is also a decent summation of the release history of the 'Mats and the problems of summing up such a band. I'll say it again: They deserve a box set.
Dread Reckoning, all about Richard Matheson's great novel I Am Legend, possibly spends too much time talking about Romero's zombie movies, but is still a decent read and might jazz you up to read or re-read the book. It also reminds you that a big-time movie is coming down the pipe starring Will Smith. Is it me, or should I Am Legend maybe not be a big budget, quip-tastic summer movie? Smith is still better than the original lead, the Governator.
"I left some Love Stains in the back seat. You'll see." Neil Patrick Harris has a great cameo in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. (SVU's Christopher Meloni is unrecognizable and hilarious in his cameo as well.) It's one of the those stupid, vulgar comedies in the vein of 40 Year Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers, so I figured it would make sense to watch it at 6am this morning with my mom while we tried to get Blake to sleep. I lmao. It could've just been the exhaustion. Oh, and my mom thought it was funny too.
It occurs to me, suddenly, that it's a surreal life I'm living these days ... I'm eating bagels that were fedexed direct from Manhattan to the woods of rural Rhode Island while I watch dope-smoking, titty movies with my newborn son and my mom at the crack of dawn.
New York Daily News - Home - Earth's days are numbered, Hawking says Hawking suggests we colonize Mars to guarantee our survival against the possibility of a cataclysm on Earth. Kim Stanley Robinson disagrees. He suggests we treat this planet like it's the only one we have. " ... Mars is poisonous," he points out.
only 10 other organ grinders in the country still use live monkeys — four in California, others in Boston, Virginia, Ohio, Texas, North Carolina and Florida. That number probably won’t grow. Many states take a dim view of entertainment involving capuchin monkeys, which are categorized as dangerous, exotic animals.
Just for the heck of it, I decided to see how organ grinders are represented on Flickr ... results.
Even the theft of the 2004 - yes, 2004, election doesn't get me particularly outraged anymore. It's more of the same GOP corruption, racism and general hatred of the American voter. The sad thing is, I knew it already. Katherine Harris redux. Until some houses are cleaned, let's just assume a Democrat has to win by two percentage points in order to win. In good news, Bush is so bad that might not be such a big hurdle.
Still, I wasn't ready to jump on the Ned Lamont bandwagon, figuring I'd rather have the Senate controlled by Democrats even if one of those Democrats was a tool from my own blue state. Then came My Night With the LaMonster. Seriously, the guy is good and didn't once come off like a newbie politician. His opening speech was personable, serious and funny. Addressing my fears, he said, "You won't be losing a senator. You'll be gaining a Democrat." He didn't even get tripped up when the first question of the night was about billboards. Fittingly for a message candidate, he had energy and focus. The war dominated the discussion. Still, he gained quite a bit of my trust when he talked about Bush's government butting in where it doesn't belong. He wasn't only willing to talk about the Terry Schiavo scandal, he brought it up himself.
The Internet candidate met small town Connecticut. None of the expected out-of-town youngsters showed. The library basement was full, and there were maybe six people younger than me. One worked for Lamont, another for DeStefano. Two more were reporters. The last two provided the best comedy of the night. One sat in front of me and the other was in the second row videotaping Lamont's entire speech and Q&A. They seemed sort of pissy. At the end of his talk, Lamont said, "My friend Senator Lieberman videotapes everything I say." He then waved and smiled at the kid's videocamera. "Good evening, Senator. I hope we can debate soon." We gave him as thunderous applause as anyone has ever gotten in a library basement. That's when I spotted the Lieberman stickers on the shirts of the last two young, pissy guys.
Imagine that. You're possibly the only young person willing to volunter for Lieberman and you have to follow his opponent around, listening to him rip apart your boss to enthusiastic cheers all day in the hopes that you might catch a swear on tape.
I stayed for DeStafano mostly out of good manners, but was glad I did. Where the Lamonster was energy and vision, DeStefano was all big city mayor. Chatty, clubby, funny, delivering realism with jokes about New Haven parking tickets. Rell should send some flunkie around to videotape him. I've never heard a candidate deliver the line, "Hey, you gotta give a lit'l ta get a lit'l." That would be devastating ripped out of context for an ad. Too bad he probably doesn't have a chance against our governor. Too bad Rowland went to jail without much of a fight. DeStafano might make a good governor.
Double Shot of Books It's been a while since I've read any of the original Ian Fleming James Bond books. It's easy to forget how much like period pieces they can be. Thunderball works like a James Bond template. There's the humor. M, on a health kick, deems his top agent is no longer in top shape and sends him to detoxify at a natural living farm. After days of grousing, lemon tea and nearly being killed by this strange thing called "traction," Bond actually thinks his new dry life suits him ... until he gets back into action and realizes that if he's going to have any effectiveness as a two-fisted man of action, he'd better get back to cigarettes and bacon. There's two insane coincidences. (While at the health farm, Bond has a run-in with a key agent of SPECTRE, who figures later in Operation Thunderball!)
Best of all, there's the crazy archvillian, Emil Largo, who gathers his subordinates around a big table, gives a big speech and ... and ... I can barely type this ... kills one of his underlings by pushing a button and electrocuting him. If only he'd been stroking a white cat! Anyway, later on he steals a nuclear weapon and ransoms NATO for 100 MEE-lion pounds. Fleming describes him as big and hairy, but he looked like Dr. Evil to me. Anyway, much fun is had and Bond foils the plot. He does this - template alert - not with spying or detecting, but by sleeping with Largo's mistress. Oh James.
Also, you have to read the books to remember that back in the day a geiger counter hidden in a camera was a big deal.
For those who think Paul Auster's writing is fairly cold, opaque or overly philosophical, Brooklyn Follies should come as a complete surprise. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if this were written by a woman, it would either be or be considered an Oprah book, since it concerns families, failure and redemption. Nathan Glass returns to Brooklyn to end his miserable, lonely life. Instead of quietly dying, Nathan runs into his nephew Tom Wood who, though only half Nathan's age, is alreadly as lonely and miserable. Tom, a once-promising intellectual and future English professor, is one of the best characters I've come across in a while.
By reaching out, Nathan and eventually Tom just get in the habit of reaching out more. Their journey from isolation to immersion in a compelling cast of family extras is a genuinely exciting story. Maybe I like old cynics, burnt-out grad students, flambouyant con-men and weird kids more than the average reader, but I think this should be a bestseller. (Although there is one plot point strange enough to be in a Bond book.) This is easily Auster's most accessible book and I'd say his best. (Also, likeThe Squid and the Whale, this is set in Park Slope. Coincidences all over.)
Double Shot of Movies A free night and a lingering virus gave me the chance to catch a couple of movies recently. I probably never would have watched Below if I had been physically able to do anything else, but I was happily surprised by this video sleeper pick. An American sub in WWII plucks some survivors out of the ocean and creepy, weird things start happening. The sub, you won't be surprised to hear, may have a mysterious past, vengeful ghosts, sabatoge, or just a bad case of atmosphere poisoning. Nicely directed by David "Pitch Black" Twohy, Below gives good claustrophobia, as you'd expect from a sub movie. X-Files and Twilight Zone fans might find this refreshingly different from the recent slew of gory, dead child/ Japanese revenge remakes. There's very little gore, but a couple of good creepy scenes. There's one sequence done in front of a mirror that just about exactly matches something I've always wanted to see in a horror movie. Below doesn't really go the extra mile, either with the story or the acting, but it's certainly good enough, and that's not just the medicine talking.
The horribly-titled The Squid and the Whale has been getting enough attention so I'll just toss my two cents in. The dialogue is good - the two kids on Kafka was hysterical - and the acting is great - especially the kids - but this is a hard movie to love, mostly because every single character is kind of unlikeable and the plot is pretty small. After seeing this movie, you won't want to be divorced, married, a parent, a child, sexually active, sexually inactive, squid, whale or any kind of writer. You may want to be a philistine, as the younger kid proudly declares himself in a great scene because then you get to see movies that make you smile at the end. A cautionary tale.
Speaking of 24, check out this "Damn it!" montage, from the people who have more time on their hands than I do, but not as much as the bauercount people.
