March 2008
25 posts
[THE CHOICE OF A NEW GENERATION]
Newsweek: How much have brands like Target or Apple or Volkswagen—these high-design, but essentially accessible brands—paved the way Obama? Michael Beirut: I think they’re all very much of a kind. I would name those three brands as ones that share a lot with the way this candidate is presenting himself. They’re meant to look transparent, open, accessible and democratic to...
February 2008
80 posts
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Hygiene, Colorado
This town’s name stems from a time when it had a sanitarium to work with tuberculosis patients. wikiped
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"Be Kind Rewind" (2008)
Let’s Put on a Show at its finest.
“We must all rainbow our puppy princess with butterfly hugs; when we do, all...”
– Merlin Mann Fine, asshole. Reblog yourself before I even had the chance. via merlin
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“You can imagine the panic at Warner Bros when they realized they’d made a...”
– CHUD on rumors of Warner Bros’ latest display of cynicism in reaction to Spike Jonze’ early cuts of Where the Wild Things Are
“The implication is there is a social justice politic, and somehow a piece of art...”
– Tay Zonday, saying things you wouldn’t necessarily expect Tay Zonday to say, in an interview at MplsStPaulMag via fimoculous
SNL and the search for Obama
[Lorne] Michaels auditioned Obama candidates last week, both newcomers and those on the show’s current roster, and expects to pick from two or three late Thursday. The search isn’t easy. “Finding a way to get people to laugh at him is complicated right now,” Michaels says. “He’s truly a heroic figure, and that is always hardest. People aren’t seeing the...
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Examining the Obvious in Great Detail
Based on some common rules-of-thumb, I’d written several books worth of email messages over the previous five years — posts to mailing lists and a ton of personal correspondence, all of which I tried to write the hell out of. Around that same time, it became obvious that the outlet I’d been waiting for was available: I needed to start my own weblog. -John Gruber There are so many quotables...
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Americans: "Do not play God with my nanos"
I made a joke a few days ago in mock mockery of Ray Kurzweil’s declarations on the future melding of man and machine, invoking the religious stance taken against such advancements by what I thought to be a batshit few. But according to a Science Daily article, the batshit is more substantial in mass and toxicity than I had anticipated. It seems that (from a relatively small polling sample)...
WatchVariety SHAC - Hot Apple Cider! Maybe you like Stella because of the way David Wain, Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black linger on a joke or an awkward exchange, belaboring the mannerisms we never pay a second thought until they’re stretched out and the ridiculous shows through. Maybe you like Stella because Stella shorts never need to end up anywhere, they just need to happen. If you...
Index finger in twirling motion near temple
Humans and machines would eventually merge, by means of devices embedded in people’s bodies to keep them healthy and improve their intelligence, predicted Mr. Kurzweil. “We’ll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons,” he told BBC News. Oh, oh, yeah and we’ll have tiny steam engines like...
Inclusive Capitalism
On this morning’s Day to Day, my social conscience was stirred when, as part of a piece on the new, socially benevolent wave of capitalism, corporate consultant C.K. Prahalad spoke on the challenge of the business world overcoming an historic and near-sighted failure to meet the needs of the poorest 4/5ths of the world, a challenge which he considers equivalent to the fight against communism...
WatchRed Belt (2008) green band trailer - dir. David Mamet I just recently found myself watching Best of the Best (1989) every day since the 5th grade and I was thinking to myself, what this karate movie needs is the rapid-fire, precisely-crafted and often-overlapping dialogue of a David Mamet. And the dad from Home Improvement. And lo and behold. A high-stakes martial arts movie. By Mamet. With...
WatchPinapple Express (2008) red band trailer David Gordon Green directs a stoner comedy from the people who brought you Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (who should have a collective name by now - I’m calling them Babaloo Mandel) and you can bet your Apatow-lovin’ ass it’s going to be amazing. Go large and wide here. via infy
The Good Word: Pimp
Many older speakers think that any positive use of pimp is sexist or demeaning. But you can’t make someone feel a certain way about a word. Younger people will continue to use suck (“to be notably bad”) or gay (“lame, boring, terrible, stupid”) heedless of what their elders think; it’s just as hard to get people to reject something they think is OK as to get...
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