Hi! It's Friday. I'm looking forward to a coupla days off — and, quite possibly, the worst Super Bowl of the modern era. The over/under is 17, fercrissakes.
The sun (The sun? What is it? It's a fiery ball of gas at the center of our solar system. But that's not important right now. [no audio clip available]) is actually out today. It seems like it's been ages since it was sunny, but I think it's been more like four or five days. I guess I'm now an officially spoiled East Coast transplant. What a wuss.
My brother and his wife are newish parents, which makes me a newish uncle. Kai Rizal Miller has his own website, complete with pitchers of him and his uncle Ian. Pretty cute, huh? And the baby's not half bad, either.
Fucked Internet companies are nothing new these days, but I couldn't resist inserting a link to this headline. Hmmmm. Curiouser and curiouser.
In an unrelated note, jury selection is complete in Puffy's trial. Johnnie Cochran has already gone to the race card repeatedly, accusing the prosecution of dismissing jurors on the basis of race, and claimed that 50 percent of wrongful convictions are due to race. He might be right. But there's no excuse for that purple suit (no photo available). Here's a photo of the police voucher for Puffy's belongings when he got popped. For those of you who were told there would be no math involved, lemme add it up for ya: He was holding $8,237 in caysh, mostly in hunnerts. Now that's livin' large.
If you're bored, you can play this obscure Simpsons-related game. It is mildly amusing.
Enjoy your weekend. Tune in again on Monday. That is all. ßßß
Now that we know that rats have dreams, does that mean we should stop testing consumer products on them? I think so, but then I'm biased. I'm part rat myself.
My friend Sofia dyed my hair black last night. I look like a cross between Frankenstein and Elliot Smith. It's definitely gonna take some getting used to. Guess I'll go run out and get all those emo records I've been too embarrassed to buy.
Speaking of which, the Promise Ring have resheduled some Western tour dates they had to cancel when it was discovered that singer/guitarist Davey vonBohlen had a brain tumor. They'll be @ the Great American Music Hall in SF on February 11th. Oh, joy.
This just in: Ted Nugent is a bastard. In a related note, Ron Bennett, 35-year-old student and part-time bartender, is a complete idiot.
Be sure to vote for the Daily Show and Jon Stewart as the best damn things on TV in the TV Guide awards. Be forewarned, though: the survey takes forever. But don't let that stop you.
Props to SF-based ISP Verio for not rolling over for the MPAA. A Verio customer has posted a program that can crack the code protecting copyrighted DVDs, and the MPAA threatened legal action against Verio, who told 'em to suck it. Verio was the same company, though, that was spamming the entire list of domain-name registrants in the Whois database and got in big trouble for it. So maybe this evens the score.
That's all I got, except that Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to run for governor of California. And I am outta here! ßßß
Sign no. 1,734 that the Apocalypse may be upon us: Korn bassist Fieldy's solo album.
Signs 1,735 through 1,737: The top three headlines on Hollywood Reporter.com are about layoffs. AOL Time Warner is laying off 2,000 (news of which is conspicuously absent from the AOL/TW corporate site, and New Line Cinema is canning 120. About 600 of the AOL/TW positions will come from Warner Music. That's 2,400 total since the merger. Add those numbers to the 1,500-plus that MarchFirst has canned and the 10,000 that Lucent let go, and that's a lotta newly jobless folks. Good luck, y'all.
But on the other hand, we have signs no. 11 and 12 that there may be a God after all: Michael Bolton owes $5.4 million to the Isley Brothers, and Microsoft's DNS servers crashed, making many of its Web properties inaccessible. Ha ha!
There aren't many things that make me happy these days, but the Google Toolbar is one of them. If you use the Internet at all, install this thing immediately. It makes websurfing a pleasure, and I find what I'm looking for quicker and easier than ever before. Get it now, dammit. I mean it.
Something else to look forward to: the Web-enabled espresso machine. Anything that combines high-test coffee and the Internet is OK by me. As soon as the Internet Engineering Task Force gets its act together and implements IPv6 (that's Internet Protocol v.6, which will lengthen IP addresses from 32 to 128 bits, yo), it'll only be a matter of time before you can operate every electrical device you own from your computer. Pretty cool, huh?
By the time you read this, someone will have pledged to pay $8.50 (plus shipping) for a bag of Doritos and a can of Sprite. The world's a funny place. Someone oughta sell tickets. I know I'd buy one. ßßß
My lovely companion of 14 years and I went to see Chocolat last night. Save yer nine bucks; this is definitely a rental/HBO movie. I hope director Lasse Hallström does a better job with The Shipping News.
Need more proof that California is fucked? Look no further [third one down]. We'll be kickin' it with Mr. Philip Kaplan of FC tonite if all goes as planned.
Speaking of fucked sites, if you're gonna do a weblog and have the domain blog.com, your site probably shouldn't suck. "My Eldar just suffered a most brutal defeat at the hands of Orks!" Uhhh ... yeah.
Another site that sucks: the official Fight Club website. Firstly, they didn't even have the good sense to secure the fightclub.com domain. The site is laden with bad Flash, including non-resizable pop-up windows that are too small for the animations therein. All the images are squashed or stretched, and the promised Liquid Audio track (Liquid Audio! How 1998.) never materializes. Looks like this site hasn't gotten any love since before the movie came out.
But more troubling than any of those issues is that the tone of the site totally misses the mark. I had the pleasure of spending some quality time with the Fight Club Special Edition DVD this weekend. Wow. This fulfills all the promise of the DVD format: Four alternate audio commentaries, an entire disc of extra goodies, deleted scenes, hidden stuff and more. And I almost forgot: The movie is incredible.
David Fincher is an amazing storyteller with uncanny visual sense. I'd definitely put him in the Tom Tykwer/Darren Aronofsky visionary category. Sadly, some of my Netflix comrades disagreed. I could read those reviews for hours. Hie-larious. ßßß
So George Walker Bush is our new president. Did anyone besides me expect him to pull a Delta House during the inauguration?
Renquist: I, state your name ...
Dubya: I, state your name ...
So, anyway. According to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Gladiator was last year's best film. Granted, it was the leanest year for good movies in recent memory, but Gladiator?!? I mean, it was entertaining and all, and that first battle scene was pretty intense, but come on. Wooden performances and half-assed CGI effects do not a best picture make.
I guess those fuzzy foreigners redeemed themselves with a couple of other winners; namely Benicio Del Toro for best supporting actor and West Wing for best TV drama. Hey Alison, you like apples?
This thing from TheSpark.com, the people who brought you the Bitch Test and the Bastard Test, is pretty hilarious. Put in any old innocuous text, and it brings out your inner fucker. Here's what it did to an email from my CEO:
Just wanted to give you an update on my oozing trip to Canada. Read between the lines, you are a fuckmonster. I understand all of you and your monkey watched the fucking webcast here in the fucking office. You are a fuck. This bullshit is a goddamn significant deal for us, as them fucknuts is worth over $25 Billion. Strap this to your ass: After numerous discussions, that bastard became obvious to us and them bastards that we can really be instrumental in helping them shits build the fucking worst Small Business Portal in Canada.
We're all gonna need a laugh now and then over the next four years, so whoop it up. ßßß
Don't miss last week's brilliant insight.
