conky

Three Word Phrase (via Drawn!)

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:51:00 -0400

Strange presidential threats, then and now.

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:03:00 -0400

“Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He’d better have a bodyguard.”
—Sen. Jesse Helms

vs.

And if we were a “monstrous plume of hot rock” waiting around to make a really big humanity-ending splash, we’d probably think that a visit by the leader of the free world was a pretty exciting moment. Just sayin’, Mr. President, something to consider …
—New York magazine’s Daily Intel

Because there's nothing TV executives like better than canceling prank shows after 6 months

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:39:00 -0400

Because there's nothing TV executives like better than canceling prank shows after 6 months:

Here’s your chance to see the cheapest television show ever made: YouTube videos interspersed with commentary by two guys in front of a solid backdrop.

Based on the pair’s 7-part online series Prank War and sounding a bit like a cross between Punk’d and America’s Funniest Home Videos, the 30-minute weekly show “showcases the best pranks ever caught on camera and posted online.” The featured pranks will all be user-generated, “with no help from producers, professional editors or cameramen.”

Maybe, just maybe, they’ll do some voiceover work like Bob Saget used to on the old America’s Funniest Home Videos?? I used to love when he would do the dog’s interior monologue while that mutt was just cold runnin’ around like crazy with a magazine or a bag on its head or whatever.

"Bollywood Hero picks up with Kattan, who wants leading-man roles that might allow him to..."

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:20:35 -0400

“Bollywood Hero picks up with Kattan, who wants leading-man roles that might allow him to “fight the bad guys and sleep with attractive women,” stewing impotently at his agent over a meal. The agent believes that the actor’s current gig playing a “space goat” on a science-fiction show is the best that he should expect. This is the point at which the fictional Kattan parts ways with the real one. Taking poetic license, the show’s creators have somewhat overstated the man’s prospects. Space goat can’t sound half bad to a performer whose most notable recent works include Gym Teacher: The Movie (which aired on Nickelodeon), Christmas in Wonderland (which grossed $79,000), and Delgo (which Movieline recently described as “the biggest animated box-office failure ever”). Kattan the fictional schlemiel wonders why he hasn’t had the career of Keanu Reeves. This is the point at which Bollywood Hero reveals itself as farce. Kattan the actual schlemiel must know that the appropriate question regards why he hasn’t had the career of Rob Schneider.”

- Bollywood Hero reviewed. - By Troy Patterson - Slate Magazine

Ouch.

Being a recognizable SNL alumnus is the comedy equivalent of belonging to Skull and Bones: powerful friends will make sure you continue to have opportunities, no matter how ill-suited to the task you’ve proved yourself.

"Imagine, the very idea of dropping a dime on fellow citizens dredges up some of the most bleak..."

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:59:07 -0400

““Imagine, the very idea of dropping a dime on fellow citizens dredges up some of the most bleak episodes in American history, from Colonial times when King George III’s rule was absolute to George Orwell’s 1984, where citizens were monitored by Big Brother.”

- Wonkette : Sell Out Your Friends And Lovers To The White House ‘Enemies List’

Yes, the fictional work of George Orwell was certainly one of the bleakest episodes in American Actual History.

"Holliday is a good hitter. He struggled early on, but he started to get hot right before he left..."

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:32:54 -0400

“Holliday is a good hitter. He struggled early on, but he started to get hot right before he left Oakland. That doesn’t mean he’ll hit like that the rest of the season. Playing in Oakland was a downer for him, because you’re playing on a team that doesn’t excite you. It’s a boring team to watch. They either strike out, walk or try to hit HRs. Jack Cust is a typical Oakland hitter. He either walks or hits home runs. It’s just not an interesting team and that had an effect on Holliday.”

- Chat: Chat with Joe Morgan - SportsNation - ESPN

It’s almost a cliche to take a close look at Morgan’s “arguments” and then refute them, and I’ll never do it as well as the inimitable Fire Joe Morgan. But I can’t help myself.

Oakland is last in the AL in home runs, eighth in walks, and tenth in strikeouts. Jack Cust, who is decent at hitting homers and great at striking out, is not typical of the lineup at all.

It’s one thing to not understand the point of what the Athletics tried to do in the early ’00s. It’s another (somewhat worse) thing to refuse purposefully to understand it. And it is yet another (much worse) thing to offer up your intentional misunderstanding of that philosophy in lieu of knowing what the hell the team is currently doing. Cheese and rice, Joe; they’re paying you for this!

The A’s are definitely bad and arguably boring, but neither is because they are playing Morgan’s dumbed-down, intellectually dishonest version of “Moneyball.”

"It’s a brutal world out there in the blogosphere,” Milbank said. “I’m often..."

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:12:00 -0400

““It’s a brutal world out there in the blogosphere,” Milbank said. “I’m often surprised by the ferocity out there, but I probably shouldn’t be.””

- Washington Post Kills ‘Mouthpiece’ Video Series - washingtonpost.com

Given that you called the Secretary of State a “mad bitch” it’s a little disengenuous to play the “blogosphere is lowering the discourse at the expense of us real journalists” card, Dana.

WaPo is right to stay away from original humor though. Doing cheap, timely, topical humor requires the ability to say, “We missed the mark. Badly. It happens—we throw this crap together in an hour with no budget and no staff and sometimes what we intend as irony is just offensive. Please realize that we will offend you again, however, because if we never accidentally cross the line that means we’re probably not geting close enough to it.”

[NB: I apologize to Mouthpiece if they did in fact take more than an hour to prepare and produce it, and had a sizable budget and large staff at their disposal. Though if they had those three things going for them and what we saw was still the final product there are other reasons why they shouldn’t be humorists besides gutlessness.]

Source (via)

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:03:13 -0400

Source (via)

We elected a Faulknerian retard to the presidency. Twice.

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:13:45 -0400

We elected a Faulknerian retard to the presidency. Twice.

"What did that man want?" "He didn't say."

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:47:03 -0500

"What did that man want?" "He didn't say.":

A Mexican state water company worker has sewn his lips together to draw attention to his five-year fight to get a promotion. The man used a needle and thread to put five stitches through his lips in front of the water company headquarters in the eastern city of Veracruz.

I refuse to have a class war of wits with you, as clearly you are unarmed.

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:44:28 -0500

I refuse to have a class war of wits with you, as clearly you are unarmed.:

via TPM.

Quite to the contrary, it would seem you've understood perfectly well

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:07:00 -0500

Quite to the contrary, it would seem you've understood perfectly well:

We’ve never quite understood the vitriol that comes with the name Jimmy Fallon. Maybe the problem stems from the fact that he’s really a tweener; like a lyric from a lost Britney Spears song, he’s not an actor, not yet a comedian. In fact, if he’s guilty of one thing, it’s that he just seems so incredibly happy to be famous.

If you get a message on Facebook and your first impulse is to reply, "Hey Charlie, did the procedure reverse itself causing your IQ drop 60 points or something?", don't, because it is likely a malicious worm.

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:02:09 -0500

If you get a message on Facebook and your first impulse is to reply, "Hey Charlie, did the procedure reverse itself causing your IQ drop 60 points or something?", don't, because it is likely a malicious worm.:

“Also, Charlie, not to belabor the joke, but do you call your mouse ‘Algernon’? I bet you do. Charlie.”

maura: ah, the post-dignity era. True, but in Eno’s...

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:56:00 -0500

maura:

ah, the post-dignity era.

True, but in Eno’s defense there isn’t a much better response to:

Why didn’t anyone tell me that Andy Capp had gotten out of...

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:04:00 -0500

Why didn’t anyone tell me that Andy Capp had gotten out of the Hot Fry business?

youngmanhattanite: Why is it that those most likely to oppose the war are the ones least likely to...

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:12:31 -0500

youngmanhattanite:

Why is it that those most likely to oppose the war are the ones least likely to fight in it?

Those most likely to fight in it are barred from commenting by their commanding officers, so it’s a little hard to gauge their opinions.

This almost makes up for the last visit, when all the exhibits were closed and we could see no animals. Almost.

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:27:00 -0500

Staking Up A Place for Giraffes to Gather - Visit the Zebra, Ostrich and Giraffe exhibit and you will see contractors building a stairway into the trees. These stairs and their platform destination will turn into a Giraffe feeding station sometime in May. Once operational, the station will let visitors climb aboard to talk to giraffe keepers and buy browse to feed to the Giraffes.

—NC Zoo

I am all about getting eye-level with some giraffes. I will be first in line for this (figuratively).

"Being the same person [as Tucker Carlson] might not advance the Vast Liberal Conspiracy plot very..."

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:17:11 -0500

“Being the same person [as Tucker Carlson] might not advance the Vast Liberal Conspiracy plot very much but it would explain why Gov. Crist seemed to find me so fascinating just now.”

- Ana Marie Cox, washingtonpost.com

Shocked!

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:14:51 -0500

A former Hewlett-Packard chief executive who left the troubled company with a severance package worth an estimated $21 million to $42 million, Fiorina also bucked the populist tide against lavish corporate salaries by denouncing President Obama’s effort to cap annual pay at $500,000 for leaders of banks taking federal bailout money.

“When somebody makes $40 million a year for failure, we cannot defend that,” she said. “On the other hand, I believe the solution should be, every CEO’s pay should be put up for shareholder vote each and every year. Let the shareholders decide.”

—LA Times

I am shocked—SHOCKED!—that someone who ran a company so poorly that she was paid more to go away than I’ll earn in a lifetime believes that pay ceilings are a bad idea. Shocked!

But as to the second part—isn’t the government a very large stakeholder in every bank on which they are trying to impose capped executive salaries? So they should have a say in compensation, based on her statement. It’s either that or (a) she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, or (b) she doesn’t care what she says or whether it holds up against any level of scrutiny so long as it seems to match with the misshapen driftwood that comprises the contemporary Republican platform.

It’s gotta be one of those three, right?

I feel your pain, brother.

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:00:15 -0500

I feel your pain, brother.