Archive: November, 2005
As gotchas go, this is a good one.
The Wall Street Journal's online site quotes a U.S. Army captain who found fault with MoveOn.org's video ads that noted 150,000 U.S. men and women wouldn't be home to share Thanksgiving with their families. The ad compared Democratic and Republican leadership in arguing for withdrawal from Iraq. Sided with the Dems.
The captain, a friend of the Journal's Best of The Web editor, groused by email:
The latest Hollywood anti-piracy device just arrived on film critic Carrie Rickey's desk.
A DVD player.
It's that time of the season when I start mewing around Carrie's desk, eyeing the still-in-the theater "screeners" that the movie studios send out so they can wind up on end-of-year Top 10 lists and generate Oscar buzz.
Was one of the 12,676 (paid) sports fans who watched the Sixers play last night. Embarassed to say, but this was the first NBA game I remember going to. Couldn't get or afford Celtics tickets growing up, so my only brush with then-greatness was having Sam Jones live in my town, and I'd see him once or twice a year taking his son (Aubrey?) to Little League. When he left the team, he sold his house to the Reggie Smith, as I remember, so we still had at least one black family. I wouldn't pay to see the green these days.
What surprised me last night? Aside from the typical geezer reactions? ("They look like kids," I said to The Professor, who has season tickets and sported me one in exchange for beers and a gruesome Italian sausage floated in some sort of pale yellow medium. "They are kids," he replied.)
That the music never stops - except for during foul shots. That people of all colors turn out and mix naturally. That when I was looking for what the arena reminded me of, I first thought the circus, and then settled on Blade Runner's LA of the near-future where ads appear on every surface, and something crams every corner of the streetscape, and vies for your attention. That the band of light that rings the hall and showed shards of the American flag during the Anthem is used to flash ads for the rest of the game. That Allen Iverson plays harder than anyone I've seen since late '70s Springsteen.
Was intrigued by the New York Times article Monday detailing how pharmaceutical companies recruit cheerleaders to sell drugs to doctors. The "Gimme an Rx" piece, reported by Stephanie Saul, describes these can-do gals as the perfect salespeople to move the product to physicians, most of whom are male.
It quotes Dr. Thomas Carli of the University of Michigan, not a fan of the practice, as saying, "There's a saying that you'll never meet an ugly drug rep."
Where the article doesn't quite deliver is in giving details of the X-rated parody email, reportedly making the rounds, from a cheerleader-turned-saleswoman.
There's something I was going to do.
It was before I found myself reading various predictions about the next Phillies closer, a piece on why Hooter's could flop in Germany, speculation about whether A.D. Amorosi is really a vampire, something both funny and smart about Bob Woodward, and something both depressing and smart about the man who would sell Knight Ridder.
It was before 18 tricks to teach my body, checking out the origin of this New Zealand men's room picture (above), finding a cheat sheet to help avoid voice message purgatory, and reading more about the rocket scientistdevoted son who dumped his mother's ashes on the Eagles's 30-yard-line.
Not sure why, but a couple pieces here have generated a lot of personal mail - pieces in which I tell how:
1.) I was such an aggressively bad hockey player that I once fanned on a breakaway, fell on the puck, and slid pathetically toward the goalie.
2.) I got beaten up in ninth grade. And lived to get even.
Bow Wow disses Will Smith. Tells XXL Magazine he "did his litttle rap thing first." But the Philly-reared star "wasn't like a real rapper. He was more like a gimmick.... With me, I'm a rapper. I ain't with the whole colorful cornball-type things. That's just my style."
Tim Price at the DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince blog sends it back to the young dog:
Will wasnt a real rapper huh? Bow Wow wasnt even born when Will was freestyling rocking house parties with Jeff in Philly back in 1985. Bow Wows statements do nothing for the ignorance of todays youth. Things came easy for Will? Umm, I dont think so. Will Smith worked damn hard to get where he is today. He paved the way for untalented hacks like Bow Wow to even exist. Will had to overcome some major obstacles too, like unsuccessful albums, and owing the IRS a million dollars in unpaid tax. Will is still here 20 years later releasing Gold albums and smash hits at the Box Office. The Fresh Prince is more of a rapper than Bow Wow will ever be, the kid needs to learn his ol skool, and step the hell off.
Talk about intelligent design. A friend sends a link to a personalized radio station called The Music Genome Project. Tell it a favorite song and it will stack up a collection of songs that I might also like, it promises.
I like the url: pandora.com. I give it a spin.
I'm planning a whole Springsteen/Stones/Steely Dan thing before the friend makes one more suggestion:
The rapper, author, video and movie star named 50 Cent is thinking of expanding his brand, going where few icons, musical or otherwise, have gone before.
Imagine ... the 50 Cent vibrator.
"I need to make a 50 Cent condom, and a motorised version of me," Fiddy tells GQ Magazine. "A motorised version of me will definitely have to be waterproof, so you could utilise it in the tub. A lot of them (vibrators) aren't waterproof."
So this is Cyber Monday, a new holiday, named for all the Internet shopping conducted today, the first day after Thanksgiving that we are back at work and can use the company's broadband access to be truly productive.
I'm still trying to sort out Black Friday. The New York Times tell us that since 2003 it's been the busiest shopping day of the year.
The Urban Legends site says not so fast.
- Aquarium Drunkard
- Arts and Letters Daily
- ArtsJournal Blog Central
- Augasm
- Blogcritics.org
- Fluxblog
- Gawker
- I Am Fuel, You Are Friends
- Largehearted Boy
- Metafilter
- Motel de Moka
- NPR Music
- Romenesko
- Said the Gramophone
- Some Velvet Blog
- Stereogum
- The Awl
- THE TOFU HUT
- WFMU's Beware of the Blog
- When you Awake
- Der Spiegel Online
- Economist.com
- Global Voices Online
- Guardian Unlimited Newsblog
- signandsight
- Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things
- Dynamist Blog
- Gizmodo
- Slashdot News for nerds, stuff that matters
- A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago
- A Smoke-Filled Room
- Above Average Jane
- Afro-Netizen™
- artblog
- Attytood
- Balls, Sticks and Stuff
- Beerleaguer
- Blankbaby
- blonde sagacity
- Books, Inq.
- Changing Skyline
- Citizen Mom
- How Appealing
- Mere Cat
- Philadelphia Weather
- Philebrity
- philly
- Philly Burbs Blogs
- Philly Future
- slacktivist
- Suburban Guerrilla
- Swing and A Miss
- The BM Rant
- The Clog
- The Daily Jive
- The Phanatic
- The Smedley Log
- The700Level.com
- TheIlladelph
- This Urban Life
- Tom Gralish's Photo Blog
- Young Philly Politics
- CJR
- editorsweblog.org
- Online Journalism Review
- Poynter Online - Romenesko
- PressThink
- Reflections of a Newsosaur
- Second Draft by Tim Porter
- BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis
- DeepBlog
- Joho the Blog
- Technorati
- The Daily Beast
- 538
- Booman Tribune
- Brad DeLong
- Daily Kos
- Digby
- Eschaton
- Informed Comment
- Instapundit
- Little Green Footballs
- My DD
- Pajamas Media
- pandagon
- Power Line
- The Daily Howler
- The Huffington Post
