Archive for February, 2005
Alright, here’s the thing.
I’m watching the Academy Awards tonight, and so far to be quite honest it’s probably the worst awards show I’ve seen in years. Take Chris Rock, for example. I know Chris Rock can be funny. However, the jokes he has written for him tonight are just not that good. Many of them seem just a bit TOO easy, you know? Sure, you can bash Bush and Hollywood together. Still, haven’t both themes been done to death?
Which kind of leads to my main thought about tonight’s show- it just seems, well… really lazily put together. From the “let’s have awards speeches given in the crowd” motif to the “Beyonce singing three- THREE- songs this year” theme, it seems like the awards show itself was put together to be as effortless as possible, which in this case just does. Not. Work.
Then, they made a mistake by doing the thing where they get all of the nominees up on stage and announce the winner. It seems to reality showlike- or worse, like a beauty pageant. The rest of the nominees just look damned foolish.
Then, there are this year’s winners. Other than “The Incredibles” winning Best Animated Feature (I swear, I thought “Shrek 2″ was going to win it even though “Incredibles” was the better movie), it’s been pretty by the numbers. Take Hilary Swank, right now as I’m typing this. Other than whether or not she was going to thank her husband this year, nothing was mysterious for it. As an aside note, however, if you looked at Annette Bening when Swank’s name was announced, she just had a big “you can ALL go screw yourselves” look on her face when she lost- AGAIN- to Hilary Swank. Hilary Swank has become the Khan to her Captain Kirk. I can picture Anette going home tonight, looking into the air and screaming “SWAAAAAAAANNK!!!”
(On a side note… please, please let women in Hollywood know that they can EAT. It’s disturbing to see backbone on a woman because her SKELETON IS SHOWING THROUGH HER SKIN.)
Many of the awards given tonight seemed to be “Uhm, our bad” awards- meaning that they were given as makeups for previous mistakes. Take Morgan Freeman. He got the award tonight that he really, REALLY should have gotten for “Shawshank Redemption.” Thus, Thomas Haden Church got screwed for “Sideways.”
Oh, and tonight proves once more that Martin Scorcese will never, EVER win. ‘Nuff said.
Many of tonight’s speeches were unmemorable- well, save for Jamie Foxx’s speech for Best Actor. Damned if I didn’t smile at him winning, and his emotional speech was easily the best of the night.
Thus, we come to the personal beef with tonight’s awards. My favorite movie of the past year that is nominated was “Sideways.” So, naturally, it’s been screwed out of winning nearly of the awards it’s been nominated for tonight. Thus, the Academy managed to pull another bad show out of its ass once more.
“Sideways” got fuckin’ robbed, man.
Out.
Found by way of Mai’s site.
The father of the 15-year-old girl allegedly involved in a sexual incident at Milton Academy said last night that the family has not decided whether to recommend that prosecutors press charges against five varsity ice hockey players who allegedly received oral sex from the girl in a school locker room.
How can you press charges when your daughter is a WHORE?! If I had been in the lockerroom I would have been standing there waiting to be serviced too. They were probably just standing there and she suggested the whole idea!
”We’re still trying to get over what we found out,” said the girl’s father as he unloaded her bags and moved her home to New Hampshire. It is the Globe’s policy not to identify victims in cases of potential sexual abuse nor their family members without their consent.
Three sophomores and two juniors, all members of the boys ice hockey team, were expelled from the private campus Friday, after a three-day school investigation found that they requested and received oral sex from a schoolmate Jan. 24.
The school placed the female student on an indefinite ”administrative leave” to give the family time to discuss what happened, a school spokeswoman said.
”We haven’t decided what we’re going to do yet,” her father said, as the slender teen, her hair pulled back in a bun, arrived home with her parents last night. She appeared in good spirits.
”She’ll be fine,” her father said.
Police were notified of the incident by the school last Friday morning and are investigating. Milton Police Chief Kevin J. Mearn said yesterday that he expected police to have interviews with the five boys and the girl completed by the end of the week. Four of the boys are from out of state, one of them from Florida. Mearn declined to say if there were other witnesses to the incident but said police would be talking to others on campus about the incident.
Students at Milton Academy return to classes today for the first time since the incident became public Friday. Administrators said they are going to continue an open-door policy for students to talk with school administrators about any concerns they might have about the incident.
”We will meet with kids, acknowledge that it’s been painful for us, painful for them,” said Cathleen Everett, the school’s spokeswoman.
Everett emphasized that sex education programs at the private academy are comprehensive and consistent, teaching respect and appropriate sexual relations, and may in fact go further than many public school programs.
”The behavior was an anomaly,” she said. ”It’s outside common norms. Unfortunately, adolescents make big mistakes.”
The school’s actions were explained to all students Friday in meetings with class deans, where students were allowed to ask questions.
On campus, parents of some Milton Academy students said there is anger toward the girl, blaming her for the expulsion of the five boys.
Hell yeah I’d be angry too if I got expelled for getting a BJ that some girl offered. Its not like they forced their wangs in her mouth and forced her to suck them off. She came home “happy.”
Under Massachusetts state law, an individual can be prosecuted for having sexual intercourse or ”unnatural sexual intercourse” with someone under 16, even if the sex is consensual.
Norfolk County District Attorney William R. Keating’s office referred all questions about the matter to police yesterday.
Milton Academy, founded in 1798, has 680 students, kindergarten through 12th grade, both day students and boarders. Those who live at the school, in grades 9 through 12, represent 34 states and 16 countries and live in eight, single-sex ”houses.” Tuition and room and board at the academy costs $32,725.
And btw, in case you didn’t figure it out for 32k a year you can send your son to this school and he’ll learn first hand about the birds and the bees and bjs from sexually repressed girls.
As of late the court proceedings that have ruled in favor of the husband to pull the feeding tube of Terri Schindler-Schiavo have brought to light a ton of arguments. Many people argue that its not right to pull the feeding tube that is keeping her alive. At the same time her current situation was caused because her lack of wanting to eat, or rather her eating disorder in the first place. Although you won’t find any information on her website “terrisfight” the reason she collapsed was because she was literally starving herself.
Schiavo suffered brain damage in 1990 when she collapsed from heart failure. She recovered from the heart attack, but oxygen was cut off to her brain, leaving her in what doctors call a “persistent vegetative state.” She is responsive to stimuli, doctors have said, but has no significant brain function and cannot feed herself.
If you look at the facts, she
It’s been an interesting weekend, folks. Just in the last couple of days…
- Paris Hilton showed that her ability to embarass herself and others has kept its stride when someone cracked into her cellphone and stole not only pictures (including- shockingly!- personal topless and sapphic shots of her kissing other attractive women, which naturally you’d keep on your cellphone) but also numbers for several dozen celebrities. The phone numbers hit the internet and failry quickly, several of said phone numbers were mysteriously “disconnected or no longer in service.”
- Sandra Dee died on Sunday. Late Middle-aged ex-surfers across the land mourned.
- John Raitt also died on Sunday. Though well known back in the 1940s for his performances on Broadway, he has become better known the last couple of decades as being the father of blues guitar performer Bonnie Raitt.
- And, in an apparent effort to get some overtime over the weekend, Death called in his schmuck little brother Suicude to shuffle Hunter S. Thompson off this mortal coil. Thompson, who took his life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, created the style of writing known as Gonzo journalism. His books include Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and his articles were written for Rolling Stone and www.ESPN.com in the Page2 section. One final note- if you don’t believe Thompson was influential, take a look at the number of useless hack bloggers out there who read Thompson, get stoned and think that their resulting stream-of-consciousness ramblings are actually entertaining.
That’s about it, for now. Oh, there was also the Daytona 500 (Lucky was PISSED that Jeff Gordon won the race in the last 3 laps), the NBA All-star game (East meets West, and beats the crap out of it), and the NHL still being cancelled (and the spread of people across the world not giving a crap).
Out.
It’s strange how things just turn around when you least expect them. I’ve been too busy to think about “when is the end of the week?” to even notice. And now here it is, and for the first weekend in a while I think I might be able to relax a bit. So for your friday morning pleasure I’ll post a new fragrance that I’ve run across that I’m sure you’ll all be out buying as soon as it hits the shelfs.
What once was a term of polite precaution has become the season’s latest olfactory craze, thanks to a collaboration between perfume extraordinaire Christopher Brosius and innovative movie maverick Alan Cumming.
Brosius, whose signature scents can be found at his newly opened Williamsburg studio, pulled from his library of thousands of aromas to create the perfect perfume for Cumming. Alan’s always been an extremely good client, says Brosius, And making this fragrance was the perfect scenario. The team bills the fragrance as beyond gender, and it is sure to appeal to any fashionable folks who are over the frilly floral thing. It is a rich mix of peat fire, Scotch pine, Scotch whisky and burned rubber, says Cumming.
Thus making for an over-the-top, cocksure combination. What could be better, asks Cumming, than smelling nice, feeling sexy and having a laugh? Brosius is known for his rather unorthodox approach to the art of perfume-making, dating back to when he created scents like Dirt and Funeral Parlor for the offbeat scent company Demeter.
Currently, Brosius offers a custom fragrance service at his Williamsburg gallery, where he often focuses on patrons memories to create scents. Medicinal bottles of fragrance essences line the walls (including Bazooka, Greasy Oven, Vermouth and the more demure Jasmine). Brosius sought to capture the essence of Cumming, particularly his wit, mischievous nature and versatility. Alan loved the smell of burning wood and rubber, like the latex from a children’s party balloon, Brosius recalls. For his fragrance, we wanted to create a deep, rich, spicy burst. Base notes of leather, peat fire, highland mud, burnt rubber and white truffle ground the scent with rugged sensuality, while the core notes of cigar, heather, Douglas fir and rubber contribute to its sharpness. The fragrance is completed with spicy top notes of bergamot, black pepper, Scotch pine and whiskey.
Taking a cue from the anonymity of the infamous plain brown paper-wrapped parcel, the stark, clear glass bottle of Cumming is topped with a silver cap and packaged in a simple, unadorned box. Inside, however, the silver-toppered perfume is paired with a collection of striking portraits of Alan Cumming, taken by fashion photographer Steve Vaccariello.
Looks like J. Lo and Donald Trump’s competition just got a bit stiffer.
Aparently there will be a whole line of his product, including a lotion called “cumming all over you.”
In a major, earth-shattering announcement, the NHL cancelled the entirety of its 2004-2005 season. News of this can be read here.
In other news, 290 million residents of the United States of America didn’t give a crap. Across the country, dozens of diehard NHL fans collected in mourning as the rest of society around them show the same indifference and apathy towards the NHL that had been shown during the decades that NHL seasons were not cancelled. Sports writers and commentators from California to New York collectively commented on the unanticipated lack of interest while marking this as the first nail in the coffin for professional hockey.
Canada wept, and immediately declared NHL president Gary Bettmann a terrorist wanted dead or alive.
Out.
Don’t worry They’ll get it back, now you’re basically punished for being world minded and thinking about the enviroment. You’ll be taxed by mile instead of getting tax breaks for buying an ecofriendly car.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/14/eveningnews/main674120.shtml
(CBS) College student Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment.
“I was paying about $500 a month,” says Just.
So Just bought a fuel efficient hybrid and said goodbye to his gas-guzzling BMW.
And what kind of mileage does he get?
“The EPA estimate is 60 in the city, 51 on the highway,” says Just.
And that saves him almost $300 a month in gas. It’s great for Just but bad for the roads he’s driving on, because he also pays a lot less in gasoline taxes which fund highway projects and road repairs. As more and more hybrids hit the road, cash-strapped states are warning of rough roads ahead.
Officials in car-clogged California are so worried they may be considering a replacement for the gas tax altogether, replacing it with something called “tax by the mile.”
Seeing tax dollars dwindling, neighboring Oregon has already started road testing the idea.
“Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it’s as simple as that,” says engineer David Kim.
Kim and his team at Oregon State University equipped a test car with a global positioning device to keep track of its mileage. Eventually, every car would need one.
“So, if you drive 10 miles you will pay a certain fee which will be, let’s say, one tenth of what someone pays if they drive 100 miles,” says Kim.
The new tax would be charged each time you fill up. A computer inside the gas pump would communicate with your car’s odometer to calculate how much you owe.
The system could also track how often you drive during rush hour and charge higher fees to discourage peak use. That’s an idea that could break the bottleneck on California’s freeways.
“We’re getting a lot of interest from other states,” says Jim Whitty of the Oregon Department of Transportation. “They’re watching what we’re doing.
“Transportation officials across the country are concerned about what’s going to happen with the gas tax revenues.”
Privacy advocates say it’s more like big brother riding on your bumper, not to mention a disincentive to buy fuel-efficient cars.
“It’s not fair for people like me who have to commute, and we don’t have any choice but take the freeways,” says Just. “We shouldn’t have to be taxed.”
But tax-by-mile advocates say it may be the only way to ensure that fuel efficiency doesn’t prevent smooth sailing down the road.
So, I fricking hate Valentine’s Day. But, it’s not what you think.
Admittedly, it’s become a bit cliched to hate Valentine’s day. Sitcoms devote entire episodes to the standard plotline of the guy/girl who hates Valentine’s Day, only to have their lover/wife/husband/roommate go through some convoluted scheme to win over the grump and:
A) have it fail.
B) succeed through unusual methods.
C) have “insert musician famous at that time here” sing a love song thus winning over the girl’s heart.
D) kill a beloved pet.
E) find out the love interest is actually a demon. (Okay, that only happened on “Buffy” but it still counts!)
That’s one reason alone why I hate Valentine’s Day. Bad sitcom episodes.
Then, there are my own cliched reasons for hating the day. One is that the times when I’ve been in some kind of romantic involvement with a lady have never fallen on this day- okay, I am saving money because of this so that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Another is that every news station on radio and on tv has to mention some wacky local story about somebody who tries the sitcom method only to have it go very, very badly- okay, usually this involves something very funny and painful happening to the guy. Again, not too bad because I at least get some entertainment value out of that part of it. Think of it as the Darwin Awards of love.
…
Hmm. Not coming up on any good reasons why I hate the holiday.
OH! I know why! It’s because of Goofy.
See, I was the stereotypical fat kid in grade school. Consequently, while other kids got the nice valentines I got the “Goofy propositioning a cow” card. Not “Mickey with Minnie,” not “Donald with Daisy,” not even “Elmer with Bugs in drag.” Nope, fricking “Goofy propositioning a cow.”
I’m not even sure what kind of message that was trying to send. I’m convinced that the greeting card conglomerates wanted to crush the spirits of fat kids everywhere for a reason. See, they realize that Hollywood needs bad sitcom writers who can recycle the same standard plotlines, and who better than the former fat kid with a complex? I just don’t like being used like that, you see.
Not only that, but I can’t even take advantage of all the candy out there anymore. I’m off the sugars and as such, I have to stay away from all of that heavily discounted candy tomorrow. So, I’m even MORE screwed.
And so, in the tone of a certain harpy from Hell, “Happy fricking Valentine’s Day!”
Out.
Police Chief Jeanne Miller was studying at the Reynoldsburg Library. As she drove off, she remembered she left something very important behind — her gun.
Now she’s waiting to find out if she’ll be disciplined for the mistake.
“She has a very fine reputation in law enforcement and I think the city is blessed to have her,” Safety Director Sharon Reichard said defending the police chief.
Reynoldsburg Police Chief Jeanne Miller admits she left her loaded gun inside the Reynoldsburg library on January 3rd. Reichard headed the investigation, and is convinced no one touched the bag, when the chief left the library.
“She left, She forgot to take the bag with her. She got in her car as soon as she hit main street, she darted back,” Reichard said.
The chief did not respond to our request for an interview, but told Reichard she was only gone five minutes before she drove back to get her purse.
“She did something very honorable she got on the phone she called the dispatcher and said if somebody from the library called that’s my handbag that’s my weapon and I’m heading back,” Reichard said.
The safety director says she isn’t sure if the police department has a policy regarding how weapons should be secured while officers are off duty. But, according to Reichard — that could change.
“It’s something we could consider but that’s for another time.”
Safety Director Reichard expects to have her recommendation for discipline on the Mayor’s desk by the end of business on Monday.
From here. Feb. 10, 2005
PITTSBURGH — A Pittsburgh man said a ticket a state police trooper gave him is for the bird. No, not the birds. The bird. Literally.
But 42-year-old Stephen Corey said he is suing because he believes he had a First Amendment right to flip his middle finger at Trooper Samuel Nassan III, who gave Corey two tickets last July.
Corey’s lawsuit said Nassan ticketed him for following another vehicle too closely, then wrote him up for giving a improper hand signal, the middle finger.
Corey and his attorney said that’s wrong because Nassan filed the ticket as though Corey committed a motor vehicle violation — like a motorist who made an illegal turn signal using his hand.
Nassan chuckled about the lawsuit, but said the ticket was proper because — he said — Corey gave him the finger as part of a gesture that indicated he was changing lanes.
Nassan can afford to be good-natured about the suit, because it’s far from the most serious one he’s facing right now. Nassan and his former partner, Trooper Juan Curry, are being sued in federal court for the fatal shooting of 12-year-old car theft suspect Michael Ellerbe in Uniontown, Pa., on Christmas Eve, 2002.
In efforts to get better link value on google or on yahoo, spamers have resorted to blogs like this one. This and comment spam piss me off to no end.
You may have heard the commercial music from the movie Constantine? Or as I like to refer to it is, The Matrix 4… Anyway the trailer music is called “Believe” by Ozomatli and has been released on their new album “Street Signs“. If you are interested in hearing the full song you can go to their website and click on the play button and it will play.
Unlike so many other groups out today, Ozomatli activly searchs the world around them for interesting musical notations to add to their palette. The song believe mixes a middle eastern theme, with a bit of hip hop. It features Veteran Moroccan sintir master Hassan Hakmoun, who
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