Dear God
Very few things can render me speechless. This has. The comments thread following the video on Youtube is equally frightening.
March 30, 2007
March 14, 2007
On Discussing Cinema
So in the past I've worked with a large number of movie-studio properties. Movie titles. I've heard box office numbers flung about like gasoline prices and bust size measurements. So as much as I'm not a cinemaphile proper, I can't help but get involved in discussions regarding film production every now and then. Sometimes the result is worth preserving for posterity.
Mike: regarding the much delayed danny boyle scifi film, Sunshine: "The cast were forced to live in student amenities for a while where they had to cook for themselves..."Me: and what exactly was the reasoning behind that?
Mike: according to the article, "to create a feel of solitude and being confined together."
Mike: apparently, they cant act either. they had to go to solitude training. confinement camp.
Me: They didn't know how to be alone, and had to be trained in solitary confinement for stretches of years, until the producers realized that the actors forgot how to speak during that time.
Me: "Well shit, talk about unintended side effects."
Mike: "say your line, dammit!"
"ahhh..." *soils self*
"oh."Me: "Okay, ACTION!"
*actor sobs pitifully*
"...hey you! this isn't a sobbing scene!"Me: "Well, given the mental damage we've done to the cast, I guess we could re-write the script to be about Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz."
Me: "...SPACE AUSCHWITZ!"
*producer high fives director*
January 23, 2007
The Only Celebrity I've Ever Been In Love With
...was Nomia Maki of the now sadly defunct Pizzicato Five. The P5 rocked the retro with unbelievable efficacy - always exactly two decades behind the curve with retroactive soul funk and high-life bossa during the 80s, retroactive glam rock during the 90s, and retroactive pop during the 'aughts.
Invoking Twiggy == hot.
Those who know me will easily understand the attraction.
Sweet soul revue indeed
January 08, 2007
A Good News-Day
Today was a Good News-Day™. By this I mean that the news headlines of this particular day seem to indicate that the world as a whole might be improving, if even just a little bit. Which is unusual, of course. Because the world is shitty.
But not today. No, today brings us a scant but pleasant pair of newsitems. First, we have word that "Spain takes lead in closing down the websites that tell girls it's good to be anorexic":
Health authorities in Madrid have acted to close a pro-anorexia website, accusing it of endangering the lives of teenage girls.Four months after the city led the world in the Size 0 debate by banning ultra-skinny models from its catwalks, health officials are shining the spotlight on the growing number of “pro-ana” websites that glorify starvation diets.
Wow. Just wow. But it gets better.
The regional government has asked a judge to determine whether the owners are criminally liable for the content.
CRIMINALLY. LIABLE. It does seem to me that the spaniards just might be in possession of the only government on the planet which actually utilizes its resources to consider legislations with the citizenry in mind. *cough*. Bravo. Go Spain. Keep being... Spanish.
The other piece of good-news-day-news is titled, "Neo-Nazi leader arrested on child porn charges".
"Kevin also used to say that the only sport he was interested in was nymphet baseball, whatever that means."
Um. Yeah. In any case, this is the organization our friend Kevin represented. Feel free to visit and check the site out. You can draw your own conclusions regarding their stance. Don't worry, no one will be watching.
November 18, 2006
Internet: Powerful Stuff
Last week's tasering of an Iranian-American student by campus police is just another sign that the combination of citizen reporting and instant, free, accessible online distribution is becoming a truly powerful force on the planet, one that governments and individuals should learn to fear. What would once have been a local event has ignited a firestorm of interest on the intarnets. The internet also provides us with our choice of alignment in the issue, both in favor of the student, and against him.
But that's not the point of this post. The point, rather, is that the cost barrier for entry into the multimedia-reporting-enabled populace has been demolished. Even my 14 year old niece carries a mobile phone that records video to SD cards, and that was a two year old hand-me-down. You can pick up a phone that can record video now for a whopping *negative* twenty five bucks (usual caveats about agreeing to contracts apply). If 80% of the world's population and 71% of America's owns a mobile phone, and if service providers are more or less paying you to take the phones in exchange for service agreements, then it would seem possible to ensure that no event in society would ever go unnoticed, forgotten, or suppressed.
November 10, 2006
Terror From the Deep
In the wake of the 2006 midterm election results, there was obviously some grumbling to be done. Not by myself, of course, nor my fellow liberal babykilling brethren. We obviously partied, and partied hard. In fact, yesterday was such a good day for liberals that I aborted three fetuses and committed no fewer than SIX acts of indecency. Oh, and I played Yahtzee with a group of islamofundamentalist terrorists (they won, how ironic!). So I spent the evening licking the balls of a gay Mexican migrant worker to celebrate our gains, but how exactly were the members of the opposition grieving their losses? To find out, I took a quick swing by Free Conservatives to see what the buzz was on their messageboards. Here's a tasty freebie, with more quotes after the jump:
I voted among a flurry of unwashed, pony-tailed men, and hairy-legged, fat women - Portland, as you know, is a liberal hellhole. Man, you never saw a shabbier, sorrier-looking bunch of losers.I voted straight Republican. I had the pleasure to vote for Michael Beardsley, a Christian conservative running against the Snowe Cow. I know. He has as much chance of winning as I have of becoming rich overnight. Still, it gave me particular satisfaction to vote against Snowe.
...interested in reading some more?
July 27, 2006
Oh China
This is one of those things that people are used to hearing me say - "China is either going to lead us boldly into the future we always dreamed of, or destroy us all long before we get anywhere near it." The means by which China has the potential to be our guide into the brighter of the potential futures I'll leave for another day. Today I feel like I should really say something about the bleaker, nastier, crustier, and more pustulent future that China might lead us to.
Just about most everyones and manypeoples know of China's reputation for being *the* place where counterfeit products come from. Maybe it's just what happens when you combine impoverished rural communities, far-too-taxed law enforcement capabilities, the ready availability of specialized machinery, and an entire planet full of people trying to save a buck.
Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Emporio Armani... Farmsdale?
SHANGHAI (AFX) - The European Union is seeing an increase in the import of counterfeit goods of a potentially life-threatening nature, such as fake medications and aircraft parts, making it imperative for China to crack down on fake products, a top EU customs official said.'It is no longer dominated by expensive luxury items or expensive watches but fake medicines, fake foodstuffs, fake children's toys, fake car spare parts and even fake spare parts for aircraft engines,' EU Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union Laszlo Kovacs told students at Shanghai's China Europe International Business School.
'It's no more a question of financial loss, it's no more a question of losing some revenue, it is a growing danger to the health, to the safety and to the lives of our citizens,' he added. (source)
Do ya feel the fear? Didja notice the mention of "foodstuffs" and "medicines"? Some things won't really won't hurt you... or so they say:
A Chinese trader who has lived in Japan for three years says trademark violation is nothing more than a legal concept in a capitalist society. ''Forged cigarettes don't kill people. Chinese who manufacture them never feel a sense of guilt,'' the trader said. (source)
...but as our collective ingenuity begins to work against us, we wind up with far, far nastier things than knock-off Von Dutch tee-shirts:
The father of a six-year-old girl who died after a receiving an illegal hepatitis A vaccine in China’s Anhui Province says doctors repeatedly assured him his daughter was fine even as she turned purple and began foaming at the mouth."I called the chief doctor quite a few times but got the same answer: 'You as a parent should not panic,'" the girl’s father, who asked to be identified by his surname, Li, told RFA’s Mandarin service.
"Her condition then became worse and worse. When she was sent to a makeshift emergency room, she had nonstop cramps in her hands.... There were purple patches on her body and her lips were purple too. But they kept saying she was fine, she was fine," he said.
Li Wei was hospitalized with an unspecified infection and breathing problems after receiving a dose of the vaccine, her father said.
He told RFA’s Mandarin service that he was pressured to bury her quickly as well, which he fears reflected an effort to obscure the cause of her death. (source)