I've been busy, in case you've been wondering. But with what? Trying to start a family? Finding new ways to put bread on the table? Feeding the hungry?

As it turns out, I've spent the last week mesmerized by our new Samsung LCD. As you know, it is the official television of the NFL. After the Comcast technicians replaced a defective cable box, the Mrs. and I were finally able to sit down, turn it on, and in high definition watch ... Dancing with the Stars. You could actually see Jerry Springer glistening. My wife is a big fan of CSI but do I really want to see all those morsels of bload-soaked brain matter that close? Oh right, there was baseball. And that was truly amazing. Except I'm not really interested in the playoffs (I think the Nationals were only 300 games behind first place in the NL East).

Besides that, there is so much more. Did you know you can watch Bill Maher on HD? That nose! Or The McLauglin Group? Quick, back to Saw!

But all I could think was, Wait 'til Sunday. I'll sprawl out on the couch, wear a bib, eat, drink, and belch from noon to 11pm. It figures the first game on CBS turned out not to be in HD. Which in the end was a good thing since my Skins decided to implode, but that is another story.

Also interesting to watch in HD was a program that ran on Cinemax last Thursday at around 11pm.

Dead or Alive

No, not the '80s group. They're turning the game into a movie. And it has Jaime Pressly, naturally.



But do they, at any point, play volleyball?

More Sony Happy Talk

The UMD format is toast, but Sony says:

“We’re pretty pleased with UMD,” Sony UK MD Ray Maguire told MCV. “UMD has a fantastic attachment ratio. Where we’ve struggled a little is getting a decent proposition for full-length movies.

“UMD is not the problem--it’s getting the right content that’s the challenge. When we put shorts on UMD they sell really well, and that’s related to PSP usage. It’s about getting the offer right, and we will do that.”

Success is just around the corner! It's always darkest before the dawn!

Mr. K-Fed Goes Wrestling, yeah yeah yeah yeah

Blog Crush has the word that tonight on WWE's Raw, Kevin Federline wrestles John Cena. This is the lowest point for professional wrestling since David Arquette held the WCW belt.

Holler if you miss the Human Torture Rack.

Jenny and Tara

Jenny has a very, very mean post about Tara Reid's Plastic Surgery Nightmare. It almost made me cry. Why is everyone so mean to Tara? Why is it that everyone thinks Lohan and Hilton are chic tramps but Tara is just pathetic.

But then I remembered Tara and the good days of Bodyshots and Big Lebowski. They'll never be able to take that away from her. No they won't.

P.S.: Did you notice? Not one word about the Cowboys? That's because any team that gets a W after giving up a rushing TD to Drew Bledsoe should be quietly grateful.

The Russian Tony Robbins?

Sent in by a Galley Commenter, this article about Yalie Aleksey Vayner's attempt to get a job on Wall Street is flat-out unbelievable. Vayner put together a 7-minute video presentation of himself explaining, in detail, the keys to success. It involves weight-lifting. And karate.

Oh sure, the video is awesome, but then there's the follow-up, here and here. It seems that Vayner is something of a huckster-in-training:

Now let's turn to Vayner's charity, Youth Empowerment Strategies -- not to be confused, of course with this Youth Empowerment Strategies. Why are there two? Well, we're gonna break it down real simple: one is real, and the other isn't.

Vayner's site has a "Charity Navigator Four Star Charity" logo from Charity Navigator, an organization that ranks good charities and weeds out frauds. We called them this morning. "Oh, we've heard of them," Leonie Giles, a program analyst there, said immediately. They asked Aleksey's site (which lists a non-existant Manhattan address on its "Donate Another Way" page, btw) to take down the fake "Four Star" logo two months ago, and are considering legal action against them. Giles recommended we contact the freaking Connecticut attorney general.

Vayner lists on his resume his self-published book, Women's Silent Tears, which he calls a "gendered look at the Holocaust." You can't read the whole book online, but you can preview the first few pages. We examined a section on euthanasia, and guess what. The entire passage is lifted from the online Holocaust Encyclopedia.

Of course, the real joke is that the only people who seem to have fallen for Vayner's schtick were the ones at the Yale admissions office.

Bonus: But wait, there's more!

Turns out Aleksey is somewhat infamous among Yalies as the "Crazy Prefrosh" profiled in 2002 by Yale's Rumpus tabloid. If you thought Vayner's credibility was shaky after seeing the video, wait til you read the profile. It is devastating. For starters, his name back then was Aleksey Garber. He claimed to have spent much of his childhood in a Tibetan monestary in post-Soviet Uzbekistan before moving to the United States, where he was employed by both the Mafia and the CIA. He was also a tennis instructor whose students include Harrison Ford and Sarah Michelle Gellar. And oh yeah: he met the Dalai Lama along the way and is the second greatest martial arts fighter in the world.

Whedonesque

I normally try not to talk about other stuff I'm doing, but I'm going to violate that rule and point you toward "Beginner's Luck". It's a fan-comic for the Firefly/Serenity universe. This is insanely geeky, but I'm so thrilled at having gotten to work with Mike Russell and Bill Mudron--two comic gods--that I had to mention it.

If you're into the Serenity thing, you might also want to check out Mudron's stunning little book "The Black".

Insanity

Galley Friend B.W. sends this amazing video of a fireworks factory blowing up. It starts slowly at first, but stay with it.



That actually kind of ruins any CGI special effects for me. We see big explosions in movies all the time and they look impressive, but we don't have reality to compare them with. This is better than anything Michael Bay has ever staged.

Plushies!

Drudge has a link to this video of a bunch of in-costume Disney characters simulating sex. Sure, it sounds innocent, but it's not all Mickey-and-Minnie-do-missionary. You're going to take that image of Goofy bending over the Chipmunks to the grave.

But that's not even the funny!

The punchline is that if you turn up the volume, it's clear that this is taking place somewhere in the vicinity of EuroDisney. Naturally.

Google and YouTube

I suspected that Google's $1.65B purchase of YouTube was a sign that the we're headed for a second internet bubble. It has all the hallmarks of the late '90s: Huge cash which is provided by an incomprensible jump in stock price for a product that the buyer tried to create themselves (see Google Video), but couldn't.

Awesome Andy Kessler provides an actual argument for this, and it's basically new hotness:

So why bother buying YouTube? Is this a sign of strength ("we bought them because we can turn anything into gold") or weakness (like, say, Ebay buying Skype as their auction franchise weakens) or desparation (Excite merging with AtHome). It makes a difference. On the surface, this looks like a deal from strength - video is the next frontier on the Internet, blah, blah. But really, did Google want to do it or have to do it?

Despite continued growth, Google has hinted at a few signs of weakness. One is their huge capital spending to build datacenters and servers and bandwidth capacity, dinging their cash flow. I thought the search business scaled with much less investment. Maybe not.

And second, Google actually paid for traffic - $1 billion to Dell over 3 years for a crummy toolbar on Dell PCs. The numbers may work, but it's kind of like Hugh Grant paying for something he would get anyway. There may still be someone in Sheboygen who doesn't know about Google. Is search now such a commodity that Google needs to pay money to keep growing?

It gets better from there.

Al Franken Bombs

What's going on with Al Franken: God Spoke? The numbers don't look good. As of Sunday, it had only grossed just over $64,000. But, it was only showing in 10 theaters, giving it an average of $1,144. That's pretty bad.

The worse news for Franken is that his per theater average has been plummeting: $5,266 the first weekend; $2,981 the next; then $2,197; and now that putrid $1,144 number.

The Franken documentary is going nowhere, fast, and it would do well now just to break $100K, let alone to wind up in the mediocre territory of a lefty docu such as Outfoxed, which did $461K.

What's really interesting, though, is this chart of political documentary grosses. Notice how many of the biggest-grossing political docus have come in the very recent past: 15 of the top 20 were released post-2000. Also notice how many of them are of a leftward persuasion. If nothing else, George W. Bush's administration has been great for liberal documentary filmmakers.

Alright, that's too glib. But it is striking how the liberal documentary market has come alive in the past six years. Of the 62 highest-grossing political documentaries of all time, 49 of them were released after the 2000 election, and nearly all of them are lefty. It's another entire medium that has come to be dominated by the left.

Or has it? Could it just be that the political docu has finally come into its own as a medium and that, when a Democratic administration is in the White House, we'll see the rise of conservative documentaries? They're cheap and relatively easy to make, and the bar for success is set pretty low. You don't need to open like Dead Man's Chest to get on the map.

Anyway, most people don't pay attention to the documentary category until they're watching the Oscars. But I think that for a number of reasons--digital video and cheap editing software, the growth of digital delivery, the turbulent political culture--this medium could develop in interesting ways over the next few years.

Update: Galley Friend M.G. sends this Slate link about political docus. Writer Anthony Kaufman says, "After Michael Moore's docubuster Fahrenheit 9/11 opened the floodgates with its $119 million in ticket sales, offering solid proof that political docs could make waves in the marketplace, a litany of films has arrived in its wake . . ."

I think that's not quite right. Again, go to our political docu chart and you'll see Fahrenheit 9/11 as the highest-grossing pic in the genre with $119M. That's a huge haul. But the difference between first and second place here is gigantic. #2 is Inconvenient Truth with $23.7M. By the time you get to #5 on the list--The Fog of War--you're looking at a gross of $4.2M. If only three docus in the history of the genre have topped $10M in total receipts, I don't think you can interpret the success of Fahrenheit 9/11 has a sign that the genre is ready to do big business. It's certainly expanding and growing, but I wouldn't interpret this as it becoming a major part of the marketplace. It's still a very, very niche medium.

What's interesting is how that niche is dominated ideologically.

Under Rated?

I've been saying for weeks that the Detroit Tigers felt a lot like last year's White Sox. Now that they're up 2-0 on the A's, it's reasonable to consider where we'll have to put the Tigers' two most important contributors in the grand scheme of things if they do win the World Series.

Let's start with Jim Leyland. If Leyland wins World Series rings with two different teams--and those teams are the Marlins and the Tigers--doesn't that put him in the pantheon of all-time great managers? That would be the equivalent of winning NBA titles with the Bucks and the Cavaliers. Or Super Bowls with Chargers and Bills. It's an amazing accomplishment and should mark him as one of the greats.

And how about Pudge Rodriguez? He's averaging .304 for his career and slugging .483. He's a 13-time All Star, has won 11 Gold Gloves, and is the best defensive catcher of his generations. If the Tigers win the World Series, you'll have to combine all of this with the fact that he's the sparkplug which ignited two championship teams. How great is this guy?

Off Topic

This has nothing to do with anything, but I finally got a chance to sit down with Jody Bottum's "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano" and it is, hands down, the best piece of writing I've come across this year. It's way long, so print out a copy and treat yourself. You won't be sorry.

The Fugs Do K-Fed

No, not that way. This way:

So, yeah, we haven't talked lately and you know, Britney is always saying I'm like a bad communicator and shit but the truth is, yo, I have got my HANDS FULL. First of all, my acting career is off the HOOK. Check it out: I'm on CSI this week and listen, I fucking rock the house on that show. I'm pretty sure they're going to ask me to have my own CSI. CSI: YOUR ASS. And I'll go all over America investigating HOT ASSES. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Holla!

But seriously, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get my own show now, and then who'll be the breadwinner, baby? That's right: yo soy la breadwinner, bitches. And that'll be the end of "No, you can't buy a Slurpee machine," and "Who's the person in this relationship who HAS a Grammy?" and "please hold the baby."

Geektastic

From Galley Friend M.G.: a BSG Wiki. Rock on.

My New Favorite Sports Blog

As always, I'm way late to the party, but this Kissing Suzy Kolber blog is aces. In the above post, they give Hollywood directors to match NFL teams. For example, Steelers=Frank Capra. How awesome is this list? Here's what they have for the Eagles and the Skins:

Philadelphia -- Martin Scorsese

Ah, this one is bound to raise some hackles. "But he's from New York!" you carp. "He's too good for the Iggles!" Both are valid points. However, it all boils down to the fact that Scorsese, like Thrilly, can't win the big one even though it seems like both should have by now. The Departed looks promising and a lot of sportswriters are improbably picking the Eagles to go to the Super Bowl. And the Super Bowl goes to...Dances With Wolves.

Washington -- Michael Bay

Give them enough money and they'll give you a sad excuse to waste yours. Pearl Harbor and the Deion Sanders signing are similarly epic, costly blunders. Roland Emmerich or James Cameron could probably also fit here, but Cameron is too cool now that he's been on Entourage. I go with Bay because it has already come to pass - UM reported that crew from The Transformers Movie was on hand Sunday at FedEx for the Jags-Indigenous Peoples game to get film of Brunell morphing into a decent quarterback for a week.

Foley IM Generator

It's only mostly cool. It has some good IM's--"i wnt2 watch U spank yur quorum"--but the real gold is the groaning in the background which, I think, may be lifted from the "$20 Sack Pyramid."

Holler if you love your Auntie Clarice (or Halle Berry).

Major Medical Breakthrough

Normally I tune out those annoying commercials for products you can order by phone for $19.99 plus shipping and handling. But the other night I happened upon an ad for something called My Lil Reminder, a minirecorder that helps you remember where you parked your car and what to get at the supermarket. You can watch the commercial online in order to appreciate not only the significance of the device but also the Oscar-worthy performances.

But as I sat and stared in amazement (and after two Scotches and a beer), I thought to myself, "Do these people realize they've just found a cure for Alzheimer's, dementia, and amnesia?"

Trailer City

The shorter, theatrical trailer for Frank Miller's 300 is up.

Fugging Awesome

The Fug Girls have two excellent posts this morning. The first is an ode to Kate Winslett that contains this tidbit:

In this week's EW, she says that Emma Thompson once told her that if she [Kate] lost weight, Emma would "never fucking speak to [her] again," and that is one of the reasons we love Emma Thompson, even if she sometimes shows up places in unflattering bodices.)

Could Emma Thompson be any more excellent? No, I think not.

But the really good stuff is this excerpt from Paris Hilton's diary:

YEAH THAT'S RIGHT BABY. (Hee. I said "baby." Can you imagine if Nicky has a baby? Maybe that would be cool. I could dress it up in little mini-Paris dresses and take it out and it could hold my drinks for me if I need to use both hands when I'm talking to a guy, or if I need to sneak away I could put the baby thing in my place and because we're dressed the same nobody would know I was gone. It would be like having a twin! Just like the Olsens, except we don't wear tights.)