Brief Political Aside

I'm watching CNN's election coverage (in glorious high definition) and Wolf Blitzer was just showing Barack Obama with a giant, 18-point lead over Hillary Clinton. I was kind of surprised by that. He then showed the vote totals--436,064 votes for Obama and only 303,276 votes for Clinton with 1 percent reporting. He actually read the totals out and did some analysis on them. Apparently it never occurred to him that this might be some sort of technical glitch since, you know, Texas doesn't have 73 million voters.

Blitzer! Get over here and sit on my shoulders while I do push-ups.

URGENT GEEK NEWS

CNN is reporting that Gary Gygax, the father of D&D, is dead.

It's sad, sad news. Go home and throw a 20-sider for the holmes.

The Emo Eagles Fan Returns

The best one ever?

Same as it ever was. You think you have so much to offer someone - emotional support, intellectual stimulation, consideration for their needs, a big contract with lots of guaranteed money - and yet they return to easy crutch of the familiar. People can be weak. Change can be a minefield.

I know this to be true, as do my cherished Eagles. Last summer, Samantha was dropping hints that she and Mathias might be on the outs. Now was my chance to show her what I had to offer. I took her to a couple movies she was dying to see. Even went shopping with her, y'know, to show her how much I enjoyed her company. I spent hours listening to her detail the various problems her relationship was undergoing. All the stuff Mathias wouldn't do for her. We didn't get physical. There's no way I could force her to cheat.

There was this one day in July, I was at a Phillies game and she had me on the phone the whole time. She was weeping, I mean, really bawling for hours on end. I don't even remember what happened in the game, so intense was my concentration with what she had to say. I guess Mathias had really screwed up big. Flirted with some other girl really obviously right in front of her. Even bragged a little about how hot this other girl was. What a dick.

So Samantha says she doesn't know why she kept falling for assholes like him and why she couldn't ever settle for a nice guy like me. Then came the bombshell: she had something important to tell me if I'd meet her the next day for lunch.

So I arrived at the Cosi the next day, hoping for the best. Soon enough though, noon turned to 1 o'clock and she hadn't shown. I called her cell a few times and it kept going straight to voicemail.

A few days went by and I hadn't heard anything but until I ran into her friend outside the Tower Records (God, I miss it). She told me Samantha was out of town at Mathias' family's beach house for the next two weeks. Apparently he told her he was just kidding around about the other girl. He also told her about the beach house.

That's when I knew I screwed up. If only I'd acted like I cared more during those calls, she'd've known I was the one. I mean, I did care. But I really should've poured it on. Whould it have killed me to shed a few tears myself?

I think the Eagles learned that lesson too.

BSG: The Last Supper

Galley Friend B.W. sends us this amazing link:

My Gift to You

Galley Friend R.S. mentioned this site, which I'll just call HCwD, to me yesterday. Having now feasted on it for a few minutes, I really can't recommend it enough. Lots of layers of funny.

Observe, for instance, the Primo Levi riff.

The NFL, Free Agency, and the Market

I'm endlessly fascinated with how the underlying economic models of different sports leagues influences their games. The MLB is what it is because of its lack of a salary cap and revenue sharing. The NBA is doomed to long-term failure because it's the only league to have both guaranteed contracts and a salary cap (which produces trades like the Van Horn deal and keeps 70 percent of the league mired in mediocrity for years at a time).

So looking at this year's NFL free-agent signings, I wonder if there's something about its structure which causes mid-level players to be over-valued. Looking at the deals being given to this year's free-agent crop, these players seem to be making more money than they probably should, if we were to assume that there is something like a constant dollar-per-unit-of-value rate by position. For instance, is a quarterback basically paid some dollar per QB rating point, or a defensive end some dollar per sack. (I'm abstracting all of this to an absurdly high level, but humor me.)

What I'm getting at, is that if you look at the top performers at each position, and see how much they're being paid, the free agents being signed seem like they're getting more money that you'd expect, given their stats. So I wonder if the free-agency regime distorts the market by encouraging teams to lock up players of the highest-caliber, to prevent them from ever going on the open market. This means that the free-agent players who do come to market are rarely of that first-tier in quality. But since those Grade A players are never available on the market, the market pays the best free-agents who are available (who might be Grade B or Grade C players) something closer to Grade A value?

Update: Astute Galley Reader J.T. writes in:

Salary structure within the NFL is skewed by the price controlling
franchise player tag. Typically a player who gets franchised is at or
near the top of his game and regarded by the team, his peers and fans at
large as one of the best players at his position. By excluding this
particular player from the free agency pool rather than diminishing the
value of other players in the pool, drives them higher. A fair to
middling cornerback will get a bigger contract from teams looking for a
cornerback because they cannot get the best cornerback that would have
been on the market, had his team not franchised him. The supply has
shrunk, but the demand has not, as even the team franchisng the player
has need of another cornerback. Decreased supply without a
corresponding drop in demand will result in a higher equilibrium point,
and therefore larger salaries. Further, because contracts are not
guaranteed, NFL teams feel free to issue four year deals, intending to
cut the player after three years, if not two. The size of the deal is
less important than the signing bonus. So Mr. Fairto Middling can
expect a big deal, with a modest signing bonus (the guaranteed portion
of the deal) and to be back on the market at least one year before the
deal is done. If he plays well and avoids getting cut (or wisely signs
with the Redskins, who seemingly are unbound by the NFL's salary cap) he
may even earn the full announced value of the contract.

Comics, Feminism, Giant Racks

Occasional Superheroine Valerie D'Orazio has a pretty funny (and year old) disquisition on the cheesecake of Power Girl and Wonder Woman.

HD DVD, RIP

A beautiful, moving eulogy.

Saul Bass's Star Wars

Galley Friend M.R. sends us this fantastic video, a send up of what the Star Wars title credits might have looked like if done by legendary '60s designer Saul Bass. You'll love it:

MMA Comes to the Networks

No surprise. Except that it was CBS to take the plunge. (Although that's not a surprise either, since they were testing the waters with Viacom-owned Showtime airing MMA.)

The real question is whether or not this will force ESPN to cover MMA once CBS starts airing it.

Non-Newtonian Fluids

This is what happens when you mix cornstarch with water:

If I was in high school, I think I'd spend the entire summer constructing one of those things in the backyard.

Our Long National Nightmare Is Over

Sean Salisbury, gone from ESPN. Now, if only they'd dump Stephen A. Smith . . .

When Darth Met Cobra

Occassional Superheroine, the blog of Valerie D'Orazio, is one of my new favorite stops in the morning. Partially because she's very funny, and partially because she gives us pictures like this:

Dr. Jones

Galley Friend M.R. sends us this link to a version of the Indiana Jones IV trailer, cut as though we were still in the '80s.

Call me crazy, but I think I like this better than the real one.

Blame the '85 Bears For This

That about sums it up

"George came up to me on the set one day during my first 'Star Wars' and said something that I never fully understood until after we were done filming. He said, 'As an actor, you have to think of yourself as a ditch digger.'... What he was implying was that on his movie, I needed to think of myself as a ditch digger, because it wasn't the proper arena for actual creative expression. This was his thing. It was all very thought-out in his head, and I needed to show up to make his wants a reality. And so really, what he was saying to me, was: 'Don't let this experience discourage you from what acting can really be about, because that's not what this is.' I just wish I would've figured that out a little sooner."

-Hayden Christensen in the Washington Post on his experiences with director George Lucas.

A Look Into the Mind of the NFL

Remember a while back when EA Sports became the exclusive holders of the permission to make video games using the NFL? Remember how everyone thought this was an example of EA trying to big-foot smaller game makers? Turns out the whole thing was the NFL's idea:

remember it wasn't EA that demanded the exclusive relationship. The NFL requested it and did a research process for exclusive bids and so EA bid, as did other companies, and we were very fortunate to be able to get that exclusive arrangement. So, I want to make that very clear because I think there are some misconceptions sometimes that EA demanded the exclusive licensing for the National Football League and nothing could be further from the case.

I wonder why the NFL would want that.

Update: Incredibly astute Galley Reader J.T. sends in the following thoughts, which seem persuasive to me:

The NFL's desire to have an exclusive game studio producing NFL titles
gives it fewer licensing agreements, in exchange for greater unity of
game play. By having one shop, the NFL can maintain more control over
the product, and should they choose to bring the game development in
house, they only have one organization that they need to absorb.

The NFL Network is a more visible effort of the same strategy. Because
television networks have more perceived control of branding than video
game studios, the effort is more protracted and necessarily slower. I
would expect the NFL to move in the direction of software development
within two to three years. They will still be transitioning to
exclusive NFL Network production of games ten years from now, but the
ultimate goal of the NFL is to get all media in house, to fully
appreciate the benefits of a vertically integrated business model.

That's just my hunch. The NFL has always been much better at marketing
and giving exclusive control of channels to single entities seems a
smarter strategy of developing brand power and maximizing the marginal
revenue within that channel. If my eventual goal was controlling the
means by which consumers consume my product I would familiarize them
first with exclusives (like DirecTV). By requesting an exclusive
partner for game development, the league continues that trend. The
imbroglio surrounding the Pats-Giants regular season game on the NFL
Network was a setback for that strategy, but the game itself was what
the NFL is shooting for. A must see game, under their exclusive control.

Well That Was Fast

I've been really remiss in following the HD DVD meltdown of recent weeks, which came to a spectacular close a couple days ago. I wish I had some insight into what happened, but I don't, really. I'm like the aid to Walter Mondale who, on election night in '84, famously turned to a friend and said, "I don't understand--everyone I know voted for him."

Seriously: I know maybe two-dozen people who've bought hi-def players. Only one of them bought a Blu-Ray. The HD DVD was superior as a set-top box, had a better set-top intalled base, had a better tie-rate with discs, was selling for half or a third of the price of Blu-Ray, and, as of early December, looked to have about equal software support. Oh, and its discs were cheaper than Blu-Ray, too. That was the state of affairs as of December 1, 2007. If I had told you then that Toshiba would be announcing their abandonment of the format 10 weeks later, you would thought I was crazy.

Heck, it really is crazy.

So what happened? Toronto's Globe & Mail has some good reporting on the subject, including a claim that Sony paid Warner Bros. $400 million to switch sides.

(If that figure is correct, I wonder why Sony didn't just lop $200 off the price of the PS3 to start with. That would have had the same effect of ending the format war AND it could have preserved the health of its game division. As things stand now, Sony may have sacrificed this generation of game console to win the hi-def format. I'd be interested to know, from a dollars-and-cents perspective, if that was a good trade off for them. Particularly if digital downloads like Apple TV really are both soon and next. Something I'm not convince of, btw.)

But there must be more to the story than this. The Blu-Ray shift seems to have started with the Christmas shopping season, before WB switched. And the rapidity with which Netflix and Wal-Mart jumped is also kind of startling. Particularly Wal-Mart, a mega-company that isn't accustomed to turning on a dime like that.

I'm sad to see HD DVD go. I was fortunate not to get burned too badly--I only bought it because I needed a new player and if I had bought a Blu-Ray, it would be obsolete already anyway (another fact which amazes me). Yesterday's USA Today carried a story which reported that the Blu-Ray camp was trying to figure out some sort of program to help HD DVD owners switch over. I can't understand what their incentive would be to do that, unless they see the victory over HD DVD as only the first war and are already gearing up to fight digital downloads.

If you see more on this, please drop me a note or leave a comment; it's all very interesting.

P.S.: Galley Friend B.W. says, Je ne regrette rien!

Toshiba's deputy general manager of HD DVD Olivier Van Wynendaele stated that it "wouldn't change anything that it did," and continued on to say that "circumstances saw to it that [Toshiba] had to make the decision not to continue, but that doesn't mean [the company] did anything wrong."

Really? Something tells me that Olivier may find that the culture of Japanese business executives takes a somewhat different view.

Update: CNET has some interesting numbers on disc and player royalties, hinting at how much Sony has to gain from Blu-Ray. So that's a fuzzy look at one side of the picture. Next we'd need some good guestimating at how much the PS3 flop has cost them.

Shaq Terrified of Phoenix Suns

Galley Reader D.H. sends along this excellent piece from the Onion's sports page:

TEMPE, AZ—Claiming he was initially excited at the prospect of playing for a legitimate championship contender, new Phoenix Suns center Shaquille O'Neal admitted Monday that, upon reading about the phenomenon of massive stellar explosions popularly known as supernovas, he is now terrified of the entire organization.

"I have emerged from my astronomical studies a much more educated man, a learned man, and yes—a frightened man. I am now a sage of the supernova," O'Neal said during a combination press conference and PowerPoint presentation at an Arizona State University lecture hall. "If I would have known being a Sun meant being a part of a system where gravity could collapse, causing my radiant celestial body to explode in an event 10 times brighter than an ordinary Phoenix Sun—or worse, dematerialize into a neutron star or possibly a black hole—I would have never agreed to the trade."

"I have a family to think of," continued a visually tense O'Neal, who later stated that, because supernovas occur in our galaxy once every 40 to 50 years, the Suns, having joined the league in 1968, are "due for a big one."

While O'Neal said that simply being a part of the Suns' runaway-nuclear-fusion-reaction style of play would be frightening enough, he added that learning how an aging supergiant star typically ends its life cycle in a violent explosion was a profoundly terrifying experience. The 35-year-old center, who considers himself a super-giant star in the twilight of his career, has refused to go anywhere near his new teammates.

"Like Superman, I receive my energy from the Suns," O'Neal said. "I'm scared I will not be able to flourish in an environment where there is a risk that the Suns' supply of hydrogen could be exhausted, which would cause the core of the Suns to collapse into the center—in this case, me—and create a rise in temperature and pressure that would become great enough to ignite helium and then start a helium-to-carbon fusion cycle."

"Not even electron degeneracy pressure is enough to stop a supernova when that happens to a Sun," O'Neal added. "I don't even know what that means, and I am the Big Astronomer. But it scares me."

There's more . . .

Star Wars Stuff

Galley Friends M.G. and M.C. stumbled across this link, a story (and pictures) about maybe the best collection of Star Wars toys in the world. It's very nearly pornography.

And in the same vein, I stumbled upon a little comic called Tag & Bink over the weekend.

I can't possibly recommend it highly enough. It's basically Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead set in the Star Wars universe. Except, that in addition to being completely grounded in continuity and laugh-out-loud funny, it also performs the function of filling a bunch of Lucas plot holes. In fact, Tag & Bink is so perfectly conceived that I the Star Wars arc doesn't even really make sense any more without it. Enjoy.

Brief Political Aside

So am I the only one who sees some similarities between Obama and Saruman?

Webster's Is the Best

Really, if you're not reading Webster's Is My Bitch, then you're only hurting yourself. Here's a brilliantly funny post on Molly Ringwald:

Molly Ringwald turns 40 years old today, and if that makes you feel old, then you probably are, gramps. In her 40 years on Earth, however, Molly has much to be proud of: She was voted by VH1 the best teen star of all time, she's been on the cover of Time, she's had a great song written about her, she's appeared nude in a film, she's been in a critically adored television series, she's dated Anthony Michael Hall, and, more importantly: She has a beautiful four year old daughter.

Your move, Jennifer Aniston.

So LiLo, John Cena, Floyd Maywweather, and Shane McMahon walk into a bar...

No, seriously. I defy you to explain this picture:

Michael Bay, Celebrity Pitchman

Galley Friend K.N. sends us a link to this new Verizon FIOS spot featuring . . . Michael Bay.

Sure, it's self-parody, but it maybe kindof the self-parody where he's making fun of himself--but not really? You be the judge. I'm not sure it reaches the mad genius of the Wes Anderson Am-Ex spot.

Dept. of Jealousy

We all know that John Chait hates George W. Bush, but is it okay to hate Chait for having the best headline of 2008 (so far)?

PS: I'm not commenting on Chait's piece itself because I can't get to the actual text . . .

"It's Karate Kid, meets Ultimate Fighter!"

Oh yes, it is. Here's the write-up:

Set against the action-packed world of Mixed Martial Arts, NEVER BACK DOWN is the story of Jake Tyler, a tough kid who leads with his fists, and, often, with his heart.

Somewhere, a disgruntled Yale English major is taking his quiet revenge on his employers at Summit Entertainment. Sweep the leg!!!

Website of the Moment

Galley Friend M.L., who is only white on the outside, sends us to Stuff White People Like. It is, I'll admit, pretty excellent. Consider:

#60 Toyota Prius and #59 Natural Medicine.

To which Galley Friend S.B. replies, "Go check out White Whines." Here's a sample:

Complaint #150

“The real problem with ‘A Mighty Wind’ is that Parker Posey is barely in the movie at all!”

-Whine by Alabaster Sanchez

Doctor Jones

Galley Friend M.R. has a nicely formated version of the new Indiana Jones trailer.

Dept. of War Games

My friend Robert Messenger has written a brilliant piece about "The German Way of War." Here's a short excerpt:

The history of the Prussian and German state through 1945 is one in which war is the main outcome of national policy. It was the country's principal export over two centuries. War was more than just "politics by other means"; it was, as the Comte de Mirabeau noted in 1788, "the national industry of Prussia." Though he formulated it most neatly with his quip that: "Where some states possess an army, the Prussian army possesses a state."

The operational excellence of the German and Prussian general staffs is the stuff of hundreds of excellent military histories. But this brilliant style of war, shaped by geographic and historical circumstance, masked an unhealthy strategic shortcoming: an inability to see national war as the last resort, sometimes even an unnecessary one.

But as wonderful as Robert's piece is, I think he overlooks one crucial factor in Germany's attraction to war: their early access to half-price barracks improvements. Its an advantage that practically begs for militarism.

Design Theory and the iPhone

Noting my obsession with interest in the iPhone, Galley Friend R.S. sends us this exceedingly interesting link to a serious designer's thoughts on how the iPhone uses screen space. It's terribly interesting, particularly, the short video presentation embedded in the page.

(Okay, by "terribly interesting," I mean that if you have an iPhone, this will border on porn. If you don't, you should probably skip it, unless you are really keen on interface design.)

"Get in that ass."

A clip of modest genius from Galley Friend M.E.

Triumph of the Wii

Yep, that's Gen. David Petraeus taking time out of crushing the insurgency to play the Wii.

(The article doesn't say it's a Wii--they just say it's a "computer-simulated" game--but if you look closely in the accompanying photo, you'll see it pretty clearly.)

Quote of the Week

“Safe sex or no sex?... Teens find out the hard way.”

--Heidi Collins of CNN, introducing a segment this morning on sex education in middle schools (and in an apparently unintentional homage to Rodney Dangerfield)

Good Reading Week

Watch your mailbox: This week you'll be getting a brand-new David Grann piece in the New Yorker plus the latest issue of First Things featuring Andy Ferguson AND Jody Bottum AND Ramesh Ponnuru. (Not to mention RJN.)

Five of the best working writers, all at once. It's like Christmas in February.

CNet on Blu-Ray

In case the (probable) coming demise of HD DVD has you contemplating a Blu-Ray player, CNet gives several good reasons not to get one just yet:

1. Nearly all current Blu-ray players are obsolete: The Blu-ray standard is still evolving. Most models currently available use the original Profile 1.0 standard, while some newer models use Profile 1.1 (which adds the ability to show picture-in-picture commentaries). Later this year, the first Profile 2.0 players--which add the ability to deliver online special features (BD Live)--will become available. Ironically, both of these are designed to bring the Blu-ray standard in line with HD DVD players, which have long been able to deliver these features.

A couple of the most recent Blu-ray players (the combo players from Samsung and LG) can be updated from Profile 1.0 to 1.1 with a downloadable firmware update. But the PlayStation 3 is, supposedly, the only existing Blu-ray player that will be fully upgradeable to Profile 2.0. So if you don't want your Blu-ray player to be obsolete, the PS3 is your only choice until 2.0 models--such as the Panasonic DMP-BD50--hit later this year. . . .

Matus Gets the Goods

Because I'm a lousy friend and colleague, I missed Matus's outstanding WSJ piece on the fight over foie gras when it originally ran. In case you did too, here's a taste, with Anthony Bourdain going after Wolfgang Puck for taking foie gras off of his menus:

"I think he should stop worrying about cruelty to animals and start worrying about all the customers he's flopping his crap on at airports," says chef Anthony Bourdain, the author of "Kitchen Confidential" and the star of the TV series "No Reservations." Mr. Bourdain elaborates: "He does a lot of business in California. He got squeezed and pressured and phone-called from all angles, and like a good German shopkeeper he folded and sold out the people hiding in the cellar next door. I got no respect."

So hot.

Galley friend M.G. asked if I'd seen a video called "two girls one cup." I claimed ignorance, at which he pointed me to this discussion of it on Slate. M.G. then urged me to watch it for myself, saying he is not easily shocked and this shocked him. Well, I thought, how bad could it be? After all, I did pay money to see Hostel in a theater.

Just finished viewing it.

Easily the worst thing I have ever seen.

Come with me if you want to live.

Remember, I come to everything 2 months late these days, but I've finally gotten around to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and if you haven't tuned in, well, you're missing out. With BSG on hiatus/near retirement and The L Word locked away in premium cable, Sarah Connor may be jumping straight to the head of the class.

The biggest compliment I can pay it is that Josh Friedman (yes, that Josh Friedman) has made the show that David Eick's Bionic Woman should have been. Sarah Connor is smart, fast, and engrossing. Friedman has done a really masterful job of setting up a complicated scheme of well-designed characters who seem capable of driving the series in any number of interesting directions.

Also, Friedman has finessed the Terminator mythology enough that Sarah Connor is simultaneously (a) deeply grounded in the stuff and (b) pointed in a new, intriguing vector. Really, I don't think I can overstate how well written the first handful of episodes have been. To recreate a franchise like this is a remarkable accomplishment.

But Friedman also got lucky with Summer Glau. Brown Coats have been fawning over her weird, but beautiful work in Firefly and Serenity. She's equally brilliant with her physical business here, which is two-thirds of the role. But she brings with her some wonderfully off-kilter line reads and beautifully subtle reaction work. The show belongs to her character already. I suspect the only danger Friedman is going to face is the temptation to neglect John and Sarah Connor in favor of spending more time on Glau's forbidden-fruit machine.

Oh, of course there's the other danger--that the networks will destroy the show before settling with the writers. But I'd like to think that so many people have money tied up in the Terminator franchise that it will survive the strike.

Super Bowl Thoughts Updated!

* I'm surprised, like everyone else is, that the Giants won. But in retrospect, should we be? The Patriots have looked totally mortal since week 12 with the Eagles. They got pushed to the limit by a bunch of inferior teams--like, for instance, the Eagles. Now on the one hand, they kept winning, even though they played like crap most weeks. But on the other hand, they kept playing like crap. Plus, they were due for a lose. Plus, plus, Randy Moss didn't touch the ball until the 4th quarter. The greatest offense ever was impotent.

And maybe the NFL should have a No Celebrity Girlfriends At the Game Rule.

* I bet a lot of people lost a ton of money on this game. Without bothering to look up the numbers, my guess is that most people saw the Pats and the Over as the value plays of this game. I bet they didn't work out that well.

* Another great halftime show. Maybe it's just me, but the halftimes I remember from my youth were nothing but empty spectacle with some Top 40 Act of the Moment. Having Prince last year and Tom Petty this year was brilliant and actually very entertaining.

Plus, they seem to have done away with the "crowd for hire" rushing the field to be next to the stage. Maybe the camera was deceiving me, but those folks looked like normal people.

* I loved the gimmick of having the Fox Robot fighting the Terminator. Couldn't get enough of it.

* Most annoying family sports dynasty: the Williams sisters or the Mannings? Discuss.

* Ordinarily, I root against New York teams by default, particularly the Giants. Really, I can't stand the franchise.

But I was kind of thrilled to see them win this game because of recently departed Galley Friend Bryan Sierra, a monster Giants fan who passed away 10 days ago and wasn't able to hang on to see the game. At least, not here. For Bryan I say, go Big Blue.

Update: Galley Friend S.B. sends along a story saying that bookies actually got killed last night. Huh?

According to The Spread, 64 percent of the money bet online was placed on the Giants. Considering that the Super Bowl is traditionally the biggest betting event of the year and that's a whole lot of payouts for Sports Books.

Kudos

Galley Friend Ulf Gartzke is associate producer on a new documentary called War Child. It's about the life of Emmanuel Jal, who was a child soldier in Sudan who later became a big-selling rapper in Europe. I haven't seen the movie yet, but the trailer is interesting and, best news of all, War Child has been accepted to the Berlin Film Festival.

More updates to follow as War Child makes its way to the States.

Brief Political Aside

Not that you care, but I did a semi-long interview on the state of the 2008 contests here. This may be as close as I ever get to a Slate Breakfast Table.

iPhone

Have I mentioned how desperately I want one? Well here comes David Lynch to throw a little saltpeter at me:

"It's such a sadness that you think you've seen a film on your fucking telephone. Get real."

For me, the best part is his using the word "telephone" at the end. So very hot. But seriously, can Naomi Watts and Laura Harring be properly appreciated on the iPhone's screen? Research must be done . . .

Games

In other gaming news, this piece on the history of porting video games to board games (and vice versa) is totally fascinating.

And did you know that "Asteroids" and "Berzerk" were turned into family board games? You really won't believe the list. And it's possible that you conned your parents into buying one or two of them . . .

The Anti-Capitalist

Fabulous story on Dr. Kawashima, the inventor of the Nintendo DS game "Brain Training." It seems that Kawashima is a professor at Tahoku University in Japan. He's made something like 2.4 billion yen in royalties from sales of the game he designed. University rules stipulate that the school gets half the money, but Kawashima gets to keep the rest.

Except that he doesn't want to.

"Everyone in my family is mad at me but I tell them that if they want money, go out and earn it," says the 48-year-old professor . . .

But instead he has poured his own half into funding research into ageing and cancer and is happy to live off an annual salary of around £50k.

Nobody does him better

If you happen to find yourself in Moscow and in need of a rental car, don't rent a Porsche, even if it's cheap (I assume it's not). According to the Daily Mail, approximately fifty Porsches were stolen last year within the Russian capital. The article's main focus, however, was on the death of Anna Loginova, "Russia's most famous female bodyguard," who was killed when carjackers got hold of her Cayenne [though the Mail calls it a Cheyenne]. Loginova, an expert in jujitsu, died from head injuries while holding onto her SUV as it sped away.

As of now, authorities believe the incident was random and not a hit. As the Mail explains, "Loginova ran an agency for female bodyguards, some trained by the ex-KGB, to give discreet protection to Moscow's billionaires and their wives and mistresses. In a recent magazine interview, she insisted that she and her team of glamorous bodyguards gave better protection than the more traditional beefy male security men."

"In addition," said Loginova, "many restaurants now do not allow a guard inside. They can come in and check everything but then they are asked to wait in the lobby. In contrast, you can take female bodyguards inside, she will sit down at the table and nobody would guess that she's a weapon herself--and can react appropriately in any dangerous situation."

But could Loginova have been bumped off by a competitor? There is certainly that distinct possibility. So the question is who would benefit the most and the answer is clear. She is surrounded by her own female bodyguards and lives on a floating palace in India.

And her name is Octopussy.

Starbucks Watch

I've long been fascinated by Starbucks because they managed to sell America not on a product, but on a miniature lifestyle. They called "third place," but I think of it more as the old office water cooler. Suburban Starbucks have their own logic, but in cities, Starbucks has replaced the water cooler as the place employees go to hang out for 10 minutes while taking a break. And they pay $4 to do.

The problem with selling a lifestyle and not a product is that "lifestyle" is even easier for competitors to duplicate. If you've been following the news for the last couple months, Starbucks is in a panic because first Dunkin Donuts and now McDonalds are coming after it.

Starbucks' first move to fight back is axing their inedible breakfast sandwiches. (Actually, their pre-first move was to launch a test program in Seattle with $1 coffee and free refills.)

Seems like a smart decision to me. The sandwiches were outside the company's core competency and didn't really fit with what they were selling. Starbucks was never going to be a place people go to for nutritional sustinence.

Expect to see more big changes.

Remember Sean Young?

I used to be a fan of the actress Sean Young. I thought she was perfectly hot and slightly bothered in No Way Out and did just fine in Stripes and Dune. And then she went slightly off-kilter. (Ask James Woods.)

But I seem to have missed this juicy tidbit from the recent DGA awards, as reported by the Associated Press:

LOS ANGELES--Sean Young has entered rehabilitation for alcohol abuse following a weekend outburst in which she was heckling from the audience at the Directors Guild of America awards.

The 48-year-old actress was escorted from the ballroom at the Hyatt Regency in Century City Saturday night after sparring with Julian Schnabel, who was nominated for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

"Actress Sean Young voluntarily admitted herself yesterday to a rehabilitation center for treatment related to alcoholism," a statement from Insignia PR said Tuesday. "It is understood that Young has struggled against the disease for many years."

At the DGAs, all of the film nominees get a chance to say a few words before the top prize is announced. Schnabel, in his trademark yellow-tinted glasses, was a bit slow to start, looking down at the podium and running his hands through his wild, curly hair.

That's when Young could be heard throughout the room urging him to get on with it. Apparently rattled, Schnabel scanned the room and asked who said that, then spotted Young and suggested that she "have another cocktail."

Then he suggested that she should finish his speech for him and started walking off the stage. Music began playing for his exit, but the audience urged him to stay and keep speaking, and he did. Young, meanwhile, was removed from the ballroom.

A call seeking comment from the Directors Guild was not immediately returned....

Young made her name in the 1980s with films like "Stripes," "Blade Runner" and "No Way Out." But she's become more famous for some of her more bizarre behavior, including dressing up in a homemade cat suit in her quest to secure the role of Catwoman in the 1992 sequel "Batman Returns," which went to Michelle Pfeiffer.

She also tried to crash the Vanity Fair Oscar party in 2006.

"It was degrading," she said in an Entertainment Weekly article last year. "But when you have nothing to lose, it's really not that big of a deal."

The Greatest Blog of All-Time?

Probably. First Things has Cardinal Dulles posting a parody of Keats.

Suddenly, I feel like the entire promise of the internet has been fulfilled.

KSK Does Perfection

It's subtle, but you'll laugh a lot.

Winnie Cooper Hotness

WIMB has the devastating pic.

Housekeeping

Just to tidy up a few things:

* In regards to the post about former-WWE wrestler Gangrel moving into porn alert GS Reader A.W. notes that Marcus "Buff" Bagwell may have been the first to do so. Obsessed With Wrestling says that he did some soft-core work, but doesn't give any citations. IMDB has him in two direct-to-video T&A flicks, one of which is called L.E.T.H.A.L. Ladies: Return to Savage Beach.

* After seeing the Tom Cruise as Batman item, GS Reader P.G. wrote in with this observation:

I watched the Cruise video and came away extremely depressed to learn that Frank Mackey was not an act or a character at all, he was “Tom Cruise: Scientologist”. The greatest performance in Cruise’s career was just him being himself.

It’s like the world is flipped upside down. Frank Mackey is no longer a brilliant performance, and every Cruise character that is halfway normal should now be considered for an oscar retroactively. Clearly the guy is batshit insane, any character he plays on screen that comes across as normal should be taught in a master class on acting.

So true. I've always said that Cruise was an under-rated actor.

* Finally, Galley Brother B.J. has Super Bowl thoughts:

Pats vs. Giants: I’m pulling for a meteor. Actually, that’s not true, I’m pulling for a meteorite. I know, I know--think of the collateral damage. But that’s the beauty of the game being in Arizona: There won’t be any. Arizona before meteorite--barren wasteland/desert. Arizona after meteorite--barren wasteland/desert with a big hole in it. (Maybe, Arizona Tourism Board could attract plug it as the “New Grand Canyon.”)

I really can’t choose a team to root for, though. So instead, I'm pulling for Eli to have a historic performance (either 10 TDs & no picks or 5 first have Ints) because I think that would be fantastic.

* 10 TD game--Imagine Eli’s MVP speech: “Hey, Tiki, who’s soft now?” “Look dad, I already have as many Superbowl rings as Peyton, now do you love me?”

* 5 first half Ints--Giants first play of the 2nd half “Eli drops back, throws, & misses his receiver. Let’s look at the replay, wait something’s happening--Eli’s wandering around on the field taking off his uniform & pads, and I think, yes, it looks like he’s crying.”

Bank Run!

The Journal has a great piece on the crash of banks inside Second Life.

HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray (cont.)

Is this the end of the road for HD DVD?

These are the numbers for stand-alone player sales for the holiday season and, amazingly, Blu-Ray scored a crushing victory here. It's pretty astounding.

Art and Porn

Nathaniel Peters has a sterling post on the subject over at the First Things blog. Can't recommend it enough.

Celebrity Pickkake

Deep down inside I desperately want to write up a Super Bowl celebrity Pickkake starring Matt Damon. Or Barney Frank. Or maybe even Mary Kate Olsen.

But that's obviously a no-go because KSK is writing at a level that's just scary. I'll say it again: Why can't these guys have a show on HBO?

Here's Michael Cera's Super Bowl picks. Here's Stephen Hawking. Here's Obama.

So hot.

The Story of the iPhone

Galley Friend S.B. now has an iPhone and after tinkering with it for 10 minutes, I've been transformed from nauseated skeptic to total true believer. I want need one.

Not that you care, of course. But what you might very much care about is this outstanding Wired story on how the iPhone came to be. It's filled with great stuff like this:

Through it all, Jobs maintained the highest level of secrecy. Internally, the project was known as P2, short for Purple 2 (the abandoned iPod phone was called Purple 1). Teams were split up and scattered across Apple's Cupertino, California, campus. Whenever Apple executives traveled to Cingular, they registered as employees of Infineon, the company Apple was using to make the phone's transmitter. Even the iPhone's hardware and software teams were kept apart: Hardware engineers worked on circuitry that was loaded with fake software, while software engineers worked off circuit boards sitting in wooden boxes. By January 2007, when Jobs announced the iPhone at Macworld, only 30 or so of the most senior people on the project had seen it.

I'd like to think that the CIA is capable of doing a project with such rigidly compartmentalized security.

Sex in Advertising

Not to be a ninny (although using the word "ninny" automatically makes me one), but I'm a little struck by two recent examples of sex in advertising.

The first, from a series of Las Vegas billboards advertising the Asian-themed club/bar/restaurant Tao, was the slogan "A happy ending every time."

The second, from a Prince sponsorship tagline on the Tennis Channel is "Show us your O-face." In their defense, their "O" design that eliminates grommets is a big deal in racket technology right now.

But still. I'm all for sex in advertising so long as it's a slinky Nick Lachey smirking, shirtless, at the camera.

But those sorts of slogans strike me as a bit over the line.

Cloverfield

You probably already knew this, but it seems that Cloverfield is about The Freedom:

The movie begins by showing us that its heart is in the right place. The hero, when we first see him, has sex with his fantastically beautiful girlfriend in an apartment overlooking Central Park in New York. Then the story moves to a party where everyone is drinking in celebration of him getting a huge raise and a promotion.

It is from this that we know that economic success and fucking are at the core of this film. I believe this is what is meant when people refer to a “family values” movie. Certainly no one could deny that these are both integral to the promotion and experience of The Freedom.

As Ayn Rand herself explained, men can be like animals, both in the bedroom and in the boardroom (a phrase she actually invented). Unfortunately, none of the characters smoke or take heroin. This is a mistake that I am confident will be rectified in future editions, thanks to modern advances in CGI.

Speaking of Ayn Rand, it is upon her whom we rely to understand the rest of the film. Rand gave us instructions to love big cities, for collections of giant steel buildings in close proximity surrounded by trash and poor homeless wretches are not only beautiful, but great, inspiring, and powerful symbols of The Freedom.

Thanks to this knowledge, we can see that the entire city of New York is a metaphor for human greatness. In other words, The Freedom made physical, ie: economic success and fucking.

So when a monster, called Cloverfield, starts to destroy the city, it makes the viewer weep with sadness. The monster makes trouble and rubble, like Stalin but with green skin and a tail, and the entire time it is destroying, the tragedy is almost overwhelming.

HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray (cont.)

When depressed HD DVD partisans ask me why I'm quixotically still open to the idea that HD DVD could last as a medium after the very bad Warner Bros. news, I point to stories like this which highlight Sony's nearly limitless power to screw things up:

The PlayStation 3 is the only system currently available that can be upgraded to use all of the Blu-ray features planned for future release, leaving early adopters of other players in a no-win situation.

The future-proofed PS3, which is one of the cheapest existing Blu-ray players on the market, features inbuilt hardware and online access that enables users to upgrade the system’s Blu-ray capabilities as time goes by.

However, owners of other Blu-ray DVD players may find themselves unable to enjoy future developments in the technology because their machines are not upgradeable, reports the BBC.

The problem appears to have arisen because, unlike the HD-DVD camp, Blu-ray backers failed to devise a concrete standard relating to system requirements for the platform upon its launch. This meant that it wasn’t mandatory to include internet functionality in players which would allow users to download firmware upgrades and access newly released features.

Philips’ Frank Simonis, who is European chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association, acknowledges that it is "not an ideal situation", although he suggested that high definition playback itself, as opposed to extra features, is the most important thing to Blu-ray shoppers.

Oops. I'm on my third generation of firmware for my HD DVD player and I've had it less than six months. The discs just come to me in the mail, although I could download them and burn a disc myself if I wanted to. Or just plug an ethernet cable into the machine. Couldn't be easier.

I haven't seen the Christmas sales numbers yet, but I'll be interested to see what they look like.

Cruise=Batman?

Galley Brother B.J. has actually sat through the entire Tom Cruise Scientology tape and has a very astute observation:

I swear he lifted part of it from a Batman script:

“I’d like the world to be different. I’d like go on vacations, but I can’t.”

I take the Dark Knight over Xenu in a heartbeat.

Wrestling, Porn, etc.

Because after coming back from Vegas, that's the first thing that comes to mind. The WWE's Gangrel is now directing porn.

What's shocking is that he's first wrestler (that I know of) to make the all-too-logical jump.

Justice League News

Variety is reporting that Warners has pulled the plug on its desecration version of Justice League of America, at least for now.

Hanging Up Her . . .

Jenna Jameson is retired?

Why wasn't this bigger news?

Tom Cruise Talks Scientology

Defamer has unbelievable Cruise-Xenu recruitement video.

You can't believe it. This is the type of thing that can blow up a career.

Freedom. And . . . stuff.

Was just tipped off to this very excellent post by someone named "FilmLiker" at the libertarian blog "Freedom and Shit." Oh, I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. This is pure awesomeness:

Libertarians love science fiction, and science fiction movies. So needless to say, this was a big week for them. Not only was it the grand finale to the annual Official U.S. Buy Lots of Shit to Help the Economy Season, it was also the release of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.

I think it’s safe to assume that everyone who views the world through a basic Millian framework, ie: all F&S readers, knows that the Alien movies and the first two Predator movies were the epitome of uber-awesome. Even beyond the obvious libertarian themes, you had essential elements for awesome: 1) cool looking alien monsters 2) explosions 3) death 4) people kicking ass 5) technology that was amazing and saved everything (as technology eventually will).

The movies were also good metaphors, with many robust ideas about liberty, which is why they had such a big impact on the Culture. Many people say that Alien was about The Feminism. Because the alien was a big penis, basically, and because the badass chick Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, killed it in the end. Also, because all the men died. The Feminism is a friend to The Freedom, in theory anyway, so I think this sounds OK.

It is also accurate to argue that the aliens represented communism, socialism, and all forms of pernicious collectivism. They were all the same, a “hive mind,” they call it, and they did not have individuality. Ripley loved The Freedom, and thus she opposed these things. In the end, like Ronald Reagan, she triumphed.

What am I saying, is that Gorbachev was an alien, basically. But with extra chins instead of extra mouths.

There's more, and it gets even better.

WGA Strike, Update

Via WIMB, comes this great story: NBC entertainment prexy Ben Silver complained to Ryan Seacrest that he's really pissed at the Golden Globes being canceled. Said Silverman, "Sadly, it feels like the nerdiest, ugliest, meanest kids in the high school are trying to cancel the prom. But NBC wants to try to keep that prom alive."

KSK Gone Wild

I'm out of pocket for six days and KSK decides to have perhaps their best week ever.

First, they explore the greatest What If . . . story in football history.

Then, they do some fine pimp talk.

But the best is this Emo Eagles Fan Diary, which very nearly put me on the floor:

mood: pensive :|

I was fishing around for updates on Samantha's deviantART and Facebook pages, listening to Belle & Sebastian's "Is It Wicked Not to Care" when Phil shoots me over this link on McNabb wanting the Eagles to load up in the offseason.

Now there's something I can get behind. But I think I understand the underlying uneasiness in his words. He writes about players feeling replaced if they bring in newer marquee ones, no doubt tapping into his own anxieties with a hard-charging young quarterback waiting in the wings.

I was plagued with similar pangs for months once Samantha started hanging around that Mathias guy. Sure, they were only classmates in some night school classes she was taking, but they recently spent a Saturday afternoon at the Magritte exhibit downtown. She knows I like Magritte. Guys in bowler hats and pipes! Sheer absurdity. Then just the other day, I see a heavy detailed oil portrait of his cock on her deviantART page.

Don't know if I should start to be worried.

Samantha doesn't like to watch sports, meaning I have to be kind of furtive about my fandom. Every time it comes up in passing, I get the rundown about how it's androcentric and heteronormative. Sure, I say - hoping to look those up later - but aren't most things? Then she lays the whole "football causes domestic abuse" line on me. What am I supposed to say to that? Boom Bitch? Haha. Kidding, of course. Can't believe I just wrote that.

Quick Political Aside

I'm in New Hampshire writing about political stuff and was at the debates last night. There were hundreds of journalists cooped up in a giant gym to watch the debates on big-screen TVs, because press wasn't allowed in the actual debate hall.

Just one observation: There were not a few Big Famous Journalists who spent nearly all of the four hours walking around, talking, hanging out, surfing the web, reading blogs, etc. I won't name names, because maybe they were only there for the scene, and not to do any actual reporting.

But seated in front of me was another Big Famous Journalist: Mort Kondracke. He spent the entire evening watching the debates carefully and taking notes by hand on a reporter's pad. That's about 17 shades of awesome.

What a total stud.

Don't miss Pajiba's 10 best movies of 2007 that you didn't see.

Potpourri

Galley Friend B.W. sends us this excellent list of things that happened in 2007 that shouldn't have.

Also, I'm dimly aware that some studio committed to Blu-Ray today, but I don't know who or what and I'm worried that it will involve The Dark Knight.

Lesbian. Incest. Discuss.

How much would you pay to see Penelope Cruz making out with her equally hot sister? Well that's a question you don't have to answer.

Because it's actually free.

Someone should get a team of scientists and ethicists and philosophers on this, pronto.

(Cue Dr. Ellie Arroway: "They should have sent a poet . . .")

WGA Strike, Update

Galley Hero Elizabeth Hackett returns to her journalism roots to write this strike-related piece for Pajamas Media. It's frackin' awesome:

Fade in. Ext. Paramount Pictures – Day.

Like any memorable Act Three plot twist, we never saw it coming. As Hollywood writing partners who have collaborated on nine scripts together over the past five years, we’re forced to spend a lot of time together. Like hostages without a bank robbery. As a result, we can talk about anything for hours. And we mean anything. Not just movie ideas. We once had a full five-minute debate about how burned a piece of toast would have to be before neither one of us would eat it. We’ve weathered the ups and downs of show business, but after nearly two months on the WGA picket line and sixty-plus hours of walking in a circle together, the unthinkable happened: we ran out of conversation. We trudged silently, unsure where to go from here.

Long ago, on Day One of the strike, we chose Paramount as our picketing location. (Nothing personal, Paramount. You’re a closer commute. And you have free parking.) Sure, we were worried about being unemployed and broke, but we support our union and as comedy writers, we’d “find the funny” in picketing. When life hands you a lemon, peel off a twist, plop it into your martini, and look at the upside (the martini helps here). We’d absorb some fresh air and Vitamin D instead of sitting behind a computer all day. We’d meet single men (the WGA is 70-something% male, after all). We’d rub elbows with A-list writers, dazzling Aaron Sorkin with off-the-cuff improvised rants like “We won’t stop screamin’ til you pay us for streamin’!” and soothing our aching feet at post-picket pedicures with Susannah Grant.

Or, at the very least, get a wacky Christmas card picture out of it.

We must confess something. We dressed up for our first 10-2 PM shift. No jeans or oversized red WGA XXL T-shirts for us. If we hoped to romantically tangle picket signs in a meet-cute with the single male creator of a hit syndicated TV show (insert title card: “Love on the Line”), then makeup and an attractive ensemble were in order. One of us even wore boots.

This plan got a major rewrite ten minutes after we signed in. . . .

The Dog That Didn't Bark

Not that you care--because really, this isn't going to change your life in the least bit--but posting will be very thin the next week or so while I do some work for a much better blog.

That said, Variety has a neat piece up about the ten biggest things that didn't happen in 2007 in the entertainment industry. Very good stuff.

Happy New Year. Just a few thoughts on things I heard and saw during the Christmas holiday:

On an interminable drive to Connecticut (a mere eight and a half hours from DC), I popped in a new CD entitled Frank Sinatra: The Christmas Collection, which certainly has its share of classics, including a few duets with Bing Crosby. On the other hand, there were a handful of tracks (clearly from the later years) worth skipping, namely "Christmas Memories," "An Old Fashioned Christmas," "A Baby Just Like You" (perhaps one of the worst), "Whatever Happened to Christmas?" and anything involving Nancy and Frank Jr. (such as "The Twelve Days of Christmas"). I got it at a discount but yet again, the case for iTunes has been made.

I also came across the Hallmark Channel's A Grandpa for Christmas starring Ernest Borgnine. The movie, about a grandfather trying to reconnect with his family, seemed to be more of a pitstop for the once-famous: Besides Borgnine, there was Jamie Farr, Katherine Helmond, Richard Libertini, and even Tracy Nelson (who looked better as a young nun). For the record, my father-in-law had possession of the remote control and that's why I watched it to the bitter end. And no, there was something in my eye that caused me to tear.

On the other hand, my father-in-law's recommendation we watch Foyle's War turned out to be excellent. Starring Michael Kitchen as a British detective solving mysteries on the homefront during WWII, the series is a slow-churning but rewarding crime drama with each episode more than an hour long.

And finally, there were the Kennedy Center honors, which were largely enjoyable to watch (particularly De Niro's tribute to Scorsese, Ricky Jay performing just one card trick for Steve Martin, Steve Carell's remarks, and all of the Leon Fleisher segment). But then came the homage to Brian Wilson. Strangely, none of the other Beach Boys were in attendance. Wilson himself does not look well and showed little emotion throughout. I understand the man suffered terrible bouts of depression and is better now, but I truly feared he would leap off the president's box when the band paying tribute to his songs turned out to be none other than Hootie and the Blowfish.

Why Hootie and the Blowfish? God only knows.

Happy Christmas

If you have kids, you might want to check out NORAD's Santa Tracker tonight. Its Cold War technology put to excellent use.

Have a great Christmas and New Year, see you in 2008.

The Real McCoy

This affectionate profile of Sam Waterston doesn't have any bombshells in it, but it's short and fun. And it contains a quote from Dick Wolf that sums up what I find most remarkable about Waterston's run on Law & Order, which I judge to be one of the great achievements in television history:

"After all these years, I've never once seen him phone in a performance."

Me neither, and God knows, that would be easy to do with that role.

Dancing Spider-Man

A Galley Friend who's a big wheel in the world of semi-professional swing dancing passed along this video of a couple who choreographed their routine to the old Spider-Man theme. Obviously, the guy is in full Spidey regalia, but please note that the gal has dyed her hair red to go for the full Mary Jane look.

Is it totally weird? Yes.

Kind of awesome? Also, yes.

Bill Lyon: Stud

Lyon is one of my heroes, so I was thrilled to see him inducted into Philly's Sports Hall of Fame. Here's the fantastic speech he gave on the occasion.

More Dark Knight

Here's the new international teaser one-sheet:

Sigh. Fine. I'm in.

(PS: If you know where to find one these, drop me a line and let me know. I've still got a few feet of uncovered wall-space at the office . . .)

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Webster's Is My Bitch throws an off-hand link to this IMDB synopsis of the "in-production" flick Jack and Diane. The IMDB plot summary reads:

Jack and Diane, two teenage lesbians, meet in New York City and spend the night kissing ferociously . . .

Again, I'm not a hot-shot Hollywood executive, but based on an extensive review of box-office metrics, this sounds like a movie that could make about a gagillion dollars.

Rap: The PowerPoint Presentation

So funny:

Dark Knight Trailer

Fine. I'll say it: It moved. Are you happy?

I just read Ed Brubaker's outstanding Joker-origin book, and I can only hope that Nolan cribbed some of it--at least the tone--for the movie.

Will Arnett Is the New Voice of K.I.T.T.

Too. Many. Jokes.

"Have you seen the new Poof, Michael?"

"You've got a really nice mouth . . ."

"Illusions, Michael, you don't have time for my illusions."

Does this mean that "Final Countdown" will be the new theme?

Seriously though, I think the idea of a puffed-up, needy, semi-bisexual K.I.T.T. is just what this re-imagining needs.

Marvel Digital Comics

Is it the best thing to happen to comics since baxter paper?

Or is it just a more expensive version of the hologram cover?

Hatchet Job

That's what this awesome piece on Bobby Petrino is. No two ways about it. Says Petrino is not a man and calls his decisions cowardly. But "hatchet job" has so many negative connotations. Don't some people actually deserve the hatchet?

Petrino didn’t tell players when they were being benched, or why. Some found out when they got to the stadium on game day. Joey Harrington found out from reporters in a news conference that he might not start at quarterback that week.

And my favorite part:

Petrino took exception last week when I asked him about the possibility of leaving the Falcons for a college job (I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, and figured he would wait until after the season).

“My plans are to be here, there’s no question about that,” he said. “I get asked the same question every day, and that’s my plan.”

And now his plan is taking him to Arkansas. At least 13 games covers a full college season.

Get Your Geek On

Jenny points us to these pictures of . . .

Kristen Bell, in a Princess Leia Brass Bikini getup. It's more gold than brass, but still.

I'm just saying.

Advantage: Blogosphere

Because First Things--one of the three best American magazines in production--has started a new blog.

Worth working into your rotation.

World of Warcraft

I gave up the pipe on WoW a long time ago, but these ads are (almost) enough to get me back into it. Particularly the Mr. T and Shatner spots.

Just FYI

Here's Galley Friend Mike Russell writing on Achewood in Sept. 2007:

Okay. If you haven't heard of "Achewood," here goes:

Imagine Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood. Now. Empty it of all the
adorable stuffed animals suffering from ennui, honey-cravings and
blustery weather. Then re-populate it with stuffed animals suffering
from clinical depression, drug cravings and blustery rageaholic
vegans.

Oh, and make the Hundred Acre Wood a suburban California house.

That's "Achewood." Sort of.

Here's Time magazine on Achewood this week-ish:

Achewood defies categorization or description, but a brief, futile
attempt at a synopsis would go something like this: A bunch of cats,
some robots, a bear and an otter who's 5 years old, live together in a
fictional neighborhood called Achewood, which you might usefully think
of as a grown-up, suburban, stoned version of Pooh's Hundred Acre
Wood.

It's not plagiarism, but it does look like either an amazing coincidence or extremely ungenerous writing.

Eastern Promises for Tennis

Galley Friend B.W. sends us this link on McEnroe and the Russian mob:

US tennis legend John McEnroe expressed his concern on Friday that organised crime, such as the Russian mafia, could be infiltrating tennis. The former world number one believes that threats to tennis players or their families could be forcing them into throwing matches. "The thing that worries me is that mafia types, like the Russian mafia, could be involved. That's potentially pretty dark and scary," McEnroe told The Daily Telegraph.

If Law & Order has taught me anything, it's that the reach of the Russian mob is nearly limitless. Just ask poor ADA Ricci.

(Btw, that two-part episode gets my vote for best L&O ever.)

HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray (cont.)

I don't ever get into Wal-Marts, but they've got a generic-brand HD-DVD player now selling for $189. That doesn't seem to be a sale price, either.

It'll be interesting to see what the stand-alone player numbers look like post-Christmas.

The West Philly Grifters

A couple impossibly un-cool GS readers have complained that they don't have access to Facebook and/or indoor plumbing. Also, they're pissed about the Taft-Hartley Act. But they really, really want to see the pictures of Jocelyn Kirsch, one of Philly grifters. (The Philly papers have more on the story today.)

So here are some pics. Keep scrolling down for the best part of the Daily News story:





I know what you're wondering. The Daily News has the answer:

JUDGING FROM her reaction, Jocelyn S. Kirsch may have received the best Christmas present of her life in 2003.

Her father, Dr. Lee Kirsch, a plastic surgeon from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, shipped her a package containing a pair of silicone breast implants, she told her fellow Drexel University dorm residents. Kirsch, then a freshman, said it was her father's Christmas gift.

Kirsch quickly showed off the implants on her dorm floor, according to classmates familiar with the story. . . .

By senior year, Kirsch had no contact with any of her freshman friends who, perhaps, had seen her body before her father's Christmas gift. She also took down any photos on her Facebook page from before her sophomore year, said the two former friends.

Scott Sexton, the metro columnist for the Winston-Salem Journal, interviewed Kirsch's high school friends who described a troubled young woman with a penchant for lying and for sticky fingers.

By which the reporter means that she stole a lot of stuff. Just to be clear.

Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians

Shockingly enough, that's exactly what this site is devoted to.

It's really reprehensible. And mean-spirited. In no way do I endorse it.

However, it's pretty spot-on.

Only in New York Philly?!?

The Daily News is all over this fascinating story about the well-to-do 25-year-old UPenn grad and his 22-year-old Drexel girlfriend who've been grifting hundreds of thousands of dollars using stolen identities. It's totally engrossing and if the WGA strike wasn't happening, would be the subject of a Law & Order episode by next spring.

Update: Galley Friend M.G. sends us this link to scandalicious Facebook photos of the griftress. I'm guessing she was the mastermind.

G.I. Joe News

Darth Maul is Snake Eyes.

Say what you will.

KSK Does Zales

The Christmas Ape writes his own script for a saccharine Christmas jewelry store commercial. Here's a taste:

[Tinkling overlay of Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles"]

[Scene one]

Tony Romo sits in front of a vanity mirror in a room dimly lit by candles. He's wearing an elf's hat. He smiles faintly but with determination. His mind seems distant. He turns to a small TV to his right, sees Peter King reporting from Minnesota. Suddenly wistful, his smile fades to nothing.

Behind Romo, a closet door silently glides open.

"But how, you were -- "

King reveals a small jewelry box, sweeping it over Romo's shoulders to his face. He opens it slowly.

"It's for your cock," King whispers sweetly.

The Dark Knight

I've been undergoing a semi-reconsidering of Batman Begins, mostly on the strength of recommendation from Galley Friend S.B., who considers it the greatest superhero movie ever made. I'm far from convinced. But there's now word out on the first six minutes of The Dark Knight. And it sounds just about amazing.

It starts off with a breathtaking shot of Gotham City in broad daylight. The camera swoops into this big glass skyscraper the way only an IMAX movie can. It was stunning. Then BOOM! One of the windows in this big glass skyscraper is blown out. It then cut to two thugs in ugly clown masks (the ones we saw in the first publicity stills that were released months ago) shooting a zip line down to an adjacent rooftop.

Cut to the street as we see another thug waiting on a street corner with his clown mask in his hand. We’re looking at him from behind and can’t see his face. A van pulls up and the thug puts on his mask and jumps in to join the rest of the clowns. The clown who’s driving is bitching about how this Joker guy who planned the heist didn’t even bother to show up and questions why they should cut him in on any of the loot. There’s an awesome line from one of the clowns about The Joker and how he wears make-up as “war paint” to scare the crap out of people. Very cool stuff.

The two clowns in the skyscraper dramatically swing down to the rooftop while the clowns in the van enter the bank guns a blazing.

One of the rooftop clowns disables the silent alarm and comments that the alarm isn’t going to the cops. Once the alarm is halted, his partner shoots him dead.

It gets better from there.

Advantage: Not the Blogosphere

I hardly ever do this, so I hope you'll forgive me, but Galley Friend D.M. sends me this link to a blog post about a piece I wrote elsewhere on Google's Book Search. While not an attack piece, I tried to raise what I deemed some important concerns about this project in specific and Google in general. Anyway, that blog post describes the piece as "Jonathan V. Last defends Google in The Weekly Standard."

Ordinarily, I wouldn't be bothered by this total misreading. The blogger probably read the first couple graphs and then posted without reading the end. No crime there.

But what struck me was the name and subtitle of the blog:

"One Letter At A Time: A Blog About Reading and Writing"

Sigh.

Update: Blogger James Comerford has thoughtfully commented below and updated his original post. Advantage: Blogosphere.

Big Love

I have remained silent too long. But now I have had it. Enough is enough. Last week photos emerged supposedly showing Jennifer Love Hewitt in an unflattering light. Yes, that light would be called the sun. Nevertheless, extreme close-ups of Love made it seem as though the talented actress had some dough to be kneaded. But who can really say when malicious photographers use Photoshop, not to mention the ripples of the water shining irregularly on her. And even if JLH did have some junk in the trunk, have we forgotten it is almost winter and we all need to store up our energy.

I am proud to say my girl has now responded on her blog:

A size 2 is not fat! Nor will it ever be. And being a size 0 doesn't make you beautiful.

What I should be doing is celebrating some of the best days of my life and my engagement to the man of my dreams, instead of having to deal with photographers taking invasive pictures from bad angles. I know what I look like, and so do my friends and family. And like all women out there should, I love my body.

To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini -- put it on and stay strong.

I agree she doesn't need to lie, as when she refers to "my engagement to the man of my dreams." That cannot be true since I am here in DC and still married. But seriously, everyone should leave the poor girl alone. She's gone through enough as it is. And she must be starving.

Get Your Geek On

And I mean seriously on. Galley Friend M.E. sends us this screed about comics illustrator Rob Liefeld. You don't know who Liefeld is? Doesn't matter. You do know Liefeld's stuff? Then strap on your Compton hat, because you might get smoked. Here's the intro:

Comic books exploded when Bill and myself were about ten years old. They'd always been popular and we'd always collected and enjoyed them, but a surge of popularity brought out collectors and special editions and all the shit we've learned to deal with from breakfast cereals and television punditry. Kids were replaced by old men with backing boards, and eventually the kids and the old men became one, and 9 out of 10 kids you met collected comics for the money they'd never see and gave you the most turd-burgling stink-eye if you took the literally, figuratively, and creatively worthless SPIRITS OF VENGEANCE out of its polybag. It was a grand and miserable time for all involved, and as a result now Spider-Man wears flying armor and the good writers we lost, guys like Alan Moore, are busy writing graphic novels about how Snow White loves fucking the Seven Dwarves in a metaphorical Future Paris or whatever.

You don't need to know about this. Comics were once for kids and now they're for the adults who loved them as kids but suddenly became adults with no upward motivation. Talented people did and still work on comics and as immature and goofy as any hobby can be, they should be respected and admired for their work. We don't hate comics. I'm a little more bitter about the loss of innocence than Bill, but we both don't appreciate Garth Ennis having Superman demand blowjobs in a comic and expecting people to call him a genius.

It gets better from there. It's like the comic-book equivalent of "Shoot 'em in the head! Shoot 'em in the head!"