Archive for the ‘Entertain Me’ Category
Travel Blogging Part Trois: We’re Here!
Sunday, December 21st, 2008Sydney, Australia is quite simply gorgeous.
Birds sing. Trees blow in the breeze. It’s in the low 80s. There’s water everywhere. Stunning! The little town, Rozelle, reminds me a bit of San Fransisco, a bit of Grand Haven, Michigan, and a bit of some vague European city with the twisty-turned streets, brick everywhere and crammed together business and housing. It feels familiar enough that I don’t feel like a tourist, but I look like one. I have my Superman backpack (they’ve run out of them, but this is the style, and they work great!) and a camera in my hand and I don’t give a hot damn that I look like a nerd.
Finished up the book Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)
on the trip. Yes, it’s good. Nothing that’s going to give you extra I.Q. points, mind you, but a great story with interesting characters and all the angst of adolescence on full display. Some reviewer here in Sydney said the book was just like Harry Potter. I’m wondering what sad planet of I-didn’t-read-the-book he was from. Whatever. The book is entirely different in tone, setting, and focus. Where Harry Potter is epic good-evil with a dash of growing pains thrown in, Twilight is a “first love/true love” story with vampires thrown in. Sheesh! Sometimes, I think I should be a book reviewer. Anyway, it was good enough that I’m finishing the series, maybe while I’m here. We’ll see how much time I have to read.
Tomorrow the ferry and Mandalay Beach. I expect to fry like a marooned baby seal. I don’t exactly intend to fry, mind you. I have the sunscreen and cover-ups, etc., but Australia has a monstrous ozone hole over the continent, no doubt created by the tiny Australian population using excess resources and being big, fat, wasteful consumers since they are a Western Democracy. Or, it’s the Chinese fault, kinda like it’s Detroit’s fault that all parts Toronto are polluted, or rather, it used to be Detroit’s fault back when they had factories, back in the olden days. Anyway, there’s a big ozone hole and it’s easy to get burned. I’ll do what I can to prevent that. Don’t want to prematurely age. Too late, I have kids. Comes with the territory.
Strange thing about technology: I’m in America. I’m in Sydney. My Twitter and blogging friends are so ass-backward body-clock wise, it’s like I’m home. And so, in a weird way, technology plays along with the normal-seeming yet strange sensation of being 14 hours off my body clock’s time.
I’ll be updating, if I can get the Australian data network to work, on Twitter with pics and all. Hope you’re having a great break, if you’re on one.
Sexually Ambiguous Ground Acquisition Sports
Friday, December 12th, 2008Agent Bedhead notes something about football, that I’ve always felt about any sport where men wear a unitard (wrestling, cycling, and now, even swimming):
Football is a sport for men only, preferably of the muscle-bound variety, who wear tight spandex pants and play with an awkwardly-shaped ball. The object of the game is to score, whatever the hell that means, and one of best ways to score is by making passes. With positions called tight end and wide receiver; and team names such as Packers, Rams, Giants, Cowboys, Raiders, and Oilers, we simply cannot continue to overlook the gayness of this beloved American sport.
Oh, and one cannot possibly forget the almighty Saints, a moniker whose concept didn’t succeed at keeping the gays out of Catholicism either. The ruse is most definitely over, boys.
She has pictures that provide more than ample proof, because pictures don’t lie. Just ask the Reuters stringers from Lebanon and Iraq. It’s the truth, man.
Enjoy your games, guys!
New York Times Is A Sign Of The Old Timers: User-Driven News Is The Future
Monday, December 8th, 2008So the New York Times needs to borrow against collateral to survive. I’m not surprised. This Sunday, I looked at the big lump of a paper put at my hotel room’s door and sighed. Why bother? I scrolled through my feed links, saw the articles that interested me, read them and moved along.
And really, when you think about it, what IS the news? I didn’t hear about the Bombay attack via the news and the most up-to-date news came via Twitter. The networks were okay for sensational pictures. But really, I was so totally NOT interested in hearing Deepack Chopra’s opining on Larry King or Christiane Amanpour’s two cents, either.
The news should be fact, period. This is what we know. Leave wild speculation to the Twitterverse. Leave the commentary to the experts–people who know their topic cold.
And, my co-blogger John Hawkins wonders why local newspapers are necessary, either. Considering that many papers are just pulling feeds from AP, Reuters, etc. and the local news is “bought’, and by that I mean heavily influenced by advertising dollars, what’s the point?
I foresee a time when individuals will post a news item like on eBay and people will lend credibility to the news story by rating it for: accuracy, readability, timeliness, relevance and trustworthiness or something. The contributor would get a rating. Boom! There you go. User-driven news source that’s more accurate than what we get now. Oh, and the story can get tagged so people can search and find it based on community, topic, etc.
Thoughts?
Cross-posted at RightWingNews. Follow me at Twitter!
Don’t Tell Me The Media Isn’t Biased. Just. Don’t.
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008How do Republicans have an ice-cubes chance in hades when the media creates voters like this via Moonbattery:
See this isn’t the voters fault. They’re just parroting what the press told them. It is the press’ unrelenting, vicious, intentional, biased pap that passes for journalism these days. In a sound-bite culture, the media creates the narrative and the narrative NEVER favors the conservative ideology. Ever.
John Ziegler of How Obama Got Elected says:
Because obviously interviewing a relative handful of Obama voters, while interesting, is hardly scientific proof of anything, we also commissioned a Zogby telephone poll which asked the very same questions (as well as a few others) with similarly amazing results.
Zogby Poll
512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points
97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates
Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions
57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
And yet…..
Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes
Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!
Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.
Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we “gave” one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)
Comforting, isn’t it? The average voter is completely ignorant and the media is why.
UPDATED:
Zogby takes on the “push poll” rumors.
David Frum on Rush Limbaugh: “Say It Louder Conservativism”
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008How about “say it snobbier pseudo-conservativism but really liberal elitism”?
Money quotes from David Frum:
“The Suburban voter who should be a bedrock Republican voter, these voters see a Democratic party that is no longer a threat to their money, but a Republican party that is a threat to their values.”
His interpretation of conservative philosophy: “As long as you don’t kill babies, anyone can run the U.S. government.”
“On our side of the aisle, we have a big problem. We have a party that is not serious about government.”
Cross-posted at RightWingNews.com and The Houston Chronicle
Mommy Bloggers Get Respect, Conservative Bloggers Get Dissed–UPDATED
Monday, November 17th, 2008So, I’m watching advertising people and mommy bloggers erupt this weekend on Twitter. The subject didn’t interest me much–moms were mad at Motrin. I didn’t go look at the video, but gathered that it was disparaging to moms. Well, the ladies were majorly peeved and mounted a protest via YouTube and firestorm of rage coursed through their blogs.
Today, in my New York Times feed, what do I see? This:
By Saturday evening they were the most tweeted subject on Twitter. By Sunday there was a nine minute video on YouTube, to the tune of Danny Boy, showing screen shots of the outraged twitter posts interspersed with photos of Moms carrying babies in slings.
Bloggers began calling for boycotts. Bloggers asked their readers to alert the mainstream press. A few voices chimed in to say they didn’t find the ad to be that big a deal. There are a few more examples here and here.)
By Sunday afternoon a few bloggers and tweeters had gotten the ad agency that created the ad on the phone, to find they didn’t know a lot about Twitter and didn’t seem to have a clue that there was so much anger piling up online. And Peter Shankman, a public relations all-star who knows everything and then some about new media, was giving the manufacturers some advice:
I’m not siding with Motrin. They messed up, granted. I’m ok with that. Companies mess up all the time. They fix the problem, and it usually doesn’t make the radar screen. The problem is, Motrin happened to mess up at the expense, and in the face of, one of the most vocal, quickest-to-blog, “strongest-to-band-together-and-form-one-opinion-like-the-Borg” collectives out there - The Mommy-Blogging community.
Now I am NOT slagging on Mommy-Bloggers. Not in the slightest. Nor, am I saying they’re over-reacting to the commercial, which, by rights, was stupid and patronizing. What I AM saying though, is that Motrin will pay a MUCH bigger price, as opposed to if they’d messed up in front of say, “Construction-Worker-Bloggers.” Mommy-Bloggers are not a voice to be messed with, probably because they’re one of the most clearly identifiable voices on the web. You have a kid? You blog about said kid? You’re a Mommy-blogger. You don’t need an advanced degree in particle physics to see what these bloggers have in common.
Or, as one Tweet put it:
note to self … never piss off moms … especially twitter moms … they can be a nasty bunch
My Twitter feed also is filled with conservatives. The political folks buzz constantly about this and that, important issues, and The New York Times covers a bunch of moms ticked about a condescending pharmaceutical commercial? Sure, it’s newsworthy, but so is the rebuilding of the Republican party.
Part of the problem with the mainstream media is editorial. What and who they choose to highlight is not nearly as important as who they’re ignoring. And the voices on the Right are ignored. I don’t want to start a war with the MSM, but a little attempt at representing all voices–not just the mushy moderates who sound so sweet and “intellectual” to liberal ears–would be nice.
The Washington Post ombudsman (via Glenn Reynolds) said that there need to be more conservatives in newsrooms. Ya think?
Anyway, I like the idea that the power of a bunch of mad mommies at the bottom forced changes at the top. I’d like to see concerned conservatives bubble up from the bottom, too. But a fat lot it will do them, if no one pays any attention. The media seems to be making a concerted effort to NOT pay attention. It’s working.
Follow me on Twitter!
UPDATED: Here’s the offending video:
Cross-posted at RightWingNews and The Houston Chronicle
Anne Hathaway Brings The Sexy…NOT
Friday, November 14th, 2008
Now, I’m doing this silly post and it’s not just to help a suffering brother out. I actually have an opinion about Anne Hathaway (imagine that) and it’s this: She is the least sexy Hollywood star I have ever seen. She is brown paper bag bland. She seems sweet and rather dull. If you’re going to link whore….
Bared breasts are only enticing if the girl who owns them owns them. In Ms. Hathaway’s case, I feel like I’m looking at grandma in a twenty-five year old’s body.
It’s weird. She’s weird.
So, it’s Friday and some of you boogers like you some boobs. I’ve included a picture of Ms. Hathaway for your pleasure. There are more pictures at the link and capitalist appeals, too. But really, if I were wanting to share the sexy for links, I wouldn’t be using Anne Hathaway’s feeble attempts at teh hawt. I’d share some of these ladies.
Enjoy!
Halle Barry is all natural, baby:
Helen Mirren brings the out the lady and the tramp:
Rene Russo is the thinking man’s lady.
And for my pleasure, I’ve included good old Pierce. He’s aging well and is mighty fine.
And Now, A Frothing Olbermann
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008I just fell in love with Ben Affleck. Again. It’s fleeting though, because tomorrow, he and his bud Matt Damon will be waxing elephant about the offensive Sarah Palin. As long as they stick to acting, though, good stuff:
Tigerhawk: “He’s still having fun”
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008Via Tigerhawk:
Well, there’s that. And McCain has good comic timing.
Ann Althouse talks about the comedy and Obama. It seems like comedians are afraid to spoof Obama or his wife. There is the racial sensitivity thing. But man the topic is ripe for the picking. And, in some ways, I think there is a sort of reverse-racism involved. If a candidate would be spoofed and he or she is white, but comedians won’t spoof Obama because he’s black…that’s racist.
Even Businesses Foist Their Bias–UPDATED
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008When I was in Destin a week or so ago, I stopped by the Barnes-n-Noble to pick up, hopefully, Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism (a must read, by the way).
Here is what I saw:
To calm down from the irritating book display: a walk on the beach.
And this picture I uploaded for my own amusement. Have you ever seen a more hideous lamp? This was the lamp that was in the house we rented. There is no accounting for taste, I’ll tell you that. That thing probably cost a lot of money. It’s more than a little frightening. Don’t you find monkeys as decorative objects freaky?
All photos taken with my 3G iPhone.
UPDATED: This B&N was located in Destin, Florida. There were few conservative books at all. I found one copy of “Liberal Fascism” and one copy of John Fund’s “Stealing Elections” nestled in the Current Events section. One would think, from a business perspective, that the goal would be to cater to the clientele–which in the panhandle is predominantly conservative. But, no.
I can safely guesstimate that the ratio of liberal to conservative books was at least 3:1, probably more like 4:1. That included the table displays (where a tiny corner of the other side of the table pictured had like four obscure–not best seller–books) and the book shelves.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
Dr. Melissa
Donations
