that is rubbish

the gray lady gets bitchy

2010-02-28T17:50:00.000-08:00

The New York Times is SO over this Olympics thing.

last decade stuff

2010-01-30T02:38:00.000-08:00

...it's gonna be on the moon!

nbc does some things right

2010-01-16T13:25:00.000-08:00

Could any two images more perfectly capture the essence of what makes these men what they are?

medium

2010-01-15T23:20:00.000-08:00

Hope you guys caught my television debut on this week's "Medium." Next up, "NUMB3RS."

Q:

2009-12-30T17:03:00.000-08:00

Well, certainly more than me.

hands down hardest part of the presidency

2009-12-20T23:53:00.000-08:00

Wars and climate change and nuclear proliferation and the economy and health care must pale in comparison to feigning amusement as George Lopez emcees the White House Christmas Concert.

loving IKEA's new logo

2009-12-16T00:41:00.001-08:00

duckman

2009-12-03T19:46:00.000-08:00

I'm sure most of you have seen this (as if any one who reads this doesn't subscribe to New York State Senate YouTube Channel) but I'm sitting here getting all teary-eyed at this woman's awesome speech about marriage equality and then I scroll down to see the comments and the first one is:

YouTube commenters, always keeping shit in check. (But in all seriousness, watch that video. That's some real pragmatic real talk right there.)

miss'd alaska

2009-11-17T15:17:00.000-08:00

What a difference a year makes. Watching this blockhead give interviews a year ago was hilarious, sure, but also terrifying, because there was that chance she might be entrusted to do whatever it is Joe Biden does now. But now that even Oprah is laughing in her face, it's time we move on. Nothing left to see here.

Oprah realized this: she followed up yesterday's Palin sit-down by interviewing a hardworking American who has actually done some things in her life, the type of straight-shooting public figure we can all get behind:

aside from the obvious highlights

2009-11-05T03:01:00.000-08:00

...this World Series was all about Hot Girls in Phillies Hats Looking Sad:

And that's just page one. WHERE'S MY BOOK DEAL MOTHERFUCKAS???

why i'll probably live on the east coast 4 "ever"

2009-11-04T03:17:00.000-08:00

deductive reasoning

2009-10-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

Oh boy, go ahead and click the image above to enlarge. I hope they had time to include my favorite Sherlock Holmes mystery, The Adventure of the Giant CGI Mechanical Spider with an Arm That's Also a Flamethrower (spoiler alert: in an unsatisfying twist, even Holmes can't figure out how this Sisquo-Stevie Wonder collaboration came about).

tv guide

2009-10-26T23:12:00.000-07:00

First question: WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

nbc news provides context

2009-10-24T22:22:00.000-07:00

Chuck Todd: "In the state Bon Jovi, The Boss, and Tony Soprano call home, New Jersey's governor race has lived up to the state's rough and tumble image."

Things to learn here: Chuck Todd may or may not know Tony Soprano isn't real, New Jersey looks like an oversized 3D cartoon money symbol.

things you could say that mean you need to reevaluate your life, pt. 1

2009-10-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

"I actually think Mark's cake is the sturdiest cake I've seen in a really long time. The thing that I don't like is that this is not a wedding cake to me...it's a baby shower cake."

...

2009-09-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

when it comes to important issues...

2009-09-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

Was Obama's decision to let legislators draft the healthcare bill the most effective route to overhauling the system? Is ramping up troop levels in Afghanistan a necessity, or will it increase violence, as Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich) has argued? Will cap and trade policies alone be enough to reduce the globe's greenhouse gasses? Also,

breaking

2009-09-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

Oh, you have to be kidding me.

note to the travel channel

2009-08-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

Just because you're in Africa talking to a black person doesn't mean you have to subtitle everything he says. Especially if he speaks clearer English than your high-and-mighty Travel Channel host, who, in addition to dressing like he is on "The Deadliest Catch: Safari!" (see above), won't stop yelling about "the locals." Note to anyone who travels, ever, anywhere: there's no way to sound like more of an outsider than to loudly and endlessly yap about "the locals."

unintentional truth

2009-08-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

the youth vote

2009-08-10T21:42:00.001-07:00

If you think these teens are shocked to see that Ron Paul, winner of the 2008 MySpace Republican Presidential Primary, has been reduced to stage managing the 2009 Teen Choice Awards -- well, you'd be wrong, they're actually shocked that, moments before, a Jonas Brother accepted a challenge to cut off some of his hair (onstage!!!!!!!) -- but hey, I'm shocked. Ron Paul/Robert Pattinson '012!

presented without comment

2009-08-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

things that actually happen in this commerical:

free willy

2009-08-04T14:47:00.000-07:00

As you know, Bill Clinton went over to North Korea in an attempt to free those two imprisoned journalists, which was a pretty deft move for a bunch of reasons, among them that crazy 'ol Kim Jong-il probably thinks Bill is still president. They even found time to pose for this bizarre photo, in front of what must be the North Korean equivalent of that old elementary school photo standby, LAZERS. Seriously, that backdrop! So, how long before Fox News demands to know WHO PAID FOR THIS TRIP HE'S NOT EVEN AN ELECTED OFFICIAL?

international television-show-credit shorthand for "dear viewer, change the channel" (women made of cheap champagne and melted candle wax edition)

2009-08-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

You may not know Mr. Abrego by name, but chances are he's stolen a few half hours of your life. He's the guy who, one evening in a particularly seedy bar in Los Angeles, looked ahead and saw a particularly gnarly stripper gyrating in front of a TV showing a rerun of "Behind the Music," and thought: oh, that's it! Since then he's given America's daughter's greasy hot tubs worth of role models on "Flavor of Love," "Rock of Love" (both off and on the bus), "Charm School," "For the Love of Ray J," "From G's to Gents," "The Surreal Life," "I Love New York," "I Love Money," and according to IMDB, something called "The Rage Beyond the Stage: Sammy Hagar vs. David Lee Roth" (which admittedly sounds amazing and is exempt from the advice given in the title of this post).

Earlier:
international television-show-credit shorthand for "dear viewer, change the channel"
international movie-credit shorthand for "dear viewer, change the channel"

international television-show-credit shorthand for "dear viewer, change the channel" (the poor man's ryan seacrest edition)

fingers crossed!

2009-08-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

song lyrics as a conversation

2009-07-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

Jay-Z: Wha’sup?

Rihanna: Heeeeeeeeey heeeeeeay. Heeeeeeeeey heeeeeeay.

Jay-Z: Wha’sup?

parent trap

2009-07-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

Since Lindsay Lohan passed the point of playing any role other than a sad, stoned rendition of Lindsay Lohan a long time ago, we have to assume that her new film -- getting a splashy premiere this Sunday as part of the ABC Family Channel's noted Film Series -- is about Lindsay's own, very public "labor pains," and not Vista's or Piper's or Tanner's or whatever improbably named character she's supposed to be playing. This makes the tagline ("All her career needs is a little bump") worrying. Are those Lindsay's own words, assumably overheard in a club bathroom stall (Hey! All I need is a little bump! It's for my careeeeer!) or a warning that Lindsay thinks her career would get a boost if she had a baby? Because it probably would. But Lindsay, please don't have a baby, and if you do invest in a real pregnancy book and not one that only exists in a layer of Photoshop on a computer in the ABC Family marketing office.

this is misleading

2009-07-08T12:28:00.000-07:00

When the page loaded and this photo landed in the middle of my screen, black and white and sober all over, I was sure another celebrity bit the dust, the latest victim of our ongoing summer of celebrity death. But it seems Ginsburg isn't doing the moonwalk with Ed McMahon just yet. I know the Supreme Court isn't known for its spritely photoshoots, but maybe someone at the Times could liven this photo up with a beach ball or smiling Robert Pattinson or something?

terminator 2: judgment day

2009-07-02T14:21:00.001-07:00

The world's deposed CEOs are apparently keeping busy by authoring snarky online shopping word verifications:

king cab

2009-06-30T23:46:00.000-07:00

I was convinced that all the Michael Jackson ephemera bobbing around in my skull tricked my eyes into seeing a Michael Jackson tribute on top of a taxi last night, but it turns out it was a real thing:

The ads are sponsored by Microsoft's sad stab at launching a search engine with a nonsense name that can be used as a verb, BING. (I Googled it!)

Next up:

Okay, this is serious. Unlike the usual free Facebook gifts (e.g., Share your excitement for the 2009 Pontiac Vibe with a spray-painted Pontiac logo! Tap the Rockies with this Coors Light E-Coaster! Tell your friends that He's Just Not That Into You, in theaters this Friday, with a spinning Jennifer Aniston head!, etc.), here's one I can't fuck up. While I mull over which friend deserves this, here's a sick M.J. remix from '97, an underplayed (but frequently sampled) Jackson 5 banger, an ignored later-period single, and an odd but totally funky B-side that prominently features monkey sounds.

loonies

2009-06-23T22:53:00.000-07:00

I guess this is where I write about the Will.i.am / Perez Hilton feud because this is a blog, and every blog on the internet is currently doing that, as per President Obama's edict. So here we go. As I understand it, Mr. Hilton and Mr. i.am got in some kind of BOOM BOOM POW fist fight at the Much Music Awards in Toronto that ended with former calling the latter a "faggot," which makes no sense whatsoever, mostly because I thought Much Music stopped broadcasting sometime in 1999. Instead of calling the police, Perez used his phone to Twitter that anyone reading should call the police (it's similar to the situation in Iran) and now everyone is choosing sides (now that we've all moved on from Jon & Kate) because everyone loves a good old-fashioned East Coast/West Coast and Canada hip-hop war. Even Kirstie Alley!

As paralyzingly stupid as all of this might seem, it does remind us of an important lesson that always bears repeating: in a world of uncertainties, Will.i.am's verse in any song that contains a Will.i.am verse will be the worst fucking part of that song. If you don't know what I'm talking about seek out his bit in Justin Timberlake's "Damn Girl." It is, with absolute certainty, one of the worst raps I've ever heard. And I went to high school with a bunch of white kids from Queens.

this is why you're fat

2009-06-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

wwe, wtf?

2009-06-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

i am very sure

2009-06-17T23:50:00.001-07:00

Nicks has often told the story of how she wrote the song. She wrote it shortly after she was married to Kim Anderson. The newlyweds were driving up to San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara when Prince's song "Little Red Corvette" came on the radio. Nicks states that she started humming along to the melody of the song, especially inspired by the lush synthesizers of the song, and "Stand Back" was born. They stopped and got a tape recorder and she recorded the demo right there in the honeymoon suite that night. Later, when Nicks went into the studio to record the song, she called Prince and told him the story of how she wrote the song to his melody. He came to the studio that night and played synthesizers on it, although his contribution is uncredited on the album. Then, she says, "he just got up and left as if the whole thing happened in a dream."

I would give top dollar to buy and download video of all that going down. Prince and Stevie Nicks -- can you imagine how many flowing scarves were present in that recording studio? The official music video is the next best thing, though. And behold, it's conveniently featured on my other blog, learning things about musicians from music videos.

(NOW THAT'S WHAT WE CALL SYNERGY)

finding sarah palin

2009-06-12T14:48:00.001-07:00

I wasn't aware she did interviews of any other kind?

This update coming to you live from the Apple store on W. 14th St., I'm officially part of the tribe. If I had a car it might have an Apple sticker on it and you would all be right to want to run me off the road.

safari

2009-06-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if the pop-up ad below is a commentary on the interchangeability of advanced degrees, or clip art as robot-generated pop art, but either way it's convinced me to pursue an online degree. I have two years to spare and oh look at that friendly giraffe!

pit bull

2009-06-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

If you've watched anything vaguely manly on TV in the last month ("SportsCenter," "MANswers," "The Wendy Williams Show") you've probably caught this ad:

HA HA HA check out the wimp with sensitive pits!!! Seriously though, enough of this bullshit. It's hard enough to go deodorant shopping, what with the 299 different varieties already up for grabs. It seems easy enough: run into the CVS, grab some deodorant. Cut to ten minutes later when I'm still standing in the aisle, completely dumbfounded, trying to weigh the merits of "Mountain Valley Rush" versus "X-Treme Cool Blast Power Stripe" versus "24 Hour Arctic Peak Fusion" -- and now I'm also supposed to figure out my "pit type"?!

This is the reason CVS is the size of a supermarket, and the supermarket is the size of an airplane hanger. Speed Stick knows that the more retarded "flavors" they have on the shelf, the better the chance is that my eyes will lock on one of them and buy it. But this just encourages every other brand to introduce more and more variations and next thing you know the deodorant aisle is 50 feet long. Dude, it's deodorant. All I want is one that will keep me from smelling like a locker room, without making me smell like a bridge and tunnel date rapist.

Blah blah blah this probably means I have sensitive pits.

it's free and anyone can join

2009-06-02T00:59:00.000-07:00

Facebook's newsfeed isn't of much use to me, but I do think that it provides a nice reminder that, when things seem shitty, there are simultaneously people who are doing great, or just fell in love, or are 12 episodes into the second season of "CSI: Miami" on demand, or are most like Uncredited Nurse No. 2 in Shift Happens, a Season 7 episode of "Sabrina The Teenage Witch" (3 people like this!), and before long you'll be in their shoes and they'll be in yours.

Seeing the ups and downs of other people's lives spelled out in list form underscores that sometimes life is a bummer and sometimes it's awesome and -- we are talking about Facebook here -- a lot of the time it's totally inane. But in the end we can take solace in the fact that we're all in this together, humans on this glorious spaceship called Earth, powered by AT&T. (I'm paraphrasing that from EPCOT Center.)

spam subject line or cnn.com headline?

2009-05-26T13:40:00.000-07:00

Woman named Butts charged with theft of toilet paper

new york times article or facebook ad?

2009-05-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

happy summer

2009-05-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of Giada bathing in cow blood or something.

another post about american apparel

2009-05-17T00:28:00.000-07:00

I'm still a passenger on the hope train but enough with the Obama t-shirts!!! Did you guys hear, he won. At this point it's like wearing a shirt that says "C.I.A." or "Status Quo." He may be da man, but don't forget he's also basically The Man.

P.S. I felt some Obama-guilt about these feelings, but then I was at a barbecue and some chick was rocking a huge-ass "Obama for President" button on her jacket, and it was like, you do know 2012 isn't for a few years, right??
P.P.S. I still wear t-shirts that I wore in high school.

immaculate misconception

2009-05-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

It probably goes without saying that you guys need to watch “I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT,” a TLC show about women who DIDN’T KNOW THEY WAS PREGNANT. I watched four women’s eye-opening stories last night and three involved the woman -- how do I put this gently -- trying to take a massive shit and pooping out a baby. Again: three of these true stories ended with a baby landing in a toilet.

One surprise!!!!! birth took place in a fast food restaurant. The 16-year-old co-worker who delivered the baby underscored the child-defecation by explaining that she “heard a plop, and then there was a baby in the toilet!” The 911 operator’s helpful advice: “Remove the baby from the toilet.” Tension was heightened toward the end of every reenactment as the camera zoomed in on the woman writhing in pain and the narrator intoned with "and Julia DIDN’T. EVEN. KNOW. SHE WAS PREGNANT" [cue placenta falling out all over the fast food restaurant bathroom floor].

If I took anything away from this show it’s that babies can strike at any time and we all have to be ultra-vigilant, especially if you’re a woman who hasn’t gotten her period in eight months.

learning things about musicians from music videos vol. 1

2009-05-11T11:34:00.000-07:00

In the morning, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em hops up out the bed, turns his swag on, and drives a Segway over to his cars.

Video: Soulja Boy Tell' Em / "Turn My Swag On"

jeopardy fail

2009-05-01T18:07:00.001-07:00

For as long as I can remember, my mom has been recording "Jeopardy!" rather than watching it live, I think for the sole purpose of fast-forwarding through the sad interview portion that unloads after the first round. It ostensibly exists to humanize the contestants, show us that there is more behind those faces than just sloppy penmanship and a worryingly exhaustive knowledge of Biblical Opera or whatever. Thing is, it almost always does the opposite and reveals them to be clinically uninteresting or pathetic. For example, the chick above's personal anecdote was that she got a perfect 1,600 on her SATs. Golly, that is fascinating! While we're talking about high school, how was the prom? Oh, you didn't go? But yeah, the great part is that seven times out of ten, Alex Trebek, asshole that he is, will respond with a bone-dry "Ah. Good for you." Pssst, he's speaking for America.

pork barrel

2009-04-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

"Access Hollywood," the show for people who can understand current events only if they are tenuously connected to Angelina's womb and/or John Mayer's new gal pal:

Be sure to tune in tomorrow for Billy Bush's exclusive investigation into what Arlen Spector's switch to the Democrats means for Lindsay Lohan's weight.

paper or plastic

2009-04-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

Like everyone, I'm trying to reduce my personal carbon footprint (hence not posting yesterday: THATISRUBBISH went dark in honor of Earth Day, a little taste of what your life will be like when global warming burns down the internet), and I got to thinking back to eighth grade, when I invented eco-consciousness through my devastating investigation, "Garbage: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?" For this landmark study, which I had the chance to present during my study period in the storage closet next to the Earth Science classroom, I took a daily tally of the litter found around the CVS up the block from my house. I then ran this data through a sophisticated equation, which was basically "Is this litter made of styrofoam?" My results? Well, some of it was indeed made of styrofoam. Earth saved!

For what the study lacked in substance it made up for in style, as I remember receiving lots of kudos for my display board, which featured construction paper grass strewn with glued-on styrofoam packing peanuts. (THATISRUBBISH, style over substance since junior high.) Fast forward to the present, when I am confronted with the daily ecological dilemma of whether to take a paper or plastic cup at the office water cooler. "Easy," you say. "Paper, because a paper cup at least stands a chance of biodegrading, rather than the plastic cup, which will outlive all of us." Trick question! I should bring a washable mug to work. But if my science fair non-project is any indication, this is never going to happen, because when it comes to saving the world, I'm a lazy piece of garbage.

deep v, pt. II

2009-04-20T13:05:00.000-07:00

Are you serious? If this catches on, I give up.

going postal

2009-04-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

As far as questionable photographic overshares from the government, it's no "carrying a confidential counterterrorism document face-out past photographers" or "CONDI CAN I HAZ BATHROOM BREAK?" but I just hope that the person with serial killer handwriting doesn't see this slideshow, which shows his or her letter to Obama unceremoniously chucked into the No Response Necessary box.

disturbia

2009-04-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

So, DRAG ME TO HELL, just another dopey horror movie, right? Like, is that hand supposed to be dragging her to hell or getting to second base or what?

But -- wait. If we rearrange some letters, there's no denying that DRAG ME TO HELL reveals a chilling omen to a certain disgraced purveyor of song and chewing gum...

You heard it here first. Peace out Breezy!

daggers

2009-04-17T01:42:00.001-07:00

If you're like me and you want to be a teenager in 1980s Southern California when you grow up, 1986's Thrashin' is required viewing. It's less a movie than a long-form skateboarding music video. Among its many charms: helpfully expository dialogue that constantly reminds you who everyone is and what they're doing, a bunch of beautiful California babes (one played by a young Josh Brolin), and a theme song performed by Meatloaf. Also, a pretty intense sex scene scored to a song that sounds suspiciously like "(Love Lift Us) Up Where We Belong," except cornier. Don't get me wrong, though, the movie is awesome. Rent it and then buy me this as a thank you.

It's Friday, no need to decode any more of my serpentine syntax. Instead, enjoy these screenshots:

(click to enlarge)

MORE...

hey, conversational yet aggressive pop-up ad?

2009-04-13T01:10:00.000-07:00

It's okay, you don't have to do that.

when cars fly

2009-04-10T09:51:00.001-07:00

Well yeah, now that I see it, it all makes sense. People aren't buying cars because of the lack of WWE-style showmanship! Auto industry, return to work. Crisis averted.

bosom buddies

2009-04-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

I'm back from the U.K. While there, I had the chance to visit William Shakespeare's birthplace, which cost approximately 800 pounds to enter and was staffed by people who would, were they American, definitely run low-budget Renaissance fairs. But it wasn't all for naught, as I gained new insight into timeless prose, mostly via the "Naughty Shakespeare" magnetic poetry in a fluorescent-lit structure still intact from William's childhood, the gift shop. Also, this:

Anyway, when it comes to language, there are certainly some word combinations that should never be spoken -- the Lord's name in vain, anything related to "cougars," In a film by Fred Durst -- but goddamn, not everything is rubbish! It is in that spirit, with the Bard in mind, that I present one of the more beguilingly sweet sentences mine eyes have ever chanced upon. It comes from The Scottish Daily Mirror's in-depth play-by-play of British reality star Jade Goody's burial, which I read on the train while folding the paper into awkward origami to hide all the bare breasts between the articles, next to the Suduko, etc.:

The mood lightened as guests, including pop star Jamelia, 28, played Connect Four in the afternoon sunshine.

I say this with utmost respect: best funeral ever?

this poster is confusing

2009-03-28T23:42:00.000-07:00

It's even more confusing in the posters that are up in the subway, which are laid out similarly but also add an actual picture of Martin Starr to the lineup -- and again, leave that random chick nameless. I'm just going to have to assume that she's an uncredited (but industrious) extra who snuck her way into the poster photo shoot.

Otherwise, I am so psyched for this movie. I've developed a bit of a crush on Kristen Stewart (cemented by this) but I sure as hell wasn't going to see "Twilight," and that's really all she's done, I think, because she was born in 1990 -- which not only makes me feel weird about the crush but also suspect that she wouldn't know what I was talking about if I mentioned that her costar Jesse Eisenberg is strangely reminiscent of this 90s icon. [EDIT: They're brother and sister!] I would blather on a little longer but I'm jetting off to London tomorrow and I should use these final hours to brush up on my English.

say hello to good buys

2009-03-26T12:48:00.001-07:00

Target's marketing has always promised a way cooler in-store experience (not to mention a way hotter clientele) than an actual trip to Target will deliver, but it's hard to knock its patented "pretty images and peppy music" approach to advertising. But when Target recently stepped out of its red and white cocoon to acknowledge these tough economic times, its template just may have imploded upon itself in the process.

Exhibit A: the ads like the one above, that all start with a dose of Target-ified reality (ECONOMIC UPDATE! STOCKS DOWN! LOVINGLY COMPOSED CINEMATOGRAPHY!) while the soundtrack suggests that this is a brand new day! -- fair enough. The times they have a'changed. And it's getting better every single way! -- whoa, hold up, how is it getting better every single way?

Well, it seems that things are getting better because Target can help you make a bunch of recession-ready substitutions: Instead of going on vacation...you can apply self-tanner ($9.39)! Instead of adding an addition to your home...you can buy some ugly pillows ($17.99)! Instead of making G's in a corner office...you can sit at home, on an office chair ($24.99)! Instead of chillin' with your loved ones in your family room...you can huddle together in a tent ($70.49)!

(Ostensible message? You're never going on vacation again, so cry into this pillow, because you lost your job, and you don't have a house anymore. La la la la, this is a brand new day!)

To be serious, I hoped the silver lining to this new day that we live in would be a realization that we don't actually need as much dumb shit as we thought we did, rather than cheaper dumb shit like self-tanner and crappy pillows. But even if you think I'm reading too far into a Target ad -- after all, it's not for Walmart, and that song is so peppy -- you must at least agree that Target's "New Day!" version of a night club...

...is sad as hell.

fern gully

2009-03-24T23:02:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of using a presidential news conference as a springboard to ask dumb questions (I'm talking to you, CNN), here's one: what's up with the greenery between Obama and the press at these things? Specifically, why does it look like Barry's about to make an announcement from the stage at a Jurassic Park-themed prom?

While it does bring to mind the landscaped gutter at the zoo that keeps visitors safe from the lions, I don't think many would characterize White House reporters as lionhearted. And isn't a barrier of ferns a bit redundant when the press pool is a basically a bunch of potted plants to begin with? Ha ha ha! BARACK, TEAR DOWN THAT WALL!

martha dumptruck

2009-03-16T17:20:00.000-07:00

While I generally cringe at rootin'-tootin' talk radio blowhard conservative-speak, I appreciate Sen. Charles Grassley's real talk on what the AIG executives slated to get bonuses should do:

Also fun: CBS News is apparently Twittering the nightly news now, correct capitalization be damned.

bigger than wikipedia, really big in the UK

2009-03-13T00:16:00.000-07:00

THATISRUBBISH's traffic has been off the charts. (It's a small chart, but still.) After some investigation it seems that a lot of people are landing here after typing, old-school Ask Jeeves-like, "What caused the recession?" into the Google. This entry appears on the fourth page of results. It's even bigger in the UK, where (I shit you not!) that entry is actually on pace to rank higher than the Wikipedia entry on the subject:

So let me amend my previous point: the recession was not caused by crappy pens. It was caused by the fact that a lame entry on my blog is the 36th best answer to that question.

THATISRUBBISH > Jim Cramer

big apple bang bus

2009-03-11T14:22:00.000-07:00

New Yorkers are supposed to hate on tourists, but unless they're wearing Red Sox gear and/or have designs on blowing something up, I don't really see the point. Yeah, stepping off the plane in an "I ♥ NY" t-shirt seems a bit presumptuous, but who am I to judge? If you hate on tourists (and we assume that you don't hate yourself), it implies that you will never be a tourist, which means that you haven't travelled/don't aspire to travel, and if that's the case you're probably narrow-minded and still suspect Obama is a Muslim. These people want to see the sights and buy an eraser shaped like the Statue of Liberty, where's the harm in that?

That's why my heart goes out to the tourists every time I see a Gray Line tour bus wrapped in a bus-sized advertisement for vh1's "Rock of Love Bus." It's embarrassing enough to pose for photos in front of the Empire State Building (which, SPOILER ALERT, at the ground level looks like any other office building/stripmall in the world -- "Kids, let's get a shot for next year's Christmas card. Now, what says 'our trip to New York' more, the Starbucks or the AT&T store?"). But then to make them pile back into what appears to be a mobile STD testing facility? That's cold. (And possibly sore, puss-filled, etc.)

I don't have an actual picture because I don't carry around a camera (it's not like I'm a tourist or something! HA HA) but I've prepared a rough sketch of what this thing looks like. Click to enlarge, then amp up the skankiness by a few cup sizes and you'll be closer to understanding what these poor visitors are going through.

Gray Line Bus Tours: bringing prostitutes back to Times Square.

jobbed

2009-03-06T11:29:00.000-08:00

The latest grim scorecard of contraction in the American workplace largely destroyed what hopes remained for an economic recovery in the first half of this year, and added to a growing sense that 2009 is probably a lost cause.

Better luck next year, America! This makes me want to sit it out in a cave 'til 2010, but then even caves are going into foreclosure.

shamon!

2009-03-05T10:49:00.000-08:00

Michael Jackson just announced that he's going on tour. The show will be called "This Is It," and if we're lucky we'll finally get Michael's musical response to the first Strokes album (You know he'll kill "Barely Legal," yuk yuk yuk! Yuck.) But -- oh, no:
BUBBLES HOW COULD YOU?!

THEN WHY DON'T YOU TWITTER ABOUT IT???

2009-03-04T23:00:00.000-08:00

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! See, that was a punch line. You can use that whenever someone shares something boring. Like, if I told you that I just filed my taxes (true story), you could say "THEN WHY DON'T YOU GO TWITTER ABOUT IT???" and we'd laugh, oh, we'd laugh, because tittering about Twittering is the new snickering about MySpace sex offenders.

Now, if you've been paying attention in the last week or so, you've probably encountered someone expounding on how dumb Twitter is. I'm not sure why this is a big topic of discussion, but I suspect it's tied to the widely-reported story that a lot of senators used Twitter to share inane thoughts during Obama's big speech, which was admittedly really dumb. (Would-be internet phenomenons take note, the way to get everyone talking about your service, and then promptly turn it into a total punch line: get senators to use it!)

But yeah, Twitter is dumb, and it's extra fun to laugh at because it has a retarded name. But it's not a harbinger of the apocalypse. Twitter is a distraction, maybe, but what hell else are you doing that is so important? If you have time to lecture on why Twitter is dumb, not much. And as a Twitter user (PLUG: obloquy), I can attest that Twitter isn't completely pointless.

Check out my first Twitter post (I refuse to call it a 'tweet,' which is what you're supposed to call these things -- what's that you say? You're right, I should TWITTER ABOUT IT. Bear with me.):
That was my initial reaction to the MILFy eskimo talking about her snow-machine-racing First Dude of a husband on the day that John McCain announced his choice for V.P. Did that need to be recorded? I dunno, but it's kind of nice to flip back to, in the way that it's fun to look through the shit you scribbled in the margins of a biology lab book in tenth grade. A little snapshot of what you were thinking about at particular moment.

Plus, without Twitter, how else would I know that Martha Stewart (MarthaStewart) sat down to lunch with Ludacris?

snowmygod

2009-03-02T09:31:00.000-08:00

Priests have Easter and Christmas. Groundhogs have February 2. Potato chip peelers have the day the Unwrapped crew shows up with cameras. Pilots have the day after they land a jet on a river. That professor of pop culture at Syracuse has whenever Britney does something weird in public.

Every profession has that one day where all eyes are on them, and people actually care about what they have to say. For local news reporters, that day is the snow day.

There's not much news to snow other than school closings and flight delays, so that's why there's always so much stock footage of salt trucks and live feeds of the 'winter' aisle at the Home Depot. (What's with all the people buying shovels every time it snows, anyway? Did they all just move up from Florida?) The thing that's really wacky about late night local news is that the reporters are always "reporting live" from some arbitrary location (a street corner where a shooting took place twelve hours ago, or outside a courthouse where a decision was handed down yesterday), when it would be just as relevant for them to be live from the studio or the bathroom of a Panera.

Anyway, everyone get on the screen! It's snowing there and there and there:

and there and there and there:

and (hats off to Channel 7) there and there and there and there and there and there:

Are there any Pulitzers for embedded reporting at the public works garage?

But seriously, happy snow day everyone, whether or not there's snow outside your window. I'm going to celebrate by eating soup all day.

three very confusing lines of text

2009-03-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

Lifetime Presents

ROSIE O'DONNELL

AMERICA

(As seen all over the subway, not, fortunately, the bus.)

arts & crafts

2009-02-26T12:43:00.001-08:00

As a lover of lots of old-timey things, like newspapers and bar soap and the band Everclear, I find it endearing that senators use posterboard visual aids during presentations, I really do. But with a $1.75 trillion budget deficit on the line, shouldn't we take up a collection and buy these guys a copy of PowerPoint? Think of the money saved on glitter and glue alone!

Come to think of it, why waste even $229 on software in these tough times? Now that lawmakers have mastered The Twitter, I'm sure one could figure out how to bootleg a copy off a torrent? It's not like anyone is paying attention during important presentations anyway. As Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.) twittered during Obama's not-State-of-the-Union the other night: "Capt Sully is here -- awesome!"

what caused the recession?

2009-02-24T10:06:00.000-08:00

Bad mortgages, toxic debt, falling home values, a lack of government oversight?

Wrong. It was crappy pens!

fishy

2009-02-19T23:09:00.001-08:00

Tracy Morgan had a fire at his apartment and blamed it on his fish tank. Amazingly, that is not even the best part of the story. That distinction would have to go to the graphics that the local news used to report this very serious bit of news:

& big ups to Sue Simmons, as always.

water cooler

2009-02-15T21:21:00.000-08:00

Some people were angry when television's third greatest show (after "The Office" and "Hole in the Wall," duh) spent a third of last week's episode fawning over the McFlurry. Did such blatant product placement cross the line? Did it go too far?? And will TV ever be pure again??? Things got so stirred up that Tina Fey had to take a break from swimming in her and Martin Scorsese's giant pool of American Express ad money to address the "McFlurry of criticism" (thanks, TV Guide, for going there so that I wouldn't be tempted to, see: "stirred up" in the beginning of this sentence). She swears McDonalds didn't fork over money, but people are still skeptical.

Me, I don't really care! And "30 Rock" has made enough product-placement jokes to do whatever the hell they want. But I do know that, other than suspecting that the industrial-grade plastic spoon contraption it is served with had achieved new heights in stupendously wasteful packaging, I've never devoted much mind-space to the McFlurry. And now I have, and now that I'm done with this post I'm going to go buy one.

But only because it's probably too late in the day for this.

NASCAR is so weird

2009-02-12T21:25:00.001-08:00

"Heavenly father, we thank you for the opportunity to enjoy such a fabulous event as the Gatorade Duel at Daytona."

*

2009-02-11T12:46:00.000-08:00

The trend story! The type of journalism that helps us make sense of the world no one actually lives in.

The key to identifying a trend piece lies in one word: many. For instance, let's take the recent CNN.com opus "Will Recession Dull Hip-Hop's Bling?" This story's thesis rests on the fact that "Many rappers came to the annual music awards show wearing sleek suits; their famous jewels were conspicuously absent." The author could have said some rappers, or probably most accurately, a few rappers, but some or a few does not a trend story make. Thus, MANY rappers have been dulled by the recession. Alert your Senator!

That article is also evidence of the latest trend in trend stories, the "in these tough economic times..." angle, which is really just another go-around of the "in this post-9/11 world..." angle. So let's see what MANY people are doing in these tough economic times:

Tough economic times are making it even harder for people to quit smoking! People are being frugal, especially in regard to things that are sure to disappoint, like Valentines Day and the lottery, except the optimistic mavericks of Pennsyltuckey who are throwing all their cash into scratchoffs. The people who still have jobs are brown-bagging lunch, or just ignoring the check until someone else caves and pays it for them.

How are rich people dealing with the recession? They "appear to be" (that's another sign you're in a trend piece) killing themselves! Hopefully their loved ones are aware that tough economic times have made cremation totally trendy. Many of the still-living are doing "good deeds," many others are robbing banks. But times are so tough that thieves can't even move stolen merchandise! Also trendy: moving to a trailer park. ("They joined the growing population of people in these tough economic times who turn to a much-derided and often-overlooked affordable housing option: the mobile home park.").

Many people are reading the Bible again. Also booming: "sin industries" like liquor and cocaine. And gambling! Many people are enrolling in "evasive driving schools," others are just racking up recession speeding tickets.

Women are selling off all of their eggs and buying a lot of crap from Avon. And gentlemen, the recession is almost definitely gonna make you break up with your girlfriend. Also: hire a prostitute. And then fall in love with a casserole ("Basil Maglaris, senior manager of corporate affairs for Kraft Foods Inc., agreed that America's 'love affair with the casserole' is reigniting due to the budgetary squeeze.").

Very hot right now: psychics, psychics, and more psychics! And while we're looking into the future, things that the tough economic times MIGHT make people do: maybe neglect their horse and maybe write better music. Maybe!

In fashion, people are breaking out the shoulder pads again and also suiting up in Depression-style clothing while watching the Grapes of Wrath on DVD ("From clothing labels to retail chains and even life insurance, some of the more inventive brands have discovered that, economic times being what they are these days, the Great Depression might just be the best marketing theme you can ask for.").

Bogus "tough economic times" trend stories aside, the economy is a real mess and aside from psychics, we're probably all screwed. But there is a silver lining: "More Visitors at the Idaho Potato Museum in Tough Economic Times." ("This giant potato in Blackfoot must be doing some good because despite the hard times we've been facing with the economy the sales at the Idaho potato museum aren't suffering one bit."). Thank God.

a note to aspiring major leaguers:

2009-02-10T23:20:00.000-08:00

As a general rule, steer clear of steroids. Multiply this rule by three hundred if your nickname is merely one additional letter away from linking you to a steroid scandal forever. Multiply that rule by seven billion if the one additional letter in question is typographically slender and easily slipped into any existing instance of your nickname--like, say, an "i."

I hope you're reading, young John Sterod.

But yeah, let's all save a little outrage here (remember, you still need some for thinking about that weird lady who brought all those kids into this cruel world and also Chris Brown) and accept that--up to at least 2003--awesome baseball players were fueled on more than just Gatorade and chewing tobacco. A-Rod is only one of 104 as-yet-unidentified players who tested positive for steroids that year, so it's basically a given that even shitty baseball players were on the juice.

In the end, baseball players take steroids for the same reasons that most of Hollywood's most beautiful owe their careers to talented plastic surgeons: we like our heroes to be bigger and better than nature would ever allow them to be. Also, c'mon, home runs are really cool, especially when it's 97 degrees and nothing has happened in the last five innings and water is $5.50 and dude you're seriously gonna make me get up to do The Wave again?

a list

2009-02-08T20:23:00.000-08:00

Words Actually Spoken on FOX's "Hole in the Wall"

["It's the game that's been a smash hit all over the world. Now it's finally here in America. It's the crazy Japanese show that we call 'Hole in the Wall' and it's so simple. Make the shape and get through the wall, get points. Get dumped in the pool and you get no points. That's it!"]

"Okay Philip, I hope you're loose enough because it's time to face the hole."

"The muscle-man Jake flexed his way through a very tight hole (that's what I'm talking about!)!"

"They appeared to have the hole figured out, only to be denied by the small decoy hole on the left!"

"Hey, I'm a big guy, and that's not a big hole. But hey I tried to make it work."

"Okay, three guys and just one hole!"

"It was almost instinctive how these three mounted each other to fit into that hole!"

"Those guys created a hole that a semi could drive through!"

"A great effort on a really tough hole."

"I thought they had the hole, but they blew it instead!"

"Gentlemen, it's time to face the hole."

"Audience, I need you all to be very quiet please. Lynne has to be able to hear her teammates coaching her, directing her and telling her how to clear the hole."

"Alright let's see if you can fight your way through some of these holes!"

"They should have doubled up in the biggest hole, I admit it wouldn't have been a pretty sight but they would have gotten rid of that big fat zero on the scoreboard!"

"Hold my hand, I'm going to guide you into the play area. Tell me: are you ready for that hole?"

black and white and dead all over

2009-02-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

In the olden days newspapers paid the bills by filling the white spaces between the stories with ads (or is it the white spaces between the ads with stories?) but then, oh then, came the internet. Why get newsprint all over your hands when you can just read it online? Long live the online newspaper, now newspapers would pay the bills through online advertising! But a splashy full-color, full-page ad in say, the New York Times costs six figures, whereas the cost of some annoying online ad that the reader is going to click through anyway is much less. Hm. Add to that the part where no one is advertising online anyway. Uh oh.

"But how," you ask, "will newspapers survive if people use their product for free?"

This is the zillion dollar question, and one that probably should have been answered in 1995. Nonetheless, this week Time proposes that newspapers adapt a 'micro-payment' model where readers pay a very small fee to access an article. Intriguing! After all, people pay a small fee to buy songs on iTunes, so why not a newspaper story? This way, when you have a party, you can bump the latest Maureen Dowd column on your laptop for all of your guests! Newspapers are cool again! Also, iTunes totally saved the recording industry and stopped people from stealing music--oh, wait a second. Alright, so basically this will never work, and in the end newspapers did themselves in by being too slow to embrace the internet. Oh well. For me, I guess this is all underscored by the image that the New York Times uses to illustrate "the internet"...

...and which suggests that the paper of record thinks of the internet as a lumbering piece of machinery someone carted away from a garage sale at Dr. Frankenstein's lab. Print is dead, long live the internet! Luckily we'll still have Yahoo Answers to ask the tough questions when all the newspapers close up shop.

this would be great with a chart

2009-02-05T20:25:00.000-08:00

Best part of the ongoing give-and-take in the Senate regarding the 736-page, $920 billion economic stimulus plan? Old-timey posterboard visual aids!

I bet the congressional aides were totally up all night working on those things. You know there was the dude who waited to the last minute, called every last Office Depot in D.C. in a panicked search for one with posterboard left, and eventually admitted defeat and drove over to the 24-hour Kmart in Delaware.

Or maybe this would just be me, and is proof that I would never, ever be hired as a congressional aide.

tax baracket

2009-02-03T23:48:00.000-08:00

Obama staff nominees Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer and Tim Geithner didn't pay their taxes. This is bad; people should pay their taxes. This is especially true of Mr. Daschle (above), Obama's original pick for secretary of Health and Human Services/wearer of Sally Jesse Raphael glasses, who managed to log $140,000 in taxes owed on a driver. His driver! If you owe that much on your driver alone, you definitely have the means to hire people to take care of your taxes.

Which brings us to H&R Block's criminally inelegant slogan, You got people.™ Upon arrival, I thought it sucked, less a statement of corporate purpose than something you might hear at the STD clinic (The tests came back, sir. You...you got people.), and sorely begging for a reading by Charlton Heston in front of H&R's soylent green logo (H&R Block is peeeeeeeeople!!!!!!!). But T-Dasch, tax season is coming. Heed the slogan, ugly as it may be. Get some people.

Now, I imagine a lot of Republicans are salivating at the chance of using all of this nominee tax evasion to cast Obama's promise of hope and change into the surf (Karl Rove, 2/2/09: "President Obama, I think, set a very bad signal by having once said he wanted to have a very ethical administration, and now..." / My Facebook news feed, 3 hours ago: " [Redacted] Is still waiting for change......Obama my ass." etc.). But this could be a time of camaraderie: Republicans hate taxes! And Daschle, Killefer, Geithner -- here are some people, Democrat people, who hate taxes so much that they don't even pay them. Seems downright mavericky to me.

white-out

2009-01-29T23:39:00.000-08:00

In a sign Sarah Palin wants to continue to be a player on the national political stage, the Alaska Governor has started a new political action committee to raise funds, SarahPAC.
(MSNBC, 1/27/09)

Consistent with the Palin brand, SarahPAC's website doesn't have much to say about what exactly SarahPAC aims to do, so let's stick with style over substance and examine its logo:

It appears that SarahPAC envisions a future where every American will be able to see Alaska from his or her house! Realizing this goal will require some sacrifices, specifically Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mississippi, Colorado and New Mexico:

Which means that, if SarahPAC gets its way, it will basically be statistically impossible for another Republican to win the presidency ever again, and we should all donate to SarahPAC immediately.

hope & change your shirt

2009-01-27T10:37:00.000-08:00

Quick story. Back in college, my friend Calhoun and I became big fans of CNN.com's absurd headlines, the ones that so defy logic that all you can do is pause and whisper an awed, reverential "WTF?" Works like Rape mixed with romance sends the wrong message or Spacewalkers resort to banging, pry bar. Like Oregon snorkeler mistaken for rodent, shot in face or McCain picks Palin as running mate, that sort of thing.

Drawing twin inspiration from ancient Rome's inscribed pediments and Cafepress.com, Calhoun and I began a project. Deep into the night, we painstakingly applied CNN.com's modern-day verse to t-shirts that we wove by hand on an organic, fair-trade loom, all by the faint glow of the emergency exit sign in our dormitory hallway. Occasionally one of our contemporaries would pass by, bow his head in silent tribute, and ask if we had seen any of those free health center condoms laying around.

But lo, our craft did not end there! Come high noon, we would load up a cart we built of timber scavenged from shipwrecks and peddle our wares down by the old campus center. Our shirts were a roaring success; reporters from Ladies' Home Journal, Jet, and WIRED interviewed us for year-end cover stories. Gus Van Sant was rumored to be on campus, in pursuit of the film rights, or maybe the condoms.

Oh, but then. Then came a cease-and-desist telegram from CNN.com, who dragged us to Washington in a NET, specifically the No Electronic Theft Act. We settled out of court, disappointed only that CNN's headline for this tale was noticeably ho-hum compared to those that had spawned it (Hoodlums bootleg 100% Rotton T-Shirts).

Not long after, CNN.com introduced its "Holy Shit, I Need That Hed On A T-Shirt" webstore (beta). Calhoun and I felt vindicated: CNN chose to use only certified fair-trade products from vertically-integrated Los Angeles manufacturer American Apparel, harkening back not only to our loom but also the horny dude in that dorm hallway so long ago.

Okay, that was all a lie, my friend and I just e-mailed dumb headlines back and forth. But nonetheless, I feel slighted by the New York Times' lame attempt to capitalize on the "Holy Shit, I Need That Hed On A T-Shirt"/"Holy Shit, I Need That Thing That Has Barack Obama On It" market by offering this piece of crap:

$32.00 / Capture one of the most important events in American history - Barack Obama's election as the 44th U.S. president. Preserve the date with a special front page reprint of the late edition. Please note that the photo shows Obama coming off an airplane, not the final edition page displaying Obama's family.
All together now, black and white, red states and blue: "WTF?"

it's good to remember how much worse a job one could have

2009-01-25T11:40:00.001-08:00

Although I imagine these people probably love poking through bird purée, and are rewarded with top-flight health care for doing so. The aptly named Carla Dove (second from right):"Hey James, sometimes I think this job is really for the birds!!hsfhahfaj;l8HAHAHHA."

international television-show-credit shorthand for "dear viewer, change the channel" (the poor man's ryan seacrest edition)

2009-01-25T00:42:00.000-08:00

Earlier:
international television-show-credit shorthand for "dear viewer, change the channel"
international movie-credit shorthand for "dear viewer, change the channel"

final boarding call

2009-01-21T23:55:00.000-08:00

respect

2009-01-20T08:55:00.000-08:00

Well, all that speculation about what Michelle Obama would wear today clearly missed the big story here.

international television-show-credit shorthand for "dear viewer, change the channel"

2009-01-20T00:02:00.000-08:00

Earlier:
international movie-credit shorthand for "dear viewer, change the channel"

honest abe's reconstruction

2009-01-19T12:31:00.000-08:00

Much has been written about what Mr. Obama thinks about Lincoln; but not much has been said about what Lincoln would think of Barack Hussein Obama. If his marble statue at the Lincoln Memorial could become flesh and speak, like Galatea, what would the man who is remembered for freeing the slaves say about his first black successor? It is difficult to say for sure, of course, but...

...prepare for two pages of pointless speculation. Hey, gotta fill the white space between the ExxonMobil ads on the Op-Ed page somehow.

This being the Times, the Galatea allusion is all but mandatory, but I think the author is just using the veneer of antiquity to mask his excitement for Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian, whose trailer features Lincoln's marble statue coming to life to speak to Ben Stiller. Yeah, Museum 2's Lincoln seems less "Galatea," more "mouthy grandma," but surely there will be a scene when Abe expounds on his feelings about Barack Obama (hopefully set to this song)?

My president is black, my Lambo's blue

gewgaw

2009-01-17T02:33:00.000-08:00

At first glance you might think that Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman's unendingly advertised "Open Hearts" jewelry line is merely very ugly:

But it's actually much more than that. It is, I think, a major achievement.

When else has something managed to look that much like breasts and a penis, all at once?

bird brains

2009-01-16T09:43:00.000-08:00

The happy ending to this story doesn't stop with all 151 people not dying. That errant flock of geese shot lame duck Dubya's big graduation speech out of the news cycle! You almost start to feel bad for the guy.

Also, believe it or not, a good sign: the number of people making "Canadian geese terrorists" jokes. The "WE WILL NEVER BE SAFE AGAIN" mindset could have been George W. Bush's legacy; instead it's little more than the starting point for a joke about Canadian geese. I'll take it.

Move along, nothing to see here.

get out my head

2009-01-15T23:23:00.000-08:00

I'ma I'ma a diva I'ma I'ma a diva...HEY! Except that I'm not. As Sasha Fierece (née Beyoncé) helpfully notes for those who haven't grappled with long days of this song scoring their every move (i.e., not I), "diva is a female version of a hustla." But I'm not even the male version of a hustla. I'm a believer, maybe. I'm a loser, baby. I'm a sinner I'm a saint I do not feel ashamed. And fair warning: soon as I see her walk up in the club, I'm a flirt. But a diva? Hell, I'm more 'proud to be an American' than a diva.

*Editor's note: If reading this your impression was, 'eh, nice try man, but this was Twitter material,' you're probably right. The thesis "this song is stuck in my head, but I am not what the lyrics profess me to be" could be hit on in 140 characters, sure. But then I would have been forced to skip the "I"m a..." song lyric wordplay. Admit it, dialing 1-800-CALL-ATT to reach 1997 and reference Meredith Brooks was funny. And you can't go wrong with a Lee Greenwood joke. But was R. Kelly's "I'm a Flirt" not a big enough hit to inspire recognition? I'll admit, I struggled with that question. Anywho, thing is, I'm a slave 4 a longer format.

cold mountain 2: louis vuitton donna

2009-01-14T00:36:00.000-08:00

When I saw this poster in the subway tonight I thought: Woah, why do they always do that to Renée Zellweger's face? But then it struck me that maybe that's just her face. Woe indeed.

Seeing we have the picture up there, may as well do a little exercise. Feel free to play along. I'd never heard of Renée New In Zellweger Town until the poster stared me down. But, trailer unseen -- SPOILER ALERT -- I imagine it goes something like this: Renée Zellweger is forced to spend time in [Fargo-like small town, maybe it is Fargo, it doesn't really matter, as long as all the locals talk like Sarah Palin]. Oh, and it's really cold! Brrrrrr! And Renée Zellweger only packed red high heels (pictured), because she's from a warm, world-class metropolis like Los Angeles or New York City (never mind that New York is, in reality, cold too -- don't expect that or any other plot hole to be explained). According to the poster "She's an executive on the move" -- perhaps her connecting flight gets delayed? Or she's in town for a funeral. But I'd bet she is there to do evil to the locals by foreclosing on their homes (relevant!) or auto factory (topical!) or maybe just by introducing them to Louis Vuitton luggage.

Oh, and she's mean! Grrrr! But only in an "I live in a city" type of way. This is revealed in a scene when, with nothing else to do, a defeated Renée Zellweger shuffles into the local watering hole and orders a [Sex and the City drink]. (comically loud record scratch followed by silence) A what? "I trudge through subzero temperatures, in this -- what do you call this -- this SNOW, IN HEELS, and YOU PEOPLE can't even make a decent [Sex and the City drink]?" etc. etc. Man in a fishing hat, holding a Budweiser: "Hell, it is cold outside. But did someone leave the door open? Because I feel an icy chill in here!" (See, our blue collar friend is implying that she's a bitch.) Blah blah blah, montage set to Motown song, Eskimo makeover, Renée Zellweger falls in love with the handsome local hero who has devoted his life to fighting the [home foreclosures/factory shutdown/Louis Vuitton luggage] and is coincidently the only dude in town without a wacky accent. Cut to black ('CAUSE you're everywhere to me / And when I close my eyes it's you I see / You're everything I know / that makes me believe / I'm not alone / ohohonnnne / I'm not alone), end credits, "That was cute. I don't know about you girls, but that put me in the mood for a [Sex and the City drink]. Who's driving?"

pits stop

2009-01-12T02:30:00.001-08:00

The shredded iceberg lettuce and crappy bread that come together to build the Subway sandwich, say, or the hopelessly gargantuan FedEx and apathetic Kinkos that united to birth the Frankensteinian mess that is FedExKinkos.

It's one thing when something sucks on its own, but it's a whole 'nother beast when two contemptible entities join forces to create something much worse than the mere sum of parts. It's a phenomenon! Or is it an epidemic? And what would Malcolm Gladwell call it?

Either way, I think I have witnessed the ultimate head-on collision of things I hate:

(1) Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light™...

...suited up in his finest denim button-up, packed his supplies and headed down to the track to capture (2) "the power and excitement" of NASCAR...

...in just about the tackiest mass-produced sofa painting the trailer park has yet seen: NASCAR® THUNDER: The 50th Running of the DAYTONA 500®!!!

Like anyone who would buy this knows how to read.

"THEY DID IT."

2009-01-09T13:56:00.001-08:00

It's as if these poor people were literally grabbed off the street minutes before this started. "Want to be on TV?" They didn't even have time to take off their jackets! Or in case of the little kid up front, to wake up. Click to enlarge and fully appreciate the expression on the face of homeboy in the second row, left. Sir, I think I speak for all of us when I say you speak for all of us.

the "city"

2009-01-06T22:22:00.000-08:00

...and I know living here is nothing like the way it appears in this show.

a blog is reborn

2009-01-04T04:55:00.001-08:00

STATUESQUE LINGO has been added to the 2008 trash heap
[pictured above]. In its place is a handle scavenged from my own internet trash pile, plus a dot com: thatisrubbish.com. I may not own a house, car, or decent suit jacket but I'll be closing out this decade having owned a dot com! Stay tuned for news about our upcoming IPO and Super Bowl ads. I can't imagine this bubble bursting.

for the record

2008-12-29T13:24:00.000-08:00

Soothing blue tones and an absence of trans fat does not make this product health food, or even food. It does not change the fact that you're eating sugar, wax, and condom lube.

merry christmas

2008-12-25T10:58:00.000-08:00

heard the news? no new news = news!

2008-12-23T12:46:00.000-08:00

I trust that CNN is hard at work on stories on the lack of developments regarding the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, the pyramids, Eldorado, Stonehenge, The Shroud of Turin, J.F.K./Tupac/Biggie's killer, Roanoke, crystal skulls, UFOs, Jack the Ripper, the meaning of life, and the existence of Gogurt. This was just the first one that got posted.

c-list

2008-12-21T20:24:00.001-08:00

People love lists! And never more than at the end of the year. Lists are as easy to read as they are to not read, and that seems like a good match for a blog that at least one of reader thinks could stand to contain less words.

Before I reveal the name of this list (courtesey of challenging news documentary program Access Hollywood), I'm going to share the rankings and allow you to guess. No peeking.

5. Miley Cyrus
4. Lindsay Lohan
3. Angelina Jolie
2. Madonna
1. Britney Spears

Any idea? Why, it's the...

Uhhh.

a chill in the air

2008-12-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

If it weren't for the young tears that might be shed if Tigger-As-Snowman/Tigger-Trapped-In-Snowman/Tigger-Taking-Decapitated-Snowman-From-Behind was found slain, I would introduce all of the inflatable yard decorations in my zip code to a sharp pin, on aesthetic grounds. It may make me a snob deserving of a New York Times quote ("'Appalling,' Catherine Bruckner, a traditionalist who decorates only in holly and evergreen, sneered as she stopped her car in front of an inflated Santa playing poker with two shrewd-eyed reindeer in a menagerie totaling two dozen figures"...and whose horse-drawn carriage was apparently in the shop?), but it's just that I think they look dumb.

Unless you're squatting in a foreclosed 3,000 square foot McMansion in Arizona, chances are setting up one of these these things on your lawn is like dropping a Chevy Suburban into a box of Matchbox cars, scale-wise. And half-assed; their place-and-plug-in simplicity encourages homeowners to line up full tribes of puffy, anthropomorphic evergreens and seven-foot-tall cartoon characters without restraint. Before you know it, you've turned your 30x40 ft. slice of fertilized suburban turf into a static interpretation of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

I was about to say that, on the other hand, I find these kitschy slices of 1940s suburban America as endearing as I find an air-filled Shrek enraging, but then Wikipedia had to go and ruin it, revealing that the metal lawn jockey's origins are as racist as...1940s suburban America. Which means that the stoner pizza delivery guy in Home Alone who kept knocking over the McCallister's lawn jockey was basically a civil rights crusader.

flame-foiled

2008-12-19T14:35:00.001-08:00

I just called ten stores to see if they had this for my family's Christmas grab bag. Is it sadder that I just said "Hi, do you have the Burger King flamed-broiled body spray?" ten times over, or that I forced ten people to take time out of their work day to answer a phone and say, "No, I'm sorry, all the Burger King flame-broiled body spray is sold out"? Or just the fact that it was sold out at all, and that I am a tiny bit disappointed? If you answered "all of the above"...

they're a happy fam-i-ly

2008-12-16T11:14:00.000-08:00

You may recall that I called out Laura Bush on her lamely obvious theme for this year's White House holiday decorations -- "A Red, White and Blue Christmas" -- but it seems I owe her an apology. According to a video released by the White House, its actually Barney, Bush's dog, who handles the decorating. (Good to see that W.'s streak of appointing the hyper-qualified doesn't stop when it comes to the interiors!). So, Laura: Sorry. Barney: A Red, White and Blue Christmas? That's pretty fucking lame.

Anyway, check out the video. The Bush Family's apparent discomfort while sitting down and mush-mouthed line-delivery are truly Michael Phelpsian. Also, Michael Phelps makes a cameo! It's really weird. And don't miss Jenna Bush's pronunciation of "Willard," which could be the most sonically irritating thing since Sarah Palin's take on "Charlie" (as in, "The Bush Doctrine? In what respect Churrrrrrrrrlie?").

And yes, the Lillian-Vernon-bric-a-brac-on-steroids Uncle Sam nutcracker makes an appearance. Truly a gift that keeps on giving.

happier holidays

2008-12-14T15:22:00.001-08:00

When I think of "Best Buy" and "the holidays" together, the first thing that comes to mind is gift cards in monetary values too small to exchange for anything in the store. Or maybe long lines, or fumbling to present a receipt while juggling an unwieldy cardboard box. So Best Buy may have had me in mind when they decided to go the pull your heartstrings* route for its holiday ad push, a series of "True Stories" of retail customer service bliss presented under the fantastically vague tagline "You, happier."**

According to its website, B-Buy auditioned nearly five hundred employees over two weeks and the best were given a one-hour interview that Academy Award-winning documentary director Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Fog Of War, Standard Operating Procedure) whittled down to thirty seconds.***

The stories are inoffensively middling enough. For instance, in the aforelinked ad, Best Buy employee Maurice Johnson Jr. explains how he helped a blind guy set up a his new TV, a system so fancy that it requires four (!) different remotes, which Maurice teaches him to use by touch. (Heartstrings pulled? Or just confused as to why he sold the blind guy what sounds like the most complicated TV ever?).

The part I take issue with is where, in an effort to seem like less of a cripplingly large, faceless corporation with no real connection to the communities that it drops a store into, Best Buy proves that it is a cripplingly large, faceless corporation with no real connection to the communities that it drops a store into. See, Maurice isn't from just any old Best Buy, indistinguishable from any other Best Buy (or Circuit City, or Walmart), an employee of another numbered cog in the Best Buy machine. He's from "Store 1448, New York, NY." Nice try?

But the real problem is that this information is superimposed over a shot of a decidedly suburban big box of a Best Buy sited in the middle of a sea of parking. The type of place whose very absence accounts for a lot of New York City's identity in the first place -- in short, totally not Best Buy Store 1448:

Best Buy, you fail!!!

In other news, I picked up a pair of $15 headphones from Best Buy the other day that are totally decent. I'm all like, that's me, happier!

*Any mention of heartstring-pulling always makes me think of a heart attack.
**I appreciate that Best Buy admits that a flat screen isn't going to make you happy, merely happier.
***Even weirder, perhaps, than Errol Morris' involvement is that Best Buy posted a load of these audition tapes on YouTube, because -- well, why the hell not, I guess? It did ensure internet posterity for the depressing, just-me-trying-to-get-me-through-the-work-day comedy routine that one associate performs every time a customer buys a Lil Wayne album: "It's kind of nice to get into a transaction like that, 'cus then people laugh, they're smiling, it's more than just buying something. Like you know, the Lil Wayne cd, I don't know if you've seen it, but it's got a picture of him, as a baby, and he's got tattoos, and if someone's buying it you could say -- 'I didn't know you advocated tattooing babies!' [Pause] Even though it's Photoshopped, obviously. It's just a different way to look at things."