July 30, 2010
People, this is just a P.R. move for her to make more money.
She said she still believes in God and Christ. “She remains a believer and continues to read theology and post Biblical passages on her Facebook page.”
This is like a Republican who hangs out in bathrooms giving blowjobs claiming to be straight simply because he’s not a member of the gay community. I can’t believe people are buying this shit. (more…)
June 22, 2010
March 28, 2010
I think it’s a mistake… But… It’s pretty dumb that it’s that much harder to RSS-subscribe to a flickr tag nowadays. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Subscribing to a tag is one of the best ways to use flickr. If you want to see new photos of celebrities, TV shows, or *anything* you like, without having to check all your interests every day, it’s really the only way to do it. Plus, as they all show up in the same part of your screen [your rss reader], pre-loaded, you can go through images in half a second each — less time that it would typically take to find a photo and click it.
So here’s the format:
FlickR: RSS a tag: http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=nicolekidman&lang=en-us&format=rss_200
Just subtitute in a different name other than Nicole Kidman. Don’t use spaces, of course.
Some suggested FlickR RSS subscriptions:
Lily Cole
Nicole Kidman
Penelope Cruz
Salma Hayek
Anna Faris
Annie Wersching (redhead agent in latest seasons of 24)
Elisha Cuthbert
Mena Suvari
Teri Hatcher (hopefully pre-Michael Jackson face)
Jennifer Connelly
Connie Seleca (alas, new pics of her are INFREQUENT)
Elizabeth Kucinich (I’m waiting… patiently.)
If you’re a geek, here’s some more:
command line
Clint’s ASCII & ANSI artwork pool
Some RSS comedy links:
XKCD
FAILblog
Fail Flickr photopool
TENSO photopool (also mine)
Totally Looks Like
WTF pictures
LOLpoliticians
Garfield Minus Garfield
Enjoy loadin’ up your reader with this goodness. Cartoon lovers may want:
Beavis & Butt-head photopool
The Simpsons flickr tag
The Simpsons photo pool
The Simpsons – another photo pool
There have been unexpected consequences for me. The first time I heard of the movie The House Bunny was via flickr, because someone posted an Anna Faris pic (She’s the star). Since I’m not plugged directly into the hype machine, several movies by some of my most lusted-after actresses have come to my attention by me subscribing to their pictures. Or the time my dad told me The Simpsons were coming out with postage stamps. He figured I didn’t know, because I don’t use the mail or buy stamps. But I’d seen their picture on flickr. When the world is your input data set, you get all kinds of interesting output. Yay technology!
So anyway — put THIS into your RSS reader and smoke it! (more…)
February 7, 2010
It’s not my first, but it’s my funniest.
First off, Freezepop‘s “title song” — which they don’t perform live anymore [they told me when I requested it at a show] — introduces all the members of the band. One of them is The Duke Of Candied Apples, though he has since changed his name to the Duke Of Pannekoeken. The lyric in the song goes like so:
“The Duke Of Candied Apples is my name
making blippy beats that will put yours to shame
email me, duke@freezepop.net
1.7 gigs of spam is what you’ll get.”
So finally, after years of listening to this, and after emailing Liz Enthusiasm to tell her they should cover Men Without Hats Pop Goes The World, I figured, “I’m already emailing them. Let’s go for the 1.7 gigs of spam!”
So I emailed duke@freezepop.net:
“From: __Clint__
To: duke@freezepop.net
Date: Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 1:59 PM
Subject: i want my 1.7 gigs of spam
and i want it now
less rokk, moar spamm
-Clint”
[Un?]surprisingly, I got a response 11 days later!
“From: the duke of pannekoeken
To: clintjcl@gma1l.com
Date: Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 2:19 PM
hahaha! yeah, about that. um… hm.. i dont really do that any more : )
how about enjoying this nice picture of spam?
“
So yeah. I got my spam. It may not be 1.7 gigs, but I feel vindicated.
And here’s the actual song:
April 23, 2009
Yes, I blew him off, unfortunately.
Sometime around March 1st, 2000 — a year after moving out of my parents house — my Mom called me to tell me that someone had called looking for me. This had only happened once prior; an ex-girlfriend who I refused to call back. He had, apparently, found my video list online, figured out my last name (which I now try not to mention, but didn’t care bout back then), paid attention to where I lived, and gone through the phonebook and found our phone number. He was the only person to ever use my webpage to call me. But I had moved out, so he talked to my mom. She gave him my email address instead, but pretended that she wasn’t sure it was the right address — presumably to leave me an out if I decided not to reply.
On March 2nd, 2000, I received an email from Gary Portnoy. He had stumbled upon my vhs video catalog and noted that I had taped the final episode of Cheers. Hello. His email said: “My name is Gary Portnoy. I am a songwriter living in New York. I am the writer and the singer of the theme from “CHEERS” (Where Everybody Knows Your Name). / I would very much like to speak with you about a video in your collection, as listed on your web site. / I spoke with your mom. She wasn’t sure if this was still your e-mail address or not, but I figured it was worth a try. (She said she would speak to you within the next day or so.) / If you could, I would really appreciate it if you would call me at 914-666-xxxx tonight (Thursday) or tomorrow morning, or at 212-246-xxxx on Friday afternoon, or back at 914-666-xxxx on Saturday. I realize this is a long distance call for you; I promise to cover the charges. Or, if you prefer, I would be happy to call you. / I hope this doesn’t seem too crazy to you. I hope to hear from you soon.”
I always liked to imagine this being said in the voice of Lionel Hutz (Phil Hartman) from The Simpsons. “Hi! My name is Gary Portnoy! You might remember me from such classic TV themes as Cheers, Punky Brewster, and Mr. Belvedere!”
It actually was a bit too crazy for me. I found out that what he wanted was a copy of my VHS recording of the last episode of Cheers. It was a bit too much for me at the time, so I eventually stopped responding.
By the way, my personal VHS recording of the Cheers Series Finale DOES NOT contain the post-show segment, where the cast comes out of the Cheers bar and seems to be visibly drunk in real life. I don’t think that bit was released on DVD, because Cheers was highly controversial in that it took place in a bar and thus tacitly endorsed drinking, and then sold it to families where children would watch people drink all the time. Bad P.R. Recall that That 70′s Show had a HUGE backlash before episode #1 aired simply because they smoked pot in it. Nothing has really changed…. So anyway, if someone could find that segment and let me know where to get it — I’d love to see it again. In case no one remembers, that night in 1993 was a big deal, as Cheers had run for 11 years:
So this was a weird experience that I figured I should write down before I forget the details. (I had to GREP txt files of old acm.vt.edu email dumps just to figure out what happened to blog this…)
I’d dealt with online people on the phone before — voice verification (to prevent fake/dupliate accounts) in the BBS days was a standard practice. But I’d never had a celebrity called me on the phone. I’d emailed with a few celebrities (April Winchell) and well-known musicians (Bobby Steele, Voltaire) before, but I don’t usually get a chance to talk to them on the phone.
So. That’s it.
For reference, Gary Portnoy co-wrote (with Judy Hart Angelo) and sung not only the Cheers theme song, but the Punky Brewster theme as well. He also composed the music to the Mr. Belvedere theme. In 2007, Gary released a new album, Dynasty, with a “full” version of Mr. Belvedere, sung by himself. Purchase that version DRM-free HERE for 99 cents. You can also get the full two-verse version of the Cheers theme song HERE. If those links fail to work, this is the link to Gary Portnoy (in general) on Amazon: LINK. It’s quite strange hearing Mr. Belevedere sung in his voice, instead of the goofy voice NBC chose to use. (more…)
February 13, 2009
How did sports become more strict than politics? Because it’s a show to distract people from politics? Because people would rather watch football than be aware of hypocrisy in the world? No clue.
(more…)
November 30, 2008
Remember George Orwell (aka Eric Blair), writer of 1984? He’s one of my biggest heroes.
A guy who hated fascism, and wrote about humanity’s increasingly-growing “infection” of fascism; an infection which threatens us all. (Note that in his works, you could not cooperate yourself out of the fascism found in 1984 or Animal Farm. Violent resistance was really the only thing left to do.)
People who use Google Reader may recall that I had previously shared an item about George Orwell‘s blog. But I’d never actually bothered to blog about it. So I’m going to mention it now!
It’s pretty cool. They use George Orwell‘s actual diary. They set it on a 70 year delay. So, for example, since today is Nov. 30, 2008 (20081130), his blog would post his diary entry for Nov 30, 1938 (19381130).
The irony is that right now, his life is really boring. Basically all he “blogs” about is how many eggs he got from his chickens, or what crops are in bloom, or how much the animals cost here. Lots of agricultural stuff. The real exciting stuff wont start happening for a couple years I guess.
So anyway, many entries are simply, “One egg.” And that is it. Sometimes, “Two eggs.” At this point, I finally started noticing there were like 15 comments on the “one egg posts” (a “one egg post” is gradually starting to become a figure of speech of mine for something way shorter than it should be).
People are pretty funny. I like that they bothered to comment about “one egg”. After a “two egg” day, people talked about Fibonacci sequence conspiracies. Or people would complain, “this post is tagged ‘egg’, but not ‘one’!”. If chickens could think, I wonder what these now-long-dead chickens would think about their eggs one day becoming conspiracy theories in blog-comment conversations?
Anyway, today took the cake. Someone actually found a letter by Orwell (something NOT from his diary/blog) that related to the one egg posts and posted as a blog comment. Jesus Christ. People are frickin’ weird. And I love it.
Anyway, here is a link to today’s “one egg” post, with strange comments:
http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/301138/
By the way — It says something about you as a person, if you can write 2 words about your animals, and have 15 people around the world discussing these 2 words 70 years later…. (more…)
November 27, 2008
“Thanksgiving Prayer” by William S. Burroughs
Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts. (more…)
October 3, 2008
September 21, 2008
September 18, 2008
September 14, 2008
It was decent. The binoculars REALLY helped, since we were in the very last row. Chong’s hot older wife opened. We left late (6:45PM and they start seating at 6:30PM for a 7:00PM show). I spoon fed Carolyn her dinner as she drove, since we were in mid-meal when we realized we had to get the hell out of here–and fast! We didn’t miss anything and even managed to snag a drink at the bar.
And it sucks that they made Chong serve 9 months in jail! Remember, kids: Our country imprisons at the highest rate of any country on the planet. By some strict interpretations, that might mean it’s the least free country. Anyway — their description of the bust was pretty funny. “Do you have any drugs in the house?” “Uhh, I’m Tommy Chong, what do you think?”
Other than that, they didn’t really do anything new — just slightly modernized variations of their standard acts and songs. Cheech has no mustache. Their humor is most certainly not edgy — or even in the top tier of funniness. However, they are cultural icons — and must be worshipped as such.
Anyway, it was good to go. (more…)
September 9, 2008
My documentary watching has definitely tapered off in 2008, now that I watch dvd extras for my favorite shows and movies instead of documentaries. Regardless, I watched a LOT of documentaries in 2007. Here they are, sorted by topic. (more…)
July 9, 2008
Time for an even-more-pointless-than-usual post — some celebrity gawking.
So anyway: As a kid, I was soooooo pissed off when they canceled Misfits Of Science after 1 measly season. There was never enough science fiction on TV, and I thought the show was the bee’s knees. Because it is not available on DVD (like more shows than people realize), I have had to resort to alternate methods to acquired a personal copy of this series. And I noticed that… Courtney Cox (!!) was in it. I also never noticed her on Family Ties either. The things you find out from Wikipedia… I think is the hottest friend from Friends, so I had to save some snapshots… So here they are: A much younger Courtney Cox, from way back in 1985, before some of my friend were even born:
July 1, 2008
So I was quite pleased to see that Judy Tenuta was doing stand-up at the Arlington Drafthouse. Carolyn didn’t really know who she was — a lot of people don’t — but I’ve been a fan since the early 1990s, if not the late 1980s. Probably whenever Comedy Central played stand-up comedy nearly 24/7 (and to this day, I still can’t bring myself to watch non-live stand-up comedy, as I totally burned out on it in the early Comedy Central days).
[Pic by Cubdukat @ FlickR]
She was indeed quite funny! I think she’s lost some weight too — she looked really good for her age. Especially in the body. She had a typically crazy outfit, and of course had the accordian — which she didn’t use as much as I’m accustomed to. She did use it to sing a country-ish song about how much she wants to date Pope John Paul. Politics and stand-up comedy seem inseparable, and she did lambast the Bush administration quite a bit (not as much as Janeane Garofalo, obviously). She did mention that “friends are just enemies that don’t have the guts to kill you, but unexpectedly never said “it could happen”.
We could have gotten an autographed cd aftewards, but I just felt like it would be a waste of money because I don’t really listen to comedy these days. We did hang around because we met up with Susan E to go to an epic party afterwards — it was like a party in the movies. Sounded like one too. (Crap music where me & Carolyn recognized exactly zero songs.)
But anyway, Judy Tenuta was great. And also apparently quite popular with the gay guys. We sat in the table RIGHT next to the stage (in the lower area), and were surrounded by 2 gay couples. The ones on the left triggered my gaydar (which, according to OKCupid, is much better than most people) before I even sat down, but the ones on the right didn’t until she said “who’s gay?” and they raised their hand. There was also a gay opening comedian, who had jokes about his parents — who were in the audience.
Oh yea — I got reverse-heckled a bit, just like on our Honeymoon. She was like, “Look at this guy, he has no fucking clue who I am!” But, uh, it was Carolyn who had no clue! I was probably the oldest fan. I remember being excited at her appearance on Space Ghost Coast To Coast around 1995, because I’d been a fan for some time. She also intimated that I was a redneck, which seems to be popular among random people who make fun of me online. Pretty funny since I’m not sure how many rednecks have computer science degrees, or like speedmetal. I’d accept a white trash label, but only for my attitude about yardwork and upkeep. But redneck? A bit of a stretch. I grew up in Lake Ridge, yo. Median family income $80K [in 2000].
I did get addressed a couple other times by her, being called “studcicle” as she is apt to do (and “little virgin” if you are a girl, which Carolyn got called a few times). She also had a bit about how girls don’t like camping, and was like “Do any girls like camping?” and Carolyn raised her hand. She was like, “You?” (And to the ladies out there, it’s really not that big of a fucking deal. Jesus Christ females are lame about camping.) Later, she had to walk through the main theatre to get to the front, so she walked through the crowd. She pointed at Carolyn and was like, “You like camping!” She was definitely paying attention.
I was also glad I wasn’t one of the people selected to come up onto the stage, as that prospect quite frankly frightens me. She made one guy dance in front of everyone. That…. would not happen with me.
Anyway, the show was only $22, and we hadn’t eaten dinner, so I ate the first solid food with crunch since my surgery. We had a pizza with pepperoni, pineapples, and feta cheese. A unique combination we’ve never tried, and it kicked ass. We call it “Greek-Hawaiian pig” pizza. I couldn’t drink, but asked for a pitcher of ice water, my post-surgery restaurant staple. (Seriously – THREE restaurants in 2 days? We spent like $85!) Anyway — Jedy Tenuta kicked ass and I was not sorry I went! (more…)
April 13, 2008
Carolyn & I went to the Drafthouse Friday to see Janeane Garofalo. This is the first time I’ve ever seen stand-up comedy in VA, and I only ever saw comedy in DC twice (Michael Ian Black, and Andrew Dice Clay last Friday — will talk about that below). Ironically, Michael Showalter opened for both Michael Ian Black and Janeane Garofalo. Michael Showalter is awesome, being from The State and Stella. “I’m Doug. You can’t keep me here like some kind of manimal. I’m outta heeeeere.” Hell, even the M.C. “Cedric” or whatever who introduced them was pretty funny — Though he called everyone’s attention to Carolyn at one point, and she was busy wiping nacho cheese off her face. (“Nevermind, she’s eating a chicken wing”, he said.)
Showalter was funny, and even joked about Asperger’s Syndrome sounding like “ass burgers”. “Gee, you’re already socially awkward. Let’s see what name we can come up with to make you feel even more awkward?” He also read a note to his noisy downstairs neighbors, which was pretty funny. I should have taken notes, because I can’t remember ANY of the bits that he did, but they were funny.
Janeane, however, was awesome.
(more…)
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