In last night’s Saturday Night Live, Dan Aykroyd appeared in one of the episode’s many cameos. Notice behind him on the shelf, are bottles of his own Crystal Head Vodka. I’m assuming that product placement was a part of the price for agreeing to appear.
Aykroyd has a keen interest in the paranormal, as evidenced by this serious, joke-free commercial for his Crystal Head Vodka:
It’s rather misleading that anyone featured in a pornographic film is instantly referred to as a “porn star.” I mean, isn’t there a hierarchy of fame, like in the non-fucking show business? There’s got to be C-level porn actors and actresses, and then you have your Daniel-Day-Lewis-level genuine porn stars out there. Consider that next time you uncover your high school teacher’s past. Ask yourself, are they really a porn star? Or did they just make 700 bucks, that one time, on a Thursday afternoon, betwixt sound life decisions?
The Awl: Why Times Square Needs a McWorld - a suggestion for a flagship McDonald’s in Times Square that serves food from all the different McDonald’s menus from around the world. Fast food localizations is one of my favorite parts of travel. Man, to be able to get a McVeggie…
The Verge: “I used Google Glass: the future, but with monthly updates”
But I walked away convinced that this wasn’t just one of Google’s weird flights of fancy. The more I used Glass the more it made sense to me; the more I wanted it. If the team had told me I could sign up to have my current glasses augmented with Glass technology, I would have put pen to paper (and money in their hands) right then and there. And it’s that kind of stuff that will make the difference between this being a niche device for geeks and a product that everyone wants to experience.
After a few hours with Glass, I’ve decided that the question is no longer ‘if,’ but ‘when?’
I’ll believe it when I see it. Google has a horrendous track record with selling hardware, or selling anything, actually, to consumers. See, Google TV which nearly wrecked Logitech and spawned this amazing TV remote; or Google Nexus Q, the streaming music device, which got press for being manufactured in the USA, but was shitcanned before a single unit shipped.
Nevertheless, this kind of technology in widespread use would be transformative. And I cannot think of a better company to be leading the push. A company whose business model is selling advertisers access to your personal behavioral profile now wants to be integrated into your eyeball, complete put a personal video camera. WHERE DO I SIGN UP
Rob Walker: Let’s Make A Mark:
… we need a new punctuation mark that resides in the emotional range between the just-the-facts period and the whoop-to-do excitability of the exclamation point. While the new mark would clearly signal positivity, it would save us from communicating with the unhinged emotionality of a note slipped between junior-high students.
The proposed icon looks like a stick figure playing with a mirror. At least they didn’t give it a name like the “interrobang“. Also, doesn’t the emoticon smiley face emoticon serve this exact purpose? e.g., Thanks =) Congrats =) See you soon =)
That age where complaining about having too much hair approaches complaining about having too much money.
I only listen to music for the inconsolable heart.
Finding Nemo holds up; Toy Story 3 does not.
Watching a season of Mad Men, then In the Mood for Love, renders a man skeptical of fidelity, and sour on the the human condition.
In the past month, I have become an avid up cigar smoker, and have just bought my first set of golf clubs. I did not realize that in my 30s I would transform into a middle aged white man.
I once quarreled heatedly with a friend, where he said– okay shouted– that I was a horrible person; that the only reason people were friends with me was because they had known me since childhood; that in every group of friends there is always some loser that is tolerated out of sheer loyalty; and that I was that loser.
Yknow, in fights and arguments, there are good ways to fight and bad ways to fight… And then there are fucking dirty-nukes-in-briefcases-hidden-in-grade-schools ways to fight. Oof.
I find airport terminals to be places from which one can replenish one’s pre-existing notions and prejudices. It seems logical, dunnit; a spectrum of people all heading to or coming from a single common place. Eg., Them people from that state sure are fat. Lotta Asians over there live in that city. And yonder: a real horror show, a parade alternating betwixt the ugly and the grotesque. Take this gate for a flight bound for LA, for example. All the attractive people are obviously would-be actors.
One girl, tall, slim, a substitute Thandy Newton, and wearing pink heels that match her pink shirt. She’s accompanied by a squat man with greasy skin and purple dyed hair, dressed in all black, adorned in too many rings, necklaces, and charms (and lacking in any his own). I want to call him Roadie, or Roach, or Toad. They appear to be a couple, but a reluctant one. He puts his hand on the small of her back, and she is uncomfortable, but somehow feels obligated to oblige him. At first glance, I thought he was a fanboy asking an autograph from a starlet, but now I almost suspect some form of low level sex trafficking.
There are also children. Lots and lots of children. They are making noises. It is chaos, and I want to lie down, and I have been standing here for 5 minutes. To be clear, it’s not crying or yelling that upsets me– I’ve put up with worse flails from human adults– but rather it’s their chaotic sense of merriment that irks me. They have a positive feedback loop where yelps beget shrieks, shrieks beget aural maelstrom. I pray that the flight attendants permit us to place them in the cargo hold.
Here is another girl who i recognize from before the layover, all the way from LGA. She must have been the pretty girl in her class the one everyone said would make it. She is encased in light coffee skin, wrapped across a toned body. She must be a yoga instructor, because only professional aptitude would explain her body; there is no way that is the product of a mere hobbyist. She is wearing a tank top, yoga pants, and an actual fanny pack because it seems that functioning pants pockets would ruin the clean silhouette she is currently burning into the collective memory of the world. She has a stern face. This is a protective measure she learned long ago, lest she appear approachable, because if she did, um, men would approach her.
Her on-flight reading material? A script, of course. The word WIN is scribbled across the cover page. Mid flight, she gets up to retrieve a pouch from the overhead compartment. She reaches up, on her toes; her back arches; and half of the cabin sighs. The Frenchman sitting next to me notices her and instantly furrows his brow in disbelief. He mutters something in French, which I assume is a curse word for “gods curse this unfortunate seating assignment.”
The plane is delayed one hour for plane maintenance, and then another hour because the engineer working on the aforementioned maintenance forgot to return a logbook to the airplane, and he was now nowhere to be found, so until someone returns a physical item made of bound and dried parchment having information describing the maintenance of a modern avionics device, we should– WHY IS SAID LOG BOOK NOT DIGITIZED AND WHY CANNOT THEY JUST WHISK THE INFORMATION VIA TELECOMMUNICATION. I mean, i keep a maintenance notebook in the glove compartment of my 2001 Honda Accord, but I don’t have 150 people waiting on a Tarmac. Crab out.
Is this considered prostitution if it’s a prize raffled by lottery for charity?
I am a sourpatch kid in reverse: sweet-looking on the outside, and…. utter poison on the inside.
Am proud of this note I scribbled for a gift offa wedding registry last week:
May your marriage retain warmth,
be free of rust, and full of lovin’
just like this Le Creuset
enameled cast-iron Dutch oven.
Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose,
Crab and Co.
Failure as a human. Success as a garbage receptacle. La di da.
Update: I bought myself a charming NAS bay and 1TB worth of beautiful redundant hard disk storage.
Recently saw the film The Social Network, and I question what the universal acclaim is for. Isn’t this merely “Pirates of Silicon Valley” but with better writing and directing?
I suppose that’s ironic criticism for a movie whose very subject matter is about an origin and worth of an idea. If Steve Jobs has taught us anything, it’s that actualized execution is what has the most value, not a mere idea. In this case, Zucks’ clean and simple design (as compared to Adam Goldberg’s “CU Connections”) won him a lot of users. The Winklevoss clowns remind me of every friend or friend a friend that’s ever come up to me and said “We got a great idea, we just need a programmer.” Really? You just need a person that will be providing all or nearly all of the value while you have no useful skills whatsoever?
Also, who knew 100% of all Facebook founders love Asian girls? (Zuckerberg is taking Mandarin lessons for Priscilla, and apparently Eduardo is living in candy land in Singapore). This movie must be the most widely seen documentation of WGWAGs since, why, perhaps, the Joy Luck Club?
