Well, I finished the Virginia Bar Examination earlier today. The essay portion was not the dread spectre I had envisioned, but the multistate was surprisingly tricky in parts. No matter; I am fairly sure that I passed, and I can now go to Ireland and forget about the whole thing. In order to get a head start on this process, I set my cell phone to ring the Stonecutters' song from the Simpsons.
Congratulations to all who completed the bar exam in their respective jurisdictions today, and good luck to those still to take it. Special congratulations go out to the site admin's fiancee ljk4.
For those of you who loved Keanu as The Devil's Advocate (until free will got in the way), you won't be able to stand him in Constantine (trailer) where he'll trade in a preposterous turn as a lawyer to take a preposterous turn as a detective. (hey, this movie is new to me)
Rachel Weisz co-stars and looking at her career I realize that while I believe I like her as an actress, the only films I've ever seen her in are her damsel-in-distress turns in the Mummy movies and a 5-second, "I'm a young, starving actress who needs to pay the bills" bit in Death Machine where she plays an office worker who is bizarrely psychotic for no reason. Oh well.
My philosophy in purchasing DVD's is to obtain quirky and/or cheap films. Donnie Darko satisfied both criteria since I got the original DVD for free (aka, paid a ridiculous amount in S&H). Part of the reason for the cheap price might have been the fact that a director's cut is now available (and back in theaters). The film is great, but admittedly I must not have thought it was unbelievable since I did not do the research necessary to fully understand it. Well, luckily Salon has published Dan Kois's primer which answers everything you were afraid to ask about Donnie Darko - truly an informative article. I got the broad strokes in my earlier viewings, but this article really makes the majority of the movie crystal clear.
In private chats people have accused the writers of this blog of not delving past the initial blurbs of news articles. Well, if I was paid in more than glory to post here I'd do more research, but unfortunately for this story I couldn't find more than the blurb despite some effort to find more information.
The entry "Jenna is unwanted" in this article tells us that the group Artists and Activists United for Peace (who I couldn't even find a website for) plan to rally against Jenna Bush during the RNC because she doesn't have the character to teach children and she is apparently taking a job away from a black person. While I am sure there are several ludicrous things about this blurb, a few come to my mind immediately.
First, why is an organization dedicated to peace calling for this rally? Does Jenna have a history of inciting violence? Will she incite hate among the students? I imagine her goal is to educate the children. Not only do we not know what her views are, even if she does fully supports her father on the war, the idea that somehow she'll be passing along the idea that "War is super!" is crazy. Besides, are all teachers checked for their political views? It would be silly to think that a person cannot teach your children because she has a different social outlook. Teaching students skills and information should be the key factor in deciding who should be performing the job.
What are these misadventures that have impugned Jenna's moral character? There is this vague opinion that Jenna is a "party girl", whatever that means. Of course, there were the two instances of underaged drinking 3 years ago (at the age of 19), which ranks right up there with going 10 over the speed limit on the crime wave chart. If all individuals who have committed any crime, no matter what their age, are made ineligible to teach, then there are going to be 200 students to a classroom. Not only are they removing the concept of maturing from the picture, equating moral character and a criminal record is always a bad idea.
Finally, are there 50 teachers for every position in Harlem? Is Harlem one of those rare places that have an overabundance of qualified individuals just lining up to teach the children? I suspect that this might not be the case, so to accuse her of stealing a job from another individual is a little ridiculous. To further state that a black person is being denied an opportunity in-particular is just racist and xenophobic.
No, not that Employee of the Month, but the headline and story amuses us all the same.
Sometimes I think Fox just spends their days trying to think what they can get me to watch. Their latest creation I just discovered this morning (which is amazing considering how many Fox movie trailers I've seen this summer - alright, alright, I'll go see A vs. P, just stop with the trailers) and features ludicrous car tricks, super-model bank robbers, Jimmy Fallon wise-cracks, and a loose connection to Luc Besson (The Professional, Fifth Element).
Taxi will be hitting theaters in October and I'll probably go then to see it (trailers).
Update: Wow, apparently Luc has already done three of these Taxi movies in France so he should have it down to a science.
In a move that might be second in Charlotte NBA / rapper basketball lore to Master P's stint with that first team, Nelly has become a member of the group that owns the Charlotte Sting ... oh yeah, and the Charlotte Bobcats (Charlotte Observer / ESPN). The biggest question of the moment is how long before the team moves to St. Louis and becomes the St. Lunatics? I hope they play at least one game in Charlotte first. Btw, if having your city on the Mississippi River makes you a part of the South, is St. Paul also making that claim?
Seriously, it would be great if Nelly (and Bob Johnson) become a part of the community, but I'll believe it when I see it.
... we didn't have mp3 players, and we liked it. It turns out all of the incoming freshmen at Duke this year will be given free iPods loaded with class related material. I don't know how much professors will use this in their classes, but it's a neat idea nonetheless.
From the people who brought you Kylie Minogue riding a mechanical bull, Agent Provocateur has a new video, She Lost Control, to promote their lingerie and their new music album that features a representation of the president of the United States of America involved in the M part of a S & M encounter (seen on Adrants).
Now the video is what it is, though perhaps a little stretched out in parts, but it is a music video - I just have to wonder why a British company had to include our sitting president - during an election year - in one of their ads / videos? Do you think a Tony Blair-lookalike having wax poured on him by Carmen Electra would be a big draw in America? It is one thing if they were making fun of a particular situation involving or characteristic of the president (such as with the last guy and a certain intern), but this video seems to imply they just want to torture our president - especially the nipple twisting. I'll give you that some people believe Bush is a right-wing bible-thumper, but if they are trying to send up that point they could have done a better job of it by establishing that as his supposed behavior.
/. had a story today from Slate asking whether math is a sport. As a former math competitor and a sport's fan, I have to say that I personally don't think of it as a sport, but it is definitely a contest. That doesn't mean it is any easier or should be less respected than a sport, so I really don't even care about the question since it is just an issue of semantics.
It does, however, lead to the idea of a professional math competition circuit (okay, perhaps not really, but humor me - don't worry about who the sponsors would be). Such a circuit would be my ideal dream job. Admittedly, with my current mathematically prowess I wouldn't even be allowed near a math exam, and even with training I doubt I'd be a consistently high finisher, but I believe I could at least keep my tour card.
This article is hilarious!
There are many people I would like to punch in the nuts for charity, specifically any player associated with dook, the lakers, or the yankees, but starting with barry bonds will do....
I recently told someone that I read sports and technology stories but only glance at the headlines for most political ones, so I didn't think much about the CA Education Secretary telling a girl upon being asked that her name means "stupid, dirty girl" and then immediately apologizing for the comment. Obviously a politician with no media savvy making a horrible, playful joke.
Well, upon further review I discovered the CA NAACP immediately scheduled a protest and called for his resignation, asking the question: "Would he have done that to a white girl?"
The answer: yes, yes he would. See the child he made this comment to was white, blond, and blue-eyed. After discovering this, the protest was cancelled.
So what does this event teach us about the NAACP? First, that when a person is called stupid and dirty the NAACP assumes it must be a black person that is being talked about. Second, they have no qualms about a white person being called stupid and dirty.
At least this ill-timed and humorless joke has managed to teach the public a little about race relations in America.
ESPN has posted their best and worst of Cleveland sports over the last 25 years and since several Cleveland sports fans read this blog, I would like to hear what they have to say about it.
Obviously, the true high occurred when Jake Taylor bunted to beat the hated Yankees.
While I would put "The Drive" over the 7th game World Series loss, there should be some mention of Pedro's heroic effort to beat the Indians in the '99 Division Series. It might have not been the best Indians team, but it was the most dominating post-season performance ever by one player over an entire team.
Did I miss something?
Less than a week ago, the Cavs reached a "verbal understanding" with C-Booz to resign him at the mid-level exception (about $6 mil a year) after refraining from picking up his option. Today, however, the Jazz gave Boozer an offer sheet for a six year, $68 million deal. Wha happened?
There are only two or three possibilities here:
1) The Cavs foolishly cut their second-best player loose without any binding commitment from him, in which case Jim Paxson had better check the classifieds; or
2) My boy 'Los is a rat rat bastard and reneged on his word. I don't want to believe this, but it may be true.
3) The Cavs are in the loop about this, know about the offer sheet, and are prepared to do whatever it takes to match his offer and lock him up long term.
I just don't get it. This seems very out of character for 'Los, especially since he has been talking about how much he likes the Cleveland area and the Cavs front office. Here's hoping either that the Cavs will match or that Boozer is in the moral right here...
While we emphasize this was not a sex tape nor stolen from her, this press release announces a "special" film of the well-known actress (don't ask why we post such things on this site). I won't dignify the company with a link, but if we discover it's out there in the wild, we'll let you know.
KissaBoo, of course, never encourages anyone to steal or misappropriate someone else's copyright and as opposed to certain films or personal tapes out there, the man behind this one appears to own it outright and is putting it out there for entertainment purposes only.
What a large number of people believed (or at least hoped) is certified as true - as a half-birthday present to me Coach K will not be leaving Duke. He was offered an awful lot of money, but he will probably earn more on his way to becoming the winningest college basketball coach of all-time.
Happy 4th of July! To celebrate independence, let's support some independent artists (amos), They Might Be Giants. I am by no means the greatest tmbg fan of all-time (I've never even called Dial-A-Song), but I'll credit becoming a fan to a girl from KC who made me a mix tape of them. I've seen them in concert since then and they are definitely a band worthy of support. I've already bought their rarities album from the site and am listening to it while I write this.
Honestly, I don't think legally downloading un-DRM-ed mp3's of tmbg is anything new. In the late 90's, I swear I downloaded one of their albums from emusic.com when they "gave" me the speakers and headphones I'm using right now to listen to these songs. The unique thing here is that this site claims to be run by the band.
Now, I rushed in and didn't read the terms of agreement, but here are some quick suggestions for the site.
Also, I wonder if these downloads contain fingerprints to track down who bought them if they are found on file sharing networks.
However, I do support this general thinking. I also financially supported Stephen King's "The Plant" experiment a few years back that came to an unfortunate end. It would be great if TMBG still has the rights to their other albums to see them appear on this site and hopefully that is where this is leading for them and other artists.
Courtesy of Adrants, a Cleveland billboard has been responsible for at least 5 accidents due to passersby believing the mannequins on the advertisement are jumping. Yes, this is where I'll be living soon - a place where people must love watching others commit suicide since I would think people trying to prevent someone from jumping would pull off the road and call someone, not slam on their breaks to watch the fall. Also don't these people read the billboard? Do they think there is a connection with John Carroll students getting online anywhere on campus and a need to leave this cruel, cruel sphere? I just can't wait to see the new ad campaigns that result from this.
Speaking on behalf of Kissaboo, happy birthday wishes and caviar dreams to Lindsay Lohan on the occasion of her 18th birthday. She has gone from someone whose name I wouldn't have recognized a year ago to someone I have seen WAY too much of in recent months. If she enters rehab within the next month, someone should really start thinking of the recently ex-children.