who's winning at life today?

hint: it's not you, loser.

actual conversation i had today

me: guess the title of donald rumsfeld's memoir

[friend]: "unknown knowns"?

me: wait, did you already know it? http://www.amazon.com/Known-Memoir-Donald-Rumsfeld/dp/159523067X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295899465&sr=8-1

[friend]: nope

me: HAHAHA

[friend]: HA!

me: you = genius

Sportsdome

Onion SportsDome

This show is just killing it. I'd post the segment they did on Gary Bettman staging his own kidnapping to get his "hockey tv program" some attention, but that would be playing into E's hands.

Music Video of the Day: She & Him, "Don't Look Back"

Ok. So our lord and master has come to survey his dominion. And normally I would be freaking out about this. (Go home, Hu Jintao. You smell...like unfettered economic success.) But it turns out here in America we know how to clone Zooey Deschanel. So, eat it, China.

we takin' over the world

why not?

get jingo with it

will i ever stop hating the rangers?



Though perhaps even the Rangers own coach doesn't yet know what this team is capable of. Before the game, John Tortorella said that the Rangers would need to score goals in this one, because against such a talented Vancouver team, "We're not gonna win a hockey game tonight, 1–0." Which is, of course, exactly what they'd do, in a playoff atmosphere — or, with all the "USA, USA" chants that went up from the Garden crowd, perhaps we should say an Olympic atmosphere.

Giving Thanks and Praise to the Lord for Nicolas Cage

In 2011, we will stop talking about Betty White (especially since she stubbornly refuses to give in to the blog curse) and get to talking (more) about Nicolas Cage. From the Times' needless write-up on the long history behind the making of the new Green Hornet movie:

"But the director was unable to work with Nicolas Cage, the film’s original villain. For reasons known only to him, he insisted on using a Jamaican accent."

this is too easy

adding to the din of those doubting the merits of a J.D., the times published a lengthy article on how law schools manipulate employment statistics. yes, turns out law schools are very creative when it comes to revealing their graduates' employment rates, and there is virtually no oversight or market correction.

the article highlights the tribulations of a recent graduate of thomas jefferson law school (wha? yeah, fine, i sound like an elitist here, but wha??) saddled with $250,000 of student loan debt and minimally employed. i really am unable to discern why this person agreed to be profiled because, frankly, he comes off as an utter idiot. let's see here:

1. hmm, well, at least he'll be marrying a fellow moron:

Mr. Wallerstein is chatting over lunch one recent afternoon with his fiancée, Karin Michonski. She, too, seems unperturbed by his dizzying collection of i.o.u.’s. Despite those debts, she hopes that he does not wind up in one of those time-gobbling corporate law jobs.

“We like hanging out together,” she says with a laugh.

oh yeah, big firms love THOMAS JEFFERSON LAW SCHOOL. the school's name doesn't even make sense. why is there a school named after TJ in san diego?

2. Mr. Wallerstein rented a spacious apartment. He also spent a month studying in the South of France and a month in Prague — all on borrowed money. There were cost-of-living loans, and tuition of about $33,000 a year. Later came a $15,000 loan to cover months of studying for the bar.

$15,000? how?

3. Today, his best guess is that he should be sending $2,000 to $3,000 a month in total, to lenders that include Wells Fargo, Citibank and Sallie Mae.

“There are a bunch of others,” he says. “I’m not really good at keeping records.”

no, c'mon dude. as someone presumably seeking to stay as an attorney, please do not announce to the world that you lack one of the profession's most fundamental skills.

4. “It’s a prestige thing,” he says. “I’m an attorney. All of my friends see me as a person they look up to. They understand I’m in a lot of debt, but I’ve done something they feel they could never do and the respect and admiration is important.”

5. “Bank bailouts, company bailouts — I don’t know, we’re the generation of bailouts,” he says in a hallway during a break from his Peak Discovery job. “And like, this debt of mine is just sort of, it’s a little illusory. I feel like at some point, I’ll negotiate it away, or they won’t collect it.”

Can Sex Friends Stay Best Friends?

Here are the cons of this movie:

• Ashton Kutcher
• Lots of saying of "fuck" to denote edginess
• Age old take on age old question no one actually cares about or poses
• Mix CD's for your sex friend while she's on her period 
• The establishing of ground rules
• Naked butt shot of Ashton Kutcher to denote edginess
• "Patron!"
• Coterie of silver-tongued friends mandated by this genre
• Too much suspense to bear--do they stay friends???
• Writing credit to Michael Bolton

Here are the pros:

• Kevin Kline

It Gets Better

I confess. I've never watched any of these It Gets Better videos. Of course, I support the campaign, but I'm not the intended audience, and the whole confessional video thing isn't really my bag. That said, this clip above intrigued me, labeled as it is: "Muslim Gay Teen." This kid is just a kid. Let's state that from the outset. He still has that adolescent need to validate his own being by favorably interpreting doctrinaire religious beliefs. I mean, let's calm down, kid. The problem maybe isn't a willful misinterpretation of Shariah.  The problem might be Shariah, and that's okay. A religion formed in the 7th Century, that hasn't had the modernizing effects of a Reformation Period, propagated in some of the poorest countries in the world, the vast majority of which are former colonial states, well maybe that's the kind of setting in which retrograde, non-humanist ideas take hold. But let's put that aside. This kid is great. He is like the anti-John Boehner. If I could nominate someone to kick John Boehner in the face for being a cry baby piece of shit leathery fuckface, I would nominate this kid.

Piece of Shit Cry Baby

America. A truly culturally and ideologically heterogeneous country. We have our political differences, sure. These differences sometimes give rise to shrill, unfocused passion, but come on, nothing wrong with that. ("Build the dang fence.") But one thing I have always liked about the citizenry is that it does not abide cry babies. So, what the fuck is up with us now? How do we abide the spectacle above? Nancy Pelosi needs to take the Speaker's gavel and beat the living shit out of that fucking tear-filled turd sandwich standing behind her. Not because he is wrong about everything ever, but because leading the posturing, blustering tough-guy party means you can't be a piece of shit cry baby. I am pretty sure that's in the Constitution, near the part that says black people are fractional human beings.