You're So F*cking Special

Finally, here is the theatrical trailer for David Fincher's upcoming movie, The Social Network. Based on Ben Mezrich's book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal, the story follows Mark Zuckerberg during his days at Harvard while creating the now ubiquitous Facebook. The movie features two of Hollywood's fastest rising stars, Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. Jesse Eisenberg has been climbing up the Hollywood ladder for years now, making a name for himself in offbeat movies such as the under-the-radar Adventurland, and more recently Zombieland. Andrew Garfield is a relative newcomer on the national scene, having previously starred in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, a movie that no one saw other than to see Heath Ledger's last role before his death. Garfield will soon explode into the national spotlight however, as he is pegged to be Peter Parker in the next iteration of the Spider-Man films.

In all honesty though, the only reason I posted this trailer is the haunting, choral cover of Radiohead's creep that perfectly accompanies various images that we have all grown familiar with.




Bad Romance


A few days ago Lady Gaga allegedly posed for a photo shoot where she cross dressed like a man. Since her debut Gaga has been dogged by rumors that she was in fact a man, or at the very least, a hermaphrodite. One can't help noticing the similarity between herself and a great pop culture from another time.






It's not your fault... It's not your fault.... No, No, Not You, Man



The saddest commercial ever, and Jesus. They're not kidding. What an awful, exploitative, effective way to sell a product(whatever it is).

Daily Round Up

  • David Wong declares the opening of E3 2010 "The Day the Gaming Industry Died." He makes some very convincing, although somewhat obvious arguments. (Cracked)
  • Turns out North Korea is still just as messed up as we imagined they are. (Deadspin)
  • Scott Cacciola discusses the "biggest bust in Yankees history," Carl Pavano Dandy, a mascot who was almost fully introduced into Yankee Stadium culture if not for the ill timed antics of Lou Piniella and a public statement by Big Stein. (WSJ)
  • Transcript of President Obama's Oval Office speech addressing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the crisis that has followed for the past month and a half. (Huffington Post)
  • Funny Clip of The Day:

    Soccer Officially Announces It Is Gay


Below is the full-length commercial for Nike's Write the Future campaign for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. There's no shortage of rock-star athletes throughout the commercial including Christiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Ronaldihno, and sure, why not, Roger Federer, Kobe Bryant, and Homer Simpson. Needless to say, billions of people will be tuning in to the World Cup when it kicks off June 12th, and Nike looks like they're positioning themselves to be a pretty dominant presence throughout the tournament.




Bonus:
Here is a parody of that bizarre-o Zombie Earl Woods (Tiger's Dad) commercial that came out when Tiger was making his comeback to the golf scene after his sex scandal. I'll never think of the Nike logo the same way again.

Pixels!

This is just an unbelievable video that I didn't notice people posting on Facebook at all, so I'll just go ahead and assume a lot of you didn't see it.

Without further ado,

PIXELS by Patrick Jean from ONE MORE PRODUCTION on Vimeo.






And Now, Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...




The Olympics may be over, but the treasure trove that is the country to our north still has many bountiful treasures to be discovered. The find of the day is this wackadoodle Public Service Announcement that warns viewers about the danger of choking.


Listmania!

One of the more fun aspects of light reading is the plethora of lists that exist in the media these days. There is even a Wikipedia article about lists in popular culture, which could probably use a better word: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listicle. Wikipedia says that a listicle is a "generally used in journalism and blogging to refer to short-form writing that uses a list as its thematic structure, but is fleshed out with sufficient verbiage to be published as an article." From time to time I will be posting the interesting lists that I've come across, as well as maybe sometimes posting some of my own. If you ever feel like expanding upon the lists, feel free to either contact me or throw your recommendation into the comments section. Without anymore delay, here is the first list from UnrealityMag, "The Eight Strangest Looking Actors in Hollywood."

Oh. My. B'god.

So a few years ago my buddy was in an introductory philosophy class, and did poorly on one of his papers. What follows is the correspondence with his teacher concerning his grade. For what will become obvious as you go about reading this, I have concealed the actual names in the messages.




Professor,
I tried to meet with you during your office hours today, but you were unavailable. I would like to speak with you about the grade on my final paper. The grade that was given to me brings my A to a C in the class. Why is my grade so terrible? Please respond to this e-mail. Thanks.

Student

From: student@vandals.uidaho.edu> To: professor@vandals.uidaho.edu> Subject: Phil. Paper IMPORTANT> Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 11:47:21 -0700> > >
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Student,
There is no way to say this diplomatically. Your paper was a sprawling incoherent screed. There was no discernible point, let alone any argumentation for it. Sadly, your ending caveat cannot rescue you.

This was for a philosophy class and it was judged as a philosophy paper. I gave explicit instructions regarding what I was expecting and you apparently decided to disregard those. While this is commendable in spirit, I cannot in good conscience give you a good grade as it was not what I wanted from you.

Professor

From: student@vandals.uidaho.edu> To: professor@vandals.uidaho.edu> Subject: Phil. Paper IMPORTANT> Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 11:47:21 -0700> > >
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Professor,
You're right, this paper was for a philosophy class..... a philosophy 103 class. "Spawling incoherent screed"? You need to quit taking this so seriously, a simple "wrong" would have done just fine....... dick.

Student

From: student@vandals.uidaho.edu> To: professor@vandals.uidaho.edu> Subject: Phil. Paper IMPORTANT> Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 11:47:21 -0700> > >
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONGRATULATIONS *******, YOU'VE JUST FAILED PHIL 103!!!!!!!!!

From: professor@vandals.uidaho.edu> To: student@vandals.uidaho.edu> Subject: Phil. Paper IMPORTANT> Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 11:47:21 -0700> >
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Professor,
I apologize for the last e-mail, my roommate got into my vandal account and decided to play a nasty trick. I understand the reason for the grade I recieved on my final paper. I guess I will have to do well on the final exam. Please don't fail me for my roommate's actions.

Sincerely,
*******

From: *******@vandals.uidaho.edu> To: professor@vandals.uidaho.edu> Subject: Phil. Paper IMPORTANT> Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 11:47:21 -0700> >
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Student,
You must think I'm a fool. I should have failed you at midterm for the mindless contributions you were submitting to our disscussion board. With that said, I must tell you that not only will you be failing my PHIL 103 class, but I've also been forced to report you to the Dean of Students for classroom misconduct.

Professor

From: professor@vandals.uidaho.edu> To: student@vandals.uidaho.edu> Subject: Phil. Paper IMPORTANT> Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 11:47:21 -0700> >
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Professor,
I'm extremely excited to fill out my teacher evaluation form this semester! Hopefully it will be one of the many poor evaluations you will receive. As a result of this, I hope you lose your job as an educator and are forced to the street due to your unemployment. A year from now I hope to see you behind Winco, weighing 78lbs, and blowing truck drivers for crack-cocaine. Thanks for the lovely semester and I hope to see you next fall!

Student

P.S. Your lectures sucked and made less sense than my shitty philosophy paper.

From: student@vandals.uidaho.edu> To: professor@vandals.uidaho.edu> Subject: Phil. Paper IMPORTANT> Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 11:47:21 -0700> >


He is the first person I know to actually go through with what many of us have fantasized telling our professors. ******, we are all living vicariously through you at this moment, and we thank you for never failing to continuously inspire, entertain, and appall us all.


Finally Had Something Personal to Say




In the spirit of Valentine's Day, here is a short clip from one of the few romance movies I have ever really enjoyed, Chasing Amy. For those of you that don't know, Chasing Amy is written and directed by Kevin Smith and takes place in the Jay and Silent Bob universe. The film is a refreshing twist on the boy-gets-girl story, filled with Smith's signature witty dialog and laugh out loud moments. It is also Smith's deepest movie and explores such complicated topics as how far love alone can keep a relationship together, the power of forgiveness, and how a few simple acts and emotions can radically alter the path of one's life. Lying in the middle of the movie, in this scene we see Holden (the boy) confess his love to Alyssa (the girl), and her immediate reaction.

Yessir

So I started a blog for a few reasons.
  1. I've been going to a university where the standard that the teachers have for writing in the College of Business and Economics is an affront against what college graduation represents in America. I feel I need to start writing on a more regular basis so that I will not have my writing skills diminish to a completely pedestrian level.
  2. I know nothing about how write, read, or understand "code", html, or similar formats. This is going to become a more and more important skill as time progresses, and I feel that I might as well get started learning now before I may be tasked with it during the course of my career in the future.
  3. I like to write down many of the things that I experience as I go through my life. This includes nearly everything whether it be something I find humorous or profound. I'm going to use this site as an online repository for the things that I come across that I want to be able to reference in the future; or to look back upon as I have forgotten about them altogether. Furthermore, I enjoy sharing with my friends so this will be a great way to allow me to do so on a permanent basis.
  4. I'm vain.

Kanye West Cares About Black People



NBC played this video before opening ceremony last night. One of the most ridiculous portraits of my generation that I've ever seen. Skip ahead to 1:30 for the awesomeness to begin. Kanye is in there, which I'm assuming was only allowed because the filming wasn't live.



Do try and donate though, that place is crazy-screwed without international support.