808s & Heartbreak

Buy it. It's awesome. "808s" refers to the Roland TR-808 drum machine, which Kanye used on every track. I learned here on Wikipedia that Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" was one of the first hit songs to employ the 808 in production.

T-shirts White People Will Like

Nice Sweats

Fellow Jumbo Jessica Biel was showing some love to her alma mater while walking with some random dude. I'm kidding about that last part. Just so you don't think I'm an idiot. I mean, I did go Tufts. Did I mention that I went to Tufts and that Jessica Biel went there? She was only there for a year though, I think, so I'm surprised, but I did see her at Spring Fling during my senior year. Probably a good move since she's made a lot more money than I have since then and I have like 2 majors and stuff. Cool.

Here's Hoping...

I'm still nervous about President-elect Obama, but this is the kind of stuff that totally endears him to people. He is one hell of a politician. Plus he winks and I saw him chewing gum getting out of his motorcade the other day. He sure is cool.

Obama-McCain: New Meeting Set to Bury Campaign Ax

That is gracious. Interesting news is that Hillary Clinton is a possible Secretary of State pick. John Kerry and Republican Chuck Hagel are also in the running.

Miamiopoly

This would have been cooler in the 80's.

http://www.monopolymiami.com/

Hoping and Changing

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

I See a Little Silhouetto of a Man

This is so awesome. I was considering "Live at Wembley" Freddie Mercury for my own Halloween costume this year. Where does one find a yellow jacket like this? Probably easier for a celebrity like Katy Perry.

Speech!

This is the kind of stuff that makes this country so f'n awesome -

McCain-



Obama -

Cult of Personality

I'm not claiming that McCain voters are necessarily well informed, but I'm pretty sure they'd catch the fact that these views are the exact opposite of the ones on which their chosen candidate is running -

Nothing Sad About This

The plane that Steve Fossett was flying when he went missing last year has been found. The wreckage suggests the crash was unsurvivable and that he likely died instantly. What an awesome way to go. I would be pretty psyched to acheive the designation of "millionaire adventurer".

"Fossett made a fortune trading futures and options on Chicago markets. He gained worldwide fame for more than 100 attempts and successes in setting records in high-tech balloons, gliders, jets and boats. In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in July 2007.

"He also swam the English Channel, completed an Ironman Triathlon, competed in the Iditarod dog sled race and climbed some of the world's best-known peaks, including the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania."

Read the article on Boston.com.

Next Saturday? Can't I'm afraid. At a matinee of American Psycho.

My family has a wonderful Thanksgiving tradition of going to New York (City) and hitting a couple of nice restaurants, a museum or two, maybe a comedy show on the Upper East Side, some shopping on 5th Ave., a little Wii with Mike Santulli, etc.

The highlight, ostensibly, is the Broadway show we pick out far in advance. The problem is that most of them suck. We started with Les Miserables and it hasn't gotten any better. Phantom and Rent were great, but pretty much everything else has been a waste of time and money. Last year, when Broadway went on strike and our planned Spamalot outing was canceled, we just did other, better stuff with our time. No sooner had I convinced myself that the show should NOT go on, when this news came into my Outlook inbox from my friend Andreas -

"American Psycho" to be Broadway Musical

Lucky, I guess.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

This is a heartwarming display of non-partisan politics -

Where Are My Yeezys?

I don't think you can actually buy these. The Nike Air Yeezy (made for Kanye) is obviously quite reminiscent of the pair of sneaks that Marty McFly wears in Back to the Future II. They are awesome. Kanye wore them on his last tour.

Bushball

I was flabbergasted when I heard it myself, and NewsBusters has posted a clip of Kerri Walsh thanking President Bush after she and Misty May won the gold in Beijing. I thought it was awesome and it's nice to see the guy get a little public support.

Barely Legal

I just heard about this on NPR-

http://www.amethystinitiative.org/

The Amethyst Initiative was started by the former president of Middlebury. The organization's goal is to lower the drinking age in the U.S. to 18.

I don't know too many people who think you should be able to vote and die for your country but not buy a beer. The federal government has been pushing the states around for decades by threatening to withhold critical highway funding if they resist the 21 year-old drinking age.

I was pretty psyched to see Tufts president, Larry Bacow, on the list of signatories.

John Mayer Chillin' in His Bape S**t

This new Bape hoodie is awesome, but I'm fairly certain it will become too popular to be cool.

RidiQlis Is Back...

...Let the party get insane.

http://RidiQlis.com

Guess Who's Back...

Sneaker/tennis fans the world over are peeing in their pants at the sight of the throwback Nike Air Zoom Tennis Trainer, available at tennis-warehouse.com

Tennis on Grass

This is a wonderfully written article in Britain's Daily Telegraph about why tennis is so awesome -

Wimbledon Final: How We Fell in Love with a Beautiful Game

Federer and Nadal are such class acts. I read recently that Nadal had to drop out of the following tournament in which he was expected to play, so he flew to the tournament director to personally apologize for having to sit it out with an injury.

You don't see much of that character in hockey, where cheating and fighting (often among parents at their kids' games) are considered part of the fabric of the sport. In baseball, pitchers often throw pitches at batters heads. You get the idea.

Tennis, anyone?

OMG HC

American Apparel has brought back......................Hypercolor. Oh, day of days!

http://store.americanapparel.net/rsa6407tcw.html#i

From the Man Who Put the Sun in the Tate...

In December of 2007, I saw an Olafur Eliasson exhibit with my buddy Rand at SFMOMA. It's quite an experience to see his work in person. Like most great art, you can't really describe how it makes you feel or why it makes you feel. There's some invigorating aura it gives off. And a lot his stuff is really weird, like a black room with a light pointing at a board that makes waves.

I know a lot of New Yorkers think it's pretty stupid, but I think they're going to love his "Waterfalls". They are slated to be installed in mid-July and will be there until sometime in October. Here's an article from Bloomberg.

Not Sure This Counts As a Revolution

This is Newt Gingrich's American Solutions "Platform of the American People - A Red, White & Blue Revolution". It's a so-called tri-partisan plan for America, that includes issues on which a majority of Americans, including Democrats, Independents and Republicans agree. McCain seems to be following some of the recommendations...

RIP George Carlin

Carlin died over the weekend. He would have preferred that his death be described as such, and not "passing away", a euphemism he abhorred. He was a genius and a master of the English language. One of his most famous bits is "Baseball versus Football". It's an absolute classic.

Oh, the Great Lizard!

These snorklers would make Bear Grylls proud, after being swept away to a desolate island near Bali and having to fight off a monstrous Komodo dragon. This is from My Way News -

"Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards, can grow up to 10 feet long. Attacks on humans are rare, but with its shark-like serrated teeth the Komodo's bite can be deadly. Their saliva is poisonous, with dozens of species of bacteria, so if a wound is not cleaned properly septicemia sets in within days."
The story reminds me of a haiku I wrote to accompany my 9th grade biology paper on the Komodo Dragon -

Oh, the great lizard
Its large jaws are open wide
Time to say goodbye

Ken Fisher. Quality dude. Lincoln International School in Buenos Aires. Good times.

President's Questions

If you've never watched "Prime Minister's Questions" on CSPAN, then you have really been missing out. Though most people don't watch as much CSPAN as I. Most people have probably never watched CSPAN. Nobody watches CSPAN.

Anyway, McCain is proposing a similar question-and-answer session with Congress should he become president. I think that would be pretty awesome. Plus he's likely to be cantankerous and argumentative. He's proposing going before both the Senate and House, unlike in Britain where those snooty Lords have relegated the commoner prime minister to the House of Commons. Pish posh. Balderdash. Talley hoe!

http://www.reuters.com/

Next Stop Somerville

The funding for the long-awaited Green Line extension to Tufts has finally been approved by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. I don't know why you'd be excited about this if you weren't a current Tufts student. I will likely never use it. It's still pretty awesome.

tuftsdaily.com

Yeah 'Bos.

Divorce for Dummies

I wonder if that's a book in the popular series? I suppose I can just go look that up. Just did. It is. I just chose it as the title of this post because of its alliterative quality. Rothchilds are no dummies.

Well, family friend Sascha Rothchild has been paying her dues for like a decade as a writer in LA (maybe NYC before that?) and has just signed a deal with Universal Pictures to turn her recently published LA Weekly article How to Get Divorced by 30 into a movie. Wow. That is pretty awesome indeed.

It's an excellent article. You should read it.

Pretty Awesome, Huh?

As far as I know, Sprint service still sucks on the East Coast (Left Coasters like my brother tell me it's great out there), but the new ad they've got going is pretty cool. $100 for unlimited everything on your mobile phone seems reasonable.

Those Gmail Nerds Are Funny

It actually took me a second to figure this out -

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html

Jackie Chan's Greatest Hits

Boden should recognize the narrator's voice. He even calls one of the stunts "pretty awesome". I assume he was trying really hard to get on our blog.

The Rock

This blog is so awesome, that we've managed to travel into the future to bring you this April 3, 2008 interview of Chris Rock in Rolling Stone.

"Bush has f**ked up so bad," he will posit to any and all congregants in braying loops of oratory, "that he's made it hard for a white man to run for president. 'Gimme anything but another white man, please! Black man, white woman, giraffe, anything!' A white man's had that job for hundreds of years — and one guy fucked it up for all of ya!"

Awesome Youtube Time Wasting

Whats more awesome than living in Miami? Working in Miami and watching totally awesome videos of the totally awesome songs that we hear every weekend when we're out having a totally awesome time.

hulu

Hulu is now open to the public. I missed last week's episode of the Simpsons, so I can just watch it there. That's pretty awesome. I was actually a member but I can't even remember the last time I logged on.

www.hulu.com

18 - 1

Aaaah, this is just great. Busted Tees has done it again -

CebUUUUUUUUUU Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center Is Back

According to the note on the video, this was done by popular demand. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, inmates at a prison in the Philippines, made famous by their stirring Thriller choreography, can now take requests. What an age in which we live.

Sharks Are Awesome

Sharks clear out south Florida beaches

Exceptional water clarity makes annual migration very visible

Kanye and White People

This is just hilarious. Kanye West posted it on his blog.

stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com

He's also got a pretty amazing midget fight from Jerry Springer on there. Check it out if you can.

Ess En El

So, apparently those writers are actually pretty important. SNL is back and I wonder how many jokes we've been missing as a result of the recently ended strike by the Writers' Guild of America. The 3-month strike has been estimated to have cost Hollywood $2.5 billion.

NBC's Saturday Night Live website is pretty good and you can catch some of the funny segments from the most recent episode. If you saw "There Will Be Blood", you'll like the milkshake bit.

Support Denmark! (Here We Go Again)

Well, 3 guys were just arrested after it was discovered they were plotting to kill the cartoonist who drew this little number -

The intended victim? Kurt Westergaard, a 73 year-old man. I guess I'm going to have go back to the store and by some havarti cheese and some Carlsberg beer. Be careful, Carlsberg is strong.

This is an email I sent to friends just over 2 years ago. I can't believe it's been that long. -

This whole thing is so outrageous that it is hard to put my thoughts in writing calmly. A brief synopsis for those who don’t know what happened:

-A Danish newspaper published some cartoons (back in September of 2005) depicting Mohammed - blasphemy in Islam

-The cartoons have been republished in various publications across Europe, most notably a Norwegian paper as a sign of solidarity and support of freedom of speech

-Saudi Arabia, et. al. are boycotting Danish products and pulling their representatives from their respective consulates, issuing inflammatory statements, etc.

-Beatings and threats of violence and death to nationals of involved European countries have occurred

These threats and claims of outrage come from a nation like Saudi Arabia, where, if caught attempting to spread Christianity, one can be put to death. It boggles the mind.

We can pitch in and make an effort to buy Danish products like Havarti cheese, Carlsberg beer, etc. to counter the boycott. Check out this link for further information:

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/21097.html

I’ve attached the only funny Danish cartoon of the twelve that has inflamed such outrage in the Muslim world:

“Islam is a dynamite religion”

-Colin

18-1

Bill Simmons has written a fantastic piece about Super Bowl XLII. It is undoubtedly more interesting than an article about a Patriots' win would have been.

This is the last item on Simmons' "I will forever remember eight things about Super Bowl XLII"-

"Finally, can you guess the last thing we heard as we were walking (OK, hustling) out of the stadium right after the final play? That's right, it was the sound of euphoric Giants fans chanting, 'Eighteen and one! Eighteen and one! Eighteen and one!' Yes, it's safe to say the Boston-New York rivalry has been taken to new heights. As a tennis umpire would say, 'Advantage, New York.'"

It's a funny chant, but I'm disappointed to say that New York is now Boston and Boston is New York. That is exactly the kind of "Yankees Suck" cheer you'd here from bitter Boston fans of not too long ago.

18 and 1!

F U OPEC

From Wired.com -

"A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn't interfere with food supplies, company officials said. Coskata, which is backed by General Motors and other investors, uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol."

It reminds me of a little movie called "Back to the Future"

Boden's Next

Piece in the Middle East

This is a wonderful piece by Maureen Dowd about Bush’s Middle East trip. It says a lot about where we are diplomatically, how we are perceived in the Arab World, and what a deal-with-the-devil the combustion engine has forced us into.

Faith, Freedom and Bling in the Middle East

P.S. I'm really proud of the title I came up with for this post.

P.P.S. This is the hotel in Abu Dhabi that is mentioned in the article, the Emirates Palace Hotel. It is the most expensive one ever built. This is just a photo of the central section (the whole hotel is over half a mile long) -

Here's a shot of the royal entrance. Note the South Asian in the forefront who likely gets paid about $5/day -

Top 10 things that were pretty awesome this past weekend

The following list isnt actually in any particular order, if it were #5 would be #1.  

1. Going to The Abbey twice in the same 24 hour day

2. 3 birthday parties being celebrated among the maximum capacity of approximately 20 people that The Abbey can hold

3. 11 cars parked in our front yard

4. M5

5. Strippers are normal people too (sorta)

6. Blonde mohawk

7. Patriots win again

8. American Psycho bonanza

9. Not getting arrested for DTP

10. The fact that this was just another typical weekend and that theres no reason to believe that next weekend is going to be any different.

Sumo no terebi

Check out Panasonic's new 150" flat panel TV. The best part is that they have sumo wrestlers on the screen. And one of them's a pretty badass black dude. That's awesome. They should call it "The Panasonic Sumo". It costs about $100,000.

What's the AMPTP?

I didn't know either, so when I saw Sarah Silverman carrying a sign that described her hatred of said acronym, I looked it up. It's the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. I know what you're thinking. "I don't have a ton of sympathy for a bunch of really rich Jewish dudes who live in Beverly Hills." You don't have to sympathize to see how sanguine their argument is and their site is pretty awesome. The striking writers are losing more money than they hoped to gain through their union's negotiations.

www.amptp.org