Interesting episode of This American Life today, in which the second act focused on a local news channel that "broke" an exclusive story about a registered sex offender who was working as a hockey referee for the local youth hockey league. They made a huge deal about it, expressing outrage and getting the community all riled up. They showed a very ( Read more... )

While I was placing a dish into the sink this morning, the Cold War crossed my mind. Maybe the radio was on and influenced my stream of consciousness, but odds are that it was random. My synapses seem to be firing in random order these days ( Read more... )

I listened to This American Life's Thanksgiving special the other day, and I couldn't help but laugh my ass off at Sarah Vowell's account of her family visiting for the holidays. I needed a laugh ( Read more... )

OK, so I've been having a hard time putting my finger on it, but here's what I've come up with. These are not all-inclusive, and I'm sure I'll come up with more reasons for why it sucks so bad.

1. Too much verbal recap.It bugs the hell out of me when the actors are forced to recite lines for the sake of folks who couldn't be bothered to tune in ( Read more... )

If there's one big pet peeve of mine, it's that web advertising designers don't put more than 30 seconds of effort into each ad. And thought? None.

Look! It's a pissed-off woman with a cloth-covered cock being shoved in her face!
(as seen on Facebook)


( Read more... )

I think I'd heard of this before, but it must have been a while ago. Studio 360 this week featured a piece about an "unauthorized" performance of Hell House in Brooklyn. The blurb from their site says it all:

Every Halloween, Evangelical churches across America stage haunted houses that replace the traditional ghosts and ghouls with real ( Read more... )

I was listening to WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show today, and they had a feature about the Radiohead "pay what you think our album is worth" thing. Brian had a guest on the show, some dude who supposedly was a market analyst and had some valid points to make. Brian asked him if he had downloaded the album, and if so, how much he had paid ( Read more... )

The second season of Heroes is kinda suckin'. If you haven't seen season one yet, stop reading now, cause I'm gonna give shit away ( Read more... )

I was thinking, this morning, that the hardest concept I'll ever have to teach my kids is "and where does it end?" For example, you do something greedy, you effect someone's life negatively, and often they'll do something equally nasty in return, or perhaps you've just taught an onlooker that they can get away with it too...where does it end ( Read more... )

on a whim, i went into the Helio store in Palo Alto, to check out the supposed "iphone killer," the Helio Ocean. I'd seen a bunch of side-by-side comparisons of the features, and it looked kinda like the Ocean really was a better phone. Anyway, i picked one up and played with it for a while, and it's a piece of junk. I don't know what i expected, ( Read more... )