It’s one thing for the Bush Administration to secretly pay off Iraqi newspapers to publish “news” stories sympathetic to the American agenda in Iraq. But surely it’s wrong for the Bush Administration to fund really crappy rock bands with lyrics sympathetic to their agenda. That’s really where I’ve got to draw the line, because when you’re funding crappy American rock bands, then I’m forced to listen to this stuff. (For a laugh, watch this video. As with so much internet humor, it’s funny because you can’t tell if they’re in fact serious. I think they are.)

I mean, really, does the Bush Administration need to use our tax dollars to manipulate the media and brainwash us all? Can’t they just rely on the fair-and-balanced right-wing media, a product of the free market, to separate the freedom-haters from the true patriots for us? Thanks to Bill O’Reilly, all I have to do now is check his newly unveiled enemies list.

Well… then again, maybe relying on O’Reilly is not such a good strategy. For starters, how much can you depend on a guy who is already busy devoting this holiday season to amassing a self-proclaimed “coalition of the willing” to fight against some “sercet plan” to abolish Christmas? For so many reasons, probably not much.

Well these little updates have been a lot less frequent than I’d anticipated. Perhaps its partly because, unlike my time in New Zealand, which was contantly filled with various excursions, I haven’t actually been travelling that much. In many ways that’s a good thing. I went to NZ for the purpose of doing certain things. I’m here in Argentina, however, more to experience and observe than I am to do. Writing about my observations comes less naturally for me than writing about actions. This is unfortunate as reading about observations would, I imagine, be more interesting…

For the time being though you’ll just have to make do with the more boring type of update. So if you can stand a ‘this is what I’ve done, and this is what I’m about to do’ type post, then read on.

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DJ Panzah Zandahz has remixed 16 Radiohead songs. Link for torrent. It’s what Radiohead would sound like if Thom Yorke was a rapper. My favorite so far is Creep (ft. Fred from Fitter Happier).

In case you missed it, All Things Considered today featured a story about how Pitchfork, among others, basically launched the careers of Clap Your Hands… over two weeks in June 2005. One interesting fact that was revealed in the peice was the that Clap Your Hands…’s lead singer had never heard of Pitchfork until the site reviewed their debut record on June 22, 2005.

Another fact this NPR peice highlights is the power that Pitchfork now wields. Like the Wall Street Journal does for the business press, Pitchfork basically sets the agenda for other publications that cover alternative rock. Although I don’t know what I would do otherwise, I’m not really happy that 90% of what I listen to is recommended to me by Pitchfork or someone who found out about it on Pitchfork.

According to Download Squad, the final release of firefox 1.5 is due out sometime today. if you’re already using the latest release candidate, then you shouldn’t expect major differences. If you mac folks had given up on firefox, you should try it again as 1.5 is supposedly better on macs than 1.0. also 1.5 has a much better preferences window, and more control over how tabs work, although if you really want to tweek your tab settings in firefox I highly highly recomend the Tab Mix Plus extesion

The Kazakhstani government already looked foolish for threatening Borat with a lawsuit. And they seemed paranoid when they further suggested that he was part of some larger international conspiracy against Kazakhstan.

But how do you describe their actions today, taking out a 4-page ad in Monday’s New York Times? Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody hopefully knows about the long-running Letterman-Oprah feud. Oprah has harbored a seething hatred for Dave since her 2 appearances on his old “Late Night” show in the 80s. And the whole “Uma…Oprah” thing didn’t help anything. In 2003, she vowed in Time to never be on the show again. After a hard-fought campaign to be an invited guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Dave noted in the now-infamous Oprah Log: “Day 82: I no longer want to be on your damned show.” Letterman then offered to patch things up in a “Super Bowl of Love” officiated by Dr. Phil. Nothing doing.

This Thursday…Oprah will be on the Late Show. Be there.

Who knew that Bruce Lee was so influential in the former Yug?

I recently took a little vacation to visit my sweatheart in Denver - Carmelo Anthony. Kristin and I had prime seats to see all the action, literally (very top row). Thanks to Doglegs (a.baller/ April), I had the pleasure of watching two of my fantasy players - Frye and Anthony. They both had good games, but that’s not what I’m hear to tell you about. But it is what I’m HERE to tell you about. Frye was banging down 16 foot jumpers like dunks and Carmelo was slicing and dicing his way to the rim at will. However, the player of the game is Marcus Camby, who also had the play of the game. The Nuggets have a fast break and try an alley oop, but an anonymous Knick rejects it… but a soaring Camby plucks the blocked ball out of the air and sticks it where it belongs - through the hoop. Nate Robinson played well and raised his stock to a new high, but man oh man did Marbury not like putting his butt in Robinson’s seat. Coach Brown, Nate, and Marbury were screaming at each other the whole game. I think it’s time for Marbury to get an address in Minnesota, and I don’t mean he should buy a fourth vacation home. Oh yeah, and I learned that Coors Light is better than Bud Light, and after thinking the beer was cheap ($6 for a little more than a pint) I realized why I’m broke. I’m still not sure why beer in Vancouver is so expensive, but it’s probably related to why the Grizzlies are now in Memphis.

Want to see a long sentence?

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Does anyone follow Arkansas sports any more? I’ve pretty much given up on the football team, at least for this year. Actually, I gave up on them a while back. I do hope that they beat LSU on Friday, though.

Moving on to the other nationally televised sport: Did anyone catch any of the b-ball games in Hawaii? I just watched the hi-lites on SportsCenter. So far, it looks like the year is starting like the others. A few flashes of potential but nothing consistently strong to make you think this team has a chance at the tournament. I suppose the real test will come when we play top-ten ranked teams and the SEC teams. I will go out on a limb here and predict Ronnie Brewer’s first-team All America pick. Between him and that Hill kid, I give the Hogs a shot at an SEC title in two years, assuming Stan Heath gets a LOT better at coaching.

Thoughts?

I have decided that I like Lost in Translation and that the ending is not problematic.

Anyone seen Harry Potter 4 yet? I saw it this weekend, they had to cut a lot of the story line cause of the length, not sure if it was the best way to do it. I would rather they make a 4 hour movie with intermission and double the cost to get in. If you are going to do it do it right.

Not with how my team’s doing (led by the inimitable Sam Cassell, they are currently giving the Mimes of Doom a run for their money), but with the functionality and reliability of the fantasy website. First, there’s the problem Joel pointed out. Then, there’s the problem in that the scoring system just shuts down. Take this morning, for example: I roll out of bed around 10, load up a dip, and get online to see how badly I skull-fucked BWB’s team the night before. But NBA.com won’t tell me. It said we were tied zero-zero, and that it couldn’t find the results from the night before. This isn’t an isolated incident; it’s been like this most mornings this week. Third, the “live scoring” system sucks. Why can’t it keep a running tally of Fantasy Points? Would this be so hard? And finally, Kwame Brown sucks. I mean, dude’s real bad. As soon as I drafted the mug I got two trade offers, which I turned down ’cause I liked dude’s name. But the guy sucks. Seriously.

Check out this blog post, from the 7th most popular blog on the Internet:

EVIL REGIMES SET TO TOPPLE?
By Brian Maloney · November 16, 2005 09:25 PM

Keep a sharp eye on fresh developments in both Canada and Cuba, two countries with rogue, corrupt and repressive regimes that don’t know when to cut their losses and leave town.

Cuba? Okay, maybe. But Canada? Canada? Evil, rogue, corrupt, and repressive? Is it really that bad up there?

I bring this post up primarily because I wanted to work in another link to the Objective Ministeries website. Like Objective Ministries, which had us guessing for a couple of days, what makes this blog post so funny is that it’s incredibly hard to tell whether this guy’s either seriously deluded and computer proficient or playing some kind of elaborate joke. Unlike Objective Ministries, I think it’s the former.

Kazakhi officials are threatening Borat with a lawsuit for defaming their nation. Apparently, they’re also really paranoid, believing Borat is part of a larger conspiracy to undermine the Kazakhi nation. According to their Foriegn Minister, “We do not rule out that [Borat] is serving someone’s political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way.”

I’ve been thinking…. President Bush is right when said on Veteran’s Day that “While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war.”

He’s actually right. These Democrats are deeply, deeply irresponsible to re-visit the past. The past is over– so yesterday. Let’s instead focus on the future, where the Bush Adminstration hasn’t yet made any mistakes.

And even if we’re going to re-visit the past, these freedom-hating Democrats are factually mistaken in claiming that the Bush Administration misled the American people about the reasons for war. The Bush Administration did not mislead the American people about the reason for war. In fact, because they gave us so many different rationales for war (my favorite politics-related link ever), who’s to say any which one was the reason we went to war. So what if the Bush Administration manipulated the intelligence on the WMDs? There are at least 20 other reasons we went to war, including: regime change, to furthur the war on terror, because of Iraq’s violations of UN resolutions, because Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator, to liberate Iraq, because of Iraq’s links to al Qaeda… etc…. etc…. etc….

Peja Stojakovic, at 6′10″ and 230 lbs drives to the hole, only 5′9″ and 180 lb Nate Robinson stands in his way…
what happens?

a) Peja gets an easy layup or dunk
b) Nate strips the ball down low
c) Nate tea bags Peja and rejects the ball so hard that Peja curls up into a ball like a bear is attacking him.

Click here for the answer.

Thanks Mohsen! Sam Cassell is fucking sweet! Despite shooting 10% last night, he ended up the week as my top Fantasy Points Scorer, due mainly to being hot on the boards, which I’m pretty sure means getting lots of rebounds. I’m not sure if this says good things about Cassell, or bad things about the rest of my team — it’s probably a combo. But, BWB’s Mimes of Doom watch out: I finally figured out that it’s good to have players who have games on a given day not on the bench. Nothing else will stand in my way.

anybody else notice these totals seem to be wrong? normally i would suspect that they just hadn’t added last nights games in or something, but the totals are actually too high

here is what is listed on the Matchups > Overall page for my team:
37 155 34 58 259 258 540 142 183 1460.0
but 37+155*2+34*2+58*2+259+258*3-540+142*2-183 = 1125
the correct total is listed under Matchups > Detail > Week to Date. I did not add up anyone elses but none of the totals under Matchups > Detail > Week to Date match the totals from Matchups > Overall.

If the NBA website can’t be trusted to add up fantasy points correctly …. well …. I just feel like the sky is falling.

The Washington Post has a an interesting and funny article about the genetrification process that’s going on in my DC neighborhood. For example, “The grimy [neighborhood] package liquor store is where $2 half-pints of Velicoff are shelved behind bulletproof glass and the customers have names like Bo-Bo, Snipe, Jerome, Miss Brenda, Koo-Koo and Peanut. Now Koo-Koo is standing at the counter next to a young blond man who’s asking for fresh limes.” He’s trying to make mojitos.

When I moved to the Adams Morgon/U Street neighborhood 18 months ago, I unwittingly became part of the gentrification process. Once a predominately black and Ethiopean immigrant neighborhood, it’s now filling with white yuppies and two-bit hipsters (like me). Like globalization, people look at gentrification differently, depending on whether you’re doing the gentrifying or the one being gentrified. But what’s more interesting to me is the cyclic (perhaps parasitic) nature of gentrification.

Once the people who defined the culture of a neighborhood like Adams Morgan/U Street are driven out, it pretty quickly loses the elements that made it cool. People, not geography, create and define cultures. The gentrified neighborhood quickly becomes like any other bland suburban neighborhoods, filled with boutiques, modern furniture stores, and pseudo-gourmet coffee shops. The people who’ve been gentrified move to new neighborhoods, taking their cultures with them. Eventually, their new neighborhoods will have the same “cool” elements that made their old neighborhood such a desireable place. And then, in come the yuppies and two-bit hipsters, abandoning their bland neighborhoods for these neighborhoods. The orginal inhabitants move out, and the process begins anew.

Speaking of which, does anybody know of a neighborhood in Seattle that needs gentrifying?