From the BBC
Ten cats are competing to find their perfect owner on a reality TV programme being shown in the US.
The feline competitors, who all come from animal shelters or rescue groups, are being filmed in a New York shop window until 23 June.
As on Big Brother, the cats will have to complete tasks, and will be graded on purring and catching toy mice.
Fabio wants to phone you. All you have to do is enter some bullshit information. I didn’t actually get to the call part as it would difficult to explain to my lady why a former romance cover model was calling me you should give it a try.
My favorite line from the process was when I reached the point at which I was to fill in the information about State. Fabio growled. "Which state do you live in? Me? I live in a state of euphoria."
Endless David Caruso one-liners.
If you want to find me this weekend I’ll waving my arms wildly in front of Nintendo Wii. Seeing as it was damn near impossible to find the thing I ended up paying a little too much on eBay for it. But come on, it’s the only video game system I’ve drooled over since I saved up my flyer route money when I was a kid to buy the original Nintendo. The good thing is that anyone who plays the thing, gamer or not, wants one immediately. Toot toot!! Next stop: Nerd city.
5 ways to hustle free drinks. I don’t know. It seems like a lot of work to me. How about I just buy my own drink instead.
Ashley Hames is back in a new series called Man’s Work. In an article in The Guardian he writes:
I am a 35-year-old bloke who drifts through life. But I have spent the past six months travelling the world, taking on some of the toughest and most "manly" jobs known to, well, man. I have battled the elements on a king crab fishing expedition in the Baring Sea, fought fires in Canada and in the Australian bush, and joined the Colombian police force in their fight against drugs. I have been an opal miner, gaucho cowboy, football manager and a crime scene cleaner.
Why? Because men like me have lost sight of what it means to be a man. I wanted to discover what man’s work really is and find out what real men are like. I wanted to know what it was like to do a hard day’s work, to break a sweat and experience true job satisfaction. It was also, if I’m honest, a chance for me to grow up a little and bring some substance into my life, having done little of real merit or note in my career to date.
I’ve been a fan of Ashley Hames since he did the series Sin Cities a few years ago. It was a fantastic show and still airs on Showcase in Canada late Friday evenings. Man’s Work is similar in the sense that he puts himself in a different kind of perilous situations; like being an Alaskan king crab fisherman - a job so dangerous that on each trip 1 in 200 will not return or an anti-narcotics officer on the streets of Columbia. That being said, any man who allow his body to be grievously harmed for the sake of entertainment is either very brave or quite mental. I think he’s a little of both. You have to be.
Man’s Work is currently airing on Bravo in the UK and on the Outdoor Life Network in Canada. If you want to catch a glimpse, you can watch episodes in a tiny, tiny window from the Bravo site.
When a 911 conspiracy theorist interrupts Danny Bonaduce’s lunch he tells him where to put his microphone.
Here’s a 1978 BBC documentary about Hunter S. Thompson hosted on Google Video. It’s an hour long so get comfortable.
From Mark Steyn’s article on the song "My Funny Valentine":
Likewise, we’ll never know how Richard Rodgers hit upon climbing an octave higher for the dramatic climax of the lyric yet avoided the usual big-note bombast and instead captured all the ache and yearning of the words: “Stay, little Valentine, stay!” A love song is a very fragile thing, and the false tinkle of the wrong word on the wrong note can tip the thing into absurdity. Perhaps that fine line is something you can only understand instinctively, but it doesn’t stop publishers cranking out a gazillion books on how to write smash hits with titles like If They Ask You, You Can Write A Song (that’s a Rodgers and Hart allusion, too).
I’ve allowed registered users the ability to create polls and forum topics. For real. Look on the left-hand side under "create content". Be nice. Don’t be an asshole. I’ve also discoved you can add a profile image under "my account" so you can add a face to your entries or comments. Also, if anything isn’t working correctly, let me know.
The Economist has a follow up to Steve Jobs’ open letter about DRM.
This week Mr Jobs gave another explanation for his former defence of DRM: the record companies made him do it. They would make their music available to the iTunes store only if Apple agreed to protect it using DRM. They can still withdraw their catalogues if the DRM system is compromised. Apple cannot license FairPlay to others, says Mr Jobs, because it would depend on them to produce security fixes promptly. All DRM does is restrict consumer choice and provide a barrier to entry, says Mr Jobs; without it there would be far more stores and players, and far more innovation. So, he suggests, why not do away with DRM and sell music unprotected? “This is clearly the best alternative for consumers,” he declares, “and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.”
The real question isn’t whether or not astronauts have had sex in space but rather why haven’t I.
This story is all over the internet right now but I figured I’d link to it in case you haven’t read it. Steve Jobs of Apple writes about his company’s position on Digital Rights Management.
Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.
The lady and I watched CBC’s The Passionate Eye tonight which featured the documentary "Pretty Things" by Liz Goldwyn. To watch a possibly fascinating documentary about mid-century burlesque dancers ruined by a film-maker who tries to put some sort of post-feminist spin on what was essentially stripping made me want to punch the screen. Don’t get me wrong, I was hoping to listen to interviews with some of the dancers from that era. I wasn’t hoping for Liz Goldwyn to try and live out her romanticized version of burlesque on the screen. I thought I was just being cranky but a lot of people not only agree with my opinion but articulate it bettter.
I finally got around to watching this documentary and I pretty much agree with everyone about Liz Goldwyn. She came across so naive and pseudo-intellectual. She has romanticized burlesque to the point where it seems that she believes that it was all about female empowerment for these women. That it was much different and loftier than today’s strip acts. She is so shocked to hear that for those women, it was a means to an end…a way to make a living.
The scenes where Liz is getting lessons on burlesque and rehearsing her act, annoyed the heck out of me. I was more interested in hearing the stories these women had to tell. This was a total vanity project for Liz Goldwyn because it was more about her insecurity about her body and sexuality, her need to feel confident and sexy, etc.
However, aside from the annoyingness of Liz, I loved Zorita. I almost cried when I heard she had died. She was awesome. I loved how she told it like it was (well, as she saw it), and she totally saw through Liz. I loved it when Zorita called Liz on her seeming fascination (bordering on obsession) with her (Zorita) being a lesbian. I also heartily agreed with her assessment of Liz’s ugly shoes and dress.
It was fun seeing all of that old footage and seeing all of the old costumes and memorabilia. I liked hearing about the careful choreography that would go into a seemingly accidental movement. It was sad,though, to hear about those troubled backgrounds and how many of them got started in the business really young, like at 13 and 14 years of age.
Rachel Shteir from The Slate has an even harsher review.
Telus is now offering adult services to its cellphone line. From the National Post:
Available on a "pay-per-download" basis, the service introduced on Jan. 8 will allow cellphone users to download pornographic photographs and videos, charging them an average of $3 to $4 for each item. Jim Johannsson, a Telus spokesman, said yesterday that pornographic material was already widely available on mobile phones equipped with Internet browsers. So we’ve introduced — in a very responsible way — adult content that’s in behind proper age verification and that’s compliant with provincial standards and regulations," he said. Mr. Johannsson said the company can track what its customers are searching for via Internet connections on their cellphones and noticed a definite interest in some of the Web’s more provocative sites.
Looking at porn in one’s home is great but one would like to think that discretion would come into play and keep you from taking the show on the road. Seriously. That’s why they make large computer monitors and tube socks.
I keep on meaning to pick up an issue of Frank whenever I’m at the magazine store. But between me wanting to buy other magazines and it costing $5.00, being printed on cheap newsprint and not that thick, I never do. I did check out their website though and aside from not being able to read most of the content without the $9.95/month subscription the pictures made me laugh enough to reconsider picking up an issue next time.
I feel like such a dork. I real, real big dork. For the last few months I’ve been gazing longingly at the Nintendo Wii and thinking to myself, "Fuck! I want one." Unfortunately finding one is damn near impossible as demand is still outweighing supply. The good news is that I’ve convinced the lady to go in on half with me which is still quite cheap considering that the Wii is hundreds of dollars less than its competitors. Rest assured once I’ve got the Wii in my hot little hand and I’ve exhausted myself from round after round of Wii boxing with the lady, I’ll be holding a Wii party.