Sunday Sep 5

Three ideas for someone to steal

Wednesday, 24 March 2010 03:29
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Three ideas for someone to steal

Sometimes I cook up ideas to make the world better. Rather than go nuts trying to come up with the money, expertise, and time to execute them and thereby become wealthy enough to hire a house cleaner, I usually just keep them to myself. These ideas rot away in my memory and disappear. How selfish! (Even if, as I suspect, the ideas usually suck.) Now that we are firmly ensconced in the era of share everything, I will do my best to spread these half-assed ideas to the rest of the planet via blogging and tweeting and social networking and human interface 2.0ing. Enjoy.

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How my crazy poodle has taught me to be more assertive

Thursday, 11 March 2010 09:34
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How my crazy poodle has taught me to be more assertive

Cricket is certifiably insane. I have expert confirmation of this fact. Sometimes, when she attacks and bites people or works herself into an aggressive tizzy, it isn’t funny in the least. But when she is under control, as she more or less has been for the past few months, her eccentricities can be amusing, even instructive.

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Media Bites


Gentlemen Broncos
If we politely ignore Nacho Libre, this movie is the true spiritual follow-up to Napoleon Dynamite for Jared Hess, and it accordingly suffers from sequelitis. More

Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy’s final novel scandalized England for its views on divorce, but there’s something more shocking at work in its dreary prose. More

Alice in Wonderland
Or, as the script would have it titled, Um in Underland. Now, I’m a Tim Burton apologist, so I’m inclined to forgive this movie for many faults, but… More

The Invention of Lying
Ricky Gervais is a master of the comedic reaction shot, which means he cast himself perfectly in this brilliant script about the only man in the world who knows how to lie. More

Older Articles

What’s different about California’s budget?

Comparing the Golden State’s tax structure to other states

All states were not created equal. The hodgepodge map of borders within the continental United States was primarily drawn during a period of rapid population movement—when politicians had no inkling of what the territories’ eventual population density and makeup would be—and during a period of intense national struggle—plenty of states inherited their borders due solely to the slavery question, and plenty more were slapped together in the aftermath of the civil war, when the notion of federal unity trumped any idea of state independence.

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2010 MLB predictions (AL edition)
I think this will finally be the year when the Colorado Rockies are a powerhouse and not a Cinderella. I think the Texas Rangers will shake off some organizational accursedness to win a pennant. And I think I should probably trash this entry instead of publishing it, because my predictions are always wrong and I’m probably jinxing it all just by typing. Nonetheless, here’s my notoriously untrustworthy outlook for the 2010 Major League Baseball season: More
What’s wrong with Saturday Night Live
Having tacos with my friend Chris Holland the other day, he mentioned a film that will be playing at this year’s SXSW, a documentary called Saturday Night directed by James Franco. The movie follows the team at Saturday Night Live as it puts together an episode for one week with John Malkovich. The movie sounds interesting enough, but I commented that it’s a pity we only get this inside look during one of the worst seasons in one of the worst patches of SNL history. Chris agreed that the show is missing more than it hits these days, but I contend that the staff has simply forgotten how to put together a funny sketch, and any comedy that’s resulted from this group’s efforts has been accidental. The uncomfortable silence of the audience during most sketches proves my point, but I have this need to kick a puppy while it’s down, so let’s look at some randomly selected skits on Hulu and pull apart what makes the current show so awful. More