Year: 2008

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January Jones: Goddess

OK, I promise that I’ll stop posting Mad Men stuff… but I just had to post these beautiful pictures of January Jones from an unknown photoshoot. I think Betty Draper, her character on Mad Men, is a modern day Grace Kelly… and is one of the most beautiful women in the world. Outside of the “Betty Draper” character, however, January Jones is usually less than impressive… especially in candid shots. I think she needs a new stylist. At any rate, I saw these online last night, and she looks really good in them, so I thought I’d share:

(click to enlarge)
(click to enlarge)

More pics after the jump!

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Quote of the Day

“History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of ‘history’ it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time – and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened… There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning… And that, I think, was the handle – that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting – on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave… So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

– Hunter S. Thompson
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

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Mad Men: “Meditations in an Emergency”

Well, my two favorite football teams – the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and the Pittsburgh Steelers – both lost this past weekend. Normally, I’d be a horrible mood about it… but Sunday was the season finale of Mad Men… so let’s get right to it:

Many viewers wondered what Sally’s “Mommy, you’re bleeding!” comment was about near the end of the previous episode. We didn’t have to wait long to find an answer: Betty’s pregnant, thanks to her liaison with Don in “The Inheritance”. Betty’s physician, Dr. Aldrich, is all excited about the pregnancy… until Betty tells him that she can’t possibly have a baby right now. The doctor looks at Betty and says that “if we’re having the conversation I think we’re having, there are alternatives”.

He then says that he can’t believe that Betty – a wealthy, married woman – would consider even “it”. He tells her that as soon as she tells her husband and friends that she’ll “get into the swing of things” and that she’ll be OK. Dr. Aldrich apparently works out of his home, and when he leaves the room for a moment to go find a portable heater (so that Betty can undress for the examination), Birdie picks up her coat and purse… and leaves.

Back at Sterling Cooper, the “usual suspects” – Harry, Paul, Ken and Peggy – wonder why management wants all of their numbers way before they’re due. Paul wonders if the urgency has anything to do with Don’s absence in California. Harry says that he’s figured it out: Pete told him that the aerospace industry is about to take off (heh) out there, and that Don must be landing a giant account. Paul wonders if Don’s breaking off to start his own agency. Harry counters that he might be working to open Sterling Cooper West. He then laments that President Kennedy is giving a speech that night; since ads don’t run during presidential speeches, that’s revenue that Sterling Cooper is missing out on.

Peggy then goes to visit Pete, who’s eating a sandwich in his office. She asks if he’s told anyone about Clearasil yet; he sarcastically says that “it slipped his mind”. He also says that he’s waiting on a call from North American Aviation about a possible new deal. He then asks Peggy what to say to Duck. Peggy tells him to just tell him the truth, and that people respect that.

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Lionsgate looking for a new runner?

In “TV speak”, a show runner is the person responsible for the day to day operations of a TV show (e.g. the person that “runs” the show). Although the show runner can, theoretically, be anyone, it is usually a writer, especially if that writer is a big part of the show’s existence. In the case of Mad Men, Matt Weiner is the head writer, a producer, and all around “grand poobah” of the series. And his contract with Lionsgate – the company that produces Mad Men – is up for renewal.

Weiner has asked for $10 million a year, a figure that Lionsgate claims is far too high for their basic cable budget. Since Lionsgate is contracted with AMC for two more seasons of the show, they’ll have to have someone be the show runner, even if that’s not Weiner. However, he is the heart and soul of a show that gets fantastic reviews, decent ratings, and also won the first “Best Drama” Emmy for a basic cable series.

As TV Squad notes, Lionsgate will have to pay Wiener the money. It’s that simple. Mad Men has a fanatic fan base (obviously), and any drop in quality would instantly be noticed by them. Without Wiener you have no show… so ante up the ducats, Lionsgate!

Read all about it here.

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Another Reason to Hate Outsourcing!

Companies love outsourcing. It saves them huge amounts of money over hiring Americans, not only with salaries (why pay an American $9/hour to do a job you can pay an Indian $9/day to do?), but also with benefits, payroll taxes, property taxes, and a million other things.

Consumers, on the other hand, hate it. The hate is partly due to the language barrier that often comes with outsourcing. But it’s also due to some of the things the foreign companies do themselves, such as order their call takers to adopt an American name and persona when talking to customers. When a guy that sounds like Apu from The Simpsons tries to tell you that his name is Bob and he’s from Kansas City, Oregon… well, it’s just insulting.

And now it seems like you can add identity theft to the list of concerns over outsourcing. Actually, identity theft via outsourcing is nothing new… but this story from The Consumerist should give you pause. The Consumerist article, written by one of the call takers at a Chase call center in the US, is a giant bucket of fail.

It seems that Chase has a call center and a “security team” in the the United States, but their off-hours security is outsourced to a call center in the Philippines. The US call center people noticed a male with a distinctive voice calling them frequently, apparently probing for any information he could get about a few accounts. The call takers passed the information on to the US branch of Chase’s security team, who quickly put a block on the account.

Continue reading “Another Reason to Hate Outsourcing!”

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Restaurant Fail!

This restaurant is located in Louisville, Kentucky. It’s apparently known as the Cardinals Café, and is located close to the University of Louisville, whose teams are known as the Cardinals (or Cards, for short). Apparently the restaurant got a crappy health inspection, so the manager decided to use that to their advantage:

Classy! You’d of thought that they’d at least done a better job of matching the fonts, though!

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X-Rays from Scotch Tape

How’s this for cool? Normal, everyday Scotch Tape (or sellotape, for you British readers) gives off x-rays when pulled off the roll in a vacuum. According to this article at USAToday.com, UCLA researchers

[used] a machine [to peel] ordinary Scotch tape off a roll in a vacuum chamber at about 1.2 inches per second. Rapid pulses of X-rays, each about a billionth of a second long, emerged from very close to where the tape was coming off the roll.

That’s where electrons jumped from the roll to the sticky underside of the tape that was being pulled away, a journey of about two-thousandths of an inch… When those electrons struck the sticky side they slowed down, and that slowing made them emit X-rays.

The UCLA eggheads hope to refine the process enough to create cheap x-ray equipment for paramedics, developing countries, and places where electricity is hard to come by (like a ranger station in a national park, for example).

Should office workers worry about getting cancer from Scotch tape? Apparently not. The phenomenon only occurs when Scotch tape is unrolled in a vacuum. So you should be fine… unless you’re taping together documents in outer space!

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Feeling Old Yet?

Guess who’s turning 50 today? Why, Simon LeBon of Duran Duran of course!

Jeez – Simon Le Bon is freakin’ 50? Gawd, I’m old! Simon says (heh): “No, I don’t feel old. My knees are creaking a bit, but my eyes are fine. I am healthy and (some say) wise.” Not bad for a guy whose first album came out when he was just 22!

Happy Birthday, Simon!

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A Lamborghini in the Basement

Around a decade ago, a guy named Ken Imhoff started building an exact replica of a Lamborghini Countach. The only problem was that Ken didn’t have a garage or a shed to build the car, and was thus forced to build it in his basement… only the basement didn’t have any doors or windows.

So when Ken finally finished the car recently, he had to hire a contractor to clear away several feet of earth and knock a hole in the basement wall to actually get the car out:

Read all about it here; thanks to Geekologie for the tip!