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Wednesday’s News Dump

Here’s a bunch of random stuff for your Wednesday morning:

– Liz Jones of London’s Daily Mail has this awesome interview and accompanying article about Bananarama.

– Forget syphilis, mercury poisoning, aqua tofana, or trichinosis: the latest theory on Mozart’s death was that he had strep throat.

– In an amazing string of unprecedented failure, every single new TV series the debuted this summer failed. Every single one. Read more here.

– How about a baked potato flavored Kit Kat? Or a sweet corn flavored Kit Kat? Or a candied sweet potato Kit-Kat? Or an apple vinegar Kit-Kat with white chocolate? Those crazy Japanese people will eat anything! Read more.

kitkat-12

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Mad Men: “Out of Town”

Season 3 begins with Don heating up some milk for Betty, who has become an insomniac during her pregnancy. Whilst doing so, Don has a series of flashbacks about his own creation. We see his “adopted” mother and father after she have given birth to another stillborn child. We then see his father negotiating with a prostitute (Don’s biological mother), who threatens to “cut his dick off and boil it in hog fat” if he “gets her in trouble” (i.e. pregnant). We then see the prostitute giving birth to Don, and dying in the process. Lastly, we see Don being delivered to his parent’s home. The woman who brought Dick to the family (likely a small-town midwife) says that “his name is Dick… after a wish his mother should have lived to see”.

We then see Don in the bedroom, giving Betty the warm milk. Betty complains that “she” (the baby) is highly active. Don asks how she knows that she’s having a girl. Betty also says that she packed Don’s valise, and that Sally broke the clasp on it, apparently afraid that Don was leaving again. Don and Betty curl up together, and Don tries to help her relax by painting a mental picture of a warm, sandy beach.

Continue reading “Mad Men: “Out of Town””

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Happy Birthday, Madonna!

Happy Birthday, Madonna!

Madonna Birthday 09

Every year on this date, since I started this website back in 2002, I have written up a quick note to Madonna, thanking her for doing what she does and telling her how I’m happy to have been a fan all these years.

This year, however, will be a bit different. This year I want to beg her to switch to a diet of cheeseburgers and milkshakes and stop working out so damn much. I get that you want to be in shape, girl. But come on… the recent brouhaha about the state of your arms should tell you something! About perfume, you once said that “women should smell beautiful”. Well, lemme tell you this: women should not have right-angles on their bodies, either… and most people would prefer Marilyn Monroe to Twiggy any day of the week. Please ditch the Skeletor arms and get back to being fabulous, OK?

PS – I like “Celebration”, your new song.

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A Digsby Warning

I have long been a fan of Digsby, a multiprotocol instant messaging application. Like Trillian and Pidgin, Digsby can connect to all the major instant messaging services like AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk and Jabber. Unlike the others, however, Digsby can also connect to social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. It even has a built-in email checker, too.

Digsby has always been free. This presents a problem for the company that develops it: how can you make money when your product is free?

For the past couple of versions, they have used product tie-ins with the Digsby installer to install various toolbars and other applications. This isn’t unheard of in the software world (even Sun’s Java installer asks if you want to install the MSN toolbar… isn’t that ironic?). And even if Digsby had more toolbar offers than most, they were easy to click “No” to, and you only had to deal with it once, during the install (after that, all Digsby upgrades run automatically in the background).

Continue reading “A Digsby Warning”

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-16

  • New celeb crushes: Morven Christie and Laurence Leboeuf (yes, that’s a girl!) #
  • Sunday: a day of rest… where “rest” is Ambien and Tanqueray. #
  • You know, when I was a kid, if we wanted an inline bridge that did packet destination filtering, we had to set it up ourselves! #
  • TiVo users fast-forward past Paula Abdul more than any other American Idol judge: http://ping.fm/ImDJx #
  • Woot! The Steelers are on TV tonight! (It’s pre-season, but still) #
  • Only 4 hours until FOOTBALL! (What’s with Ping being so slow today?) #
  • Go Steelers! 🙂 #
  • I’ve been avoiding iLike, for fear of getting sucked in for hours. But now… I’m getting sucked in! #
  • @ Dammit Janet #
  • “I wanna hear some Pixies, dammit!” #

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Hotel Babylon: Season 4, Episode 8

Hotel Babylon
Season 4, episode 8
Aired: August 14, 2009 on BBC1

hotel_babylon_s04_e08
SYNOPSIS

Juliet and Sam are all lovey-dovey after last week’s “reunion”… but sadly, it’s not to last. While hosting a mixer for upscale singles, Juliet runs into one of her old friends. That friend gets incredibly drunk and starts making an ass out of herself because she has a secret. The woman hosting the event wants the woman thrown out, and when Sam and Juliet escort her to a room to sleep it off, Juliet’s “friend” reveals a dark secret to Sam about Juliet’s past. The secret is so bad that it immediately drives a wedge between Sam and Juliet.

Meanwhile, in the canteen, the rest of the staff are chuckling over a steamy, tawdry manuscript that someone has found lying around the hotel. Geno is intrigued, and tries to find the author of the book… but he’s in for a big surprise when he finds out who the author is.

Continue reading “Hotel Babylon: Season 4, Episode 8”

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Beware Stealth Starbucks!

There has always been a certain amount of resentment about the success of Starbucks, the ubiquitous Seattle-based coffee chain. Many Americans hate chains in general, but there’s just something about Starbucks that really brings out the hate in people in a way that Chili’s and Applebee’s do not. Maybe it’s the “unnecessary luxury” of their products (everyone has to eat, but no one needs coffee, right?). Maybe it’s the “frou-frou” nature of their drinks. Maybe it’s their soccer mom clientele.

Whatever the case may be, Starbucks is acutely aware of this and is now launching a chain of individually-branded coffee houses throughout the US. These are Starbucks stores selling Starbucks products… but you won’t find the “Starbucks” name anywhere in the store. For all you know, “Myers Park Coffee Company” or “The Inman Park Coffee House” could be Starbucks locations in all but name only.

Seattle’s 15th Avenue E Coffee and Tea is the first of these locations, with more to come.

What do you think about these “stealth Starbucks” stores?

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Saturday News Dump

Here are a couple of quick stories from the UK I meant to post earlier this week:

– A pedophile in North Yorkshire was caught… after burglars broke into his house and stole his laptop! Once back at their “hideout”, they booted up the computer and  found child pornography on it. They then hid the laptop in a public location and called the police. It’s nice to know that even thieves have consciences, right? Read more here.

– Anyone familiar with marijuana culture probably knows about “herbal highs”, which are herbs and plants sold as “legal highs” in head shops across the US and UK. Years ago, such “herbal high” products contained real (but very weak) herbs that could, in fact, give you an ever so slight “high”… as “high” as one could get off rabbit tobacco. Over the years, the makers of these products have stepped up their game, and have figured out ways to make these “legal highs” more potent. Unfortunately this includes spraying the herbs with unknown and unregulated substances which often cause paranoia and panic attacks in users. This effectively makes them more dangerous than marijuana, the illegal drug they were attempting to mimic. So now there’s a plan to ban these substances in the UK… which leads to an amusing situation where production might go underground… and people will have to buy the stuff from the same drug dealers they thought they were bypassing by buying the once-legal herbs!

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George Michael arrested… again!

This guy gets arrested more often than a $10 whore! Is he in some kind of competition with Peter Doherty  or something?

George Michael was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of drink or drugs yesterday – only two months after getting his licence back.

The singer was breathalysed at the side of the road and taken into police custody after his £60,000 Range Rover crashed into the back of an articulated lorry.

He was held at the police station for almost five hours before being released without charge. Laurie Rowe, the driver of the lorry, said: ‘He seemed completely disorientated, like he had no idea what was going on.

via ‘Dazed’ George Michael held after crashing into a lorry.

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Gordon Ramsey: Broke?

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey came this close to declaring bankruptcy earlier this year. Apparently the global recession has caused business to collapse at his worldwide chain of over 20 restaurants – in fact, profits have fallen from £3 million (around $5 million) to just under £400,000 (around $665,000). Things were so dire for Ramsey that he could no longer afford to keep up payments on a £10.5 million ($17 million) loan, and he and his father-in-law were compelled to put in £5 million of their own money into the business. Times are so tough that Ramsey had to sell his Ferrari F430 (one of his most prized possessions) and he even considered selling his London home. Interestingly, Ramsey says that business on the weekend isn’t so bad, but the weekday trade at his various restaurants has nearly come to a complete stop. Read more.

In other news, Ramsey announced that he will start charging diners on his Hell’s Kitchen show in a bid to cut down on the number of aspiring actors and “wannabes” on the show. Ramsey was infuriated last year when his alleged mistress, Sarah Symonds, was allowed into the dining room without his knowledge. Read more.