Monthly Archives: February 2010

– Boxing: If you were holding off on buying that Andre Berto shirt from last week, just know that a large fit me fine but is a little long in length.  Anyone smaller than me I’d recommend a medium.  All proceeds go to the Red Cross for their efforts in Haiti.

– Quiet helicopters: There’s more that goes into these blades than just the shape, but who cares.  Shit looks dope:  (Gizmodo)

– Bread flinger: Southern India in the house.  Also,  I first read this as “bread finger”, so was kinda expecting something else:  (Boing Boing)

– Carnivorous plants may save lives: Some locals in India have been known to drink the nectar of plants that trap and kill insects.  Scientist have found that the nectar has fungi-killing compounds.  So India has cool bread tossers and locals that drink poison.  Nice.  (Yes, I know it’s not “poison”, but would you drink that shit?  Yeah, didn’t think so.)  (Discovery News)

– Seven hottest chicks right now: According to The World’s Best Ever.  I disagree with numbers 1, 3, and 7.  So let’s rename this “Four really hot chicks and some questionable ones right now”.  (The World’s Best Ever)

– Get Sum Poosie: Manny Ramirez is going to help promote the new strip-club themed energy drink called “Sum Poosie”:  (Brosnan)

– Speaking of strippers: NY Daily News reported that “pole dancing” may be a test sport in the 2012 Olympics.  I’m a fan already.  Most surprising?  British chicks are the ones backing the “sport”.  Seriously England, you think you’re gonna beat us in this??  (NY Daily News)

– Group litters street, calls it art: Kidding, kinda.  They took books and attached lights to them then put them in the middle of the road so literature could replace traffic:  (unurth)

– Stop-motion in the house: Here’s a bunch of bricks in a dark room.  Here’s a bunch of sticky notes on a wall showing Mickey Mouse.  (The World’s Best Ever, bricks; Boing Boing, mickey)

– Harter’s a man: According to a recent survey by AdMob Mobile Metrics, 73% of Android owners are male.  (Engadget)

– Spider hair on food packaging: Scientist have found a way to coat surfaces in spider hair, which is naturally water resistant.  Also, as water slides off the surface it will collect dirt thereby making the surface self-cleaning.  OK, so I lied, they aren’t really using spider hairs and are instead mimicking the hairs on a spider’s body.  (Institute of Nanotechnology)

– Light art performance photography: Not sure what that means, and here’s a video that shows how Dana Maltby creates this stuff, but this looks dope:  (Boing Boing)

– Rich hedge fund managers’ hot daughters: Some are kinda young, but who cares?  They’re loaded.  Study up so you know who to go for.  (Dealbreaker)

– Armored golf carts: Exactly what they sound like:  (Geekologie)

– ACORN rebrands: In New York they are calling themselves New York Communities for Change.  So there’s another organization you can avoid.  (Brosnan)

– Now that’s a keychain: I don’t know what I did with the Leatherman Mrs. Ces bought us for graduation but this thing crushes the Leatherman.  It’s called the Guppie:  (Gizmodo)

– Health care insurance reform: Sorry, I really really wanted to be politics-free this week.  It’s not my fault they held a farce of a “summit” on the issue on Thursday.  Anyway, the left loves claiming that health insurance companies sacrifice patients’ health for profits.  Weird thing to say about the 86th most profitable industry (by profit margin, or profit divided by revenue).  Since the beer industry is just under 8 times more profitable, when are politicians going to start trying to take over our beer?  (Carpe Diem)

– Marquis Daniels shirt: Really it’s his chain, but Palma’s mix up led to 60 emails so figured I’d stick with it.  So yeah, basketball player Marquis Daniels has a big ass chain, er shirt… of his own head:  (Money)

– Let me sum up Arizona’s basketball season: With one picture:

– Damian Marley and Nas: They’ve collaborated on an African-themed album that’s due out on 4/20 (you think I was gonna write “April 20th”?  Come on.)  This song is entitled “As We Enter”.  (Wooten)

– Lingerie model gets gangsta wit it: This chick below was running one of the world’s largest drug gangs:  (Telegraph)

– Ever wonder what RZA sampled for “Ice Cream”? Me either, but here it is (kicks in at :45).  (Phonte’s Twitter)

– Twitter update: Blake has 32 followers (down from 33).  Fuck it.  Just… fuck it.  No RTs and no mentions.

– Tweet of the week: This week goes to Busta Rhymes (BusaBusss).  Mainly because of the ways people have described their followers (tweeples, twitterverse, twitterville, etc), I had not seen “twiggas”:

“It don’t stop twiggas, Me and @raekwonicewater in the lab cheffin’ some unbelievable fine cusine fa yall right now!!!”

Which he accompanied with this pic:

– What you missed: Archer.  I told you it’d still be here.  Miss the marathon on Thursday?  Womp womp.  Why?  Told you last week and texted you, too.  This week it got renewed for a second season of 13 episodes, so you got time to catch up.  Again, Hulu is slowly putting up full episodes as the first three are now there.

– What I missed: Funny Or Die Presents.  It’s an HBO show that airs on Fridays at midnight (or Saturdays, if you want to be a dick about it).  They basically run a few of their videos from online on TV.  I’m sure they aren’t putting the videos marked for death on the show, so it should be funny.  Just don’t know how I missed something like that.  See?  I’m not perfect.  Extremely close to perfect, but not quite.

(Updated 02/21/10 @ 11:20 PM: So yeah, NJ Beer Co is not the only brewery in New Jersey.  My bad.)

– Boxing: Some quick hits:

• Tomasz Adamek has agreed to fight Cris “Fat Tits” Arreola in the Heavyweight division on April 24th (HBO Boxing After Dark).  Adamek will destroy fatty.
• Yuri Foreman and Miguel Cotto can fight in Yankee Stadium on June 5th after the Yankees rescheduled a bar mitzvah.
• Mayweather was on Brian Kenny’s radio show this week, some good sound bites especially “I don’t know anyone who would turn down a $25 million drug test.”  Except Pacquiao.
• Berto has a cool shirt that benefits Haiti (how much goes to Haiti, I don’t know, but the shirt is cool):

– New Jersey Beer Company: If you haven’t heard, McCarthy is helping his buddy start a brewing company in New Jersey.  The logo’s dope, the beer should be tasty, and McCarthy gets to keep his beard.

– Trombone Shorty: Best.  Concert.  Ever.  Well, not really, but pretty fucking close.  Great night at the Highline Ballroom last night with this trombone player from New Orleans.  He doesn’t play jazz, more like R&B, rock, funk, soul.  Did some covers but the most impressive thing was they just never slowed down.  Just when you thought some drum solo was going to happen and Shorty would leave the stage… he’d pick up drum sticks and help the drummer.  Energy was high the whole time and if you get the chance to see him, do it.  It was like a Roots show when they have a lot of brass players.  Oh, and the douchebag in the flannel – we would have beaten the shit out of you.

– Penny gets a new look: No, not my mom, but our one cent piece.  This hits the streets this year:  (Boing Boing)

– Swiss to vote on lawyers for animals: Yeah, nothing else to really say about this.  (Yahoo! News)

– Favorite headline of the week: “Coming Without Warning“.  Even better, it was written by Cox.  (Discovery)

– Inglourious Basterds posters: $300 a pop to benefit Haiti, OK’d by Tarantino and sold by Upper Playground.  This one is my favorite, because I love the Bear Jew:   (The World’s Best Ever)

– Women are greedy: Men need to earn $30,000 per every inch they are shorter than another prospective male.  That means Woo has to hit the lottery.  (Carpe Diem)

– Naked chicks smoking pot: They are not all winners though (we can’t all be, now can we?).  (The World’s Best Ever)

– Fuck Frugans: These are people who have roof over their heads yet live their lives like homeless people.  They scrounge garbage cans for food, books, and other shit you wouldn’t touch if it was in a garbage can.  Bucheri’s waiting for the next posting that says “Instead of paying rent, it’s fun and affordable to shield yourself from the elements inside any standard cardboard box. I am so opportunistic!”  They do this all in the name of preserving food and being better humans by limiting waste.  I call it “fucking over the homeless”.  And if that stops me from being invited to a Frugan dinner party, then thank God.  (Boing Boing)

– Blake’s new background at work: This is an eclipse.  You can read about how they created the shot (plus nanoflares) here.  But here’s the high res pic:  (Geekologie)

– China helps America: Some people are pissed that China keeps the yuan cheap compared to our dollar, and in fact our President claims China is manipulating their currency.  Fair enough, but if most of what China exports are chemicals and other components of the goods we create here, then don’t we want that to be cheap as shit?  That makes our products cheaper so more people can afford them… oh wait, sorry, I’m making economic sense.  My bad.  (Carpe Diem)

– Which leads me to Krugman: My head is about to explode.  I really don’t know what happened to this guy but there’s no reason why I should be doing more research than he does for his articles.  He’s a Nobel prize winner, people supposedly respect him, and he has a wide audience.  Yet this week he wrote an article about the most unionized and socialist state in the Union (California) as proof that a free market in health insurance won’t solve the problem.  What?  Here’s Krugman:

“For example, some claim that health costs would fall dramatically if only insurance companies were allowed to sell policies across state lines. But California is already a huge market, with much more insurance competition than in other states; unfortunately, insurers compete mainly by trying to excel in the art of denying coverage to those who need it most. And competition hasn’t averted a death spiral. So why would creating a national market make things better?”

And here’s the Wall Street Journal explaining why insurance in California sucks:

“Wellpoint’s rate hikes are the direct result of the Golden State’s insurance regulations—the kind that Democrats want to impose on all 50 states. Under federal Cobra rules, the unemployed are allowed to keep their job-related health benefits for 18 to 36 months. California then goes further and bars Anthem from dropping these customers even after they have exhausted Cobra. California also caps what Anthem can charge these post-Cobra customers.

…

This explains why Anthem lost $58 million in California on its post-Cobra customers in 2009. If WellPoint didn’t raise premiums amid these losses, it would soon be under assault from its shareholders, if not out of business.”

So yeah, Cali has a lot of competition and consumers to rope in… but they also have a shit ton of regulation and policies that no other state enforces.  In other words, it’s not so simple an argument as Krugman makes it.  Maybe he is right – that buying insurance across state lines won’t help – but he used the worst example possible.

– Here’s a hot Brazilian for you: Sorry for above rant:

– Ten million mile comet trail: Space is small, huh?  (Gizmodo)

– Vintage Japense posters: I checked with Bram and this most likely does not say “Kill America”:  (Gizmodo)

– Need to get out of jail in India? Take up yoga.  (Boing Boing)

– Everyone see 67 year old white guy beat up a black guy? Made the rounds on the innernets this week.  (With Leather)

– Olympic hockey uniforms: Here’s a breakdown on every team.  (Uni Watch)

– Two sites from Ces: Unurth.com, which is a street art site, and Egotastic.com, which posts pictures of hot celebrities.  Enjoy.  (Ces)

– Twitter update: 33 followers (down from 35, what the fuck?).  Will have to start posting on trending topics…  No RTs nor mentions.

– The Marks Financial Update:

• MAB – We left Bunk at $15.05 two weeks ago and he’s risen… to $15.25.  On the plus side, I think the Jaime stop-gap keeps him above $15 as he came close but never dipped below.  Investors were a little annoyed that he didn’t submit a banner for the Update once a week like he said.  Liar.
• MDH – If you listened to me and bought Harter at $2 then I apologize.  Dude is sinking on a nice slope here the past two weeks.  Maybe because his boss’s boss is getting the team on Twitter?  I guess emails don’t work anymore?  Also, that new territory of Jamaica, Queens probably doesn’t help.  Harter just became a little bit more risky even at $1.87.
• MFL – Got as high as $13.17 but finished down at $12.78.  Investors sold coming into the weekend knowing he had a dinner Friday night in the city, then most likely coming back in for ERK!’s band tonight.  Usually his NYC visits create a rise, so if I was Mark Lee I’d be careful tonight in the city.  Just saying.

– What you missed: Archer.  Until I know all three of you are watching this show, it stays here.  Hulu has the first two episodes, which were actually the weakest but definitely worth checking out.  FX will have a marathon on February 25th, so set your DVRs.  Hopefully by the next time I see you, when I say “Danger zone!” you’ll laugh.

– What I missed: Aziz Ansari.  He was in “Observe and Report”, “Funny People”, and is now on “Parks and Recreation.”  His stand-up “Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening” is fucking hilarious.  I actually sent around an email last year for the Will Arnet sex tape from Human Giant, so I should have known about him.  ?uestlove was tweeting about him this week, namely the bit where Aziz talks about fucking with his cousin Harris on Facebook.  Here’s a bit about meeting and hanging with Kanye West.  I love how he makes people sound when he reads their emails/postings.  I should have his stand-up back in my hands this week, so I’ll loan it out if you swing by.

– Boxing: Nothing new, but ladies: if you are in Dallas for the NBA All-Star game, Floyd Mayweather Jr would like to give you $100.  Just approach him and he’ll give you the money, though he cautions: “U gota b fine 2 get da $.”

– Curling is for hotties? I didn’t see this on Deadspin, With Leather, nor Kissing Suzy Kolber.  If it was on some site that I no longer go to, then sorry for the repeat.  Anyway, Claudia Toth curls (is a curler?) for the Austrian team and you should know about her:

– Stop motion metropolis: Charlotte, NC in stop motion.  Called “Metropolis” by Rob Carter.  (The World’s Best Ever)

– BlaccuWeather: Need I say more?  (Brosnan)

– Wal-Mart TV smasher: A dude smashed 29 TVs (some websites reported 27, but I’ll take Smoking Gun’s side):

– V-Day: Considering the only Valentine’s card/gift I’m going to get is from my Mom (thanks, Mom), I’m probably not the best to ask what gifts to get.  But you could get her rootbeer-flavored roses, breathable chocolate, or a mouse that looks like a vagina:

Rub the clit to scroll and hit the g-spot for your favorite website.  Why wouldn’t she like this?  (Rose, chocolate: Discovery; mouse: Gizmodo)

– America still killin’ it: With “5% of the world’s population [Americans] have received more than 22% of the world’s patents over the last century” and if you took just the U.S. exports, we’d have the 8th largest GDP in the world.  (Carpe Diem)

– How do we help low achievers in high school? In Berkley, California, you fire four science teachers and use their salaries for programs to help kids that are struggling in school.  That sentence actually makes sense to someone.  (Wooten)

– That’s a big ass rat: It’s native to South America and is called a capybara.  Still, it’s a rat and this lady kept it as a pet:  (Wooten)

– Think lightning is cool? I know Marky-pooh used to watch the lightning come in with Papa Bunk, so here’s a link to a gallery of slow-motion videos of lightning.  Really cool.  (Wired)

– What about lightning from a volcano? Didn’t think it was possible:  (Boing Boing)

– Beer is good for your bones: Seriously.  It has high amounts of silicon, which we know is good for boning (no?  Fake tit joke didn’t go over well?).  (Discovery)

– Vaccines don’t work so well on fat people: Their fat gets in the way.  (Boing Boing)

– Get ready for pig-lung transplants: Scientists have genetically engineered a pig lung to oxygenate human blood.  (Pop Sci)

– Hate using an iPhone with gloves on? Or any touchscreen phone for that matter?  Well, just get a thin sausage and you’re golden.  What surprises me is that the Koreans figured this out.  (Boing Boing)

– iPhone apps: CNN Money lists the 9 apps they think are the best.  (Jimmy)

– Wondering what Dolph Lundgren is up to? I wasn’t either, but looks like he’s been singing, drumming, and doing karate all this time:  (Boing Boing)

– Space pics: They got a good shot of the Orion Nebula (the “smudge” or spot hanging below Orion’s belt):  (Wired)

And also of the shuttle Endeavour’s lift off:  (Pop Sci)

– Ballin’ Ass Oil Company: Founders of Cash Money Records (yes, of Weezy fame), Birdman and Slim Williams, have started an oil company.  Bronald Oil, is the name if you’re interested.  (Alan)

– Google Buzz launched: Don’t get pissed at all the shit I share on Google Reader showing up in your “Buzz” folder on Gmail.  It’s just more reason why you should be on Reader in the first place.  Also, I think I might just make it so my “Buzz” folder only contains stuff from Landis, since they stole his nickname and all.

– Twitter update: Blake has 35 followers (down from 36).  No RTs nor mentions.

– Tweet of the week: Since you aren’t watching Archer, and I really don’t know why you aren’t, I’ll give his Twitter account (codenameduchess) some props:

“Ladies: if you’re an overnight guest in my home, do NOT use my towel.  If I wanted to rub your ass on my face, I would’ve said something.”

– What you missed: Mac on Lost.  He was actually kinda terrible and was literally playing Mac from Always Sunny instead of a some dude who’s been stuck on an island.  Unfortunately, he died.  Oh, sorry, SPOILER: he dies.

– What I missed: Arizona’s current NCAA Tournament streak is officially only 9, and our highest was 14.  Technically, we’ve played in 25 straight (two away from UNC’s record of 27) but in 1999 Jason Terry took some cash and we had to vacate that year.  Either way, all I’m hearing is how shocking it is that UConn and UNC won’t be in the tournament this year.  I would be pissed, but then I remembered that we don’t play on ESPN so why would ESPN care about us?