Monday, June 28, 2010

Thinkhole

“I am filled that day with vile or evil feelings — ill will toward one I think I should love, ill will toward myself, and discouragement over the work I think I should be doing. I look out the window of my borrowed house, out the narrow window of the smallest room. Suddenly there it is, my own spirit: an old white dog with bowed legs and swaying head staring around the corner of the porch with one mad, cataract-filled eye.” - Lydia Davis, “Examples of Confusion”

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Older Than the Moon, Twice as Wild

A great read right here.

In the corner of the conference room, Ferrucci sat typing into a laptop. Whenever Watson got a question wrong, Ferrucci winced and stamped his feet in frustration, like a college-football coach watching dropped passes. “This is torture,” he added, laughing.

And a great sentence. My dad used to work for I.B.M. and as a child I was amazed at the clunky, whirring machines that lined his office. Futuristic at the time, sure. But they were still just machines to me - international business machines, actually.

Watson is something I would have dreamed up as a kid. After reading, I found myself wondering if, when I'm old, I'm going to have to deal with a robot doctor.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Complaint Box, Summer Edition

You ever have one of those moments where Idiocracy is right around the corner? On TV earlier, I saw two beer commercials in the span of a few minutes. One was for Coors Light's new Cold Activation Window, which visually tells you when your beer is cold enough to enjoy. But you still have to reach out and grab the beer anyway, so...

Also, it's COORS LIGHT. 

The other was for a new Miller Lite bottle that has spiral grooves inside the neck. It's called the Vortex, which helps the beer gush, rapids-like, into your thirst hole. BEER MOUTH FASTER. I can see the billboards now. Schlitterbahn, you're sitting on a tie-in goldmine.

Then I saw a Smirnoff Ice commercial, which reminded me of this, which is a thing apparently. A viral campaign for dude soda that has become real and now random d-bags can punk men who have been on the moon. I only found out about this fratastic phenom the other day - there was a story in the New York Times about it.


All this came in the midst of new BP commercials urging fishermen and others whose livelihoods have been upended to file claims, and B-roll shots of smiling employees looking through outdated file cabinets, while an oil demon rolls towards the Atlantic. An oil demon, y'all! 

It was a terrifying thrill ride into a future of sweatpants and mutants.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010


Can Fabrice Fabrice be at all awards shows?

Jaden Smith's "weird child entourage of tiny monsters." Seriously, what's up with that kid?

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Crude Summer

Someone threw a rock through Mother Nature's window and...


She's


pissed