“Here at MeatShake Corporation,” the site says, “we have a simple vision: Meat. Lots of meat.”
I like the idea behind their Celebrity Meatshakes, especially the lamb shake named for Lars Ullrich from Metallica: “Mutton Else Matters”.
Jewish Buddha is the weblog of a law student who’s studying in Washington, DC. He’s currently looking for articling jobs, and if you happen to be someone with hire/fire authority at a law firm, you may want to give his resume a look, as he seems to be a pretty nice guy.
(Hmmm. Maybe that’s not what law firms are looking for. )
Anyhow, two lines from his weblog jumped out at me. Here’s the first, which is about salaries:
Proof that law students live in a different world: We say things like, “Yeah, I was thinking of working there until I realized they only pay first-year associates $110,000,” without a trace of irony.
Remember, that amount is in real US dollars, not “Canadian Snow Pesos”.
The second, on the absolving power of “hotness”, if one possesses sufficient amounts thereof:
“She’s not nearly hot enough to be half as annoying as she is.” — my roommate, TV Critic genius.
Jewish Buddha, your roomate and my roomate should get their own TV critique show.
eBay has since taken down the auction for the phone I mentioned earlier. However, having guessed that the photo might not meet with eBay’s approval, I saved it. Once again, I must point out that although it’s only slightly racier than photos you’d see in MAXIM, it may not be safe for your workplace.
Come to think of it, I could’ve saved the entire page. Well, I got the important part, anyway.
The actual item up for bid the eBay auction in question is ordinary:
Motorola V60i cellphone <AT&T only>
Brand new and in the box still!!! AT&T Digital multi-network phone, battery, charger and headset. Look stylish using this sleek and compact aluminum finish phone. Have fun with 3 built in games. Stay connected with up to 4 hours talktime and 192 hours of standby time. 32 built in ring tones. Text messaging. Voice activated dialing.
What sets it apart is the photo. (Warning: Slightly racier than what you’d find in MAXIM. May or may not be safe for work.)
My reactions:
(Thanks to pr00f for the link.)
Bush said he insulates himself from the “opinions” that seep into news coverage by getting his news from his own aides. He said he scans headlines, but rarely reads news stories.
“I appreciate people’s opinions, but I’m more interested in news,” the president said. “And the best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world.”
I didn’t know “objective” meant “hand-picked sycophants who are on your payroll”.
Keep in mind that executive managers of all stripes — from the president of the United States of America to someone who runs a day care centre — is going to need the “big-picture view” of what’s going on and will rely their subordinates to give them a short precis of what’s going on. That’s why they’re called “executive summaries”.
That being said, all news is subjective. Anything that someone tells you is filtered through their own particular worldview, which is influenced by their education, knowledge, socio-politico-complexo-migraino leanings and all those other niggly details that make each person unique. It’s not that Bush (or for that matter, any of us) want objective news, he wants news that fits his worldview. Unfortunately (or fortunately, for the disciples of Supply Side Jesus), Bush’s idea of “objective news” is probably FOX News. Hey, it says ‘Fair and Balanced’ right on the label!
The myth of “objective” news, according to Ben Bagdikian in his book The Media Monopoly, was created by newspapers in order to avoid alientating advertisers. Anyone who believes that any given newspaper is objective is a sucker and should apply to the Accordion Guy Remedial Media Literacy Course. For the low cost of just one Apple PowerBook a year*, I will tell you what to think!
Isn’t there a line in Macchiavelli’s The Prince that warns you about the dangers of surrounding yourself with yes-men and listening only to them? My copy’s nowhere near me, but I’m sure there’s a classics major among you…
(* I stole this idea from Cory Doctorow, whose plan is to keep himself on top of the tech wave by creating a religion where he is the chief cleric and adherents must buy him the latest and fastest PowerBook once a year. “I’d only have to recruit one person,” he says.)
Nerve gets it right about cats:
Attachment to a non-human mammal that doesn’t give a fuck about you bespeaks emotional damage. It’s the kind that transforms you from “alluringly quirky” to “certifiable.”
Remember, folks: Cats are not pets. They’re egg rolls waiting to happen.
Cats are but one of the fifty items on their “Unsexy List”. Yes, it’s filler written by a bunch of people who gathered in the Nerve.com employee lounge over Snackwell cookies (“they’re low fat!”) who’d be operating the fry machine at McDonald’s if there weren’t an Internet, but:
a) it’s sorta funny
b) you probably don’t want these people touching your food.
It’s very odd — last night, I stumbled across a CD of mine that the song Baker Street. Not the original version by Gerry Rafferty (Baker Street is from his 1978 album, City to City), the one with the killer sax riff by Raphael Ravenscroft, but a 1992 cover that stayed mostly true to the original, modifying it only slightly by palying it with a more “house music” rhythm (I hear the Foo Fighters have covered Baker Street, but I’ve never heard their version). While listening to it, two things came to mind:
(By the way, Accordion City is not quite like the city in the lyrics; as events like yesterday’s Kensington Market Festival go to show, it’s got quite a bit of soul.)
