I Must Remember Never to Annoy the Famous...

...because they do not fuck around. Celebrities are gangsta.

Think about it: they've got posses, they've got guns, and if they shoot you -- even if they confess, and there's blood, and a murder weapon, and a witness....

They're still not going to jail.

Man, I can't wait till I'm famous.

(I promise not to shoot anyone that doesn't deserve it.)

:)

The Nutcracker

(photo copyright Mikhail Metzel)

Newseum.org

I bet you're already excited. Good. You'd better be. Because I just found the coolest site on the whole internet:
Newseum (TA DA!)
It's a museum dedicated to journalism, and their website is fantastic. Its best feature is a section that contains scans of newspapers' front pages from around the world. And they're not snooty; any paper can send a PDF scan of its front page.
Newseum is opening in Washington, D.C. in 2008 and I'm totally going. I will seriously book a plane ticket specifically to visit this place. Maybe I'll see the Capitol Building or something while I'm there, on the count of I haven't seen it since I was ten, but only if I've got time.
I've got to prioritize.
And now, a super-sized, super-geeky sampling of the wares (this is not for the faint of heart):

Beijing, China.

London, England.(UK)

The Guardian is a classic. I love the layout, the font, the close-up photograph on the front page....

Iceland.

The major statements are the photograph and the font of the paper's name. Both make me think of Bergman, a native of a neighboring Nordic country.

Beautifully designed. Our newspapers don't get that kind of attention, though a few of our non-glossy magazines do. Some of the papers below are just for fun, but I think it's interesting to see what was considered important enough to deserve a spot on the front page of the newspaper yesterday, depending on where you lived. It's also fascinating how people around the world prefer their news presented to them.




















The other papers' countries of origin, top to bottom:
Taiwan
Russia
UAE
Sweden
France
USA
Portugal
Japan
Canada
Brazil
Turkey
Bahrain
Iran

Where Babies Come From

"Fine, you wanna know, I'll tell you. But you're gonna wish you bought that stork bullshit."

(photo copyright Eugene Hoshiko).

Greenspan on "Meet the Press"

Watch his segment on NBC, but these were his answers for the rapidfire name-a-president section:

Who was the smartest?
Toss up between Clinton and Nixon. Once for a State of the Union address, someone put the wrong speech in Clinton’s teleprompter. I don’t know anybody who knew the difference, and I think that requires a degree of intellectual capabilities...

Who was the most profane?
Nixon by multiple quantities.

Who was the most normal?
Ford, one of the most decent people I ever met.

Who was the least knowledgeable about economic matters?
All were fairly knowledgeable.

Who put the most political pressure on you?
George H.W. Bush.

A choice quote from Greenspan’s Fox News interview on Tuesday? “Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we’ve had in a while.”

Republicans were pissed because they thought they were in a committed relationship with Greenspan when ALL THIS TIME he was getting some on the side with the Dems. But they still can’t go after him, because if this dude sneezes, the Market gets jittery. He’s the perfect supervillian and he’s totally wasting it. I urge Greenspan to demand sovereignty over a state -- one of the good ones -- while he’s still young enough to think up something ridiculous and amusing for his subjects to do.

Emmys

All I can think about are the film students who had to park 25 blocks away from campus all week.

SHCOOL

Where I Will Build My Next Fort

And you are all invited! (These dudes will guard the joint while we're away...)

Buddhist Monks to Rise Up Against Us if We Don't Stop Laughing at Them

And let’s be honest, we kind of have it coming. The trouble started when an internet nutjob claimed that a Japanese ninja defeated several monks from China’s famed Shaolin Temple in unarmed combat. The user posted, “The facts [sic] that the monks could not defeat a Japanese ninja showed that they were named kung fu masters in vain.”

In response, the monks’ lawyer sent a notice to the Beijing News clarifying that “the defeat is purely fabricated” and that “we demand the Internet user to apologize to the whole nation for the wrongs he or she did.”

Now I readily admit to being an ignorant American, but you have to have a pretty high opinion of yourself to assume someone ragging on you = someone ragging on The Nation As A Whole. Did the nutjob have to say “Japanese” ninja? Was that an extra dig? Given my elementary understanding of the history between the two countries and having absolutely no knowledge of either language, I would say yes, he was twisting the needle. But it was still really funny. Are there no funny monks? And how’d they find out about this guy, anyway? Does one of them have a Google alert sent to his inbox any time the words “Shaolin Showdown” appear on the internet?

Oh. Not in China, he doesn’t.

Back to the story:

Though China and Japan are certainly Not BFF, they’re old neighbors and seasoned forces on the world stage, so surely both nations immediately recognized the ridiculousness of the situation and chose to ignore it. I mean, why get upset over an item so silly I kind of wish I’d made it up? And they all lived happily ever after…

Elephant on the Junk, Did not Stash it in the Trunk

If you lead an elephant to water, he will drink. But if you drug an elephant to make him more “manageable”, then abandon him in the jungle with a raging heroin addiction, I hope you drown, you heartless, evil bastard.

Italians to Strike. French Figure They Might As Well, Too.

On September 13th, Italians will be going on a pasta strike to protest recent price increases. To combat the inevitable withdrawal symptoms (most Italians eat pasta at least once a day), strike organizers will set up emergency stands offering free bread and milk in all major Italian cities for those in need of carbohydrates. The 11% of Italian families living at the poverty line were overjoyed to hear the news, telling this reporter that they wished there was a strike every day.

One man said, “Pasta isn’t so great, if you really think about it. It needs butter or sauce to even taste like anything. Now where was that stand you mentioned?” While another commented, “Milk is better for the bones. I am completely Italian, in case you were wondering.” The prime minister has condemned the protest, mostly because it has called into question the appropriateness of his new vacation home in Turin, which has been dubbed the “Mani-cottage” by the English press, as it is an English-style hunting cottage constructed entirely out of manicotti. The opposition party has repeatedly pointed out that none of their members possess edible dwellings of any kind, but this has done little to tip the polls in their favor, and may only be making their constituents hungrier.
When asked for comment, the Italian army surrendered.