Category: Entertainment

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Boeing, Store Wars, The Messengers

On Thursday, Northwest Cable News had a one-hour special on Boeing, its new 7E7 plane, and the likelihood that the airline company will have the plane built somewhere other than Seattle. Governor Locke plans to reward Boeing’s behavior and its frequent layoffs with a $3.2 billion tax break over 20 years.

“It’s like Elvis… there’s [been] a lot of sightings all over the place.”
King Abdullah of Jordan on Saddam Hussein’s whereabouts

Get PBS to run Store Wars in your town. It’s about a West Virginia town that fights an incoming WalMart plan.

Nightline had a special called The Messengers, about a preaching competition held at the infamous Bob Jones University. A compelling story, but a bit creepy, as most of the contestants, around 18 or 19, looked very 1950s in appearance.

Bush waters down an EPA report, watering down references to global warming.

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Giant colon, Bullfighter, God

Yay! A giant colon is coming to Seattle! Keep the weekend of July 8th free — after the July 4th barbecues, come see what’s probably going on in your inner tubes. I’m much more excited about this than I should be, but then, I’m easily amused.

Giant colon

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has created Bullfighter, a software program that converts awful corporate buzzwords into plain English. The tagline for Bullfighter is ‘Stripping the Bull Out of Business’. After 12 years in the corporate arena (I shouldn’t even say the word ‘arena’ — I mean, honestly, it provides no ‘value-added expectations’), it’s about time companies wrote in plain English. Of course, perhaps the wordiness was just a ploy to mask a lack of a business plan?

God has an online journal!

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Rube Goldberg Honda edition

Last night, I took a quiet night in and watched the C-SPAN book TV special featuring Molly Ivins, Bill O’Reilly and Al Franken. Al has an extensive interview in this Alternet article.

Wow. I’m fascinated that this UK Honda commerical utilizing a Rube Goldberg device structure took 606 takes to get done correctly, six million dollars to create, and used NO computer graphics or digital effects.

“I gave Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill the gavel medallion, and Ralph Nader the one with the Corvair on it. It looked great with his Nehru jacket.”
Bud E. Luv, on jewelry, from his book “You Oughta Be Me”

Woody Allen an intermediary for US-Franco relations? Yes.

Someone defaced the Labour Party website. Is Tony Blair man’s best friend? Maybe just Dubya’s.

The CD minimum advertised price settlement has been settled. If you signed up for it, you’ll receive a check for $13.

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Get your war on sex after death

The Webby Awards were held online this time, a far cry from the lavish Academy Award-like parties they used to have during the dot-com boom. The best humor site: Get Your War On, the best comic strip you could ever make with office clipart. The best political site: MoveOn.org, proof that the Internet can be used as a powerful social movement tool, like the efforts of the IMC.

My friend Clara and I saw Sex After Death at Consolidated Works. All of the theatre patrons stepped inside what looked like a cross-section of a hotaired balloon — large vinyl panels from floor to ceiling that formed a circle around us — with pillows on the floor. The actors performed behind the panels in silhouette, in addition to puppets and transparencies with illustrations to tell a story about a wet nurse and a little girl who descend into Hell to find a little boy and a dog, and the beings they encounter along the way. While slow in stretches, it had some genuinely funny moments and the originality of the presentation made it worthwhile.

Dr Samuel Waskal, founder of ImClone, was sentenced to prison today. Martha Stewart pleaded not guilty. While several other companies and individuals have been brought up on charges, none have been sentenced. Waskal is the first person to go to prison based on the almost-two-year-old wave of accounting scandals.

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Camlin Hotel becomes a Trendwest resort :(

A Seattle landmark has been purchased by Trendwest Resorts: the Camlin hotel is to be turned into an exclusive vacation hotel, and its famous piano bar and one of my favorite lounges, The Cloud Room, is to close. I hadn’t heard either that one of the best laundromat-cafes in Seattle, Sit ‘n’ Spin, has also closed. When I first moved to Seattle in 1994, it was a favorite spot of mine, and as Belltown became trendy, it, like The Vogue, looked increasingly out-of-place with brand new construction and pricey condominiums and Starbucks/retail complexes.

I don’t play it, but it turns out a group of people in the online community/game The Sims Online has created their own mafia to fill a leadership vacuum in their virtual city.

It looks like legal proceedings against Bernie Ebbers can continue with a report to be released Monday showing Ebbers had a direct role in Worldcom wrongdoings.

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C-Span and “Lying Liars”

Who says C-SPAN can’t be exciting? This weekend Bill O’Reilly and Al Franken went at it during a Q&A session at a book convention. The segment will re-air this Sunday, June 8, at 5:30pm EST. Discussion about the shouting match can be found at this link (scroll down to ‘Monday, June 2, 6:56pm ‘) or you can listen to it via an MP3 file or check out the banter from Al Franken’s website.

Check out Al’s upcoming book, ‘Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them‘.

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SIFF, media concentration

I finally got to check out a couple of films from SIFF: Direct Order, about the Anthrax Vaccine, its ties to Gulf War Syndrome and US military denials; and then ‘Unprecendented: The 2002 Presidential Election‘ talked about the many suspicious activities surrounding the Florida recount. The Florida constitution forbids ex-felons from voting. That a disproportionate number of ex-felons are African-American and a high majority would likely vote Democratic, what might have been the outcome of the race if tens of thousands of eligible voters hadn’t been removed?

The FCC voted to loosen media concentration today. More crap, fewer voices. People say the Internet and cable will keep those voices diversified, but if they’re also owned by the same five or six companies, it really makes no difference. Independent viewpoints have a much smaller forum in which to be heard. There’s going to be an abundance of lawsuits, though: media companies say the legislation doesn’t go far enough, while citizen groups and the NRA (!) say it’s gone too far. Congress had even spoken up against this, and spoke up again after the vote had ruled in favor of loosening the restrictions.

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First post (sort of)

So this is my first attempt at a personal website. The text section contains various writings over the years, images will fill up gradually, as will the people (I know), news and files. Basically, a blank slate waiting to be filled with love, conflict, and up-to-rated R content.

“Truckers are not second class citizens. We are the willing doing the impossible. Please help us if you can.”
Seen on the back of a truck from a bus on the way to Brighton from London, UK

I spent the last couple of weeks in the three cultural capitals of the world: San Francisco, Las Vegas and London/Brighton, UK. Highlights included a 100 ft inflatable sculpture of a cube-headed Pinocchio in black, courtesy of American artist Paul McCarthy, now on exhibit at the Tate Modern. That, and the West Pier burned down as I was arriving there.

Anyway, to celebrate, I now present exotic pictures of condoms, purchased from Brighton’s Japanese specialty store, Nasty Nip.

Japanese condoms