Photo for Friday, July 31, 2009

Posted: 12:30 am, Friday, July 31sr

Man, tomorrow is August, and that is troubling to me for a whole slew of reasons. Not good times.

The following is fourteen minutes long, but I implore you to watch it. There's some f-bombs, but the primary concern for those of you at work (aside from the fact that it's fourteen minutes long) is that you will be laughing and gasping in horror at... the 10th Annual Gathering of the Juggaloes.

There is nowhere to begin in discussing that video. I want to start with the fact that Ice Cube will do anything for money, but there was another seven or eight minutes of whack-assity after that. I had no idea that clown rap had become its own cottage industry. Or that Kevin Nash and Rowdy Roddy Piper had fallen so far. (Vanilla Ice, we all knew about.) I mean, my God, where to begin with that?

I got 12 on this quiz, without cheating.

This Eliot Spitzer article from Slate on the decades-long shifting of wealth in America is exactly the sort of thing I would love to discuss with my students. I went with the economic approach to knowledge a few times last year, and learned that - and you'll never believe this - I actually had a classroom full of future number-one NBA draft picks and pop stars. I'm as shocked as you.

I don't know why, but I thought about that lunatic who does the religious movie reviews the othey day (I think I wanted to know what he thought about either Harry Potter or the Transformers, or something), and he unfortunately hasn't posted a review since January or so. I poked around a little at some of his older reviews, and found one he wrote up of Kirk Cameron's "Fireproof," which just amused me. He gives the movie an 89, compared to the more-probable F of the AV Club.

From CAP guy:

Noticing this trouble and more, Caleb's father, John (Harris Malcom), who suffered through a rocky marriage himself, sends Caleb a Love Dare journal that saved John's marriage and makes Caleb promise he will follow its instructions to the letter ... for 40 days. (Luke 4:1 - 2?) Caleb begrudgingly follows the journal's instructions. He seems to see "invisible" merit to it and slowly humbles himself to the journal's instructions. Cat remains obstinate and ignores the little nice things Caleb does. The coffee he made for Cat went cold and the flowers Caleb bought for her wilt in the very same spot Caleb set them. Along with the chocolates. Divorce is looming just like the father of lies waits ... patiently. Finally, Cat threatens divorce and begins divorce proceedings.
From there things get worse, much worse before they get better. And get better they do ... after a campaign that would make bitter marriages look blissful by comparison.

Aside from the implication that the chocolates wilt, I was intrigued by what other 'little nice things' Kirk Cameron did that were ignored. From the AV Club:

Small gestures, like holding his tongue when Bethea makes him angry or doing something nice for her, eventually give way to more grandiose gestures until he presumably weakens her defenses.
...
The best he can do on Day 40+ is bring his ailing wife a damp cloth and a bag full of Chik-Fil-A.

Ah! And then there's this to-the-audience aside in the CAP report:

Mom/dad, there are some scenes of brutal, non-battery marital argumentation in Fireproof which your little ones should never see between the two of you. You may want to question whether to let them see this film since many youth (as well as some non-youths) inherently project what they see in film on real life. Let me discuss with you the term "little ones." "Little ones" is mikros meaning little, small of age, younger. Therefore, "little ones" includes at-home teens since they are and always will be younger than you.

That is awesome. I should probably send that guy money for all the entertainment I've gotten from him over the years.

The Thoroughly Unpleasant One sent me this article about Guss' Pickles moving to Kensington, which clued me into the fact that Kensington evidently goes on forever. 39th Street and 15th Ave? I have no idea where that is. But I will go there, because I love pickles. I also like that the Lost City mission statement involves the word 'jeremiad,' which is a long, noisome complaint.

A Scott Pilgrim video game? If this is not an astoundingly difficult 16-bit-esque game, it is destined to suck.

A very good, very even, very long article on Dr. Geroge Tiller, the Wichita, Kansas, abortionist who was murdered in his church earlier this year.

bullfrog

MNP -- Friday, July 31 2009, 09:14 am

Happy Birthday, MJL!

Just google mapped Guss Pickles new location - it's actually just a few blocks from the church ave F station....

I can't believe Guss' is leaving. I will never be able to watch Crossing Delancey again and have it be so meaningful to me. As a former resident of the LES, I am so glad I have left as all the charm of the neighborhood is being stripped away.

That's about the middle of Kensington, historically. Go here:

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~26282~1110045:City-of-New-York---City-of-Brooklyn

Have you been to this amazing map site? See that bar there in bottom center of the map image-- click on the plus to enlarge, and then drag the map around like on Google maps, to get to Kensington. Next to the K, that little black square is Kensington station on the Prospect Park and Coney Island Railroad-- a steam railroad that ran down in private right of way down the center of Gravesend Ave (now McDonald Ave) from 9th and 20th down to Coney Island. Look at all that open land in southern Brooklyn, a bit over a hundred years ago! And some of the streets shown were not actually built up yet either.

I think the reason 16th and 39th is zoned commercial is because of the adjacent railroad that isn't there any more!

Oh my God, that map site is awesome. I need to leave the computer before it sucks up my entire day.

Thanks, MNP. I think tonight we shall celebrate at Chuck E. Cheese. Last time JJ beat me at skeeball. She better let me win this time.

I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to read "Notre Dame," "apologize," and "gay slur" in the same headline, and have it not involve anyone representing Notre Dame being the ones making the gay slur.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Hawaii-coach-McMackin-apologizes-profusely-for-e?urn=ncaaf,179888

(note for sticklers: those phrases do not appear in *this* headline, but in others, from more 'respectable' sources, who do not actually tell what the slur was - I went with this link so we could get the cold, hard truth)

And happy birthday, buddy.

i like blogs.

Blogs are awesome.

The AV Club lists a ton for your time-wasting pleasure today, also.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/favorite-timewasting-websites,31112/

Maybe everyone has already seen this article already, but in honor of Ron & Pete's pizza today, I furnish the following quotation about the goodness of Di Fara's pizza:

“Worth [the $30],” said Mr. Mancino, 64, between bites on Wednesday afternoon. “It’s like they dug up my grandma and she made the pie.”

Whole article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/nyregion/31pizza.html

Thanks Frog.

I'm puzzled as to why the Hawaii thing is coming out 8-ish months after the fact. Weird.

Di Fara's is totally worth five bucks a slice. A round pie with sausage is only $28. Thanks for the link, ktbb.

It's only coming out now, MJL, because he just made this awesome faux pas at his conference's media day. So he's harbored the thought about the dance for eight months, but only just verbalized it.

I have no idea how I never knew this story about Jim Rice - he saved a kid from dying after he was hit by a foul ball back in the day.

http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/baseball/story/1613006.html

Wow, shit is bad in Alabama (uh, worse than usual, I guess I mean), where Jefferson County is laying off 2/3rds of the government workers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/us/01alabama.html

Choice paragraph:

"The tax that was ruled illegal, known as the occupational tax, is essentially a 0.5 percent tax on income, but the phrase “income tax” does not sit well with Alabamians. One of its peculiarities is that it exempts a long list of professionals like doctors and lawyers, as well as phrenologists, circus managers and crystal gazers. In 1999, state lawmakers from Jefferson County, who are allowed by legislative tradition to control the county’s ability to levy taxes, tried to earmark part of the money for their own projects, and the county balked."

Change is especially difficult in Alabama because of their state constitution, which I believe is the longest legal document in America. Lemme see if I can find something about that.

Yep, world's longest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama#Law_and_government

While we all know that the music industry is in steep decline, there are some really jarring numbers in this Times article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/opinion/01blow.html

"...of the 13 million songs for sale online last year, 10 million never got a single buyer and 80 percent of all revenue came from about 52,000 songs."

WOW.

So...does that mean the World have really limited tastes in music and really needs to expand their horizons?

This is worth the payoff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNO6OUd6iOc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ethesuperficial%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

Oh, that was good, Tree.