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Well that clears that up

Well that clears that up

Daniel Radosh

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From the Northwest Florida Daily News. Emphasis on self-censorship mine, of course.

An Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office deputy patrolling an area known for prostitution and narcotic sales stopped a car driven by an elderly white male on March 25.

There was a middle-aged female in the passenger seat.

The driver, who was 77, said he was driving down Lovejoy Road when the woman flagged him down and used a slang term to offer to give him oral sex for $30, according to her arrest report. The driver said he was not sure what she meant so he asked her to clarify. She used a different slang term. He declined, according to the report.

So what is the hip term for rolling cigars among septuagenarians? Other questions raised by astute Daily News readers: If he declined, why was she driving around in the car with him? Why was he pulled over, or is driving in a "known" prostitution area probable cause these days? And, of course, why is she charging $30 when everyone knows the going rate is $10. It's a shame when people prey on the elderly like that.

[h/t: Charles]

Self-censorship in the Onion

Self-censorship in the Onion

Daniel Radosh

As comedy, this Onion article falls apart quickly, despite a strong opening.

In recognition of her groundbreaking work treating life-threatening diseases of the privates, renowned hoo-ha specialist Dr. Victoria Lazoff was awarded the Nobel Prize in Lady Medicine this week.

However it ends with a lesson to newspapers everywhere about how preposterous their self-censorship efforts sound to normal adult readers.

"We should be encouraging an open dialogue with our young women, one that isn't constrained by some outdated facade of 1950s morality," Lazoff said to a crowd of people looking down at their shoes. "I cannot say this clearly enough: Ladies, please, make an appointment to get your annual [looksie-doo], especially if you are [seeing a fella] or have experienced pain or sensitivity in your ['Hello, my baby! Hello, my darling! Hello, my ragtime gal!']."

Added Lazoff, "It is time for this country to begin having a frank discussion about the [sound of loud, extended train whistle]."

The Anti-Captioner's last laugh

Daniel Radosh

Friends, The New Yorker magazine desperately needs your help. The success of the caption contest has inspired them to launch an actual cartoon contest, wherein readers have been invited assemble an assortment of pre-approved elements into a funny cartoon about a dogs at a bar.

You have less than four days to prevent this from being an utter disaster. Below are three of the current top vote getters. That's right, these are the best of the bunch. In addition to rescuing the contest from itself, you can win a copy of the Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker. Humor, anti-humor, anything... just enter now, then link your cartoons in the comments section here and we'll all go stuff the ballot box.

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Magic Shuffle vs. Noam Chomsky

Daniel Radosh

Yesterday I played a round of Magic Shuffle, the oracle that uses your MP3 player's suffle feature to tell your fortune. It was fun and all, but the questions ("What do my friends really think of me?") were just a little too MySpacey.

Also yesterday, as it happened, my friend Susan sent me a link Noam Chomsky's Washington Post Web chat, in which Chomsky fields some hardball questions from readers who make the people that show up at Bush town meetings sound like Woodward and Bernstein. Which got me wondering: how would Magic Shuffle answer those same questions? More succinctly, at any rate.

Why do you think the US went to war against Iraq?

Chicken Soup With Rice � Carole King. Code for "oil" if I ever heard it. Note to self: delete kids' songs from the iPod (except Pierre � that's a pop masterpiece).

Noam - I heard you talking about international law on alternative radio and (I think) expounding the idea that the Bush administration's flavor of premtive war is illegal. I agree that the Bush administration's actions are illegal. Would you comment on how much we should submit to international law in that area?

Lookin' for a Love � The Valentinos. Translation: A lot, because we want foreigners to like us.

Continue reading "Magic Shuffle vs. Noam Chomsky" »

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The New Yorker Cartoon Anti-Caption Contest #49

Daniel Radosh

Submit the worst possible caption for this week's New Yorker cartoon. Click here for last week's results. Click here for an introduction and "rules" to this contest. Click here for amplification of those rules. Click here for contest index.

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"I gotta go. The guy at the end of the bar is about to say, 'What is this, some kind of joke?' and I have to smack him."

"Holy crap, that's the tallest freakin' Jew I've ever seen. Do they let Jews play in the NBA? He should play in the NBA. Or maybe the JewBA."

Results after the jump

Continue reading "The New Yorker Cartoon Anti-Caption Contest #49" »

Frak yeah!

Daniel Radosh

bghotties.jpgGalactica prequel in the works [via SE].



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The Scouting Magazine Cartoon Anti-Caption Contest #2

Daniel Radosh

Just like the New Yorker thing, but with cartoons from Scouting, the official Boy Scout magazine. Click here for the results of contest #1.

See cartoon here

First they came for the Internets

Daniel Radosh

I got a call this morning from some telecom lobbying group urging me to support legislation to "protect the Internet from government interference."

Nice try, I replied, but I support Net Neutrality. I explained that as a small-time blogger, I don't want an Internets that stacks the deck in favor of big corporations. So then he asked for the name of my blog, and said he'd check it out after work and post a personal comment about this. Do ya think he's coming here to say that he's just a college kid making minimum wage to work the phone bank and that really he agrees with me? 'Cause if not, he is way to dedicated to his cause. I mean, if everybody waited till after their work day to go posting online, the whole blogosphere would shut down. And this is work related! Don't be afraid to get paid, my friend. Either way, I wrote this post just for you to have somewhere to comment, so don't let me down.

But drop the government interference angle. What else is the history of the Internet if not government interference?

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What if celebrities were played by celebrities?

Daniel Radosh

Again we are making fun with face-recognition software on the Internets!

Today's game: uploading photos of actual famous people and seeing who the celebrity database matches them with. MyHeritage correctly identified George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden and Johnny Depp. And then are some celebrities who would apparently be better played by someone other than themselves.

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Continue reading "What if celebrities were played by celebrities?" »

Also, Vogue doesn't make 'em in Women's Extra Large

Daniel Radosh

Why is Gawker stealing t-shirt ideas from Vogue? They can't exactly plead ignorance, either. Please tell me this is supposed to be meta somehow.

Update: It has explained to me that the Gawker shirt is a "reference" to the Vogue shirt. I fail to see how this is different from stealing or any less lame. Why not just go ahead and make a Gawker t-shirt that says Vote for Pedro?

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I've had it with these motherfucking jokes on the motherfucking Internet!

Daniel Radosh

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The world's most ironic toddlers strike again.

This explains why Mel Gibson is rooting for Cell Phone Girl

Daniel Radosh

I distinctly heard him say Jew Wants To Be a Superhero. Canonist has the Semitic angle on my favorite new reality show: Iron Enforcer is a member of the tribe ��and he has a secret plan for peace in the Middle East: "If you can�t get along together, I will blow the land up."

I think they're ahead of you on this one.

All hands brace for a rift in the space-time continuum

Daniel Radosh

It had to happen. For the first time in history, an anti-caption contest winner is a finalist in the actual New Yorker caption contest.

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The view from your window

Daniel Radosh

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No blogging until Sept. 4th. I will do my best to get next week's Anti-Caption Contest up eventually, but I can't promise anything.

Gilding the lilly

Daniel Radosh

You'd think it wouldn't be necessary to spin an article about pedophiles in order to make them sound more despicable. But that's apparently what Kurt Eichenwald did.

A comment to one of my earlier posts about Eichenwald prompted me to look a bit more into BL Charity, described in the story like this:

a putative charity that raised money to send Eastern European children to a camp where they were apparently visited by pedophiles"...

"For example, an organization called BL Charity said it was seeking money to send Eastern European children to camp.

The charity�s site, which recently closed, showed scores of images of children at camp and in their homes, supposedly taken by the men running the site. The effort was organized by pedophiles; BL is the online term for �boy-lover.� It eventually shut down, largely from a lack of money, according to a posting from the site�s operators. After the site closed, further details of BL Charity could not be learned."

In my post I called this "the most alarming" anecdote that Eichenwald found, and it would be, if his description of it was accurate. After the story came out, BL Charity posted a statement

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This is a fraking public service announcement

Daniel Radosh

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So here's the crisis: The third season of Battlestar Galactica begins next Friday, October 6, on the SciFi Channel. Like many folks, I got addicted to BSG on DVD and high definition reruns on Universal HD (which will be showing the "story so far" recap at least one more time on Saturday, if you need a refresher). A couple of times I looked at the reruns on SciFi, and I was appalled at how crappy they looked: small, blurry... low def. It's simply one of those shows that's just better -- much better -- in high(er) definition.

Posing as a journalist (no comments from the peanut gallery), I sent an e-mail to the publicity office for NBC Univeral and learned that BSG Season 3 will be coming to Universal HD on January 7. I'm dying to see what life (and war) on New Caprica holds, but I just know I'll enjoy it more if I can only hold out three months. Fortunately, I don't work with any geeks who will want to talk about each episode on Monday morning, so spoilers shouldn't be a problem, just waiting. What about you? Can you wait?

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Ding-dong, the bells are gonna chime

Daniel Radosh

tomkat-ufos.jpgThe Scientology wedding ceremony [via Jeannette Walls].

Rejoice!/ You line of struggling life/ From eons gone to now/ For here again/ your track is sped/ And winged into/ A future fate/ By this/ A union of a man/ and bride/ Whose child shall pace/ A further span/ Of Destiny/ And Life...

So now/ My (bride's name),/ Stand steady here/ And say/ Do you today intend/ For him beside you there/ To be to him a wife?...

And do you understand/ as well/ That by the customs/ of our race/ You pledge to him/ and only him/Your kiss and your caress?/ Do you?...

Now, (groom's name),/ girls need clothes/ And food and/ Tender happiness and frills/ A pan, a comb,

perhaps a cat/ All caprice if you will/ But still/ They need them./ Do you then/ Provide?/ Do you?

[Related: My 2004 Scientology briefing for The Week]

The New Yorker Cartoon Anti-Caption Contest #73

Daniel Radosh

Vote now for the worst possible caption for this New Yorker cartoon. Click here for details. Click here to see the previous week's winner.

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When caption contests and news collide

Daniel Radosh

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"Gee, Tommy, and all along I thought it was a gigantic woman holding a normal-sized car."

Reader Tim H found this headline and submitted the related anti-caption. It seemed a shame to let it languish away at the bottom of the comments section.

"I just think you're the best"

Daniel Radosh

faggard.jpg Prank 3:16 is the Christian Punk'd. I made a note to check it out last summer and then forgot about it. Now I've watched the trailer and I so wish I'd seen it, say, a month ago. It doesn't look spectacularly funny (though the faking the Rapture scene has promise) but take a look at the second sequence in the trailer where the boys prank Ted Haggard. I have no idea what the joke is supposed to be, but this short clip has taken on new meaning.

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The New Yorker Cartoon Anti-Caption Contest #81

Daniel Radosh

Submit the worst possible caption for this New Yorker cartoon. Click here for details. Click here to see last week's winner.

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Winner

"T.A. Winchler Name Plates, Ltd. Greg speaking." �Jazzy

Finalists

"Hello, Human Resources? It's Tom Winchler in Accounting. Can you send someone down to clear away my wife's stuff? It's been over six months since Thersea Ann died, and keeping everything around as a shrine has proven to be morbid and depressing after all." �David John

"Hi, this is Winchler upstairs. Some joker stole my third desk. I'm going to lunch, and if it's not back before I return, heads are gonna roll." �Anonymous

Continue reading "The New Yorker Cartoon Anti-Caption Contest #81" »

The straight story

Daniel Radosh

What's it actually like to attend one of those David Lynch forums on Transcendental Meditation that you read about in the Times this weekend?

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Why all my friends hate me

Daniel Radosh

everywomanpic.gifA friend of mine who writes for a major women's magazine cc'd me on an e-mail seeking "witty comments" from her "guy friends" to include in an item about a survey finding that 49% of women want sex at least once per day. "What do you think?" she asked. "Duh? Shocking? Where have these women been all your life? Yes, for the first two months, then not so much?"

My reply: "Yeah, but never in the ass. It's like, Thanks for nothing, bitch."

I hope they run it.

Travel tips

Daniel Radosh

� Remember my crusading journalist pal? I'd be remiss if I neglected to mention that he also has a deliciously low-brow blog. Seriously, it doesn't get more low brow, or delicious, than this.

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It's no info-pimps

Daniel Radosh

TS at Martini Republic has spotted what he believes is the most clueless sentence in the history of the New Yorker.

From the capule review of Norbit:

Though less than the sum of its parts, the movie is, even when not quite funny, nothing less than virtuosic�and if there�s any justice in pop culture, it should coin a new catchphrase: �How you doin�?�

As TS asks: "Can you write about pop culture for The New Yorker without having seen an episode of Friends?"

Now I haven't, and don't intend to, see this movie, but a quick Google search suggests that "Rasputia's" use of this phrase is substanitally different from Joey's. Still, it's hard to really call it new.

So is it really the most clueless sentence ever in The New Yorker? Well, that lady who didn't know there was a seal on top of her bed was pretty clueless, but that's a little different. You could probably find some competition somewhere, but does anyone really want to go back and read every word Gopnik has written about his kids?

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Whew! No Affleck!

Daniel Radosh

Todd Seavey forwards this Star Trek XI casting scoop.

Matt Damon as Kirk, Adrien Brody as Spock, Gary Sinese as McCoy.

That sounds pretty right on to me. More importantly, if they can get these guys, it must mean they have a good script.

Well, Sinese would probably do any old crap, but not the other two.

Brody learned his lesson after King Kong, right?

Well, it's still good casting no matter what.

Unconfirmed: Daniel Dae Kim from Angel (and Lost, yeah) as Sulu. Japanese, Korean, whatever.



Bill Richardson for Secretary of State

Daniel Radosh

In a comment on this blog yesterday, Radosh.net chief political analyst Slutwench wrote that Bill Richardson's appearance on the Daily Show revealed his presidential qualities ("dimples"). Slutwench has been known to lust after various Hamas leaders, so her taste in men is suspect. But I do tend to respect her political judgments, and you know I've been curious about Richardson, so I fired up the DVR and watched him do his thing.

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Veggie dino update

Daniel Radosh

Salon is the latest victim of the Creation Museum's confusing display

At the Creation exhibit, two young T. rexes peacefully watch fish swim in a placid pond. Two curly-haired robotic kids play nearby. In any other place, this would be the setup for a massacre. But this pre-Noah's-flood Jurassic Park is benign. The animals are vegetarians and plants don't have thorns.

They're gonna have to change this set up. Don't they care about educating the public?

What does Sam Brownback think about evolution?

Daniel Radosh

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Krazy) has an Op-Ed in the New York Times today titled What I think about evolution. It comes after Brownback was one of three candidates who raised his hand during a debate to indicate that he did not believe in evolution, and it is his attempt at sounding reasonable. Sounding reasonable is not Brownback's m�tier, so let's at least give him credit for the effort.

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Although they might be cute, they're only substitutes

Daniel Radosh

I'll be away for the next week, but I'm leaving you in the capable hands of three longtime associates of this site who have agreed to serve as guest bloggers (and anti-caption judges). Please welcome Kevin Shay, Jim Hanas and Slutwench.

Play nice!

Help My Pro-Life Hoax Live

Daniel Radosh

It was obvious to some of us from the start that the Help My Baby Live site was a hoax. But is it a meaningful hoax?

Eh, probably not. My initial suspicion was that it was a pro-choice message � you know, "let's see if they'll put their money where their mouths are" � or possibly a straightforward for-profit scam � but the snoops at Democratic Underground say the hoaxer is a pro-life wingnut, so I guess the message is supposed to be, "pro-choicers are even more sick than you imagined." Not that my version couldn't have worked. Indeed, Snopes says it was tried a year ago.

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The New Yorker Cartoon Anti-Caption Contest #108

Daniel Radosh

Submit the worst possible caption for this New Yorker cartoon. Click here for details. Click here to see last week's results.

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Winner

"Since we lost the baby, he just spends all day out there, in this 'garage' thing he built. It's like he can't even stand to be around me." �Ed C

Finalists

"He clubs me, drags me by my hair to his cave. But who's the bitch now?" �Alison

"Whoa, from here the volchano looks like it's � hey, did I say 'volchano' when I tried to say 'volcano'? Ha ha! 'Volchano'! That's not even a word!" �Jonathan Harford

Continue reading "The New Yorker Cartoon Anti-Caption Contest #108" »

The white gamer's burden

Daniel Radosh

Is it just me, or does the new trailer for Resident Evil 5 have disturbing overtones?

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Let me explain...

Slutwench

...with a concrete example. Here, from Mahir Kaynak in Turkey's Star, is the kind of riveting analysis that compels you to read to the end:

What I will write about next week�s presidential elections might be seen as being in favor of one person and against another. But no matter who�s elected, it doesn�t concern me personally. I don�t have expectations from anybody and any losses I might suffer aren�t important enough to distress me. Giving a sound analysis would provide only a personal satisfaction. Let me explain what I mean through a concrete example.

We can't wait.

Those Australians are cheeky

Kevin Shay

Somehow I suspect the double entendre in this headline may have been deliberate.

Idaho Voters Now Asking: "Is Larry Craig Gay Enough?"

Kevin Guilfoile

Seriously.

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