A Talented Actress

Taking advantage of coincidence, porn star Lisa Ann has played both Sarah Palin and Tina Fey in pornographic parodies of, respectively, Sarah Palin's life and 30 Rock. Check out the hilarious trailers below .

Who's Nailin' Paylin? (This trailer is completely safe for work.)


30 Rock: A XXX Parody (This trailer is less safe for work due to a few women in skimpy clothing and some swearing.)

The Wire

A video of someone's choices for the 100 greatest quotes from The Wire. Oh how I miss some of these characters.

On a lighter note

LOST season 6 promos!!!

Not spoilers, just little teases to keep you guessing...


Oceanic ("30 years" (since 1979, so we know it's current) "with perfect safety record"??)

Hurley ("nothing but good luck"?? and check out how the people behind him look like, but aren't, Locke, Walt, and Michael)

Kate (DIDN'T kill her stepfather??)

And biggest "holy shit" of all: the official ABC teaser


ALSO: a promo poster featuring ALL the characters, dead and alive...probably just an advertising ploy, but what if this means the bomb really did "hit the reset button?!?






Thank you, Comic-Con.

TV and space

both make me unreasonably happy.

Thus today was a good one for fucking around on the internet, because I got to dissect the brand-new Emmy nominations (BSG was once again criminally overlooked, although I'm really happy about the recognition Breaking Bad is getting) and check out lots of Apollo 11-related NYTimes content (today being the 40th anniversary of the launch): reader's photos and memories of what they were doing at the time, a cool page of NYTimes' original coverage, and, best of all, really amazing photos taken by the astronauts, many of which I'd never seen before.

Lost. [Spoilers contained in this post!]

With only one season remaining I think it is time to make some predictions about how Lost is going to resolve the ridiculous mountain of unanswered (unanswerable?) questions the show has allowed to pile up over the years. As a quick refresher of what last happened in the Lost universe, here is the Wikipedia summary of the season five finale:

In 1977, the survivors succeed in detonating the modified nuclear bomb at the construction site of the Swan station, the finale ending when the bomb is detonated. In 2007, Locke and the Others travel to the base of the four-toed statue, where Jacob lives. Locke is revealed to be an impostor: an old acquaintance of Jacob who tricks Ben into killing Jacob. In flashbacks, Jacob visits several of the main characters.

In Lost physics the explosion of the bomb in 1977 is supposedly going to eliminate the underground source of the magnetic field so that Oceanic flight 815 will not be brought down by in the future, thereby restoring the world as it was when the main characters boarded the plane in Sydney. I have a really major problem with this logic: changing an event in 1977 alters which
of the potential futures becomes reality from that moment onward--that is, everything from that moment forward represents a different future from the one that occurred without the explosion. Here's a rough idea of what I mean:

I guess my main point is just that detonating that bomb ensures that it is not possible for the future to turn out the way it already has--expressed another way, the future that we, the viewers, have already seen cannot possibly be repeated. We have jumped from one potential future to another in which the plane cannot crash because of the magnetic field, even if everyone is on the plane as they were in the future we already know (this all assumes that Faraday's belief that the detonation will destroy the magnetic field is correct).

All that said, I think one of the consistent themes throughout the show has been the inevitability of the role each person plays. In the end all those who are 'supposed to be on the island' will be there whether the plane crashes or not; Jack will become de facto leader; Sawyer will initially rebel but become respectable when need be; Ben will connive and backstab; et cetera. This seems to imply that we should be able to piece together the basic point of the show--if everyone will fill the same role throughout this alternate future then the moral will be the same. Before I go off on another long ramble I'll ask a few questions of the floor: Is my reasoning sound? What do you think of differently? What is the moral of the show? How is Jacob's old friend inhabiting Locke's body? (I didn't even bother to touch on this just yet.)

Oh, and here's a barely-related GraphJam post that I enjoyed:

There's no real reason for this post...

...I just wanted to point out that Bernie Madoff's son, Andrew (bottom), looks a lot like Bob Odenkirk.


(If you care about why a photo of Andrew Madoff was in the news (you don't, trust me), read here).

Strangely Badass II

Last week it was Richard Branson, this week it is voice actor Billy West. Though his name sounds similar to a crappy superhero alter-ego (perhaps I am simply reminded of the name Adam West), Billy West has voiced some of the most iconic cartoon characters of all time. Here's a list of the important roles West has played:

• Doug: Doug Funnie and Roger Klotz (1991-1994, the Nickelodeon version, not the Disney version with the stupid baseball tee version of Doug);
• Ren and Stimpy: Ren and Stimpy (Stimpy 1991 until 1996; Ren from 1993-1996);
• Futurama: Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, Richard Nixon's head, and Zapp Brannigan;
• Space Jam: Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd;
• Scooby Doo on Zombie Island: Shaggy (West was only the second person ever to voice Shaggy);
• Popeye's Voyage: The Quest for Pappy: Popeye (a 75th anniversary movie).

I am blown away by the range of personality types (Ren Höek and Doug Funnie???) and by the presence on West's resumé of both original and mimicked voices (Looney Tunes and Futurama???). I can't even imitate regional accents from around the USA, let alone an imitation of a specific voice.

To be a bit more direct: Billy West is strangely badass because he represents a whole bunch of animated childhood icons jammed into a body that looks somewhat like Richard Kiel (more commonly known as 'That giant guy who had a nail in his head in Happy Gilmore').

By the way, everyone should feel welcome to add some names to the Strangely Badass series.

They just don't get it.

Apparently sarcasm and satire are too indirect and subtle to be understood by those who live in a strict black vs. white, good vs. evil, dichotomous world. Research has now shown, "[...] individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements."

In other words, conservatives don't get the joke.

Maybe I'm the only fan of both Conan O'Brien and Hunter S. Thompson...

...they're a pretty odd pair. Which is what makes this video, of Conan's visit to Thompson's "compound" (really) to "drink and shoot things," so funny.

For the record, I think the writing on Conan's show - like most late-night shows - was pretty corny and awful, and probably will continue to be. But Conan himself has a really funny personality, which is why his "in the field" segments are his best material. I also really like:

Conan in Finland,

Conan in Ireland, part 1 and part 2,

and Conan plays old-timey baseball

This is sacrilege.

The Simpsons has a new opening sequence for the first time since 1989. Largely the changes made do not affect the order of the elements of the old introduction (e.g. Bart writes on a chalkboard, Lisa plays a sax solo, and Homer endangers his life in the family's driveway), but rather serve as a yearbook of characters and gags that have been created since the opening was last updated. Overall the changes make this feel like a bad clip show...come to think of it, that is redundant, so let's just call it a clip show.

Horny Manatee, a new venture for NBC

In December 2006 NBC purchased the rights to the domain name HornyManatee.com. Seriously. Conan O'Brien made up the name during a skit on his show, and NBC decided to purchase the domain name to avoid being associated with content of which the network did not approve. So they posted this content instead. Take the tour. I cannot believe how many categories were created. Enjoy.

This video makes me happy

I watched a lot of Nick at Nite as a child.

Sorry, I just really needed to share

You '30 Rock' fans remember Jason Sudeikis, aka "flower guy" Floyd, right?



Well I totally have a crush on him so I was REALLY excited to pass him on the corner of 6th Ave. and 8th St. yesterday. A couple seconds after passing him I dorkishly turned around to look again, and HE WAS TURNED AROUND LOOKING AT ME.

Obviously, we're in love.

Liberal media hypocrisy

So I don't know if you guys watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report as religiously as I do, but if you didn't see it you should check out last night's episode on comedycentral.com.

Firstly, there was a great, funny but half-serious Stewart/John Oliver bit about the Mumbai attacks. Just worth watching.

But then, Ariana Huffington was the guest, proving what I knew from previous interviews with her but always manage to forget: Bitch is crazy. Just crazy accent (not her doing, obviously, just adds to the effect), crazy mannerisms, crazy awkward quasi-flirting with Jon. The whole segment is essentially her call for everyone to "blog your secret passions" and, rather than mulling over and refining your random thoughts before putting them out in the world, immediately posting them on the internet. And using it to form intimate relationships without that pesky face-to-face contact. Not what I want to read, but I guess I have no real problem with people doing that, but if that's what the head of The Huffington Post considers the standard, my respect for it has lowered considerably.

But that's just her wackiness. The part I'm really pissed off at this: The night or two previous, Jon had done a great segment comparing MSNBC to Fox News (kind of obvious, but still funny and worth checking out). Chris Matthews is Bill O'Reilly, Joe Scarborough is Combs, etc., including Keith Olbermann as Sean Hannity ("partisan ideologue who fears for the world if it's in any way touched by the hands of his political enemies"). So Ariana was clearly offended by it and says something to the effect of "liberal bloggers are blogging very angrily about that." Jon seems genuinely surprised ("don't people have better things to do?"), as was I: I mean, it was a comedy bit, right? So I went to HuffPo to check it out, and indeed, people are mighty pissed that Jon defiled their god, Olbermann, but putting him the same sentence with the devil, Hannity.

I hate Hannity as much as anyone - more for being an ignorant asshole than a conservative - and I tend to agree with Olbermann's positions more often, but Jon's assessment was correct: they're both over-the-top partisan ideologues. And this is the part that pisses me off: All over liberal blogs, especially HuffPo, and even in real-life conversation, I hear people blasting Bill O'Reilly, Fox, & Co. for their spin tactics, selective information, and misleading, out-of-context quotations, and lauding Olbermann as a hero. He's exactly the same, just on the other side. It frustrates me to no end that these people hide behind the argument of journalistic integrity, when that's clearly not what's important to them - it just sounds better than "he's a jerk whom I disagree with."

Ok, sorry, this has turned into a rant. But I find lack of logic among the people I agree with much more frightening than any amount of power, misinformation, or pure evil in the hands of those I don't.

TV on the Internet

I just read about Sling.com, a new website that streams television shows for free. I haven't really checked it out yet, but the review I read said it is about the same as Hulu.

The sites I know of for watching TV online:
Hulu
Sidereel
Sling

Anyone know of any others?

Check out this balance, Liberals!

It is a wonderful day for those of us who support the liberal media conspiracy and its subversive, communist goals. One of the most outspoken, principled, and "hard-hitting liberal[s]" of our time will now have his own show. We should all send wonderful letters to Fox News describing our jubilation.

good article about good TV

Lots of talk about the awesomeness of Arrested, 30 Rock, and Lost here.





Did you guys see last night's 30 Rock? It's amazing how Liz Lemon takes the words right out of my mouth...Carly, I think you especially have heard me give that "why can't I just start a relationship about twelve years in?" diatribe more than once.

Arrested Development movie

The movie is a little closer to reality, with Ron Howard and Mitchell Hurwitz signing deals.