T-Pain is Not Hot.

Okay.

a.) Yes, its been awhile since any of us has posted. And to give everyone an honest prediction, there's an excellent chance that you won't see another post after this one for awhile. From anyone. Including Me.

2.) Okay, so I was screwing around in the ol' interweb and somehow, I stumbled across the Vevo page for T-Pain. Now, don't get me wrong, I am a big T-Pain fan. Really like his music, and even though I don't have to, I'm going to mention I'm On A Boat.

Has anyone ever seeeeen T-Pain? He looks like that kid who played D&D in high school, and went home after school to spend the rest of his day on the Gateway tower PC in his parents' basement. Big-ass plastic glasses, overweight, scrappy hair, and nobody really knows if he can actually sing. (But my god are his auto-tuning skills amazing.)

Yet, in all of his videos, absolutely GORGEOUS women are throwing themselves in his general direction. wtf?!?!?!?!?! Do I need to take up D&D? (I know the obvious answer, so lets not even go there.) But seriously - Am I missing something? And it's okay to say "No, Drew, you're not missing anything." But that would make me sad.

(PS - don't believe me? http://www.vevo.com/artist/t-pain BOOM! There ya go. See for yourself.)

Coverage - Chillerama

This is a terrible mini-feature i read for either MTV or Spike TV, i forget which.

CHILLERAMA

Okay seriously? What The Fuck.

this is a short-feature - its about 30 pages long - so its a fast read. A fast, retarded read. Its supposed to be a over the top horror/comedy which is mostly comedy, but really bad comedy. Its about this kid who is gay, but he doesn't want to accept that he's gay. He has a girlfriend who gets hit by a drunk driver right at the beginning of the story, and spends the rest of the story as this brain-damaged retard who just speaks gibberish. He has a run-in with this other gay kid who bites his ass during a wrestling match, turning him into a "werebear." which is some kind of hairy creature who can change forms at will, and loves buttsex. Then the protagonist struggles with the fact that he's gay, he accidentally kills his wrestling coach when his coach tries to molest him, and the action culminates with a big werebear fight at like a battle of the bands-type event. The protagonist comes to terms wit the fact that he's a werebear, but dones't have to run around killing people, like his predecessor were doing. Everyone lives happily ever after. Oh yeah - did i mention this is also a musical?



Overall, this script was really gay. It was also bad. The fact that it was a INCREDIBLY POOR allegory for the struggle that teenagers have to deal with when it comes to being gay when you are in a predominantly heterosexual, uber judgemental environment was FAR TOO OBVIOUS. The dialoge was awful, I'm pretty sure the author was high when he wrote the lyrics to the songs. I could understand an actor doing this if they couldn't get a job anywhere else, and actual legitamate work was something they weren't into, buuut this is just over the top. And bad. This is one of those movies, where if it got made, you would have that midwestern family sitting in front of their television berating Hollywood for their inability to make good movies. Not like Transformers 2 is helping out case, but still. Didn I mention this was awful?
PASSSS.

Another compilation

Well we all know how much i love compilation videos. And we also all know how much i love animation...and since pixar is the current king of the animation world one would assume that i would love a compilation video of the last 25 years of Pixar....

Well that person assuming would be correct BAM!!!!

The Cultural Movement That Wasn't

So I was sitting around with some of my friends the other day, and we were talking about the socio-cultural movements over the last fifty years, and how they have influenced us over the course of history. Going all the way back to one of the biggest movements of the century, the Civil Rights Movement, and moving up all the way through today, almost every single introduction of a new social group brought with it some sort of contribution to us as a whole. Every group, that is, except for this one:




Hipsters.

You've seen them before. Wearing large, plastic glasses, some merely framing some glass, and not actual prescription lenses. Shirts from the 70s, jeans that are too tight, and boots that could be found at any local S&M shoppe.

"But Rizz!" you will find yourself saying. Its okay. Go ahead. Finish that thought. What HAVE they contributed? Keep on thinking. Maybe it will come to you. Someday. The fact is, to be a hipster, is to be not a contributor, or not even a user, but rather a re-user. To find something that has already been done, and do it again, using a shield of pretentiousness to deflect any ideas of "haven't i seen that before?"

Lets review:

The CRM, in addition to the blatantly obvious, opened us up to a world of new music stylings. Jazz, Rock and Roll, and Blues were virtually unheard of in mainstream music back in that era. Move into the Free-Love movement of the 60s and 70s and you come up with the Beatles, Woodstock, people realizing that war didn't need to happen because Uncle Sam said so. That movement also settled and evolved into the people that gave us modern-day studio movies (Star Wars, Jaws), and the reason why girls flip flops all seem to have 3-inch platforms on them.

The 90's gave way to both the Grunge and Hip-Hop movements. Enter torn jeans (which you can purchase pre-torn now), long hair, the biggest problem with authority to date (We were nicknamed Generation X), Nirvana, Marilyn Manson, et cetera. We saw the introduction of established Hip Hop rappers - Dr Dre, 2-Pac, Biggie Smalls. The look of Basketball started to change - from daiy-dukes to baggy shorts. Even some of our latest social movements, even whats going on now - with information sharing, and our fascination with digitally manupliating music - we get Youtube, Facebook, and Daft Punk.

Which brings me back to it. What have Hipsters given us, aside from the general annoyance of having to deal with them on the regular? Arcade Fire? Oh no - that's a band. Hipsters have no trouble finding music, and then deeming it worthy of bearing their stamp of approval (which, for the record, in most cases, means you just have to wail inconsolably into a microphone while you are accompanied by, at best, two other acoustic guitars.) This is a trend that seems to extend to most of the Hipster Persona: find something that someone else did, and deem it "cool." And then, to top it all off, they herald every discovery of theirs as something so cutting edge, and so groundbreaking, that only those clearly "in the know" would even have the slightest idea as to whatever they're discussing. In some cases, you might even go so far as to offend said hipster is the topic in question is supposed to be a "well known" one. (This can be any reference to Arcade Fire or NPR Program.)

So like i said: Not contributors, but rather, re-users. The one problem is that, from what I've seen, regardless of medium, the stuff hipsters like is the shit that nobody wants anymore. Which is why it was thrown out in the first place.

And seriously guys? Would it kill you to put a little product in your hair and run a comb through it?

Dreams

I wake up in bed. Or at least I think i wake up, there is a surreal sense of misplacement. As if the colors in my room do not quite match up or a feeling that everything is too big and too small at the same time. Not that either of these facts are important to me at this point, due to a pressing feeling of acceptance in regards to my surroundings.

As I role out of bed, already dressed in an outfit that i haven't owned in years, a sudden unexplainable feeling of panic sets in. I can not seem to place where this feeling comes from but i cannot shake away this sense of apprehension. As I stand up i hear a sudden click in my jaw and the reason for my increasing terror becomes suddenly apparent.

I slowly reach my hand up to my mouth, putting my fingers between my lips. Grabbing my front tooth i feel a wiggle and then a pop. As my panic increases to monumental amounts I begin to pull out each tooth, the pain increasing with each sickening pop. Slowly I begin to feel my molars crumble beneath my touch. My tongue feeling the empty gaps where my smile originally found it's home.

Finally as I pull out the last tooth of my now bloody and crumbled mouth a scream emanates louder then any sound i have yet to encounter.

I wake up in bed. Or at least I hope i've woken up. My room seems right somehow as if all the colors are what they are suppose to be, and everything is the correct size. My jaw hurts as if i had been grinding my teeth for hours as i slept. Still feeling the pressure of panic on my shoulders i slowly raise my left hand to my mouth, dreading what may be there. Touching my front teeth I sigh in relief realizing that each tooth is still where it's suppose to be. I flop back down into bed and fall right back to sleep hoping to dream of slightly more pleasant things.

Coverage - GONE

New Thriller will be going into production soon. Read it. Not a great fan, but I could be wrong.

Synopsis: This is set as sort of a thriller - we follow the story of JILL - a girl in her 20s who is wandering through the woods. We learn later that she lives with her sister, MOLLY, who is still a student at the local college, while Jill works the late shift as a waitress. One night, on her way out the door to work, Molly asks her to wake her up when she gets back at 630 the next morning so Molly can wake up and study more for her mid terms. Jill works her shift, and a nice man tips her $20 for a cup of coffee. When she gets home, she finds out that Molly is gone - there is no sign of forced entry, but Molly is missing.

Jill immrediately goes to the cops, and this is when we learn that she had been kidnapped earlier, and thrown down a hole and tortured for weeks. After she managed to escape from the pit on her own, the authorities couldn’t find any sign of her abduction, and ruled the whole thing to be made up. Hence, when she comes to the police with the story, they don’t believe her at all. Convinced the police aren’t going to help her out, Jill begins to track down her sister.

As she speaks to her neighbors, and other various people around town who give her leads, she has to dodge the police. First she pulls a gun on a dude at a locksmith, then she runs, and her shrink calls her and tells her to come to her office to talk things out, but Jill realizes that her shrink is just working with the police, trying to bring her in.

As she closes in on the culprit, finding out what hardware store he goes to for his torture materials, Molly’s boyfriend calls to tell her that Molly came home, and Jill again surmises that the bf is also working with the cops, so she hangs up on him too. She finally learns who the killer is, and he leads her back into the woods, back to the hole where she was first captured.

In the interim, Molly manages to escape from where she was being captured, which also turned out to be right beneath Jills house. Jill tricks the killer into thinking she climbed into the hole, and when he shows up to gloat, she surprises him from behind, shoots him in the leg, and pushes him into the hole, and takes away the ladder. The cops text her telling her they found her sister, and she comes back home to find Jill and told the cops that she made the whole thing up, so that they don’t go looking for the killer, who is still alive, trapped in his own hole.

Overview: Ehhh, I don’t know what to think about this one. Its an okay thriller, but that’s all its going to amount to be. Its a about a girl who is sort of experiencing ptsd, except she’s not this time, and everone else thinks she is. It’s pretty standard. There isn’t enough suspense contained in what’s actually happening. She spends all of her time either whining to the cops, or coming up with half-cocked stories to make the local townspeople give out other people’s personal information. The way she sort of buys right into the killer’s talking is a little weird, and its sort of explained when she has the tables turned on him, but its not handled well. There is no ultimate conflict. Nothing is on the line - Molly escapes by herself, Jill’s actual interaction with the killer spans no more than.... 45 seconds of total screen time for the total feature? That isn’t an antagonist. And pointing out that the cops are the antagonists is just weak. Think about a good horror or thriller movie, and the protagonist always gets away by the skin of their teeth: bloodied, broken, scarred for life, barely alive, but alive nonetheless. People live for

the protagonist’s “Bitch, what?!?” moment in a movie, when revenge is finally exacted, but the protagonist has to earn it. That doesn’t happen here. Moreover, the villain is as good as killed off, all but cutting off any possiblity of a more boring franchise. PASS.

Dragonball Z Videos

Hey Everyone!

So if you aren't aware of the show, Dragonball Z, I would probably just find another post to read.

If you are curious, DBZ is a very very popular Anime that spend a long time airing in the States, and even longer in Japan. It follows the lives of super-powered martial artists who constantly save the world through the use of flying, self-generated energy beams, and fighting that moves faster than you can see. There are other parts to the show that are good as well, but that's the basic outline.

If you ARE familiar with the show, here is a small collection of fan-made DBZ videos that just feature a bunch of parts of the show strung together in an incredibly repetitive fashion. Its a certain sense of humor, but I find it hilarious. Enjoy!

-Drew

____________________

Story Coverage

Hello everyone and Happy Wednesday. I figured the 27th anniversary of my introduction to this world would be an event grand enough to spurn my writing again. On a wednesday, my designated writing day, no less.

So to help familiarize people with different aspects of my job, one of the many things I get to do is write coverage for scripts that are submitted for clients. Other duties might include talking to producers, talking to casting directors to try to get auditions for actors, setting up general meetings with directors, dealing with publicity and ADR for projects, fixing air conditioners, getting drinks with and for people, dumpster diving, and organizing travel. But we're here to talk about coverage.

On a daily basis, scripts and projects are submitted to our clients here to read and consider, in case they find a movie they would like to be in. Its my job to read the scripts that come in for a select few clients, and then write a short synopsis on the script, and give my thoughts on it as well. Sporadically, i will provide brief descriptions of the characters involved in the project as well.

Because of the clients that my boss deals with, sometimes we get sent projects that ultimately are made into studio released movies. So sometimes you'll get to see coverage on movies you might be seeing trailers for.

To start, I figured I would start with one of my favourite scripts. SHOULDERPADS is a musical set back in the early 60s, and about the working woman getting ahead in a world of glass ceilings. Oh yeah, except by "favourite" I mean that this was probably one of the worst scripts I have ever read. So enjoy!

___________________________________________________

SHOULDERPADS

Synopsis: The year is 1963. This is the era where women are just starting make an appearance in the workplace. Fading away is the conception of women as the ideal housewives, there to cook, clean, and keep their husband happy - drink in his hand when he comes through the door. Enter HOPE, the Vasser valedictorian, who has just graduated, and refuses to be the ideal housewife. She wants to enter into the workplace, and she winds up with a job at a some beauty advertising agency, where she will be working as a secretary to ROWENA MARX - one woman at the firm who is everything that Hope wants to be. Powerful, smart, and driven - she doesn’t take shit from anyone else at the company, and it shows. The kind of boss who would be an agent at UTA or something. Hope makes friends with the two other secretaries, GRACE and JUDY - their bosses are the stereotypical. Judy’s Boss, RICHARD is a shovenest pig who is in his 50s, and just greasy and gross, thinks he still has it, but we know he doesn’t. Grace’s Boss CHAS. He is a younger version of Richard, except he actually does have it. And by “it” I mean “a torrid office romance with his secretary, Grace. Of course he’s using her.

In mid-song and dance number, Marx talks to Hope and describes to her their current project - to find the perfect woman for their new feminie product, SUMMER SNOW - shampoo, conditioner, vaginal perfume, and diuretic all in one. Oh yeah. Now all they need is the poster child for the product. In the midst of the song, we get to watch Richard and Chas use their secretaries for their own sexual gain, and then kick them to the curb.

Hope begins flirting with BILLY, who works in the mailroom (gasp! its totally off limits to be interested in someone lower on the totem pole than you.) He’s all apparently the perfect man - grows flowers, cooks like a god, and is super super nice and considerate.

The the girls continue to bond, and in their musical number telling us this is what is happening, “the girls become a jazzy girl group ala the Lennon Sisters.” It is revealed that whichever of the 3 bosses finds the perfect model to represent Summer Snow will be promoted, and the the other two are going to get the axe. Marx begins to reveal that behind all her bravado, she’s quite lonely, and vulnerable. But only for a moment.

The girls hatch a plan to seduce the other two guys and figure out what their respective plans are to do for the campaign. Grace gets hit by a truck singing about how much she loves her boss (who has no feeling for her at all.) Hope falls for Billy. We find out that Richard got Judy preggers, and she gets an abortion. More singing. Marx is ultimately fired, and as she leaves Hope with a choice - pursue her job, or pursue love (Billy.) Then she leaves to go to Tuscon to be with her long lost love, leaving Hope in charge of her part of the campaign. Getting lost in the midst of her work, she alienates Billy from her. Ultimately, Hope pulls the campaign off spectacularly, and gives a presentation using all of the women in the office, saying that the real face of Summer Snow is everyone. She gets promoted, gets a corner office, the men are axed, and Hope apologizes to Billy, gets him back, and marries him - in the last song she can be leaving the house while Billy waves good bye, holding twins and cooking. Fin.

OVERVIEW: Remember my original coverage? With the batman doll video? I maintain my stance. The lyrics are terrible, the message is stupid, the characters are stupid and flat, the friends are no good, and everything is far far far too predictable. Even the lines in between the songs are stupid. Some people are a little too perfect, and its just.... really goddamed lame. I mean, seriously. I don’t like any one of these characters. And the Summer Snow product? PLEASE. Mamma Mia was good cause it used Abba songs and had international pull because of it. THIS HAS NONE OF THAT. I mean, if you want to take all the work that went into Letters to Juliet, Im.Mortal, and Red Riding hood, and flush it down the toilet, after taking a crap on it, then go for it. I don’t care if Scorcese was attached to this project, its terrible. Shit, Marty would be smart enough to know that this is bad. I think someone put syphillis on the paper of these scripts so you actually go insane when you read it, and that’s why people keep saying “they’re crazy about it.”

But I digress. PASS.

okay my last 2010 post

I know these are late. I know I already did a new year post. I know it is now January. BUT IT'S ONLY THE 6th so for my last post of "the year", (hopefully my fellow Grapefruit logic compatriots will give there own send offs to the fine year that brought us this blog) I will be giving you two beautiful movie compilations celebrating 2010.

2010 Salute to Cinema from Ben Zuk on Vimeo.

Welcome to the future

Happy NEW YEAR!!!!! it's 2011 and grapefruit logic's new years resolution is TO POST MORE OFTEN. (we apologize for our lack of posting as of late, we got lazy/busy you can decide which one is more excusable)

now being that it's 2011 and the technical beginning of the new decade, I'm gonna start it off with a top six list of WHY WE ARE IN THE FUTURE. Now for a little history (har har) for most of the 20th century many sci-fi films where set in the time period that we currently reside in (between 2000-2060.) Many of these films/tv-shows are the standard that we hold the future to. Back to the Future part 2 (2015), The Jetsons (2060), Blade Runner (2019), Star Wars (a long time ago) and many more depict society in the distant to not so distant future. They have gifted us with many imaginative things from hover boards, to flying cars, and many of these things have arrived IN THE REAL WORLD. So here it goes; the top six reasons we are in the future.

6) xbox 360 Kinect

Yes it has yet to be seen how good of a product this will be. But I got one for Christmas and this is what I have to say about it.

1) Nothing is cooler then controlling my TV like Tom Cruise controls computers in Minority Report, (NO HANDS MA!!)

2) IT KNOWS MY FACE. seriously i signed in as my avatar, and when i was on the screen my avatar was playing. Then I left letting my friends take a crack at it for about a half an hour. (when i left the screen my avatar left with me and the xbox assigned random characters to the people playing) When I finally returned BAM my avatar is back. (IT'S WATCHING ME HELP!!!!)

5) Music

If you look at the larger music festivals in the United States right now, many of them will be in the music genre Electronica. (Better known as Techno) Beyond that many music on the top 40 lists are, or have, techno influences. David Guetta, Tiesto, Dead Mau5, Daft Punk, techno is shaping up to be the next big music genre. And you know who else listens to techno... ROBOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thats right, the music genre forever held high by the mechanical limbs of our robot overlor-I mean friends is beginning to blossom.

4) Holograms

With the release of James Cameron's "Avatar," which grossed more then a whopping $2 billion, we have now cemented 3D in the American society. Slowly 3D televisions are being sold on a daily basis, and soon Nintendo will be releasing a 3D handheld system that doesn't even require 3D glasses; the Nintendo 3DS. Now while these are not the holograms that one would expect, it is a step in the JAWS 10/"Letting the Wookie Win" direction. Along with this companies product a real hologram projector WE ARE ON OUR WAY.

3)Mobile Television

From Phones, to tablets most people cary at least one, if not two ways to watch tv or movies instantly on their person at any given moment. Most of this is due to a combination effort

between Google and Apple. This was every childs dream when growing up.(or at least mine) "what?!?! I can watch my cartoons in class as long as i hide it from the teacher. SOLD" (*warning* the men and women at Grapefruit Logic do not in any way support watching cartoons during school, all children who do watch television in class and have there phones taken away by angry over reacting teachers as a consequence are not responsibilities of this website/blog or any of our affiliates.)

2)Video chat

Almost all versions of the future had video chat, and though to a certain extent we have been able to video chat since the 90s. It was to expensive and only really adopted in the last 5 years. This one being mostly to blame on apple computers(thank you Steve Jobs and whomever makes your turtle neck sweaters), and Skype. Many corporations use it daily, and love struck high-school sweethearts separated by "college long distance relationships" use it hourly. Plus now with most new smart phones being released with front facing cameras, video chat is being taken on the road. Congratulations, you too can now be using video chat, just to give the finger in live full color to that asshole down the block that keeps taking up two spaces with his truck anywhere you please.

1) Sadly number one is not hover boards, teleportation, moon/mars bases, space elevators, faster then light travel, or flying cars. But they are cars.

From Gearlog.com

Google has, in fact, created a self-driving car--not only that, the company took it on a test drive down the coast of California, from its Mountain View campus to its office in Santa Monica.Then, naturally, they cruised the thing down Hollywood Boulevard.And this isn't the first time Google has taken the car out into the wild. Past exertions have included Lombard Street (the world famous "crookedest street"), the Golden Gate, the Pacific Coast Highway, and the circumference of Lake Tahoe. The car has driven some 140,000 miles--with trained operators on-board, naturally.The goal of the vehicle is "to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people's time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use," according to the company. The cars (yes, cars plural) utilize video cameras, radar sensors, and lasers (that's how you know it's from the future) to spot other traffic. Built-in maps, meanwhile, help the vehicles navigate the road.The car is in constant contact with Google's data centers, which process all of the information gathered by the vehicles.In all, Google seems confident of the potential of its crazy future car, "We're also confident that self-driving cars will transform car sharing, significantly reducing car usage, as well as help create the new 'highway trains of tomorrow

DID YOU READ THAT, IT HAS HAPPENED, WE HAVE SELF DRIVING CARS. Which for all of us alchohol consumers, this means you DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT DRIVING DRUNK. Mind you these probably won't be released for a while. but still.

The second part to this whole thing is the TESLA/PRIUS/EV1 and EV2 Electric cars are becoming a natural and normal thing. AND SOON THEY WILL DRIVE THEMSELVES.

(on second thought, FUCK ROBOTS ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD DAMN YOU TERMINATOR AND THE MATRIX FOR GIVING THEM THE IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE.)

"Why I Don't Want an iPad For Christmas"

Soooo, anybody know knows me, knows that I detest Apple products, and only slightly less, I detest the freaks, who do nothing to sing the praises for this company, and refuse to hear anything negative about their products. So perusing the Wall Street Journal, i stumbled across this article, and was pleased to find I wasn't the only educated asshole who thought this way. The article is listed below, but if for some reason, you don't believe me, you can read the actual article here. I'm particularly privy to reasons 5 and 10, especially since Adobe just released a major update to Flash in response to Jobs running his big, stupid mouth. Enjoy!


Everyone wants an iPad this Christmas, right?

Apple's tablet computer is this year's hottest adult toy. Sales are booming. James Cordwell, an analyst at Atlantic Securities, expects the company to sell six million this quarter, half of them here in the U.S. It's driving the company toward what will probably be yet another blowout Christmas period. But you can count me out. I don't want an iPad for Christmas, thanks very much.

Sacrilege!

Why? Here are my reasons.

1. It'll be cheaper next year.

How dumb are people? Apple is coming out with iPad II in 2011. (Mr. Cordwell predicts April.) That means fanatics won't be seen dead with this year's model, and you'll be able to get it much cheaper. Try eBay or buy it "refurbished" direct from Apple. Price deflation in technology is a wonder to behold. Remember the first iPhones? The 8-gigabyte models cost $599. A few months later they cost $399. Now they're paperweights. The average middle-class American earns maybe $16 an hour after taxes. So if you save, say, $150 on a product, that's more than nine hours' extra work. Of course, if you love your job so much you like putting in an extra day for free, go ahead.

2. It's going to be better next year.

The next iPad will have new features—allegedly including video conferencing and maybe a better screen. This year's model will be so over. When Steve Jobs unveiled the second iPhone in 2008 he actually made fun of the slow first model—the same product that he had hailed a year earlier as the eighth wonder of the world. The audience yukked it up. Me? I'm not a fan of buying a product for $500 from a guy who's going to deride it a few months later.


3. Check out those profit margins!

OK, I admit it: I've been wrong about Apple stock lately. After correctly turning bullish at $85 two years ago, I turned cautious waaay too early. My mistake? This isn't a technology company. It's a luxury brand, like Hermès or Tiffany. And it's wooed customers so they'll pay almost anything for its products. Last Christmas, Apple's gross margins were 41%. That's incredible. It's good for Apple, good for stockholders—but not so good for shoppers. Me, I don't want to support someone else's 60% markups with my own dollars. Generally speaking, the smarter move is to invest in the Tiffanys of the world—and shop at the Wal-Marts.


4. Competitors are coming.

Right now the iPad has just one serious rival, the Samsung Galaxy Tab. So no wonder it's doing so well. But all that will change in just a few months. New tablets, many running on the Android platform, are expected to hit the market as soon as March. These will give you a much wider choice of size, style and operating system. And when these companies duke it out for market share, you know you'll be able to get a deal. So why would I buy now?


5. No Flash.

Do you want to watch video clips on the Web? On a boring old laptop or PC, you can do that for free. On the amazing new iPad? Only sometimes. Most Web video runs on Adobe Flash, and the iPad can't—or rather, won't—handle Flash. So there are plenty of video clips you won't be able to watch. And plenty of others you will have to pay to watch, either by renting them from Apple's iTunes, or by paying for a subscription service like Hulu Plus. Mr. Jobs had a very public bust-up with Adobe over Flash this year. I have sympathy for his position, as Flash can be unstable. But it's still the software most Web video clips use, and I want that choice.


6. The cost of the add-ons.

The iPad starts at $499 plus tax. That's nearly twice as much as a netbook. And I know if I get the cheapest iPad I'll regret it. It has only 16 gigabytes' storage. And it can only go online when you are in a WiFi hotspot, like at home or in Starbucks. A lot of the iPad's best features need an Internet connection. So if I want to use them wherever I go, I'll want the model with a 3G data plan that works everywhere. And those start at $629, plus at least $15 a month. Total cost: at least $809, plus tax, in the first year, and $989 over two years. This I don't need.


7. The games.

Yes, they're great. But that's the problem. Computer games are as addictive as cigarettes. And this is a habit everyone is taking up, not quitting. This is why I dumped my iPod Touch. Am I alone? Maybe. But I don't think so. I know lots of people with horror stories about addiction to immersive games. Someone I know—now, as it happens, a British member of parliament—once sat down to play Civilization, a role-playing game, on a PC one Saturday evening and didn't finish until three o'clock ... Thursday morning. (He stopped when he ran out of cigarettes.) And that was on an old PC. Games on the iPad are more intense than ever. A friend recently showed me some of the serious news apps on his iPad. I noticed that to get to them he first had to "wave" us past several screens of games. Is he really using his iPad to read that article about the Indonesian economy, or is he playing Angry Birds? Hmmm. You make the call.


8. The waste.

The scarcest resource in life isn't money, land, fresh water or gold. For singles under 25, the scarcest resource is sex, and for the rest of us it's time. And the biggest waste of time I've ever discovered—after games (see above)—is the Web. Nothing comes close. It's a total black hole. Do I want to carry a device that lets me surf the Web endlessly wherever I am? That's easy. It's amazing how much time I have to read now that I never look at Facebook.


9. It'll get boring.

This year's totem is next year's meh. Economists call this "the hedonic treadmill." Human beings quickly get bored of each new item. We always want the buzz from something newer, better, bigger, faster or fancier. But the treadmill never stops. Think of how amazing the first Palm Pilots seemed back in the 1990s. Look at them now. The iPad may look like the eighth wonder of the world today. Soon it will seem so old.


10. The whole Apple cult is starting to creep me out.

OK, I already knew about the fans. Last summer, three-quarters of the people standing in line so they could buy the new iPhone the moment it went on sale already owned an iPhone. But now it's the company, too. Look at how it reacted last spring, when a Silicon Valley blogger scooped an early iPhone 4: Next thing he knew he was being handcuffed on his lawn in front of his wife while police ransacked his house. And think of Steve Jobs, complaining that news coverage of the iPhone 4's troubled aerial had been "blown so out of proportion that it's incredible." Hmmm, out-of-proportion media coverage—you sure you want to go there, Steve? This is the guy marketing a new telephone under the slogan "This changes everything. Again." Maybe this stuff shouldn't matter to me, but I have to confess it's turning me off.

Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com

Poetry Lover

Contentious

A cartoon I have begun.

An alien just asked me what a bar is

" I’m an alien -- an admittedly, 100% humanoid and incredibly attractive alien. Being the incredibly helpful person you are, what is the deal with these “bar” things that you humans seem so fond of? Specifically, why do people go? What is there to do at bars in theory? What do people usually do there in practice? Remember – I know NOTHING about your culture, or rationale, or anything – so no detail is too obvious, obscure, or irrelevant. Lay it on me. Gender differences, what a person’s drink says about them, etc."

Well, there are really three types of bars, lounges, dives, and

Clubs. I will describe each individually. Though they differ in many

ways, for all three, the major motivations are 1) to mate, and 2) to have a

good time.

1) Lounges

Lounges are generally the most expensive, thus also the classiest. Generally dimly lit, they are often filled with either trendy or ultra-modern furnishings.

The mixed drink and wine rule here, mostly in the liquor on the rocks variety. Professionals frequent these spots after they finish work. Attire includes work suits, gowns, cocktail dresses and the like. The ambiance is completed with quiet jazz, classical or new wave music playing softly in the background. This is without a doubt the best bar for a date situation.

the female/mael ratios are normally as follows

Female: 50%

Male: 50%

2) Dive bars

There are really three subcategories of dive bars: "sports bars", "college bars”, and "eternal bars" (those that have been around forever.) In most ways they are all pretty similar. Dive bars are generally loud, but only due to the sheer volume of guests. Given the options of bar games such as foosball, pool, darts, or arcade games, people mill around in the dark, crowded bar.

Be it in pitcher form, for large groups or in the more individual choice of cans, bottles, or single glasses, beer is often the most popular choice. Visual projections showing recorded moving images, known as TV screens, make up much of the interior decoration, showing sports games. Of course, sports bars have a much larger number of TV screens than the other two.

Students who live or attend university nearby populate the college bars. Sports bars are mostly attended by all sorts of people, all nterested in getting drunk while watching whatever sports team they prefer. The less popular category, the Eternal bars, do not boast such a high clientele. Homeless people, those who have lived in the area forever, and random stragglers with nothing better to do, make up the regulars at the Eternal bars.

The music played is usually composed of guitars drums, and vocalist, known as the genre “rock”. Dive bars are also the most likely to allow an assortment of drinking games, including quarters, a game involving bouncing a monetary metal discuss into a cup. Beer pong, popular amongst students, entails tossing a small spherical white object into another team’s cups from a distance. An assortment of card related games are also readily available. Be wary; the consumers at these establishments are the most territorial about the locale, and can sometimes be unwelcoming to strangers that show any amount of disrespect. Attire consists of Jeans and a T-shirt, Sports jerseys, tank tops, and leather or jean jackets.

The female/male ratio is as follows

Female 20%

Male 80%

3) Clubs-

Club-goers are by far the most obsessed with finding a mate. They are also primarily centered on dancing. More often then not, the dancing involves the “bump and grind”, a ritualistic dance involving extremely close contact with your dance partner while reenacting bodily movements very similar to mating. You will often find hundreds of couples on the dance floor all doing the same dance. The music mostly falls into two categories, the first being electronic music, music mostly synthesized by a person known as a DJ operating a computer. Hip-hop, music centered on poetic spoken word over a heavy beat, is the other popular choice. The heavy base lines of both types of music make the “bump and grind” dance easy to perform. This type of bar regularly charges an entrance fee, as well as for pricier drinks inside. It can often have a very selective line on the outside, only permitting a few people at a time.

More often then not, Clubs are centered on having a higher female to male ratio due to the highly sexual atmosphere inside, and the club owners prefer to keep it that way. Drinks are mostly hard liquor, either in a small, condensed, highly volatile form, known as a shot. Hard liquor can also be mixed with fruity or savory, non-alcoholic liquids to produce a “mixed drink”. If you are able to afford it, you may pay for a table, a designated area for you and your compatriots to sit and enjoy yourself. These tables are provided with their own server and come with a choice of a hard liquor bottle. These tables are also extremely expensive.

The attire for men mostly involves similar attire to lounges, though the shirts are generally flashier. Also, depending on the person and neighborhood, one may where track suits. This dress code is meant for the male to wear his most expensive clothing, while the woman must wear the least amount of clothing without appearing to be a "slut", a woman who sleeps with too many men. The woman’s apparel usually comes in the form of mini-dresses and skirts, tube tops, and heavy jewelry.

The female/male ratio is as follows

Female 60%

Male 40%

So be weary my fellow alien compatriot a bar can be very fun but also a very dangerous and mysterious locale.

-Edited by Rachel Heine

It's Tron-O-Clock!!

During this time of thanks, here are a couple of TRON: LEGACY trailers for your viewing pleasure. The first is a music video set to the music of French-Techno-Wonders, Daft Punk - If you weren't aware, they are scoring the movie, which is AWESOME!!

The second video is the latest trailer for Tron, revealing the main storyline of the movie. It too, is quite awesome.

It's Like Fighting Fire with Candy Corn.

Recently I've been spending a lot of car travel time listening to this new radio station here in LA - 97.1 AMP Radio. Carson Daly does the morning show, bless his little TRL heart. While the station does right by pop fans by playing a lot of good pop/hip hop music, the station has a playlist of what seems to be about... 15 songs.

Now this is all well and good, but this means I get to hear Katy Perry's "California Gurls" about 48 times a day. And I only spend maybe 30 minutes in my car a day, at best. Yeah, do the math on that one.

As I listen to this song, and my brain slowly dies because of the music, I started breaking down the song. "Why?" you may find yourself asking. The answer is quite simple. Katy wrote this song as a response to Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind." Don't believe me? Read about it here.

Now I've heard some pretty dumb things living in this state, but this definitely makes the top 15. Lets break down why:


- Jay-Z's song is filled with references to New York - images that conjure feelings of nostalgia and affection. Terms and groups, and places that people can identify with: Bed-Stuy, Knicks games, Yankees, and in the process he embodies the NY spirit and attitude.

- Katy Perry talks about how hot California girls are. That's pretty much the song. No references to anything cool in California. No references to any cities, or histoic events, or famous people (aside from "Snoop Doggy Dog on the radio"). There is nothing that recreates a sense of nostalgia, no ideas that people can identify with, except that girls are hot.

- Jay-Z teams up with the super-sexy, super-talented Alicia Keys, who sings an amazing catchy hook about NY that everyone knows and can easily sing along with. If you wanna talk about visuals, The video is riddled with pictures of New York, and Alicia is dressed in this sexy sexy outfit and plays a piano.

- Katy's song is so repetitive, that its hard to tell what part is the hook, and its so difficult to sing, most people just sing along with "oh oh oh oh oh" part, of which there are far to many. Snoop sounds sooo bored in this song, I would imagine he phoned it in from New York, hungover, having partied with Jay-Z all night. Her Music video is themed like Candy-Land, which makes NO sense, and instead of picking out a sexy costume, she gets naked and sits on a cloud. Its like going all the way on the first date. A first date that seems to involve Acid, and a whole lot of candy.

This is supposed to be a retort - a response to an amazing video. And Katy Perry steps up to the plate? That should have been the first warning sign. I have no idea what she was thinking while she jerry-rigged this steaming pile of crap together. I can only assume she misspelled "Gurls" on purpose out of respect to the Beach Boys, but even that failed, because now when you hear the phrase "California Girls," everyone's mind jumps to Katy Perry. Google agrees with me. Sorry boys, but your classic song about the west coast has been buried under some pop icon wearing a purple wig, who can't stop saying "oh."

Its like having a debate with someone, and after they make a valid point, your response is "Yeah? That's not what your mom said last night. OHHHHHH!!!!"

If the West Coast wanted a good retort to Empire State of Mind, we should have just put Pac and Dre's "California Love" back on the radio.

Here are the videos, if you want to know what I'm talking about. For the record? Perry's video? Almost 16,800,000 views at the time of this posting. Jay-Z's? over 67,105,000. Numbers don't lie.

Katy Perry - New Music - More Music Videos

How to Write Internet Commentary

You're surfing a video on YouTube, or FunnyOrDie. Maybe you're reading an article on politics or badgers. And now you're ready to make your voice heard: to add... a comment!

What follows are five basic rules to make your comment both popular and meaningful:

1. Show that you were first
If you are the first to comment on something, be sure to write, "Yes! I'm first!" or something to that effect. Everyone else who reads the article will be impressed with your quick thinking, and ability to click things more quickly than others.


2. Check your grammar at the door
People who post internet comments are very busy and important, and do not have time to bother with things like spelling or grammar. It is also important to interject internet slang such as OMG and LOL, at seemingly random intervals. This slang can also be used to bookend your comment. Please note the following example:

Initial Sentence: "I found your article on the proliferation of nuclear weaponry to be profoundly enlightening."

Internet Commentary Sentence: "OMG therr are somany of those ppl who have thez bumbs they r evrywear! LOL!!!"


3. Remember your racism
If you don't understand the video/article, you should instead try to incite some sort of racial, or otherwise bigoted hatred.
Popular topics include: Jews, Blacks and Homosexuals. But hey, don't feel limited by these options, there are plenty of minority groups to espouse.

Example: "i hte the IRish cuzz theey r abunch of potatos LOL!!!"

Your random racial rantings will draw far more of a response than any rational discussion of the video/article ever could!


4. Quoting is everything
If you're watching a video, it's a great idea to quote the funniest line/lines from it in the commentary. Most people who have watched the video have already forgotten the parts that made them laugh, so it's a great help for them to be able to see your quote as a reminder. For those who have not seen the video, your comment will give them an idea of what to look for, so they won't have to be surprised by the humor.


5. Refuse to accept irony
If the video/article is clearly being sarcastic or joking, you should absolutely take it at face value and assume they are being serious. The following would be an acceptable response to an article about using kittens as an alternative fuel source:

Example: "U R SOOO STUPUD! OMG kitens r not sumthan to burn LOL yur goingg to hel lke the JEWS!"


By following these five rules, you will be sure to gain the respect and admiration of your fellow internet commentators. This is a marvelous thing to have, because there is no one more important and sophisticated than someone who posts a comment on the internet.

-Sam

Preemptive christmas music

So a select few radio stations that will go unnamed have decided that november 1st is the time to start playing Christmas Music. Now before I start I would like to point out that I love Christmas Music, and Christmas is easily one of my favorite holidays. (third to halloween, and my own birthday since i'm an egotistical bastard.) But to play Christmas Music anytime before the day of Thanksgiving (number 5 on top holiday list) is a terrible thing to do.

The reason for this is that it steals Thanksgivings thunder, early November is a time to begin the preparation for the fantastic turkey and corn themed feast that will arrive on the third thursday of the month. These rules of when to start celebrating are in place because each holiday deserves its time in the sun. You don't wear green on Valentines Day. You don't give romantic gifts on Ground Hogs day. You don't shoot fireworks off on Memorial Day. These holidays are deserving of their seasons, and these selfish shark jumping Christmas epicureans need to slow the fuck down.

Not to mention we also want to make sure we don't burn out on our Christmas celebration. There are many of us who ignorantly wish that christmas was every day of the year. But in reality, we would go broke from present giving, we would becomes obese from all of the feasting. Be to drunk off of eggnog to do anything good for society. And most likely put a bullet in our head after the 6000th rendition of the nutcracker. It's the limited time that we can celebrate these holidays and there trappings that makes them so special.

So please instead of singing about rudolf, and Santa this early november. Start compiling recipes for deep fried turkey, twice baked potatoes, and Marshmallow yams. Start dieting in preparation for the extreme amount of food you are going to have to ingest in the beautifully presented meal on thursday the 25th of november.

And for your enjoyment a thanksgiving poem by mister Sam Kellett

A young freezer turkey named Chester,
Fell in love with the roasting pan
But his love, unrequited, did fester,
Which is why he devised such a plan:

On a cold Thursday morn
He snuck out in the kitchen
His passion reborn,
His loins full of "itchin"

He saw her, the pan
She was staring at him.
He proclaimed "here I am!"
And he mounted her rim.

Then he barreled inside
Fitting tight in her groove.
And his heart felt so light,
As the pan 'gan to move.

And that's when things got hot
('Bout 350 degrees)
He felt stuffed, stuffed a lot,
Full of love, broth and peas.

So he stayed in that place,
In that pan, slick and round
And how long was his grace?
(20 minutes, per pound)

Til at last a great hoist
Brought him out of the heat.
He felt crispy and moist,
He felt ready to meet,

Thanksgiving.

Happy Turkey Day everybody!

(Author's note: This was a consensual cooking. The only reason the love was "unrequited" before, was because Chester hadn't had the butterballs to talk to her).

The Truth About McDonalds Fast Food.... is Goddamned Retarded.

While I was staying late at the office today, I happened across a little video that a numerous amount of my friends have been posting to their profiles. Some video that advertises "The TRUTH about fast food, and how after seeing this video, you will NEVER eat McDonalds' again." I've seen SUPER SIZE ME, and once, I even thought about picking up "Fast Food Nation", but I looked at the cover and decided I needed a BK Double Stacker pronto. But I digress. I like to enjoy my fast food on a pretty regular basis, seeing as how I have a job with long hours and where I could be making more money collecting unemployment, I don't get to make home cooked meals that often. My curiosity piqued, I decided to check out the video. It depicts some guy with a handlebar mustache, who i can only assume stopped hitting on co-eds in seedy bars for just long enough to compose this video, placing various McDonalds' products into glass jars and letting them decompose over the course of 10 weeks. To provide a control group, he also uses a burger and fries from a "regular burger joint" to see how they decompose as well.

Over the course of the video, you get to watch the various stages of the food's decomposition, and see all the mold grow on the burgers and what have you. Of course the fries miraculously don't look any different 10 weeks later, which to be honest, don't surprise me, seeing as how if you let them sit for more than an hour, they tend to harden into objects you could use level out that table in your living room that doesn't seem to sit quite right. Oh yeah - and he throws out the control group burger and fries like 4 or 5 weeks in, "because the intern couldn't take the smell."

At the end of this video, you're supposed to be so grossed out that you don't EVER WANT TO EAT FAST FOOD AGAIN. Except, its a failure on multiple levels:

-I don't know where he got the idea to place fast food into glass jars that aren't airtight to watch them decompose. You could make an equally gross video using any kind of food. Plus I have no idea why you would subject yourself to 10 weeks of awful awful smelling food in your office. I would laugh my ass off if everyone in that office came down with Typhoid, just from the health hazard all the bacteria on the food.

-What exactly does this prove? That if our stomachs broke food down using nothing but air, we would run out of room in our stomachs rather quickly? If only our bodies had some sort of digestive tract - some way to break down all different kinds of food, and process as much of it as possible in a rough 24 hour period... Next time? put a half chewed gum in one of those jars as well.

-I'm pretty sure anyone who watches this video isn't going to stop eating fast food. Why? Because most of us have been enjoying McD's or one of its many equivalents for years. We know how bad the food is, we know where it comes from, and most importantly, we know its goddamned tasty. If I wanted a burger that was hand-made with all the love and care that should go into a burger, I would go get one.

This isn't an educational video, it's just an exercise in stupidity. If you wanna really be grossed out, just go watch the infamous "Two Girls, One Cup" and save yourself about 3 minutes. I also want to know where this yahoo works where he not only has an intern to mix his roofies before he goes out at night and to throw out moldy fast food, but is also able to just let food decompose right out in the open. For 2.5 months. Stay tuned for this guys's sequel video, where he feeds Happy Meal toys to squirrels, in order to show how harmful the plastic in the toys is to our American youth.


If you are indeed curious about seeing the video, here it is below. Honestly though? If you want a video to drive you away from eating fast food, just rent SUPER SIZE ME. Or if you want to sound intellectual, read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle."