Last night, news broke that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign an Executive Order on Monday slashing the wages of over 200,000 state employees to the bare minimum.
Not California's minimum wage of $8 per hour. The federal minimum wage of $6.55. Six dollars and fifty-five cents an hour.
Imagine trying to pay your bills on $6.55 an hour. Now imagine what will happen to thousands of vital service workers forced to live on poverty-level wages. A nauseating irony: many state employees may need to seek aid from the very state services that employ them.
Apologies in advance, but we have to ask... How do you REALLY feel about the New Kids on the Block reunion?
All I have to ask is why? No one wanted a New Kids on the Block reunion. No one needs it. Did they all go broke or something? I can't imagine some record company executive sitting in an office and thinking, "you know what would move some units? A New Kids on the Block reunion."
Their songs sucked when it was young dudes dancing and pretending to sing them. Now that they're old, it's just embarrassing. If, when I reach the middle of my life, all I have to show for it is a band that sang and danced to songs we didn't write (that were terrible, anyway) and a pile of fan mail from formerly underage girls who are now in their 30's and embarrassed about ever having liked my band, I will consider my life to be a failure. These guys would be wise to do the same and just call it off before they embarrass themselves further.
If you want proof that these guys always sucked, here it is. For the record, I would be embarrassed for myself if I ever wrote a song this bad:
And also, the cover of the first new single, for those still in denial:
I'd warn you about possible spoilers ahead, but who are we kidding here? You've already seen the film.
Didn't hate it, didn't love it, and frankly, not sure I can see it again.
I don't want to say much about Heath Ledger, other than this: The man reportedly spent a month in a hotel room, by himself, working on the character. This month included working on the voice, walk, and mannerisms of an off-the-chain psychopath, and he even kept a journal of the Joker's thoughts. Does this film bear any responsibility for him turning up deceased under unusual circumstances? I'm not sure.
The film rather unsubtly made the point that the Joker was directly Batman's fault. If Batman hadn't launched an attack on the mob, the mob wouldn't have hired a murderous clown. Okay, so that, they got right. Thing is, I've liked Batman for a long time, and I'm not sure this movie will ...let me? If that makes sense? He's caused a lot of problems, his sense of morality is as skewed as anybody else's, and he's pretty much kind of a screwup. But beyond that, see next paragraph.
The Dark Knight is a completely hopeless film. Once you've bought in and become invested, you are not allowed to feel good about anything. People die. Lots of them. The dark characters become darker, the paladins are ruthlessly brought down, and hospitals are blown up. Characters we don't care about are murdered, characters we do care about are twisted and made ugly, and the end of the movie is depressing as fuck. Oh, and just a quick note to Christopher Nolan: the ferryboat scene based on the Prisoner's Dilemma didn't work. At all.
So yeah. It was much more true to the dark style of the comics lately, and I'm not at all sure I cared for it. In fact, I think I miss the subtle performance of Cesar Romero.
Walkscore.com recently ranked America's most walkable neighborhoods and cities. Where does your hometown land in the rankings? And how much do you actually find yourself walking instead of driving?
Well, this doesn't tell me anything I don't know. My address gets a rating of 68 of 100, or "somewhat walkable." But then, a lot of places in walking distance aren't on the map. It's really outdated and even just straight-up inaccurate. I'd be willing to bet people looking for the Albertson's at the north end of Parkcenter would be disappointed to find the company headquarters (I'm not sure it's still the company headquarters after the buyout, either) there, for example. I'm sure someone has a good reason to go there, and walking might be a good way to get there, but that grocery store icon is misleading, since I really doubt anyone's going to want to sell you a head of lettuce and some toilet paper there. It also misses the fact that there are two Albertson's stores much closer than that one. It lists one of them as a Sav-On Drug store and it misses the other entirely. It even misses all the fast food places on Broadway, although the Starbucks is there. Too bad there's also a McDonald's, Del Taco, Burger King, Taco Bell, and Domino's.
So the score would probably be a bit higher if it found all the things that are actually on this end of town, some of which are a lot closer than the next closest thing.
Also, things that could potentially lower it: the Mormon church is not really what I'd call a library. Lakewood Montessori is not what I'd call a general purpose school. King's Komix Kastle is run out of some guy's garage pretty much whenever he wants to run it. I also don't even know if he still does that. And Payless Shoe Source for "clothing and music"? Why are those two things even the same category? And why are shoes defined as "clothing"? Wouldn't a place have to sell more than just one type of clothing to qualify? To be fair, the Payless is inside of a ShopKo, which it didn't find on there. Also, there's an M&W Market on Gekeler? Really? Because what's really where that marker is, is a little residential cul de sac with some houses on it. Across the street is an apartment complex. Maybe there's a little outlet in there or something that I'm not aware of, but I'd hardly call that the same thing as a grocery store.
So basically, I think the score would be a lot more accurate if the maps were. I would agree with the general gist of "somewhat walkable." If you can walk a mile or two in hot weather, you can live in the more central areas of Boise without a car, but I still wouldn't recommend it unless you do a lot of bike riding. If you live out on the southeastern fringes, like Columbia Village or Surprise Valley or Harris Ranch, or in the west side sprawl, forget it.
The fantastic ladies over at The Frisky asked me to give them a list of nominations for their annual Hotness Awards, and just posted them up on their site!
I tried my hardest to not just list country music bands and lame answers like "I don't watch TV", and I'd like to think I nominated some pretty cool stuff. (Who would argue that the Rain vs Stephen Colbert Dance-Off wasn't the hottest scandal of the year?)
Even you can die in the summertime.
Stripped socks with flowery flats.
Oh look it's an article discussing how studies are likely to show soon and definitively that cell phone use is directly related to an increase in cancers about the head and neck. Seems likely to me that plastering a highly electronic, magnetic and concentrated device next to an organ as complicated and sensitive as the brain (not to mention the ears and eyes) for hours a day is likely to have something other than healthy ramifications. Just like it seemed probable years ago that wrapping yourself in electric currents in the form of a blanket for hours at night wasn't the best way to keep warm or that deeply inhaling the gas fumes while filling up the tank probably wasn't a good idea. Modern life is so complicated and society seems so increasingly unhealthy that it will likely be hard to pinpoint that cell phones are exactly the culprit and it's not all the other wireless waves zapping us from hither and yon. They used to put a lead blanket over your lap when you got a simple x-ray at the dentist but it seems like now folks are getting unhealthy doses of the invisible equivilent just walking down the street with all the cameras and metal detectors and wifi zones. I don't know anything for sure but I still say Yikes.
And what about carrying your phone or blackberry around all day in a chest pocket next to your heart or pants pocket next to your reproductive junk?
Double Yikes.
I need a haircut. Good thing I have one scheduled for tomorrow...
Pearl Jam's Yellow Ledbetter, as you've never heard it before...
