Superman observes himself and writes down his entire eight billion letter genetic sequence, only two weeks after the special edition of Gattaca was released on Blu-ray and DVD. I can guarantee you that something about that is insane, and in true quantum fashion, I am willing to concede that the insanity is in the observation.
I went on a float trip today, but in a parallel universe I stayed home and did a huge post about polar bears.
Line cooking is about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way. The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator...Chefs require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions.That, from Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential, is probably a good stab at describing most jobs. And speaking of stabbing, here's a scene from the television series Kitchen Confidential, a documentary of the book with footage that happened in real-time:
Shayne Lamas, Bachelorette and Bonne Vivante 
He does not. And now I wonder whose wife he's talking about.
I could be wrong about that, though. As far as I know, Pez IS a mother (maybe, I don't really read a lot of Witchblade these days), so in one sense, any jeans she puts on are going to be "mom" jeans. However, in order to get a better sense of what really makes a pair of jeans "mom jeans," I decided to consult a promotional employee manual distributed by Express in 2002. It was less than helpful:
No closer to the truth, I watched the following investigative report:
One thing that does not matter in the chewing gum world, however, is quality control. The Stride gum factories in Metropolis, for instance, have a severe problem with kryptonite getting into various batches of Stride (which, compared to every other business and residence in the Metropolis/Smallville regional area, is not so bad, really, because kryptonite gets into just about everything in a 200-mile radius). The promotional strategy to combat potential negative publicity from kryptonite gum is an effective one: A lot of One Republic shows are held in the Stride gum factory, sometimes as many as two a week!
With integrated brand promotion that good, you could put arsenic in your gum and still outsell Trident! Not that Cadbury-Schweppes, the company that makes both Stride and Trident (and more importantly Cadbury Eggs), really cares which brand of gum outsells the other brand they ALSO make. You know who does care about that, though? Advertising Principles professors who assign you (me) to write about the sales strategies for Trident gum. I tell ya, I really thought Stride and Trident were the same brand, but it turns out they are way different (Trident is for old people, apparently).
Actually, it might be best to have Laura Vandervoort tell me, but that's splitting Kryptonian hairs. Pass the Forever Fruit Stride!
The video for Britney Spears' "Break the Ice," the third single from her album Blackout, was officially released today, and it features what one can only assume is an animated version of Britney by way of Aeon Flux. To say that this new avatar is a bit out of proportion to how Britney actually looks these days would be accurate but not entirely fair, since the animated version would look idealized next to anybody, even Britney six years ago. As it turns out, though, one of my particular criticisms of Blackout when it came out specifically had to do with lyrics on "Piece of Me," wherein Britney states "I'm Mrs. Lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous/I'm Mrs. Oh-my-god-that-Britney's-shameless/I'm Mrs. Extra-extra-this-just-in/I'm Mrs. She's-too-big-now-she's-too-thin." Maybe I just was not as up on my celebrity gossip as some, but I asserted that no where had it ever been stated that Britney was too thin. Despite the fact that it took a cartoon to get us here, that is now a patently false observation on my part, to which all I can say is this: Well-played, Spears.
So remember, it is impolite to use an avatar that does not at least reasonably simulate your appearance. Or at least it will be, once everyone is jacked into the metaverse.
Dastardly! Eventually, Stark fixed the problem, but not by booting up in safe mode. No, he fixed it with REPULSOR RAYS! TO THE FACE!
Dave Stevens, creator of the Rocketeer, passed away yesterday at the age of 53. As a coincidence, yesterday I was rereading an interview with Adam Hughes from the August 2002 issue of Comic Book Artist, in which Hughes speaks about Stevens' influence on him as an artist:There was personality and there was craftsmanship in Dave's stuff. It is nostalgic and has a retro, classic quality. He is a guy whose work is really grounded in the Good Girl art in the 1930-50s tradition, and his take on the material is very honest. The women he drew were beautiful but never came across as crass.Stevens and Hughes collaborated together on the "Pride" cover for DV8 #1, released in 1996.
Nougatocity (noun): A heightened yet fleeting state of accomplishment that makes you realize how unbelievably unmotivated you normally are.And since I had just eaten a Snickers bar, I was in possession of enough peanut-packed power to find out why my candy bars were making up new words for "sugar rush." Unfortunately, by the time I discovered the rest of the marketing campaign, five minutes later, I had "sugar crashed." As such, I no longer had the resolve to find out what Snickers' other new made-up words, including satisfectellent and substantialicious, meant, although my guesses are "sugar rush" and "sugar rush," respectively.
You need a farm bill that basically evens the playing field and is not driving down the price of high-fructose corn syrup, so that, you know, real fruit juice can compete with it. You need a farm bill that makes carrots competitive with Wonder Bread.Pollan says a lot of things that are not crazy, which is good. But I do diverge from him on one point, which comes across as slightly crazy (even if it turns out to be true). Pollan says he will not personally eat cloned livestock because he doesn't know what it could do to you health-wise, which is fair. However, he also says that cloning champion bulls will devalue their semen. Again, even if that turns out to be true, it's a crazy thing to say, and I'm not sure what the problem would be if champion bull semen was cheaper and more plentiful?
On the other hand, if you own a lot of stock in champion bull semen, you might want to sell before prices plummet. Just remember the old saying, "The more bulls in market, the less bull the market," and your financial prospects will be fine. On Wall Street, this dynamic is known by some as the relative nougatocity of the market.
I was unaware of this fact for years, even though the clues have always been there. For instance, Tanner has to soak his arm in ice water every day, ostensibly to help with "tendonitis," but what I now know to be a typical terminator procedure for repairing a damaged mimetic polyalloy. Also, Tanner often refers to errands as "objectives," another something that terminators do.
Before I could get a better shot of myself and Anderson, though, Tanner made an attempt to accomplish his "primary objective," which resulted in him being forcibly ejected from the building by security. He told me later he was trying to give Anderson a flier for a party, but I know he made an attempt on the life of the only man who can save the human race.
Garfield should be in it, too.
Have you ever noticed how Giuliani looks almost exactly like an old man version of actor Rob Youngblood (Melrose Place, Sliders)? That was originally my entire proposal, just five minutes of commentary on how similar these two look. But trying to get photos for comparison, the only pictures of Youngblood I could find were from a show called Space Precinct, so I put Rudy and Rob together in a promotional still from that and bam! "Buddy Space Cops: Father and Son."
It really makes you long for a time when explosions and car chases actually meant something, like they did in the 1970s television series The Fall Guy, starring Lee Majors. It also featured Heather Thomas, 1982's winner for "Outstanding Achievement in Reasons to Watch Zapped!" So I guess when you get right down to it, my main point here is that I'm going to go back to ignoring political humor for the rest of the day and rent Zapped! instead. But if SNL wants to use "Buddy Space Cops: Father and Son," I could live with that.
1. Hedgehogs are the fastest creatures on the planet, with a land speed record of 760 mph.
2. Porcupines are incapable of intimate relationships, as being physically close to another porcupine will cause them to puncture each other with their sharp quills.
