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January 15 Two great moviesI saw two great movies on Friday night: Children of Men and Inside Man. I was way behind the curve on Inside Man, it's already on DVD and I was probably the last person to see it. At the other end of the spectrum, I feel a little ahead of the curve on Children of Men...it's got a fair amount of buzz, but the buzz hasn't really reached a popular crescendo yet. Anyway, go see Children of Men on the big screen, it was great! August 19 The best thing about YouTube? Gnarls Barkley videosRemember the sweet Gnarls Barkley videos I came across a while back?
Well the hits just keep on coming!
My friend Dan just forwarded me another one: this great video is for the song Smiling Faces and features a cameo by Dennis Hopper. August 07 The best DVD at any price: Dave Chappelle's Block PartyIt is an emergency that you rent Dave Chappelle's Block Party movie and watch it with your homies as soon as possible!
It's filmed as a documentary by reknowned director Michel Gondry. I saw it for the first time a little more than a week ago and just watched it for the second time tonight, and both times it blew me away!
Folks who enjoy great live hip-hop and also fans of Dave Chappelle will dig the movie the most. But I really think the movie has mass appeal beyond just those segments because it's so well assembled and uplifting.
Make sure you watch it somewhere with a good sound system!
Thanks to Joel and Mitch who put me onto the movie a long while back...I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to seeing this flick. :) August 03 OK Go does it again!Remember the OK Go video from a while back of them dancing like a boy-band in their back yard that went "viral"?
The boys have one-upped that video with a new and even better one! The video features a coordinated boy-band-like dance on a set of 6 treadmills. Crazy!
I think this one's going to be big...in fact it looks like it's already starting to gain momentum on YouTube as it's got 341,000 views since being posted on Monday.
I saw an early version of this video, but didn't know they had launched it publicly until Joel's heads up. Thx, Joel! July 29 Gnarls Barkley at MTV Movie Awards & Cee-Lo on The Wake-Up ShowThis video is just awesome!
Disclaimer: Don't know if this video will live for long on YouTube since I doubt it's properly licensed, etc.
(Thanks to Matt for the forward.)
Whoa, I can't check my email from Matt and post to this blog fast enough! Matt also put me onto another amazing video, this one a (freestyle?) verse that Cee-Lo drops on live radio on The Wake-Up Show.
Update: Added the second video. July 08 Conan's speech at Stuyvesant H.S. graduationI realize it's not exactly breaking news to post something that's already been announced on Gothamist, but I couldn't resist this one: YouTube's got Conan O'Brien's speech to the graduating class of 2006 at Stuyvesant high school in NY!
Here's part 1, part 2, and YouTube search results in case those first 2 links die. Be warned that it's a hand-held amateur video so quality is low and you have to listen carefully! The first 2/3 of the speech is really funny, then it gets a little more serious near the end (follow-your-heart, seize-the-day, etc) so feel free to skip that part if you attended your own high school graduation and already know the drill. :)
Enjoy! June 26 Brazil's soccer stars have the best namesThey are Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Robinho, Kaká, Cafu, Dida, Fred, Adriano, Gilberto, and more.
The stars of Brazil's national team have the best names! I'm not rooting for Brazil since they're just too good and I prefer rooting for underdogs. But if the world cup winner was determined based on which team's players have the sweetest names, Brazil would win hands-down. :)
Thankfully, Slate's "Explainer" column featured an article 2 weeks ago entitled: Why Ronaldinho Has No Last Name - How Brazilian soccer players get their names. Before I read this short piece, I had no idea how these guys got their cool names. (Thanks to Caleb for the forward.)
Now that we're all up to speed on how these names came to be, it's time for us to get our own Brazilian soccer nicknames! So head over to BrazilName to find out what your name would be if you played for the Brazil squad. (Thanks to Lukas for the forward.)
Updated 6/28/06: Fixed formatting glitch. May 29 ESPN World Cup 2006 soccer adsThe start of the World Cup is almost upon us!
These sweet television ads that ESPN has been airing will help you get fired up. May 22 Mets vs. YankeesMy friend Mike M and I attended Sunday night's Mets vs. Yankees game at Shea Stadium, thanks to Mike who secured the tickets. It was really exciting to see the Mets win since it was my first Mets game since getting to town! But it was also freezing cold.
Thanks to Carlos Delgado and David Wright's back-to-back homers, the Mets won and took the series 2-1. If Billy Wagner hadn't come apart in the 9th inning of Saturday's game (and manager Willie Randolph hadn't left him in) then the Mets would've won all 3 games against the Yankees!
The Mets have earned the highest honor I can bestow at the moment: I passed my ticket through my new scanner! (I have really gone scan-crazy over the last few days, Maya can't stop laughing at me.)
Did I mention the most artic-like aspect of the experience? The temperature was 50F and the wind was gusting at 20 MPH! I'm still cold. :)
Shea Stadium was rocking tonight and brought back a lot of memories. But I was also reminded of how lousy a baseball stadium Shea is...it just flat-out stinks. Yankee stadium is much better, and it can't even hold a candle to all the beautiful new ballparks like Safeco Field in Seattle and PacBell Park in San Francisco. So it's exciting that they're building a new stadium for the Mets in Flushing...I just wish it'd be ready sooner than 2009! May 04 The Ultimate Collaboration: BillG + Jay-ZImagine if these two gentlemen combined their resources and superpowers....
(Photo courtesy of Todd Bishop's Seattle P-I blog that covers Microsoft.) February 22 Becky and Coolio at CES 2006OK, enough with the whining.
On a lighter note, here's a truly great photo: my friend Becky with Coolio! The pic was snapped at CES 2006 in Las Vegas.
Alex--Becky's huband and my homie--is either in the picture but accidentally obscured by Coolio's corn-rows or (more likely) sitting at a blackjack table back on The Strip. February 03 Beautiful large framed Italian-language movie posters for you!I'm selling these posters on Craigslist. But if any of you (my friends :) want any of them <switch to Borat accent> I will make you most best good price! For you, good friend, framed prints are FREE!!
Give me a call if you're interested.... December 06 Damian vs. DRM againA few weeks back I pointed to an article my friend Damian wrote for Coolfer criticizing DRM from a musician's perspective. Now Damian's same article is running in the New York Times!
Wow. I hope his label doesn't get too angry. :) December 05 Laptop Battle Nationals: Danger Dave vs. north americaWe will at the Laptop Battle Championship this Friday cheering for our man Danger Dave!
December 01 A sure-shot reality show idea: Kevin Federline, the Man behind BritneyThis reality show idea is shot a sure-shot that I can't believe I'm giving it away. But it would be so entertaining to watch, I felt obliged to throw it out there in the hope that someone will run with it!
All we have to do is strap a web-cam onto Kevin Federline's corn-rows, then sit back and enjoy. That guy is such a recently-rich goofus mess that the show would be flat-out AMAZING. Ideally there wouldn't be much actual Britney in the show, instead we'd want just the ever-present *implication* of Britney. I don't mind the NBA dress code!Natala pointed me to this fun series of photos of NBA players conforming to the league's new dress code, my favorites are:
Update: Added pointer to Natala's blog. November 29 J.O.B. The Hip-Hopera in LA through Dec 11, 2005This "opera" is so good! I'll just paste the email I sent to my friends in LA:
And the where/when details from the original announcement mail:
Also, the show's website at www.jobthehiphopera.com is pretty sweet. November 28 Kenny Lao and Rickshaw Dumplings featured on Martha StewartBack on September 15, my friend Kenny Lao and his popular new dumpling shop Rickshaw Dumplings were featured on Martha Stewart's TV show! I know I'm late on this one, but I wanted to get the pointers up on the blog for posterity and to make it easier for others to find when they search the web.
Sean Combs (aka. Diddy, aka. P-Diddy, aka. Puff Daddy, aka. Puffy, aka. the worst rapper ever) was also featured on the show and apparently helped Martha write some rap lyrics. I can't say I was upset to have missed that bit. :) November 20 Kathleen's Spartays getting national attentionKathleen started these her Spartay parties for singles less than a year ago and now they're so popular they're getting coverage from Bloomberg News!
It's true that Kathleen's parties have really taken off, but the gist of the Bloomberg story is that Seattle is a particularly singles-friendly place to be and they couldn't be more dead wrong. The reporter clearly didn't talk to any of the handful of my friends who are cool, gainfully employed, handsome, funny, and inexplicably single as hell. :)
Thanks to Joel for catching the Bloomberg mention. August 24 TV: Still got it...almostBack in July I talked about some TV shows I was really enjoying and some new ones I was looking forward to. Here's a quick update:
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