It's for Haiti. That's good, fine, admirable. Their hearts are in the right place, I guess.
But this thing is awful. Horrific, disastrous, soul-crushing. Take your pick of adjectives.
Some things just need to be left alone on the basis that they're basically classic. Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, Caddyshack, Animal House, Ghost Busters (basically anything with Bill Fuckin' Murray) in film. Music is a bit different. Artists put their own spin on songs and sometimes they're good (Jeff Buckley singing Hallelujah) and sometimes they're bad (Imogen Heap singing Hallelujah) but nobody is ever really surprised when you hear a cover.
We Are the World is different. It was timeless. With an almost entirely new cast of characters, what they did was remake the song to modernize it. They grabbed today's "hottest" artists, added some fucking hiphop and the result is the abortion above.
Ugh.
Couldn't they have just brought back the old one? Given it some airplay on the radio and MTV and Fuse? Advertised that the proceeds from downloading the song on iTunes would go to Haiti? How about the artists in the remake just dig into their enormous pool of wealth and simply donate? You're telling me someone in that room didn't for a moment think, "Hey, I'll pay to not have this song created. Who's comin' with me?"
Do your part, but download and delete it. Please. No one should have to be subjected to Lil' Wayne singing what Bob Dylan once did.
2 - Avatar was better than I envisioned it would be. I had heard so many people say that the story was average, but I was impressed. Was it over the top with the message? Yup. I didn't care.
The special effects were obviously amazing. There were moments that had me ducking in my seat.
I'm usually someone who'll fall asleep if I'm watching a long movie in the theater. Gladiator and the Matrix put me asleep. Avatar had me enthralled.
I might see it again.
2b - OK, but this review is hilarious.
2c - And be sure to check out his epic review of The Phantom Menace.
3 - I thought this was an interesting, if not unfortunate, story.
I come from a family of teachers and school administrators. I hear both sides of these kinds of arguments quite a bit. But I think there's two factors in this story that place me on the side of administration:
1 - The district is one of the worst in the state.
2 - The economy
Obviously change needed to happen. The six items they wanted the teachers to agree to didn't seem too outrageous given the students' performance has been so terrible. On the surface they might be cosmetic, however. So the school day is 25 minutes longer? Fine. But what's going into those 25 minutes.
But whatever. Like I said, if the school is that bad then making some changes had to happen.
But the second item, the economy, is what makes this a little more eye opening. All of those people are losing their job because they couldn't agree on concessions. In the past year a lot of people I know have been asked to do more without the carrot of higher salary dangling in front of them. They overlying theme is, "Do what you can to be useful to your company or you're going to get canned". It surprises me that the teachers union would look at the extraordinary circumstances and come to the realization that having a job wasn't worth an extra 25 minutes a day and two weeks of in-services over the summer.
I'm going to keep an eye on this one. I think a deal is reached now that the staff realizes that, yes, administration will can their asses.
4 - Twiitter is awesome if you're a sports fan like myself. But if you were also a fan of the olympics (I'm not), I can guess that you wouldn't be incredibly pleased at the tweets you're reading today.
NBC was televising cross country skiing earlier today while the Men's Downhill was going on. They were going to show the more popular event later. However, writers on twitter were giving up to the moment updates on how the US was doing in the downhill. Sports sites like ESPN and SI were showing results on their home page. So, if you're online today it's rather difficult to not know that Bode Miller captured the bronze.
5 - I'm seeing some potential in Google Buzz. A neat (or disturbing if you want to look at it in another way) feature that your blasts are plotted on a map. So if I'm using my iPhone and I'm at a bar and I say something like, "Great happy hour deals at The Livery", my blast is going to be visible to anyone in Eau Claire using Buzz.
Since Buzz has only been out less than a week and people are still kind of feeling it out, the blasts have been few. But like I said, I can see potential. It could prove to be especially useful in an area you're not familiar with. Your friend sends a blast from the bar or club or event he's at. It shows up on your map and you automatically get directions. Pretty cool.
6 - It's possible that Olivia Wilde has successfully gotten me into four different shows.
I remember watching the ill-fated Skin when I was junior at Stout. Only around for six episodes, it was worth it for Wilde alone. Oh, and also the absurd plot in which the daughter of a pornographer gets involved with the son of DA. Shakespearean drama FTW.
Then she signed on to do 13 episodes in the second season of The OC, right around the time I started to tune-in. I was hooked.
Don't hate.
Next up was a short run on the critically acclaimed but short lived Black Donnellys. Just another of NBC's fuck-ups.
And, finally, House M.D.. I watched House briefly in college but tuned out when it became apparent that every episode would be the same. Someone is hit with a mystery illness, House is a dick, makes a mistake with the first diagnosis, patient gets worse, House is a dick, House has a revelation in the final five minutes and the person lives. Wash, rinse, repeat.
So yea, I stopped watching somewhere in the middle of season one.
Fast forward five years. I find out our lass Olivia Wilde is a member of House's cast, something that the rest of the world has apparently known for some time. So I simply skipped to the episode where she joins the cast and, like that, I'm hooked again.
I've blown through an entire season of this goddamn show in the past three days. That's not easy to do. It requires a level of inactivity and laziness that borders on (flat out is) unhealthy.
Damn you, Olivia Wilde.
7 - One of my friends is in the hospital. Another quit her old job and is no longer online. It's some holiday today so most of my other friends are home, not working. I've had absolutely no one to email and chat with all day. Conversely, outside of this blog, I've been pretty damn productive.
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