this guy once told me i was good at something.
HCGC
Girls, remember this? I think it was sophomore summer or maybe junior spring. Whatever, it was sweet. What you probably didn't realize is that it made sending party emails really easy. It also points to the power of math, specifically strength in numbers.
Does something like this exist anymore? If so, blitz it to me.
Is Gotham err Detroit worth saving?
When a city is crumbling at the hands of tough times while the rich amoral men are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, who will save it from certain death?
OBATMAN!
Detroit, once a bustling metropolis, has been teetering for years. Ask Eminem. Obatman wants to save it from certain death. But to some, including Mittens and others, the Big Three auto execs put themselves in this situation and need to suck it up and deal. As Raj Aljul so aptly said in Batman Begins: "Fuck it, let em burn." But Obatman vows to rescue the auto industry, saying he supports a bailout.
The way I see it is if he throws a bunch of money at it, Wagoner et. al are just going to piss it away. But if he doesn't, there's a good chance a huge part of the country will become unemployed. Is it just me, or are these tough problems? I'm sure as shit glad we'll have an ingelligent, thoughtful person in Office, unlike in previous years. In the meantime, I'm just going to hide under my desk, put my head between my knees and wait for the Bat-signal.
Project Pat - "Keep it Hood"
Nobody can tell me that all rappers are fiscally irresponsible. Look at Project Pat. He's a role model for his community. Not only is he an Academy Award winner. but he knows the value of a dollar. His latest track is about keeping it hood and it seems thats what he's doing. His video is slick but not flashy. It has a clean feel to it and isn't overly complicated. I've decided to take a minute and itemize what the spending would likely be:
Music video production: Video/sound/editing/etc ($3000)*
Number of video girls: 1 ($500/day)
Wardrobe: Tshirts (2): ($50)
Catered food: Mac&Cheese & Mystery meat: ($20)
Guest appearance: OJ Da Juiceman (-$20)**
Cameos: Other 3-6 Mafia dudes ($Free)
Surroundings: Cars / House ($Free)***
*I made this up
**WhoTF is this guy? I hope he at least paid for the food to be in this video because he sure as shit didnt get paid
***Hopefully PP has made enough money to own a Lincoln, a pleather couch and an old TV
Grand total: $3,550
Shit, I could be a rap star.
Obamavision - 60 Minutes
Watch CBS Videos Online
If you didnt catch it last night, here is the Obama 60 Minutes interview. The first half is pretty boiler-plate Obama-policies (Who really cares anymore?) but the second half is great. Call me sappy , but watching him and Michelle interact was pretty endearing. Could anyone picture John and Cindy McCain being so goddamn cute? Cmon - they probably dont even sleep in the same bed.
In other news, I drive a Subaru (NBD) and it beeps like crazy whenever I "forget" to buckle up. Clearly, Subaru isn't aware of New Hampshire's motto. So as a result of its strong desire to dictate how I live my life, I've dubbed my car the Subamaru, after our president-elect. And no, its not because it's black, you racist.
Happy Friday - Caption contest!
Brian: do you want to see something terrifying?
[Link to above picture]
me: You're not leaving this seat until you poop!
Seems like a good caption contest for the blog
Brian: it looks like a monster
Seems like an excellent theme for a frat party
me: "But wouldnt it be easier if I took off my pants?"
Brian: "where are my parents?"
me: "You must be this tall to ride this toilet"
ok i'm posting this.
Brian: "In the future, we'll no longer need to leave our chairs to poop."
Sons of Anarchy
Is it just me or is TV, really, really good these days? Music has been in a 20-year freefall, but the boob tube has continued to amaze. On AMDAL this year, we've raved about FNL, John Adams, Mad Men and a few others. And the party doesn't stop there. New to FX is "Sons of Anarchy," about a young biker gang and their wives / girlfriends. Besides the swearing, gun-fights, babes and bad-ass beat downs, the characters have heart. Think Sopranos with Harleys.
Arguably the best part is that you can catch a smattering of the episodes on Hulu, aka YouTube Premium. And if you haven't checked out Hulu, you should. Even the commercials are good.
PUPPIES!
Austin V. hates superlatives. In fact, he refuses to use them. Of course he would never (fuck) say "never" uses them, but that's because he's disciplined.
I, on the other hand, am not. With that said, behold: puppies, AKA, the cutest thing I've EVER seen.
Click here for the live puppy-cam.
Nate Silver, Master of the Obvious
If you're anything like me and someone gave you the choice between writing a 5 page essay on why you'd rather shoot yourself in the face and actually shooting yourself in the face, you'd probably choose the latter. But when it comes to doing a problem set / building a model / typing furiously into excel, you'd put the gun down, roll up your sleeves and start cranking.
Meet Nate Silver, a man cut from the same cloth as us. Silver is the founder of http://fivethirtyeight.com, a website devoted to accurately predicting Nov. 4th's results. Again, if you're like me, you probably want to know how he did, then immediately after, how he did it. Answer: He did well. Silver and co. accurately predicted 48.666 (repeating of course) states, wrongly predicting Indiana to be light red and that all three Nebraska counties would go red. His method: He aggregated surveys from all over and weighted them based on their historical accuracy, taking into account trends like what seasons polls are least accurate and whether particular states trend along others. Clearly Nate, a long-time baseball statistician dweeb, pretty much dominated the election. He was so hot right now on CNN, MSNBC and other news networks that it was only a 0.77% chance that women wouldn't come a'flockin.
My suggestion for next prediction - probability that Barack won't kick some conservative Californian ass and repeal Proposition 8. C'mon, everyone knows that Obama only said he was against gay marriage for the votes. Ask Nate.
A Pre-Obama world as told by our nation's finest
There's obviously a lot of analysis going on these days about what the world will look like with America's first black president. I especially like the commentary of older, primarily African American people who say they never thought they'd see Tuesday happen. But I wanted to do something else. I wanted to do the real deep-dive, in-the-weeds kind of analysis that pretengineer/pretendibankers like me pretend to do. I wanted to see what some of America's greatest black comedians had to say about a black president back in their time.
Thanks to Kim for mashing these videos for me.
My first hint that Obama might have a real chance of winning not only the Democratic nomination, but also the general election, came as Istood in the heart of Des Moines, Iowa, for the caucuses last January. I interviewed two 21-year-old roommates who told me they were caucusing for Obama because they had never known of a presidentwithout a "Bush" or "Clinton" in the name. An old man told me hehadn't caucused in four decades, but he was going to caucus for Obama because "change was coming." Earlier in the day, I had sat in an80-year-old African-American woman's living room as she told me shewould caucus for Obama. It was the first time, she said, her familyhad ever discussed politics.
The most telling sign, though, was the long, twisting line of people of all ages signing up to register to vote for the first time at thecaucus location I attended. The significance of that sight sent shivers up my spine.
And so tonight, I'll be coloring in my map and counting electoral votes along with the rest of the country while checking on obscure congressional races that few people care about besides those like mewho actually spend their days chasing these people around the Capitol.
But what I'll really be keeping my eye on is voter turnout. There are already reports of longer-than-usual lines: early voting lines in DC last week stretched over an hour; I waited two hours to vote this morning in DC. And thanks to all the Democrats in DC and the Electoral College system, our vote doesn't even count. So I can only imagine the numbers in swing states.
At the end of the day, no matter the outcome, the biggest takeaway for me will be the way this election has fundamentally changed our perception of who cares, who stumps, and most importantly, who votes.
Man of the Week: ErikJ
Its a bit ridiculous that its taken this long for one of the twins to make MOTW. Erik has more stories* to tell / be told about him than most sickies frats put together. He has his own chainsaw, motorcycle, flannel jacket and beard yet it was this picture that triggered it in my mind.
What more can you say, he's a fvcking Dude.
*Stories not to be disclosed in written form, both to preserve the lore and to avoid legal action
