Posted on December 28th, 2007 by BRiT
MADISON, Wis. — Electronics might be the hot item on all gift lists this holiday, but it’s also on the list of some lawmakers.
A proposed bill in Wisconsin would add an extra sales tax to electronics.
The bill’s author, state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, said the money raised from the tax isn’t to dissuade gamers, but to help cover the cost to move 17-year-olds, who commit non-violent crimes, back into the juvenile system. Currently, 17-year-olds are treated as adults, WISC-TV reported.
Read more…
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Filed under: Dumbass, Gaming, Internet, Other, Software, Technology, Television, Toys, Video
Posted on August 4th, 2007 by reflex
ROME (Reuters) - A Sicilian mother took away her 61-year-old son’s house keys, cut off his allowance and hauled him to the police station because he stayed out late.
Tired of her son’s misbehavior, the retiree in the central Sicilian city of Caltagirone turned to the police to “convince this blockhead” to behave properly, La Sicilia, one of Sicily’s leading newspapers, reported on Thursday.
The son responded by saying his mother did not give him a big enough weekly allowance and did not know how to cook. Read more…
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Filed under: Dumbass, Funny Bone
Posted on July 26th, 2007 by reflex
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.
“He doesn’t make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die,” said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Many family members take some solace from it. They appreciate the companionship that the cat provides for their dying loved one,” said Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Brown University. Read more…
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Filed under: Bizarre, Paranormal / UFO, Science
Posted on July 8th, 2007 by reflex
Watch me be much too lazy to copy the formatting from the first one of these I did! Hopefully I’ll get close enough. I had such lofty plans to make them all look the same… oh well.
I have a vile and thorough hatred for all of McDonald’s advertising, particularly since they adopted the obnoxious “I’m lovin’ it” slogan. I kinda like McDonald’s, but I heartily resent their attempts to be hip by using what they interpret as the vernacular currently en vogue by the target youth segment. Can’t a company as monstrous as McDonald’s afford some quality advertising? Compare them to Bud Light, a brand of similar stature. Their commercials are awesome. How come McDonald’s commercials suck so consistently? Some things I will never understand.
Brief synopsis of the commercial currently pissing me off: Some young Generation-X whippersnappers start a dot-com company called gofbot.com. They claim that it will be bigger than the Big Mac. The entire population of the United States is floored at this assertion and it becomes the hottest topic of discussion — it’s on 24-hour news channels, it’s on the street, in the gym, everywhere. “Bigger than the Big Mac? Can it be? It’s impossible!” The whippersnappers at gofbot.com check their site and a giant, cartoonish counter informs them that they have a had a total of three visitors. Gofbot.com is not bigger than the Big Mac, because apparently nothing can be bigger than the Big Mac.
My beef with this ad: Read more…
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Filed under: Bizarre, Commentary, Dumbass, Food, Funny Bone, Internet, Other, Reviews
Posted on June 21st, 2007 by reflex
I’m going to start whining in this space about commercials that bother me, if that’s ok with everyone. I’ll try to stay away from particularly irritating local commercials unless I can obtain video of them.
Today’s ad: Pizza Hut Hot-and-Ready Pizza Pocket Things (I frankly can’t be bothered to look up their actual name)
The gist of the ad: Guy with bad hair #1 comes into the cubicle-farm-style office and announces, smugly, that the pizza pockets have arrived “… as requested.” (The ellipsis was indeed included in his dialogue, and you can tell because he pauses for a distinct beat as he makes some pretentious, irrelevant, and magnanimous hand gesture.) Two of his office-mates poke their heads over the cubicle wall, gopher-style. Guy with bad hair #2 (really bad, sideways-swept blond hair on this one, plus square poetry-slam glasses) says, dreamily, “Dan’s back from The ‘Hut” to which his puzzled cohort replies, “That was fast.” GWBH#1 distributes three (3) pizza pocket things from a shopping bag large enough to hold several shoe boxes, the third of which goes to GWBH#2. He accepts it, gazing lovingly at his pizza pocket as he cradles it. The office drones each take bites of their delicacies, GWBH#2 looking particularly dreamy as he does so. To conclude the commercial, a forlorn loser officemate clutches his pathetic sandwich as he says, “I guess I missed the memo… damn.”
What pisses me off: I’m pretty easy to piss off, Read more…
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Filed under: Commentary, Dumbass, Food, Other, Reviews, Side Notes, Television
Posted on June 16th, 2007 by reflex
PALATINE, Illinois (AP) — An elementary school science teacher in this Chicago suburb doesn’t have to turn on the news for an update on NASA’s space mission. She just turns on her video baby monitor.
Since Sunday, one of the two channels on Natalie Meilinger’s baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis. The other still lets her keep an eye on her baby.
“Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you’ll usually see,” Meilinger said. “No one would ever expect this.”
Live video of the mission is available on NASA’s Web site, so it’s possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.
“It’s not coming straight from the shuttle,” NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean said. “People here think this is very interesting and you don’t hear of it often — if at all.” Read more…
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Filed under: Bizarre, Internet, Paranormal / UFO, Science, Technology
Posted on June 14th, 2007 by reflex
JAIPUR, India (Reuters) - A 73-year-old Indian farmer who vowed not to marry before passing his high school exams has failed to get through for the 38th time.
Shiv Charan Yadav has been taking the exams — normally given to schoolchildren at the age of 15 — every year since 1969, without success.
He was in his 30s when he first decided to better himself through education.
This year, he failed everything except Sanskrit, scoring only 103 out of a possible 600 points.
He said he found mathematics especially hard, blaming the subject for dragging down his score.
“Once I pass I want to get married to a girl who’s under 30,” Yadav, who lives alone in Kohari village in the western desert state of Rajasthan, told Reuters.
He is now revising for his 39th attempt next year.
Source: Reuters
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Filed under: Bizarre, Dumbass, Funny Bone, Science
Posted on May 11th, 2007 by |DG|
Next
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| Genre: Sci Fi |
Year: 2007 |
| Starring: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel |
Writer: Gary Goldman (screenplay) and Jonathan Hensleigh (screenplay) |
| Rated: PG 13 |
Director: Lee Tamahori |
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| From imbd.com : Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government and medical establishment in his power, he lies low under an assumed name in Vegas, performing cheap tricks and living off small-time gambling “winnings.” But when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, government agent Callie Ferris must use all her wiles to capture Cris and convince him to help her stop the cataclysm. |
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So…there is these bad guys who have a big bomb. Then there is Nicolas Cage playing Cris, who knows only 2 minutes into the future. Except when he is with his hottie girl played by Jessica Biel, and suddenly he can see farther into the future. Then there is this FBI mean girl played by Julianne Moore. Not very confusing at first glance, but the plot is exasperated by the constant back and forth, past and present, future that can be and future that never happened. As a matter of fact, the movie is tiring. And not in a good way, although you will be hanging on the edge of your seat—trying to figure out what’s going on!
Now, I have stoically defended Nicolas Cage to many people. I think he is an excellent actor with so much to offer. Unfortunately, he doesn’t offer any of it in this flick. He just seems well, confused, at least as confused as I am about the whole movie. Usually I am a big fan of science fiction time-travel premonition-like movies. The problem with Next is that everything is happening next, and nothing is happening now. It is the kind of movie you rent when you’ve already seen all the good new releases.
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Filed under: Movies, Reviews
Posted on May 11th, 2007 by |DG|
GrindHouse
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| Genre: Horror |
Year: 2007 |
Rated: R |
| Starring: Rose McGowan, Bruce Willis, Quentin Tarantino, Kurt Russell |
| Writer: Robert Rodriguez (fake trailer segment “Machete”); Robert Rodriguez (segment “Planet Terror”); Rob Zombie (fake trailer segment “Werewolf Women of the S.S.”); Edgar Wright (fake trailer segment “Don’t”); Jeff Rendell (fake trailer segment “Thanksgiving”) & Eli Roth (fake trailer segment “Thanksgiving”)Quentin Tarantino (segment “Death Proof” |
| Director: Robert Rodriguez (segment “Planet Terror”) (fake trailer segment “Machete”)Eli Roth(fake trailer segment “Thanksgiving”) Quentin Tarantino (segment “Death Proof”) Edgar Wright (fake trailer segment “Don’t”) Rob Zombie(fake trailer segment “Werewolf Women of the S.S.”) |
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| Grindhouse is a 2007 anthology film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. The film is a double feature consisting of two feature-length segments bookended by fictional trailers for upcoming attractions, advertisements, and in-theater announcements. The film’s title derives from the U.S. film industry term “grindhouse,” which refers to a movie theater specializing in B movies, often exploitation films, shown in a multiple-feature format. The film stars Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Naveen Andrews, Bruce Willis, Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, and Vanessa Ferlito, among others. |
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If you are a bit older and remember watching the double B-rated flicks of the 70’s and 80’s at the local drive in theatre, Grindhouse is a special treat. It has everything from insanely believable ‘fake’ commercials—watch Machete closely, it’s absolutely wondrous.
The first film in this double feature is Planet Terror. I am a huge fan of Rose McGowan. She can do no wrong in my eyes. Rose shines like a bad ass bitch, kicking ass and killing zombies. There is enough gore in here to fuel your desire for horror—and almost enough sex to fuel your driver for perversion. What’s better than one-legged, red haired Rose killing zombies? Absolutely NOTHING! Planet Terror has everything that a good old school zombie flick should have. This includes: stupid government agents (Bruce Willis) trying to control the uncontrollable, a darling but inadequate and utterly inefficient police force, a bad ass guy with a secret past, and a few hot chicks that know how to kill. Planet Terror is by far the best movie of 2007. It may very well be the best movie of the millennium.
The second movie in this flick is Death Proof. Kurt Russell does an excellent performance as the insane girl-murdering jerk, with too much ego and not enough brains to quit when he is ahead. Death Proof moves a lot slower than Planet Terror, and many have said that it sucked. I think it was excellently reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock flicks. You never really find out WHY Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) likes to smash girls in his very cool Chevy Nova. But that’s not all, especially if you are a car fanatic. The movie brings back Vanishing Point, mentions Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, and has a host of other classic notes that take you back to the cult classic films of the 70’s.
If you are looking for tight plot lines, reality TV, or Lifetime Network movies, then skip Grindhouse. If you want some good old fashioned cult classic evil gory death and murders with sexy cars, not to mention ZOMBIES! Then Grindhouse is more than a movie—it is the pinnacle of 30 years of B-rated flicks and cult classic death scenes.
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Filed under: Movies, Reviews
Posted on May 4th, 2007 by Jason
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A judge sentenced Paris Hilton to 45 days in jail Friday for violating her probation, putting the brakes on the hotel heiress’ famous high life.
Hilton, who parlayed her name and relentless partying into worldwide notoriety, must go to jail on June 5 and she will not be allowed any work release, no furloughs, no use of an alternative jail and no electronic monitoring in lieu of jail, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled after a hearing.
The heiress arrived at court 10 minutes late in the back of a black Cadillac Escalade and swept into the Metropolitan Courthouse with several men in suits, ignoring screams of photographers lining the route into a rear entrance. Her parents, Rick and Kathy Hilton, also came with her. Read more…
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Filed under: Celebrities
